by Matthew Dunn
Dead Room.
One of the female senators in the room held her hand to her mouth and exclaimed, “Dear God. What have they done to them?”
“Quiet,” said Tusk. He shared the politician’s concern, but now all in the room had to stay focused.
The shorter jihadist thrust a single sheet of paper into Oakland’s hands, said in accented English, “Read,” and held a knife to the American’s throat.
Oakland raised his head and looked into the camera. The man operating the camera zoomed in so that Oakland’s head took up most of the screen. It was impossible to tell whether he looked in agony or resigned to a terrible death. Punches and kicks to the face, and hands gripping his matted hair and pummeling his skull against the concrete floor, had earlier distorted all normal expressions beyond recognition. It pained Tusk when the involuntary thought entered his head that Oakland now looked like a seal pup that had been clubbed to death.
The CIA officer tried to speak, but his voice croaked. He darted a look at his captors. Hoarsely, he managed to utter, “Water, please. Water.”
There was laughter, the sound of footsteps walking quickly out of the room, and upon their return Oakland’s face was still taking up most of the screen when from one side of him a bucket of water was emptied over his face.
More laughter from the jihadists.
Oakland moaned and lowered his head.
The chain around his throat was yanked back, allowing all watching the video to see the man’s bashed and sodden visage. It took all of Tusk’s restraint not to punch the table. Oakland coughed, blinked fast and looked at the sheet. “I must read this?”
“You must,” said the tall jihadist.
Oakland read what was on the paper. “In four days I will be dead. In less than four days, the man who shares my room will be dead. Nothing has changed. We are experiments, my . . . friends assure me. Experiments to ascertain the true strength and resilience of the human body. If you don’t cooperate, it is inevitable that we will become cadavers. What is less certain is how long it will take.” Bob looked straight into the camera. “Don’t give in to these bastards.”
“Only say what’s on the paper!” barked one of the jihadists.
“Fuck you!”
One of the jihadists moved to Ramzi and put the tip of his knife against the translator’s eyeball. “Finish reading what’s on the paper!”
There was no doubting now that resignation was in Oakland’s expression as he finished articulating the script. “Mr. President: it is within your power to release an American, a man, a husband, a father, a loyal servant of the United States. I am that man. Arzam Saud is of no use to you. Just let him go. If you do not, you will be telling the rest of American society that you would do the same to them.”
Oakland dropped the paper while murmuring, “Bastards.”
A fist punched his head to one side.
The video ended.
There was silence in the White House room for several seconds before the place erupted with noise from its occupants. Indignation was rife. People were shouting. Only the president and Tusk remained still and silent.
A heated debate ensued, some arguing that there was nothing that could be done aside from continuing the search for the CIA officer and others saying that Saud was just a junior ISIS pawn, and his release wouldn’t damage national security. The president pondered the debate. When the room was silent, he said, “There is another option. Saud is suspected of being involved in a car bombing in Jordan. We transfer him to Jordan to allow them to do what they want with him. The Jordanians are more open to considering negotiating with terrorists. And one of the prisoners is Jordanian. Let Jordan do the prisoner exchange. That way, we get our guy back but don’t lose face.”
More opinions and anger were hurled across the room, not necessarily directed at anyone in particular; rather, the room’s occupants were brimming with emotions they couldn’t control but just had to release. Tusk knew now that his analogy of being a schoolmaster amid gifted children was correct. He was Robin Williams, locking horns with Matt Damon in the movie Good Will Hunting. Damon was trying to outsmart Williams with his knowledge of art, literature, architecture, and travel. But Damon had never flown on a plane let alone left the country. Damon thought his mind could supplant the five senses of smell, touch, hearing, taste, and sight. He was wrong and had no further retorts when Williams told him he was just a kid who couldn’t understand the Sistine Chapel just because he’d read about it. He had to be there, expose his senses to it in person. That’s how Tusk felt now. He’d smelled his friends’ dead bodies rot on battlefields. His finger had curled around his trigger when young Iraqi men who should never have been in conflict charged toward him brandishing their guns. He’d heard the whistle of mortars and lost his hearing when they exploded. Had given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to friends and foe. And he’d climbed mountains to see and fight men whose loyalty was to the earth, not humanity. They were the worst: the ones who were like tigers in the back of caves. But the people in this room were Matt Damon—gifted, ticking the box of experience by imagining what it looked like.
They told the president he was wrong. Regrettably, the president listened to them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The ferry berthed in the small town of Stornoway in the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides. Because of high winds out at sea, the journey from the Scottish mainland had taken twenty minutes longer than its scheduled time of two hours and forty-five minutes, but that didn’t bother the captain of the vessel because the ferry only ran twice a day. He had plenty of time to restock the ship before making the return journey.
The wind had abated though a heavy rain persisted and prompted disembarking foot passengers to open umbrellas and run. One man in a suit and overcoat seemed unconcerned by the weather. He walked slowly toward a police car, outside of which was a young Scottish constable whose face was screwed up as if it were being pelted by battery acid.
Will Cochrane showed him fake ID. “Toby Groves. Am I in the right place?”
The police officer shielded his eyes as he glanced at Will’s passport and nodded. “Aye, if you like rain.” He opened the passenger door. “Get in.”
They drove along a coastline containing fishing vessels and yachts, and through the pretty seaside town, before heading west over rugged countryside. Will had never been to the Outer Hebrides before though he knew they were a good place for a man to lie low. A long string of interconnected islands that ran beyond the entire northwestern seaboard of mainland Scotland, the Hebrides were sparsely populated with people who made it their business to know who entered their shores. The communities here were tight-knit and suspicious of strangers until they could prove they meant dwellers or their stunning lands no harm.
“Are you from here?” Will asked the constable.
The officer increased the speed of his windshield wipers to compensate for the rain. “No. I was transferred from Ullapool a year ago. What’s London like?”
“You’ve never been?”
“No, and I’ve no reason to.”
“It’s full of murderers. You’d have your work cut out if you were transferred there.”
“Not for me, thank you. The worst we get up here are land disputes and people knowing too much about each other. That suits me fine.” He glanced at Will. “MI5’s like the FBI, right?”
In conjunction with the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch, Patrick had arranged for Will to pose as a member of Britain’s Security Service, MI5.
“It’s a bit like that except we don’t have powers of arrest. We need the police for that.”
“But not today?”
“I just need you to make introductions and vouch for my credentials.”
They drove for a further thirty minutes, on narrow roads through flat heathland that contained no signs of human life, before reaching th
e western coast, where the scenery was mountainous, windswept, and looked inhospitable in the lashing rain.
“There we are,” said the police officer while pointing at his windshield.
Ahead of them was an isolated house, sitting atop a cliff. On either side of it was nothing but countryside, a few sheep that were huddled in groups, and the escarpments of two mountains. The constable stopped his car outside the house, pressed his horn, and got out. Will followed him.
A man emerged from the house. He was in his early forties, overweight, wearing jeans and an oilskin jacket with its hood up, and had one hand cupped over a cigarette in his mouth.
“How’s it going?” asked the young police officer while smiling.
The man looked angry. “Just fine,” he replied with a gruff London accent.
“Any problems since I was last here?”
“Just bloody sheep trashing my garden. Can’t you tell Hamish to get them away from here?”
The constable laughed. “It’s his farm’s grazing rights. You know that.” He pointed at Will. “This is the fellow I told you about. The one from London.”
The man pulled his hood down. His chubby face was stubbly and his brown hair ruffled. “I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
The constable shrugged. “And I said you won’t be disturbed by anyone apart from the police. Mr. Groves is sort of police. That means he can see you.”
“Sort of police?” The man flicked his cigarette away.
Will said, “I’m from Thames House.” It was a reference to the headquarters of MI5.
“Ah.” The man’s hostility appeared to increase. “You’re a stay-at-home spy.”
Will asked, “Can I come in?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.” Will glanced at the police officer. “You’ll wait for me out here?”
The officer nodded and got back into his car, grateful to be out of the inclement weather.
Will followed the man into his home. He immediately knew that no women or children lived here. The hallway had cigarette butts on its wooden floor, and newspapers were stacked in piles along the route; the kitchen they passed smelled of stale oil, and its sink was overflowing with dirty dishes; and the living room was ramshackle, crammed with mismatched furniture, stinking of tobacco, with books, magazines, more newspapers, and a desk that contained a computer, brimming ashtrays, laptop, iPad, three cell phones, and a tangled mess of cables. White-ceramic bowls were scattered in various parts of the room, catching droplets of rainwater that were falling from leaks in the ceiling.
Will sat in a chair. “Mr. Lanes—are you well?”
Eddie Lanes removed his sodden jacket, tossed it onto a couch, rubbed his wet hands over his belly, and lit a cigarette. “Are you breaking the ice or hinting I should see a doctor?”
“Breaking the ice.”
The journalist asked, “You want a coffee? Maybe something stronger?”
“No, thank you.”
“You mind if I fix myself . . . ?”
“Mr. Lanes—this won’t take long.”
Lanes grabbed his desk chair, swiveled it around, and sat in it. His weight caused the hydraulic seat-height adjuster to sink. “Fucking thing,” he muttered as he half stood, adjusted it to the correct height, and sat back down. “What do you want?”
“Information about a man called Viktor Gorsky.”
Lanes’s eyes narrowed, his hostility replaced by an expression of uncertainty. “Gorsky?”
“The billionaire you were investigating. Why were you investigating him?”
Lanes sucked hard on his cigarette, causing it to burn down to its stub. “Just because you’re Thames House doesn’t mean I have to talk to you.”
“Actually, it does.”
“You got proof of who you say you are?”
Will smiled. “Regrettably, if you ring Thames House and ask it to verify the identity of one of its employees, it won’t comply.” He pointed toward the smeared window, outside of which was the police car. “But by all means telephone that young man’s chief constable or the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. They know I’m here, and they’ve given me their blessing to speak to you and obtain your cooperation.”
Lanes lit another cigarette. “I’ve not broken any laws.”
“To my knowledge, you haven’t. And if you had, I wouldn’t care. All that matters to me is that police resources are allocated to you to ensure you’re kept safe. I know they’re not here twenty-four/seven, but it still takes an hour out of their time to drive over here and check you’re okay. They could be doing other work. In return for your protection, I would expect you to be cooperative with us.”
Lanes tapped his cigarette over the ashtray by his side. “If I tell you what I know, you’ll protect my name? That’ll be the end of it?”
“I can assure you of the former but not the latter.”
“Not the latter?” Lanes frowned.
“Much depends on your level of cooperation.”
The journalist placed his hand on top of his computer. “I used to have it all stored in here. But when I got the jitters, I deleted all the files and wiped the hard drive. Everything I know is stored in my head.”
Will was silent.
Lanes scratched his stubbly chin, averted Will’s gaze for a moment, nodded, and returned his attention to the fake MI5 official. “It started with a bank called Trans Forex.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Few have. It was Russian. Very low-profile. Couple of years ago, it went into liquidation. I had a hunch there might be a story in there so started doing some probing. The liquidation records had to be made public, so my starting point was easy. Turns out Trans Forex was bankrolling an offshore company called KapSet and turns out that company is owned by Gorsky. Also turns out Gorsky was a director and shareholder in Trans Forex and is now a director in a very newly established bank called Moscow Vision. Guess what. Moscow Vision is now bankrolling KapSet.”
Even though they were several feet apart, Will could smell whiskey on Lanes’s breath. He wondered if the smell had come from drinking the night before or this morning. His mind raced as he anticipated seventeen possibilities of where Lanes’s information was headed.
Lanes coughed, grabbed a nearby mug, and drank whatever was left inside it. “I spent two years investigating Gorsky after discovering that KapSet was sitting on circa $5 million but seemed not to be trading, aside from occasional payments being made from the balance sheet to companies or persons who for the most part were unnamed. The company’s account was always topped back up to 5 million by Moscow Vision, and before that, Trans Forex. I discovered that one of the persons receiving regular, but modest, sums of money was a Bahraini called Arzam Saud.”
This was excellent. It was the first possibility Will had not only considered but hoped for. “If KapSet didn’t declare the names of the individuals and companies it was paying, how did you ascertain Saud was one of the cash recipients?”
Lanes smiled. “I’m an investigative journalist. I have to be sneaky. Bit like you lot I guess. Saud and Gorsky were coinvestors in some European property deals. The deals were legit as far as I could tell.”
“You investigated Saud?”
The journalist nodded. “Young Bahraini man. Inherited money. Thinks a bit too highly of himself as far as I can tell.”
“And it occurred to you to check Saud’s business records on the long shot that he just might have been one of the guys being paid by KapSet.”
“It was a long shot. I had no suspicions. But I thought to myself, if KapSet ain’t telling anyone what it does, what if there are looser tongues among the end users. Saud wasn’t as savvy as KapSet. His company and private official returns named KapSet as a payor.”
“And you will have asked yourself why Saud needed
KapSet money when he was a coinvestor with Gorsky and independently wealthy?”
“Of course. That nagged me. I did some further research. Transpires, the KapSet money were sweeteners to keep Saud in the property deals.”
“Sweeteners?”
“Bribes. But there’s nothing illegal in that. Leastways, not when you’re dealing with Russian and Arab laws that turn a blind eye when money’s to be made.”
Will didn’t articulate what he was thinking. He asked, “How did you get access to KapSet’s company records?”
Lanes stubbed out his cigarette, withdrew another, seemed to be contemplating the merits or otherwise of lighting it, said, “Fuck it,” to himself and struck a match. After inhaling on the tobacco, he said, “KapSet was registered in the Dubai International Financial Centre. Tax-free zone in the center of Dubai. Officially, DIFC is there to attract banks to set up in the Emirates. Dubai thinks it’s going to be the next City of London or Wall Street. It ain’t. It’s a tart and will drop its panties for anyone. So, it licenses construction companies, oil refineries, consultancies, pretty much anyone who’s prepared to pay up for sticking its dick in Dubai. It was easy to find out which DIFC employee was responsible for administering the DIFC legalities of the company’s establishment. She was a rather pretty Lebanese woman called Nadia. I made it my business to get to know her.”
“Did your employer The Independent newspaper know your methods?”
“Methods?”
“You slept with Nadia to get information.”
“I didn’t say I slept . . .”
“I’m not here to judge, and nor will I breathe a word to the paper that you broke journalistic guidelines. All I’m interested in are facts.”
Lanes looked coy. “I brushed myself up. Made myself look better than”—he slapped his chest—“this. Visited a men’s grooming salon; put on my best suit; wore a gold watch that was given to me by a politician who wanted to thank me for keeping photos I had of him out of the paper.” He patted his gut. “Couldn’t do anything about this, though. But that didn’t matter. If anything, it helped. In Dubai, if you’re fat, you’re rich. It’s an aphrodisiac.”