by A P Bateman
King shook his head. “Okay, so the threat is real. You need a team of thinkers on this fast. You need to run the numbers. Maybe an American target within Britain? A military base perhaps?”
“I’m nowhere near there yet, but that would be my guess,” Forester paused. “All we have is a woman called Alesha Mikailovitch. She has been identified from the Special Branch film at the scene of the killings. Further CCTV as she walked from Beak Street through to Kensington was of better quality and matched her on the Interpol database. She is Zukovsky’s girlfriend. Rafan Betesh who died in the shooting was one of the mercenaries that Yevgeny Antakov hired.”
“Not Jamil Betesh’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Bugger. I killed Jamil in Iraq last year. He was part of the ISIS push into Northern Iraq. A group of Kurdish rebels were holding them back, while the Iraqi army allowed the area to become over-run. I was hoping that one day I’d kill the other two and collect the set,” King paused. “Evil people. They beheaded many civilians. Did a lot worse besides.”
“I could give you his brother,” Forester said coyly.
“Mohammed?”
“Yes.”
“Mohammed was part of that same push. I was friends with those Kurds. They were good people.”
“I want them all put down,” Forester said. “I want this device found, but I want every person involved dead and buried. We are losing this war on terrorism and if it ever comes to light that a nuclear device was posing, or had posed a clear and present threat to Britain, then it would start unprecedented panic. It wouldn’t take much to create a financial and democratic crisis. Knowing a likely threat was out there would be like living in the last days before an apocalypse. Law and order would simply break down, society would collapse. And then there’s Islamic relations. Decent people will get caught up in anti-extremist paranoia.”
“You’d better find it then,” King said.
“I have good people to do that. But I want you on board. You are somebody used to working off the grid. You operate with no support, beyond the parameters of MI5’s remit. You would be invaluable and you would be the man to shut these bastards down.”
“I’m not a gun for hire.”
“I’ll sign you up as a fully-fledged Security Service officer. I’ll have your pension benefits transferred and start you in a new career with MI5. You will be a senior agent, but you will report only to me. When or if the time comes, I want you to cross the line we operate behind and take them out.”
“Take them out? Where, to dinner?” King looked at him coldly. “Say the words.”
Forester looked him in the eyes. “I want you to kill them,” he paused. “I don’t want them caught and displayed on TV, I don’t want them languishing in prison spreading their twisted interpretation of Islam. I want them dead.”
23
Vladimir Zukovsky scrolled through the data on the screen. The laptop was fast and powerful. The file size was over five thousand megabytes of data, equivalent to almost three thousand filled A4 pages and two thousand photographs. Most home computers would have been sluggish opening and accessing a file of this enormity, let alone copying the data but the laptop had been upgraded for the task. Its operating software was minimal and it only needed to open two types of file and connect to the internet. The messages Zukovsky would soon send would be short, edited files. He would store the data on various cloud storage facilities and provide the access passcodes.
He was aware of movement behind him, turned around in his seat. Alesha stood there. She had stripped down to a vest top and was covered in scarlet patches of burned skin. Her breasts looked raw, blistered. Her hands were bound loosely in wet bandages, but it was her face that had been most affected. Down the left side of her once beautiful face the skin had blistered and so many layers had been burned that her cheek looked like a large steak, barely seared blue on a skillet. Her eye had escaped injury, but her eyelids were burned and swollen and she could not see out of her left eye because of the swelling.
“I need a hospital,” she said.
“I told you, we cannot jeopardise the operation.”
“But look at me!”
“You will heal.”
“I am a freak!” she snapped. “I need plastic surgery!”
“Khalil insisted that he needed a hospital,” Zukovsky said. “He was blinded. He was burned worse than you.”
Alesha frowned, but she regretted the action immediately as the skin pulled tightly. She winced. “Where is Khalil?”
Zukovsky stood. “Come, I will show you.”
Alesha followed. “Mohammed has lost his sight in one eye,” she said as she followed him out of the room and into the loading bay. “He will need a hospital also.”
“Has he asked?”
“No.”
Zukovsky unlocked the Jaguar remotely and opened the boot on the key fob. “I did not think he would.”
“What do you mean?” Alesha asked. She looked at Zukovsky, who had stopped walking. She turned back to the car, saw Khalil’s body twisted and folded into the boot.
“He knows what is expected of this operation,” Zukovsky said coldly. “Khalil did not. Khalil bleated on that he needed medical attention, that he would keep quiet. But to enter the system is to jeopardise what we have been working towards.”
“But…”
“You were a drug addled whore, when I found you, Alesha,” Zukovsky said. “But you had beauty. You also had vanity. Vanity is such an ugly flaw in a person’s character. It makes one so very arrogant. Now you are all but repulsive on one side. A true Janus. A person of two faces. Maybe the real Alesha will emerge? Maybe this sudden deformity will provide you a with a strength of character you have not yet possessed?”
She looked at him with disdain. Her bottom lip quivered and tears rolled down her cheeks. The left side was so raw the saltiness of the tears made her recoil. “Svoloch!” she cursed at him savagely and stormed off leaving him beside the car.
Zukovsky walked back to the office, irritated by the interruption, and looked at the screen. He was about to scrawl through, but hesitated. He had only really seen it with his periphery vision, a flash of recognition. He frowned and clicked on the tiny thumbnail photograph. His heart raced and he read through the details, but it was the photograph that he could not take his eyes from. He felt nauseous, slumped down in the chair.
Tomorrow he would pay a visit to somebody he vowed never to meet again in person.
24
Caroline Darby had run her short route. It weaved through two small parks and a tree-lined avenue and she looped back through the market. It was a three-mile circuit, which she always ran at a fast pace, and it ended at the best bakery stall in the city, where she could buy a pain au chocolat and a croissant and eat a comparatively guilt free breakfast. She loved the banter and bustle of the market, loved the feeling of uniqueness it gave off over supermarkets and chain stores. The feeling of community. It shamed her that she was largely voyeuristic, only shopping there occasionally even though it was on her doorstep, but she led a busy life and her work took her all over the country.
She had put the coffee machine on to the espresso setting, taken a powerful shower and dressed quickly. The pastries were excellent and she sat in front of the television with the volume low, checked her phone for messages and glanced up at the screen as she sipped some coffee. She froze when she saw the tickertape scrolling underneath the feature, then saw the photographs of Alesha Mikailovitch and Mohammed Betesh on the screen. Next came two more photographs, this time with no names, but Caroline recognised them as the men from the safe house attack. All the photographs had been taken from the safe house CCTV footage. Along with this were two short films of what looked like drug deals. One involving one of the unknown men from the safe house attack, the other a tattooed man with a trimmed stubbly beard and a shaven head with five o’clock shadow. His features were typically Slavic. A free-phone number was constantly on the screen. Caroli
ne fumbled with the remote. By the time she turned the volume up the newsreader was ending the piece with, “… in connection with the murder of four government employees discovered at Festival Pier on Friday.”
She tried Forester’s number, but it went straight to voicemail. She dialled Detective Inspector Hodges’ number, again it went to voicemail, but she left a curt message, already grabbing her bag and coat as she spoke.
She was lucky enough to have parking to the rear of the apartment block. Not everybody did and the cost of a yearly parking permit, combined with London’s congestion charge made her regularly think about selling her Mini Cooper, but she was an independent person and knew she would miss the luxury of motoring if it were no longer an option. Besides, the Security Service had her travelling all over the country, often at next to no notice and pool cars were not always available. They paid a handsome expense and mileage if she used her own car, so she knew for the sake of her career it was never really an option to give it up.
She used Bluetooth to dial Hodges’ number again. The detective picked up after a few rings. “Hello?”
“Detective Inspector, it’s Caroline Darby. Forester wanted me to liaise with you,” she said casually. “Are you at the yard or Thames House?”
“The yard,” he answered, a little hesitantly. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to speak to you regarding that shit you pulled this morning,” she said. “I’ll be about fifteen minutes. I’ll be pulling up outside, arrange a space for me.”
“I’m on my way out. Following a lead.”
“Be in Hodges. For all our sakes.”
She ended the call and wound the Mini through her usual route. She had perfected the route over the years and would bet she knew a way that would beat any taxi driver. Especially as she knew of a large carpark that had an exit and entrance on two different streets, and that merely driving through beat the one-way system and shaved more than five minutes off her journey.
When she drew up outside New Scotland Yard she could see Hodges standing next to a uniformed officer and a vacant parking space. Caroline took a deep breath. She had no authority over the police inspector, it was more a case of mutual respect than protocol, but Caroline had soon come to realise early in her career that being in MI5 carried clout in all walks of life. She decided to bowl Hodges over and she hoped she could keep up the act.
Hodges walked over to her car and stood by the door. She got out and looked at him. “We’ll do this outside,” she said.
“Do what?”
“You’re a good murder detective, I hear.”
“If you say so.”
“It’s your record that says so.”
“You’ve seen my record?”
“Of course,” she lied. She’d only had the one conversation with Forester. “What the hell was that this morning?”
“You mean the appeal,” he said. “We’re getting nowhere finding the killers. It was the next logical step.”
“Forester wanted this low profile.”
“Does he want the killers caught or not?” he interrupted.
“Not at the risk of them running and going to ground.”
“That’s just a fact of criminal life,” he retorted. “They kill, they hide, we hunt them, sometimes we flush them out.”
“There is too much at stake.”
“Well how about telling me what else is at stake?”
“I can’t. Yet.”
“Then I’ll ask Forester.”
“I’m sure he’ll say the same.”
“Then I’ll try him,” he took out his phone and dialled. He looked annoyed when it cut to voicemail. “I’ll try him later,” he added.
“I’ll level with you, Hodges,” Caroline said. “There is chance of an imminent attack.”
“There always is,” he said. “What’s the security level threat?”
“I can’t say. Because I don’t know. All I know is if it happens it will be the worst ever.”
“A nine-eleven?”
“No. A lot worse,” she said. “You’ve made a move with that news appeal, and that’s done. But you need to get staffed up and follow every damned lead you get. You need to find these people and pray to God they don’t go to ground permanently.”
“A bit melodramatic.”
“No, it’s not,” she looked at him, then the great building behind. The centre of police enforcement and symbolism of law and order. She did not know why, but she felt her fiancé’s presence as she thought about the shady cloak and dagger world she lived in. Maybe he would still be here if there was more sharing of intelligence between agencies. Maybe a lot of people’s loved ones would be. “Look, Hodges. You’ve got a hand tied behind your back. I’ll say this once and don’t ever quote me. Forester wanted you on this case because he saw a dogged, experienced copper. Someone who would leave no stone unturned, and not get bogged down in bureaucracy. A say at as he sees it kind of man.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“Wait, I’m not finished. Imagine the worst kind of terrorist attack. Imagine the worst kind of bomb.” She saw the look in his eye, there was a slight flicker as he realised the prompt. “Well, one is missing in Russia and linked to a General Vladimir Zukovsky. He’s a former general with the Soviet and then Russian Federation military. He served with the army and then the KGB and FSB when it was later renamed. He cannot be linked to these murders because if he gets wind of being a suspect, he will know that we know about the nuclear device. Alesha Mikailovitch is his protégé and girlfriend. You have named her from her involvement with the shootings. That’s controllable, they will assume you’re linking the clues, joining the dots. And her getting caught on CCTV is a natural avenue you will exploit. You must not, under any circumstances, name Zukovsky. If his name comes up as a result of the names you have run on the databases, drop it. Like a hot coal.”
“And this threat is real?” Hodges asked, he seemed withdrawn.
“We have to treat it as such,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Do not tell a soul. Nobody can know, not yet. But I’m giving you this as a curtesy. The appeal is out there now, but let’s make it work. Put more people on it than you normally would. The Security Service will pick up the tab for extra wages, resources and overtime.”
Hodges nodded. “Thank you.”
Caroline walked back to her car, the uniformed policeman was standing beside it, his eyes on the traffic. She nodded to Hodges as she got inside.
Hodges took out his mobile as he walked back to the building. He dialled his home number. “Hello Michelle,” he said quietly. “Look, please don’t ask me questions, but I want you to pack enough clothes for a week and take the boys down to your mother’s. I’ll call you later and explain more. And give Ginny a call for me. Tell her to stay at university next weekend.” He held the phone momentarily out from his ear, then he snapped. “Look! Do it now! No arguments. Now, I’ll call you in a couple of hours when you’re on your way to Devon,” he paused for a moment. “Actually, forget that, do me a favour and swing by the office before you set off. I want to see you all before you go.”
25
Forester’s driver pulled the big Jaguar to the curb and both King and Forester got out. King had taken note of the SCO19 Discovery vehicles and the Special Branch vehicles had both changed to Vauxhall Insignias with the shift change. Both were black with tinted rear windows. Forester had ordered his driver to go down both streets so King could study the houses separately.
“You’ve got a lot of firepower here,” King said. “Do you really think they’ll attack again?”
“Who knows?” replied Forester curtly.
“What can this guy Hoist know that has made them want to silence him?”
“I’m hoping we will find out soon. The interview team has been with him all night.”
King watched the street both ways before climbing the steps. “Well they’d be mad to attack here. You have armed units both ends, they’re alert because of the sec
ond attack, and the visuals are excellent. You can see a hundred metres in both directions and there’s CCTV at both ends of the street.” He had an uneasy feeling, but as he surveyed the security and went over the information Forester had given him, he kept coming back to the same conclusion.
Forester nodded, surprised, but somewhat pleased King had noticed. “I’ll introduce you to my agent, and then we’ll draw up a plan. Decide where best to deploy your skills.” Forester said. He looked at King. The man was dressed in the same cargo pants but had swapped the waxed jacket for a leather jacket. “Do you need to stop off anywhere and change?”
“I’ve got what I need,” he said, hefting the military Bergen over his shoulder. “I’m not a suit man, Forester. I’ll need some equipment though. Tools of the trade, so to speak.”
Forester nodded, climbing the steps to the front door. “I’ll have someone organise that. I’ll need a list.”
“No, I sort my own kit. I’ll need some cash though.”
“Very well.” Forester knocked on the door, glancing up at the CCTV camera to identify himself. The door opened and a Special Branch officer stood to one side. Forester nodded in acknowledgement. He had already called ahead and told them to expect someone else with him. Forester had also called Caroline, who had already been on route, to meet him here.
Caroline appeared at the top of the stairs. She walked down slowly, eyeing up the new arrival warily. She frowned at Forester. “Did you get your business sorted out?” she asked.
“I have,” he replied. “Let’s go through to the lounge where we can talk more freely.”
Caroline followed Forester, King brought up the rear. The lounge was sparsely furnished. It acted as a briefing room with a large dining table and eight chairs and the suite consisted of three sofas, two three-seaters and a four seater facing each other with a coffee table in the middle. TV and DVD remotes rested on the table and a large-screen television made up the square.