by L J Morris
Two portable lights lit up the inside of the barn. Bazarov stood in front of her, his hands in his pockets, his arrogance obvious. Quinn stood behind him, restrained by one of the guards. At least Sinclair knew that Quinn wasn’t one of the other two people tied to chairs either side of her. She had to think fast. ‘What the fuck is this? Where am I?’
Bazarov stood in front of the light, forcing Sinclair to squint as she looked at him. ‘You should recognise the barn, Miss Sinclair. You’ve been inside here before I think.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’ Sinclair had to figure out how much Bazarov knew. Maybe she could still get out of this. ‘Jo, what’s going on? Tell him I haven’t done anything.’
Quinn looked down at her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Ali. I had to tell him everything. He was going to hurt the boys.’
Bazarov smiled at Sinclair. ‘Don’t blame your friend too much, Miss Sinclair, you see, I found the footprints in the bungalow. I know you were in there.’ He pulled the sack from one of the other captives; it was the guard who had almost caught her. The guard looked frightened. He knew what was going to happen to him. Blood oozed from several deep cuts and ran down his swollen face, mixing with the blood and snot that ran from his nose. Bazarov slapped him. ‘This idiot let you search the bungalow while I was away and passed out drunk while you killed one of my men.’
Sinclair pitied the man – it wasn’t his fault. ‘You can’t blame him. He didn’t know I was any kind of threat.’
‘I pay my men extremely well to be vigilant at all times.’ Bazarov held out his hand to one of the other guards. The man cocked a semi-automatic and handed it to him.
The Russian held the weapon to the blood-soaked forehead of the condemned man. ‘He failed.’
The man’s eyes widened and he tried to plea for his life, but it was in vain. Bazarov pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot echoed off the barn’s metal walls. The guard tipped over backwards, onto the concrete floor, blood pooling around his head.
‘Bastard.’ Sinclair kicked out at Bazarov but he was out of her reach.
Bazarov handed his weapon back. ‘Miss Sinclair, you must understand that I have to control my men. There have to be consequences for failure.’
Sinclair slumped in her chair. She just hoped that Frank had managed to send the information back to Carter. Someone had to stop this. She looked at the other hooded figure beside her and feared the worst. If Quinn had told Bazarov everything, she must have told him about Frank.
Bazarov signalled to his two men. ‘Take Mrs Quinn back to the house.’
Quinn tried to pull away from them. ‘What are you going to do to her?’
‘That’s none of your concern, Mrs Quinn.’
‘If you hurt her then I won’t do what you want. I can’t do this any more.’
Bazarov turned to Quinn. ‘Be under no illusion, Mrs Quinn. I will kill her, you, and your family if you get in my way.’ He gave a nod and his men led Quinn out of the barn.
She looked back at Sinclair. ‘I’m sorry, Ali.’
‘It’s okay, Jo, we’ll get through this.’
Bazarov laughed. ‘I admire your optimism, Miss Sinclair.’
Sinclair looked at Bazarov. ‘Okay, Viktor, let’s get this shit over with.’
Bazarov walked behind her. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Sinclair. I have an important job that you are going to carry out for me. Your skills are about to save your life.’
Sinclair tried to look round at him. ‘Why the fuck would I do anything for you?’
‘Well, I could threaten to kill you if you don’t, but I don’t think that would work.’
‘You would be right there.’ If he was going to kill her he would have done it already. Whatever job he wanted her to do, it was important.
‘Or, I could threaten to kill your friend and her children.’
Sinclair knew he was bluffing. ‘But you wouldn’t do that, Viktor, you need her too much. You’re going to have to do better than that.’
‘That is true, Miss Sinclair. However, I don’t need this guy.’ He pulled the last sack from the head of the final captive. McGill’s face was bloody, but so were his knuckles. He’d taken a beating but Sinclair knew he’d have given just as much back. He was slumped in the chair, his head bowed and his chin resting on his chest. As Sinclair looked at him he winked at her; it was an act. Underestimating Frank was a mistake that no one got away with.
Bazarov placed his hand on top of McGill’s head. ‘Frank here, is going to be our insurance to make sure you do as you’re told. If you don’t help me, neither of you is of any value, and I have no qualms about getting rid of people I no longer need.’
Sinclair had to buy enough time for London to put a plan in motion – if they had one. ‘If anything happens to him you lose me. I’ll do everything I can to fuck you up. I want him cleaned up and his cuts treated before I do anything.’
Bazarov gave orders to his remaining men. ‘Lock him in the workshop. There’s a sink in there and a first-aid kit. He can clean his own wounds.’ He pointed at Sinclair. ‘Take her to the house and lock her in the cellar. Watch them both, carefully, they are dangerous.’
Sinclair was untied and frogmarched to the house as McGill was dragged, still tied to his chair, into the workshop. Bazarov left the barn and returned to the bungalow.
Chapter 13
Carter logged on to his laptop and checked his mail. One message sat in his inbox, a message from Frank. He clicked on it and opened it up. The mail looked incomplete – as if McGill had been interrupted while he was typing it. It contained one sentence: Bazarov using AP to launch.
AP? He must mean Apocalypse Protocol. Launch? Danny had said it was impossible to launch missiles without the biometric data of two people on the list, so it couldn’t be that. Frank must mean that Bazarov was planning to launch some kind of security hack. That he was planning to use the protocol in some way to harvest data. Data he could sell on to his clients. But how much more could he find out? If he had Quinn, he already had all the information he needed about the Kraken. The message didn’t make sense. Why didn’t Frank finish it? That part worried him. If Frank had been compromised, Sinclair must be in trouble too. He’d have to run this past Kinsella to see if he could make sense of it.
Kinsella, as usual, sat in front of his screens. He was monitoring the major news agencies: BBC, Reuters, CNN and TASS. He was looking for any small piece of information that could help him filter his search results, something that would tell him the significance of Lone Star. Lines of data scrolled up two other screens as search results ran through software he’d already created. The software looked for connections between results, cleared out obvious anomalies, and organised the files into groups. On the two screens, directly in front of him, he ran more searches through public, private, and high security networks all over the world. He’d found some interesting connections, possible terror plots, and security leaks. He’d anonymously drop that data to GCHQ as soon as he could. In Texas, he’d found the names of businesses, schools, hotels and communities predominantly located north of Houston but, so far, he hadn’t found the obvious or even likely link he was looking for.
His email icon flashed. He opened Carter’s message and read it. Simeon was right about one thing. There was no realistic way for Bazarov to launch the missiles with what he had. He was sure that all they were looking at here was an attempt to sell technical information about Kraken on the black market. If he could track down the meaning of Lone Star, he was sure he would find out who the Russian’s customer was.
He’d managed to obtain a copy of the launch approval list that was in place when the Kraken tests were carried out and was in the process of tracking down the people on it. Former presidents are protected by the Secret Service so Bazarov wouldn’t get close. The other members of the executive who were on the list were still involved in government and had security. That just left the survivors list. Five of them were dead, three were retired, and he was still tracki
ng down the others. Bazarov’s chances of getting two of them together, in front of a Kraken console, were none existent.
None of the list members he’d tracked down so far had been reported missing or kidnapped. If anything were to happen to any of them he’d pick it up on the news wires or from the law enforcement networks he had hacked. He answered Carter’s email and set up a meeting at the hotel.
Carter showered, changed, and went down to the hotel bar to meet with Kinsella. They sat in the same spot they had used before. It was early evening and there was no one else in the bar. The hotel was the kind that was full of businessmen during the week but mostly vacant at weekends. The two men had been working round the clock, sleeping when they could, and had lost track of the days. Only now, sitting alone in the bar, did they realise it was Sunday.
‘How are we doing, Danny? Anything major to report?’
Kinsella gave Carter a rundown of what he had found, or rather not found, so far. ‘Nothing we should worry about. There’s no evidence of an imminent threat from Bazarov, the Kraken, or anyone else who might be involved. If this is a conspiracy, it isn’t being flagged up on any government databases.’
‘So what are we looking at, in your opinion?’
‘I’ve still got some people on the survivors list to track down but I’m convinced this is just old-fashioned espionage. Bazarov is looking for technical intell that he can sell on the black market.’
Carter took a drink and nodded. ‘I agree. I think Quinn is being used or threatened to make her provide information. With her family missing she’s a soft target.’
‘So, where do we go from here?’
‘Well, as far as MI6 are concerned, we don’t go any further.’
Kinsella gave a slight grin. ‘But you don’t want to drop it just yet, do you?’
‘My first priority is to make sure Sinclair and McGill are okay. I don’t want to see them hurt.’
‘If I can help with anything there, just say the word.’
‘Thanks, Danny.’ Carter patted Kinsella’s forearm. ‘I’ll arrange a meeting with Lancaster tomorrow and let him know the Kraken isn’t secure. He should advise the UK Government to walk away from this deal.’
‘But you want me to keep digging?’
‘Yes please. Call it curiosity. I want to know who’s involved in this. Find out everything you can about this Vadim, who they are, how high up this goes. If there’s a high- level mole in Whitehall, I want to know.’
‘I’ll get right on to it, Simeon.’
‘Get some sleep first. I’ll contact Frank and tell him to pull Sinclair out of there. Once they’re clear I’ll arrange to bring them home.’
‘That’ll be good, Simeon. I’m looking forward to meeting them both.’
* * *
Robert Tyler was also sitting in front of his screens. He only had to cope with two – the department didn’t have the resources, or he the ability, to work with six at once. A mug shot of Ali Sinclair stared out at him from one, as he read the text on the other. He’d used some contacts to get a copy of Sinclair’s original Mexican arrest record. It didn’t contain a great deal that he didn’t know but it did give him a new direction to look in.
He knocked on the door of his SAIC’s office and waited. This wasn’t big enough to just barge in. He wasn’t senior enough to get away with that without a good reason.
‘Yes? Come in.’
Tyler opened the door and poked his head round it. ‘Am I interrupting, sir?’
‘No, no, what is it?’
He stepped into the room. ‘I’ve found something that might be worth following up in the motel shootings.’
‘Okay, close the door and take a seat.’
He shut the door behind him and sat down. ‘I got a copy of Sinclair’s arrest record. It shows that she was picked up at the airport with someone called Josephine Quinn, a US national.’ He handed a printout across the desk.
Johnson looked at it for a moment. ‘We still don’t know that the woman in the motel image is Sinclair. Do we?’
‘Not yet, Boss, I’m just working a hunch. I’m looking for anything that will confirm her whereabouts.’
‘And what do you think you’ve found?’
Tyler pointed at the printout. ‘This woman, Quinn, she owns a ranch in Texas. I thought, if she lives in Texas and Sinclair is here too, maybe they would get together.’
‘This is a pretty thin lead.’
‘I know, Boss, but we could check it out and if it turns out to be nothing, well, we can drop it, put it all down to gang violence.’
The older man thought for a while. He didn’t think this was going anywhere but he didn’t want to discourage the young analyst. ‘Get in touch with the local sheriff’s office, ask them to go and interview Quinn. See if anything sets the alarm bells ringing.’
Tyler jumped up from his seat, keen to get on with it. ‘Right, Boss, I’ll let you know what they find out.’
* * *
Mike Powell hadn’t been with the sheriff’s office for long. When he’d left the army and returned home, it was the only job that was really on offer. He’d needed the work and the sheriff was keen to get a veteran on board.
He’d stopped at the side of the desert highway to empty his bladder. There weren’t any facilities in this area. Being the new guy, he got the jobs no one else wanted. He could easily spend all day out here, looking for speeding motorists, without seeing anyone. This was mostly a rural area and major crimes were rare. He sometimes wished he could spend some time closer to the city and get a little excitement.
The radio in his car came to life. ‘Tango Two Seven Zero, this is Dispatch, over.’
‘Shit.’ He couldn’t stop mid-flow.
‘Tango Two Seven Zero, this is Dispatch, over.’
He quickly finished and zipped himself up, leaving a wet spot on the front of his trousers. ‘Son of a bitch.’
‘Two Seven Zero. Mike, you out there?’
Powell reached into the car and grabbed the mic for the radio. ‘Dispatch this is Seven Zero.’
‘What you been up to, Mike?’
‘Sorry, Dispatch, call of nature. You got somethin’ for me?’
‘Yes, we have, you’ll need to write this down.’
Powell pumped his fist in the air. At last, something different to do. He grabbed a pen and some paper. ‘Okay, Dispatch, go ahead.’
‘We’ve had a request for us to go to the Quinn ranch and interview a Josephine Quinn about an old friend of hers. You’re over that neck of the woods, can you pick this up?’
‘No problem, Dispatch, what’s the friend’s name?’
‘Alison Sinclair. She may have been involved in a shooting at a motel in Houston.’
Powell wrote everything down. ‘Is Quinn a suspect?’
‘Negative, Two Seven, they just want to know if she has heard from, or seen Sinclair recently.’
Powell liked the sound of this. ‘And Sinclair, is she a suspect?’
‘Possibly, but not confirmed. Proceed to the ranch and see what you can find out. See if there’s anything unusual and report back.’
‘Roger, Dispatch, Two Seven Zero out.’ It wasn’t a drug raid or a major arrest but it would beat sitting in his baking hot cruiser all day. He closed the vehicle’s door and put on his seat belt.
Chapter 14
Sinclair had woken at the sound of the cellar door being unlocked. She’d managed to snatch a couple of hours sleep on the concrete floor but her body now ached all over. Maybe it was the after effects of the drugs they’d given her. She got to her feet and tried to stretch the stiffness out of her joints.
The early morning sunlight flooded in and Bazarov stood, framed in the open doorway, at the top of the stairs. ‘Please, Miss Sinclair. Come and join us.’
Sinclair stopped her stretching and climbed up the wooden staircase. This job had gone about as wrong as it was possible to go. Both her and Frank captured, no communication with London, she had to think. Wh
atever it was that Bazarov wanted her to do, she had no option but to go along with it – for now. As long as she was valuable, she and Frank were still in with a chance.
She stepped through the cellar door and followed Bazarov towards the kitchen. A guard, armed with an AR-15, tucked in behind her. ‘Is he necessary?’
‘Just a little precaution, we don’t want you getting any ideas.’
‘You’ve got my partner locked up in the barn. I’m not likely to risk anything, am I?’
‘Better safe than sorry, Miss Sinclair. Sergei here is going to watch you for a little while. He likes blondes.’
Sinclair looked at her new shadow. Sergei was a squat, powerfully built, grubby man. He was unshaven and his greasy hair looked like it had been cut with a bread knife. He looked Sinclair up and down and gave her a toothless grin. Sinclair looked at Bazarov. ‘If he tries to touch me, I’ll kill him.’
Bazarov gave a snort of laughter. ‘You hear that Sergei? You better keep your hands to yourself.’
Sergei’s whole body seemed to shake as he let out a deep, rasping chuckle. Sinclair could see, somewhere along the line, he was going to be a problem.
The three of them entered the kitchen. Quinn was already there, sitting at the table with two cups of fresh coffee. ‘Morning, Ali, are you okay?’
‘I could use a coffee and a shower.’
Quinn slid one of the cups over towards Sinclair. ‘Here you go. Just how you like it.’
Sinclair sat next to her and picked up the steaming mug. ‘Thanks, Jo.’
Quinn leant over and whispered, ‘I’m really sorry.’
Sinclair patted Quinn’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, really.’
Bazarov placed both hands down on the table. ‘So touching, ladies. Mrs Quinn, I’m disappointed. You didn’t make me a coffee, and I thought we were friends.’
