Within minutes of receiving Oscar Hines’s call, Manish Sarkar had digested the email and phoned his brother, who, in preparation for his flight later in the morning, had moved up to his Juhu Beach complex and was now striding about in a rage at the kidnappers’ demands, while his mistress sat on the sofa sipping tea and waiting for him to burn out. She knew it was his brother who was calling because Uttam was immediately becalmed and sat down smacking his lips as if a dummy had been put in his mouth.
Seven minutes later, Oscar Hines received a call from Manish Sarkar saying that his brother had agreed to all the demands and that the £25 million was ready and available at the State Bank of India.
Sergei Yermilov refused to accept the kidnappers’ demands. There would be no circumstances he could foresee that would make him accept an American-led negotiation of his son’s release. Especially not one supported by the CIA with a British kidnap consultant of dubious background. That was the end of the discussion. Hines contacted the British Embassy in Moscow and asked the British ambassador to negotiate with the president’s banker, in the hope that he would be able to bring pressure to bear on Yermilov. This was not going to be easy: from the outset of the conversation the banker revealed that he was in total agreement with his friend. They would not accept an American-led negotiation. That was the end of it.
DCS Hines decided to take it to another level. He called Ken Bass and asked him if he would be willing to speak to his friend the vice president of the United States to see if he would be able to intervene at a higher level than the president’s banker. Three minutes later Bass called to say that the VP was now talking to the Russian Foreign Minister.
Hans Pfeiffer had immediately acquiesced and had already arranged with UBS in Zurich for the sum of £25 million to be made available in London.
Wú Dao-ming was not quite so straightforward. She was staying in Pfeiffer’s house but had retreated to her rooms on the third floor before the kidnap consultant assigned to her had even arrived. He had been sitting there alone with no means of communicating with her for the entire day. Wú Dao-ming had locked herself in, turned off her mobile phone, drawn up a chair to the window and was looking out over Carlyle Square, listening to the rain falling on the bare trees outside. She was in a state of trauma at the disappearance of her only child. She had no one to talk to in London. Her parents were long dead and her husband had died from a stroke after a heavy baijiu drinking session six years ago. She was estranged from her politburo brother and the remaining few members of her family, as well as the many members of her husband’s family, who all loathed her on account of the vast sum of money she’d inherited after his sudden death.
Having achieved an agreement from Pfeiffer, DCS Hines had asked him if he could help the consultant make contact with Wú Dao-ming. However much Pfeiffer and the consultant implored her in all languages from outside her room, she would not open the door, would not answer, would not even leave the window. This was partly because she blamed Karla Pfeiffer for leading her son astray, taking him to nightclubs when he should have been working at his degree. In her mind she had already withdrawn from the investment opportunities shown to her by Hans Pfeiffer and was excluding the Deal-O supermarket chain from the perfect sites she’d assigned to them in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and Guangzhou. She was now in a state of focused fury, which despised all things Western.
The consultant knew that she had not seen the email and had not made any financial arrangements for the ‘expenses’ and decided that the only course of action was to break down the door. It took six kicks, bouncing back and forth between the corridor wall and the door, until finally a panel gave way and they were able to gain entry. Wú Dao-ming hadn’t moved. The consultant asked Pfeiffer to stay outside. He pulled up a chair alongside the Chinese heiress and looked into her face. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her flat, smooth cheeks. He gave her a handkerchief. She wiped her face and dabbed her eyes while the consultant told her about the email. She looked at him. He was young, in his mid thirties, and although he was only half Chinese he was good-looking and reminded her a little of her son. He was also respectful – something her son was losing as he’d imbibed London culture. A slight thaw occurred in her demeanour, which enabled the consultant to impress upon her the need for action.
After minute fourteen, Wú Dao-ming finally agreed to the kidnapper’s demands and made a single thirty-second phone call that resulted in £25 million being made available at ICBC in London.
Anastasia Casey, who was now airborne in a first-class cabin on an Emirates A380, had left instructions for such an eventuality and was woken by the steward.
She was livid. She didn’t like being woken up in the night, even though she’d ordered it. She liked it even less when the steward handed her the satellite phone and she listened to what Brian Horton, the executive director of Casey Prospecting, had to say to her about the email.
‘Tell ’em to fuck off,’ she said. ‘I’m not having some fuck-arse kidnapper telling me what I can and can’t do. The fuck does he think he is? And what are those Poms doing about it? Fuck all. Getting us to kiss arse to make their fucking lives easier. You tell ’em: Anastasia Casey says to fuck right off.’
‘Just so you know, Ani, we’ve got six minutes before they start hurting people, so let’s concentrate on what we want to happen. First off I’ve made arrangements for the twenty-five million to be made available to you at Westpac in the City.’
‘We’re not going to need it. That money’s going nowhere.’
‘The second thing is that they’ve caught the guy who kidnapped Siena,’ said Horton. ‘They’ve got him under interrogation now. The early reports are that he knows fuck all about the main operation. He was just hired to kidnap Siena, which was a piece of piss given her predilection for drugs.’
‘That girl …’ said Anastasia. ‘And this guy has no idea where they’re holding her?’
‘The interrogation has barely started,’ said Horton. ‘My advice to you is to agree to the terms. We don’t have time to do anything else.’
‘Who’s to say they’ll hurt Si first?’
‘There’s only six hostages, so within five minutes we know they’ll have started hurting her.’
‘Might do her some fucking good.’
‘Come on, Ani.’
‘You know what I mean, Brian. She’s been nothing but trouble for the last couple of years. And anyway, what the fuck is this?’
‘What?’
‘This process,’ said Casey. ‘I mean, it’s an engineered process. We’re being forced into a situation.’
‘My reading of it is that we’re being given a lesson in powerlessness.’
‘And what the fuck do I need with something like that?’
‘You’re a person who wields an enormous amount of power, Ani.’
‘You telling me I don’t deserve it?’
‘Maybe we should talk about this later. We’re into the last two minutes.’
‘Has everybody else agreed?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Who’s left?’
‘The Russians and the Americans.’
‘Fucking typical,’ said Casey. ‘Back to the good old days. I’ll agree when the Americans come off the fence. Tell ’em that.’
With forty-five seconds remaining before the 1.45 a.m. deadline, the Kinderman Corporation agreed to the kidnappers’ demands on the advice of Clifford Chase, the London CIA chief. This information was relayed to the US vice president, who was still in a three-way discussion with the Foreign Minister and Sergei Yermilov. He reiterated that Yermilov was now the only parent who hadn’t agreed and that he was putting his own son and all the other children in grave danger. It made no difference to the Russians. They wanted a Russian negotiator not just involved, but in direct contact with the kidnappers.
At 01.45 the deadline elapsed and the central communications office received a second email.
It is no surprise to us that we have not received
your confirmation of acceptance of our conditions to proceed. Lots have been drawn to see who will be the first hostage to be punished. The short straw has been drawn by Karla Pfeiffer. You will be sent a webcam recording of her punishment. The next on the list is Sophie Railton-Bass and then Yury Yermilov. Let us hope that you will have come to your senses before Sophie and Yury have to suffer.
21
01.30, 17 January 2014
unknown location, London
At 1.30, the news came through from the insider in the communications room that Reef had been captured. This initiated the next phase of the operation. Karla was brought blindfolded into a room, pushed down into a metal chair, wrists and ankles taped to the arms and legs. Wires had been connected up to the chair’s frame.
‘When you hear this noise, Karla,’ said the voice, pausing for an audible click, ‘I want you to convulse. I want you to imagine that there’s two hundred and forty volts going through that metal chair you’re sitting on. And you scream. All right? Do you understand?’
The blindfolded girl looked around her, totally bewildered. The voice repeated it in her ear, close up, reassuring.
‘I understand,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know what it means.’
‘That’s good because it’s not important what it means. It’s important that you do as you’re told. If you don’t, we’ll really have to stick two hundred and forty volts through the chair and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘You’re going to be on camera, so do your best. Ready?’ said the voice, standing back from her now.
There was the click and Karla suddenly leapt up as if trying to get out of the chair. She let out a piercing scream, shuddering and convulsing until the chair finally tipped over and she lay on her side still twitching. Another click. The camera went in close on her face: spittle had gathered at the corners of her mouth and her tongue lolled.
‘Cut,’ said the voice. ‘Excellent, Karla. Beautifully done. Are you sure you’re not an actress?’
‘I did theatre studies at school.’
‘Bloody marvellous,’ said the voice. ‘Let’s have the next one.’
Karla was led stumbling away and Sophie was brought in blindfolded, looking pitiful in her Francis Holland uniform, clutching the rag doll frog.
‘All right, Sophie, now we’re going to play a game.’
‘That’s not fair. How can I play a game when I can’t see?’
‘That’s the good thing about this game,’ said the voice. ‘You don’t have to be able to see. What’s important is that people have to be able to see you. Do you get it?’
‘No.’
‘This is about acting the part. What we’re going to do is lie you down facing up with your head over the edge of a sink just as if you were having your hair washed.’
‘My mum always washes my hair with my face down in the sink.’
‘Well this is going to be a little different, OK?’ said the voice. ‘When you’re lying down and comfortable, we’re just going tie your arms down by your sides and put a wet towel over your face. But what we’re also going to do is sneak a little pipe into the corner of your mouth so that you can breathe. Then we’re going to pour water over the towel and we want you to pretend that you’re drowning. Do you know how to do that?’
‘Oh yes, I nearly drowned in my friend’s swimming pool up in Hampstead.’
‘Well that’s what I want you to remember to do when you feel water being poured on to the wet towel on your face.’
‘Oh, OK. Sounds kind of weird.’
‘It is a bit weird, but it’s fun too,’ said the voice. ‘At the end we’re going to pull the towel off your face and the pipe will come out of your mouth with it. And you’ve just got to lie there gasping like a fish out of water.’
They strapped the girl down on to the board, tucked the rag doll frog into her pullover so just the head was sticking out and moved her over the sink. They slipped the pipe into her mouth and laid the wet towel over her face.
‘Ready?’
She nodded.
They started pouring the water over the towel. Sophie writhed, twisting her head so that a pair of hands came in and viced her around the ears. Her little chest strained upwards as if she was desperately struggling to breathe. Even Zach’s red mouth was wide open as if trying to suck in air. They kept it up for thirty seconds and then pulled off the towel. Her face was red, she gasped and gulped and did her best impression of a goldfish she’d once seen flapping and mouthing amongst the broken glass of its bowl.
‘Cut,’ said the voice. ‘Beautiful, Sophie. Loved it.’
They wiped her face down, wrapped a dry towel around her head and led her away.
Yury was next. They brought him in blindfolded, still in his Danes Hill school uniform, sat him down and introduced him to the elephant: a gas mask with a concertinaed breathing tube, which they let him touch.
‘Now, Yury, we’re going to put this over your head, OK?’ said the voice. ‘It’s going to be a tight fit. The game is that when you feel me pinch the tube, you kick out with your feet as if you’re short of air. Don’t worry, we’ll be piping oxygen into the mask from the back so you won’t really feel out of breath. You OK with that? It’s just a bit of play-acting. Some fun.’
‘OK,’ he said, afraid, uncertain.
They strapped him into the chair and put the mask on. When he felt the tube being crimped, he lashed out as instructed, the chair rocking back and forth with his efforts. At the end they lifted off the mask. His hair was all over the place, his face flushed.
‘Cut,’ said the voice. ‘I think that should do it. What time is it?’
‘How did that go?’ asked Boxer, as Mercy got back into the car.
‘No problem. DCS Hines is otherwise engaged. He was happy that we’d captured one of the kidnappers. He’s got some kudos from that. But he’s involved in some crisis that needs an agreement on procedure from all six of the victims’ families within fifteen minutes.’
‘And billionaires are always such agreeable people,’ said Boxer.
‘Where to?’
‘It might be time to make a house call to Martin Fox in St George’s Square, Pimlico.’
Mercy tapped the address into the sat nav, pulled out, drove past the house just as they were bringing Reef and Leo out.
‘I’m thinking it’s no accident this kidnapping has happened in London,’ said Mercy, her mind on the driving. ‘There are more billionaires here than in any other capital city in the world.’
‘Even New York?’
‘New York’s third. Moscow’s second with forty-eight and London’s top with seventy-two.’
‘Good to know we’re top at something.’
‘Pure accident. We’ve got the perfect time zone for both east and west. We’re politically stable, with a nice gentle tax regime for non-doms, who can throw their money into property and walk away doubly rich. It’s like free membership to the casino where the house is at a disadvantage.’
‘Is this a theory?’ asked Boxer.
‘Not yet. I’m just telling you something,’ said Mercy. ‘The UK billionaires have a net worth of more than three hundred billion. That’s over fifty billion more than they had last year.’
‘By the way, does Hines know that we’re both looking for Conrad Jensen?’
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Fifty billion more than last year. And?’
‘That’s the problem. Since the credit crunch back in 2008, we don’t know what a billion is any more. It’s become an ordinary number. How long is a million seconds?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Mercy.’
‘Eleven and a half days,’ said Mercy. ‘And a billion seconds?’
‘I don’t know. A decade?’
‘Thirty-one and a half years. A whole generation,’ said Mercy. ‘These guys sit on their backsides and become richer to the tune of fifty thousand million pounds, that’s one and a half millennia, in
a year. Is that a hell of a lot of money, or what?’
‘In the hands of very few people … dangerous, too.’
‘And to answer your question: no. Hines only knows that I’m looking for Jensen. You don’t feature, sorry. I’m the star of the show,’ she said.
Silence as Mercy drove, interrupted only by the gentle Irish brogue of the male voice on the sat nav.
‘You scared me back there in the house,’ said Mercy.
‘With someone like Reef you’ve got to mean it,’ said Boxer, staring straight ahead. ‘Leo, you cuff him round the head a few times and he’ll cough it up through his tears. Reef ’s been there and back.’
‘I meant how it came out about Isabel.’
‘I was stoned. It just fell out. I don’t seem to have much control over what’s going on inside me,’ said Boxer, looking across to her. ‘You told me Amy’d been taken and it just went in. I can’t react. I don’t feel anything.’
‘And that’s terrible about Isabel. I’m so sorry, Charlie. I can’t imagine …’
‘I don’t want to think about it now,’ said Boxer.
‘You did the same with your father.’
‘I was a kid. A seven-year-old kid.’
They were at a very long traffic light to get on to the East India Dock Road. Mercy hung on to the steering wheel, looking out into the night, shaking her head.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, and sighed as a huge wave of grief tore through her. She dropped her head on to her fists and wept. Boxer rubbed her back.
‘Why are you comforting me?’ she asked.
‘Because I feel the same way,’ he said. ‘I almost don’t believe it’s happened, even though I saw her.’
The lights changed. Mercy stalled. Restarted. Turned right into the City.
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