No Time to Lose: A Matt Flynn Thriller

by Iain Cameron

  The last thing Matt remembered before a hood was thrown over his head and his hands and feet tied, was the door of the van sliding shut.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘How are you keeping, Rosie?’

  ‘You know me, H, nothing fazes me.’

  Harriet sighed, a common sisterly gesture. ‘I’m not talking about Agent Rosie Fox, the arch-nabber of villains and ne’er-do-wells, but the recently separated other-half of him-who-should-not-be-named.’

  ‘All the above still applies, I’m fine.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I can see it in your face. You’re a miserable sod, and if it’s even possible, I think you’re looking thinner.’

  Rosie was sitting in the grand surroundings of her sister Harriet’s place in Notting Hill, a five-bedroom town house on three floors. She and her partner, Darius, bought it three months before, following the receipt of a sizeable bonus by Harriet after the successful conclusion of a lengthy fraud trial, and the substantial fee her self-employed husband awarded himself when he sold one of his documentary programmes to Netflix.

  They hadn’t paid top dollar for the house. It had been the home of a family with five teenage children, the parents of whom were now embarking on what was turning out to be an acrimonious divorce. They hadn’t done much in the way of DIY or redevelopment in the ten years they had lived in the house. The neglect had left damage to doors, ripped paint on walls, and a badly marked ceiling in one room, showing the scars of an overflowing bath ignored in a bid to answer a ringing phone.

  ‘Are you eating better?’ Harriet asked. ‘Have you cut down on the drinking?’

  ‘C’mon H, you’re not in court now, taking apart some poor sod’s private life. I’m not one of your defendants needing to be fixed or set free.’

  ‘I can see I’m not going to get much sense out of you today. How are things at work?’

  ‘We were investigating the kidnap of an MI5 agent, the one that’s been all over the news. Now his body has been found, the case has been handed over to the police.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you telling me about it before. Matt and the victim were friends, I seem to recall. How is he taking it?’

  ‘I think David’s death hit him hard. In fact, rather than sitting at home grieving, as a normal person would do, he’s out hunting for David Burke’s killer as we speak.’

  ‘Can he do that? Go off on one?’

  ‘We have rules and procedures like any other agency, but short of disciplining him, Gill’s view is we need to allow him some space to get the thing out of his system, especially now as he believes Matt may be on to something.’

  ‘There speaks the voice of a man who’s been in combat.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve met a few military men in some of the cases I’ve been involved with. To see a conflict on TV in a drama or in the movies, it looks as if all a senior Army officer has to do is shout and his men will miraculously follow. Good commanders place a huge amount of emphasis on building trust and respect. A part of this is allowing their men the time and space to come to terms with any trauma they have come across in their own way.’

  ‘How are things at your place?’ Rosie asked, keen to steer the subject away from her to something less personal.

  ‘Do you remember that really big divorce case last year?’

  ‘Which one? I can think of several.’

  ‘The Russian oligarch, Sergie Kucherenko. A huge bloke with a bushy red beard, divorcing his wife, Natasha, a six-foot, stick-thin model?’

  ‘Oh yes. How could I forget? The largest divorce settlement ever. How much was she awarded?’

  ‘She scored herself a house in Malibu, an apartment in Sloane Square, a Learjet and four-hundred-and-fifty-million in cash.’

  ‘It’s an unbelievable sum.’

  ‘It didn’t leave him short. He retained the two-hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht he uses as an office, and almost a billion dollars in investments. You can see why she wanted the proceedings to be heard here in the UK. In Russia, she wouldn’t receive anywhere near that.’

  ‘She would be awarded a damp flat in Moscow and told to get on with it.’

  ‘I’m defending Kucherenko in a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office. They accuse him of milking millions from the various companies he owns. There are over five hundred companies in the list he gave me, and some are owned by a spider’s web of other companies, registered in countries you’ve barely heard of. It’s taken me weeks just to solve one issue, which was to ring-fence all the assets he owns.’

  ‘It makes a change from defending a scumbag who’s obviously a criminal, to defending another who pretends he’s not. What’s he like to work with?’

  ‘In a word, a pig. It’s no wonder his wife divorced him as he treats everyone he comes across: waiters, limo drivers, hotel staff, with the contempt of an eighteenth-century feudal landlord. If he carried a stick or a whip, I’m sure he’d use it. At first, I thought he was an old-fashioned misogynist, but he seems to hate anyone who’s not on his social strata. He was abusive to one of my paralegals, and called her a slut for wearing a skirt above the knee. I warned him, and my boss is backing me up, if he does it again, the firm will walk.’

  ‘Good for you, H. Somehow, I doubt there’ll be a fat bonus at the end of this one.’

  ‘I tend to agree with you. The SFO case is strong and I don’t see how I can prevent him going to jail.’

  ‘Best place for him.’

  ‘How are you and Matt getting along?’

  ‘Do you mean professionally or personally?’

  ‘I think we’ve covered the professional side, don’t you?’

  ‘You’ve got to stop trying to play the matchmaker, H. How could I go out with someone I work with so closely?’

  ‘Is this the mythical Matt Flynn you’re talking about? When am I going to meet him?’ Harriet’s husband, Darius, said, walking into the room bearing a tray of coffees and home-made cake. She would have preferred a large glass of white wine and a little bowl of snack-size pretzels, but hey-ho, it wasn’t yet midday.

  Darius was obviously between projects, and had slipped effortlessly into the house-husband role without demur. This allowed Harriet to spend whatever time she needed in preparing the new case she was working on.

  ‘There’s nothing remotely mythical about Matt, Darius. Once he gets started on a job, like the one we’re on now, he’s like a Doberman with its teeth in a burglar’s arse; he won’t let go until he’s bitten off a large chunk. Plus, he’s not a big fan of family get-togethers.’

  ‘Why not?’ Darius asked as he sat down. ‘Did he have a difficult childhood?’

  ‘Have you been reading some of the new psychology books I spotted in the bookcase?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘It’s his new passion,’ Harriet said.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a passion as such,’ Darius said. ‘More like something to keep me occupied while my new project germinates.’

  ‘He didn’t have an easy childhood for sure, with his father buggering off while he was young and his mother’s drink problem, but perhaps not too different from a lot of other kids who lived in the same area. The main difference, I suppose, is the family left Ireland where they had a large brood of friends and relatives, and moved to a place where they knew no one.’

  ‘That must have been difficult,’ Harriet said.

  ‘It would be a traumatic experience for some children,’ Darius said. He went on to explain a theory he had read in one of his books. Rosie was relieved of hearing the rest when her phone rang.

  She looked at the screen: Gill.

  ‘I need to take this,’ she said, getting up from her seat and walking into the hall.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Five minutes after receiving Gill’s call, Rosie left her sister Harriet’s house. She was now in her car, heading in the direction of Central London. A few of the jobs they became involved in could be coordinated from home with a phone and a laptop, but to find a kidnapped agen
t, she needed to be in the office.

  This gave them access to Siki and his large team of researchers. She would also have a chance to interview Jamil Demir, the Turkish speaker who had been with Matt when he was abducted.

  In the course of this investigation, they’d discovered the TFF were a proficient and well-funded organisation, but bearing all the hallmarks of a new outfit trying to find their feet and become established. No one had thought them capable of carrying out an audacious kidnap in broad daylight, in the middle of London, and on a busy Saturday afternoon. Here in essence was the major problem facing all intelligence work: when someone did something off-kilter, something unexpected, it forced them to tear up the established playbook and start again.

  When she arrived at HSA HQ in Holborn, she went looking for the Head of Operations, Kingsley Walsh. He was a recent recruit to HSA, his role to take some of the day-to-day responsibility away from Gill, and allow him to spend more time informing and placating their political masters. It was they, after all, who provided the funds for its operation, and through their aegis, HSA carried out their bidding. It was a job now requiring Gill’s attention on an almost daily basis.

  She sat down opposite Walsh, who was busy writing a report. ‘What’s the latest on the kidnapping, Kingsley? Have his captors articulated their demands?’ He put down his pen and regarded her over his gold spectacles.

  ‘Rest assured, Rosie, I have mobilised everything I possibly can. They are all out hunting for Matt, and we all want him returned in one piece.’

  ‘Who are we talking about?’

  ‘All elements of the security services have been informed. As the abduction took place in London, the Metropolitan Police have also been alerted. Officers are on the street at this moment looking for him. We are doing all we can.’

  This was reassuring, as Kingsley had some previous form in this department, latterly in Army Logistics, where he was involved in shipping guns, ammunition, and stores, to military operations all around the globe.

  It was his courage under fire that worried Rosie. As a captain in Afghanistan, his unit had come under sustained attack from a superior Taliban force. With many of his men injured in a fierce firefight, Walsh had no option but to call in a helicopter and have his men evacuated.

  On their return to base, they discovered in all the confusion that a small squad under the command of Corporal Danvers had not been extracted. They were last seen protecting the main force’s flank with some aplomb, throwing everything they had to thwart the advancing Taliban.

  Captain Walsh had sustained a leg wound and couldn’t go back out. It was left to American Special Forces to rescue Danvers and the remains of his squad. Rosie knew all this as Danvers was the author of a best-selling book about the incident, and she’d read it.

  Danvers had nothing but praise for his men, some of whom were killed and others seriously injured, but he was scathing in his criticism of Captain Walsh’s command. In particular, he failed to understand Walsh’s reluctance, or as he called it in the book, dithering, about calling for an evacuation sooner, and why he was unaware of the presence of a large Taliban force, despite intelligence indicating their movement into the area.

  ‘Where’s Jamil?’

  ‘He’s still in the building. He’s been interviewed and, if he’s not at a desk, as he said he doesn’t want to go home at the moment, I imagine he’s having something to eat in the staff restaurant.’

  Rosie stood. ‘I’ll go and have a word with him.’

  ‘Hang on, Rosie. I know you and Matt are buddies, but I don’t want you going off on a tangent like he did. Look what happened to him.’

  ‘Don’t give me all that crap. It’s only by doing those off-the-wall things we really find out what’s going on. Sometimes it works, and at other times, like this, we underestimate the strength of the opposition and it’s a complete balls-up.’

  ‘What Matt did was irresponsible. You know it and I know it. He shouldn’t have gone there without a backup plan.’

  ‘This isn’t the police, with planned operations and risk assessments and dozens of officers on standby. How come you’re so bloody clever with hindsight, all of a sudden?’

  She turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind her. She could imagine Matt’s homecoming. All the agents and researchers welcoming him back, glad to see him and wishing him well, and along comes Kingsley Walsh with Matt’s P45. He was new to HSA, and she knew she had to give him some leeway, but the portents weren’t good.

  She found Jamil in the staff restaurant enjoying a light-hearted conversation with Joseph.

  ‘Hi Rosie,’ Joseph said. ‘This is–’

  ‘I know,’ Rosie said, raising a hand. ‘We’ve met, at the surveillance house in Hackney.’

  ‘Jamil and I are members of the same gym, despite never having seen each other there. We were just talking about a few of the people we know.’

  ‘Jamil,’ Rosie said, not in the mood for chitchat, ‘can you talk me through what happened?’

  ‘I’ll leave you guys to go through it,’ Joseph said, getting up.

  Rosie imagined that Jamil had told his story several times, as many of the descriptions were starting to sound clichéd, but after she heard it, she told him to go over it again. This time, she didn’t want to hear the sequence of events, but for him to express how he had felt at the time. It was a little interview technique she sometimes deployed, designed for situations like this where a subject appeared to be repeating verbatim what they remembered or had been told to say by someone else. It helped to look at an issue from a different angle, and often threw up new insights.

  When he had completed this run-through, she said, ‘A couple of points. You said passers-by didn’t intervene.’

  ‘Yes, they all sort of stood back.’

  ‘No one taking pictures?’

  ‘No. I remember one of the beards hissing something menacingly at a young lad, and everyone kept their phones down.’

  ‘Were they armed?’

  ‘A guy sitting inside the van was holding an AK47, and I felt, rather than saw, the pistol stuck into my wannabe abductor’s waistband.’

  ‘What was the general mood? Do you think the locals recognised them?’

  ‘I think the Turkish ones did. They looked a bit less startled than the others.’

  ‘Now, I want you to think about the van, how it looked, how it smelled, what noises it made.’

  He paused. ‘I can see it now; for some reason I couldn’t before. It was dirty grey. Inside, I remember seeing bits of carpet and blankets, as if someone slept there.’

  ‘Good. Do you know what make it was?’

  ‘I saw some words on the back, as I fell, moments after Matt had kicked the guy holding me. It said, Peugeot, yes I’m certain it was a Peugeot.’

  ‘Excellent, Jamil, excellent,’ Rosie said, shaking his hand and rising from her seat. ‘Now we’ve got something concrete to give our researchers.’

  THIRTY

  Matt woke from a deep and troubled sleep. In part, it was because a weird smell assailed his nostrils. He opened his eyes and moved his head to investigate. This was a mistake, as the pounding in his head got worse and it took all his resolve to stop him throwing up. He tried to analyse the smell without moving; a strange mixture of damp, sweat, piss, and blood.

  He shifted his body slowly to take in his surroundings. The room was dull, lit with a bulb behind a metal grill, with bare walls, and an uncovered concrete floor. Judging by the lack of natural light, absence of furniture, the damp chill in the air and the small dimensions of the space, it had to be a basement. He was still clothed in what he had been wearing earlier in the day, but his leather jacket was gone, as was his gun and the knife he kept strapped to his leg.

  He tried to sit up but realised he was being restrained. His legs were tied with a rope attached to a bar secured to the wall, and his hands were roped together. Whoever had done it didn’t do this for a living or they would starve. He could feel som
e movement between his hands and the knots looked rudimentary, not the type that tightened as you tried to pull your hands apart.

  He found by stretching the material a little, he could move his fingers. He leaned forward tentatively, testing the thumping in his head and hoping it wouldn’t get worse. Satisfied he wasn’t about to add vomit to the list of strange odours, he reached down between his knees to the knot around his ankles.

  Three months ago, he couldn’t have done it, but a combination of gym work and running had left him more supple. It didn’t mean he could hold such an unnatural position for long, it was more akin to an extreme yoga pose than any stretches he did in the gym, but with a few breaks, allowing his stomach muscles to rest, he found the discomfort bearable.

  The knot guy was better at tying ankle restraints than hands, as this one was as tight as a ship’s anchor. He stopped ten minutes later when he heard footsteps. He lay back down on the floor as two men came into the room.

  One man barked an instruction to the other in an unknown language, and someone walked towards him. In a couple of strokes, a large bearded guy sliced through the rope around Matt’s feet with a knife and dragged him across the floor. He realised they were two of the men who had abducted him, the big beefy guy with the knife and a slimmer, well-groomed character who wouldn’t look out of place in scrubs with a stethoscope dangling around his neck. Beefy dumped Matt in a chair and wrapped a rope around his midriff, tying him to it.

  Matt had a better view of the slimmer guy now. He was middle-to-late-thirties, dark-skinned and with a neatly trimmed beard, unlike the shaggy dog look of the other guy.

  ‘So,’ the thin guy said, holding Matt’s wallet and looking at his ID card, ‘you are Matt Flynn from the Homeland Security Agency. It has a nice ring to it, but I had no idea who or what this organisation was until I looked it up on the internet. You are described as the cutting edge of the UK security forces, are you not?’