by Tom Cain
Checking to see that no one was following, he made his way to the rue de la Corraterie, where he picked up a Number 3 bus over the Pont Bel-Air, across the River Rhône to the modern heart of the city. After a few blocks, he hopped out of that bus, crossed the street and got on to a Number 9 that went back across the river on the Pont du MontBlanc, the last bridge on the river before Lake Geneva itself. Carver took care to get a seat on the right-hand side of the bus. As it made its way slowly across the bridge he took out a pair of miniature binoculars and looked across the narrow expanse of water that separated the bridge he was on from Rousseau Island. There was the bronze statue of the great eighteenth-century philosopher, sitting on its stone plinth. And there, just a few metres away from it, was the familiar figure of Jack Grantham, a little stockier than he had been when Carver had last seen him, perhaps, with his hairline somewhat receded. But the air of impatience, a humming energy detectable even at a distance, was unmistakable. Carver scanned the area around Grantham and saw no one who looked remotely like a fellow MI6 agent or a hostile tail. A few minutes later, he had got off the bus, walked halfway across the Pont des Bergues and on to the little island, and was strolling towards Grantham.
They made their introductions. Grantham looked pointedly at his watch. ‘It’s seven minutes past ten,’ he said. ‘You’re late.’
Carver ignored him. ‘So what’s the big deal about Mykonos?’ he asked.
Grantham’s fingers played over the screen of his iPhone. He handed it to Carver, showing him a photograph of a familiar face.
‘Tell me what you know about this man,’ Grantham said.
‘He called himself Shafik, said he was ex-Pakistani intelligence,’ Carver replied.
Grantham gave a satisfied little grunt, as if his expectations had been met. ‘Well, that was half-right. His real name is Ahmad Razzaq, but he is, as he said, an ISI old-boy. Made quite a name for himself with our American cousins, helping them run Stinger missiles to the Mujahedin forces fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. But, like so many of his colleagues, he kept on helping his old chums when they mutated into the Taliban, which didn’t go down so well. Still, he’s not in that game any more.’
‘There was a woman, too – the one in the restaurant who pretended to get shot. She works for Shafik, or Razzaq, or whoever the hell he is. She gave her name as Magda Sternberg, but told me to call her Ginger. She’s quite a piece of work. You should check her out, too. Could be interesting.’
‘Maybe,’ said Grantham, tapping a note into his phone. ‘But back to Razzaq – what did he say he did for a living these days?’
‘Security consultant for financial institutions.’
Grantham raised his eybrows quizzically. ‘Security consultant, eh? Now there’s a job description that can mean almost anything.’
‘I’ve done a bit of it myself.’
‘My point exactly. And what was his interest in you?’
‘What do you think?’
Something close to a smirk crossed Grantham’s face. ‘You know, for a man who keeps telling everyone how much he hates his work, you seem to have a hard time retiring.’
‘He set me up. Got me on the hook for a murder charge. Sacrificed one of his own men to do it, too.’
‘Unscrupulous bastard,’ said Grantham admiringly. ‘So who’s the target?’
Carver paused for a moment before he replied, ‘OK …I might as well tell you, since I have no intention of taking the job. He wanted me to take out an American, some kind of financial trader. The name he gave me was Malachi Zorn.’
Grantham frowned. His grey eyes looked at Carver with a new intensity. ‘Zorn was the target?’
‘That’s what I just said, yes.’
‘So why did Razzaq want him taken out?’
Carver shrugged. ‘He said Zorn was costing his clients too much money. What’s so unusual about that?’
‘Simple … Ahmad Razzaq does not work for any financial institutions. He works for Malachi Zorn.’
Razzaq had lied. Well, that was to be expected. In Carver’s world deceit was standard operating procedure; honesty was the real surprise. ‘OK, then, Razzaq’s some kind of double agent,’ he said. ‘Or he’s been planted on the guy with the intention of getting rid of him – an inside job.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Grantham with a shake of his head. ‘Razzaq’s been with Zorn, at first as an occasional consultant, then as an employee, for almost five years. If he was only there to get rid of him, surely he’d have done it by now?’
‘Unless someone has got to him recently.’
‘I can’t see why. Zorn pays very well. There’d be little financial incentive to betray him.’
‘How about blackmail? A man like Razzaq is bound to have dirty secrets in his past.’
‘And a man like Zorn is almost certain to know what they are already. Besides, I don’t get the impression Zorn gives a damn about that kind of thing. He makes his own mind up and acts accordingly. He’s not interested in social or political conventions, or what anyone else thinks – not unless he can make money from it. Razzaq could have wiped out whole villages or buggered orphans by the score; Zorn’s not going to worry.’
‘So that leaves only one possibility,’ said Carver.
‘What’s that?’ asked Grantham, frowning again in puzzlement.
‘Simple: Razzaq is still working for Zorn. He’s doing what Zorn wants.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Are you trying to tell me Malachi Zorn wants to die? The man has just set up an investment fund worth a minimum ten billion quid.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘So you know he’s coming to London for the big public launch party?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know that your old friend Alix is one of the guests?’
This time Carver really was caught off guard, unable to stop the momentary look of shock in his eyes. Grantham relished his discomfort, always glad of an opportunity to get one over on a man who had often got the better of him.
‘Thought not,’ he said.
‘Doesn’t make any difference,’ Carver retorted. ‘The party’s not going to take place because Zorn has to be dead by then. Razzaq was very insistent about that. No way was Zorn going to make it to the party.’
Grantham frowned, his momentary triumph over Alix forgotten as he took in this new information. He looked out across the lake towards the Alps, as if seeking some answer hidden among the distant, snow-topped mountains. ‘I’m sorry, maybe I’m missing something. What possible reason could there be for Malachi Zorn to come over all suicidal, now of all times?’
‘I have no idea. And what’s more, I don’t care, because I’m not going to be the one that does it. I’m not taking the job.’
‘Really? I thought you had no choice. You have a murder charge hanging over you.’
‘That’s happened to me before, in case you’ve forgotten,’ said Carver. ‘But I’m still here, aren’t I? I’ll deal with Razzaq, whoever he’s working for.’
‘About that murder charge … the other one …’ Grantham began.
‘What about it?’
‘I have a file, you know. I compiled it in the months after you and I first met. Did a little digging around. Had some colleagues in France look through CCTV footage. Checked your movements, looked into a few Panamanian bank accounts and shell corporations, that kind of thing.’
‘I can’t say that surprises me,’ said Carver.
‘And although I never quite found a smoking gun – or should that be a shining laser? – I did put you there or thereabouts, as they say.’
‘She died in an accident,’ Carver replied flatly. ‘There’s been an inquest. It’s official.’
‘Oh, I agree. And there’s nothing to be gained by raking over that old ground. But I’m sure you know what did for Al Capone. It wasn’t the racketeering, or the corruption or even the Valentine’s Day massacre—’
Carver completed the sentence: ‘It was tax evasion.’
‘Good,’ nodded Grantham, ‘I thought you’d get the point. The fact is, you’ve made a lot of money over the years, Carver, and you’ve paid sod all in tax. That’s very antisocial. The Revenue would be most upset.’
‘It’s none of their business. I’ve not lived in the UK for years.’
‘Come on, you’re smarter than that. You’ve been paid money by lots of people in lots of different tax jurisdictions. Unless you’ve signed the appropriate forms, which I very much doubt, you will now owe tax, plus interest, in all those jurisdictions. That’s a lot of pissed-off authorities. Once they start digging over your affairs and finding out who paid you the money, well, those’ll be some seriously pissed-off clients. They’ll want to shut you up. Not nice.’
‘Unbelievable. First Razzaq, now you … so much for my holiday.’
‘That’s life.’
‘And don’t tell me … You can make all this grief go away if I do what you want. So what’s that?’
‘The same thing Razzaq wanted,’ said Grantham, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. ‘Tell him you’ll assassinate Malachi Zorn.’
Carver contacted Razzaq within the hour and told him he was accepting the Zorn assignment. His conditions were straight-forward. Half the fee was to be paid up front to a Panamanian bank account. Carver would not start work unless and until he received notification from the bank that the funds had been received. He needed a detailed itinerary for every day and night of Zorn’s visit to the UK, as well as registration numbers of the cars he would be using. Detailed plans should be supplied of both Zorn’s residence and offices, including electric circuitry, plumbing, air conditioning and security systems. Once he had these, Carver would not make contact of any kind with Razzaq, and certainly not with Magda Sternberg, alias Ginger. The first that either of them would know of the hit would be when they heard about it on the news or witnessed it with their own eyes.
His terms were accepted in every respect. In return, Razzaq had only the two conditions he’d listed before, but he repeated them with special emphasis. ‘It must be done before Friday, the first of July,’ he said. ‘And it must be public.’
14
* * *
Chinatown, London
AHMAD RAZZAQ OPERATED on a strictly need-to-know basis. Although Ginger Sternberg was aware that Carver had been hired to assassinate Malachi Zorn, he saw no need whatever to explain the underlying thinking behind that, or any of the other tasks he had assigned her. Ginger, for her part, knew that she was not entirely trusted, and, although the gaps in her knowledge frustrated her, she did not resent Razzaq’s caution. After all, she knew perfectly well that he was right to be that way. She was, indeed, entirely untrustworthy.
Before Carver had even left Mykonos, she had contacted another of her clients to inform them that he had been invited to assassinate Zorn. No sooner had Carver accepted Razzaq’s offer than she confirmed the news. She was summoned at once to a meeting to discuss this new development. She made an excuse to Razzaq, and by Saturday evening she was in London, sitting in a small room above a dim sum joint in Gerrard Street, right in the heart of Chinatown, where the ends of the street are marked by red ceremonial gateways, the mini-supermarkets advertise their wares in Chinese script, and half the restaurants have ceremonial lion statues standing guard outside their doors.
Ginger was taking tea with a Chinese businessman. Like her, he was in his early forties, but, thanks to an unlined face and slender build, looked a least a decade younger. He was dressed for the weekend in Emporio Armani jeans and a lightweight summer cardigan, no shirt underneath. His name was Choi Deshi, though he now went by the westernized name Derek Choi. It was public knowledge, thanks to his regular appearances in gossip columns and glossy magazines – invariably with a beautiful woman on his arm – that Choi owned a number of successful restaurants and clubs, as well as a growing portfolio of retail and domestic property developments. It was less well known, however, that he had begun his career as a member of the unit known to native Chinese as Zhong Nan Hai Bao Biao, or ‘the bodyguards from the Red Palace’: the agents who protect the lives of China’s most senior leaders. For the past dozen years, however, since his arrival in London and his swift climb up both its business and social strata, he had been what the Chinese term a ‘deep-water fish’: in other words, a foreign-based undercover agent of the Guoanbu, or State Security Ministry.
It was the Guoanbu that had supplied Choi with the seed money for his commercial empire, and they had also used him as the front-man for placing a two-billion-dollar investment in the Zorn Global fund. In Beijing’s eyes, this was an extremely worthwhile investment, both because there was a very good chance that Zorn would succeed in generating a massive return on their money, and because the methods by which he operated – principally aggressive, highly leveraged short trades that profited from economic downturns – were deeply damaging to western economies. The West might be unwilling to accept that it was in a fight to the death with China for domination of the next few hundred years of world history, but Beijing was very much at war.
Choi, like Razzaq, saw no need to share any of his underlying thinking with Ginger Sternberg. Just as she had only cared about the money he had offered her to keep him informed of Razzaq’s activities, so his discussions with her never strayed far from the practical consequences of the information she provided.
‘I presume you will supply me with a description and photographs of this man, Samuel Carver. But for now tell me this: how good are his chances of success?’
‘Very good, in my opinion,’ Ginger replied. ‘After all, Zorn’s own head of security is plotting to have him killed. He’s bound to leave gaps in his boss’s protection.’
‘So you say, but you and I both know not to take anything at face value. Leave Razzaq to one side for the time being. How dangerous is Carver himself?’
‘Extremely dangerous, that’s why he was hired. He was a highly decorated officer in the British Special Boat Service, and his record as a private operative is outstanding. I assume your superiors know, even if you do not, that he was responsible for the death of President Gushungo in Hong Kong last year …’
She was pleased to see by his frown that this was news to Choi. She had the advantage over him for once, and wanted to rub it in: ‘It happened on Chinese territory, after all.’
‘I thought Gushungo was killed by jewel thieves,’ Choi countered, his outward equilibrium swiftly restored. ‘If I recall correctly, there were several million dollars’ worth of uncut diamonds in the house. They disappeared at the time he was killed.’
‘I am sure that is the impression Carver intended to give. But he now holds a five per cent stake in a mine sold to foreign investors by Gushungo’s successor, President Patrick Tshonga. He didn’t have to pay for those shares. They were his reward for a job well done.’
Choi looked thoughtful. Gushungo had been the dictatorial president-for-life of the southern African state of Malemba. Under his rule, a fertile country, rich in natural resources, had been reduced to a state of crippling poverty, barrenness and starvation. When the nations of the West increasingly shunned the Gushungo regime on the grounds of its relentless disdain for its people’s human rights, Beijing saw a vacuum to be exploited for its long-term advantage – and sought to cultivate a friendship with the old despot. With his death, and replacement by a democratic, UN-approved leader, that opportunity had been lost.
‘If Carver killed Gushungo then he is certainly a man to be reckoned with. But he is also a man who has caused my government considerable inconvenience. If he kills Malachi Zorn and thereby wrecks his investment fund, he will have dealt us a second blow. That is clearly unacceptable.’
Ginger smiled. ‘Yes, I would think so …’
‘Has Carver revealed how he plans to undertake his mission?’
‘No. He refused to have any further communication with Razzaq once the deal was agreed, and the initial fee deposited in his account. Razzaq
put him under surveillance, of course, but he managed to lose the men who were tailing him. Since then, however, a delivery boy has been seen taking food to his apartment, so we assume he’s in Geneva.’
‘Unless that is a smokescreen.’
‘Yes,’ Ginger agreed, ‘it could be. But he will certainly have to be in London some time tomorrow, I should think.’
‘You do not know where he will be staying?’
‘I’m sorry, no.’
‘It does not matter. We will find him.’
‘That may not be easy. He goes to great lengths to remain undetected. His phone calls go through a number of relays and different numbers; he regularly uses satellite handsets so as to avoid the usual means of tracking via mobile network cells.’
‘If he uses a satellite phone that only means that he can be pinpointed with absolute precision.’
‘If you have access to the satellites through which his calls are routed, yes.’
‘My point exactly,’ said Choi. ‘So, we can assume he is somewhere in London. What were the parameters of his assignment?’
‘Primarily, to kill Zorn before the public launch of the Zorn Global fund.’
‘Which is when?’
‘Friday evening. It was also specified that the killing had to be public: something that couldn’t be missed.’
‘A news event …’
‘Exactly.’
‘I presume that you provided him with Zorn’s itinerary. What public appearances is he making?’
‘A few media appearances,’ Ginger said. ‘But those will be in closed studios, or within the grounds of the house Zorn has rented. Carver has the plans of the house, but I don’t expect him to strike there.’
‘Where do you think he will strike?’
‘Wimbledon. Zorn is going to the tennis on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I made a point of emphasizing that, and putting the idea firmly in Carver’s head. He will certainly want to prepare his operation as well as he can in the limited time available, so I don’t expect him to do anything until Wednesday.’