by Dan Latus
‘They tried again the other night. We were planning on staying in a log cabin a little way south of Port Hardy when—’
‘Would that be the log cabin that went up in flames?’ she asked grimly.
‘That’s the one.’ I grimaced and added, ‘We got out in time.’
‘Obviously.’
I decided to press on with a full confession. It might save time and limit the anger that letting it out a bit at a time would probably provoke.
‘To complicate matters further, after Harry got out of Ukraine, his partner — a colleague, as well as life partner — was abducted in Kiev. She is being held hostage by the same organisation — a Russian militia — that is searching for Harry. So, our hands are tied. As long as Harry holds onto the information he has, she is being kept alive.’ I shrugged. ‘We don’t want to lose her.’
‘You need to trade,’ she said. ‘Somebody does.’ She was quick on the uptake, clearly.
‘That’s what we think,’ I said.
‘So, what have you guys got that you can give up without committing suicide, or undermining the Western Alliance and devastating poor little Estonia?’
Nicely put: our problem in a nutshell.
‘We’re working on it,’ I told her.
Chapter Forty-Seven
‘Another thing you should know,’ I told Greta, ‘is that the man causing so much trouble is right here on Vancouver Island.’
She looked startled. ‘That right?’ she said after a long moment. ‘Who is he?’
‘Dmitri Petrov,’ Harry said, taking up the baton from me. ‘He controls one of the biggest militias in eastern Ukraine, and he’s first pick when Moscow want people to ferment trouble.’
Greta Campbell scribbled furiously in her notebook. ‘What is the militia called?’ she asked.
Harry told her and gave her a bit of detail about it.
‘You sure of this?’
Harry nodded. ‘I was part of it for a couple of years, and close to Petrov. That’s how I was able to get hold of the information.’
‘Wow!’ Greta said, sounding as if Harry had earned her respect. After a moment’s contemplation, she shook her head and said, ‘You say this man is in Canada right now — on Vancouver Island? What’s he doing here?’
‘Organising the hunt for me, in person. The information I possess matters a great deal to him. If he is unsuccessful, Moscow will drop him. He’ll be seen as careless on security. Unreliable. His career will be over. Someone else will be put in his place.’
‘I see.’ Greta’s brow furrowed and she thought it over for another moment. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. You spooks!’
‘Well, what are you?’ I said.
‘Not one of them.’ She shook her head. ‘Me, I’m an investigator.’
‘Just what we need,’ I told her firmly. ‘Petrov is in Victoria, we’ve been told. We need to find him fast. Can you help?’
‘Possibly. But I need to clear certain things first. Give me five, maybe ten.’ She got up and headed for the door.
‘Take all the time you need!’ I called after her.
‘You were right, Frank,’ Harry volunteered once we were alone. ‘We do need help, and she is probably able to provide it.’
‘Let’s wait and see,’ I cautioned. ‘No point getting too far ahead of ourselves.’
It was good advice. When Greta returned, she was shaking her head and looking frustrated.
‘I need political clearance to help you guys, and at the moment the minister is unavailable.’
‘Unavailable?’ I repeated, puzzled.
‘Cannot be disturbed. Inaccessible.’
Seeing that I still didn’t understand, she added, ‘He’s French.’
Harry chuckled.
‘So?’ I said.
‘At this time of day, he’s probably with his mistress,’ Harry said.
‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ said Greta, straight-faced.
We talked some more. I explained that we needed to know where Petrov was, in order to approach him and offer him a deal. At the moment, all we knew — from an informant in Ukraine — was that he was currently in Victoria.
‘I’ll get on with it,’ Greta said. She looked determined, despite her minister’s lack of availability. ‘If he’s still around, we’ll find him. I’m not saying I’ll get political clearance to disclose his whereabouts to you guys, though,’ she added with a grin, ‘but my department is a pretty leaky place these days.’
‘Damn spooks!’ Harry muttered. ‘They’re the same everywhere.’
I decided just to nod and stay silent. It seemed as if we really did have an ally.
After Greta had gone, Harry and I got down to talking about what kind of deal, if any at all, we could come up with that might engage Petrov’s interest. Harry was pessimistic. I was determined to remain optimistic.
‘Come on, Harry! Everybody likes a deal.’
‘Not this guy,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘He just wants to win.’
‘You told me he wants his stuff back so as to keep in with the Russians.’
‘And he wants my head on a plate.’
‘Well, we’re not going to give him that, but we could give him back the battle plan — after we’ve copied it for Henderson. Then he would just have to deny that NATO got the info from him.’
‘That wouldn’t work.’
‘Let’s try it, Harry. We want to negotiate, and every negotiation has to start somewhere.’
He shrugged. ‘OK. If Greta finds him, let’s try it.’
‘When she finds him, Harry — not if.’
‘Yeah?’ he said with a snort of derision. ‘This is a pretty damn big country, remember.’
It was like trying to push water uphill. Or herding a bunch of cats. Whatever the appropriate metaphor was, I felt I was earning my money just trying to keep Harry positive.
I got up and poured myself another mug of coffee. That was when the front door crashed open and heavy feet pounded along the corridor.
Chapter Forty-Eight
There wasn’t time to do much. I happened to be standing at the time, a mug of hot coffee in my hand. When a gun-wielding figure appeared in the doorway, I hurled the mug, coffee and all, in his face. He yelped and dropped back out of sight.
I grabbed the kettle of just-boiled water and followed him into the corridor. That went all over a second man, who was trying to step past the first. More screams of agony. I hurled him backwards.
Other bodies hurtled along the narrow corridor. I registered gunshots but they didn’t stop me. My blood was up, and I was charging into battle in a red mist. That can happen. Harry wrapped an arm across my chest and held me back, at the same time firing the pistol in his other hand. The air was heavy with smoke and fumes. The confined space of the corridor was full of threshing bodies, and my ears rang with gunfire, screams and shouting. I had no idea who we were fighting, but it was full on, from them and us.
Then, suddenly, bodies were falling back along the corridor as fast as they had arrived. I sensed a full retreat underway. Within moments, a space had cleared. Then the corridor was empty again, apart from the man I had hit with the kettle of boiling water. He writhed in agony on the floor, his screams pitiful.
I climbed over him to the doorway. More gunfire and shouting indicated that battle was actually now being waged outside. It hadn’t been my assault with the kettle that had turned the tide and caused the gang to retreat. An attack from the rear by the occupants of a big RCMP truck had done the trick and a real gun battle was underway. Gunfire raged for several minutes. In that time, Harry hauled the injured man along the corridor and hurled him and his pain outside. Meanwhile, I tried to make sense of the situation.
Nothing did, until the shooting stopped, and I saw the familiar figure of Greta Campbell heading our way, accompanied by a couple of tough-looking men in uniform. She gave the man Harry had ousted a kick in passing and left him to a uniformed colleague to deal with.
‘I sure hope we’re not too late for the party!’ she called as she saw me.
I shook my head in admiration at her sangfroid.
Even Harry was moved. ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell you how welcome a sight you are!’
She came in, saying her uniformed colleagues would clear up the mess outside.
‘Your timing was excellent,’ I told her gratefully, ‘but what brought you?’
She dealt with that in the matter-of-fact style I was beginning to see was her trademark.
‘I’d set up a tripwire, just in case trouble was still following you. My guys spotted the attack force and collected me. Then we called the Mounties and followed them all here.’
‘You don’t have power of arrest, do you? The CSIS, I mean,’ Harry said.
She shook her head. ‘It’s a civilian force,’ she admitted, ‘and I’m a civilian.’
‘Like me,’ Harry said with satisfaction.
I stared at him.
‘I work for the Foreign Secretary, ultimately,’ he said, ‘even if I’ve never seen him. So does Giles Henderson. We’re not MoD.’
‘So you’re both civilians?’ I asked.
Harry nodded, and looked pleased to have established some sort of parity with Greta Campbell.
‘Backed up,’ Greta said laconically, ‘by agencies with enormous fire power — as well as powers of arrest.’
I shook my head, bemused by what it all meant, and wondering how anybody in government ever got anything done.
‘Meanwhile,’ Greta said, ‘and more to the point, I got the political clearance I needed. I’m to support you guys all I can.’
My eyebrows shot up.
‘It means we’re on your side,’ she said softly, mistaking my astonishment for disbelief.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Harry whispered.
‘Him too,’ Greta Campbell assured us. ‘He’s certainly with us. Now let me tell you the other news I bring. Your man is holed up in a big swanky hotel in Victoria. There’s a couple more guys with him, but that’s all. Any others he has in support must be accommodated some other place. We don’t know where yet, but we’ll find ’em. The focus so far has been on Mr Petrov.’
‘Surely he’s not using his own name?’ I asked.
Greta shook her head. ‘Tergev, he’s calling himself. So we can get him for using a false passport if we need to. For the moment, though, I’m guessing we don’t want to do that, do we?’
I shook my head. ‘No. That wouldn’t do his hostage any good.’
I glanced across at Harry, who was unusually quiet. ‘What do you think, Harry?’
He looked up. ‘Sorry. I was just thinking about Petrov’s people. He’ll certainly have a few with him. He might have picked up some extra help this side of the Atlantic, but his own men will be here too, somewhere.’
‘We’ll soon find them,’ Greta repeated confidently.
I hoped she was right.
‘So how do you guys want to play it?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been given the go-ahead to give you every assistance I can, which I have to admit surprised me until I remembered the elections coming up in Alberta.’
I looked blankly at her.
‘Politics,’ she said. ‘A lot of people of Ukrainian descent in Alberta. Always have been. Ottawa will want to keep them on board.’
‘Politics,’ Harry muttered with disgust. ‘And there was I, thinking that what mattered was the future of the world as we know it.’
‘There’s that, too, of course,’ Greta admitted.
I just shook my head again. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t really matter what the reason was. All that interested me was that we were being offered some much-needed help.
‘So how do you want to do this?’ Greta asked again.
We told her. At least, we told her some of it. I didn’t suppose she was satisfied, but she was surprisingly patient. Astute too. She must have known that part of what we had in mind would be a challenge for her to accept. Supporting us all she could was one thing, knowing about things that involved breaking Canadian law would be another altogether.
Greta Campbell wasn’t the only one who didn’t know everything that was going on. There was also me. I found it hard to believe her explanation for her fortuitous presence in Coal Harbour, especially when she had so much back-up with her. Liaison between government departments and agencies takes time. Joint operations don’t happen at a moment’s notice, not, at least, in my experience. I didn’t believe it would be very different in Canada.
And to have come directly to Harry’s house looking for me that first day, just a few hours after our battle in the motel? Again, I couldn’t believe they hadn’t had some notice. It didn’t stack up. Something else must be going on here, something Harry and I didn’t know about. CSIS and the RCMP, and whoever else it might be, had an awful lot of manpower standing by, here on the edge of the world. It couldn’t all be because of us.
I was grateful that Greta was here, of course. Very much so. Her intervention had saved the day for us when we were under attack. We wouldn’t have survived without the firepower she had brought. The gun battle outside was proof of that. All the same, I’d have given a lot to know what the real reason was for such a presence. Greta Campbell and her back-up team of uniformed and armed officers represented a big commitment of resources.
Regardless, Harry and I knew what we had to do next. Now that Greta had told us where Dmitri Petrov, aka Mr Tergev, was, we had to make contact with him.
Chapter Forty-Nine
I made the call.
Hotel reception responded. I asked to be put through to a Mr Tergev, one of their guests.
The phone was answered immediately.
‘Mr Tergev?’
‘Who is this?’ was the growled response.
‘If it’s not Mr Tergev, please put him on. I wish to speak to him personally.’
After a long pause, the same gruff voice said, ‘I am Tergev. Who is this? What do you want?’
‘I represent the man you know as Mr Harry Williams. He has asked me to negotiate with you on his behalf. I would like to meet you to discuss how we might proceed.’
Another pause, as if he was waiting for me to provide more information. Then a scornful laugh.
‘No meeting!’ he almost spat down the phone. ‘There is nothing to discuss. I don’t know this man you mentioned.’
‘I believe you do. He has something of yours that he wishes to return. We need to meet to agree how to do this.’
‘I know nothing of this matter.’
‘Mr Tergev, I suggest you think about it. Please phone me back on this number when you’re ready.’
I read out my number to him, then ended the call and looked at Harry.
‘It’s in his court,’ Harry said ruefully.
‘For now,’ I agreed. ‘We had to start somewhere.’
‘We should have abducted him, like we first thought.’
‘It might come to that, but let’s try this way first.’
With a sigh, Harry said, ‘We’d better get down to Victoria, just in case.’
It wasn’t looking great, but we pulled our gear together and got going.
Thanks to Greta Campbell, the RCMP were flying us down to Victoria from a small airport on the edge of Port Hardy. We had accepted the offer with minimal reluctance. It meant we saved time and could leave Coal Harbour immediately, even if it did give her the opportunity to keep close tabs on us.
At this stage, allowing Greta to see and know what we were doing wasn’t a problem. All we were doing really was trying to open negotiations in the hope of getting Johanne released. If we did decide to abduct Petrov — or at least, try to — to push things along, that would presumably be a step too far for her and the RCMP. We would just have to cross that bridge when, and if, we came to it.
On the other hand, it might not faze Greta in the slightest. We hadn’t ruled that out. As Harry admitted, she was an unusual character to find in a senior position in a
ny state-run organisation. Clearly a maverick, she seemed to have a degree of licence to do things her own way, however unorthodox.
To me, that meant she must be good at what she did. She wouldn’t get away with such an individualistic approach if it didn’t yield results. That thought gave me hope. The national interest and legal considerations had to prevail, of course, but Greta might still find a way of helping us.
I also wasn’t too keen on the idea of abduction anymore, mainly because I doubted it would work. Petrov would probably just laugh at us if we lifted him. All he would have to do was wait for his men to find him, along with Harry and me. Given our experience so far, they were well capable of doing that.
It was just after six in the evening when Petrov called back. By then we were in position.
‘I will meet you,’ he announced. ‘Are you in this city?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come to my hotel room in one hour.’
‘No. I’m not prepared to do that. I will only meet you in a public place. What about a café or bar in the hotel?’
He gave me the name of the lounge bar. ‘In one hour.’
‘I’ll be there,’ I assured him.
I ended the call and put the phone down.
Harry looked at me and nodded. ‘It’s started,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
Started, but with a long way to go.
Chapter Fifty
Harry didn’t come with me to meet Petrov. There was no point. Besides, it would have been too dangerous for him — and for Petrov.
‘I wouldn’t be able to resist trying to throttle the bastard!’ Harry admitted.
It went without saying that Petrov, if he turned up, would feel the same way about Harry. No love lost on either side. I, on the other hand, was only a simple negotiator. However, the difference between the message and the person bearing it can easily get forgotten when there’s a lot at stake and an outbreak of rage. There was no way I would meet Petrov anywhere but in a public place.
The hotel was quite a pile. Monumental, gothic and imposing. From the pavement, where the taxi dropped me off, it could have been a Victorian-era town hall in some northern British city, or an outpost of the old empire. I suppose the latter was what Victoria was when the hotel was built: an outpost of Empire.
