The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1)

by David N Robinson

  That was the last time we had spoken.

  No one else has seen the dossier, secreted away as it has been in the safe in my Swiss chalet. I have been paranoid. I made no electronic copies nor kept no paper records. I always knew that, like the fissile material discussed within its covers, in the wrong hands the contents might be lethal. Able to contaminate certainly Iranian, definitely Russian but especially Chinese interests that became over-exposed to it. Mel thought it would benefit the alliance hugely. She had called it ground breaking, enabling the allies to negotiate much tougher outcomes against the Iranians this second time around. It might even, she had thought, cut short the careers of several eminent politicians. Perhaps that has been part of the problem here?

  So, to whom did you show the teaser, Mel, and what did that person do with it? Did someone have a quiet word with a friend in Teheran perhaps? Was it left lying around your office and inadvertently read, perhaps by a Russian or Chinese mole working within the British establishment? It wouldn’t be without precedent. For that matter, why did it take so long, Mel, before your lords and masters came back with only vague promises to help Shafiq? When we spoke on the phone and I explained my fears of there being a leak, you urged me to come to London to discuss everything. Why? This was the exact moment your spies and secret agents should have been smuggling Shafiq across the straits of Hormuz, not allowing VEVAK’s thugs time and opportunity to beat his body to a pulp. God, what have we done, Mel, what terror have we unleashed? I am at my wits’ end, not knowing where to turn to for help.

  So, to whomever is now reading this letter, there is perhaps one who might be able to help provide answers. I am shortly to travel to London, part of my reason being to meet this person, not simply Mel. I have paid this woman well and have faith that she will have done a professional job. Seek her out I implore you. Her name is Bronwyn Adams and she works from a tiny office in Clerkenwell. Talk to her, discover what she may have found, follow every lead through, I beg of you. Shafiq and I must not have given up our lives for no reason.

  Then, but only then, promise me that you will publish the dossier? Publish it posthumously in my name and let’s expose the Crazies and all their madness once and for all.

  In my mind, you are a most kind, humane and generous human being. I thank God for his intervention in allowing you to take up my cause. May he bestow his blessings and mercy upon you for your kindness.

  Leyla Zamani.

  133

  Champéry

  The starting point is the mainline railway station of Aigle, situated to the south of Lake Geneva in the canton of Vaud. In the beginning, the two-carriage rack and pinion train meanders gently, almost sedately, along the valley floor. One minute the track runs alongside small roads and through tiny hamlets, the next the rails are merging with the highway, the train morphing for short periods into a tram. Confused about its identity, the tram quickly becomes a train once more, veering off across open country towards foothill villages. Slowly and graciously, the line twists and turns on itself as it cuts through tiny, tidy, allotments and proudly maintained patches of garden.

  Bit by bit, the train is directed towards the Dents du Midi mountains in the neighbouring canton of Valais, their jagged peaks towering above the flat and non-descript industrial town of Monthey. This is the starting point of the train’s steady climb up the mountain valley beyond. From here, the pinion drive engages into the jagged teeth set in the tracks below in order to assist the train’s sharp ascent, the carriages hugging the landscape as they grind onwards and upwards towards the end of the line, the mountain village of Champéry.

  Holly is mesmerised by the beauty of the landscape. She watches in fascination from the train window as the strong sunlight casts its shadows over the panorama, the light bouncing unevenly off the undulating terrain in ways that causes different hues of darkness and light. Whilst Lewis dozes, she has been savouring the peace and solitude, enjoying the magic of the journey. All too quickly, exactly one hour after leaving Aigle station, the little train meanders its way into the terminus at Champéry, the end of the line as well as the end of the valley.

  Waiting with Holly until the final remaining passengers have disembarked, Lewis is increasingly confident that they have managed to arrive at the small alpine town without anyone following them. Leyla Zamani’s mountain home, according to the detailed instructions that she left in her locked box, is a twenty-minute walk from the station. Emerging into the warm autumn sunshine, they make their way towards the town centre, a pretty single-street that is a combination of old wooden chalets juxtaposed with modern twin-storey buildings. Somewhere along the high street they take a narrow road to the left, up a steep incline leading to various chalets positioned on the hillside above the town. The road eventually dwindles to become a simple walking track, a path that meanders its way ever further up the mountainside. The instructions tell them to head left on a different horizontal track at this point, along a trail that takes them around the back of several chalets and onwards towards the beginnings of a natural hillside woodland.

  When they finally arrive at the house, it takes them by surprise, positioned as it is on its own in the middle of a woodland glade with clear views overlooking the town centre below them. The chalet is an old, dark, wooden construction, with a veranda on the ground floor and wooden shutters on the windows. Probably two or three bedrooms at most, it would have been a compact but idyllically located alpine retreat for the Iranian journalist. Despite the proximity of other chalets, the surrounding woodland provides a feeling of isolation, a sense re-enforced by the nature of their arrival along the winding alpine track. It is, however, an illusion, something that Holly and Lewis discover once they begin to explore. There is a concrete driveway below the property that leads directly down to an access road to the village below.

  Of more immediate concern, sitting in the middle of the driveway is a car. It is a brand new Swiss vehicle with number plates beginning with the letters ‘AI’. Lewis knows that this is a car registered in Appenzell Innerrhoden, a tiny canton with the lowest car taxes of any in the Swiss Federation. One group of companies that did their best to exploit these tax advantages by means of maintaining their corporate headquarters in this canton were car rental companies.

  Whoever is inside the property, they have to have driven there in a hired car.

  134

  Champéry

  Lewis tells Holly to wait hidden in the trees while he goes to the door. The visitor in the rental car could be a cleaner or a neighbour from the local area, there to check on the property, someone who had had to hire a car for some obscure reason. Also possible, however, is that it could be a Russian or Chinese thug with a gun.

  Before knocking, Lewis checks the position of the door. It is a solid wooden construction that will open inwards, hinges on his left, to the person’s right as it swings open. Therefore Lewis positions himself to the right of the right-hand doorjamb, out of sight of the person opening the door. Whoever it is will firstly have to open it and then either step outside to see who is there or else peer around the doorframe. Both options will give Lewis a precious second or two’s advantage in case he needs it.

  He knocks twice on the door and waits, his legs slightly bent at the knee, his body weight centred, once more perfectly balanced. He hears a key being turned in the lock before the door begins to open inward on its hinges.

  Peering around the doorframe emerges as the favoured option. It is a face he doesn’t recognise, a young man, younger than himself. Tall, good-looking, black hair lightly slicked over to one side, and clean-shaven. He is in his shirtsleeves, sleeves rolled up and with hands that look dirty. He is wearing pinstriped trousers and brogues that together appear immediately out of place in an alpine village. Lewis notices the shoes. They are covered in dust. Underneath, however, they are polished to a mirror shine. Ex-military, Lewis is confident. No civvy ever
buffed his shoes that well.

  “Bonjour,” the man says hesitantly. It is an unmistakeably English voice.

  Ben introduces himself, hand outstretched, both with firm grips. Lewis feels office hands, few callouses or rough skin, the military service clearly something of a faded memory for this one.

  “Quentin Dunleavy,” the man says, this time in public school English.

  “Is this your chalet, Quentin?” Lewis asks?

  “Goodness me, no,” Dunleavy replies, stepping outside into the open air. “The woman who owns it, owned it I should say, has died. My boss and she were close friends and she, my boss that is, asked me to come and look for something. Sorry, that all sounds rather lame, I know. Who might you be, Ben?”

  Lewis doesn’t answer immediately, instead beckoning to Holly to come join the pair of them on the doorstep.

  “Quentin, this is Holly, my sister-in-law.” The two of them shake hands. “Quentin, how well did your boss know Leyla Zamani?”

  “Very, apparently. They were at school together. She even gave my boss a set of keys to this place. Apparently she was happy to let her use it whenever she wanted. Not a bad deal, eh?” he said with youthful enthusiasm. “It’s a fabulous location, don’t you think?”

  “Your boss,” Lewis continues. “She wouldn’t be Mel Allen by any chance?”

  Dunleavy looks taken aback. “Yes, yes it is. My goodness, do you know her then?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. I was speaking with her earlier as a matter of fact. Why don’t we all go inside, and I can explain.”

  135

  Champéry

  In contrast to the dark exterior, the chalet is surprisingly light inside. Sunlight streams through large front windows, the wooden floors and walls of the rooms providing a feeling of warmth and welcome. There are bookshelves throughout, every spare section of wall space crammed with books: hardbacks and paperbacks lie everywhere, even beside the staircase leading to the upper floor. As if that weren’t sufficient reading material, copious magazines and journals lay stacked in neat piles in various corners and recesses.

  It is obvious that Dunleavy has been searching the place. Books are scattered in random piles in various states of disorder, certainly explaining the dirt on Dunleavy’s hands and the dust on his shoes.

  Dunleavy is apologetic. “I’ve been looking for some important papers. When this Zamani woman died, she apparently had written or compiled some sort of dossier. Mel thought, actually is very much hoping, that this dossier might be here in the chalet somewhere. She’s in Geneva, with the Minister, at the nuclear talks. Sent me to come and hunt around. It feels like I’m on something of a wild goose chase, to be honest.” He stops and remembers something. “Actually, you still haven’t said why you two are here.”

  Lewis holds up the set of house keys that they’d found in the Geneva safe deposit box. “Leyla gave me the keys to this place as well. What kind of dossier?”

  Dunleavy looks hesitant. “Well, something about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. As you probably know, Zamani was a journalist. A specialist in nuclear matters apparently.”

  “Where have you been looking?” Lewis asks.

  “Where haven’t I looked more like?” Dunleavy says, his arm waving around the room, the exasperation clear in his tone. “I haven’t found anything that remotely that resembles a dossier, I’m afraid.”

  “So here’s the deal, Quentin. If I can help you find it, Holly and I get to read through it first. Is that fair?”

  “More than fair. If it’s not found soon, I’m likely to get fired and the Minister is not going to get himself a new nuclear peace treaty.”

  “Good. In that case, we need to head upstairs to the bathroom.”

  The mirror is rectangular shaped and sits proud of the bathroom wall immediately above the hand basin. It is secured in four corners by what appear to be standard mirror fittings. These are four screws set into the four corners of the glass that have a hole drilled in their centre into which is fitted a chrome semi-circular cap that hides the screw from sight when in everyday use.

  Zamani’s instructions had been precise. If Lewis hadn’t known to look, he would never have seen that down the right hand edge of the mirror, the side furthest from the door and thus not immediately visible when entering the bathroom, was a discrete vertical hinge.

  Lewis unscrews two of the semi-circular chrome caps from the screws positioned in the upper and lower left-hand corners of the mirror. Then, taking Leyla Zamani’s key ring from his pocket, he locates a tiny metal hexagonal rod with small indentations down its length. He inserts this into each of the two holes previously covered by the chrome caps, giving the key a sharp clockwise twist as he does so. A quiet ‘click’ is audible each time. With both locking mechanisms released, the mirror is able to swing outward on its hinge.

  “I’d have never, ever, thought to have done anything like that,” Holly says, standing next to Lewis, holding Zamani’s detailed instructions in her hand. Dunleavy is leaning against the bathroom door, watching in fascination, his eyes riveted on what is about to be revealed behind the mirror.

  In fact, it is a simple wall safe with an electronic keypad and a small circular handle beneath. Lewis keys in the six-digit code that had been written on Leyla Zamani’s instructions, each key emitting a beeping sound as a particular numerical digit is depressed. Finally, he twists the handle in an anti-clockwise direction. There is a satisfying ‘clunking’ sound: Lewis is now able to pull open the safe door open.

  136

  Champéry

  The bulk of the safe contains a stack of papers in a ring-binder file about five centimetres thick. There are also several items of personal jewellery tucked at the back. Lewis removes the dossier, flicking through it a few times before returning to the cover sheet, reading out loud from the first paragraph.

  My name is Shafiq Hamidi.

  I am a nuclear physicist and lead negotiator working for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran.

  For some years, I held specific management responsibility for the uranium and other fuel enrichment programmes at Fordow, Isfahan and Nantaz.

  In recent months I have become the chief negotiator responsible for extending Iran’s economic and commercial relationship with representatives of the governments of China, the original suppliers of reactors and technical expertise at our Isfahan nuclear research centre, and with Russia, who helped us build our nuclear facility at Bushehr and who continue to supply specialist technical support.

  Lewis stops reading out loud, skimming a few pages before handing the dossier to Dunleavy. He seizes it avidly and immediately retreats from the bathroom, making his way down the stairs with Holly following closely behind. One additional item in the safe has caught Lewis’s eye. It is a handgun, a Brazilian made Taurus 738 TCP. Ensuring that no one is watching, Lewis checks that the .380 calibre weapon is loaded before tucking the compact into the inner front left-hand pocket of his jacket. The Swiss are particular about private individuals owning handguns. Given what has happened these last forty-eight hours, however, Lewis feels distinctly more comfortable armed than not.

  137

  Champéry

  Downstairs, Dunleavy is engrossed in the dossier.

  “Is that what you were looking for?” Lewis asks him.

  “More than, it’s unbelievable.” He skim-reads a bit more then hands the file to Lewis. “We had an agreement. It’s your turn to take a look.”

  Lewis reaches for the dossier and sits on the sofa next to Holly. She is on his left and once he sits down she places her right arm around his shoulders. A lot is written in technical language, some in Farsi but mostly in English. The gist of several of the letters, reports and emails is clear: access to weapons in exchange for oil and mineral rights. The size of some of the ‘introductory commissions�
�� causes Holly to let out a whistle.

  “Wow, that’s an obscene amount of money to be paying someone,” she says at one stage.

  “You’re in the wrong job, for sure,” Lewis says, handing the file back across to Dunleavy. He shakes his head, getting up from his chair and heading towards the door.

  “You keep reading for the moment. I need to call Mel, tell her the good news. She and the Minister are going to be delighted.”

  Alone together on the couch, Lewis lays the dossier down on the table in front of them and removes the folded sheets of A4 paper, the handwritten letter from Leyla Zamani, from his jacket pocket. Together they start reading this once again, the Iranian’s voice from the dead talking to them as if she was in the room.

  “You were the answer to that lady’s prayers, or so it would seem,” Holly says once they had finished reading it.

  Lewis folds the letter and places it back in his pocket. “Possibly, or perhaps simply in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place, depending on your point of view.” He looks up to see whether Dunleavy is back in the room yet, but there is no sign of him. “I wonder if our friend Dunleavy knew about the ‘teaser”?”

  “We should ask him,” Holly says, and then stops talking, her jaw frozen, her eyes wide. There is a look of sheer terror on her face.

  Dunleavy has come back into the room. This time he is not alone. Behind him, a gun in his left hand pointing directly at Dunleavy’s back, is a stocky, mean-looking man, his right arm heavily bandaged at the elbow.