Transition

by Ethan Arkwright

  ‘No, no, this is ridiculous,’ the Mentalist said quickly after a pause. ‘I’ve worked for this company for twenty-five years. Nothing like this would ever happen here.’

  Wouldn’t it, hell! thought Jonathan. He hasn’t studied the company history too well: the Suez invasion, the Iran deal, the Libya deal. The government lobbyists. They were involved at the highest levels in most countries, and at the shadiest levels in others – idiot!

  ‘I believe you,’ Jonathan lied. ‘I also believe in the conviction of those trying kill me right now. All I’m asking is that you find out how widely the document was circulated. I’ll call you back soon.’

  He hung up the phone and started walking away briskly, while looking around wildly for a taxi.

  An hour later, Jonathan was sipping coffee in an internet café and scrolling through news websites. He broke this up by intermittently glancing out of the window at the people walking by.

  Earlier he thought he had seen the same man in a dark blue coat walk past the window twice, while looking in. He wondered if he was becoming paranoid. This was Paris; there were a few million blue coats walking around the city at any time.

  He was on the other side of the city from where he had made the call this morning. Once he had hung up on the Dutch Mentalist, he had quickly found a cab to be driven across the city, changing cabs twice. He had then taken a random bus and yet another cab. He doubted they could have found him that fast from the call and then tracked him across the city.

  Still, it was better to be paranoid than dead, he thought.

  There was no one familiar at the window or in the café. He went back to flicking through news websites. There was not a lot on the plane blast over Algeria. Mostly that officials were looking for wreckage on the ground and hoping to find the flight recorder. The eyewitness accounts varied: some locals on the ground said it ‘just exploded’, while others said it was trailing smoke and acting erratically for some time before it blew up.

  Jonathan knew this was a load of rubbish; Falcus had been cut off instantaneously. The villagers down there would tell you whatever you wanted if you gave them a dollar.

  Reports on the Paris blast stated that early indications indicated it might be terrorist-related. Surprise, surprise, thought Jonathan, as he scrolled through the screens.

  There were multiple pages of reporting: this was a major event in a European capital, though they obviously had nothing concrete to relate.

  Jonathan slugged back the last of his coffee in disgust and checked everyone in the café again, before picking up his things to leave.

  As he walked out of the door and tried to look surreptitiously up and down the street, he decided it was time to change his clothes. Then he had to find another cash-accepting crappy French hotel, with delusions of two-star adequacy. He felt it was wise to hole up again for another night.

  By tomorrow morning, everyone would have had a full day to discover more information about what was going on.

  First thing tomorrow, I’ll be back on the phone, he thought. And they’d better have some bloody answers!

  13

  Kazakhstan

  The mistral winds swept up large clouds of dust on the faraway golden plains of sun-baked Kazakhstan. The vast expanse of the clear blue sky was suddenly shattered by the sonic booms of two brand-new Sukhoi S-30K fighter jets cutting a scythe through the heavens.

  As the planes receded to dots in a matter of seconds, all the gathered dignitaries standing on the wooden stage below took their fingers out of their ears in one synchronized movement.

  The President of Russia and his vice president took their seats on a stand within an air force base, also spanking new, in the complete middle of nowhere. It was a diplomatic as well as commercial visit.

  The Russians hated Kazakhstan, yet it was the size of Western Europe and resource-rich, so could not be ignored. Now that the Kazakhstan government was beginning to channel oil revenue into its central coffers, it had embarked on a social programme befitting the status of any new nation emerging onto the global stage – it started buying fighter planes.

  This was where the Russians came in.

  The SU-30K was the latest and greatest winged weapon of destruction from Mother Russia.

  Any customer was good, and the Russians gave additional discounts to neighbours, they would be damned if American or European planes were stationed anywhere near their vast borders.

  The Russians were whispering together and smiling at the Kazak president. The Kazak president was pleased with his planes, and pleased that the Russians were pleased. The Kazak president smiled and waved at them as he took the microphone at the front of the stage to begin addressing the paltry crowd of armed forces personnel of his new base in the middle of nowhere.

  The Russians waved back.

  ‘That’s it, keep smiling, you fucking peasant,’ the Russian president whispered through his best false smile. He leant over to his vice president. ‘Give me an update on the assassinations,’ he hissed.

  Anatoly Kirkov cleared his throat before whispering back. ‘We’re following some leads. Chasing down some informants. Something will break soon.’

  ‘So you have nothing,’ whispered the president through gritted teeth. He smiled and waved again as the flashes from the cameras in front of the stage lit up like a phosphorous fireworks display.

  ‘These things take time. We are pursu-’

  ‘Nothing!’ hissed the president again. ‘I want answers to this. I want you to get me answers on this. I will continue to lean on you and you will lean on FSB to get me answers. We have a G20 summit coming up that will be here before we know it. I will not stand there next to the rest of the world leaders feeling foolish, as well as looking foolish, in whatever local tribal garments they clothe me. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course. We ...’

  ‘This Demetchev they have put on the case ...’ the president ploughed on, oblivious to the meek protestations of his number two. The president was obviously going somewhere with this. ‘... the one they call “the Bear”, everyone speaks incredibly highly of him. They say he is a faithful servant to Russia and has never failed her. I want him to take full control of the FSB side of things. Give him full power to go anywhere with this. Kekushev is too busy to run the investigation effectively. He has too many other things on his mind: the greatest of which is how many months are left till he retires to his dacha.’

  ‘But I will still be running the overall case?’ Kirkov asked.

  ‘Yes, Anatoly, he will report directly to you. This is still a big chance for you, at home and abroad. The chance is still there.’

  ‘Then I agree that it is a good idea,’ whispered Kirkov.

  Overhead, the two air-superiority fighters came at each other from opposite ends of the sky. Each tilted away from the other at the last moment, to cross paths right above the assembled crowd. The noise was deafening, and rattled the stage.

  The Kazak president, still standing, whooped with delight like an American.

  The two Russians both smiled, and surreptitiously looked at their watches.

  14

  London

  It was standing room only in the Victorian themed conference room, deep within the bowels of the prestigious London Astoria hotel.

  Most of the people on the conference room floors were from the newspapers, business magazines, investment journals and investment trusts. There was also a sprinkling of black-suited company executives amongst the tightly-packed throng.

  The auspicious occasion that had prompted the gathering was the very first press conference of Warren Tarrant – the new CEO of the largest multinational oil company in the world.

  All were eager to hear the new boss impart his vision. They wanted his views on the organisation, on energy security, on the environment, and – most importantly – on their pension returns. They also wanted to know how much he differed from his recently departed predecessor: Calvin Mitchell.

  ‘Hope th
is guy knows what he’s talking about in front of the press,’ one veteran journalist said to a colleague, as they took a seat and readied their notebooks on the front row.

  ‘Yeah,’ replied his colleague, from a different newspaper. ‘The last guy didn’t have a friggin’ clue.’

  As Warrant Tarrant stood behind the curtain while preparing to walk onto the world stage as the boss of all bosses, he paused for a minute to reflect and enjoy the momentous occasion.

  He had wangled, politicked and bullied for the last twenty years to get to this point. He knew they called him ‘Warren Tyrant’ behind his back – but his methods had worked. His nomination by the board of directors had been a mere formality.

  After appreciating the sheer grandeur of himself for a few moments, he opened the curtain and stepped through to claim what was rightfully his – the most powerful podium in the private business sector.

  Polite applause rippled around the room as he stood up to the microphone. Camera flashes went off sparingly. The press were not sure how many pictures of him would be printed.

  The two journalists were writing notes, then comparing them. The first showed what he had written as a description of Tarrant:

  Five foot three, bald, slightly ginger. Build of an old-school English pugilist as seen in pictures from the 1930s – the sepia ones with teams crouching together, laced tightly into leather trunks and boots.

  The second journo laughed quietly, then shared his notes across the chairs:

  Face looks like it lost more fights than it won – particularly in the boarding school divisions. ‘Alpine’ nose, clearly broken in youth and not set quite straight.

  Both journalists were trying to stifle giggles. These corporate affairs were always interminably dull – the journalistic challenge was to liven them up in any way possible.

  The first journalist scribbled furiously on his pad and passed it across:

  Child molester glasses?

  The second wrote beneath it and passed it back:

  Blotched, pockmarked skin – left too long in microwave …

  Up on the podium, Tarrant knew all the writers were thinking of how to describe him – he didn’t care what he looked like. He had flunkies to dress him in smart suits, but he knew he was bald, slightly ginger and ugly – a new set of glasses would not make him any prettier.

  Besides, this was not the telecoms or IT industry, where tall, cover-model CEOs with slicked hair reigned supreme, and the stock price of the company could go up or down ten dollars depending on how the CEO looked that day.

  This was the oil industry.

  Nobody got excited or sexed-up over oil products.

  In the oil industry it was the numbers that spoke – and Tarrant always delivered the numbers.

  As he took his place at the podium, he knew he stood to make millions.

  It’s my time, and it’s going to be an epoch, he thought. These idiots will remember my name for generations to come.

  He raised his arms to quell the applause in the room, feeling like a Roman emperor about to address the seething masses. In those days, the emperor would garner favour with the ‘plebs’, by having loaves of bread tossed into the crowd. Today’s version of the bread was information.

  He would toss them some morsels but keep them hungry, always wanting more from him. He looked out over the floor and beamed his plastic smile, the one the image consultants had forced him to use, until it no longer hurt. But behind the plastic was a feeling of disgust.

  They’re still plebs, he thought.

  He would throw them some crumbs but they would still have no idea what he knew.

  It was his game now, and he held all the best cards.

  My time! he thought triumphantly as he began to address the crowd.

  Forty minutes later the press conference was ending. Tarrant would take no more questions and was attempting to deliver his sign-off with a flourish. He was put off slightly when he felt vibrating in his pocket.

  The vibrating came from a very special mobile phone with an encrypted number. Only a few people had the number. It was only used on urgent occasions.

  Tarrant finished with something about ‘delivering the vision and exceptional shareholder returns’, before departing the podium quickly; suddenly remembering that he should walk out with an air of surety and confidence. If you looked uncomfortable, and as though you couldn’t wait to get off the stage, it made people think you had something to hide. Tarrant brushed aside the curtain at the back of the stage and, once through, fished the vibrating phone from an inside jacket pocket.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered quietly, looking to see who else was around. Some flunkeys where coming towards him to shower praise. He waved them away.

  The voice he heard coming through the phone was robotic. He knew it was being run through a state-of- the-art scrambling system. The software ran both ways on the phone, so neither of the callers could be identified through a voice-recognition program. The call could not be traced, either.

  ‘Greetings,’ said a ghostly, tinny voice in his ear. ‘We may have ourselves a problem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tarrant whispered, his voice filled with intensity.

  ‘A new man has been put in charge of the investigation on the Russian intelligence services side,’ the tin voice said.

  ‘So take care of him,’ Tarrant asserted. ‘Why is this urgent enough to call me? Just deal with it.’

  ‘Because this man is different,’ intoned the hollow voice. ‘They call him “Medvjed” – the Bear. He cannot be bought. Eliminating him will draw even more attention to where there’s too much already. He’s like an attack dog, and that’s how he will handle the investigation. He doesn’t care who he upsets, and he manages to maintain this style even in Russia, because he gets results.’

  ‘Who is sponsoring him in this position?’ asked Tarrant. Many times in his career, when being scratched by an unwelcome claw in the organisation, he had found it was easier to go upwards and find a way to lop off the head that controlled the claw.

  ‘The President of Russia,’ the unemotional voice stated flatly.

  ‘Shit,’ Tarrant replied.

  ‘Exactly,’ said the voice, still robotic, with a kind of ‘game over’ finality. ‘Which is why we should prepare to leak something to the press in the meantime. We may need to shore up the blame against someone else, and throw this Bear off the scent while we figure out some way to get to him.’

  ‘Right. Agreed,’ Tarrant said.

  The line clicked off. Tarrant put the special phone back in his pocket and motioned for the flunkeys to come over and tell him how great he was.

  15

  Paris

  Jonathan walked through the doors of a large department store in Paris.

  He’d found his way there after a long and tortuous conversation with the old man who ran the downmarket hotel he had stayed in the previous night. He wanted to buy clothes in a local shopping centre, as he figured the tourist areas would be where whoever was trying to kill him would focus their search – not in some dingy suburb on the far-east side of town.

  After a short taxi ride, he was now shopping for new outfits and disguises.

  ‘This is a time when my atrocious fashion sense will serve me well,’ he said to himself, as he started looking through rails of shirts.

  He had been shopping for about an hour, trawling up and down the racks of clothes and picking up items similar to what he saw locals wearing, when he turned a corner and froze in his tracks.

  I can’t believe it! he thought. Is it too much of a coincidence?

  His heart was racing as adrenaline was pumped through his nervous system.

  As he was about to backtrack slowly step by step – she turned and looked straight at him.

  His eyes were locked with those of Julie Anguillarme. Julie worked in the Paris office of the organisation. Jonathan had got to know her at a friendly level on a month-long project he had worked on in the city.

  T
hey had hit it off from the start, after a laughable incident involving miscommunication from Jonathan’s broken french.

  Jonathan had always found her attractive, but was too shy to do anything about it.

  Now he was terrified for his life as he looked into the sultry French eyes set within her pretty face, framed by a chic auburn bob.

  She started walking towards him!

  ‘Run!’ his mind screamed.

  He was frozen to the spot.

  ‘Jonathan?’ she asked quizzically as she got to within a metre of him. Her head was cocked to one side, and her face was a mixture of surprise and disbelief. Jonathan’s legs still felt like lead but he was now looking wildly around for men in black coats – moving toward them for the kill.

  Everything seemed normal in the store. He turned back to Julie, who was smiling as though she had got over the surprise and was genuinely happy to see him.

  It’s all too convenient, he thought. She must be working for them.

  He took her arm and guided her towards a row of coats that partially shielded them from the sight of anyone in the rest of the store.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  She took her arm back.

  ‘I … live here?’ she said, sounding confused and surprised. ‘My apartment is two blocks away. I’m … shopping. It’s more surprising that you are here!’

  ‘Mm, convenient,’ Jonathan said. ‘What is the first shop on the left when you walk through the main doors?’