The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  At that moment, four men came into the room. Han Wang Tāng, the MD, introduced himself, Chairman Bohai Cheong, and the two previous colleagues of Chongkun, Junjie’s father. They greeted Junjie like long-lost friends, asking after his mother and their families. Patrice, they welcomed respectfully, and with Leo they were barely courteous. ‘We have not disturbed the other directors,’ Tāng said. ‘If this is a technical matter, they would not be helpful.’

  They sat on opposite sides of the conference table and Leo weighed up the two senior men. The chairman carried an air of wisdom and gravitas, scrutinising the visitors through thick-lensed spectacles. Tāng appeared to be in his forties, slim and fit-looking with sharp, shrewd eyes. He murmured something to Cheong, who nodded his agreement.

  His manner became frigid and his tone severe as he addressed his remarks to Leo. ‘What is the purpose of your visit, Mr Stewart? We have agreed to this meeting only as a courtesy to Junjie and to Tom Connor, since we have a great respect for the CEO of our Dubai subsidiary. However, he informed me that you have made allegations against our fellow director, Shen Fu Liáng, whose successful work at XPC created the most innovative software in the history of microprocessing. And this was done despite you, Mr Leo Stewart, leaving the company at the most vulnerable and crucial moment of the development. Before you begin to malign our good friend and colleague, who is not here to defend himself, kindly explain your actions and we will decide whether or not to continue with this discussion.’

  Leo saw their chances of getting past this stone wall by lengthy explanations were negligible, and time was short. He decided to take a risk to get their attention quickly. ‘I understand your position, Mr Tāng. Like you, we didn’t want to believe the truth, because it is frankly unbelievable. I’m going to show you a video which was the evidence that convinced us, and you can judge for yourselves. Tom informed you that I was shoved in prison in Dubai to get me out of the way. Well, that’s because I discovered something that pointed to a sabotage attempt at XPC. Or at least, that’s what I thought. Let me show you what actually happened.’

  The room was silent as Angela’s confession played on his laptop. He ran it all the way to the end, including her last message to him. Then he said, ‘You’re right that Shen was instrumental in delivering the new software, but that was only the first step in his plan. After my arrest, we realised he was planning something else, but we didn’t know what it was.’

  Bohai Cheong leaned over and whispered something to Tāng, who nodded and said, ‘So you expect us to be convinced by the words of a young woman who prostituted herself for money? We Chinese are not so gullible as you may believe, Mr Stewart. If this is all you have to show us, then we can end this conversation immediately.’

  He started to rise from his chair, and Junjie said, ‘Please wait one moment, Han. What do you know about Shen Fu Liáng?’

  He sat down again. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. He’s the son of Qiang Fu Liáng, who was governor of Sichuan Province, until he was sadly lost in an aeroplane accident with Shen’s mother and brother. That was just before he was proposed by the new owners of our company to join us as a board member, and he was immediately involved in creating our successful Dubai subsidiary.’

  ‘Leo, show Mr Tāng the copies of the passports I saw this morning.’

  Leo took out the printed copies he’d made from Ilona’s attachments, the Chinese document in the name of Shen Fu Liáng and the Russian passport of Grigori Vedeneyev. Tāng’s eyes opened wide and he passed the photocopies to his chairman and the other two directors. ‘I don’t understand. Who is this man Vedeneyev? His picture is the same as Shen’s.’

  ‘That’s because he’s the same man, Mr Tāng.’ Leo rapidly described Shen’s life history, ending with, ‘We believe that’s why he’s implicating Lee-Win and China in this conspiracy.’

  ‘What conspiracy, Mr Stewart? You haven’t yet told us what this is all about, and you’ve given us no proof that Shen has done anything but enhance our company’s global reputation. How do we know this photocopy isn’t a fake?’

  ‘OK, you’re right. I can demonstrate the proof of the plot if you let me use one of your test networks. It’s easier to show it than to explain it.’

  Junjie said, ‘I would like to see this proof also, Han. I haven’t seen it and I think we owe it to my father’s memory to find out what this is really about.’

  They sat silently as the Chinese began to argue around the table, Junjie and the two ex-colleagues of Chongkun wanting to see the demonstration, with the chairman and MD remaining loyal to Shen. Finally, Tāng said, ‘Very well. You have come all this way to show us something and it would be discourteous not to let you do so. We’ll go down to the laboratory level. What kind of a network do you need, Mr Stewart?’

  FIFTY-SIX

  Moscow, Russian Federation Sunday, 18 July 2017

  Piotr Gavrikov was in the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence, situated on Arbatskaya Square at the junction of Znamenka Street. The 200-square-metre office on the eighth floor, the top level, was the domain of the minister, Army General Leonid Mikhail Belinsky, head of all Russian military forces, reporting directly to the Russian president. The heads of the three sections of the armed forces were sitting on the other side of a large oval table that could seat twelve. A giant screen was attached to the wall behind them and several laptops were open on the table.

  Belinsky was saying, ‘We are now just twelve hours away from launching the A2 attack which will shut down the infrastructures of all fourteen of our lost territories. This is a defining moment in our lives. If it succeeds, the world will witness the resurgence of the greatest socialist confederation in history and our names will become legend. However, if it fails, none of us in this room will be immune from the consequences, there will be no place to hide from the wrath of both our enemies and our friends alike. What is the final status of the programme? General Gavrikov?’

  ‘I will attend a last demonstration of the software this afternoon, but I’ve seen it several times already and I cannot envisage a failure of any kind. On each occasion the deployment, the hub transfer and the efficiency of the shutdown commands were faultless, just as efficient and faultless as the new Lee-Win software we received yesterday. Based on our estimates of the proliferation of those processors in our target countries, we calculate a failure rate of above seventy per cent of all networks. They will have no option but to accept our terms.’

  ‘What about the agent, this Chinese traitor. Is his loyalty beyond question?’

  ‘Without any doubt. He has invested almost half a billion dollars, murdered his own family and others besides and dedicated five years of his life to this act of revenge. But just in case, I’ll be with him when he sends his instructions. And he knows what awaits him if he misbehaves.’

  ‘And his accomplice in Shanghai?’

  ‘The same. He has been well paid and he is also aware of the consequences of failure. But don’t forget the additional precautions I’ve personally foreseen. Nothing can prevent a successful execution of the attack.’

  ‘Very well, Piotr, we must rely on your usual efficiency.’ He turned to the man to the right. ‘Stanislav, are you ready?’

  Army Commander General Stanislav Dorokhin stood to attention. ‘Minister, we now have more than 800,000 troops in strategic border positions from Estonia to Kazakhstan, as per the deployment plan we agreed on.’ He pointed his cursor at the map on the giant screen. ‘Additionally, I have positioned twelve of your Spetnaz Special Forces units, in close proximity to the army command positions. They can be sent in to deal with any local insurgence quietly and efficiently, without raising too much outside interest. We are ready for this historic moment and we will not fail Mother Russia.’

  Admiral Bolotnikov was the next to report. Pointing at a new map, he said, ‘As of last night, the whole fleet was in place as planned. The Admiral Grigorovich group is in the North Sea off the Swedish coast at the entrance to the Skaggerak. All o
f the Baltic targets, from Estonia to Belarus, are in range of their cruise missiles. With Stanislav’s troops in front of them and our missiles behind, they’re not in a position to argue. The same goes for the two destroyers we sent from the Crimea, they’re sitting in the Black Sea, off the coast of Moldova and Georgia. The Kuznetsov and the Gorshkov are still on manoeuvres in the North Atlantic, ready to launch aircraft or missiles, if and when we so decide.’

  The admiral stood proud and tall when he made his last announcement, ‘We believe the deciding factor will be the threat of the Dmitry Donskoy. It is presently waiting quietly 450 metres under the Baltic Sea, near the island of Gotska Sandön.’ He laughed deferentially. ‘What you call “NATO’s swimming pool”, minister.’ Bolotnikov was referring to the world’s largest submarine, with a crew of 160, an arsenal of 200 weapons, including 20 nuclear missiles, and the capability of remaining submerged for 120 days. ‘No one can argue with the Dmitry Donskoy.’ He sat down, looking extremely pleased with himself.

  ‘Well done, Admiral, exemplary planning, as usual. Can the same be said for your pilots, Alex?’

  Colonel General Alexandr Zhigunov, Commander of the Aerospace Forces, smiled and remained sitting. ‘I confirm that our pilots, our aircraft, our drones and our ground personnel throughout the area are itching to take part in this momentous event. As well as forty bases within rapid response capability on our own territory, we are on high alert at those in our strategic allies’ back gardens. We have strike aircraft and bombers on standby at Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia, Syria; Gyumri in Armenia; Kant in Kyrgizstan and seven more. I believe fifty bases with 750 aircraft at our immediate disposal should provide enough support for my colleagues, if they need to call on us.’

  ‘Thank you, Alex, nothing less than I expected. So, Piotr, the moment is almost upon us. Our military resources are, as Alexandr phrased it, “itching to take part”. My overriding concern has been that the NATO members would, for once, show some concerted desire to defend their partners under attack. It’s now clear to us that this won’t happen. Apart from a pathetic display of US soldiers and a few battleships around the Baltic states, they have shown no interest in our movements. I think we can assume they are otherwise occupied with their domestic upheavals and will react too late and with no credible display of force.

  ‘Everything now depends on you and your partners in crime. I suggest you go and ensure that this last due diligence demonstration is as faultless as on the previous occasions. If all goes well, we may be invited to a celebration in Red Square tonight for the rebirth of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Vsem udachi, good luck everyone.’

  Washington DC, USA

  Anatoly Viktor Kopeykin, the Russian Ambassador to the United States of America, stepped out of his official limousine and entered the Harry S. Truman building, the headquarters of the US State Department, at 2201 C Street NW, a few blocks away from the White House in the Foggy Bottom neighbourhood of Washington. He was quickly escorted through the security procedures, taken up in an elevator and shown into the John Quincy Adams State Drawing Room, one of the diplomatic reception rooms on the seventh and eighth floors of the building which contain the nation’s foremost museum collections of American fine and decorative arts. The incumbent secretary of state, Melvin ‘Mel’ Ritterbrand, was sitting on one of a matching pair of gold-coloured settees framed by exquisite furnishings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He stood up and shook hands with the Russian, inviting him to sit opposite.

  After the usual small talk and accepting a coffee, Kopeykin said, ‘It’s always a pleasure to visit you, Mel, even at such short notice. But I don’t understand what can be so urgent that you need to summon me here on a Sunday morning?’

  ‘That’s what we call a rhetorical question, Viktor. Can’t you think of a logical answer? After all, it’s your side that’s been moving all the chess pieces, not ours.’

  ‘You’re surely not still concerned about the military exercises we’re carrying out? I’m surprised at your suspicious interpretation of our purely housekeeping procedures. And don’t you think your accusation is a little hypocritical? You’ve been moving some impressively big assets yourselves over the last few weeks.’

  ‘You mean our North Atlantic Fleet? They roam that ocean all year long, there’s nothing unusual about that. We’re doing some exercises with a few thousand troops in the area, but that’s all, nothing special. What is unusual is what’s in these reports.’ He picked up a dozen messages and waved them at the Russian. ‘Let me summarise, to help your memory. Close to a million troops massed around the borders of most of the ex-USSR states, two carriers and eight battleships in the Baltic and Black Sea, and it appears from our satellite pictures that one of your subs has gone missing. We’ve also seen a lot of unusual activity at your southern airbases on home ground and in your ex-Soviet territories.’

  ‘Just as we have observed at your NATO members’ bases in Northern Europe, the Baltic and Balkans. Troops, aircraft, battleships. Quite a coincidence, don’t you think?’

  ‘As I just said, minor exercises, though I’m glad you noticed we’re not just sitting on our hands, Viktor. Some people might think NATO’s a busted flush, but there’s a lot more willingness to engage than you may imagine. Anyway, I didn’t ask you here to compare the size of our dicks.’ He swigged back the last of his coffee. ‘We’ve heard talk of some kind of cyber-attack being prepared by your spooks at GRU. What do you know of it?’

  Kopeykin looked puzzled. ‘A cyber-attack being prepared at the Main Intelligence Directorate? Against who? Where did you hear that?’

  Ritterbrand had graduated cum laude from Harvard in psychology and psychiatry and he was good at reading people, especially when they were lying. In this case, he was certain the other man was telling the truth. Viktor doesn’t know what I’m talking about, he told himself. In fact, neither did he. He’d been woken at six that morning by a call from a General W. R. Chillicott, whom he didn’t know, at Homeland Security, with a request to invite the Russian ambassador in and ask him that question. The general had told him it was an urgent matter he was investigating personally, it was ultra-confidential and extremely urgent, ‘Could you call the ambassador in this morning?’ It was an unconventional approach, but Chillicott had pressed all the right buttons, and after the disastrous NATO conference the previous night, Ritterbrand had been keen to try to do something useful. Before ringing off, he’d asked the general if the cyber-attack was linked to the Russian manoeuvres, and the reply had been, ‘In a worst-case scenario, yes.’

  He got rid of Kopeykin as soon as he decently could and called Homeland Security. Chillicott came on the line immediately. ‘Thank you, Mr Secretary. Unfortunately, that’s what I expected. It’s above his pay grade, and that’s a very bad sign. I’ll keep you informed as soon as I know something more definite.’

  Ritterbrand didn’t press him, he had enough on his plate and the general seemed to be on top of the situation. He couldn’t know that Chilicott’s only hope was a twenty-three-year-old Rwandan man named Leo Stewart.

  Moscow, Russian Federation

  ‘Shen’s coming here to give me a final demo of the A2 software before we upload it tonight. I’ve seen it already. It’s a brilliant solution, he can’t be as stupid as you make out.’

  ‘Piotr, darling, I’m glad to hear it. If it works, it will be a happy ending to the longest five years of my life. When are you coming home?’ It was just four in the afternoon and Elodie Delacroix was on her third glass of champagne.

  ‘I’m staying here until I see the trigger code successfully deployed. This is too important to risk anything going wrong. When the shit hits the fan, I should be invited to the Kremlin. I’ll call you, see if you want to come. It’ll be around twelve-thirty tonight and there’ll be one hell of a celebration.’

  ‘I’ll be ready waiting in my finery. Udachi, dorogaya, good luck, darling.’

  Esther Rousseau, née Bonnard, alias Tsunami, ali
as Elodie Delacroix, put down her phone and took another swallow of champagne. One more day, just one, then I’ll be rid of all these bloody posturing, impotent, second-rate excuses for men. Only the thought of the fortune she had been promised had kept her going all this time. With that money I can start again; a new place, a new life with a new man, a real man. No one could replace, or even come close to matching Ray d’Almeida, her Angolan lover, who had taught her lovemaking skills that drove men mad with desire, while planning and executing a brilliant plan to regain his rightful inheritance. But in 2008 his plan had somehow been foiled by Jenny Bishop, and he and his fortune had been lost to her. Since then she had been with other men, always using them to try to recover that fortune, and always seeing them fall short. So many men, such great plans, ending in such great failures. She poured herself another glass, thinking about the lost years of her life.

  The 2010 abduction in South Africa of Jenny Bishop’s nephew, Leo Stewart, had been another masterpiece of planning. Together with her shrewd partner and funder, the amoral Lord Arthur Dudley, they had succeeded in capturing the boy and blackmailing the Stewart family for a fortune. Yet, once again, the plan had failed, and she had been forced to save herself from the fallout. After the incident, Esther had kept her head down, living and working as a waitress in The Liffey Landing, a pub in Dublin, a city she loved.

  Then, as the meagre capital she had managed to beg, borrow and steal began to run out, a series of lucky opportunities presented themselves and she took full advantage of them. First, she managed to capitalise on a brief romantic encounter with a UN delegate who was in Dublin for a conference and happened to visit the historic pub. Esther spoke four languages fluently and the besotted man helped her obtain a post as a translator in the Geneva headquarters. Her life changed again for the better in March 2011, at a UN Security Council meeting, when she met Colonel-General Piotr Gavrikov, newly-appointed head of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, GRU. It didn’t take Esther long to captivate Gavrikov and become his personal assistant, lover and many things besides. An exaggerated account of her work as a senior officer at a Swiss private bank with experience of offshore company structures convinced him she was the perfect intermediary to manage the Kremlin’s international offshore activities, and Tsunami was born.