The Hunt series Boxset 2

by Tim Heath

The Kremlin was refusing to comment on any link but were offering a team of their own experts to be sent to the scene to help with the investigation. The Swiss had declined. They were sure it was a personal hit as opposed to a terrorist act. Switzerland was not known to be a hotbed of violence, partly because most terrorist organisations in the world had some of their money carefully locked away in the Swiss banking system.

  The street from the hotel was closed for that evening, but as a one-way street, access was allowed from nine. The car had been removed by then. Given the injuries, it was clear that someone had used a high-powered weapon, bullet fragments found, the damage to Foma far more extensive than that of the driver. They assumed that was because the bullet had travelled through the headrest before hitting the oligarch; it had caused the round to explode, thus leading to the damage to the oligarch. Both had died instantly, all that showed on the driver was a hole in the forehead and an exit wound in the back of the head. They would find the bullet in the headrest, the weapon from which someone had fired it one most commonly used by the British. Those investigating knew it wasn’t only British used.

  The world had a good idea of who would have been behind the hit. All eyes were looking at Matvey Filipov, who wasn’t saying anything.

  17

  Mark Orlov had seen the news about Foma Polzin. The implications couldn’t have been more explicit. He was confident that Filipov had ordered the kill, taking out a former friend, a relationship that had soured in the months before the election, and now the oligarch was dead.

  Orlov was still in Siberia with the other two members of the Leadership of the Machine, Sergej Volkov and Lev Kaminski. He deemed it the safest place for them all to be, especially while the dust settled on the election, and they got to see the first moves of their new President.

  And what they were seeing was already troubling them.

  A call had come through that morning from Orlov’s team in Hong Kong. They confirmed that Radomir had been to the hotel across from the central offices in the Chinese city and had since fled. The evidence of the hit in Switzerland on Foma suggested Rad had later made it to Zurich.

  “I think it’s more than just timing,” Orlov said, his hunches usually right about Filipov, especially the more he knew of the man. Maybe his two biggest mistakes had been to not read the man earlier when he’d been working with him, and then to have killed the man’s only child.

  “He’s making an example. If you betray him, you’ll be sorry. It’s just a show of strength.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Orlov said, taking on Lev’s words but adding his own conclusion instead. “We know Filipov sent his sniper to Hong Kong the other week. We have to assume he was hunting me.” Both of the men listening to Orlov knew exactly why that was the case. They didn’t need to repeat themselves now. “Rad leaves in a hurry spooked. We know he flew to Seattle, from where we lost him. He could well have been looking for me in St Lucia.”

  “Or he headed to Zurich?”

  “Via Seattle? That makes little sense. Besides, Foma only landed in Switzerland the day before they killed him. Seemed to scramble there quickly as far as I can tell. Yet he has no legitimate business interests in the nation.”

  “He used to travel there frequently for Filipov,” Lev said, a fact they all knew.

  “Exactly, but he doesn’t work for Filipov now, and we know that wherever Rad was, they called him to Switzerland to head Foma off. I think Foma knew where the Bank is located.”

  All three men knew about the Bank––they had money in it––but none, besides Orlov, knew its precise location. It shocked them that Foma did, and if Foma knew, that could only have been because Filipov already knew.

  Sergej swore under his breath. He had most to lose if the Bank got shut down. He had nearly everything there, the money that hadn’t been taken from him from before he went to prison, that is. Billions.

  “If he gets his hands on that money, he could shut us all down!”

  “Exactly. And I think Filipov knew Foma was there to do precisely that. The kill makes perfect sense. There must have been plenty of dirt that Foma had on Filipov. Silencing him would therefore not be such a bad thing.”

  “Well, he is silent now.” Lev had been at the Games event in St Petersburg when it had been assumed they had shot Foma right outside the Volkov mansion. After that hit, and with Foma in hiding, Svetlana had closed down the Games for good, believing someone present had ordered the kill. That had been the intention, anyway. Filipov had just been better placed to stop the kill and profit significantly from it since.

  “What of Putin?” Sergej asked, changing the subject in the room. They’d not heard anything about the former President for days.

  “I have a source that says they flew him to Syria. Filipov’s drastic change of policy towards the nation is being used to get to Putin,” Orlov said.

  “Has he succeeded?” They all knew about the failed attempt on the life of Assad with the attack on his convoy. They quickly assumed that if Putin were there, he would have to be with the Syrian President.

  “I think as long as Assad is free, we have to assume Putin is still alive. I think no one outside the Kremlin knows he’s on the run, however. There has been nothing in the news.” That was because Filipov was blocking any channel from talking about the former President. Filipov was less than two weeks into office. It was a bright new era for the nation, and he demanded the focus be on him and the changes he was about to bring.

  “Do we try to reach out to the Syrians?” Sergej asked. Both Lev and Mark pondered that thought for a moment.

  “The idea has merit. We wanted Putin to win that second vote, and if we can keep him safe now, keep him hidden away, he might still come good for us.”

  Syria

  Assad and his entourage, with Putin included, were moving on foot. That the convoy––sent off on its own as much as a decoy as anything else––had been blown up told both men only one thing. Filipov’s Russia was no longer looking to protect the Assad regime.

  The Syrian President realised that keeping Putin close was not necessarily a wise idea, but there was a strength if the two men could keep each other alive. Apparently, Russia was no longer an ally, and that meant Filipov did not view the Syrian nation as a friend. Putin had always stood by them, and if they could get through this, if Filipov was to be removed from office, Russia could get handed back to Putin, and they could get back to what it was before.

  At least the bombing had stopped.

  Progress was slow, however, now they were without their vehicles. A convoy would draw too much attention. Another missile might not hit the wrong target next time. They couldn’t afford to risk it.

  It was three days after fleeing his compound that they put a call through to Assad’s team. Assad listened to the voice, taking in the fact the man was distinctly Russian. He pulled the phone away from his ear, as instructed, and looked across to Putin, who was by that point puzzled at the call.

  “Does the Machine mean anything to you?” Assad asked, Putin’s eyes lighting up for the first time in a while, as the name of an organisation his administration only knew a little about was mentioned once more. Assad took the hint and passed the satellite phone to his Russian former-counterpart.

  “Yes? Who is this?” Putin demanded.

  Orlov didn’t give his name.

  “I’m speaking on behalf of the Machine. I’m aware you know a little about us, though this call will be brief. We are prepared to watch out for you, to keep you safe, if it will prepare you to work with us.”

  “In the future?” Putin looked around him at that moment, the smoke of distant fires visible in all directions, nothing but destruction in his near vision.

  “We both know we cannot allow Filipov to remain in charge.”

  “And you want me back?” Putin couldn’t help feel the irony in that comment. He was sure the Machine had been trying to get him out of office, though maybe with Dmitry Kaminski in power, and not Filipov. There
was no doubt Filipov was the more dangerous person to have in charge, and yet the electorate had seen that too late.

  “You would be the obvious choice to step back into power if something were to happen to our current President, sir,” Orlov said, trying to sound as genuine as he could make it.

  “And is something about to happen?” Putin couldn’t help feeling this was all hypothetical unless the man speaking on the phone had an actual plan. From where Putin was standing, he had limited options. Staying alive was his sole focus.

  “We’re working on it,” Orlov said.

  “Well, you must hurry, and you must get it right. You can’t afford to mess around with someone like Filipov. Keep me alive, and we have a deal.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” and Orlov ended the call. They had an agreement in principle. If the Machine could keep Putin out of harm’s way, if they could somehow get him out of Syria altogether and into a place they controlled, or a place they could at least secure, then they might get access to a President after all. The way Filipov was going, there would be a whole list of people happy to see an end to the new man.

  “He’s in,” Mark said, turning to the other two, though they’d picked up that much from hearing Orlov’s side of the conversation.

  “So now we have to get him out of there. Who do we have in the area?” Lev said, coming around to the idea that they could work with Putin after all in whatever remained of Russia once they were through with Filipov. Lev had wanted his nephew in charge though hadn’t heard from him since the damning allegations had emerged about Lev’s own role in his brother’s murder. Dmitry knew the rumours were true as they were.

  “I’ll make some calls,” Mark said, leaving the two men at that moment, phone already at his ear as he left the room.

  “Can we get to Filipov?” Sergej asked, his expression looking as if the idea lacked credibility the longer he dwelt on it. This was Russia. They knew exactly how these things went. Filipov was in a dominant position, which got stronger the longer he was around.

  “It all depends on his next few moves. But yes, nobody is untouchable.”

  Duke’s Club, Soho––London

  Anissa sat next to Gordon Peacock in an office directly across the road from the front entrance to the exclusive club. They were on the fourth floor, but had a great line of sight, and had secured the rentable office space for the next couple of months. There was space for five to hot-desk in the room, though it would just be the two of them. They mounted a camera on a tripod by the window, disguised, though it was not possible to see it from the street, given the tinted glass of the building they were in. Another monitor on the desk relayed the various camera feeds from street level, Gordon having fixed four mini cameras on both sides of the street, either side of the entrance. It would give them a little warning of anyone coming their way.

  Now it was just a waiting game.

  The rear entrance had been harder to get eyes on. Only a few windows gave access to the door itself, and none of these premises was available to the MI6 officers when they’d made their moves. Alex and Sasha had to settle for a room that gave a line of sight onto the alleyway leading to the rear entrance, but without being able to see the door directly. They had figured that given it was the only way in––they’d checked for any other way to get to the door, and besides walking through walls, there wasn’t––it didn’t matter that they couldn’t see the actual entrance. Like the other two, they had a camera mounted in position, and just one other feed relaying live video from street level.

  The two men were playing a game of poker with each other, chatting freely while always keeping a watch on things happening on the screens. It had been a slow morning, and they’d recorded just the one person walking down the alley, a female. She had to have worked at the venue in question, and she was registered and noted accordingly. That had been three hours before. Alex could only hope the other two were having more luck out front.

  After three days of the stakeout, Anissa was fearing they were wasting their time. They’d seen very few people come and go, and it was mind-numbingly dull. She was thinking about suggesting they give up when a man matching the rough description of the barman was seen walking down the road. It was picked up on one of the street side cameras. Anissa jumped to the computer, reaching for her phone.

  “Alex, it’s me. We might just have him coming towards us,” she said, the man approaching the entrance before turning up the alleyway. She picked up the camera and snapped multiple shots, though the street cams would have got a better look, and Gordon was pulling up that information as she spoke. “He’s coming your way,” she said, watching the man disappear from her view.

  Alex was already at the window and spotted the barman coming up the alleyway. Alex took five shots of the man’s face before he vanished from view––presumably in through the rear doors.

  “Yes, I think that’s him,” Alex confirmed, going over to the computer attached to the camera, soon finding the photos he’d just taken. Over the next five minutes, with Sasha still at the window though there was no further movement to observe, Alex tidied up the images and sent them in an email to New Scotland Yard, home of the police. He marked it as urgent and addressed it for the attention of the two officers who’d first reported the discovery of Price’s body. Alex was asking them to identify if the man in the photos was the same one who had given them their former DDG’s name.

  That confirmation came back within three hours. One officer was ninety-five per cent sure it was the same man. Nothing further was asked by the police, and Alex wasn’t about to offer anything else himself.

  “We have confirmation,” Alex said. The two agents had been discussing over the last couple of hours what to do in the likely event it was their man. They’d been in touch with Anissa, who they agreed would stay in place with Gordon watching the front for a while. For the other two, they would move. They would be in place to follow the barman away from the club when he finished his shift later. They did not know how locally he lived. Once they had a little more on him, they would plan their next move.

  It was shortly after eleven that night when they spotted the barman leaving the venue. Anissa gave them the confirmation seconds before the man himself walked out into the cool, but dry night. All around, darkness covered the scene, apart from the streetlights, but that served the agents only too well. Both men had gambled that the barman would return from the same direction he’d come, and, therefore, were waiting much further down the road, to not raise any suspicion in the man.

  “He’s coming your way,” Anissa confirmed, seeing the barman take the turn from the alley, doing something they all hoped would happen.

  “I’ve got him,” Sasha said, now with eyes on the man and seeing him approaching their area. Alex was nearby, across the road from the underground station closest to the club. If the barman would take the tube, he would use that station. Alex would merely get onto the same train, and they would take things from there. The barman turned the other way.

  “He’s not using transport,” Alex confirmed, the man still on foot, not needing the train. It was clear he was local to the area. Sasha was already ahead of the barman now, on the other side of the street and about fifty metres in front, but allowing Alex to guide him so that Sasha wouldn’t get too far ahead.

  Less than half a mile from Duke’s, the barman turned into the entrance of a modern-looking apartment block, putting a key into the front door before disappearing inside. Less than sixty-seconds later, both agents were standing next to each other outside the door.

  “I think we have his address,” Alex said, giving the building number and street name to Anissa over the phone. Only about half the names on the intercom were shown, and Alex read these off anyway, stating the flat number for each name when known. Alex doubted their barman was one of these names, but at least they could rule the others out.

  There was a pub across the road, and the two agents walked into it, the timings on the door suggesting it
was open for at least another hour. They took a table by the front window, the place itself mostly empty. They could see the front of the apartment block across the road and any lights in the street-facing flats. None had come on in the last twenty minutes. The barman undoubtedly lived in one of the rear facing units.

  The bell rang for last orders behind the bar, the sign for those still in the place to leave, which Alex and Sasha did themselves at that moment. Anissa had called ten minutes before to say they were out of their location already and heading home. She would catch up with them both the following morning.

  18

  Vauxhall House, MI6––London

  Gordon was in with the three agents shortly before ten that morning.

  “His name is Jimmy Sanders,” the MI6 head technician stated with a proud smile on his face. Gordon had been the first one in that morning, despite having had a late night. He’d run the information through the database, running the address they had given him through the system, and had soon solved the mystery surrounding the previously unnamed, unknown potential witness.

  “I checked his national insurance payments, and his salary has been coming from Duke’s for the last ten years. He’s been in place for a decade. That’s why he knew who Price was.”

  All three agents took that confirmation in with a certain satisfaction. For Alex and Anissa, it was one of the critical missing pieces they would have loved to have known years before. Now, finally they had a name.

  “Do we bring him in?” Alex said, the thought growing louder in his head the more the seconds passed.

  “I think we leave him in place for the time being. If he suddenly vanishes, it’ll only alert Filipov.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” Alex asked.

  “Anissa is right. We get one chance at this. We leave him for now. You know who he is, and he’s not going anywhere.”