The President's Fixer: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – a prequel to the Legacy Thriller Series)

by William Wield

  ‘Why the hell are you even trying to play in this league Mr. Pacetti?’ muttered Traynor quietly to himself. Pacetti’s began to stir. Traynor undid the top of the bottle once more and wafted it under Pacetti’s nose a second time. Instantly Pacetti, blinked rapidly, the fumes stinging both his nose and eyes. As though drunk he rubbed his eyes and eventually sat upright and began to focus on Traynor who was sitting opposite him on the corner of a table. He was idly puffing away on a cigarette – yet another time he had broken his pledge to give them up. He was smiling benevolently back at Pacetti who was still trying to understand what was happening.

  ‘Head not too sore from the blow the little lady gave you?’ enquired Traynor not unkindly.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ said Pacetti, as he tried to rise from the chair.

  The speed and strength of Traynor’s grip arriving at his throat caused East End man to whimper as he sank quickly back into the chair. As fast as it had arrived it left again as Trainer backed off to his table again, still smiling.

  He then got up and stepped to one side so that Pacetti could now see both his own gun on the table where Traynor had been sitting and beyond it the sprawled body of Izolda in the corridor.

  Seizing his chance, Pacetti leapt to his feet, lunged forward and grabbed his gun, swinging it wildly back at Traynor. He fired it three times. Three clicks.

  Traynor lunged with his fingers stretched straight out and seemingly locked together with a blow that went into Pacetti’s solar plexus’ just under the sternum of his ribs. Pacetti went down a great amorphous lump of flesh gasping for breath, though Traynor’s strong arms caught him before he reached the ground. As though he were helping a child, Traynor lifted him gently back and settled him back into his chair.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you any more, Mr. Pacetti, and I only have a couple of questions. Once you’ve given me satisfactory answers to them, the two of us can go home. Though I’m sorry of course that Miss Valik who you shot dead, will have to remain here for the police to deal with.’

  ‘I never shot her, …I …’

  ‘Your gun, your finger prints, ballistics?’ said Traynor waving his gloved hands.

  Pacetti no longer had the fight left in him to argue his way out of the ridiculous position he now found himself in. Obviously he’d been framed so he just sat there to see what this stranger would do next. Traynor merely sat on the corner of the table watching him. Soon he was unable to take the silence any more.

  ‘So what questions do you want answers to?’ he muttered.

  ‘Who are you working for? And before you answer, no one will ever know I was here or that you had to tell me anything. So far we two are the only people who know I was here – a little secret just between the two of us. Just answer my questions and you’ll never see me again, okay?’

  Pacetti considered this for a moment. He had been out-maneuvered and could not bear the thought let alone the reality of any more of the punishment that this stranger was obviously capable of administering.

  ‘My family are distant cousins and associates of Guiseppe Lupo of New York.’

  ‘Mafia?’

  ‘No legitimate business and huge at that. If ever we meet again, you’ll be a dead man.’

  ‘Yeah, I believe you,’ said Traynor. ‘Meanwhile, why did Mr. Lupo send you to look around this computer training center?’

  ‘He didn’t say, just wanted me to find where the owners of this place moved to. I was here the other day and the staff pretended that they’re the people who run a super computer here. I know that’s nonsense cos there ain’t even one of them things here. I was sent to see if there are files to say where the team that used to be here have gone. The young woman you say I shot, she was leaving in a hurry. I know her boss is after the same thing as us – his name’s Komarov and as she was running out with the papers. I thought they must be the answer we were both looking for so I was questioning her when she got the better of me – don’t remember much after that.’

  ‘I have the papers now,’ said Traynor, ‘So I suggest you leave this place and if I hear of you or any of Mr. Lupo’s friends anywhere near here again, I’ll hand this gun over to the police and tell them everything I know. Is that clear?

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay, go and just tell Mr. Lupo that you had a leisurely search of the whole place, got into the safe, found nothing in it, never saw anyone else and that there was nothing here to say where the team had gone. Can you manage that?’

  ‘Yeah, I can.’

  ‘Good, then go.’

  Pacetti needed no further encouragement and as fast as his somewhat damaged body could manage, hobbled out of the room and then the centre.’

  Traynor was about to finish and switched off the lights before leaving when he noticed that the answerphone was blinking. Someone must have played back the messages. He pressed the playback button and the recorded message said ‘end of final message’. He did not have the time to listen to whatever had been there, but to be on the safe side he pressed the erase button and deleted all messages – just to be on the safe side. This done, he picked up Pacetti’s gun and put it in the canvas bag and going out into the corridor, lifted Izolda up into his arms; as though carrying a sleeping child, he took her back to the pub. On entering the pub, now quite busy with the evening trade, the clientele made way for him and he laid her down on a bench seat which they quickly cleared for her. She was just beginning to stir.

  Leaving her there in the tender care of a couple of matronly ladies, he went over to the bar and asked for the landlord.

  ‘That’s me,’ said the man behind the bar,

  ‘I fink the young lady may have ‘ad too much to drink or sommin,’ muttered Traynor, slurring his words. ‘Found her outside yer pub. I gotta scarper but them ladies seem to know what to do.’

  With that he turned and was gone.

  Chapter 8

  Morning, Monday 7 March

  Albert Square, Clapham, London

  In the heart of one of London’s popular Italian communities, Pacetti nursed his wounds – both physical and mental. The treatments meted out to him by both Izolda Valik and Tom Traynor had left him wondering if he should perhaps retire from his profession. For his ego it was difficult, but for what to do next, that was easy.

  The tall man whose table he had so arrogantly sat down at in the Newby Lane pub and who had later given him such a dire time, had at least made a good suggestion – to lie about what had happened last night. This was an especially attractive idea with a dead body lying in the corridor – supposedly shot with his own gun.

  Now, this chilly and foggy grey morning, however, the story the tall man had concocted last night made no sense – how had he been so gullible to accept it. For a start, how could he have shot Izolda Valik with his own gun? Though much of the evening was still but a hazy memory, he did at least remember Valik hitting him. The next thing after that was the tall man sitting questioning him. This belated realization at least let him off the hook for murder though it was still an uncomfortable feeling to have one’s gun missing – especially as it had his prints all over it from when he had grabbed it to threaten the tall man.

  ‘Shit, what a mess,’ he muttered to himself as he made some fresh coffee. Still it made his decision to lie an easy one. Already he had worked out what to say and he would perfect it by the time he needed to ring in his report to Giuseppe Lupo in New York. He counted on his fingers …eight …one, two. At two this afternoon, four hours away, it would be nine a.m. Eastern Standard Time – plenty of time to go over this new story again.

  * * * * *

  For Tom Traynor his first job for Angus had been an unexpectedly easy. But from experience he knew that it was unlikely to remain that way. The serious lack of professionalism of Pacetti had done at least half his work for him. He would never have managed to extract such information from a pro. It gave him pause for thought too. How come one of New York’s most notorious family of organized crime had hired a
man like Pacetti? Nevertheless, he still wanted to know what were his connections – other than the obvious one to New York? His is driving licence had said he was from Albert Square. If Angus’s contact team in GCHQ couldn’t help, a visit to Albert Square would soon supply the needed information.

  Promptly at nine he telephoned Angus at Craithe. He assumed that he would be keen to know the outcome of the visit to the Newby centre and he gave him the good news first. Neither the Russians nor the New York Mafia had left the Newby Centre with anything that could lead them any closer to the team’s location. He did mention however that, Pacetti had told him that, by reputation, Izolda Valik was particularly good at her job and that the blow he had delivered to her professional pride could fire her to pursue the team’s location with even greater zeal.

  ‘So there we are,’ he said as he came to the end of his report. ‘I have no specific case on with IPI at present and they would have bleeped me if a new one had cropped up over the weekend. I’ll be going in to them later this morning but as I’m coming to you in less than a month, I doubt if they’ll get me to do anything too demanding of my time between now and then. So give us a shout if I can be of any further help between now and then. I …er…’

  There was a pause during which Angus must have wondered what was coming next – business seemed to have been already concluded. ‘I do hope you won’t think this impertinent of me – perhaps you’ve already thought of it yourself?’ said Traynor at last.

  ‘Not like you to skirt around something Tom,’ said Angus, ‘what’s on your mind?’

  ‘From what I know of your father-in-law and the way he got on with the Russian President at your wedding, I wondered if you had got him to quietly ask around some of the others in the President’s inner circle. I think you told me he used to be one of them. At least it might shed more light on whether Komarov’s pursuit of Athena is one of a lone wolf or if others from the inner circle are looking for us too? Might give us more of an insight to the president too – I gather from your team at GCHQ that he quite often plays people around one off against the other.’

  ‘Well there’s a perfect example of getting too close to things. Why the hell didn’t I think of that?’ said Angus. ‘There may be risks attached to the idea, but the bust-up between Mikhail and the president must be six seven years ago by now – maybe their spat has been forgotten about by now.’

  ‘So worth a try?’ suggested Traynor.

  ‘Why not? and, anyway, Mikhail knows how to look after himself,’ said Angus. ‘I’ll get onto him this morning and see if he might be willing to ask around. I’ll let you know how that develops.’

  As Traynor rang off he felt really good as he already sensed that he was going to enjoy the work he would be doing when he joined Angus and his team. It was good to know too, that Angus was happy to lend him back to IPI if things were slack with Athena and IPI were in need of his unusual talents.

  * * * * *

  For Izolda Valik the Newby Centre mission was one she now wanted to report on straight away and then forget about. As Traynor had suspected, the blow to her morale was serious. Being the perfectionist she blamed herself for just walking through a doorway without greater caution and her anger at herself smoldered on as she prepared to ring Komarov at Nikol’skaya Street.

  ‘So how did it go, any luck?’ said Komarov eager, before she had even said good morning.

  ‘No good at all I’m afraid,’ she replied. ‘I got into the only safe in the building. Some papers but nothing of any use in tracking the Athena team. I just left the papers where they were. I did bump into Guido Pacetti, however, working on behalf of the Lupo organization in New York. He wouldn’t give me the name of his own family or group here in London and as I didn’t want to muddy the waters by killing him so I just left that to another day.’

  ‘That is disappointing,’ said Komarov. ‘I would have thought it extremely difficult to move a quantum computer and a team of what … five, maybe ten or even fifteen people out of the Centre and into thin air – I mean without leaving any trace of any kind.’ Though not himself familiar with social media channels, he was surprised that a move of that many people had not left ripples through such media – and the FSB said they had picked up nothing about a major relocation of a research team.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t report anything more helpful – suppose I’ll need to focus more on individuals in the team, perhaps come back here when the center is open.

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t have the time for that,’ said Komarov, ‘you’d better come back here to Moscow. We have a fallback plan and it may mean we need you on another assignment.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll come back as soon as I can get a flight,’ she said, glad to have got that ordeal out of the way without telling too many lies – real or by omission. Komarov put the telephone down.

  It was an unwanted complication to have Lupo still pursuing him for when he got a hold of Athena. But being aware of Lupo’s plans was not the same thing as being able to put a stop to them. He would need to talk to Silayev about Lupo, maybe see if it was worth getting some of their other mafia contacts on the US Eastern Seaboard to warn Lupo off further involvement in Athena.

  Not an easy thing to do, but manageable surely. He knew that Silayev too would be disappointed by the news of Lupo’s involvement with his plans as he would on the results of Izolda’s visit to the Newby Centre. Just as well that Silayev’s newest plan to track down Athena by using the Manila work to draw it out during a bank attack was going well.

  * * * * *

  Komarov was right. Silayev was annoyed that Izolda Valik’s mission had found nothing and was furious that Lupo was still daring to try and muscle in on business this side of the Atlantic. As soon as he had been briefed he suggested the two of them meet as soon as possible.

  The café where they usually met near Komarov’s office was quite quiet – the breakfast-hungry commuters having left more than an hour ago. As usual Komarov had his table in the bay-window and papers out on its wide sill beside him.

  ‘I’m ready to dump the past and get on as fast as possible with the next phase,’ said Komarov as Silayev seated himself and ordered a large jug of coffee from a waiter lurking nearby. He had no idea what Komarov had in store for him, but he grunted with what he hoped sounded enthusiasm and waited.

  ‘I’ve just heard that the Bank of England are doing a last minute round-up of organisations which need to install Athena’s protection against cyber-attack and the invitations have already gone out to the City of London institutions. Good Friday’s the day of the launch, so we need to press on with your Manila people.’

  ‘Hey, steady up,’ protested Silayev, ‘how do you know all of this?’

  ‘My good friend Roman Vlasenko …’

  ‘What that snake in the grass?’ exploded Silayev, ‘There he sits, one of Russia’s richest oligarchs living it up in London off all his ill-gotten gains – the rape of Russia as some call it – but too proud to come back and rough it in Moscow just because the economy’s …’

  ‘Hey, steady on,’ cut in Komarov, ‘he’s not that bad and from time to time I find him very useful.’

  ‘Have it your own way, but I think he’s no better than a rat. Anyway you were saying, he told you this further detail about Athena’s launch on Good Friday, so what, we knew it was then.’

  ‘I am aware of that,’ said Komarov smiling with an irritating smug look on his face. Silayev could have hit him. ‘That’s why I have taken over the London end of your Manila-based plan,’ he added.

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘You said your plan needed a team of top IT people in London. You implied that they needed to be a bunch of real professionals who would be able to put a trace on Athena the moment it came to the rescue of the bank we are going to attack.’

  ‘Oh for goodness sakes man,’ said Silayev, ‘you’ve gone over my head and recruited a team to do that?’ Silayev slammed his cup down into its saucer.

  ‘
I know, I’m sorry about that but at least, we’re now on schedule with our attacking software and Roman Vlasenko knows of just the very people in London to do the monitoring of the attack for us. So, in short, success is now just around the corner.’

  That was not the way it felt to Silayev. A major part of his personal master plan had been hijacked without even a reference back to him and the vital monitoring of the bank attack which would hopefully trace Athena back to its physical location, had been handed, again without any consultation, to Vlasenko one of London’s least trustworthy oligarchs who always had an agenda of his own.

  He was about to regale Komarov with a lecture about all of this and question him about the trust between the two of them but, just in time decided to hold his peace. He would allow these affronts to simmer – later he would either feel better or worse about them, let time decide which of the two.

  * * * * *

  Angus’s call to Mikhail Vassilov was never going to be easy. Sure, the two of them got on exceptionally well but asking one of Russia’s oligarchs, especially one as wily as Mikhail Vassilov, to go behind the President’s back and talk to members of the inner-most circle? Well, that was a bold request – maybe even foolhardy.

  As soon as he got through, he asked how Tatty, little Jerry and the au pair were enjoying Moscow.

  ‘They’re loving it and although Tatty always enjoyed the countryside more than Moscow, she says she missed it nevertheless,’ said Mikhail. ‘The weather’s not been too cold since they got here but Jerry’s also loved the snow in the park. But you’ll already know most of that,’ he concluded, ‘you speak to Tatty most evenings don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ agreed Angus.

  ‘Your call to me now, everything all right at the bank?’

  ‘Yes fine, the banks doing well,’ said Angus, ‘but it’s Athena I’m ringing about and I’d like your advice.’