by A P Bateman
Love is the strongest emotion, but it can so easily be used against you by those who would do you harm…
And with that, King had the answer he needed, the key to winning this duel with Helena Milankovitch. He had missed it in Italy. But he knew that he could find out what he needed to in France.
King scrolled through his mobile phone again. He found the number for the fourth time and dialled. The ring tone reached a count for three before it was picked up.
“Took your time…”
“Had a few things to work out,” replied King.
“Done now?”
“Pretty much.”
“Where are you?”
“Sweden. Just checking out.”
“Where next?”
“France. Unfinished business.”
“Really?”
“I think I’ve found an in.”
“Think?”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“It never is.”
“It’s going to get dirty.”
“It always does.”
“I’m going to need your help.”
“Figured as much.”
“Can I count on you?”
“You have to ask?”
“Over and above.”
“Always.”
“I’ll text the details.”
“You’ll owe me.”
“Call it a pint?”
“Call it two.”
“Shit, the rate doubled.”
“You still owe me.”
“Hang tight, I’ll text you where and when.” King ended the call and smiled. He looked up at the monitor with the flight details and boarding gate numbers. His flight was now boarding. He drained the remnants of his beer and smiled.
Home stretch.
47
Rashid slipped his phone back into his pocket and opened the balcony doors. Ramsay was seated on the king-sized bed, a brandy and soda in one hand, his mobile phone in the other, eyes transfixed on the screen. Marnie had taken up position at the dresser. She was seated in the room’s only chair and was connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi, linked through the MI5 server at Thames House and was call-conferencing with a technician with GCHQ. She wore wireless headphones with a wraparound mouthpiece and her fingers danced across the keyboard with the ease and deftness of a concert pianist. Beside her, Botha’s phone was open with a USB jack connecting it to the laptop. Botha’s laptop was running a reverse malware that would open his files without security settings. The connection to the running software not only broke Botha’s four-digit screen lock, but sent the details to GCHQ, where specialist equipment was running both a GPS history of Botha’s phone and the phone he was connected to. A picture was being built, created through cell grids, satellite relays and network masts.
“Important call?” Ramsay asked without looking up.
“Just me Mam,” Rashid replied. “She worries so…”
Ramsay shrugged. “Mothers…” he said somewhat cynically, his eyes not leaving the screen of his phone. He continued to scroll. “You’d tell us if your pal King ever got in touch, wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.”
“He’s your pal as well, right?”
“Of course.”
Rashid picked up his bottle of Heineken and sipped. He had decided on just one beer tonight, they had all decided on a drink, but it was a de-stressing tool, nothing more. They weren’t about to set Cape Town alight, but they needed something to calm them all down after the visit to Botha’s house. Ramsay had been distant. He had administered the dose of sodium panthenol, and the two shots of adrenalin had made the man’s heart beat like a drum. The MI5 field liaison officer did not seem comfortable with the way things had gone. Marnie had been quiet. Although she had not seen anything of the interrogation, she had seen more than her emit in the hallway. She had washed her shoes off in the sink in Ramsay’s room, as if washing the memory away as much as the blood in her tread.
Rashid perched on the edge of the second bed. Ramsay had secured three rooms, but they were using Marnie’s room as the hub. Marnie had been on her laptop for over an hour, ever since they had bid Ryan Beard goodbye and returned to the Victoria and Alfred Hotel.
“I put enough lead in Botha for him to die,” Rashid said quietly. “He may have got to hospital, but he wouldn’t have left. Besides, that was the deal for getting the information on him and access to him from the secret service.”
Ramsay drained his glass and placed it on the bedside table. “Why are you telling me this?”
Rashid shrugged. “I’ve killed before,” he said. “And I killed Botha. That’s all you need to take away from this.”
Ramsay nodded, smiled sagely. “Thanks.”
“Got it!” Marnie said triumphantly. “The IP address used for the transfer. And in turn, an address to the registered user.”
“Where?”
“Kensington,” she said. “But no surprise there, it’s Helena Snell’s property. Or at least registered to Ian Snell’s estate.”
“Damn it!” Ramsay snapped.
“No,” she said. “The IP address of the laptop has shown up at two separate locations.”
“Where?”
“Georgia.”
“America?” Rashid asked.
Marnie looked at him with enough contempt to show she was not over leaving her comfortable office in Thames House. And she blamed nobody else but Rashid. She wasn’t getting over it anytime soon. “No. The one next to Russia. Former USSR satellite country. Skhimili, to be precise. A small village or town near K’ut’aisi. Sandwiched between the Caucasus Mountains and the Lesser Caucasus Mountains.”
“Oh, yes. That one,” Rashid smiled.
“Where else?” Ramsay asked.
“Stockholm.” She looked at Rashid and sneered. “That’s in Sweden.”
“Nice…”
“You two!” Ramsay said tersely. He shook his head. “So, square one. The letter mentioned a safety deposit box in Sodertalje, a town outside of Stockholm. King went there and now two Russian mafia syndicates have been hit. Their leaders killed, at the very least. Helena Milankovitch had mafia links, in that she worked for them…”
“Was forced to work for them,” Marnie interrupted. “There’s a tremendous difference.”
“Why?” Ramsay countered.
“Because one way indicates a desire to take over, to use what she knows to get the opposition out of the way and broach onto their territories,” she paused, rubbed her tired eyes. “And the other means that this could be nothing to do with her wanting to branch out and everything to do with her wanting to pay them back. For the life she was forced to live, or for something else altogether.”
Ramsay nodded. “Okay. Well, we’ve got nothing more to go on here,” he said. “We need to get to where that laptop was previously used. Sweden is my bet, the logical place to go. It’s where King was summoned. In the meantime, you can still work with Thames House and GCHQ to find that bank account. Internet access permitting, that is. Get on the phone for updates whenever you can.”
Marnie glanced at Rashid. He could see she was not pleased to be going to Sweden. And nor was he, because it was a dead-end.
Marnie leaned back in the chair and sighed. “I’m fried. Are we eating anytime soon?”
Ramsay shrugged and looked at his watch. “It’s getting late,” he said quietly. “You two go and eat. You can leave all this running, can’t you?”
Marnie nodded. “Sure. I’ll grab a bite to eat and see what’s happening when I get back.”
Ramsay nodded. “Okay then. We’re done for the day, unless of course, you can see any developments when you get back from dinner. I’m going back to my room, taking a shower and hitting the room service,” he paused. “Marnie, you can book our flights to Stockholm.”
“I think that’s a waste of time,” Rashid said quickly.
“Why?” Ramsay asked sharply.
“I think follow th
e trail to Russia. Or Georgia, at least. Helena Milankovitch is Russian, she worked with those dead mafia hoods around the Black Sea towns, we have GPS coordinates to a Georgian town…”
“But this started in Sweden,” Ramsay corrected him.
“It started in Russia,” Rashid argued.
“Georgia,” Marnie corrected him.
“Whatever… But it started with Helena Milankovitch. And it started in Georgia many years before she became Helena Snell, a billionaire’s wife and a long time before she left something in a safety deposit box in Sweden.”
48
Georgia
She could not succumb to sleeping. She was nearing total exhaustion, but could not let down her guard enough, not even for the quick five minutes the weaker part of her brain bartered for in the darkness.
She had eaten some crisps and a sort of cheese turnover sealed in a plastic packet. She had squeezed the edge, watched the air build inside as she had tested for a pin-prick, the slightest puncture which could have administered another drug. Michael had quickly provided her with the food, as well as another can of cola. She was still undecided about him. Had he been the man in her room? The man pushing at the wedged door? When she had seen The Beast, she had started to believe Michael’s protestations, but the way the man had carried her back to her room, like she was nothing more than a rolled-up blanket, made her doubt the ability of the tiny wingnut which had jammed the door shut. She imagined if The Beast had wanted to get in badly enough, then he could have reduced the door to mere splinters.
Caroline was an experienced agent with MI5. She had served in the army’s 14 Intelligence Company, and she had been deployed to Afghanistan. She had seen many terrible things, witnessed the death of comrades, seen the destruction war had caused the beleaguered Afghan people. She had even been present when her former fiancé had been killed, along with many other security personnel, by a suicide bomber. But nothing had prepared her for the inhumanity, the sheer callousness of what she had seen today. Young women treated like farm animals. Herded, sorted and farmed out to where they were needed most. The sex-trade was abominable, but the baby farming was on another level. Life created as a commodity. The bodies of unwilling women used and abused as part of the process. And what of the women when they were of no further use? She thought of The Town, a thriller she had once read on holiday. A disused mine outside a remote, and controlled mountain town in Oregon, the sale of body parts from missing people. The waifs and strays, the lost and unmissed. She shuddered at the thought of the clinical barbarity. She imagined a process down the line. Maximum yield from a person, dehumanised and turned into nothing more than a product.
She rolled onto her side, and for the second time in as many minutes, started to cry again. Not entirely for what would become of her, but for those young women and the babies that were being created down in that building of depravity. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, sniffed and curled into a ball. She felt like she had when she was a teenager and had unexpectantly lost her pony to colic. Vulnerable, as if there would never be any fun or love in the world again. Like she was not only mourning the loss of her beloved pet, her friend, but the loss of all the wonderful years she had had to date. It had severed a link to her childhood. And today, down in that place, a link had been severed between her and all the good in the world. She would never look at life the same way again. Like a dark, low cloud that enveloped everything around her, pushing heavily downwards until there was no place else to go and she was swallowed in despair.
A footstep on the landing made her freeze. She listened for another step, realised she had stopped breathing. She heard another step, then another. They were different to before, quieter, but in that certain way that told her the person was trying to be quiet. She wiped her eyes again, swung her legs over the side of the bed. She still had fight left in her. She thought of Alex, what he would be feeling after so long not knowing of her fate. She wanted to see him again, wanted to finish their plans of buying a new house together - a fresh start. Wanted to finally see the man wearing a suit for their wedding day. She fished out the wingnut from her bra, placed it between her knuckles, realising the dark cloud had gone. She had reached a point Alex had once described to her. Rock bottom. At rock bottom, live or die was not even a choice.
But fight was.
Fight decided over live or die. Doing nothing didn’t give you that choice. There was no gain from doing nothing. And the wonderful thing, in that fleeting moment, was that fear was nowhere in the equation.
Fight was all there was.
The deadbolt slid back, the key turned in the lock. Caroline reached the dressing table, pulled the leg she had undone away. The dresser simply rested back against the wall. Caroline felt the heft of it, positioned the bolt so she could swing it into whoever was going to come through the door. She let it rest on the floor, out of view behind her leg. Waited.
The door eased inwards. There was no light on the landing. She could see a figure, not The Beast, slightly built.
“It’s me… Michael,” he said. “Come with me, I am getting you out…”
Caroline gripped the table leg. She hesitated, her mind spinning, her adrenalin subsiding. “Really?” she asked.
Michael stepped inside, eased the door closed behind him. “We don’t have long,” he said, and threw a pair of shoes on the bed. Caroline could just about see enough through the gloom to make out a pair of ankle boots with a small heel. “They should fit,” he added.
Caroline put down the table leg. She picked up the boots, slipped one on. A little on the big side, but they would do just fine. She slipped the other one on, pulled up the zip.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s wrong,” he said, his accent thick and the whisper made it even more difficult to hear him clearly. “I needed job, money. The job was okay at first…” He shrugged. She couldn’t see his face, but hoped he had shame written on it. “Just girls for sex,” he said. “Not great, but not my problem. It goes on. But the babies…” he paused. “And they make us do things…” he hesitated. “To the women. You know, I am young man. Should be dream come true… but…”
“You raped them?” Caroline asked, trying her best to keep the shock out of her voice.
“Yes, I suppose. The other men here do, too. But it does not feel like rape… the women, they do not struggle any more… but it is wrong, and I want to leave this place now… there are more women coming next week. I do not want to do it all again…”
Caroline grimaced as she nodded. The man was her lifeline. She needed him, but she would not protect him if she got clear of this hell-on-earth. She looked at him closely, saw through the gloom that his eyes were dark and swollen.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“It is nothing.”
“Well, it certainly looks like something.”
“Jurgen,” he said quietly. “He found out that Helena was not looking for him. Taught me a lesson…” he trailed off.
“She wasn’t looking for him?” Caroline could tell that the instruction mentioned Helena’s name, but she figured he had been needed elsewhere. Jurgen clearly outranked Michael, and she thought it strange that the young man had called him so forcefully. “Why did you do that?”
“I saw him taking you back. You were unconscious, it was obvious what he was going to do…”
“But why?” she pressed.
“It’s wrong. All of this is so very wrong.”
“Well, thank you,” she said sincerely. “So, what is your plan?”
Michael shrugged. “Everyone should be either asleep or relaxing. The girls have been fed,” he paused, and Caroline grimaced at the thought. It made the women sound like animals. He continued, “A few men are drinking, they will pass-out later.”
“How do we get clear of this place?”
“I have left a car at the village,” he said. “It’s a pile of junk, but it starts. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” she queried, the worr
y clearly detectable in her tone.
He shrugged. “It will be okay. But we can’t start car here, too much noise. Helena has fast car, a big Audi. Jurgen also has a fast car, an expensive SUV.”
Caroline figured that he would. The man would barely fit inside anything else. She picked up the table leg. “Okay,” she said decisively. “Let’s go.”
49
Cape Town, South Africa
“Admit it. You’re warming to me.”
“I can tolerate you.”
“Brilliant,” Rashid said. “From loathing to tolerating in three days.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Marnie said, sipping from her chilled glass of Pinot Grigio. “It won’t get any higher than tolerating.”
Rashid smiled. “Shame. I was hoping for day six,” he said. “Mind you, personally I wouldn’t choose to have dinner with anybody I merely tolerated.”
“I hate eating alone,” she said. “In restaurants, at least.”
“I don’t eat out much.”
“I can tell.”
“Really?”
“For a moment, I was sure you would drink the finger bowl.”
“Shit, was that what it was?” he chided. “I just didn’t want to fill up before my steak.”
She smiled. Moved over as the waiter swept in and cleared her plate. He stepped around the table, took Rashid’s plate of empty prawn shells, reached for the finger bowl. Rashid looked up at the waiter.