Nobeca

by Lloyd Nesling

  He was standing at the head of an oval table. Seated around it were the heads of the G20 countries. Silent, fearful, they stared at his masked face waiting for him to speak. He was in command, invincible. Directing his gaze at the Russian President, he felt the hate coursing through his veins. They had betrayed him – ordered his death, but he had come back from the dead to create the Black Militia.

  His closest aides, resplendent in their black and gold dress uniforms, stood to attention round the walls of the room. He looked up at the enormous motif set in the wall; a black snow crystal surrounded by solid gold. Slowly, he raised his hand and started to pull up his mask. Before he could pull it off, he felt someone shaking his shoulder, touching him. Nobody touched the Generalissimo! Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, he heard a voice calling to him.

  “Wake up, we’re on the A470 heading for Cardiff.”

  Startled, he sat upright taking in his surroundings.

  “I’ll drop you off near the Civic Buildings before I go back to the depot. If you go through the underpass at Boulevard de Nantes you’ll be near the main shopping area. Hey, are you awake?” Denny gave him a playful shove. “Here,” he said cheerfully, handing him a sandwich from the plastic box on his lap.

  The Generalissimo shook his head and looked out through the window.

  “I feel a bit queasy,” he said. His words were muffled by the snood covering his face.

  “Why don’t you take that thing off for a bit,” Denny laughed, tugging at the snood.

  Immediately, the Generalissimo pulled it back into place. Too late, Denny had seen his face. Now he would have to die.

  “I need a pee. I’ll stop here for a minute,” Denny said. “There’s a lay-by up ahead.”

  Denny pulled into the lay-by and let the engine idle as he went behind the curtain to the back of the cab. Thank God for portable loos, he thought. Closing his eyes he savoured the feeling of emptying his bladder. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something very strange about the guy in the cab who called himself Max; something very odd indeed.

  He was zipping his flies when the knife slammed between his shoulder blades. He screamed, but it was muffled by the sound of the idling engine and heavy traffic. He felt the knife twist as it plunged deeper and deeper into his flesh. He fell forward onto his face, the knife sticking out of his back.

  “Nobody sees the face of the Generalissimo.”

  Those were the last words Denny heard before total blackness engulfed him. The Generalissimo pulled out the knife and jumped out of the cab. Carefully, he washed it in the snow, removing all traces of Denny’s blood.

  Fingers of grey light streaked the horizon. Soon it would be light. He had to move fast, but his ankle was still too painful to walk far. He jumped back in the truck and managed to put it into gear. The handbrake – where the hell is it? After a lot of cursing, he finally juddered out of the lay-by onto the main road. A huge, articulated lorry sped past him catching him with its back draft. He slammed on his brakes. The vehicle wobbled slightly then snaked across the lane, slewed onto the hard shoulder, and scraped along the crash barrier. He backed up, straightened the truck and nosed back out onto the dual carriageway.

  There was a road sign coming up. He peered through the windscreen: a slip road to Taffs Well. Where the hell is that? Cardiff and the M4 were straight on. He made a snap decision. They would be watching the roads in that area. No, instead of going into Cardiff he would go down the M4 towards London, abandon the truck near Bristol and catch the intercity train from there. Satisfied, he exited the A470 at the Coryton roundabout and drove up the slip road onto the M4 towards Newport. Two hours later, he was boarding the intercity express to Paddington.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  London, England

  The lights were back on in London. Twice in forty-eight hours the city had again been plunged into darkness. People were feeling scared and vulnerable. The enormous Norwegian spruce in Trafalgar Square blazed with Christmas lights, but few people were out to admire it. The blackouts had had a devastating effect on the tourist economy. People were staying away from the shows, museums and other attractions.

  Conrad had left Wallace to mop up the carnage in Shropshire. At least they had destroyed the facility on the farm. The wrecked helicopter had been found in a field between Hereford and Abergavenny, but the Generalissimo was on the run.

  “You look ragged,” Pearce remarked, noting Conrad’s unshaven face and the dark circles under his eyes. “You need some sleep.”

  “How can I sleep with that madman out there?” Conrad replied.

  “Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff airports are on high alert, including private air strips. All the main rail stations have been alerted and traffic is being stopped on all major roads. There hasn’t been a single reported sighting of him anywhere. He may have slipped out of the country already.

  “Pavel Leonid Plushenko,” Pearce said pushing a fat file across the desk.

  “The trouble is we don’t know what he looks like, certainly not like this.” Conrad tapped the photographs on the desk in front of him. “He might have had plastic surgery.”

  “It’s possible, but somehow I don’t think so,” Pearce interjected. “You said yourself, he was a handsome devil – unusual colouring for a Russian. Apparently, he was a womaniser; a very vain man. He had a string of affairs with the wives of high-ranking members of the Politburo and a very senior KGB officer. He made a lot of enemies.”

  The photograph showed a raven-haired man with piercing, cornflower-blue eyes. There was something haughty and arrogant about his chiselled features and aristocratic nose.

  “Sophia Dreher is right. Narcissistic megalomania – it fits.”

  “We still don’t know that the Generalissimo is definitely Plushenko,” Pearce stated. “Notice the scar just here.” He pointed at a thread-like white scar running across the top of Plushenko’s left eyebrow.

  “Nobody in the Black Militia has seen his face. If they had they would be dead meat,” Conrad added. “Are there any other distinguishing marks?”

  “He has a small scar on each buttock. Apparently he got them sliding in the snow on a sheet of metal when he was a boy. The metal cut into him when he came a cropper.”

  “Well, that’s not much help. I haven’t seen his face let alone his backside,” Conrad chuckled wearily.

  “We have a comprehensive file on Plushenko. Family background, education, his rise through the ranks of the KGB; his personal tastes in music, health records, even his allergies. It seems he was allergic to cows’ milk.”

  Conrad raised his eyebrows quizzically and shrugged his shoulders. Suddenly, it clicked. He sat up, a stunned look on his face.

  “That’s it!” he exclaimed. “The goats; it’s definitely Plushenko! The goats were kept to provide him with milk. That’s what I saw in the Swiss facility; a portable pasteurizer and steriliser.”

  Pearce slapped the manila folder down and rested his elbows on the desk. “I’ll be damned!” he exclaimed. “But it won’t help us find him.”

  Wallace’s men had questioned everyone living in the isolated areas where the chopper came down. An elderly couple reported that they saw it crash and burst into flames. Only the pilot’s charred body was found in the burnt-out wreckage.

  “I don’t know how he did it, but he wasn’t in that chopper when the emergency services arrived. It’s possible he could try to get back to the facility in Switzerland.”

  “He’ll know the first place we’ll think of is Switzerland,” Conrad said. “He may assume we’ll discount it, because it’s too obvious. On the other hand perhaps that’s what he wants us to think.”

  “The only other way out is by sea. We’ve got the ferry terminals covered, but I don’t think he’ll try to get out that way. Hang on,” Pearce said, reaching for the telephone. “I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed for at least… ” He stopped mid-sentence, a frown creasing his lined forehead. “Okay, put him t
hrough. It’s Ryder,” he mouthed at Conrad.

  Pearce listened intently for a few minutes then carefully replaced the receiver. He leaned over the desk cradling his chin in his hands.

  “Apparently an abandoned truck was found early this morning in an industrial park on the outskirts of Bristol. It was blocking access for other vehicles. A security officer went out to investigate. The keys were still in the ignition so he climbed up to switch off the engine. He spotted a foot sticking out from the curtain drawn across the back of the cab. It was a dead man, or so he thought, covered with blood. Miraculously, it turns out he wasn’t dead. He’s on life support at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.”

  “Is that significant?” Conrad asked, raising his eyebrows quizzically.

  “Earlier, a guy working in one of the loading bays saw the driver jump out of the cab and run off. He couldn’t provide the police with a description, because his face was covered up and he was wearing dark glasses. He thought it odd that he was wearing an expensive overcoat. Not the kind of gear a lorry driver would usually wear. Could it be Plushenko?”

  It was more than a possibility. Conrad rubbed his grizzled chin thoughtfully. The police had already traced the truck. It was part of a retail food chain covering the United Kingdom. The driver was on his usual run from Shrewsbury to Cardiff.

  “He could have hitched a lift. Most truck drivers would stop if someone was stranded in the snow,” he said.

  “It makes a lot of sense,” Pearce added. “Plushenko could have trekked across the field, south of Hereford where the chopper came down, and flagged down the truck.

  “If he wanted to get to an intercity train line it would be easier to go to Cardiff, but I think he deliberately avoided Cardiff with the intention of getting a train somewhere along the M4 corridor. It’s got to be Bristol.”

  “The intercity train to London runs every hour,” Pearce said. He pressed a button on the telephone and spoke into the intercom. “Isobel, get Ryder on the line. I want him covering St. Pancras. There’s a possibility Plushenko will try to get out of the country on Eurostar. Jack is on his way over.”

  Conrad raced out and jumped into an unmarked police car. The driver slammed a blue light on the roof as they zigzagged through traffic at an alarming speed.

  “Cut the lights and siren,” he ordered, “before we approach the station. We don’t want to warn our man.”

  He had the door open before the police car skewed to a stop at St. Pancras.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Eurostar, St. Pancras to Paris

  Plushenko looked up from his laptop and stared pointedly at the plump blonde chattering on her mobile phone. Over the last hour she had talked to her cleaner, ordered party food from Marks & Spencer, booked theatre tickets and had a cosy conversation with a friend. Didn’t the bitch know she shouldn’t be using a mobile phone in a quiet carriage? Another man, buried behind The Daily Telegraph, glanced over the top of his newspaper and glared at her. Completely oblivious to her annoying behaviour, she carried on talking and laughing. He would have tackled her, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

  Snow-covered fields gave way to a mess of concrete warehouses and office blocks as they passed Slough and headed into Paddington. Passengers poured out of carriages and walked en masse to the automatic barriers at the end of the platform. Plushenko inserted his ticket, but the metal gate didn’t open. For a brief second his heart fluttered. The ticket collector held out his hand for the ticket. He let him through without even glancing at him.

  Huddled in his heavy overcoat, he made his way to the taxi rank and waited impatiently in the queue. At last! The attendant waved him to a cab covered in advertisements for United Arab Emirates. He had folded up the fleecy snood so it resembled a pea hat, but kept his scarf pulled tightly up over his face.

  “Where to, gov?” the taxi driver asked.

  “St. Pancras, Eurostar,” he mumbled.

  The taxi pulled up at the Eurostar drop-off point, halfway along the old Victorian brick-built Barlow shed.

  Plushenko had forty-five minutes before boarding. He found a seat in the business class lounge and pretended to work on his laptop. It seemed like an eternity until a disembodied voice announced passengers could board the train. Impatiently, he rode the escalator up to the platform. It seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace.

  “Welcome to Eurostar.” The stewardess smiled the regulation smile. “Have a good journey, sir.” Barely acknowledging her, he hurried aboard.

  He sat tensely in his seat willing the train to start moving, every sense alert to his surroundings.

  *

  Conrad charged across the concourse at St. Pancras heading for the Eurostar checkin. A man matching Plushenko’s description had been spotted getting into a taxi in Paddington. He had given his destination as the Eurostar terminal. The Railway Police at St. Pancras had been alerted. They confirmed that he was headed for Paris, Gare du Nord.

  “The Paris train has boarded, sir,” the girl at the checkin counter told him. “It’s leaving in two minutes.”

  Ignoring her protest, Conrad pushed through and raced up the escalator onto the platform, his heart pounding like a drum. If the police, or Gilbert’s men, tried to apprehend Plushenko at Gare du Nord, it could be catastrophic. It could force his hand sending Black Crystal hurtling into cyberspace.

  “Ernst,” Conrad spoke urgently into his phone as he ran. “If Plushenko is on Eurostar I’m convinced he’ll try to get back to the facility in the Alps. He’ll probably have a chopper waiting at Geneva.”

  “Pearce has already contacted me. We’ll be ready for him.”

  “Don’t try to arrest him. He’s carrying a laptop. I suspect he’ll use it to launch Black Crystal. Wallace is already on his way to Geneva.”

  Conrad flashed his security card and jumped onto the train just as the guard was closing the door. He looked down the carriage – standard class. Plushenko would want access to the Internet so he would more likely be in business class. Before making his way along the carriages, he donned a pair of transition spectacles and pulled a woollen hat over his head. Fortunately, he hadn’t shaved for two days. His grizzled chin and darkened glasses helped to disguise his face. Plushenko knew what he looked like from his imprisonment in the Swiss facility. The last thing he wanted was to warn him he was being tracked. Taking out his satellite phone he dialled a number.

  “Patricia Bonnet,” a cultured voice answered.

  “Plushenko may be on his way to Gare du Nord. I don’t want him giving me the slip again,” Conrad said, after outlining the situation. “If you spot him, try to get his laptop.”

  “Don’t worry, Jack. He won’t get off the platform.”

  *

  Plushenko breathed a sigh of relief, but he couldn’t relax. His mouth watered when the steward came around with trays of hot food. He hadn’t eaten since the day before. Suddenly, he felt very hungry. After tackling the pre-cooked meal and two cups of tepid coffee he felt better. The caffeine recharged his batteries. Smiling inwardly, he settled back in his seat. They wouldn’t catch him now.

  Conrad worked his way along the train from the last carriage until he came to business class. Every seat in the first compartment was occupied. He spotted a well-known cabinet minister, surrounded by aides, engrossed in bundles of paperwork. Others were busily tapping away at their keyboards. Slowly, he moved across the intersection into the next compartment.

  A man with his back to him was working on his laptop, a scarf covering his neck. Conrad sidled past him towards the glass sliding door a few seats in front. The young Asian man looked up briefly and returned to his work. It wasn’t Plushenko. Perhaps the police had got it wrong. Could he still be in London?

  As he entered the last compartment, he spotted a man sitting facing him in a window seat close to the exit. His hat and scarf covered most of his face. He had his laptop open, completely engrossed in his work. Conrad stopped abruptly and dropped down int
o the nearest vacant seat. He disciplined himself to breathe evenly and slowly as adrenaline increased his heartbeat. A stewardess pushed her trolley down the aisle in front of him. She stopped near the man in the window seat.

  “Would you like more coffee, sir?”

  Briefly, the man raised his head and looked at the girl. There was no mistaking those penetrating, blue eyes. The Generalissimo! Conrad didn’t dare approach him. Plushenko could activate Black Crystal from his seat, risking thousands of lives. He had to wait until they reached Paris.

  Conrad watched him intently during the whole journey. He seemed completely engrossed in his computer. They were almost out of the tunnel when Plushenko suddenly sprang up. Before Conrad knew what was happening he reached up, yanked the communication cord, and dived through the glass sliding doors.

  Wheels screeched on metal as the brakes engaged, bringing the train to a juddering halt. Plastic cups, food cartons and trays shot off tables into the aisle. Passengers lurched forward in their seats. A small boy screamed as his head hit the rim of the table in front of him. The stewardess tried to grab her trolley as it careered down the aisle. A man coming out of the lavatory lurched forward, slamming his face into the opposite wall.

  Conrad dived out of his seat and stumbled down the aisle after Plushenko. Suddenly, all the lights went out. Passengers shouted out, their voices edged with fear.

  “We’ve crashed!” a woman yelled. “We’ve crashed!”

  Conrad managed to wedge his foot between the sliding doors before they closed. He squeezed through into the intersection. The external door was wide open. Dropping down at the side of the track, he pressed his body against the wall. In the distance, a shaft of light from the tunnel exit pierced the darkness. Hugging the wall, he edged along until he emerged into wintry sunlight.

  Squinting against the harsh light, he scanned the area around the tunnel mouth, but there was no sign of Plushenko. Damn it! He must be here somewhere! Then he remembered the escape passages. They were placed every 375 metres so that passengers could safely access them from the front or rear of the train. He must have gone through an escape passage into the service tunnel. The only way to go was up the embankment towards the nearby town of Coquelles. Hurriedly, Conrad punched a number into his phone.