by Blake Banner
“You need building up, old boy.”
I smiled, more ruefully than happily, and we moved to the table. As I sat, Sanchez was dishing up the paella for Araminta.
“I’m built up,” I said to the brigadier, though it wasn’t strictly true. “What I need is to get out and start doing something constructive. I’ve been locked in here for a week.”
Araminta accepted the plate from Sanchez and glanced at me.
“Quit griping, you were a wreck when I brought you here[8]. If you’d gone after the colonel in the state you were in, you’d have been dead inside twenty-four hours.”
I leaned sideway to let Sanchez load up my plate.
“You’re right,” I said, and nodded. “But that was a week ago.” One of the cute maids poured wine. When she and Sanchez had left I went on. “I feel OK and we need to start doing something. We can’t just sit around…”
I trailed off and shoved a forkful of yellow rice into my mouth. The brigadier wagged his fork at me.
“Just because you are convalescing, it does not mean that we are sitting around scratching our posteriors.”
Araminta snorted a short laugh, glanced at me and grinned.
“Posteriors. That’s like asses in English. ‘Git your posterior over here, boy! Boy, I is gonna whip your posterior!’”
I smiled, but the brigadier ignored her and went on.
“Jane is not as easy to move as you might think. Within the defense and intelligence communities she is relatively high profile, so moving her around requires a high level of control and secrecy, and that itself, ironically, leaves a large footprint. We have been watching the ports, maritime and aerial, the railway stations and roads. There has been no sign of her until now.”
Araminta stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth. I said, “Until now?”
“I heard this morning. We are fairly confident the colonel was seen, at about seven AM, boarding a yacht at Puerto Banus.”
I scowled. “Why are you telling me now? Why didn’t you tell me at the time?”
He raised an eyebrow at me that could have frozen lava. “Because I don’t have to, Harry. I am telling you now because it seems to me to be the appropriate time. The agent who saw her knew the colonel well and he reported that he was confident it was her.”
“Was she OK?”
He nodded several times as he picked up his fork again. “Oh, yes. She was unaccompanied and boarded the yacht of her own free will.”
There was something cold and hard in the way he said it. My scowl deepened. I asked: “What yacht?”
“The Bucephalus.”
“The who?”
“The Bucephalus is a luxury superyacht which belongs to Gabriel Yushbaev, a Russian billionaire with links to both organized crime and, some thirty years ago, the KGB. His worth is estimated by Forbes to be approximately nineteen billion US dollars.” He gave a thin smile. “He is one of the few men in Russia to have benefited from the Covid crisis. Some people have benefited, you know?”
“No kidding.”
“The Bucephalus has not left port yet, though sources tell us it is due to leave very shortly.”
I felt a hot jolt of anger in my gut. “Sir, if you had told me this morning…”
Araminta interrupted me, wiping her mouth with her napkin. “What? You could have driven down there, killed everyone, blown up the yacht and dragged the colonel home by her smoking hair?”
The brigadier winced. “Thank you, Araminta.” I sighed and started eating again. He went on, “The thing is, Harry, whether I had told you at seven AM or whether I tell you now, it makes little difference, because all we can do at present is watch. Araminta has a point. All we could do right now is storm the boat, and aside from having cutting-edge security and heavily armed guards, it is also under the protection of the Spanish authorities. And we don’t really want to get into a conflict with them.”
I laid down my fork. “So what do we do? We can’t just sit back and watch.”
“Clearly.” He gestured at me with an open hand. “What do you suggest?”
“Do we know where the yacht is headed?”
“Yes, its first port of call is Ano Koufonisi, in the Cyclades islands, about a hundred and thirty miles southeast of Athens. After that it seems they carry on to Istanbul, and after that they may enter the Black Sea, but we don’t know for sure.”
I frowned. “So not the Middle East. If they are handing off to Al-Qaeda, they’re going to do it in Istanbul.” They glanced at each other, but remained silent. I said, “What?”
Araminta took a deep breath and sipped her wine.
“The picture has changed, Harry.”
I felt hot anger rise up in my belly and fought to control it.
“What do you mean, the picture has changed?”
“Well, for a start the behavior you described.”
“What behavior I described? What are you talking about?”
“The way she reacted to you in Le Jardin d’Eden,[9] that was abnormal behavior, Harry. And the way she failed to help you, even after you had stabbed Cavendish. She just left you lying there, Harry, and when those men took her away, she didn’t put up a fight. But most of all, the way she boarded that yacht this morning, unaccompanied, of her own free will…” She paused, shrugged and drew down the corners of her mouth. “That is not the colonel I know. I don’t recognize that person.”
“Are you saying you suspect the colonel of being a double agent?” I looked at the brigadier. “You know her, sir. Are you saying that?”
“No, what I am saying, Harry, is that her behavior is out of character.”
“But there has to be an explanation!”
“Of course there has. Clearly, but we don’t know what that explanation is, so we can’t make any predictions based on it. All we can say is that from what we have observed, the colonel is behaving in an atypical, unpredictable way. We don’t know how far that atypical behavior will extend.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re driving at.”
Araminta answered. “What I am driving at, is that we cannot be sure anymore whether the colonel is going to be handed off to jihadists or not.” She looked at me with something like pity. “Harry, we don’t even know for sure if she is a prisoner anymore. All we know is that they have got her, and we want her back.”
I frowned at them like they were crazy. “You want me to kill her?”
“No!” It was the brigadier. “Certainly not. I want you to find her, get her and bring her home. That is all.”
I ate in silence for a while. I grabbed a piece of bread and tore it in half to mop up the saffron rice.
“Suppose I bring her home and we find she’s a double agent?”
The brigadier raised a finger. Swallowed and sipped his wine. “In the first place, it is clear from the success rate of our operations that, if she is a double agent, she was turned very recently. It stands to reason that if she had been turned earlier, not only would a percentage of our operations have been compromised and failed, but also Cavendish and his associates, not to mention the CIA, would not have been at such pains to find out who you were and who you worked for. They would merely have had to ask her. She didn’t inform them and from what we can tell, so far she still hasn’t.”
I nodded. “That’s a good point.”
“The second point is that we need to know why she has turned—if indeed she has. Is it money? Is it blackmail? We simply don’t know, but we need to know.”
Araminta had been busy wiping her plate clean with bread. Now she stuffed a piece in her mouth and spoke around it. “But her weird behavior remains unexplained. We need to know what is going on. We can’t just ignore it.”
I nodded. “OK, point taken.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think you do understand, Harry. This is not about blame. This is about predictability. You were going to die, and she sat there and watched. She did nothing.”
“You said that.”
> “So what I am saying now is, when you try to bring her home, you don’t know how she is going to react. She might turn on you. She might alert her…,” she hesitated and made inverted comma signs with her fingers, “‘captors.’ So you need to be ready for that.”
“I get it. She is unpredictable right now, and I have to be ready for that.”
“So—” The brigadier reached out and helped himself to more rice and prawns. My own plate was still half full. He handed the serving spoon to Araminta with an inquiring lift of his eyebrows and she made an affirmative, “Mm!” and took it from him.
I sighed. “So the question is, how do I get aboard that damned boat?”
Two
“So what do we know about the yacht?”
Sanchez was clearing away the plates and the girls had brought a big cheese board, a bottle of cognac and a bottle of whisky on a tray, and a pot of coffee. The brigadier cut into the stilton and balanced a piece on a cracker.
“We have photographs, and we are trying to get hold of the plans. It’s not easy. It is seventy-five feet long, has three decks and a bridge, two state rooms, four suites and an undefined number of cabins. It has a small cinema, two dining rooms and four lounges. Access is from a rear boarding deck. It has a skipper, a first mate and a crew of six, as well as two barmen, six maids and a butler. Then there are two engineers and Yushbaev’s security team who number four. All of whom are drawn from Russian elite special forces. HQ is drawing up a file as we speak.”
“As we speak may be too slow.”
He shook his head as he poured whisky into my glass and then his. “There is too much at stake to go blundering in all guns blazing, Harry. We need discipline and method.”
“Sure.” I sipped the whisky and felt it warm me inside. “But discipline and method won’t be worth a damn if the colonel disappears into the Russian steppes or the Middle East.”
He smiled at me, and after a moment said, “So we need to be disciplined and methodical, quickly.” He turned to Araminta. “Would you go to the office, please, and bring the file, such as it is right now, for Harry to peruse it? Call Pleasantville while you’re at it. Hurry them up and see if they have anything more.”
“Sure.” She stood. “Don’t eat all the cheese.”
I chewed on a dry cracker and a piece of stilton and watched her go inside.
“Could I paraglide in once it’s at sea?”
“Drop from a plane?” He made a doubtful face. “It would be hard to do without alerting the crew and the security team.”
“Couple of air to surface rockets to the bows of the ship to distract them. I land on the stern and look for the colonel.”
“No.” He sipped his whisky. “You are thinking like a soldier rather than an assassin. In the Atlantic or the Pacific you might pull it off. In the Med you are never quite far enough either from shipping or somebody’s coast guard. Those waters are intensely patrolled, by the British, the Spanish and the Italians. Not least because of the number of people attempting to sail across from Africa. The boat would be swarming with officials before you could get close to her.” He shrugged, “And then you’ve got the other problem.”
“Extraction.”
“Exactly. How the hell do we get you out of there?”
“OK, drop me with a submersible…”
“Too slow, those superyachts are fast.”
Drop me ahead of it. I’ll intercept it. I place magnetic mines along the waterline. I pull myself aboard, take the colonel, blow in the side of the yacht, take a lifeboat and get the hell out of there.”
“Having damaged the other lifeboats.”
“You have someone pick us up in a seaplane.”
“Not bad. But very risky, and no plan B. If you miss the intercept, you’ll be stranded in the middle of the Mediterranean with egg all over your face.”
I stared at the glare of the reflected sun above the turquoise pool. I knew he was right and I knew I had to control my impulse to just do it. Who Dares Wins was our motto, but it belied the meticulous preparation and attention to detail that went before the daring. The wild berserker that lies at the heart of every SAS blade was only allowed to come out when all other avenues were closed. Then, if and when that happened, his opponents had a real problem on their hands. But the time for that had not come yet. I said:
“Then I intercept them at Ano Koufonisi. How do I get there?”
“Fly to Naxos. Hire a yacht there. It is only twenty to twenty-five miles from Naxos to Ano Koufonisi. If you average eight knots you should be there in about three hours or less.”
I nodded, then smiled. He had obviously already thought it through and had it prepared. “Can you get a boat at this short notice?”
He returned the smile. “It’s already booked, the Apollonis, a rather nice fifty-foot Hans 540E. She’ll give you eight to ten knots.”
“Should be fun. You’ll be tracking the Bucephalus and you’ll let me know where and when she drops anchor.”
“Of course. I’ve booked you in at Charlotte’s House, a boutique hotel near the beach at Koufonisia, the capital of the island. It’s not much of a capital, a cluster of holiday houses and a couple of restaurants. There is no car-hire there, but I spoke to Charlotte and she said she could arrange a Jeep for you.”
We sat in silence for a while eating cheese and sipping whisky. Eventually he said, “What’s your plan?”
“Get onboard, kill everybody, sink the yacht, bring the colonel home.”
“Good…” He turned as Araminta emerged from the house with a fat file in her hands. As she sat he said, “The island is roughly circular, with Koufonisia located at its southernmost point. Curiously it is not a natural harbor, though a port has been constructed there and is, on the face of it, the most likely place for the Bucephalus to drop anchor.”
Araminta had been leafing through the file as she spoke and now placed a satellite picture of the island on the table. She pointed at it.
“Here, about a mile and a half from Koufonisia, is Pori Beach, the only natural harbor on the island. It happens to be nice and sandy too, with perfect transparent waters. There is no village, but there is a kind of small tourist resort nearby, Finikias, with a couple of private villas and a hotel on the beach. That’s the other place he might drop anchor.” She shrugged. “It’s more private and secluded, and if he needs anything from town, it’s less than five minutes in the launch.”
“Pori Beach would make life a lot easier for me.”
“For sure, and in the Jeep, if you put your foot down, you could be there in five or ten minutes.”
“The million-dollar question now,” said the brigadier, “is, how are you going to get onboard?”
I drained my glass and refilled it. “Our starting point is, either they invite me, or I intrude. The chances of their inviting me are remote. So I am not even going to entertain the idea. Which means I have to intrude. I can intrude in one of three ways, secretly, under false pretences, or I can storm the yacht.”
Araminta raised an eyebrow at the brigadier. “A one-man storm. If it were anybody else, I’d laugh.” She turned to me. “How d’you plan to do that?”
“Swim out at night. Plant magnetic mines forward on the hull. When they detonate, I come aboard aft on the landing platform, move fast to the cabins, kill Yushbaev, find the colonel and leave on the launch. I’d need an assault rifle with a grenade launcher, a P226, a knife...”
“Extraction?”
“I take her to my yacht, then rendezvous with a seaplane. Fly to Rome and pick up an air taxi to New York.”
He stuck out his lower lip and raised his eyebrows. He looked at Araminta. “Sounds good to me. Any comments?”
“It’s not exactly subtle and surgical. It will attract a lot of attention. The yacht will not sink into the cold, dark depths of the Atlantic. Those are shallow, transparent waters. It will sink eight or ten feet into clear, warm water. When they investigate the frogmen will find not only the pieces of min
e on the seabed, they will also find bullet holes and casings, not to mention the bodies of the,” she glanced at me, “doubtless numerous victims shot to pieces by Captain Devastation here.”
I sighed. “Gabriel Yushbaev is known to have connections with the Russian mob. There will be no way to trace whatever they find back to me or Cobra, and it will be assumed that he was attacked by a rival mob. Going in ninja will be much more difficult, require much more preparation and greatly increase the risk element. Not only that, it will put the colonel in greater danger than is necessary. I have to kill everyone on that yacht as quickly and efficiently as possible. That means mines, assault rifle and grenades.”
The brigadier nodded. “I agree. Whom do we have in Greece who can provide the hardware?”
Araminta suppressed a sigh. “Nikki Supplies, Athens.” She turned to me. “Make a list. You’ll need night vision goggles. If you’re going all out you might want some C4, ammo…”
“I got it,” I interrupted her as I wrote down the things I’d need. “How soon can I be out of here?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. There’s just one thing.”
“What?”
“Yushbaev has a representative in Marbella who takes care of business for him in Spain. He’s not a Russian, he’s a Spanish lawyer by the name of Segundo Lopez. You want to find out where Yushbaev is headed after Koufonisi, this guy will know.”
“If I ask him, first thing he’s going to do is call Yushbaev and tell him I’m after him.”
She shrugged and squinted up at the sky, pursing her lips. I looked at the brigadier. He shook his head.
“It’s a tricky one, Harry. I can’t advise you. We don’t condone killing people who are not targets, unless it is in self-defense.”
I turned to Araminta. “This guy, Segundo?” She nodded. “Is he just a lawyer on a retainer, or…?”
She was shaking her head before I’d finished. “No, no, no. This guy manages Yushbaev’s affairs here. He is not just a legal advisor. He is Yushbaev’s agent. That means when Yushbaev isn’t here, Segundo Lopez is Yushbaev.”