by D C Vaughn
More notes, Stone leafing back through the testimony for a moment.
‘Okay, and you have the address of this Colin you mentioned?’
Rebecca nodded and passed Stone the details. ‘He had a bank of television screens upstairs in a spare room, said all of them were linked to Neuray.’
‘And this was the same person who then shopped you to a Russian assassin,’ Marchant said, unable to keep the disbelief out of her tone.
Rebecca ignored the scepticism. ‘That’s right. The only thing I can think of is that they used genuine evidence to get me on their side, so that I could track down Sam’s evidence and pass it on to them. Once they had it, they could tie up loose ends.’
Stone nodded slowly.
‘Rebecca, while you’ve been a fugitive from justice…’
‘Trying to clear my name,’ she cut in.
‘…. the founder of Neuray informed us of the possible connection with Russians in the country. He told us that it might be a case of espionage and that we should refer the case to MI6 in as far as they might be able to help us unravel what’s been going on.
Rebecca smiled. ‘Ashton Kershaw, he’s had my back on this. He doesn’t know what’s going on himself but he feared that the Russians were intent on getting hold of this technology to further their aims of destabilising the west through covert interference.’
Stone inclined his head to one side, winced slightly.
‘We pulled a man out of the River Exe whom we were not able to identify until we searched for Russians known to be in the area,’ he said. ‘He was then identified. He had been drowned, and Samuel Lincoln from that point on is missing. We’ve been assuming that Sam was the victim of violent crime, as were you, but now the available evidence is suggesting that Sam is a man with violent tendencies who may have killed a Russian tourist.’
‘Tourist?’ Rebecca almost shouted. ‘They tried to kill him, and me!’
‘So you say,’ Hannah cut in, ‘and so you may believe. But evidence is evidence, and it’s pointing to Sam as being someone involved in something far more nefarious than corporate whistle–blowing. His boss at Neuray now believes that Sam might be involved in an attempt to sell stolen Ministry of Defence technology to the black market.’
Rebecca could not believe what she was hearing. Sam had gone from a missing person to a suspect in the space of a single night and she realised that she could not blame Stone and Marchant for thinking that way.
‘Dylan Carter is lying to you,’ Rebecca insisted. ‘He’s working for the Russians. Carter knows exactly what’s going on here.’
‘That’s right,’ Hannah agreed. ‘Officers accompanied him to the home in Cranbrook, which is owned by Neuray, where he showed us the room you just described. It’s indeed full of monitors, and they’re showing people going about their daily business, but they’re ordinary volunteers wearing micro–scale cameras developed by Neuray for the commercial market, not James Bond style brain implants.’
Rebecca sat silent and still for a moment.
‘But they had vivid but bizarre imagery on them. He said that the people were dreaming, that the imagery was directly from their subconscious minds.’
Neither Stone nor Hannah showed her any sign of sympathy.
‘Did he beam you up right afterward, Rebecca?’ Hannah asked sweetly.
Rebecca felt a neutron bomb of retorts surging toward her lips but Stone cut her off.
‘Drop the act, okay? You’re telling us that you ignored my offer of a voluntary interview here because somebody called Colin wanted you to help him turn whistle blower on Neuray, that you willingly accompanied this complete stranger to break and enter the home of Peter and Helen Lincoln, all based on something he’d shown you on a bunch of television monitors that could have been faked just like that?’ Stone clicked his fingers beside his head. ‘I thought that you were a detective? Why wouldn’t Colin have just brought it here to the police?’
Rebecca grit her teeth.
‘I wanted him to but he said that he couldn’t, that he feared for his life. He told me that he’d worked with Sam for years.’
‘Had you ever seen him before?’ Hannah challenged her.
‘No.’
‘Had you ever heard of a Colin working with Sam at Neuray before?
‘No, which I wouldn’t have because he doesn’t work there. It’s all lies, Sam told me he’d never met him.’
‘And you believed this guy that you’d never met?’ Hannah challenged. ‘Rather than come here and speak to us?’
Rebecca peered at them both. ‘Are you telling me that you’re not in the slightest bit suspicious of everything you’re hearing from me after what happened in Salisbury? Have you even spoken to Dylan Carter?’
‘Yes,’ Stone replied, ‘and Mr Carter believes that Sam had decided to try to sell his technology to the highest bidder, side–stepping Neuray’s rights as they had not applied for patents for the technology. Something to do with the military having the right to seize patents at will, denying the creator access to the markets.’
Rebecca was almost speechless. She struggled to get her words out as she considered what Stone was saying.
‘You’re accusing him of being the traitor now?’
‘You said it yourself,’ Stone said, ‘there’s more to this than we thought. I’m inclined to agree.’
‘It’s Carter,’ she insisted. ‘He’s the one behind all of this. He had motive because the technology wasn’t purchased by the Ministry of Defence due to unreliability, and Neuray is deep in a financial hole after their investment in research and development. He needed fast cash, and this was the way out.’
Stone shook his head. ‘I think you’re mistaken. Dylan Carter provided us with full financial details of the company up to the end of their last financial year, and while they have invested millions into MOD projects that they can’t show us, Neuray is making a healthy profit from its medical technology. The company is not in any danger of imminent collapse.’
Rebecca couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she could at the same time understand how Stone and Marchant could believe what they were hearing. The whole damned mess was so confusing and her bloody OCD and the pain….
Rebecca stared at the table top in silence for a moment. She suddenly realised that the pain was gone. She could feel nothing, no sharp pangs of agony, no sparkles of light in her eyes. Since Sam had conducted his surgery, she felt far better. Sure, that could be because he’d taken the chip and run with it, but she knew he was no Russian sympathiser. It wasn’t that he didn’t hold political convictions, but Sam had never shown any real inclination to political motivation: like most people he felt politicians were either just liars out for their own gain, or well–meaning people battling to perform an incredibly difficult job that could never please all the people all the time.
Sam would not have sold his technology to the black market, and that meant that he was still trying to expose Neuray. She had to find him.
‘I think I’d like to speak to my solicitor now.’
***
XXXIV
Ashton Kershaw stood behind his mahogany desk and sipped amber liquor from a glass tumbler, watching the sun setting behind the distant hills of Dartmoor. The sunlight streamed through his office, blindingly bright and yet somehow clean, unsullied by the darkness that consumed the country.
He feared for the future, the one that he would not see, but his own escape from the fate of the United Kingdom and perhaps the rest of the western world was of little consolation when he knew that his children and grandchildren would be forced to face that future head–on. The growth of Russian nationalism and their decision to destablise the west in any way that they could was a far greater threat than even the largest thermonuclear device. The great Soviet machine had finally realised that it could not win a military confrontation, and that even if it could there was no profit to be made from conquering a radioactive wasteland. No. Guile had become their greatest asset, t
o use the west’s decadence against it, their mistrust, the entirely natural human foibles of nationalism disguised as patriotism; quick to anger, swift to blame, bigotry in all its gruesome guises.
He only hoped that he had done enough, that he had time left yet to do more.
The door to his office opened and Dylan Carter stormed in.
‘What he hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he shouted, pointing one finger at Ashton.
‘I’m sorry Dylan,’ he said as he set the tumbler down. ‘We cannot continue this way. The police, the investigations, the suspicions. It’s making Neuray look bad in the eyes of the Ministry. We had to call a vote.’
‘A vote,’ Dylan growled, beside himself with fury. ‘A vote of no confidence in me? I’ve doubled the company’s profits in four years, opened up countless new revenue streams in countries that wouldn’t have pissed in your direction, Ashton, and you’re firing me?!’
‘I’m not firing anyone,’ Ashton replied, maintaining his calm. ‘The board concurred with my recommendation that you were to be replaced, and that I would take over the role of CEO until further notice. As the single largest shareholder and the founder of the company, I was the natural choice to steer the ship into safer waters.’
‘Safer?’ Carter snapped. ‘There’s no profit in safe! You’ll drive the company back into the ground! Don’t you recall why you were replaced in the first place, Ashton? Out of the loop. Unable to meet the demands of a modern and vibrant, fast–moving marketplace. The days of back–handers from Eton buddies at Whitehall are long gone Ashton. Your investors will drop like flies once they hear of this.’
Ashton smiled. ‘Profit, Dylan, is nothing without respect. The police have been crawling all over Neuray this past two weeks, and you’ve done nothing to reassure our shareholders.’
‘I’ve been helping the bloody police so that we’re cleared of any involvement, you damned old fool! And while I’ve been out there doing that, you call a vote behind my back and…’
Dylan froze for a moment, staring at Ashton as though he’d suddenly been struck by a thought so profound that it had stolen words from his lips.
‘You knew I’d be gone,’ Dylan uttered. ‘You did this on purpose.
‘For the greater good,’ Ashton replied. ‘The world will be a safer place without people like you, Dylan, who think only of profit and not of the future we leave behind for others.’
Dylan’s eyes narrowed. ‘But it was you who approached the MOD with the contract.’
Ashton smiled quietly. ‘Good luck in your future, Dylan. I do hope that this unfortunate series of events doesn’t lead to your arrest in the investigation ongoing at MI6 and the local police, but rest assured, if I find any evidence of your connection to Russian influences in this country, I will not hesitate to send that evidence to the relevant authorities.’
Dylan began to pace back and away from Ashton’s desk, confused and off–balance. ‘You’re insane. You know damned well I’d never… I’m calling my lawyer!’
Ashton watched him go. ‘Why would you need one, if you’re innocent of any crime?’
Ashton drained his glass, collected his briefcase, and walked out of his office to the elevator. He rode down to the lobby, said goodbye to the receptionist on the way out as he had always done, and made his way across the car park in the fading light to his Mercedes. The wind was cold, whipping around him as he unlocked the car and climbed in.
As he slammed the door shut, so the passenger door opened and a man leaped inside. Ashton’s heart jumped into his mouth in shock as the ugly, cold black barrel of a pistol was pressed against his cheek.
‘Don’t move,’ a lightly–accented Russian voice said. ‘We’re going to have a little chat.’
The back door to the Mercedes opened and Ashton glanced in the mirror to see another man climb in and slam the door behind him.
The gunman’s face was a bruised and bloodied mess, hastily patched with medical dressings. His breath stank of vodka, his eyes sunken in dark pits wherein burned a fearsome rage. The gun pushed against Ashton’s cheek.
‘Lincoln’s still alive.’
Ashton gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles white. ‘Still?’
The gun was yanked free from Ashton’s face. ‘Look at me! I can’t leave the country looking like this! Who do you think did this to me?’
Ashton stared at the Russian, whose name was Artyom. ‘Sam? He did that to you?’
‘And he’s with the woman,’ came the reply from Sergie in the back. ‘She’s alive too.’
Ashton held the wheel and stared into the middle distance for a long moment. Sergie and his partner Artyom operated on a different field to Ashton; when the going got tough they could fly out of the UK back to Moscow with the blessing and the thanks of the Kremlin and be safe from arrest or extradition. Ashton, on the other hand, could do neither.
‘How hard is it to kill one man?’ Ashton growled. ‘What the hell am I paying you both for?’
Despite his recent actions, Ashton considered himself a patriot, a man born of a more noble age who understood the delicacies of international politics and the strategic manoeuvering that was required to keep one country ahead of the others. He had witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union with joy in his heart, but that joy had turned to dismay as the jewel of Glasnost had crumbled into the ashes of untold lost dreams with the rise of Russia’s new and uncompromising leader. Democracy had been lost long ago to the Motherland’s unrequitting desire for the “good old days”, memories of the Gulags and of queuing for bread conveniently lost amid a patriotic yearning for the power of the Communist Soviet nation.
Ashton knew that what he had done was both politically and morally wrong, but he had grown tired of the immorality of corrupt and hypocritical politicians. He was in the twilight of his years, and had wanted only to spend the last of them with his family, wealthy and without a care in the world. The sale of Neuray’s chips to the black market was a simple way to achieve that dream, and nobody would have known anything about it until long after Ashton was gone, were it not for Sam Lincoln’s unerring morality.
Ashton would not have believed Sam would turn against him. Sam had known nothing of Ashton’s plans to introduce the Neuray technology onto the international market. Sam had stolen the data simply because he didn’t like what he was being asked to create. The fact that it wasn’t his bloody job to like it, only to do it, seemed to have escaped his attention. What else could Ashton have done? He’d only wanted the data back. Killing Sam had never been part of the plan. That the supposedly elite Russian who had been sent to retrieve that data by force had ended up dead in the river, and Sam vanished, had been an outcome that Ashton would never in a million years’ believed possible.
Ashton had visited Rebecca in hospital as she recovered, and as Neuray owned the private room in which she lay it had been relatively easy to implant her without anybody noticing. The chip was the size of a fingernail and as thin as paper. Infection was the only risk, but easily avoided. Ashton had completed the work himself, affording himself the chance to watch the investigation into Sam from the inside.
And then, the murder of the homeless man. Rebecca’s chip had been active when she had spoken with him, and Sergie had been clear: the vagrant had to die. His testimony was too risky, even coming from a drunk on the street. Far better that Rebecca be manipulated into taking the fall for the murder, and if Sam were dead, all the better.
Ashton felt his guts plunge within him. ‘Where is Rebecca?’
‘She’s under arrest, but we have no idea what she knows or what they know. She’s in custody right now and we don’t have a signal, it’s gone. If Sam Lincoln is alive…’
Ashton took a deep breath.
‘Even if he is alive and he extracted Rebecca’s chip, that’s nothing that can expose us. We can turn it against them easily enough, and suggest that Samuel inserted the chip for his own ends, to demonstrate the technology and benefit himself.’
Sergie stared at Ashton for a long moment in silence before he replied.
‘Well, that’s up to you. Our work is done here, and you’re going to help us get out.’
Ashton felt a mild sense of panic rise up within him. ‘I have no obligation to your escape plan.’
‘The data is in the hands of our superiors,’ Sergie replied. ‘The money you were promised has been transferred into the accounts that you specified. We’re returning to Moscow.’
Ashton gripped the wheel more tightly in his hands.
‘Rebecca won’t quit,’ he growled. ‘If she has evidence against us, against me…’
‘Then the British Government will be asking the Russian Ambassador a lot of questions, but none of them will involve us. What happens to you is your own problem.’
‘The deal was that all parties were clear before the parting of the ways.’
‘And you were to ensure the security of the data we purchased,’ Artyom shot back as he jabbed the pistol into Ashton’s ribs, more vodka–tainted breath gusting across the old man’s face. ‘That one of your own employees screwed everything up is on you, Ashton. It’s nothing to do with us.’
Ashton smiled without warmth.
‘You do know that this building is covered in CCTV cameras? One shot of you here and the whole thing will turn into a global conspiracy media frenzy.’
Sergie grinned back without fear. ‘How do you say? Cutting off your nose to spite your face? We both know that you won’t be doing any such thing. Your reputation will be destroyed, your involvement in the killings will become public knowledge and you’ll be facing the rest of your miserable, traitorous life behind bars.’
Ashton’s features fell as he realised that he had been cornered. Sergie leaned over the back of his seat, that smug grin on his face.
‘Private jet, out of Farnborough Airport, no question asked. Get help from your Etonian friends if you need it. We’re leaving, tonight, and taking our reward at leisure for the next thirty or forty years. I’ll think of you Ashton, and I’ll drink to your bones.’
