The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1)

by David N Robinson

  26

  Nr Paddington

  Sui Lee hated motorbikes. She hated the raw, exposed, sensation of speed and she hated being a passenger even more. The good news was that Cheng, the driver, was an expert at handling the powerful machine. He was also, for a Cantonese, quite good looking. Siting behind him whilst he rode the bike, therefore, had its compensations.

  She was angry that the bomb had failed to do what had been intended. The Department hated failure more than any other trait. In her defence, it hadn’t been her fault. The bomb had indeed gone off: it had simply killed the wrong person. Too bad, but not what had been expected. It would be a black mark against her. Even less satisfactory had been her failure to kill Lewis moments earlier when he had been walking along the street outside the house in Westbourne Terrace. True, using an automatic weapon one-handed whilst trying to stay upright on a rapidly accelerating motorbike was never going to be easy. Such a procedure was always potentially hit or miss. Still, Beijing would not have wanted the trail of destruction she was leaving behind in London.

  Privately, the fact that Lewis was still alive was undeniably exciting. There could yet be an opportunity for her to live out her private fantasy with the man, to finish what had most definitely been unfinished business. The good news was that the tracking device she had planted in Lewis’s jacket pocket still appeared to be working. For the moment, at least, wherever Ben Lewis went, she would be close behind. The thought sent a shudder of pleasure through her body.

  So who was riding the other motorcycle that had moments earlier been creeping up behind them? It hadn’t been Lewis, she had been sure of that. Had it been the Russians? Quite probably, the more she thought about it. Possibly Alexei Polunin, the agent she had seen on the street near to Hanover Square. More likely it had been the stocky, tough-looking one, the man who had passed her on the street the previous day pulling hard on his cigarette?

  It was approaching the rush hour. This whole business was taking too long. Once and for all it was time Ben Lewis was dead. She would find him, of that she was confident. It was simply that next time she had to make certain that she killed him.

  27

  Savile Row Police Station

  At six in the morning Saul Zeltinger was asleep at his desk when Meilin brought him a fresh mug of strong black coffee. She had made it exactly the way she had been told the German Detective Inspector liked it. She placed it on his desk well away from the forearm that he had been using as a pillow, coughing gingerly at first to see whether she could wake him. When that failed, she resorted to tugging his sleeve. He spluttered awake. The first thing he did was look at his watch. He had been asleep for about two hours. He groaned before noticing firstly Meilin, who was standing there patiently, and then secondly the coffee. No German began a serious day’s work without strong black coffee.

  “Thank you, Meilin. I must be out of practice. It seems ages since I did an all-nighter. What news, if any?”

  “A number of cars have been reportedly damaged by gunfire not far from Paddington Station. It happened about fifteen minutes ago. The guns appear to have been silenced automatic weapons.”

  “Anyone hurt? Any witnesses?”

  “No to both questions.”

  “Who do we have up there investigating?”

  “The specialist unit out of Paddington Green. Westbourne Terrace has been cordoned off.”

  Zeltinger took a sip of his coffee. He was sat, fingers steepled together and elbows on the desk, thinking. “Ben Lewis leaves his meeting with me. Within thirty minutes, give or take, we have several seriously injured Russians lying scattered on the streets of London, and reports of automatic gunfire all within spitting distance of Buckingham Palace. Lewis conveniently decides against spending the night in his own apartment. Yet some mysterious Russian woman who does pay him a visit there gets blown to smithereens. And now, in a separate incident, we have more automatic gunfire, this time near Paddington less than twelve hours later. I don’t believe in co-coincidences, do you, Meilin?”

  “Not especially sir, no.”

  “How did you get on with the dead woman’s hotel room? Did you find anything useful?”

  “Not really. There was a rolling suitcase lying on the bed, essentially still not unpacked and with nothing of any significance in it. I couldn’t find any papers or electronic devices or anything that seemed remotely relevant. Apart from that there were just a few personal toiletry items in the bathroom. Nor were there any drugs or special medications that I could find. It all looked all very ordinary, to tell the truth.”

  Zeltinger was listening carefully. “What about the room safe?”

  The young constable looked momentarily embarrassed. “I’m sorry to say that I didn’t think to look in the safe, sir.”

  Zeltinger was generous enough to smile rather than admonish the young policewoman. “Rule number one when searching someone’s hotel room. Always check the room safe. It’s my fault, I should have reminded you before you went.”

  “I did do some more digging into Zamani’s family during the night, however.”

  Zeltinger was impressed. “Good work. What have you found?’

  “Well, it’s quite interesting. This next of kin, Shafiq Hamidi, appears to be a cousin of hers, the son of her mother’s brother, Shabaz. Guess what Shafiq does for a living?”

  Zeltinger shook his head. “It’s too early in the morning. You’ll have to enlighten me.”

  “He’s one of Iran’s most senior nuclear scientists. He studied abroad for a while, but since being back in Iran he has risen to become one of the top people working on their nuclear enrichment programme.”

  Zeltinger let out a whistle. “Now that does sound interesting. Where in Iran is he based?”

  “I haven’t got that far yet. Getting any information about who does what in the Iranian nuclear industry is almost impossible. Don’t give up hope yet, although don’t expect miracles overnight.”

  “Tell you what,” he said, pushing several papers around his desk until he found what he was looking for. It was Shafiq Hamidi’s telephone number that Meilin had uncovered earlier. “It should be mid-morning in Iran,” he said to her. “Why don’t we try and give him a call?”

  He dialled the number and waited, eventually hearing a distant ringing sound at the other end. After several seconds, the line switched through to voicemail, the language foreign. Zeltinger decided to leave a brief message asking Hamidi to call him back and giving his number. He replaced the receiver and shrugged at Meilin.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let’s see if that does anything. Okay, so we have a probable source for Zamani’s knowledge and insights into the Iranian nuclear industry. This could be helpful. Give me five minutes to finish my coffee and we can head back to Zamani’s hotel together. I might be able to show you a trick or two about breaking into a hotel safe. If there is anything inside, hopefully it will provide some clues as to why the she was murdered.”

  There was one thing he needed to do before they left. He was going to try and call Leyla Zamani’s cell phone once again.

  28

  Paddington

  Ten minutes after leaving Westbourne Terrace, Lewis is sat in a street café on Praed Street close to Paddington Station. The place is popular despite the early hour. The clientele are mostly delivery drivers and people working at the nearby mainline station. The location is perfect. A big glass-fronted window facing onto the busy street allows diners to see and be seen by people passing on the pavement outside. The room is not large, about ten metres square, with a kitchen and serving area positioned at the rear. To one side at the back is a doorway leading to a foul-smelling bathroom and an emergency exit. Lewis has already checked this out. The exit out the back is via a door with a horizontal push bar that leads into a short alley behind the café. This in turn feeds directly into a
private mews terrace running parallel to Praed Street to the south. The mews is a quiet cul-de-sac. Earlier, Lewis moved his Honda bike there, parking it just beyond the alleyway leading from the café.

  Ben is sat alone at the back, on a table for two positioned next to a wall. The kitchen and the emergency exit are behind him. He is sat facing the street. A mug of strong tea, the colour and taste reminiscent of what had been served by the young constable the previous afternoon, is on the table in front of him. The burly Italian proprietor, dressed in dirty white overalls with a chequered dishcloth slung over his right shoulder, has recently delivered a large plateful of fried and grilled food. It had been described on the menu board as ‘The Full Works.’ It looks the business: eggs, bacon and all the trimmings. Marines always needed their fuel, especially before an operation.

  Lewis has been applying a little lateral thinking to his current predicament. He now has a possible idea about how he might unlock Zamani’s phone. However it wasn’t helpful that everywhere he went, people either kept trying to kill him or else relieve him of the device. So, given that his iPhone and the Iranian’s are identical, why not swap them around? He could put her SIM card in his iPhone and vice-versa? Then he could happily hand over his phone with Zamani’s SIM in it to whomever was the more persuasive, keeping the real Zamani iPhone to be examined at leisure later.

  Strategically, the issue for Lewis is whether to choose offense or defence. Simply put, either Lewis hunkers down and goes into hiding; or else he deliberately tries let some of his pursuers try to find him. For a former Marine recently out of self-imposed combat rehab, it feels a bit of a no-brainer. Lewis therefore needs a way that will attract these fuckers, allowing them to come to him so that he can pick them off one by one. That might even be fun. This was akin to a real-life game of chess. Planning his moves in advance so as to best position him to take out the opposition’s pieces. One by one.

  A mouthful of bacon and egg underway, Lewis sets his cutlery down. He has a plan. He takes both his and Zamani’s iPhones from out of the recesses of his jacket pocket and places them both on the table in front of him. In the process he unearths a stray two-pound coin, something that surprises him. Stray coins and loose change normally belong in his trouser, not jacket, pockets. He moves the coin to the front pocket of his black jeans and turns his attention back on the two iPhones. Each table has little beakers of cocktail sticks intended as tooth picks. Ben selects one and inserts the end into a needle-sized hole on the side of his phone. This ejects the miniscule SIM card along with its tiny black cardholder. He repeats the exercise with the other iPhone. Then, careful so as not to mix the two cards up, he swaps them around. Zamani’s SIM card is now in his iPhone. The one he is able to unlock with his own password. His SIM card is in her iPhone, the one he doesn’t yet have the password for. This is like ‘castling’ in chess – always a clever move and one that Lewis loves to play whenever he has the chance.

  So, to complete his plan, all that is left is turn on both phones. This should be sufficient to draw all interested parties to his present location. Once complete, he carries on eating the rest of his breakfast. With both phones switched on, they are miniature homing beacons. Time to start being more vigilant. Bring it on. Lewis reckons he has ten minutes grace, possibly a little longer. He slows up, trying to savour the food whilst he has the chance.

  That is until one of the two phones begins to ring.

  29

  Paddington

  It is his voicemail, ringing to tell him that, now that his phone is back on and connected to the network, he has a message. He slides the button to answer and hears a familiar voice.

  “Hi, Ben, It’s Holly. Hope everything’s okay? I’ve done some digging on this Zamani woman for you. It wasn’t easy but I’ve found a few bits and pieces of interest. Probably best if you call me, but bottom line is that she’s been quite a difficult character to run a detailed trace on. Not a lot of relatives, most of them came out of Iran back in the late Seventies when the revolution started. The majority appeared to have moved to Geneva, the same place Leyla’s adopted family set up their new home. Most are dead, as much as I’ve been able to trace. Leyla went to boarding school in Surrey then studied journalism at London University. She doesn’t appear to have any children and her nearest living relatives appear to be two cousins. One is living in Australia, but the other, wait for it, goes by the name of Shafiq Hamidi. He is a nuclear scientist living in Iran and quite a ‘high-up’ by all accounts. He’s single and has no children. I tried searching the web for more on him but so far have drawn a blank. Anyway, hope that helps? Call me or come and drop by some time. It would be lovely to see you. Lots of love, ’bye.”

  Lewis ends the call and considers what he has heard. If Zamani’s cousin is someone so senior in the Iranian nuclear programme, could he be the one who has been helping Leyla compile her explosive dossier? It seemed plausible. Had Shafiq been leaking confidential information to his cousin, putting his life on the line for some major international exposé of some kind? And what about the betrayal that Zamani had mentioned? Lewis needs more information, wondering whether Shafiq knew that his cousin was now dead.

  He is about to ring Holly back when once again the phone rings.

  30

  Paddington

  The call is incoming on his device, meaning that someone is dialling the Iranian woman’s number.

  He slides the white circular button across the bottom of the screen to answer and holds the phone to his ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Ben? Is that you?” It is a woman’s voice, one he instantly recognises. She has slightly dusky tones, words that are spoken by lips that had been soft and sensuous.

  “Hi Mel,” is all he says.

  “I’m sorry about the phone, Ben.” Lewis says nothing, letting an awkward silence hang between them. “I was trying to help. I wanted to save you from getting into more trouble. Really.”

  More silence. “What’s done is done, Mel. It’s time to move on. It was kind of fun, the you and I thing, don’t you think though?”

  “Do you want to come over and let me apologise? I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  Lewis skewers a piece of sausage in his fork with one hand, twirling it around in front of him before placing it in his mouth. He begins chewing on it thoughtfully. “Sounds tempting,” his spoken words interspersed by sounds of him eating. “I’m pretty tied up right now. Maybe later. Can I call you? On this number?” He looks at his phone to check that the number she was dialling from hasn’t been withheld.

  “Sure. I should be around this evening. If you like, I could fix us dinner if it’s after eight o’clock. I have to go to an embassy drinks reception beforehand.”

  “A bit out of my league. Let’s see how we both go. Look Mel, I’ll call you later. I have to go,” and with that he ends the call, putting the phone back on the table and resuming his eating.

  He scoops a forkful of beans into his mouth and is about to reach for his tea when the phone rings a second time. It is the same phone that is ringing, however this time the caller ID is different. Once more he slides the while button horizontally across the screen to answer it.

  “Hello.”

  31

  Savile Row Police Station

  The policeman’s instincts have been correct. Before the man on the other end of the line says another word, Saul Zeltinger is certain that it is Ben Lewis.

  “Who is this?” the voice at the other end continues warily.

  “Good morning, Ben,” Zeltinger says with a hint of satisfaction.

  “Is that you, Zeltinger?”

  “The same. Why am I not surprised to find you in possession of this phone?”

  There is silence from Lewis.

  “Don’t be shy. I had the feeling there was something you weren’t telling me yesterday.
”

  “I needed a new phone. It was as simple as that.”

  “As simple as stealing do you mean?”

  “Why are you so interested in the phone?”

  “Why were you so interested in it, Ben?”

  There is silence for a moment before the former Marine speaks once more.

  “The thing is, in the last twelve hours, I have had several Russians try to kill me because of the wretched thing. I’d be happy to hand it back if you really want it.”

  “So you admit it. It was you in Green Park yesterday evening.”

  “Acting in self defence, Zeltinger. Those bastards were out to kill me.”

  “Speaking of which, who exactly was she, Ben? The woman at your apartment who was killed.”

  There is a long pause before Lewis says anything.

  “What about my apartment? What woman are you talking about?”

  “When was the last time you were there, Ben?”

  There is a further delay before Lewis answers. “Yesterday evening. About seven-thirty. I wasn’t there long.”

  “Was there someone with you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “A woman perhaps?”

  “No.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “As I said, not long. In fact, I never actually went inside. I had the key in the door when my phone went off. This phone actually, Leyla Zamani’s.”