With that pleasantry, Babikov roared with laughter and the two FSB thugs at his side allowed themselves a goony smirk or two. Robson wasn’t roaring with laughter, but he was confident enough in his proposal to have another swig of Hangar One. He had always planned to siphon off a few hundred million from the North Korean gold haul, so £25 million or so to get this limb-chopping crazy Ruski off his back was neither here nor there. That fucking wanker Darke had better deliver he thought and he further thought that he had better get himself some additional leverage over the Scot.
As Babikov and Robson clinked their vodka tumblers to signal an agreed deal, the Russian asked, “Now Neil, about this small problem you have at the office?”
* * *
Joel Gordon was pleased with his day’s work. He had been led to believe that Neil Robson was a bit of a dodgy character, but he had seemed pleasant enough to him today. He was glad that he had put in the extra hours on the expenditure figures even though it may mean something of a headache for Robson and Chancellor Walker. Still, one man’s pain and all that. If it led him to being promoted to Deputy Head of the Treasury’s finance department then great. Joel thought he would celebrate in advance by ringing his girlfriend Talisha to meet him at Pizza Express on Terrace Road, only about twelve minutes’ walk from the Boleyn Ground, formerly Upton Park and a further ten minutes or so from where he lived. Normally, Joel preferred eating at the Ronak Restaurant in Romford Road because it had a wide selection of vegetarian dishes that he liked. Talisha liked pizza and every now and then so did Joel.
“Hi babe,” said Talisha in that loudish way that is natural to Americans but still a bit noisy for the rest of us.
“Hi sweetie,” replied Joel, standing up from the table and giving Talisha a warm squeeze. She was an African American by origin but had been transferred to London a few years ago, working for Arthur Anderson, the accountancy conglomerate. Talisha was curvy but slim, despite her liking of pizza, quite tall, with dark, thick brown hair and olive green eyes. Joel felt he was lucky to have such a looker as his girlfriend. They had been going out for about ten months, having met at a local wine bar, and were getting on famously.
“I’ve ordered your favourite, Margherita with extra pepperoni,” beamed Joel, pleased with himself that he knew and remembered Talisha’s favourites. “A Giardiniera for me.”
“Thanks babe,” replied Talisha. “You sounded happy on the phone, good day at work?”
“Yes, I won’t bore you with all the details, but I did some good forensic work on the government’s finances and I’m hoping that it will lead to a swift promotion.”
“That’s great, Joel!” exclaimed Talisha, genuinely happy for her boyfriend. He may not be the most handsome guy in the world, but they got on well, they both had good jobs and were ambitious. If they stuck together, she thought, they may soon be able to move from E13 and E6 to SW3 or SW1. They could still eat at Pizza Express, there was one on the King’s Road she knew of but the other shops and their clientele were way more upmarket. Just where she wanted to be.
* * *
Around the same time as Talisha and Joel were tucking into their pizzas, Cyrus and Gil were tucking into theirs. Although the Pizza Express on the King’s Road was literally an Olympic discus competitor’s throw from their house in Markham Square, they had decided to order take away. Pizza Express didn’t deliver so this meant Gil going to get them. She and Cyrus had best of three rock, paper, scissors to decide who should go and Cyrus had won 2-1. Gil claimed that, in fairness, she should, therefore get to choose the movie they would watch. Cyrus agreed but vetoed any out and out chick flick.
“Ok, so what are we watching, Gil?” asked Cyrus, having a hearty munch of his pizza.
“I’m trying to decide between Skyfall and Casino Royale. Even with the new Bond movie out, I think Skyfall may be the best Bond so far.”
Cyrus quite liked the Bond movies. His dad had introduced him to them and, of course, being Scottish he had always claimed that Sean Connery was the best Bond. Even his dad, however, had recognised recently that maybe Daniel Craig was better, or at least more modern realistic with slightly less cheesy double entendres. Cyrus missed his dad and he hadn’t had a phone call for a couple of days; he really hoped he was OK.
“I prefer Casino Royale,” Cyrus piped up in between mouthfuls.
“You’re only saying that because you fancy Eva Green,” teased Gil.
“Were I to fancy any of the celluloid superstar girl actresses in the movie, Gil, it would be Caterina Murino, she’s hot to trot, dark and sultry, more my type than the English rose,” elaborated the young man.
“Eva Green is French,” corrected Gil, pleased with her movie knowledge.
“Whatever,” replied Cyrus, still the counter of choice for youngsters when they had lost a verbal joust. “My decision is based on the quality of the bad guy. While Javier Bardem is a great actor, I didn’t like him in his role in the first three quarters of Skyfall. All that fake blond hair, touching up Daniel Craig on the island and pulling his own dentures out in the MI6 basement. It was gross. By contrast, Mads Mikklesen is all simmering danger, a financier of death, not someone to meet at night in a dark alley.”
“What about his bleeding eye?” countered Gil. “Wasn’t that gross?”
“It was, but not as gooey as Bardem’s collapsed gob,” conceded Cyrus, being especially Scottish at this particular moment.
“OK, OK,” said Gil. “We’ll watch Casino Royale… but the song from Skyfall is better.”
“Agreed,” said Cyrus pleased to have gotten his way in both movie choice and pizza delivery system.
* * *
While both sets of pizza eaters did not know each other, they were about to have more in common than they would have liked, courtesy of Neil Robson. The slimy debt-ridden politician had agreed to pay Vladimir Babikov £1 million each for two stakeout operations. Robson had had only a one word reply so far to his question to JJ Darke regarding the status of the DPRK operation. ‘Fine’ did not really quench the desire for information on the mission that Robson had burning within him, but that’s all he had received so far. In case Darke was up to any shenanigans or even thought of double crossing his old MI5 colleague, Neil Robson convinced Babikov to allocate him one of his ex-FSB bodyguards to shadow Cyrus Darke. This shouldn’t be a difficult job, thought Robson. We’re talking about a fourteen year old kid who was barely aware of his willie let alone the dangers that lurk around every big city corner. The kid went to school, sometimes had after school clubs, went home, went out and seemed to have a partially crippled Asian nanny to accompany him on occasion. Hardly a serious tester for Boris the thug, assessed Robson. Still, if Daddy Darke fucked up in any way, shape or form Robson needed to have instant leverage over and above the insider trading stick. The kid would be fine and dandy as long as his dad kept his end of the bargain.
Vasily the thug may have a more involved task to earn his boss the extra £1 million. Vasily’s job was to shadow Joel Gordon. On the face of it, not that much more difficult than Boris’s operation. Joel Gordon went to work, came back, sometimes went out with a girl, sometimes went to the gym. He was as easy to shadow as the Darke lad. Robson, however, was iterating towards the conclusion that Joel Gordon needed to have an accident. Neither he nor Chancellor Walker could afford to have any leaks sprung regarding the hole in the government’s finances. It was a sure-fire election loser. Both the Chancellor and Robson would likely join the ranks of the unemployed and while Walker may earn a few bob with his soporific memoirs and some non-executive directorships, Robson at best, could look forward to a couple of high-paying after dinner speeches and then that would be that. If they were exposed before Darke came back with the gold then the Scot might feel that he and his colleagues were off the insider trading hook, and abandon the gold mission. No, no thought Robson, the young accountant had to be either talked out of it or taken out of it.
“Come in Joel,” welcomed Neil Robson. “Thanks for
agreeing to this meeting at short notice. Tea? Coffee?”
“A green tea would be nice if you have it,” replied Joel Gordon. “A plain black one if you don’t,” he added. “No sugar.”
He’s a fucking dreamer, thought Robson. Green tea in HM Treasury. Give me a fucking break. He’s lucky to get a proper cup, the dimwit. Robson poured Joel a cup of plain black tea and one for himself with milk and sugar included.
“Joel, I have news and I have a request. The news, and I hope you consider it to be good news, is that I’ve had a word with the Chancellor. He was very impressed with your detailed report. He instructed me to tell you that as soon as the election is won, you will get the Deputy Head of Finance position.” Robson sounded convincing, as befitted his status as one of the government’s better orators. In truth, he hadn’t mentioned a word to Jeffrey Walker. The Chancellor was already having a queasy meltdown over the £3bn hole and the illegal plan to fill it. If he knew that Joel the financial Rottweiler had his teeth clamped on the issue, he’d probably throw in the towel.
Joel Gordon absorbed the news. Ideally, he had wanted the job before the election, but, hey, it was only a matter of months, he could wait.
“Thank you, Mr Robson, that’s great news,” said Joel.
“No need to thank me, Joel,” Robson replied. “You’ve earned it through your work,” he added insincerely.
“You said you also had a request, Sir?”
“Yes, Joel. The Chancellor and I believe strongly that we need to keep this information strictly between the three of us. Walls have ears and the Treasury has a lot of porous walls. We totally trust you but each additional person that knows, guesses, implies that the government has a £3-4bn black hole increases the probability of an external leak and one which would be fatal to the government’s re-election prospects.”
“What about Mr Wilson? He’s my direct boss, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and he would need to know about my impending promotion,” stressed Joel, being the consummate professional that he was.
“You can’t tell Craig as yet,” said Robson. His voice was not raised, but it was strong and deliberate. “Look, Joel, if you tell Craig then a sequence of dynamic events will unfold that we may eventually lose control of. First, if Craig knows you’re leaving his office to be Deputy Head of Finance, then he will begin the search for your replacement. That will involve HR, maybe outside head hunters. They will ask questions and you may appear less than open if you do not tell all, which you cannot. Then your colleagues will ask about your rapid, nay meteoric promotion. That would involve more evasiveness on your part, of which you may not be skilled.” Robson looked directly at Joel and he nodded, he sure was not skilled at evasion. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury spent a few more minutes detailing the potential pitfalls of Joel telling anyone about his findings or his upcoming promotion.
“Are we in agreement?” Robson asked.
“I guess so, Sir,” said Joel, by now a little taken aback by the subterfuge surrounding the whole issue. Robson stood up to signal that the meeting was over. They shook hands.
As Joel was leaving Robson’s office to return to his own, the Financial Secretary asked, “What time do you finish tonight, Joel?”
“Around 6pm, Sir, my usual time,” he replied. It was 4pm now.
“Look, it’s been a complex day for you, lots to think about. Why don’t you leave a little early, say 5 o’clock, go home have a bit more relax time,” Robson said cheerily.
“Thank you, Sir, I think I will,” replied Gordon and with that he went back to his office. Neil Robson stayed in his till just before 6pm. He felt that he had been convincing and sincere enough in his delivery and content that Gordon would not mention his forensic accounting or upcoming promotion to anyone. Still, as he pondered further their conversation ‘I guess so, Sir’ did not really smack of full commitment and it was full commitment that Robson sorely needed at this point. MI5 officers are trained to leave as little as humanly possible to chance and he had not forgotten his training. Maybe he would just saunter down to Joel Gordon’s desk.
“Becky, I’m going down to Joel Gordon’s office. In a few minutes ring his extension and tell me his password for his work emails. Also, check with the switchboard to see if he made any external calls after 4.30pm today,” asked Robson of his candescent PA. In truth, Becky was a little less luminous today, dressed mainly in monochrome.
“Sure,” replied Becky. It was not unusual for senior Treasury and government officials to look at their junior colleagues’ emails. Often the more senior officials worked longer hours or were abroad and may need access to information and projects at short notice or when the juniors were not there. The executive PAs, of which Becky was one, had a list of all the relevant passwords.
“Becky,” acknowledged Robson as he picked up Joel Gordon’s phone.
“Mr Gordon did not make any phone calls after 4.30pm today, Sir. His password for his private emails is Talisha1.”
“Thanks,” said Robson and then he hung up. Well at least that’s encouraging thought Robson. No panic phone calls to anyone after their meeting. Maybe the ambitious Jamrock yardie was fully committed after all. Robson keyed in Gordon’s email password and began to scroll through the list of mails. They looked fine until one sent email, timed at 4.45pm, stood out. Neil Robson’s demeanour altered significantly. Puerile peasant thought Robson as he looked at Joel Gordon’s mail. It was to Craig Wilson. It read:
Hi Craig,
I hope your holiday has been good. When you return I need to talk to you urgently about a couple of crucial developments relating to government finances and my career.
Regards,
Joel
As Neil Robson leant back in Joel Gordon’s chair, he closed his eyes and was silently lamenting that the young accountant’s commitment to secrecy had barely lasted fifteen minutes. Maybe Vasily was going to earn Babikov that £1 million fee after all.
* * *
The next day Gil had decided to pick Cyrus up from school. Most days her ward didn’t need or want to be picked up as he could easily walk from his Chelsea school to his Chelsea home. Today, however, the boys’ tennis team from his school had a challenge match against the boys from the Harrodian, in Barnes near Richmond. They had been taken there by coach in mid-afternoon but Gil had already told Cyrus that she would collect him. She wanted to keep the boy as close as possible to her. Gil, too, hadn’t heard from JJ in a couple of days and while that was to be expected given the nature of JJ’s mission, Gil knew that she was solely responsible for Cyrus given his only living parent was in absentia. She also liked Cyrus’s company; they were relaxed in each other’s space and although the age difference was more than ten years they seemed to enjoy many similar things. Training in the gym wasn’t one of them, however, but as last night was movie night, tonight was going to be gym night. Maybe a light session, thought Gil, since the boy would be tired after tennis though this would be somewhat balanced by the remarkable energy recovery capacity of the fourteen year old.
Cyrus jumped into the passenger side of his dad’s Porsche and nonchalantly tossed all his tennis gear into the back bucket seats, designed for legless dwarves, but in the absence of wee folk, ideal for a tennis racket or two.
“Hi Gil,” he said cheerily. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“Hi Cyrus. By your happy expression I take it you played like the post-Lendl Andy Murray not the pre-Lendl version?”
“I won my match 7-6, 6-4. The team lost three matches to two, so I’m only partly happy. It was good fun, competitive but not overly aggressive,” he added, as Gil pulled away from the school gates.
“Are you shattered?” Gil asked.
“No, I’m fine,” replied Cyrus.
“Good,” she responded. “Tonight is gym night young man. I don’t want your father coming back accusing me of turning you into a teletubby,” Gil said, laughing, as Cyrus was built like a rake.
“C’mon Gil! I’ve been playing
tennis for nearly two hours, my shorts are falling off I’m so skinny. Give me a break.”
“Let’s have one of those widely recognised British compromises then,” Gil retorted. “A soft warm up, no cardiovascular exercises but we train on the mat working on holds, how to get out of them and then evasive action dealing with knife attacks. No more than an hour tops.”
“OK,” said Cyrus, now reclining in his seat, eyes closed, earphones in, iPod music on. The twenty to thirty minutes it would take to drive from Barnes to Markham Square was enough for him to get a few tunes in and block out any further physical activities that Gil may be thinking of. As he was listening to his music he would also be going over in his mind’s eye some of the moves involved in defence against common knife attacks. Oriental, ice pick, slash, he had dealt with them before but wanted to surprise Gil by remembering a good selection of the defensive countermoves she and dad had taught him previously. He didn’t really mind the mat work either, at least you got to lie down and, as a bonus, you learned how to get out of choke holds, not that he’d ever need to, he mused. While Cyrus was listening to his tunes, Gil was keeping her eyes on the road. They were driving over Putney Bridge, soon to take a right into the New King’s Road, which was a good example of a street name misnomer, as it looked more dilapidated than the King’s Road itself.
One of the aspects of CIA, NSA and other intelligence services training, is that your neural network becomes differently wired to that of civilians. Normal good drivers keep two hands on the wheel, when not changing gear, look ahead to see what’s happening and maybe, anticipate what might. Those who have done any type of circuit driving or race training tend to have more acute peripheral vision as well. Is that kid going to run into the road, is that cyclist going to ride onto the zebra crossing, is that mobile phone junkie going to notice that her dog is about to bolt across the street? That type of awareness. What even good civilian drivers don’t really notice, unless lights are flashing or sirens wailing, is who is behind them. True, there is the frequent interior and exterior mirror glances, especially when changing lane or turning across traffic but, in truth, most drivers, on a twenty minute journey, could not tell you in any detail which cars were behind them for most of the trip. That is reasonable enough in the normal world. Who cares who’s behind you? As long as they’re not tail-gaiting or getting ready to cut you up, or travelling in a pre-arranged convoy, it doesn’t really matter. It’s different in the clandestine world. In that dark space, intelligence officers are taught to be aware of who or what’s behind them. ‘Cover your six’ means protect your back, your most vulnerable part to enemy attack.
Darke Mission Page 27