Lewis escapes the mayhem and walks east towards Seymour Place. On the spur of the moment he decides to stop at a corner sandwich shop about ten minutes walk from the hotel to take stock and regroup. He sits at a table by the window and orders a cappuccino and some toast and jam. He needs more fuel all of a sudden. He quickly checks to make sure that Zamani’s iPhone is turned off.
The sandwich shop is a dreary place. It is not large, spartanly furnished with battered aluminium tables, hard folding metal chairs and minimal frills. The view outside is not much better. It looks onto a busy London back street with only taxis, light commercial traffic, and the occasional umbrella-clad pedestrian to distract customers. His coffee and four triangles of randomly stacked white toast arrive promptly however. They are delivered by a Slovakian girl who has no smile and with limited English. He digs in his pocket for some change, finding the two stray two-pound coins he nearly used to pay for his earlier meal in Paddington. He puts the coins on the table and searches for other loose coinage, suddenly struck, looking at them both, that one is marginally thicker than the other. Not by much, but by enough for Lewis to be suspicious. He picks the thicker one up and examines it, holding it side by side next to the other coin. It is a fake, he is sure of it. It feels lighter than the other coin, sounding slightly hollow when banged on the table. Then it strikes him. Was this some kind of electronic tracking device? More to the point, could this small coin have been how the Chinese woman had been following him so easily? He thinks back over the events of the last eighteen hours. When could she or someone connected to her have planted it on him? He butters his toast and ponders the question. He located the bogus coin in his outer jacket pocket earlier that morning over breakfast. When could it have been placed there?
He adds jam to the buttered toast and takes a large mouthful, chewing on the tasteless white bread, replaying recent events in his mind. Then he remembers. Bond Street, by the traffic lights, early yesterday evening. There had been an Asian woman in a hurry, bumping into him carelessly. She had even given a brief apology before she had been gone, rushing across the street, nearly getting herself run over as it happened. It would have been somewhat ironic if she had been, Lewis thinks, chewing on the toast.
So where did that leave things? Should he discard the coin and be done with it? He takes a sip of cappuccino through its floating blob of white milk foam, wincing at the burnt flavour but grateful for its warmth. An idea is forming. It is a bit wacky, but then Lewis likes wacky. Perhaps it is time to use the device against this woman. She would be expecting him to be dead very soon and will be mightily pissed when she discovers that she has taken the wrong device from his pocket. Which reminds Lewis, he has the ability to wipe all the data from his own phone remotely, the one the Chinese woman has taken from him thinking it to be the dead woman’s.
Asking in simple English if there is Wi-Fi available, the unsmiling Slovak hands him a piece of paper with that week’s password on it. Back at his table he takes out Zamani’s phone, unlocks it with the newly found password, and logs onto to the Wi-Fi network. He navigates to the cloud host for his own mobile device. Entering his user name and password, he locates the right buttons to press in order to remotely wipe all the data from his phone. The one the Chinese woman had taken from him less than an hour ago thinking it to be the journalist’s. She is going to be so pissed. Moments later and the job is done. He switches the iPhone back into Airplane mode, effectively disconnecting it from all networks once again.
Now is a good time to examine what might be stored on Zamani’s iPhone that is of so much interest to everyone. He unlocks the phone and starts exploring, taking his time to search through emails, photos, her address book, even her electronic notebook. Sadly, nothing obvious jumps out at him. Nothing at least that might be construed as a deadly secret or worthy of someone’s life. He thumbs his way through various specialist applications that have been downloaded. Two stand out that he doesn’t recognise. One is a kind of bar-code reader and another is for a bank in Paris that needs the woman’s login details and password to be able to be used.
Remembering the key that he found in the room safe, he removes this from his trouser pocket, together with its blue satin pouch. The key is intricate, a gold cylinder with several minute cuts and notches along its stem. In total it is no more than five centimetres long. Around the top, near the loop through which the gold chain passes, is a printed name: Leblanc et Cie. Down it’s length are tiny letters and numbers: W45673FGH. He reconnects the phone to the Wi-Fi network and types in the name Leblanc et Cie in the internet browser. Sure enough, it is a private bank based in Geneva. The logo on the website is the same as depicted in gold thread on the blue satin pouch. On a hunch he looks in Zamani’s address book. There is indeed an entry showing the contact details of the bank, an address as well as the name and phone number of an individual called Thierry Leblanc. Lewis is making progress.
He shuts down the phone and considers his next moves. The longer he keeps hold of the two-pound coin tracking device, the more likely it is going to be that the Chinese woman will be making reappearances in his life. So why not use it against her, luring her to some place where she could be removed from the picture leaving Lewis with only the Russians and the German-sounding detective, Zeltinger, to worry about? This feels analogous to a chess strategy of being prepared to sacrifice a pawn or two in order to capture an opponent’s queen.
Perhaps a little detour is called for? Draining his coffee and with his mind made up, he needs to book a plane ticket in order for the next stage of his plan to begin. Reaching for Zamani’s phone, he reconnects to the Internet and navigates to one particular airline’s website.
43
Paddington Station
It may have taken four years, but Ben Lewis has assumed once more his old modus operandi: the care and attention he takes about his physical and mental readiness; and the planning time he invests in preparing for a whole range of possible outcomes. The whole drill comes flooding back in a heartbeat. Everything feels instinctive: where has all this been hiding for the last four years? Who cares is all he can say. For the moment, all that is history. For this next phase, he will be setting the agenda. He is planning each move to go down like clockwork. The current mission objective is pure and simple entrapment. He plans to lay down some bait; lure the Chinese woman into his web; and then, finally, have her removed her from the field of play. For all that to happen, he needs to place significant reliance on her tracking device continuing to function. The ability for her to locate him, to know his movements, is to be a crucial element of the whole plan.
He is currently on platform 6 at Paddington Station. The next express train to London’s Heathrow airport is waiting. Lewis is standing about two thirds of the way down the platform furthest from the platform entrance, leaning against one of the large pillars that support the huge concourse roof. It is a perfect size, shape and position for surveillance. Not only can travellers boarding the train from the main concourse-end of the station be observed; but also it is allows him to watch passengers joining the train from part of the London Underground network. Their arrival onto the platform is by means of a set of stairs that meet the platform half-way down its length.
The time is eleven-fifteen in the morning. Some three hours since he was left for dead tied up next to a bomb in a London hotel room. Some two hours since he had erased all the data on the device that the Chinese woman had taken from him. Somewhere between then and now she would have realised how badly she has screwed up. Most certainly she would be planning her revenge.
Bring it on, Lewis is wanting to say to her. Come and get me. If you can.
44
Paddington Station
Sui-Lee was incandescent, seething with anger. She was fuming at her own stupidity and her abject failure to complete the mission she had been charged with.
How was she to have known that Lewis wou
ld have switched SIM cards on her? And yet it was such an easy and obvious thing to have done, why had it never occurred to her to check? Damn you, Ben Lewis. Damn your smugness, your feline ability to stay alive. How the fuck had you managed to escape being killed by that bomb? The design was so simple, idiot proof, so deadly, how had you done it? She should have killed you with the taser. It would have been so much quicker and simpler.
Instead she had been an idiot. Well, from now on there was going to be a different tactic. The name of this next game was instantaneous death.
Embedded within her leather belt were three tiny, flexible, deadly metal spikes. They were thin as needles but twice as long. At one end was a small plastic bauble that allowed each to be held, the baubles identical to hundreds of other similar ones sewn onto the front of her belt in a decorative pattern. She could have one of the metal spikes out and ready to use within seconds, the bauble designed to be held by her fingertips. The end of the needle was laced with a deadly drug that would cause instant paralysis and, within minutes, certain death. One tiny pinprick was all that was needed; either to the neck or through a coat jacket to the abdomen, perhaps even through trousers to a leg or thigh. It didn’t matter. She simply had to get close to him, and then he would be dead.
He was on the move. She could see that from her faithful tracking device. God bless her faithful, lucky, two-pound coins. They had saved her life before but never as on this mission. Lewis was on the station concourse at Paddington Station. Sui-Lee allowed herself a little smile. She was five minutes away from the station entrance. She was coming to get him. This time he was going to die.
45
Kensington
Mentally, Oleg Panich was struggling to regroup. The loss of so many field agents in such a short period of time was weighing heavily. Moscow had issued a kill on sight order on Lewis. Panich half-suspected that the planners in Yasenevo might also be writing him out of the script as well. It was an abject lesson in how one man’s career could sink into oblivion in less than twenty-four hours. Would Stefan be given secret orders to finish off Panich with a single silenced bullet to the brain? That was not an uncommon way for the SVR to deal with ‘internal staffing issues’, as they were referred to. Panich drew heavily on his cigarette. The nicotine hit entered his blood stream, momentarily calming nerves already strained through lack of sleep and mission fatigue.
He was back in the Kensington safe house, the team depleted to Stefan and himself. The coffee machine had been working overtime. He sat alone listening to Puccini and smoking Turkish cigarettes, trying to think. He wanted to put himself in Lewis’s shoes, to try and work out what his next move would be. What would he have done following the bike crash in Hyde Park? Most likely, lay a false trail for his pursuers and then go into hiding.
Panich stubbed out his fag end, blowing smoke at the ceiling. He picked up a half finished mug of coffee and went to find Stefan in an adjacent room.
“Tell me what you’ve got.”
Stefan made a few clicks of his mouse and the large computer screen in front of him cleared to reveal a document with various entries and dates on it. It was the sketchy outlines of a simple biography.
“Lewis married four years ago but his wife died in a drowning accident on their honeymoon. Both parents are dead, have been for several years. No brothers or sisters. Ex-Marine, impressive military record. Left the service soon after his wife’s death and appears to have gone walkabout. Hard to find out who his friends might be, he’s not listed on any social networks that I’ve been able to uncover so far. He appears to have been drifting these last four years, taking winter jobs as a ski instructor and bumming around the beaches in the summers. He’s not spent much time in the UK at all. Is this the sort of thing you were after?”
“Known girlfriends, boyfriends, that kind of thing?”
“None that we’ve been able to trace.”
“Doesn’t mean there aren’t any. What about mobile phone records?”
“Already working on it. Yasenevo are hopeful that we should have a recent call listing for Lewis’s cell phone as early as lunchtime today.”
Panich nodded. “That will be useful. Do we have any idea where Lewis might be right now?”
“No. His phone is off the grid.”
“Is there no other way to find out where the bastard’s gone?”
Stefan shook his head. “Not at the moment. However, I’m working on it.”
46
Paddington Station
Two Heathrow trains have departed already during the time he has been standing there. They leave every fifteen minutes and the next one is due out in nine minutes.
He has seen several people who look similar to the Chinese woman, but none that are a definite match. He notices that most passengers board the train at the end nearest the platform entrance. Only a few seasoned travellers, the ones who know which end of the train to be at for which exit, bother to make the journey beyond where Lewis is standing to get to the front of the train.
Eight minutes.
He continues his careful vigil, knowing that he cannot afford to make a mistake. He feels confident that he will be able to spot her from this distance.
Seven minutes.
She would certainly know his location, but not to the nearest metre. The tracking device would say that he is on the concourse, most likely even the station platform number. This might even lead her to conclude that he is on the train itself. Not waiting two-thirds of the way down the platform and hiding behind a pillar.
Six minutes.
Still no sign of her. Would she buy a ticket in advance or get one on the train and pay more? Something amuses Lewis about this. Despite her being a ruthless professional, despite her needing to be spontaneous in whatever way is required to find and kill Lewis, he wonders if her Asian character will take over? Will she feel compelled to buy a ticket in advance? Simply because it is cheaper.
Five minutes.
He is certain it won’t be long now. Lewis predicts either this train or the next one. It all fitted the timing. How angry would she be? Very, is his immediate conclusion. Boiling with rage, enough Lewis is hoping to cause her to be in a hurry, perhaps even prone to make mistakes.
Four minutes.
A large party of athletes, men and women dressed in yellow and green tracksuits, are coming down the platform. They look Jamaican, all smiling and joking, heavy bags slung over most shoulders. There are one or two who are pulling large suitcases on wheels. They pass Lewis by, getting into one of the front two carriages, the whole party making a lot of noise and sounding jolly.
Three minutes.
Lewis’s in-built radar is flashing an amber warning light. Silent alarms are ringing. Someone is approaching the far end of the platform looking as if she could be the Chinese woman. She is wearing a hat and has curly rather than long hair. However the way she is walking is familiar. She is the right height, carries no baggage apart from a simple shoulder bag. She is consulting a cell phone. Bingo.
Two minutes.
Lewis is smiling now. The woman is buying a ticket from the machine on the platform. The train is about to leave with her quarry on board but the Chinese agent is saving herself five pounds. He watches as she collects her ticket. What will she do next? Again she consults her phone and decides to board the train at the far end.
One minute to go. The guard is blowing his whistle.
It is time for Lewis to get on-board. The good news is that this train is actually two separate units of four carriages joined together. It is not possible to travel from one end to the other inside the train. So, for the next fifteen minutes at least, she won’t be able to get to him.
47
En route to Heathrow Airport
The train makes two stops. The one after fifteen minutes is the exit for Heathrow terminals 1
, 2 and 3. Here the train stops briefly before travelling on towards its destination, terminal 5. The final segment takes just four minutes.
The spider’s web in Lewis’s plan requires him to get off at terminal 5, his pre-booked flight to Rome departing from that terminal. The tricky part of the plan is going to be the intermediate stop. Lewis suspects that the Chinese woman will be walking from the back of the train through the first four carriages. She will be carefully examining the faces of all the passengers in her attempt to find Lewis. Unable to walk beyond these first four cars, Lewis expects that at the first stop she will leave the train and then re-board it again via the rear doors of the fifth carriage. That is what he would have done. She will first need to make certain that he hasn’t got off the train. Lewis therefore needs to move to the front of this particular four-car unit. This will make it less likely that the Chinese woman will have the time to search the final four carriages before the train reaches Terminal 5.
Luck once more proves to be on his side. The large and rowdy Jamaican team presence in the second carriage from the front provides an almost insurmountable physical barrier to anyone seeking to move quickly through the compartment. By the time that the train emerges into the station at terminal 5, it has taken Lewis nearly the entire journey to negotiate a banter-filled but time-consuming passage past them all. However, he is in the front carriage and there is no sign of the Chinese woman as the train draws to a slow halt and the doors finally open.
The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1) Page 12