by A P Bateman
“A mile or two in front of you. Blue Ford Mondeo. Registration ending CMB,” she recalled from memory.
“I’ll pull in behind you.”
“What are you driving?”
“Red Jag. An F-Type sports car.”
“Subtle.”
“Well, it was on expenses.” King said dryly. “And sometimes being a bit noticeable can actually make you go unnoticed.”
“Like Magnum PI and his Ferrari?” she laughed. “Whatever. I’ll scrutinise your receipts from now on,” she said and ended the call. She turned back to the laptop screen and frowned. The display finally showed an intermittent red dot, but the moment it had appeared there was suddenly two and one veered left, the other carried on along the motorway. Her mobile rang. It was Brannan. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure. It can’t be equipment failure, all I can say is that the suspect is going one way and the vehicle is going the other.”
“Or the suspect and the vehicle are going one way and his tracker is going the other.”
“Look, I’m pulling off and going after the beacon on the minor road. You stay on the motorway. See if you can catch up and get a visual. You’ll stand a better chance than we will. The roads off the motorway will be twisty single lanes or dual carriageway. He won’t test our top-end speed. And if we try for a visual, he may well make us. We’ll keep back a mile and see what happens.”
“Okay, but keep me posted,” Caroline ended the call and looked around. She could see the gleaming red Jaguar with King behind the wheel. He was following closely. She scrolled down her phone and dialled his number. “That was quick.”
“I might not be handing this back.”
“Droznedov’s signal has split. The watcher team leader thinks it might be a case of target gone one way and the vehicle has been taken another. He stopped at Beaconsfield services, it looks as if he had someone waiting there. They’ve kept close enough to appear as a single signal. But they’ve played their hand now,” she said, then felt a pang of grief as she thought of Forester and his habit of card game or gambling comparisons.
“I’ll shoot on ahead, take a look, then drop back. How far ahead is your signal?”
“A mile. A white Audi A4 saloon. We’re right on the cusp of the signal, but that way the target won’t know we’re following. I think this may just be an elaborate counter-surveillance measure.” King powered past, accelerating the car with its big V8 engine and whirring supercharger to over twice the legal limit. The exhausts bellowed, the sports car shot forward and the Ford seemed to be going backwards. “Alex, he’s taking the junction. Back off, it looks like he’s going to Oxford. He’s on the slip-road now. Can you see him?”
“No. I’m not there yet,” King paused. “Right, I see the slip-road now. There’s a lorry on it. No car. One small hatchback just pulling onto it.”
“No, he’s off the slip-road now. Back off, we’ll come past you and you follow us. It will be less obvious than that penis substitution you’re in…” She leaned towards the window, shielding the phone. “…Which, by the way, you don’t need.” She glanced towards Frank, who was grinning. She felt herself flush red.
King hammered on the brakes and slowed all the way up the ramp and pulled in onto the gravelled shoulder before the lights. Two cars passed him, then Caroline and Frank in the blue Mondeo. King pulled back out and they took the exit off the roundabout in unison. King backed off a few car lengths and the two vehicles settled to fifty miles per hour. The next twenty minutes were spent weaving through roundabouts and taking various roads until they ended up on the A44 travelling towards Chipping Norton.
Caroline answered her phone. It was Brannan. “Yes?”
“Just to advise you, we are on the hire car. The white Audi. We’ve drawn close enough for a confirmed visual. We can’t see if it is the target inside. My gut feeling is that you are with the target and we have been following a vehicle switch. I personally stitched the tracker into his jacket and the lining of his travel bag. I can’t see him discovering it in the time frame.”
“Where are you?”
“Just hit the A41 travelling towards Hemel Hampstead. It seems like we’re doing a big loop back to London.”
“Well stay with it. We need a visual on the target. Not just his vehicle.”
After forty minutes or so they had taken a right-angle south-west and were on the A436 via a winding route. They had yet to have the opportunity for a visual. Brannan had called to say that he was travelling clockwise on the M25 circular. He was making calls to access the traffic control cameras and attempt a visual on the driver.
Small towns and villages came and went and still they could not see what make of vehicle they were following. After Bourton-on-Water they turned off the main road and took a series of country lanes. Frank closed the gap to half a mile. There did not seem to be any other vehicles in front.
“Be careful Frank,” Caroline said. “Out here he’ll spot a tail if we show ourselves.”
Frank looked at the screen and the road ahead. The map on the screen showed a series of turns. Frank started to close the gap in the bends, then backed off for the straights. All the while they could hear the Jaguar behind burbling as King took his foot off the throttle.
“Can you bring up the scale on that map?” Frank asked.
Caroline looked at the operating tool bar and clicked on the magnifying glass icon. The screen display enlarged. “It looks like he’s pulled off the road and is travelling down a track. That looks like a farm.” She pointed at the map. “The track is definitely a dead end,” she said, looking up at the hedges and sweeping fields beyond. “Pull in, I want to talk to King.”
72
The farmhouse looked old and unkempt. The house itself was large. Two storey with six windows on the top floor. King could see that the building went back a way too. He imagined six or more large bedrooms and a large bathroom on the top floor and two or three large reception rooms downstairs. Maybe a kitchen with a range. Certainly the house looked to have seen better days. There were various outbuildings and a large shed that was like an aircraft hangar approximately one hundred metres from the house.
“Vegetable packing station,” Caroline said. “That’s what it reminds me of. My uncle had one in Devon and I used to stay for a week or so in the summers when I was a girl.”
“Doesn’t look busy packing vegetables now,” King observed.
“Looks to me like a bankruptcy. Hence the lack of crops in the fields or animals,” she said, pointing to the stretch of empty fields beyond the house. “The fields are fallow. I expect this farm felt the pinch from supermarkets either not paying enough, or holding off from paying altogether for too long, and sooner or later it was too late.”
“So do you think they’re squatting in there?”
“No. I imagine they’re renting it, or have a short term arrangement with the bank or agents representing the claimants. The plaintiffs are long gone.”
“You know a lot about such things,” King said, studying the house through the binoculars.
“My uncle went bust the same way. It was very sad.”
“Did he get over it?”
“No. He shot himself. Highest suicide rate of any profession, and most farmers own a shotgun,” she shook her head. “We all eat, but we don’t ask the right questions or want to pay enough for our food.”
King didn’t answer. He could see it was still raw for her. “Droznedov, or whoever the hell he is has just gone inside.”
“Do you think the device is here?”
King looked across the fields and at the fringe of houses in the distance. Beyond it he knew the target. He had thought as much when they were twenty miles out. He had walked its corridors, eaten in its cafeterias and been briefed in the many briefing rooms. “Without a doubt,” he said.
Caroline nodded. “Why are you so sure?” King stepped down from the hedge and walked back to the Jaguar. Caroline followed. She stood on the uneven grass verg
e. “Why are you so sure?” she repeated.
“I should have seen it sooner,” he said. “It’s not just the proximity, it’s what lies at the very reaches.”
“I don’t understand,” Caroline looked at him earnestly. “What is the significance?”
“That’s Cheltenham down there,” King replied. “Or the suburbs.”
“GCHQ, oh Christ!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t pick up on it, didn’t realise quite where we were.”
“We didn’t exactly come by the most direct route.” King took a road atlas out of the foot well of the Jaguar and opened it to the relevant page. He walked around and placed the map on the vehicle’s sleek bonnet. “Here’s Cheltenham.” He pointed, then drew his finger out two miles. The explosion would take out everything in here.” He drew a circle around with his finger.
“Here,” Caroline said, taking a pen out of her handbag. She glanced expectantly at her mobile. “Hodges was going to call me back. He discovered a body in the target’s room. The real Droznedov no doubt, but he hasn’t updated me.”
“Doesn’t seem like him. But you’ve been on your phone non-stop.” King circled the area a few times. “That is the blast radius. And if it’s here, on this farm, then there is nothing much in the way to stop it. GCHQ will be gone for sure. Along with it the cleverest people working in intelligence, some would say the country, if not the world. With them is the infrastructure, databases and equipment only they know about. This is a serious target, it will take Britain back fifty years in terms of our hold on the world stage in intelligence, both criminal and foreign and domestic terrorism and counter espionage.” King drew a point about forty miles out circled the radius. My guess is that would be a dirty bomb’s reach going on the amount of flasks of uranium that Rashid talked about. It’s an estimate but a fair one.”
Caroline looked at the area inside. “The SAS base at Hereford,” she said, pointing inside the circle.
“You’ve got about ten military barracks, bases or airfields at a quick estimation,” he ran his finger over the map. “There’s Cirencester there. Bristol docks, that’s commerce killed right there.”
“Oh my God, look!” Caroline pointed to an area in Gloucestershire. “That’s the source of the River Thames. Contamination will flow right through London.”
“We need to move,” said King.
He folded the map and walked around to the rear of the Jaguar and opened the boot. He reached inside and opened the sports bag, started taking out the remaining spare magazines for the SCAR rifle. Caroline checked her Walther.
“We should call for some back-up,” Caroline said. “Armed police or the SAS.”
“We don’t know what time we’ve got. And this is the end, right here. Everything Forester wanted done, for good or bad. If the police come in at this stage, then the truth will come out. Islamic extremists directly involved with ISIS on British soil were behind an attempt to use a nuclear weapon,” he said, shaking his head. “And with the involvement of Russians? Nobody will believe it was one man’s vendetta. Taking down MI5 and GCHQ in an act of ultimate vengeance? Killing hundreds of thousands of people? The public will see it as a direct Russian attack.”
“So we just go in and kill them?”
“I don’t think it will be that easy.”
“You can bet your ass it won’t be.” The woman’s voice carried behind them. King started to move but a gunshot rang out and he froze, a large clean hole punched through the boot lid and shattered the rear window. “Hands! Let me see them!”
Caroline dropped the pistol in the boot and raised her arms slowly. King gave her a look, but she shook her head adamantly. The SCAR was still in the bag. He’d never make it. King followed suit, slowly turned to face the direction of the voice. It was slow, guttural. He could see the barrel and front sight of the Kalashnikov, the eyes of the woman lined up behind it. She rose slowly and King could see the shapely face, the attractive features of Alesha Mikailovitch. She kept the weapon trained on them as she stepped unsteadily on top of the hedge. King could see the burn marks across her cheek. As she sat down and slid down the hedge he could see the nasty scabbing burns and scarring on one side of her face. The burn had been so fierce it had cratered and changed the profile.
“There is a God,” she said, looking at Caroline. “How I prayed I’d meet you again.”
“Third time lucky,” said Caroline coldly.
“For me, but not for you,” Alesha smiled, then frowned. “Third?”
“We met at Hoist’s flat. I just missed you,” Caroline smirked. “Just before you ran away.”
She glared at her, then shrugged. Like it was of no consequence. The ball was now back in her court. She moved around them, keeping an expert four paces of distance between them. She kept the weapon held tightly into her shoulder, although she was no longer aiming, but at this distance she could not miss. King noticed she had flicked the selector up a notch to full-auto. One move and she would make strawberry jam of them. “Put your hands on your head and walk in front of me. Down the lane. Do it now!”
73
“I expect by now you’re wondering what all of this is about?” Vladimir Zukovsky smiled.
King stood against the wall of the kitchen. It was as he had imagined. Long and wide and heated by a wood-burning range. Alesha, standing to the side of Zukovsky, covered both Caroline and King with the AK47. Droznedov placed his Makarov pistol on the kitchen work surface, stepped forwards and grabbed hold of Caroline. He pulled her away from King and pushed her against the kitchen counter. He frisked her, patting her down over her back and stomach, under her arms, down her legs to her knees, back up. He lingered near her crotch, then ran a hand over both breasts. She flinched and he smiled. “Ah, is it still sore? I was looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Your boy done?” King said. Droznedov turned and King stared at him. The Russian sneered, but he was the one who looked uncomfortable. He held the stare for a while, then looked away.
Zukovsky smirked. “Now, now. Play nicely.”
Droznedov pushed Caroline down into a chair which was turned out from the table. He walked over and stood in front of King.
“Turn around,” he said.
“Make me.”
“I’ll shoot you.”
“Your gun’s over there.”
Droznedov backed away, smiling. He picked up the pistol.
“Enough!” Zukovsky snapped. “Dimitri, cover them. Alesha, search him.”
“Dimitri. Not Uri Droznedov then?” King smirked.
“No, alas, the real Major Uri Droznedov was unfortunate collateral damage,” Zukovsky said.
“Unfortunate?”
“Yes. How you say, a terrier? He just kept digging.”
Alesha patted King down his sides, she tried to turn him around but he resisted. She heaved at him, but he remained firmly in his stance. She concentrated on moving him, not wanting to lose face, reached around him and patted his back around the waistband. She retrieved the flick-knife from his pocket.
King eyed her closely. “Nice face,” he whispered, almost in her ear.
She glared at him, went to slap him then thought better of it. She backed away, smiling. She walked past both men and took a pan out of the cupboard. She reached high up on a shelf and retrieved a large kiln jar of sugar, poured it into the pan and then lifted the lid of the range and placed the pan on top. She walked back to the table and picked up the AK47. She smiled down at Caroline, gave her a wink.
“So, as I was saying, you were wondering what all of this is about.” Vladimir Zukovsky said.
“Not really,” said King.
Zukovsky tried to hide his surprise. “No?”
“Well, I’m wondering how your man here did the car switch.”
Dimitri smiled. “One of Gulubkin’s men. I wasn’t sure you would be on to me, but we are professionals. We take that sort of thing into account.”
“And Gulubkin?” King asked.
“I gave him a
simple out. He never knew where we were going to detonate the device, but he realised there was no way out for him. Not even if he talked. The filter of the cigarette was packed with cyanide.”
“Anything else?” Zukovsky smirked.
“No. I think we have the gist of it.” King looked at Caroline. “Nothing really for them to add?”
Caroline was staring anxiously at the pan on the stove. She looked back at King, her face ashen. “No, I think we have it worked out.”
“Indulge me,” Vladimir Zukovsky said. “Let me see how close you got.”
King shrugged, leaned back against the counter. “Your son gets killed in a British attack on ISIS in Syria. You blame British intelligence, you find out who was involved and you make your own hit-list.”
Zukovsky nodded. “Good. And?”
“You blame ISIS. Islamic extremists. You want them eliminated at source and you find out who recruited, indoctrinated and financed the ISIS cell or group. You want them not only dead, but you want to stoke the fires of the west, get them behind the cause of seeing Islamic extremism wiped out. How’s that?”
“Good.”
“They’re not coming,” King paused. “Iman Mullah Al-Shaqqaf and his mob. They’re all dead. Including the suicide bomber that was to have set off your warhead.”
Zukovsky smiled. “I expected no less. Thank you.”
King frowned, he glanced across at Caroline, who in turn was watching the pan of boiling sugar on the stove. She looked terrified. He looked back at Zukovsky. “Okay, we’re missing something. Are you going to indulge us?”
The old man smiled. “You have deduced your theory, and you have done well. It was exactly what we wanted you to believe. You followed the breadcrumbs, joined the dots, fitted the missing pieces.” He patted the man Dimitri on the shoulder. “This is Dimitri Zukovsky,” he said. “My son.”
“Son number one, or son number two?” asked King.
The old man smiled. “Number one,” he patted Dimitri on the back. “I’ve only ever had one son.”