Table of Contents
About the Author
The Dossier
Prologue
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Acknowledgement
David N Robinson
About the Author
David N Robinson has flown the equivalent of eight round trips to the moon during his travels with a large international professional firm, a private equity business and latterly with one of the UK’s largest law firms.
A graduate metallurgist, his amassed business experiences in Russia, China and the Middle East has been his sources for his books. David’s fascination and professional interest in cyber crime and identity theft led him to write his first thriller, The Morpheus Network and his second, The Dossier was inspired during a flight to Sydney against the backdrop of discussions in Geneva to curtail the nuclear ambitions of Iran.
David lives with his wife of 25 years and divides his time between his home near Cambridge in England and the Alps, where he enjoys skiing in winter. They have two sons. He is currently Trustee and Chairman of Addenbrooke’s hospital’s Charitable Trust.
The Dossier
Former Green Beret, Ben Lewis, manages to get to a journalist who has just been shot and killed in a London square.
With her last breaths, she implores him to look after her cell phone and keep it safe. Unbeknownst to Lewis, the Russians and the Chinese are also tracking the journalist and the shooting starts a spiral of relentless attacks on Lewis as both parties try to retrieve the cell phone.
Lewis follows the clue left by the cell phone, leading his pursuers across London and then to Geneva and the Swiss Alps. He has to keep one step ahead of the killers and not only has to contend with Saul Zeltinger, a police detective hellbent finding the person responsible for the shooting, but realises there is someone within his own side who is also desperate to get to the dossier.
Set against illicit bartering of nuclear technology and weaponry in exchange for oil, this is a fast-paced thriller where its explosive action leaves you breathless and wondering what can possibly happen next. Yet, the narrative remains engaging and convincing right to the end.
THE DOSSIER
David N Robinson
Copyright © David N Robinson 2014
The right of David N Robinson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is sold subject to the condition it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be copied, lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated in print or electronic means without the publisher’s prior consent in any form.
ISBN 978-1-78036-250-2
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described, all situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
Published by
Peach Publishing
For the winemaker, the accountant and the keeper of the belfry
Prologue
He took the stairs two steps at a time. Already his right hand was wrapped around the silenced GSh-18 pistol, nestling in its shoulder harness under his left arm. Without pausing, he burst through the double set of doors leading to the men’s toilet. The Chinese man was alone, relieving himself at a corner urinal. The effects of too many drinks earlier that evening had taken their toll. Too bad. He raised his silenced weapon and fired twice, both shots on target. Then, as the man lay sprawled on the ground, his fly zip still undone, blood and piss beginning to cover the cream marble floor, he fired one final round. Just to make certain.
He was onto his second cigarette by the time he reached the north end of Berkeley Square. His nerves were finally calming down. He had been seeking, without success, to hail a taxi back to the safe house in Kensington when the cell phone in his pocket began to vibrate. He looked at the screen and the muscles in his stomach tightened. It was the person known to him only as Sandpiper. There had to be a crisis. Sandpiper knew only ever to call him in dire emergencies.
He hit the button to take the call.
“Hello?” The voice in his ear was metallic, digitally synthesised and unrecognisable.
“I’m listening,” he replied simply, drawing on his cigarette heavily.
“We have a problem. Potentially a very big problem. I may have been compromised. There’s an Iranian journalist, currently in L
ondon attending some conference who has been compiling a dossier and is threatening to publish. Publication would be catastrophic, both for Russia and for me personally. It cannot be allowed to happen. We, you, have to make this problem disappear. Without fail. One more thing: it is imperative to find out who else knows. Loose ends could be disastrous. They all need taking care of. Every one.”
He assured the faceless voice that he would attend to everything, the call ending abruptly.
On the face of it, this next mission sounded straightforward.
After all, making problems disappear was his particular specialty.
1
Hanover Square
It begins with the woman. From the outset she is the unknown quantity. There she is, strolling along the pavement, an air of something about her immediately catching his attention. The man’s assessment is that she is in her late-thirties. Her shoulder-length hair has been swept off her face and tucked behind an ear. It is an elegant rather than pretty face. Her strong cheekbones, dark brown eyes and olive-coloured skin hint at either Southern European or more likely Middle Eastern extraction. She walks with a casual confidence. A tan jacket has been draped over a bare left arm and a sizeable black handbag swings freely from the same elbow.
The man assimilates all of this as she saunters casually in front of his pavement table on a side road off London’s Oxford Street. With only the dregs of a double macchiato remaining in his tiny glass cup, it is time for him to follow. It is a warm September afternoon, the sun intermittently breaking through a thin cloud layer. The lunchtime crowds have long since returned to work. Falling into her wake some twenty metres behind, his eyes are drawn to her legs, their graceful movements assisted by heels that are raised but not impossible to walk in. The tan-coloured, knee-length, skirt hugs her shapely curves in a seductive manner and maintains his interest as he follows.
He crosses the road and watches as the woman enters the gardens at the centre of Hanover Square. Casually, as if having no cares in the world, she wanders across to a vacant bench and sits down. The man instead walks around the outside perimeter of the square so as not to give the impression that he is following her. He enters the garden from a different entrance on the north side. There are enough empty benches scattered around to allow him to sit and maintain casual observation from a distance without drawing attention.
It is a restful space, with abundant greenery provided by mature trees, shrubs and lawns that have been well maintained. There is no sign, as yet, of the approaching autumn. He has brought with him his newspaper and begins reading. Periodically he looks over at the woman about thirty metres away to see what she is doing. Not a great deal as it turns out. She has placed her jacket and bag on the bench’s wooden slats beside her and is reading a magazine. She looks the typical busy executive, enjoying precious moments of down time whilst waiting for her next appointment.
When it happens, it catches him unawares. At first, he thinks the sound is that of a falling plank from a nearby construction site. The flat crack–like noise is similar to a large wooden board hitting the ground in a gigantic belly flop. It makes him jump, the small explosion coming from somewhere close. Out of reflex, he swivels around, rapidly scanning the area. He fails to see or hear anything unusual. In its wake there is only the sound of circulating traffic.
It is only when he turns back to look at the woman that it registers. No longer sitting, instead she lies slumped on one of the asphalt pathways that criss-cross the garden square. Instinct takes over. Racing across to where she is lying, he gently rolls her body onto its side. What had once been a cream-coloured blouse is turning deep crimson. The woman is barely alive and common sense tells him that this woman is beyond first aid and about to die.
Kneeling on the asphalt path he cradles her head. He brushes hair away from her eyes, the gesture one of reassurance. It is one compassionate human being trying to help another. Her eyes open briefly. She tries to speak but her words are faint. The man has to press his face closer to her mouth in order to hear anything.
She fights to draw gulps of air but all too quickly her body stops breathing. He gently places her head to rest on the ground, reaching across to the nearby bench for her jacket and drapes it over the body. Looking at her handbag he hesitates momentarily before deciding to conduct a quick search. It is a perfunctory inspection really, one lasting barely a few seconds and seeming to reveal nothing of interest. From somewhere not far away, approaching police sirens are audible. As if on cue, he places the bag beside the woman’s body and sits down on the bench next to her. Like a sentry, he is resigned and numbed into keeping a vigilant watch until the relevant authorities arrive.
2
Hanover Square
Saul Zeltinger calls it his ‘time to crime’: the number of minutes it takes to move his middle-aged, yet still reasonably athletic, frame from out of his small office in Savile Row police station to the scene of the crime. Today’s, at under four minutes, is something of a personal best. Hardly a committed gym junkie, Zeltinger kept in reasonably good shape. He could probably have run it in less. However, no self-respecting Detective Inspector ever arrives at a crime scene on foot and out of breath. By the time he gets to the square, Incident Support has already begun cordoning off all access points. Fabric screens are hastily being erected. They are there to keep out the curious – especially any Twitterati, as Zeltinger likes to call them: the curious passers-by who always seem to have camera-phones ready to snatch a scoop.
Ben Lewis is sat in Zeltinger’s cramped incident support vehicle. His knees are squashed uncomfortably close to those of the sharp-eyed interrogator. The ten by six-foot space barely functions as an adequate interview room. A tiny table pulled down from a sidewall gives them both something to huddle around. Folding metal chairs add function rather than comfort. Periodically Zeltinger writes in a black notebook with frayed corners and ink-stained edges whilst Lewis answers his questions, rubbing away at the dried blood on his hands as he speaks.
Slowly and painstakingly, they have been filling in the blanks. Thirty minutes and one complete walk through later, a young police constable arrives with two styrofoam cups of over-stewed tea, copious sachets of sugar and some plastic stirrers. Half-time refreshments, as Zeltinger calls them. The policeman winces when he lifts his white plastic lid and sees how strong the tea looks. Instinctively pouring two sachets of sugar into the rust-coloured liquid, he closes the top, doing his best to put off the moment of tasting for as long as possible.
“I’d seen the woman only minutes before,” Ben Lewis is saying in answer to a follow-up question about why he was so sure the woman hadn’t been in the garden for that long. The young man seems oblivious to the quality and strength of the tea, happy to have something to fiddle with whilst answering the policeman’s questions. “Whilst I was having a coffee at the place down the road.” He waves one hand in a spurious direction, the implication through the gesture being that it is somewhere nearby.
The policeman looks up at this point. Ben Lewis is different to his normal crime scene witness. Not the typical frightened passer-by or one of the nervous-guilty trying their best to look innocent. This one seems self-composed and self-assured. Zeltinger’s initial guestimate of either late-twenties or possibly early thirties has proven right on point. Lewis is a clean-cut, clean-shaven, young man of slender yet muscular build. He looks in good shape: his strongly sun-tanned face and hands help radiate an overwhelming impression of health and fitness. There is a touch of the military about him. He has already explained that he is a ski instructor in winter and a windsurfing coach in summer and is currently in London looking for temporary work before the start of the next ski season. It is not a typical job description either and for that reason alone it seems all the more credible. Ben Lewis even looks the part: the black jeans, red gingham-checked shirt and well-worn dark brown leather jacket ensemble. It all fits with Zeltin
ger’s mental image of a ski bum back from the beach and spending time in London. He can’t but help feel a twinge of envy to Lewis’s lifestyle, with its hedonistic cocktail of sun, sex, booze and pretty women. About as far from the realities of a London policeman’s life as one could get.
“Ah yes, the double macchiato,” Zeltinger says consulting his notes. Lewis shrugs, disinterestedly, the implication of the gesture not lost on the detective.
“You weren’t following her, were you, Ben?” Zeltinger asks, subtly changing the pace and line of questioning. He half looks up from his notebook. One eyebrow is raised. A surprise question that is intended to set Ben Lewis immediately on the defensive. At times like this you can almost hear a different accent in Zeltinger’s dialect, the slight intonation betraying his Germanic lineage.
“No,” is the reply, perhaps too quickly. Zeltinger scribbles an indecipherable ‘perhaps he was?’ margin-note in his book. The word ‘was’ has been underlined. “Absolutely not,” Lewis continues, his protestations of innocence continuing. “I just remember her walking past when I was having my coffee, that’s all. I can’t tell you why.” He takes another swig of tea, this time wincing as if noticing the sourness of the builder’s brew for the first time. “Anyway, when a few minutes later I find myself sitting in the garden square around the corner, minding my own business, and I see the same woman, I say to myself, ‘small world and all that’.”
“Indeed it is,” says Zeltinger, more to himself than to Lewis. “Perhaps we can move on to what happened in Hanover Square itself? You see, that bit of the story has been puzzling me. Here’s my confusion. There you are, a double macchiato down, you’ve had your spell sitting on the pavement contemplating the world go by. Suddenly you decide that it’s the end of the rest break. Time to be moving on. You’re a fit young man who’s had enough loafing around for the moment. So you get up, ready for a brisk walk to your next appointment. However, only one hundred yards into your stride, you come to a garden and you have the urge to sit down again. I don’t get it. Grabbed by an overwhelming desire to read the newspaper, was that it? Or perhaps the woman had indeed distracted you? I need a bit of help with this one, Ben.”
The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1) Page 1