by A P Bateman
The noise made him freeze. A solid rapping on glass. He ran as best he could, hampered both by age and excessive weight, and looked at the CCTV monitor. The man stood there, hammered the door once more and stared through the glass, his hands cupped to shade his reflection. Orlev was shaking.
He only needed a few more minutes and he would have been clear!
He needed to think, but he was an academic, a man used to thinking-over formulae and systems, sequencing and combinations. He needed his office, his books or his long walks on the Baltic coast. He could not cope with spontaneity and reaction. But he knew that he could not get caught, could not face life inside prison, a life without drink and women. He looked down and saw the case containing various firearms. He had used them in basic military training before specialising in weapon delivery systems with the USSR and later with the Russian Federation. He looked at the man again. If he was a policeman, the chances of him being armed were slim. Britain was a ridiculous nation. A country who armed their police with pepper spray and batons while the criminals came up with more ingenious methods to smuggle guns and ammunition in from the rest of Europe. He picked up the CZ75 pistol and looked for a magazine. All the magazines for the weapons were pre-loaded and when he found the right one he quickly loaded the weapon and made it ready. He walked out to the foyer with the pistol in his pocket, his jacket concealing it. When he entered the foyer he could see the man staring in, but he had not yet seen him. The man got a shock when Orlev walked up to the door.
The man tapped the glass and held up a warrant card. “Detective Sergeant Mathews, CID. Can you open the door? I have a few questions.”
Orlev shrugged like it was no problem and unbolted the lock. “How may I help you?”
“You’re Russian?”
“Err, no Polish,” Orlev lied. “I am caretaker.” He held up his gloved hand. “I am cleaning.” Mathews stepped inside, Orlev took a step backwards. “What can I help you with officer?”
“Do you know these men?” Mathews held up a printout with a photograph of Rashid and Sergei Gulubkin both taken from the CCTV. Orlev shook his head. Mathews said, “Are you sure? Sorry, mister?”
“Err, Nazwisko,” Orlev said hesitantly. “I do not know these men. Now, I very busy.”
Mathews frowned. He looked around the foyer. “Funny, you sound more Russian than Polish.”
“I am Polish!” Orlev snapped, then softened his tone. “Sorry, I have much work to do and must be at my next property to clean soon.”
“Oh really?” Mathews said, moving through the foyer and into the corridor. “Where’s that?”
Orlev frowned. He did not know the area, he had only driven from the warehouse to his rented flat and back. Much of the time Alesha or Marvin had driven him. “About two kilometres away.”
“Where?” Mathews looked around the corridor and headed for the open doors of the loading bay. “You know; my wife is Polish.”
“Small world.”
“Lots of Polish people here now.”
“I know.”
“Good workers.”
“They are.”
Mathews stopped. “They?”
“We.”
Mathews nodded. “Good workers, strong work ethic. Like yourself, no doubt?”
“Yes.”
“Hard work, cleaning.”
“It is.”
“You are knocking on a bit, for cleaning,” Mathews said, smiling. “Sorry, but it must be quite hard at your age.”
“It is,” Orlev agreed. “But I must get on with my work, officer.”
Mathews looked at the rubbish sacks, then saw through the open door of the office. The two laptop computers sat on the bench. They were open. One was running an algorithm, flagging up names on the MI5 personnel list matching core words Orlev had entered and storing it to a cloud. The other was displaying a diagram. Mathews was too far away to see what was on the screens, but he turned to Orlev and frowned. “They left their computers here?”
“Who?”
“Whoever you’re cleaning up after.”
Orlev shrugged. “All I have to do is clean and empty the rubbish.”
Mathews nodded. He walked towards the loading bay. “Yeah, my wife is Polish. We’ve been together seven years.”
“I am happy for you, officer,” Orlev said tersely. “But I will lose my job if I do not finish my work.”
“Who do you work for?” Mathews asked. “An agency?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
Orlev hesitated. “Several agencies. More work that way.”
“Yeah, my wife works with an agency. Secretarial. Just one agency though. Most agencies like it that way. They don’t like people signing on with multiple agencies.” Mathews stopped walking, looked around, took in the size of the loading bay. “Do you know, it’s funny but I swear that Nazwisko is just the Polish word for surname. And not actually a name at all.” He turned around and froze when he saw the pistol levelled at him.
Orlev flicked the pistol towards the storage room just off the corridor and the loading bay. “Move,” he said coldly.
“Now don’t be silly,” Mathews said to him. “This will not end well for you.”
“Be quiet and move,” Orlev said. “It is you this will not end well for.”
Mathews walked ahead of him. “Look, put down the gun. This situation doesn’t have to escalate.”
Orlev stopped walking, kept the pistol aimed at him. “See those bin sacks?” Mathews nodded. “Take a few and spread them on the floor.”
Mathews shook his head. “Put down the gun.”
Orlev walked towards him and flicked the gun again. “Get back!” Mathews took a few swift steps backwards and Orlev snatched up a handful of the rubbish sacks. He dropped them down on the ground and spread them out with his feet. He pointed the pistol at the young detective and shouted. “Get on there! Now!”
Mathews flinched. “Don’t shoot!” He took a few tentative steps. He didn’t know why, but he found himself complying. “Look, please!”
“Be quiet.” Orlev stepped around. He aimed the pistol at the man’s head.
“Please! My wife is having a baby! It’s due in six weeks. Please!” Orlev lined up the pistol with the man’s head. Satisfied there was nothing behind Mathews but the vast chasm of the loading bay, he stepped forwards and took deliberate, careful aim. “Don’t do this!” Mathews looked at him pleadingly. Orlev took another step forward. He was now approximately seven feet from the young police officer. “For god’s sake! Don’t…” Mathews begged, but he did not hear the shot, nor finish his sentence. The gunshot rang out in the chasm of the loading bay, reverberating like canon fire. The shrill, metallic jingle of the spent cartridge case bouncing and rolling on the concrete echoed and sang long after the gunshot.
And then silence came. Ominous and final.
50
The sunlight reflected off the water, golden yellow and glistening like the spent embers of a log fire. The sun was low in the autumn sky, above the headland of The Roseland Peninsular, casting its light across the Carrick Roads. The body of water was tranquil today, but could soon whip up to white water at this time of year. It was made up from numerous rivers, primarily the Truro river which ran slow and wide developed from many tributaries filled from water rushing off the rolling hills. The waters ran into the mouth of western-most end of the English Channel where it met the powerful waters of the Atlantic. The Carrick Roads was a haven for sailors and boat users and already at this early hour yachts were heading out, their owners taking advantage of the last week of clement weather before they hauled out for winter storage.
Zukovsky turned back from the window and watched Alesha walk naked to the bathroom. They had arrived at the cottage in the early hours and gone straight to bed. They had made love too quickly. Zukovsky had buried his head into Alesha’s neck throughout, a glimpse of her disfigurement enough to kill his desire. She had known. She had sobbed afterwards. They had lain i
n silence until Zukovsky had got up to look at the sea view overlooking Loe Beach. The boats had already been hauled out here with only the mooring buoys remaining to bob up and down in the choppy swells. Many of the boats had been stored by the beach, their masts and rigging jangling in the wind.
“We will go out for some breakfast,” Zukovsky shouted towards the bathroom. He could hear Alesha running the bath. She had put some camomile lotion in the tepid water to ease the tightening skin and blisters. “There is a good place to eat, apparently, at the marina. Then we will take a reconnaissance run.”
Alesha walked in, draped in a towel. “What is wrong with right here? There is nobody around now, in the early hours it will be deserted. It was when we arrived. There is a slipway of sorts on the beach.”
Zukovsky looked out of the window to the far right extremity of the view. The shingle beach was covered in weed and driftwood. There was indeed a slipway, and a gig rowing club were launching down it. Sturdy-looking women in shorts, rugby shirts and wellington boots. “The port of Falmouth lies at the end of the waterway, where it becomes the sea. There is the coastguard, the fisheries agency, harbour master and marine police. Simply too many authorities to contend with. A large fishing boat sailing past the port and up the waterway may, or most likely will attract attention.” He started to pull on his trousers and gave his shirt a shake to get rid of the creases. “The place I have chosen will work well. As long as the swell in the bay is no more than a metre or so. Conditions are looking favourable at the moment.”
“Is there a plan B?”
“Plan B is a small slipway in the Percuil River, near St. Mawes. But the tide has to be favourable and that means no more than an hour later. It will be tight.”
Alesha nodded. “What are the police like down here?”
“Understaffed. The small and winding roads make it difficult to respond to emergencies quickly, but there are enough of them, and they have armed officers patrolling the A30, the main arterial road running through Cornwall. The thinking being that when they are needed they can race to the emergency,” Zukovsky paused. “It’s likely the port police will have a very rapid access to an armed response unit.”
Alesha shrugged and walked back into the bathroom. Zukovsky heard her step into the bath, gasp in pain as she eased herself into the water. He picked up his mobile phone and dialled Orlev, cursed at the lack of signal and put the phone in his pocket. He called out to Alesha, told her he was going to walk around and see if there was a signal outside.
The cottage was a four bedroomed property but was a cottage in name only. Zukovsky imagined that people conjured up an idea of Cornwall and cottages rented well. It was in fact a largely glass-fronted waterside house with its own boathouse and small slipway accessible at an hour each side of high-tide. Two hours on spring-tides. For an extra three-hundred-pounds a week a fourteen foot dingy could be rented along with the cottage. Zukovsky walked along the garden parallel with the water. He took out his phone and cursed at the one bar signal. He knew if he dialled it would miraculously disappear. The end of the garden was at least ten feet higher than the rest of the garden and he walked to the top of the mound, which afforded an excellent uninterrupted view across the bay. At the top he looked again, but there was no signal at all. There would be a signal between Loe Beach and the marina at Mylor. He would pull in as soon as he picked up a signal and call Professor Orlev then.
51
“You really don’t know what this is about, do you?” Sergei Gulubkin stated smugly. “For all your resources, all your intelligence gathering capabilities, MI5 hasn’t got a clue.”
King shrugged. “I’ve only been with MI5 for two days.”
Sergei looked bemused. He looked around the room, if it could be called that, at the pipes suspended from the ceiling, the water running in the open drain below the grate in the floor. “What is this place?”
“End of the line, sunshine,” King said. He had brought the silenced Ruger .22 pistol in from the car, given his own Walther P99 to Caroline. He rested the pistol on his leg, the large bulbous suppressor counter-balancing the heavy butt. Sergei was seated on the basic wooden chair opposite his own. His eyes were on the pistol. It was a specialist weapon, and its specialism had made the man think. “I imagine that drain runs out into the Thames. It’s a few feet deep and flowing at quite a pace. Should wash a body away easily enough.”
“Fuck you!” Sergei sneered. “You’re not going to kill me.” His eyes flickered. If it were a game of poker, he would have lost his bluff.
King smiled. His mouth looked cruel, his eyes cold. He ran a hand through the four-day-old stubble on his jaw. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Caroline came down the metal steps and walked towards them, pocketing her mobile phone. “Director Howard wants us to come in. He said that Forester’s death has changed things.”
“It would,” King said.
“Meaning?”
“Me, for starters.”
“How so?”
“Forester wanted to bring me in on this, but keep my brief to himself. He wanted me to tidy the loose ends,” he said. “That means kill. Break all of the links in the chain. I agreed. Hell, it’s what I did all those years for MI6. But Forester isn’t here anymore. My remit isn’t only going to change; it’s going to be cancelled altogether.”
“So what now?”
“Carry it on,” he said. “If you want to honour Forester’s memory then stay on the investigation. Feed me the intel. I will shadow you. Shut this lot down. You let me know the target and I’ll do my job. Afterwards, I’m out of here. Until then, I’ll play my part closing these terrorists down. Starting with this guy here.” He pointed the pistol at Sergei who shifted awkwardly in his seat. “If he isn’t going to talk, then he’s of no further use.”
Caroline looked thoughtful. “What if they don’t keep me on it?”
“You were Forester’s go to girl. He used you when he could have used anybody else. You move heaven and earth, raise bloody hell to stay on it. They’ll keep you on the investigation, you’ve been on it from the start.”
She nodded. “I spoke to Hodges as well. He’s pissed off. I mean royally so.”
“His guy contacted him then?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“He wants his prisoner,” she tapped Sergei on the head and he flinched. “They were staking out the brothel he ran after he was grassed up by people who had seen the police appeal.”
“It’s all closing in, sunshine,” King smirked at him.
“I’ve passed on the information about this Joseph Arnsettle fellow in Lowestoft. I’ve told Howard and Hodges. That way there will be two investigative angles. They’ll have all there is to know about him soon. And if they can get that, then they can get the name of the boat.”
“We need to meet with Hodges, but I want to avoid ‘Box. Did Hodges mention the asset whose cover was blown?”
“He did. The man has information that could prove vital. He didn’t go into it, as I said, he’s pissed off about matey here.” She tapped Sergei around the head again, smiled as he flinched. “We need to drop him in, mend a few bridges so to speak.”
“You said you’d keep me out of prison,” Sergei reminded them.
“Well you better get singing then. Think about all you know and you can tell Detective Inspector Hodges. The question now is; how much do you want to stay out of prison?”
52
50°N 2°W The English Channel
Max Clenton flicked his cigarette stub into the bow wake below him and watched it float towards the stern. Before it reached the propeller wake a seagull swooped in and took the stub away, gulping it down greedily as it flew. The gulls had been with them since the swell had died down off Dover. He had known that the boat would have been monitored, but he carried different GPS beacons rented in cash from other vessels that fished the Cornish coast and he knew that at times of busier ferry traffic, as long as he sailed steadily, following th
e rules of the sea he should be left alone. He had relaxed a little, drifting closer to the French shores than the English coast, and was now approximately fifty miles off the coast of Dorset.
Clenton lit another cigarette and watched the gulls dip and rise on the wind. He wasn’t used to plain sailing. The crew had dropped some lines earlier and hauled some cod and bass. Bass were prohibited from being caught in the English Channel from boats this year, so they packed them on ice and stowed them below decks in two purpose built smuggling holds. After this business was over he knew an expensive restaurant who would take them off him for cash, no questions asked. Clenton would drop the cod on the market when he moored The Lady Majestic back at port. It would keep him in beer money while he worked out what to do with the small fortune the Russian would pay him tonight.
***
Alesha had eaten Eggs Benedict and Zukovsky had sampled a Full English. They had taken a window table overlooking the marina. Judging by the many buoys bobbing in the swell it was evident that many of the boats had been hauled out for winter. Zukovsky noted that only large yachts remained. Except for an older couple struggling to uncover a sleek speed boat named Diva. The boat was blue and white and Zukovsky estimated it to be twenty-five feet. It looked fast, from what little the Russian knew of pleasure craft. But it was the only boat of its type in the moorings and he assumed the couple were wringing the last out of her before winter. The process of launching from the open water mooring had not looked enjoyable in the cold wind and building swell. But they had finally completed the task and were taking the boat out into the marked channel. Once clear of the channel the boat rose quickly and left behind a terrific wake as she powered out across the water and aimed for the horizon.
Alesha had fashioned a headscarf across her face. She was subdued. Zukovsky sipped his Americano and looked at her. “It will be better when you return to Russia. I know a man who will make it all better.”