“Very good. Thanks, Lisa. Excellent work.” He put the phone down and stood up to grab his coat from the stand behind his desk. He was picking up his mobile phone from its desk charger before heading out the door when it started buzzing in his hand. It was an incoming call. He hit the button to answer it.
“Zeltinger,” he said once again.
“Saul, this is Ben Lewis,” the voice at the other end of the line said. “We need to speak, urgently.”
55
Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
Ben Lewis has already left the security screening area. He is talking to Saul Zeltinger whilst walking down the escalators to the departure level, the main part of the terminal where numerous duty free shops reside. The place is teeming with people. There is an abundance of general background noise and activity. It is thus a good environment in which to be having an open channel but private telephone conversation.
“I am currently airside at Terminal 5, at Heathrow.” Zeltinger says nothing, deciding not to let on that he already knows this fact. The more he lets Lewis talk, the better.
“Go on,” Zeltinger says.
“In addition to our Russian friends, there has been a Chinese woman who has been tailing me ever since Hanover Square yesterday afternoon. I don’t know her name. She has already admitted to me that it was her who planted the bomb in my apartment yesterday. She also tried to shoot me from a speeding motorbike in Westbourne Terrace earlier this morning. My luck ran out in Edgware Road a little later when I ran into her when she was holding a taser gun. She tied me up and placed me, together with a bomb, in Leyla Zamani’s former hotel room. There is no doubt she was hoping to kill me, but not before taking from me what she thought was Zamani’s phone. Point of fact it wasn’t. I still have it, I swapped hers and mine over.”
Saul’s head was spinning. So much of this he already knew parts of, but not quite in the same interconnected way that Ben was describing to him right now.
“Why are you telling me all of this, Ben?”
“Because the woman placed a small tracking device in my jacket pocket shortly after you and I finished our conversation in Hanover Square yesterday afternoon. It has allowed her to keep on my tail ever since. More to the point, it has enabled her to follow me here to Terminal 5. I have just seen her, literally about two minutes ago, about to clear airport security and follow me Airside. I suspected that you might be interested in arresting and detaining her.”
“In the same way as we probably need to be doing with you, do you mean, Ben?”
“Doubtless, Saul. If you can catch me.”
“Oh, we’ll be able to do that, Ben. That you can rest assured about. I presume that you are hoping to catch a plane sometime soon. Let’s plan on having a little chat, you and I, before you get on board, shall we?”
Ben says nothing and there is a short silence whilst both think about what to say next.
“So how do we know what this particular Chinese woman looks like?” Zeltinger says eventually. “There are probably several hundred Asian women in the terminal building at any one moment in time.”
Ben describes her and what she is wearing. “If you ask your airport security team to review the camera footage of passengers passing through scanner number ten here at terminal five in the last five minutes, then you’ll be able to identify her easily. She probably believes I am about to fly to Rome. Don’t lose her, Saul. I’ve got to go. I have a plane to catch. We’ll speak soon, no doubt,” and with that he ends the call.
56
Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
Lewis needs to buy several items from one of the shops on the terminal concourse. He has to be quick, conscious now that airport security cameras will be looking out for both him and the Chinese woman. He finds a suitable retail outlet, browses the shelves for about thirty seconds, finds what he thinks will be suitable and then heads to an empty check out. He pays in cash so that his card can’t be traced. The whole procedure takes about ninety seconds. Time is precious, given that the Chinese woman will not be far behind him. Once finished, he has two further things that he needs to do, one more urgent than the other. He reads the flight departures board and sees that the flight to Rome is departing from gate 20. It is at the southern end of the concourse and will take about five minutes at a brisk walk to get there.
He is on high alert. Not only because of the Chinese woman. Now that Zeltinger knows where he is, the airport police will also be looking out for him as well. These are the units that roam the airport in pairs armed with Glock 17 pistols and Heckler & Koch MP5’s. Their officers wear bulletproof vests and are fully wired for open-channel communications. They will know about his boarding pass by now, and thus, in theory, where he is travelling. Which means that he only has a short amount of time in the vicinity of Gate 20 to do what he needs to do before he runs the risk of being stopped and arrested.
Or killed, if he inadvertently runs into the Chinese woman first.
57
Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
Sui-Lee was nervous about passing through the security checkpoint because of her belt. She had debated placing this item in her rucksack and letting it pass through the scanning machines. There had to be good chance that the security agent checking the monitors would fail to see the deadly needles that were concealed within its leather strap.
In the end, however, she had opted to continue wearing it, hoping that if it did set off the metal detectors, then the security agents would understand that it was simply an embroidered belt and not worth her taking off and having it scanned separately. As she stood waiting in line, she had spotted Ben Lewis, two counters away. He was through security now and getting dressed, watching her closely as he did up his shoelaces. He wouldn’t get far from her inside the terminal. She had almost smiled back at him as he had stared at her, but at the last moment had thought better of it.
Soon it was her turn to pass through the metal detector and body scanner. The scanner beeped, indicating that Sui-Lee was to be given a personal search and scan by one of the female security agents. She stood where indicated and a bored-looking woman in a grey and green uniform passed a handheld scanner all over Sui-Lee’s body. A metal chain worn around her neck caused the hand scanner to beep first. Then the scanner passed over her wristwatch and the machine beeped a second time. On neither occasion did the security agent seem concerned. Finally, the machine beeped several times when it passed back and forth over her belt and buckle. Sui-Lee offered to take it off but the agent shook her head. After a few more cursory scans, the woman decided that she had done enough and waved for Sui-Lee to go. Sui-Lee estimated that she was at most now no more than three minutes behind Lewis. It was time to go and find him.
She collected her rucksack and consulted her mobile phone. He appeared to be heading to the far end of the terminal. Was that where his departure gate was? She fingered the three baubles on her belt, the ends of each of her poisoned metal spikes. She just needed to get close to him, close enough for her to be able to touch him. That was all that would be required.
58
Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
The departure gate is twenty metres ahead of him. The flight is not due out for nearly an hour but already there are passengers milling around. Some are sitting on chairs. Others are beginning to huddle near the check in desk, hoping to be amongst the first in line and on board the aircraft the fastest. In the middle distance, about fifty metres away, Ben Lewis can see two armed policemen heading towards the gate area. Their sense of purpose suggests to Lewis that they are heading in this direction for a reason, not wandering aimlessly. Zeltinger has not been hanging around, clearly. Lewis needs to find the person he is looking for and quickly.
It doesn’t take him long. Sitting near the gate by himself is a man working on his laptop. A computer bag lies open and unattended on a spare chair beside him. The man is busy reading an
d responding to emails. He is far too engrossed in the activity on his computer to notice the careful palm job that Lewis succeeds in executing. Although he may never realise it, the man just became two-pounds wealthier. The fake two-pound coin that the Chinese woman had placed in Lewis’s jacket the previous afternoon is now nestling in amongst the detritus at the bottom of his computer bag. It is time for Lewis to make a rapid exit.
The approaching policemen are twenty metres away. Lewis sets off on a different tack, increasing the separation between them and him, heading back towards the main shopping area in the middle of the terminal space. Now is a good moment to take a bathroom break. There is a disabled facility a few metres away that looks perfect, set off as it is to one side down a small passageway and away from the immediate flow of passenger traffic.
With the door closed and locked behind him, Lewis quickly removes his red gingham-checked shirt. In its place he puts on a plain black, V-necked, sweater vest that he’d paid for in cash from the airport store a short while ago. The size fits perfectly.
Next, he removes the passport that he palmed from the Italian athlete in the departure hall. The face of Marco Trevoni stares back at him. The man’s dark hair is bouffant and slightly curly at the edges, the face otherwise not dissimilar to Lewis’s. Lewis takes from his jacket pocket a tube of hair gel and colouring that he’d bought from a pharmacist at Paddington station. Within a short space of time he has changed both the style and colour of his hair. A newly formed tiny quiff in the centre of his forehead makes him instantly more like Marco Trevoni than Ben Lewis. When Lewis takes a pair of mirrored sunglasses from his jacket and places them on top of his head, he could almost be Trevoni.
Satisfied, he places his gingham-checked shirt in the bin along with the used packet of hair gel. He then washes his hands, puts on his jacket before unlocking the toilet door and stepping out into the terminal once more. He is starting to walk back towards the main concourse area when he stops dead in his tracks.
Bearing down on him at speed, a satisfied grin on her face, is the Chinese woman.
59
Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
“Thought you could escape me, did you, Ben?” Sui-Lee has come to a halt directly in front of him. They were facing each other, no more than five metres apart in the narrow corridor leading from the disabled bathroom to the main concourse area. “Did you really think that I wouldn’t see through such a simple disguise? Do you take me for a complete fool?”
Lewis decides to goad her, hoping that anger will cause her to make mistakes.
“I already know how much of a fool you are. You didn’t even bother to check the straps holding me down earlier. That was careless, very unprofessional.” He could see her face beginning to flush with anger. “Can’t the Chinese even field the A-team any more?”
She is becoming angry which is perfect. Lewis notices that she is fiddling with something on her belt. This is unlikely to be a helpful development.
“Perhaps I wanted you to escape, Ben? Perhaps I had secretly planned for the two of us to spend more time together? We did have fun, didn’t we?” She is stalling, not a good sign. Something is about to happen. Now is not the moment for him to relax his guard. Out of reflex, he bends his knees, centring his body, preparing himself for whatever she choses to bring on.
Then he sees it, a small object that she has somehow pulled from out of her belt. It looks like a tiny metal spike. Without warning she is lunging at him angrily, trying to stab his neck, her rage incandescent. Which is good, because she is coming towards him without preparation. Lewis has been standing stock still, not exactly expecting her to charge, but with his weight perfectly balanced and his body prepared.
As she throws herself at him, he grabs the arm holding the tiny metal spike and twists it sharply. The sudden rotation causes her to let go of the tiny needle. It falls to the floor and she squeals with pain, momentarily up close against his body. He gives her a grimace smile, releases her hand, and pushes her away from him with some force. She spits in his face and steps back, her other hand hastily fumbling with the belt again.
The triumphant look on her face tells Lewis before he can see it with his own eyes. Another metal spike has appeared, this time in the other hand. These needles had to be poisoned, a single skin prick doubtless fatal. She hovers on the balls of her feet in front of him, dancing, feigning first one way then the other. She is trying to lull Lewis into making one simple, fatal, error. Unfortunately for her, he has played this game before.
It is always tempting to try and guess the moment of strike by an armed assailant. Take the example of a man with a knife dancing in front of his victim. The victim will be thinking that, if they are clever, they might be quick enough to avoid the first stabbing lunge that will eventually be directed at their body. This can be a long game, attacker and victim anxiously waiting. Both try to feign moves one way and then the other. Lewis knows this is rarely a good defensive strategy, the victim eventually being lulled into making a mistake, one that often can prove fatal.
Which is why Lewis usually prefers offense rather than defence in these situations. The woman wants to stab him, so the last thing she is expecting is for him to attack her. As he predicts, his mae-ashi mawashi geri kick catches her completely by surprise. It is a Shotokan karate manoeuvre, a powerful thrust of the thigh with a twist of the knee, allowing his foot to snap-kick her left wrist hard. It causes her to drop the second needle to the floor, catching her off guard. The result is that she falls to her knees, clutching her left hand in pain.
She struggles up off the floor, but Lewis has already run away, suddenly nowhere to be seen. She hurriedly exits the small passageway and tries scanning the immediate area of the concourse but can’t see in which direction Lewis has headed. None of the passengers in her immediate vicinity appear to have noticed anything out of the ordinary either. Damn him, where has he gone? She is furious, now down to her last remaining needle only to find that she has lost him. Both of her hands and wrists are sore and badly bruised. She searches her phone to see where the tracking device has moved. Not far, is the answer. Somewhere near one of the departure gates up ahead it would seem.
Minutes later she is combing the area around gate 20, still no sign of Lewis. She consults the tracking programme once again. Lewis should be here, almost exactly where she is standing. Except that he isn’t, only a bored-looking businessman on his computer and several other passengers waiting for a flight to Rome to be called.
Two armed airport policemen are advancing with purpose in her direction. One has his MP5 machine pistol in the ready-to-fire position and pointing directly at her. The other is holding a pair of handcuffs and speaks in a crisp, authoritative manner.
“We’d prefer to do this with as little fuss as possible, madam. Please put your hands behind your back.”
60
Heathrow Airport Terminal 5
Watching the Chinese woman’s arrest from behind a magazine rack in a nearby bookstall, Lewis is elated that his plan to remove her from the field of play has been vindicated. All he has to do now is to leave the airport as quickly as possible.
This, however, is easier said than done.
One of the features of Heathrow airport is that once inside the space for departing passengers known as ‘Airside’, there are strict controls preventing people leaving Airside and returning ‘Landside’. In Heathrow’s terminal 5, departing and arriving passengers are kept segregated, each having their own level in the terminal. There is no facility for passengers to move between the two except under conditions of strict supervision. Arriving passengers in transit are permitted to make the move up one floor to the departure concourse, but only once they have passed through additional airport security screening procedures.
If a departing passenger, having already passed through airport security and thus Airside, were to decide that th
ey would like to forget about their flight and head landside and leave the airport, this is not straightforward. Without special assistance from ground staff, movement from the departure level back to the arrival concourse is simply not an option.
This is the predicament that Lewis needs to find a way out of. His favoured plan involves acquiring an airport security pass. The difficulty he faces is that although every member of staff carries such a pass, each security card also requires a personalised four-digit PIN if the card is to be used to pass through any one of the security doors between levels in the terminal building. Watching ground staff arrive at the Rome gate area getting ready to open the check-in, Lewis thinks he knows a way he could solve this particular conundrum.
Removing his jacket, turning it inside on itself so that the black inner lining is on the outside, he places it over his arm, puts on his aviator sunglasses and starts walking at a brisk pace towards the northern end of the terminal. If the airport police or those manning the security cameras are looking out for a man dressed in a red gingham checked shirt and dark brown leather jacket, they would be unlikely to give Lewis, as he is currently dressed, a second glance.
Lewis is searching for a remote gate at the back of the terminal where check-in procedures are about to begin. Eventually he arrives at gate 5 where a flight to Oslo is scheduled but the ground crew have not yet arrived. He positions himself next to the check-in desk. Casually he allows himself to lean against one of the large pillars that support the roof structure. As predicted, two ground staff dressed in the airline’s navy blue livery shortly arrive, one a middle-aged blonde-haired woman and the other a younger man in his twenties. Both take off their jackets, and place them on the back of their chairs. They then log onto the desktop computers that enable them to control the passenger manifest and boarding arrangements for this flight. Another ten minutes go by before the phone on the desk rings. It is the aircrew, informing the ground crew that boarding can commence.
The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1) Page 14