Deadly Impact--A Richard Mariner nautical adventure

by Peter Tonkin

  Aleks called, ‘Ryzanoff, come over here, I’ve almost got it and I need you to hold your hands over Kolchak’s for a moment while I …’

  Ryzanoff stepped forward obediently. Aleks pulled the next bit of tape back, exposing the grenade. But the moment that he did so, Kolchak’s knees gave out and he slid down helplessly on to the deck. His head rolled over on to his shoulder and he was clearly out for the count. The grenade fell out of his senseless fingers and came rolling across the moon-bright metal.

  ‘SHIT!’ roared Roskov and dropped to his knees behind the hatch cover. But that only stood thirty centimetres or so high. Without thinking, Richard stooped and threw the lid up to form a solid wall in front of them as Dom joined them flat on the deck behind it. As Richard did so he saw Aleks crouch protectively over Kolchak and watched Ryzanoff fall on to the grenade. He crashed to his knees, counting. After thirty he picked himself up and crossed to the soldier lying huddled on the deck. He crouched beside the shivering black shape and reached a gentle hand down to take his shoulder. ‘I think it’s a dud, Ryzanoff,’ he said. He raised his voice, calling to Aleks. ‘Lieutenant! It’s dud.’

  Ryzanoff stirred. ‘Thank God for that. But I think I’ve wet myself.’

  And Roskov called from behind the open hatch cover, ‘Hey, I think I can hear someone down at the bottom of this shaft calling out for help!’

  It’s 8 p.m. Moscow time. The restaurant at Mayfair, the fashionable new nightspot on Savvinskaya Boulevard, overlooking the river, has not yet opened to ordinary clientele. But Francisco Lazzaro is anything but an ordinary client. Neither is the man who accompanies him – for he is one of the exclusive nightspot’s owners. Niccolo Rizziconi is one of the new breed of international financiers. Educated in Italy and America, he graduated from Booth Business School in Chicago, then went global. He worked in Cape Town, Canberra, Amsterdam and Vancouver before taking on a managing directorship at one of Russia’s largest privately owned banks. Branches of the bank have since opened in St Petersburg, Murmansk, Archangel … anywhere where there are port facilities that can handle large numbers of containers. The bank’s money has begun to move into shipping and insurance, among other things. Under Niccolo Rizziconi’s leadership, profits have soared.

  As is common in the free-market fervour of post-Soviet Moscow, Rizziconi has put his considerable and growing personal fortune into other enterprises such as Mayfair. He has inordinate amounts of money invested in Ecstasy, Grozny and Ras-Putin, three of Moscow’s most profitable strip clubs. Although, like Mayfair, they are as clearly legitimate and above-board as they are fantastically popular and successful. With each new opening the local law enforcement officers have seen a sudden rise in the amount of high-grade cocaine available in the city. But the local politicians, as well as more senior government officers, have been consulted at length and with care. Blessings have been passed down from on high, like Papal dispensations. Like the blessings of a Godfather.

  As the two men settle into overstuffed armchairs and look down across the Moskva River towards the apartment blocks on Brezhnev Boulevard opposite, Lazzaro comes straight to the point. ‘The situation with Sayonara is nearly resolved,’ he says in syrupy Calabrian. ‘I have dispensed with Tristan Folgate-Lothbury and his Lloyd’s consortium. Everything we are interested in is with the Duisberg Reinsurance Company of Vancouver now. One of your earlier masterworks, I believe. It is time to move on. How are things proceeding with Bashnev/Sevmash?’

  ‘As discussed,’ answers Rizziconi. ‘If what we plan for Sayonara works as we hope, then the stock in both Heritage Mariner and Bashnev/Sevmash will crash. The potential which that could offer puts even the profit we can make on the loss of the hull into the shade.’

  ‘The potential for growth seems limitless,’ nods Lazzaro. ‘At one stroke we gain control of one of the largest commercial entities in Russia – one of the few countries that has remained less open to us than we would like.’

  ‘And, of course,’ adds Rizziconi, ‘we also get our own private shipping company. Everything from passenger ferries to container vessels. Our own private shipping company to go with our own private port of Gioia Tauro. The other families will regret building bunkers beneath the Aspromonte when they should have been building businesses abroad instead.’

  ‘We will show them,’ agrees Lazzaro, suddenly consumed with terrifying anger. ‘We will show them that it is not just those old men down in Sicily or the historic buffoons up in Rome – the Corleones and the Caesars – who know how to conquer the world! We Calabrians will do it better. The ’Ndrangheta holds the testicoli, the balls of the world here!’ He cups his taloned hands as though holding the members in question. Then he grips his fingers into a shaking, emasculating fist.

  ‘Just so,’ agrees Niccolo Rizziconi smoothly. ‘We will have Beluga and Dom Perignon with dinner to celebrate. But in the meantime, Don Francisco, would you like a little distraction? We have a young lady called Lucrezia who, I assure you, will do anything you desire. Anything.’

  50 Hours to Impact

  Robin’s phone started ringing at eight the next evening and she grabbed it, hoping that it might be Richard. But it was Patrick Toomey. ‘I’m at the Lloyd’s building,’ he said. ‘Can you come over? It’s important.’

  ‘Where are you exactly? Number One Lime Street is a big place.’

  ‘I’m with Sir Gerald Overbury. We’re in the Old Library.’

  Robin frowned. Sir Gerald Overbury was a big wheel. A very big wheel indeed. Apart from that, he was the opposite of Tristan Folgate-Lothbury in almost every way. And she wasn’t surprised he was talking to Pat. If Lloyd’s could be said to have their own London Centre intelligence section, then Gerry Overbury was the head of it. And here he was, in the office at a time most of his co-workers would consider dinnertime. Pat had obviously been talking to him about Tristan and Francisco Lazzaro – and now they wanted to talk to her. She looked across the dressing room at her reflection in a wardrobe mirror in the flat atop Heritage House. She assumed a Chanel cocktail outfit would not offend Lloyd’s strict dress code, for there would be no time to change. She speed dialled her old friend and hostess. ‘I’m going to be a little late for drinks I’m afraid, Annabelle,’ she said shortly. ‘Something’s come up.’

  Twenty minutes after she broke contact with Annabelle, a security guard ushered Robin into the Old Library and both Patrick and Sir Gerald rose to greet her. ‘You look lovely, Robin,’ said Sir Gerald. ‘As always.’

  ‘Thank you, Gerry. You’re looking well yourself. Now, what’s this all about?’

  Sir Gerald threw his bantamweight frame back into one of the priceless Hepplewhite chairs that looked to have been purloined from the nearby Adam Room. His blue eyes sparked with urgent energy and his clipped moustache seemed to bristle. ‘Young Toomey here came to me asking about the Folgate-Lothbury set-up. Concerned that there might be a Mafia connection or some such thing …’

  ‘’Ndrangheta,’ said Pat helpfully.

  ‘Just so. Not at all the sort of situation we would dream of countenancing, of course. But while we were looking into the possibility, we began to wonder why the Mafia would bother.’

  ‘Well?’ demanded Robin. ‘Why would they?’

  ‘You don’t insure your own bottoms, do you?’ asked Gerry, apparently inconsequentially. ‘Not even a percentage of the worth?’

  ‘No. Heritage Mariner policy is to lay off all the insurance on our hulls to other insurers, mostly here at Lloyd’s. It’s expensive, but if anything goes wrong it’s far safer. I mean, look at the TK Bremen; look at Deepwater Horizon …’ She shuddered.

  ‘And Folgate-Lothbury’s syndicate carries insurance risks for Sayonara?’

  ‘You should know, Gerry. But, unless they’ve laid it off in turn, then yes …’

  ‘And the cargo?’ Gerry probed.

  ‘The LNG is Greenbaum International’s. But that’s insured in Canada.’

  ‘The Duisberg Reinsurance Company of Vancou
ver. Yes.’ Gerry nodded as he spoke. He and Pat were both frowning.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Robin demanded. ‘Where is this leading?’

  ‘How much did Sayonara cost to build?’ asked Gerry, and Robin began to see where this was heading after all.

  ‘Seventy-five million dollars, give or take. And, before you ask, I have no idea how much the cargo’s worth.’

  The two men exchanged glances. ‘In excess of fifty million dollars at current rates,’ said Gerry.

  ‘So the whole package is worth, what, one hundred and twenty-five million dollars, just for the hull and cargo?’ calculated Robin.

  The two men nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘There you have it, then,’ said Pat.

  ‘What?’ demanded Robin. ‘There we have what, precisely?’

  ‘Going through the Folgate-Lothbury records – in ways we will not discuss, none of which would ever stand up in court – we have come to suspect that since this man Lazzaro became involved with the Folgate-Lothbury syndicate, all of the reinsurance for hull and cargo has been laid off.’ Gerry Oldbury leaned forward, eyes sparkling, moustache bristling. There was the faintest whiff of Imperial Leather soap and Bay Rum cologne. ‘None of the other insurance – collateral damage, environmental impact, loss of business arising, et cetera – has been laid off at all as far as we can ascertain. Folgate-Lothbury still carries all that. But Sayonara’s hull and cargo have apparently been laid off quite recently and are now with this Canadian company, Duisberg Reinsurance.’

  Robin went cold. ‘And Duisberg Reinsurance is Francisco Lazzaro,’ she hazarded, knowing in her bones that this was the truth of the matter.

  ‘Or at least it is owned by one of his associates,’ confirmed Gerry grimly. ‘So it’s not likely to be completely legitimate. Not only that, but Duisberg seems to be laying it all off again to other insurers all over the world – some of it back to other Lloyd’s syndicates, which is how we can be fairly accurate. It’s a variation of the sub-prime mortgage market scam so popular in the nineties. Brokers bought bad debts and then sold them off to other brokers who sold them off in turn, all collecting a fat fee for the business in the knowledge that if anything went wrong – if the borrower failed to keep up the mortgage payments, say – the debt itself would actually be owned by some poor bugger in the Caymans or the Turks and Caicos. It worked like clockwork. Until the sub-prime market crashed and even the banks started going belly-up.

  ‘But this set-up with Duisberg seems to have one other, potentially lucrative little twist – one that’s far more familiar to us at Lloyd’s, though traditionally it’s owners rather than insurers who try to pull it off. And it’s this: the total value for Sayonara and her cargo being insured to date seems to be in the region of two hundred and fifty million dollars.’

  ‘But that makes no sense …’ said Robin without thinking. ‘Why insure something for twice what it’s worth?’

  ‘If anything were to happen to Sayonara,’ said Pat gravely, ‘then Duisberg Reinsurance stands to make a hell of a lot of money. One hundred and fifty million dollars clear profit, as near as we can estimate. They’ve effectively set Sayonara up to be a coffin ship. They want her to sink so that they can collect huge returns on her loss.’

  ‘Can you prove any of this?’ demanded Robin.

  ‘No,’ said Gerry. ‘None of it at all.’

  ‘But we know a man who can,’ added Pat. ‘Your old mate, Tristan. We’re trying to contact him.’

  And just as he did so, Gerry’s phone began to ring discreetly. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, rising. ‘This must be important. My people have orders to contact me only in the event of an emergency.’

  He rose, pulling the cellphone from his pocket, and crossed to the far side of the room. Robin sat silent, her mind racing round in circles, trying to get a grip on what seemed to be happening here. Of what it might mean for Heritage Mariner. For Greenbaum International. For Richard, the bloody man. If only he knew. If only there was a way to warn him. But Gerry was only away for a moment. ‘We have a problem,’ he said as he limped back across the room at top speed. ‘The police are here. Tristan Folgate-Lothbury has just been found floating under Blackfriars Bridge.’

  ‘Floating …’ Robin had a vision of Tristan like an inflatable dinghy drifting down the Thames.

  ‘Floating,’ said Gerry brutally. ‘Face down. He’s been there for some time, apparently.’

  ‘Tristan!’ she gasped. ‘But I had dinner with him yesterday evening.’ Her stomach fluttered. Her ears rang.

  ‘You’ll maybe want to tell the police about that,’ warned Pat. ‘I’d better get your solicitor down here post haste, just in case.’

  Robin saw the familiar shape of solicitor Andrew Atherton Balfour’s Bentley swing in behind them as the police car turned off Newgate Street into Snow Hill. Even though she had been treated with reassuring courtesy and was seated between a female constable and the comforting bulk of Pat Toomey, it was still something of a relief to see the personalized number plate AAB1 beneath the grille of the Arnage. Pat saw it too and also seemed to relax. ‘Cavalry’s arrived,’ he growled.

  They assembled in interview room number one of the Snow Hill police station. Or rather, Robin, Pat and Andrew did. The sergeant who had first appeared at the main door of Lloyd’s waited there with Gerry Oldbury as the members of Tristan’s syndicate were called.

  ‘This is not official,’ said the young detective inspector who seemed to be running things. ‘We may want formal witness statement later, but for the time being I would be grateful if Captain Mariner could just tell us what she remembers about last night. Anything about Mr Folgate-Lothbury’s demeanour. What he talked about. What sort of frame of mind he seemed to be in …’

  ‘I’m fine with that,’ said Robin. ‘Andrew? Any problems?’

  ‘Not as far as I can see,’ answered her solicitor briskly. ‘This is just a preliminary enquiry, Inspector?’ he confirmed.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said the inspector, nodding her long, dark head decisively. ‘We’re just gathering impressions at this stage. It’s what we refer to as a soft interview.’ She glanced across at Robin with a smile. ‘Now, Captain Mariner, you and Mr Folgate-Lothbury dined together at Theo Randall’s restaurant at the Intercontinental Hotel, Park Lane yesterday evening. You arrived at eleven-thirty and left just after one. Mr Folgate-Lothbury left with you. Well, at the same time as you. There is no implication—’

  ‘I should think not,’ snapped Andrew.

  ‘That’s OK, Andrew,’ Robin soothed her overprotective friend, and caught Pat’s outraged eye as well. ‘That’s not quite accurate, Inspector. When I left, Signor Lazzaro was still there. He was the one who was most closely involved in conversation with Tristan.’

  ‘Signor Lazzaro.’ The inspector’s eyes were full on Robin now. ‘I don’t have any record of a Signor Lazzaro being there. The maître d’ and the sommelier only mentioned Mr Folgate-Lothbury and yourself. You were deeply engaged in conversation, apparently. We know what you had to eat and we know that he had two bottles of red wine and you had a bottle of Prosecco which you did not finish. But there is no mention of a Signor Lazzaro.’

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ said Robin, glancing across at Andrew, her forehead creasing into a frown of simple surprise.

  ‘The maître d’ and the sommelier both saw Signor Lazzaro arrive and talk to Mr Folgate-Lothbury. He arrived at about a quarter to midnight and was still there when I left.’

  ‘Perhaps he was staying at the hotel,’ suggested Andrew.

  ‘I’ll get my people to check with hotel reception,’ said the inspector, and phoned through the orders at once.

  ‘Now,’ she said a moment later as she broke contact. ‘Returning to the subject of your conversation, Captain Mariner …’

  Robin went over the main topics she had discussed with Tristan, adding Lazzaro’s input without mentioning his name again. The inspector nodded and made the occasional note on a pad.

/>   ‘We’ll want copies of those notes,’ observed Andrew.

  ‘Of course,’ promised the inspector.

  After about twenty minutes, a constable came in and whispered to the inspector. Robin had more or less finished with what she remembered anyway, so she was happy to sit back as the constable left and the inspector frowned thoughtfully. ‘No, Captain,’ she said after a moment. ‘There is no record of a Signor Lazzaro staying at the Intercontinental. Not that that proves anything, of course – neither you nor Mr Folgate-Lothbury were staying there either. But the maître d’ and the sommelier are certain that no one else was at your table.’

  Pat leaned forward suddenly. ‘Inspector,’ he said, ‘have you any idea where the maître d’ and sommelier originate from?’

  ‘Yes. They’re both on work visas. We have place of birth and so forth as part of their statements. They are cousins, as a matter of fact. And they both come from a place called Seminara. It’s a little village in the hills …’

  ‘In the hills of Calabria,’ Patrick finished her sentence for her. ‘Just up the road from Gioia Taura. ’Ndrangheta country.’

  In spite of the fact that it has come over the Pole and is therefore approaching Tokyo from the north, Japan Airlines flight 7080 from Schiphol via Helsinki swings east and south of Narita as it settles into its short finals. The Pitman, seated next to the window in first class, is therefore given a clear view of the facility that Sayonara is fifty hours away from and the bay to the south of it. ‘Hey, look at that, Harry. That’s really something!’

  ‘What?’ demands Harry sleepily.

  ‘Those huge honeycomb sections being tugged out into the bay. Each one big enough to hold houses, gardens, roadways, infrastructure … They’ve already begun clamping them together. That’s where they’re starting to build the floating city you were reading about online. Kujukuri. They’re extending it from the mainland. And that cool-looking white and blue barge all covered in Russian writing must be the floating nuclear power station. What did Richard call it?’