She ignored the question, “Why are you keeping me here?”
“That, I am afraid is my dilemma. I was under the impression that you were in possession of some documents that could cause great harm to my friends and me. We did initially hope to force a trade by abducting your son. That did not go as planned. We searched your home for these papers and could not find them so we abducted you in the belief that you would tell us where you stored them. It now seems you have no idea of the location of said papers. Now I am stuck with you and no documents. You see my problem?”
“You could just put me ashore.”
“Or I could just dump you overboard. Neither option gets me what I want though.”
Jackie felt the fear rise, she knew this man had no real humanity and would dispose of her in the same way most people would throw out an old pair of shoes. “I do not know where these documents are. There is nothing I can do to help you.”
The main course had been served and the aroma of duck filled the room. She did not feel hungry and ignored the plate in front of her. Her stomach was cramped in a tight ball as the fear of this monster, sat across the dining table, engulfed her. She felt like screaming, running or throwing herself at his feet weeping for mercy and her life. She knew in her heart that he would not be moved one jot by any of those actions. So she sat still waiting for him to continue.
“If you want to live, you need to work with me.”
“I have nothing to offer,” she replied simply.
“But you do, your husband.”
“My husband, he knows no more than I.”
“I accept at this point in time that that may be the case. When the papers turn up I need him to bring them to me and not give them to MI5 or the Americans. You will contact him and get him to cooperate with us. You will have to persuade him.”
She felt a moment of defiance and rebelled at his bullying for an instant, “If I don’t?”
“I shall kill you, your husband and your son and anyone else that gets in my way for that matter.”
She knew he was serious and felt tears come to her eyes. She fought them back in order to keep a small part of her dignity. She sat silently looking down at her plate of untouched food.
“Eat up, there is little point in starving to death,” he said, as she poked the food round her plate. “We will set up an untraceable phone link and you will phone your husband and tell him what is required. Do you understand?”
Chapter 24
Tim sat at the dining table at his and Jackie’s house in Muswell Hill with his head resting in his hands. He had not moved for nearly an hour. The coffee, he had made earlier, remained untouched on the table before him. He felt helpless.
He had been in contact with the Egyptian police and that had been a complete waste of time. They had been more interested in trying to pin the death of the Romanian on him than trace his wife. Tim knew in any event that Jackie was no longer in Egypt. What he did not know was what her abductors wanted with his wife. The house was in a mess. He did not have the motivation to clean and tidy up. It seemed pointless. So he sat in silence brooding on the situation.
He had gone into Thames House, the headquarters of MI5. His colleagues had been supportive and conciliatory. Of course that was no consolation, the conversation with Elaine, the Director of MI5, offered some hope however.
“I have five people chasing down every bit of Intel on these people and Stiles is heading up the team. We have GCHQ monitoring all traffic and an almost direct feed of the data to the team here. If anything pertaining to your wife, any scrap, any detail comes through, it will be picked up.”
Tim was grateful. It was well beyond MI5’s area of operations to investigate kidnappings abroad but, given he was an MI5 employee, it could be justified as defending an attack on the Service. He knew Elaine and Stiles would give it their total commitment.
Despite everyone’s best efforts, the link between Jackie and the Russians remained illusive. First the attempted kidnap of Daniel and now her abduction clearly showed that the Russians were desperate. Tim had not mentioned that he had been the target of an assassination attempt by the Russians, had he it would have meant exposure of his connection to Annubis. That would have raised difficult questions as to his involvement in Jason Delonge’s death and that was a distraction he wanted to avoid at this juncture.
Had this been a normal kidnap and ransom he would have expected contact and demands by now. He would have been assigned an expert negotiating team to deal with the kidnapper’s demands. This clearly was not a kidnap for monetary gain. The Russians were among the richest people on the Planet.
He finally roused himself into life when he needed the toilet. He walked through the glass door to the lobby and into the downstairs lavatory. Having relieved himself he walked back into the combined living, dining area and realised what a mess it was. He had not even bothered to unpack the suitcases that had been retrieved from Egypt and forwarded on by the airline.
With a sigh he set to work. The fact he was doing something, even if it was only putting cloths away, hoovering and starting the washing made him feel a little more positive. “Oh shit,” he said out loud.
He had just remembered the wedding cake and flowers in the boot of John’s, Jackie’s dad’s, car. He knew that it would not be a pleasant sight and by now the flowers would be festering. He wedged the front door open with a shoe from a pair he had abandoned in the lobby and walked down the path to the car.
He looked at the large brown envelope he had found in the boot. He placed it on the dining table while he had went back to the car with a disinfectant spray and a cloth in an attempt to get the stench from the rotting table displays, which had been in the boot for the last eight or nine days, to dissipate. He was partially successful but the odour still lingered and had permeated the bottom tier of the wedding cake. He put the cake and the dead table displays in a black plastic sack and then put it all in the wheelie bin outside. That left the envelope sitting on the table.
For some reason he felt a sense of reluctance to open it. He had the sort of felling one might have if a private detective had been employed to gain evidence of a cheating spouse. He desperately wanted to know what was in the envelope, posted from Iceland, in the hope it may help him get Jackie back, on the other hand he feared that its contents may be benign and he would not further the return of his bride.
He went to the drawer where he knew there was a box of latex gloves. Jackie had purchased a pack when she saw them on offer at the chemists. She had used several pairs when they had been making up the little gifts, as place markers for the Wedding guests. Jackie had her nails done professionally for the Wedding. She rarely had them painted and really wanted to protect them for the big day. The gloves had seemed an ideal solution. In fact they had been more trouble than they were worth.
Tim struggled to don the gloves but eventually succeed. He did not know the contents, but he did not want to contaminate the papers inside. Any piece of evidence from a finger print to saliva containing DNA could be crucial to the safe return of his wife. He carefully opened the envelope causing as little damage as possible.
With the Icelandic postmark he had already surmised that the letter must be from her dead friend and ex colleague Maurice Lee. He feared that it may contain no more than a badly wrapped wedding gift, such as a book. He was wrong.
He spread the original documents out on the dining table. He knew instantly he had his link to the Russians and why they desperately wanted the contents back. Although he did not understand fully the complexities it was easy to see the billions of dollars and the participants involved. Fear gripped as he realised that this went right to the front door of the Kremlin.
In a sense, knowing what was behind it all was worse than not knowing as the enormity of the forces ranged against him became apparent. The stakes were so high that he and Jackie we mere flies that needed to be swatted.
Tim slumped back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. He felt the tens
ion in his neck and shoulders and the fear in the pit of his stomach, “We’re fucked,” he said out loud, “completely fucked.”
Whatever he did he could see a bad outcome for Jackie. He knew realistically he had no chance of negotiating her release on his own. However he turned the problem in his mind, he could not see himself walking up to the Russians with the documents and them saying thank you and handing his wife back. They would simply kill them both and in doing so completely mop up all the loose ends.
If he showed the documents to Elaine she would immediately hand them to MI6 for onward transmission to the Americans who would instantly go after the money, freeze it, if they could, and have the option to cause major embarrassment to the Russians, when and if they chose to do so. Jackie would just be a tiny piece of collateral damage, not even given a second thought in the high stakes game of international diplomacy.
The only card he had was that Yerik and his merry band of crooks and politicians had no idea where the evidence was. As long as that was the case they would keep Jackie alive as a bargaining chip. That situation would not continue indefinitely and ultimately, Tim would have to reveal he had the goods. Tim knew at that point he was in danger of them just turning up and torturing him, until he gave up the envelope. At that point both he and Jackie would be disposable.
Tim sat silently looking at the ceiling as though divine inspiration would appear from above. A shaft of light shon through the gap in the curtains in front of the french windows that led to the small rear garden. The dust particles rose and fell making intricate patterns, like swirling rainbows in the mist. It reminded him of the hours after his friend Yosuf had been shot and he had been alone and confused, sat in a hotel room not knowing where to turn.
He suddenly remembered the large amount of money and credit cards he had stashed. He realised he was not completely without resources and decided that he should at least retrieve it from the depository as a fighting fund. He made the trip and he was back several hours later with the cash. He had at least the money to fund his fight for his and Jackie’s life. Now he needed more.
He would need help. He had one ally in Mem, Annubis, a man who killed for money, a man that had been driven by revenge for years. He knew how to contact him. He had imparted that before they split in Egypt.
Things, if small, were mounting in his favour, money and a contract killer. He also had the resources and intelligence gathering capabilities of MI5 working for him. He knew that realistically he needed more.
The burning question was would Stiles help him to save his wife. He knew that Elaine could not, but Stiles might. As deputy director of MI5 he had a great deal of autonomy. Tim knew he needed his help but how far would their friendship stretch?
Chapter 25
Terrance Mailer’s fortunes had a major reversal for the good. Following his interference in MI6’s operation in an attempt to aid his long time friend Jason Delonge, he had been demoted to the Back Benches. The change of leadership and a new Prime Minister had seen all that forgotten. He had managed the new PM’s leadership campaign and his reward had been the post of Foreign Secretary. Along with that came the oversight of MI6. MI5 of course came under the Home Office.
The first thing he did was to engineer the retirement of the current head of MI6 and his replacement by his inside man Bernard Waverly. He had been part of their old school clique, the people that Mailer considered the “right sort” of people to govern the Country.
Mailer had been shocked at the murder of Delonge but it was all to the good for him. His sordid secrets hopefully had died the night Delonge died. Now of course he was in a position to ensure that his indiscretions with young boys stayed buried. He now had his eye firmly on the PM’s job.
He noted that he had a meeting scheduled for later that day with both Bernard Waverly and Elaine Wilkins. Clearly MI5 wanted something but he had no intention of helping the bitch who had help cost him his job. “She could go fuck herself,” he smiled to himself.
At Thames house, the headquarters of MI5, there was a meeting in progress. Elaine, Stiles and Tim were gathered in the conference room. Tim had heard nothing as yet from his wife and had kept the existence of the file incriminating Yerik and his cronies to himself. He had not been idle though and had used his time digging out every possible connection and every scrap of information he could, using the full intelligence gathering capability at MI5’s disposal. He had set no boundaries to his investigation and had misused his position to delve into every nook and cranny, searching for any scrap of information, scandal or indiscretion that he could conceivably use to help his wife.
“I cannot see what help you expect to receive from MI6,” said Elaine,” Waverly hates my guts and wouldn’t cross the road to piss on me if I were on fire.”
“I have to try everything. She is my wife and we know that Yerik has her. However and wherever I get the chance to rescue her I will need manpower. There is no way Yerik is going to turn up with her in mainland Britain, so I need MI6 to help get her back from outside the UK,” said Tim.
“What’s in it for Mailer? Why would he stick his neck out just to get back a kidnapped woman?” said Stiles. “You have to be realistic.”
“Stiles is right. This is really a police matter and not a national security matter,” she said.
“I intend to make it a national security matter.”
Elaine raised her eyebrows and looked at Stiles in a concerned manner. “Tim you cannot really expect me to be party to some deception that would drag British security into a potential conflict with the Russians. I feel for your dilemma and I would obviously do anything to help as a friend but I cannot misuse my position. You know that.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” said Tim “all I have asked is that you get me in front of the Foreign Secretary and I’ll take it from there.”
“I need to know what you’re going to do or say.”
“Trust me you don’t want to know,” said Tim.
Chapter 26
Terrace Mailer had agreed to see them at his Office in the Palace of Westminster, claiming that he had limited time and was due to make a statement to the House on immigration. Elaine, Stiles, Waverly, Mailer and his aide found themselves gathered around the table in the Minister’s office.
“As you know I have a very tight schedule today so I would ask that we keep this brief and get to the heart of the matter,” said the Foreign Secretary.
Waverly, head of MI6, opened, “This is an MI5 matter and I understand that they are seeking MI6 co-operation in, potentially, a very delicate situation.” It was very clear from his body language that he did not want to help in anyway. In fact he held quite a large dislike for Elaine and would have much preferred the head of MI5 to have been one of his old school cronies. She, being a woman to his mind, made it all the more difficult to do business. It was much easier when you dealt with the right sort of people and the right sort of people to his mind were the people that had gone to the same school as he and Mailer.
“What exactly are you asking me to sanction?” said Mailer.
“As you are aware Tim’s wife has been taken hostage by a group of Russians. It is not clear what they want at this stage but it is clearly an attack on MI5. It is an act of terrorism against this Country, but outside its borders so we are asking for the resources to combat the threat,” said Elaine.
“What is this threat? What do they want?” said Waverly.
“We are unclear at the present,” said Elaine. She was telling the truth. Tim had no intention of handing the documents incriminating, Nikhil, Yerik and Lesta over to anyone as they were his only bargaining chip in getting his wife back alive.
“Exactly my point, you are asking for a blank cheque,” said Waverly.
“I obviously sympathise with Tim and I would move heaven and earth if it were my wife in this situation but I have to ask, is it in the National Interest, before I authorise intervention in an overseas territory,” Mailer said.
“Are you
seriously trying to say you will let a bunch of what are after all thugs and thieves hold this Countries Security Service to ransom and sit there and do nothing about it? What sort of message will that send out? Feel free to abduct and blackmail us and will just roll over and take it up the arse,” said Elaine.
“I was not suggesting that we roll over and as you so colourfully put it, take it up the arse. I was suggesting we adopt a measured response and await further developments,” said Waverly.
“No, you are saying fuck you. It’s your problem and I will do my damn best to let you stew,” said Elaine.
“Let’s just take the heat out of this for a moment,” said Mailer. “This bickering will get us no further.”
“Look, these bastards have taken my colleague’s wife hostage and aim to blackmail us. I need the resources to send out a message to the Russians that they can’t fuck with us without consequences,” she said.
“Do you have any idea what they are after?” said Mailer.
“Well it will be to do with the money they have stolen to make themselves and their cronies’ billionaires. That is for sure. They have no shame, they just take the piss. There is a cellist that is worth millions in theory. In practice the Kremlin have blatantly used him to launder money stolen from the Russian coffers. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. They are running rings around the US sanctions. What second rate musician makes millions strumming a fiddle, for Christ sake?” she said.
“In short you haven’t got to the bottom of it yet,” said Waverly smugly.
“What exactly are you asking for?” said Mailer.
“We suspect that she is being held aboard a yacht in the Med. If we designated it as a terrorist hostage situation it could come to the point where we could use a specialist tactical force to free Mrs Burr.”
“You want a navel vessel and the special Boat Service on standby?” asked Waverly.
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