by A P Bateman
“Hodges,” King said, releasing the man’s collar. “See if you can find a kettle or a jug. We will need some material – a towel or blanket. And a bucket of water. A lot of water.”
Orlev looked at King. “You can’t be serious?” he said. “I have told you of my diplomatic status. You are making a grave error.”
Hodges walked away down the corridor. Caroline looked at King, but he looked away. He took off his jacket and put it on a chair. He placed the pistol on top of the jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
Hodges came back into the loading bay. “There’s a roll of jay cloth. Will that do?”
“Perfect.” King walked a pace towards Orlev and kicked him in the chest. The chair toppled backwards and the man crashed down, cracking his head on the concrete floor. He was winded and dazed, but King took the roll of cloth off Hodges and wrapped it several times around the man’s head. He tried to protest, but the words were both slurred and then muffled as the cloth covered his face. Hodges put the bucket of water down and King reached for the kettle, dipped it in the bucket and waited for it to fill. He started to pour the water in a steady stream over the man’s face. Orlev gagged and choked and coughed, but still King kept up the steady flow of water. It was icy cold and as Orlev gagged it splashed King in the face. He refilled the kettle and continued to pour. After about a minute King put down the kettle and roughly unwrapped the cloth. Orlev gasped and hungrily mouthed for air like a fish on a riverbank. “What is your role? What are you doing with Vladimir Zukovsky?”
Orlev fought for breath. He was about to speak, but rather than give the man chance to scorn or lie to him, King wrapped his head again and tightened the cloth. Orlev tried to protest, but water was already filling his mouth and lungs from breathing through the cloth alone. King poured more water and the man rocked and jerked in the chair, his body arching so violently the movement threatened to damage his spine.
Caroline stared on in horror, but to her surprise, she did not protest. She thought of Forester, her mentor. She thought of her dead and missing colleagues, of Watkins and Mathews, of the sergeant’s unsuspecting wife, now widowed; their unborn child now fatherless. She watched King as he poured the water. His expression calm, determined. He neither enjoyed, nor hated what he was doing. He was merely performing a task. He refilled the kettle and poured. Unwrapped the cloth, asked again, but did not give time for the answer. After five times repeating the process, with Hodges fetching water twice more, King left the cloth off long enough for an answer.
Orlev spluttered, turned his head and vomited heavily. He looked pleadingly at King. “Wait, wait! Give me time, more time!” he coughed and took in huge gulps of air. “I am a scientist, a physicist. Weapon delivery systems. I specialised in nuclear and conventional warheads.” He gulped more air. King picked up the soaking cloth. “Wait! I will tell you what you want to know!”
“I know you will,” King said, and wrapped the man’s head again with the wet cloth. He started to pour the water and Orlev struggled, choked and spluttered. “I know you will.”
“He was going to talk,” Caroline commented quietly.
“Drown the bastard,” said Hodges. He looked a different man. He had a thousand-yard stare like a seasoned soldier with multiple tours, kills and dead comrades behind him. “Kill the son of a bitch.”
King refilled the kettle and poured, Orlev was gagging less, struggling less, he was gargling. Drowning. “He will talk now,” he whispered. “When I take this off he will sing like a bird. Write down everything. Better yet, get out your iPhone and record it. Film and audio. He’s reached the point.”
Caroline did as he said, took the phone out of her bag. “What point is that?”
“Dying. He only has enough strength in his lungs to do this one more time. He knows it too. He will talk now. He will tell the truth.” King emptied the last of the water in a final wave and pulled off the cloth.
Orlev vomited, gasped and cried. His eyes were bloodshot and a thick goo ran from his ear where the eardrum had perforated under the pressure of holding his breath for so long. “There is uranium… Weapon grade.” he gasped.
“I know that,” Hodges said. “Rashid told me about the bunker.” King and Caroline looked at him and he shrugged. “We need a pow-wow later.”
“The uranium has been taken by Iman Mullah Al-Shaqqaf’s men.”
“Where is the warhead now?” King asked.
“On route.”
“We know that, Sergei Gulubkin told us,” King looked at Hodges and shrugged. “We’ll talk more in our pow-wow.”
“I do not know the location, but I know it is in the west country.”
King picked up the cloth. “We need more than that.”
“No! Wait! The uranium is to be initiated by the detonation of the warhead. The warhead is an aerial burst delivery system.” He fought for breath, he was light-headed. “It detonates two thousand feet above its target and disperses. Detonated on the ground, it is only twenty percent as effective. But with the additional uranium the fallout becomes forty percent more effective than if it was air dispersed.” King rang the cloth out over Orlev’s face and the man writhed around. “Wait!” he spluttered and strained against the tape restraints. “Why! You don’t know why! Why he is doing all of this!”
“Because Zukovsky is a radical Muslim. A fanatical son of a bitch,” King replied.
Orlev scoffed. “Hah! That’s what he has crafted, what he has created as a persona. It’s all to do with his son. He’s no Muslim. He fought the radical ragheads for decades. First in Afghanistan, then in Chechnya. He’s as Muslim as you are!”
“What about his son?” Caroline prompted. “What has he got to do with this? Where is he?”
Orlev laughed. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?” King refilled the kettle. Orlev looked at him pleadingly. “His son is dead! He died in an airstrike in Syria. He was Spetsnaz – that’s Russian special forces, but you know that. He was held captive by ISIS. The Russian government told Britain, told MI6 and MI5 that they had an asset on the ground and they were going to perform a rescue mission. British bombers were operating in the area and Russia wanted a temporary lifting of RAF sorties. MI5 discovered the location of a major ISIS cell with British connections and had intelligence that important and wanted individuals were gathered in one place. MI5 also knew that there was a Russian hostage, Zukovsky’s son as it turned out, but they still went ahead and gave the order for an airstrike. They only needed to wait a few more hours and the Spetsnaz brigade would have been on target. They ignored the request, called in the RAF and Zukovsky’s son was killed.”
“So this is all about revenge?” Caroline asked. “On MI5?”
“The dead agents were all connected at the time, as were the twelve missing agents. Zukovsky found out through the information that Jeremy Hoist supplied. Charles Forester was the last in the chain. He knew there was a Russian asset on the ground. Russia has been widely criticised for the approach it took in Syria, the widespread bombing and collateral damage. It was a power play.”
“But the radical Muslim link?” Caroline asked. “Al-Shaqqaf?”
“Betesh,” King said. He looked at Orlev. “Al-Shaqqaf had operators in that ISIS cell, didn’t he?”
“He is the ISIS cell,” Orlev said. “Every man in that ISIS brigade was recruited by Iman Mullah Al-Shaqqaf, right here in Britain. They were the most barbarous of the lot. And your government does nothing, can’t even try him in court successfully.”
King nodded, said to Hodges and Caroline, “I hunted Jamil Betesh. He left a brutal and bloody trail to follow in Iraq. MI6 were not aware who recruited him. The fact both of his brothers were here and connected to Al-Shaqqaf makes the picture clearer.”
“What are they planning to do with the warhead?” Caroline asked.
Orlev hesitated. He looked at King, the dripping cloth in his hand. “Please, don’t do this again.”
“Answer the question then,” said King.
“Zukovsky has conned Al-Shaqqaf into thinking he will be detonating a mildly dirty bomb. Hence the flasks of uranium. Al-Shaqqaf thinks its iodine in the flasks. Massive disruption, huge publicity, many casualties. They agreed on the target together. Zukovsky wanted central London, but Al-Shaqqaf wouldn’t consider it. Too many Muslims, too much destruction. They agreed on a mutual target for maximum damage to the establishment.”
“Where?” asked King.
“I don’t know,” Orlev shrugged. “I was to be taken there to complete the set-up of the device.”
“And it’s a dirty bomb?” Caroline asked.
“If I put it together I could make it a thermonuclear chain reaction. At a rudimentary calculation I would estimate about five times Hiroshima. But there’s a sting in the tail, when Al-Shaqqaf sets the timer, we were to have it configured for instant detonation.”
“Just like that?” Hodges commented. “Five times Hiroshima on a British target. All these years after we avoided nuclear war, you just set up a bomb for a religious fanatic to have at his disposal.”
Orlev shrugged. “Zukovsky was paying well. But I have not started work on it. If Zukovsky can set it off, and he is more than capable, it will still be more powerful than Hiroshima, but the uranium will make it a dirty bomb. In essence, it will be worse. There will not be the same amount of vaporisation. The dirty element will stay for decades. Just look at Chenobyl.”
Caroline looked down at him and said, “So Zukovsky’s son dies, and he gets retribution by unleashing unprecedented destruction on innocent Britons?”
Orlev smiled. “Think deeper, my dear,” he tutted. “Look, if it is seen that radical Muslims blew an entire city to pieces with a nuclear device; what do you think the rest of the world will want?”
“They’ll wage war on Islam,” she stated flatly. “But…”
“But nothing!” Orlev snapped. “Every government in the world will want to destroy all radical Islamic groups overnight. The Muslim countries will clean house, or they’ll be seen as a potential target. One bomb and radical Islam will be under attack like never before, and it will not stop until they are obliterated. Wiped off the face of the earth.”
“I’m going to ask you one more thing,” King said. He bent down and held the cloth up to him, dropped it on his face and pulled it across his mouth slowly. “You don’t want more water, do you?”
“No.”
“Where is Zukovsky?”
“Gone to the west country to meet the boat. It is coming in tonight.”
“Where?”
“I do not know.”
“And the MI5 prisoners?”
“They went with Marvin and Gulubkin’s men. I do not know to where.” Orlev did not take his eyes from the cloth. “I beg you, don’t do it again. Everything I have said is true.”
King grabbed Orlev by the shoulders and pulled him up, he slumped in the chair. He was drained and pale. His eyes were still red. King whipped out a folding lock knife and flicked the blade open with his thumb. He sliced through the tape around Orlev’s ankles and then slashed the man’s wrist bindings. Orlev rubbed his wrists, bringing the circulation back.
“What now?” Hodges asked. “Shall I take him in?”
“Yes,” King said. He pulled Orlev up and pushed him ahead of him. The man nearly fell, his leg was near-useless. King slipped his jacket back on and picked up his pistol. They walked across the loading bay and Orlev stopped just in front of the open boot, where Mathews’ body was staring out at him, his eyes wide and glazed and vacant.
Orlev seemed nonchalant. He turned to King, unsure where to go. King’s BMW was parked just inside but it was a wreck of bullet holes, twisted metal and broken glass. The airbags hung limp and deflated.
King stopped short and took the CZ75 pistol out of his jacket pocket. He bent down and placed it carefully on the smooth concrete floor, then slid it across to Orlev with his foot. Orlev looked down at the weapon, then raised his eyes to King and the bulbous suppressor of the silenced Ruger. King fired once and Orlev dropped to the ground, a tiny .22 of an inch diameter hole in his forehead. His legs twitched for a moment then went still.
Hodges looked down at the professor’s body. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “I hope you go to hell.”
“He’s already there,” King said, tucking the pistol into his waistband. He looked at Caroline. “You need to report back to headquarters. Regroup. Share what Orlev said about Zukovsky. You need to reiterate what Sergei Gulubkin said about the hostages. If they sailed last night, we’re running out of time.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
King ignored her, looked at Hodges. “You need to question Gulubkin.”
“We need to secure that uranium. If it’s in that Islington mosque, it needs to be seized and arrests made,” said Hodges.
“No.” King shook his head. “Not until tomorrow morning. You get things in place to take the mosque. You’ll need a HASMAT team, and armed police. But don’t move until tomorrow at dawn.”
Hodges nodded. “What else?”
“Give me details of this fellow Rashid in the hospital. I need to go speak to him.”
Hodges took out a notebook and scribbled with a pencil. He tore off the piece of paper and handed it to King. “What about here? What am I going to say about this guy?” He nodded to Orlev’s body on the floor.
“Leave me out of it. Say that Orlev did what he did, but one of Zukovsky’s team killed Orlev to stop him talking further and then got away. You’ll need to scrub the CCTV system.”
Hodges nodded and looked at the carnage. He nodded to both of them and walked out through the broken door of the loading bay.
“You never answered my question,” Caroline said. “Where are you going?”
“I have a few errands to run.”
“Like what?”
“I’m going to talk to the deep cover agent,” King said. “Rashid will have crucial information for me.”
“Why you?”
“Because I’m going to finish what Forester started. This has all gone too far, on too big a scale. If Al-Shaqqaf fails, he will try again. He has a hunger for this that won’t be satisfied until he does something big. Zukovsky has fed the man’s appetite with the warhead. Okay, Al-Shaqqaf thinks it’s a smaller dirty bomb, but that is as big as he could ever dream of. If he gets arrested, he’ll slip through the net again, I’m sure of that. And so was Forester,” King paused. “Forester knew that there are no failures for these people, merely rehearsals. Down the line they’ll get it right and life in the west will never be the same. I see that, and I’ll do what it takes.”
“And then what?”
“And then I’m gone.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Where will I meet you?” she asked. “After I’ve checked in with headquarters and probably been arrested.”
“Your place.”
“What?”
“What do you have, a house, a flat?”
“A flat.”
“Where?”
“Why?”
“It should be secure.”
“Yes.”
King shrugged. “I’m going to do my best to stop this threat. And I’m going to do it how Forester planned it.”
“Forester was no better than anyone else,” she commented flatly. “He wouldn’t wait, wouldn’t give the Russians a few more hours. If he had, Zukovsky’s son might not have died and Vladimir Zukovsky would not have been tipped over the edge. The man is obviously quite mad, but Forester’s actions were the trigger.”
“Forester did his job as best he could, in the best interests of the country he served,” King looked at her. “What’s some Russian he didn’t know compared to an ISIS cell he knew would kill and terrorise? It’s a shitty job and terrible decisions have to be made.”
“It is a shitty job.”
“And I thought I was out of it.”
“So why my flat?”
“I’m not going anywhere near Thames House. I’ll do what I do, then I’m gone. Until then, we need a place to meet and if you don’t mind, I need a place to crash before tonight.”
“What’s happening tonight?”
“I’m shutting down Mullah Al-Shaqqaf,” King said. “Permanently.”
55
King drove the BMW into the middle of the high-rise assisted housing complex and left it with the key-fob in the ignition. It was battered, the windows smashed and the airbags deployed, but he knew it would be gone within the hour. Either to a body shop or for a joy-ride to end its short life a burned out shell on an estate much like this one. As he swung the sports bag containing the SCAR rifle over his shoulder and walked away the local “chavalary” was already riding near. These children wearing hoodies and riding BMX bikes, were pre-teen scouts who had already singled out the premium car and were on their mobile phones, no doubt to older brothers or the drug dealers they couriered for.
King had reloaded the Ruger pistol back at the warehouse and taken the remaining Walther P99 from Caroline, who was now clean. The weapon she shot Mohammed Betesh with was in police possession with Sergei Gulubkin’s finger prints and DNA all over it, and he had gun powder residue on his hands. It was crude and contestable, but it tied him to the weapon and drew attention away from Caroline. The CZ75 pistol Professor Orlev had shot both DS Mathews and DC Watkins with was on its way to forensics. Again, he had his DNA and prints on it, but was not around to deny it. It was a locked tight case. Scenes of crime officers (SOCO) were now pulling the warehouse apart and both Caroline and Hodges had worked out their stories to corroborate. King would be left out of their accounts and a mystery gunman responsible for Orlev’s death would be replaced. All evidence of Orlev’s waterboarding had been cleared away and the CCTV had been wiped. Following their investigation, Caroline and Hodges had merely walked into the carnage that had been left behind. Mathews had arrived first, followed by Watkins. Neither Caroline nor Hodges claimed to have seen the person who had shot Orlev.