by Andy Maslen
“What do you mean? What have you done with them? What do you want?”
Bryant could feel his pulse thumping in his ears. He’d heard stories of chief executives hiring security and ex-military types as chauffeurs, but had always dismissed it as hubris. Now he felt scared and wished he’d done the same.
“You are a very powerful man. You run a successful pharmaceuticals company with a new and exciting military aviation contract, no?”
“How did you know about that?”
Bryant looked over at his doubles partner, who was tapping his watch and pointing at the court. Bryant shrugged and held up a couple of fingers.
“It doesn’t matter. Listen, I know you want to get back to your tennis match so I will keep this brief. After the recent unfortunate events with the Typhoon test flights, your Ministry of Defence has begun an inquiry. You will see to it that they discover nothing amiss. I don’t care how. It is in your interests. And those of your wife and daughter. And no police. That would really not be a good idea.”
Bryant could feel a heavy squirming in his guts. His lungs were sucking air in and out too fast. He felt light-headed.
“How did you know I was playing tennis?”
“Relax, Mr Bryant. I could hear balls being struck in the background. Like Wimbledon, you know. Pok! Pok!”
“Please don’t hurt them.”
“Oh, we will try very hard not to hurt them. We Chechens have a sense of honour. And of family. We do not hurt women. Unless we have to.”
“Chechens? Oh, Jesus.”
“What? Do you think we are savages? They are our guests, but we need you to do as we say to keep them safe from harm. Once the investigation has concluded that Gulliver is safe, you will ensure there are no further high-altitude tests until the Farnborough Airshow. After the drug is demonstrated at Farnborough, you will have your womenfolk back.”
The line went dead.
Bryant had stood transfixed, the phone clamped to his ear. Pleading a stomach upset, he dashed for his car and sped home at twice the legal limit.
*
Looking down at the landscaping around his office building, trying to squash the fear down with gulps of whisky, Bryant remembered the moment the couriered package had arrived two days earlier. Jill, his secretary, had entered his office carrying it before her like a bomb.
“I’ve just signed for this, James,” she’d said. “It’s odd, no sender’s address, just yours, here at Dreyer.”
The package had contained a cardboard box, about four inches by six, maybe one inch deep. It sat, now, on his desk. The lid lay to one side, his name, position, company and address printed on a generic white label.
A rectangular pad of white nylon foam lay beside the lid. It matched a similar pad that lined the box. Sitting together in the centre of the pad were a micro videocassette and a piece of jewellery. It was a single earring. Silver wire fashioned in two interlocking loops, with a small diamond suspended in a delicate mount from the smaller of the two. The larger loop was crusted with dried blood, and the white pad was stained red.
There was no note accompanying the box. There didn’t need to be.
Bryant stared over at the box then walked back to his desk. He stretched out a finger and gently prodded the earring. A flake of dried blood adhered to his fingertip and he stifled a sob. He replaced the lid and slid the box into the drawer on his right.
He drained the glass and slumped into his chair. The air cylinder supporting the seat hissed as his weight pushed it down hard. He stabbed a button on the desk-phone.
“Jill, please would you have Nicola come up?”
While he waited for his Communications Director, he rearranged his pen and pad, straightened the wireless keyboard, aligned everything with the edge of the desk.
He jumped when the intercom buzzed.
“Nicola’s here, James. Shall I send her in?”
“Yes, please. And then no calls or visitors for the rest of the day. You can go now, Jill.”
“If you’re sure?”
“Yes! Go.” He rubbed his face. “Sorry, Jill. I’m just a little tired today. It’s OK – just go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The door opened, and Nicola Morrison walked in. She sat facing Bryant and waited for him to speak.
He looked up from his doodle – a precise series of interlocking cubes, shaded to look three-dimensional.
“I need that MOD investigation to go away. Our shareholders are putting pressure on me. Last quarter’s results were not great, as you know. They’re getting twitchy.”
She straightened in her chair, pulled the hem of her skirt down towards her knees. The she adjusted her rimless glasses, pushing them higher on the bridge of her nose.
“You know they lost a pilot. Nearly two. I’m not sure what you think I can do – we can do – to stop a MOD investigation. But I’ll happily work with you on anything you think will fly. No pun intended.”
“Look. It’s simple. We created a drug that seems to be turning fighter pilots into acid-heads before they go blind and crash. Now I want you to help me squash an investigation that will see Dreyer Pharma, and all the thousands of jobs and mortgages that depend on it – yours and mine included – go down the toilet.” His voice was loud, even in the large airy office.
Nicola poked at the nosepiece of her glasses again. “Since Arjun recruited that team from the contract research organisation, that’s when we started having the problems with the molecular bonds. Are you sure we can’t put the heat on them and get out from under? I know Project Gulliver means a lot to you, but we have other drugs in the pipeline we could focus on.”
“No!” He leaned forward and slapped his palm on the polished wooden surface of the desk. The noise and the pain in his hand shocked him, and he began thinking about Sarah and Chloe. Please, God, I hope you’re all right, both of you. I couldn’t bear to lose you.
He looked up at Nicola, who was frowning at him. How long had he been gone? He continued with his speech.
“The researchers stay. They’re not the problem. Please don’t make me doubt your loyalty to the company, Nicola. Not now. We get this back on track and there are going to be the kind of bonuses handed out that mean you could give it all up and live off the interest for the rest of your life.”
“Fine. They can stay. But I still think it’s odd, the way they just happened along just after we won the contract. I mean, how many CROs are there in Ukraine anyway?”
Bryant was sweating. He stared at the leather blotter on his desk. Please don’t hurt them. Please send them back to me whole, and alive. He realised Nicola was talking.
“. . . and I suppose if we create some shadow protocols and duplicate data records, we can palm them off on the investigators to show it was an issue of inventory mismanagement. Some of the Phase Two tablets got assigned to the pilots instead of the Phase Threes. We’ll have to cull a few managers in distribution and logistics control, to look like we’re getting our house in order, but that will probably do it. Maybe client relations could lose a couple of mid-level heads too, for added impact.”
“Just answer me this. Can we keep a lid on it and keep Gulliver going?”
“Yes. I think so. We might even be able to create enough of a smokescreen to shift the blame onto pilot error. Maybe they doubled-up their dosage. There was that incident a few years ago, remember? Those US pilots had enough speed in their systems to fly without planes. Killed those Canadian observers, babbling into their radios about enemy spies, the whole time. Believe me, there are plenty of high-ups in the MOD who want this to go ahead. There are a couple of procurement people in the Ministry who are, shall we say, predisposed to look favourably on our position. Tell me, do we still have that summer house on Grand Cayman?”
Chapter 12
While the majority of Tallinn’s inhabitants slept on, Kasym woke at dawn. Somewhere off in the distance, a mournful, two-tone blast from a train horn told him at least some other people were already at work.
He washed and shaved in cold water, relishing the sharp little pains as his razor sliced through the tough bristles on his cheeks. Then he went to rouse the others. Makhmad and Elsbeta came to their doors on his first knock, fully dressed and ready to move.
Dukka was another story. When Kasym entered his curtained room, all he could see was a vast hump under the bedclothes. The big man was a child in some ways and hated to leave any part of himself exposed when he was sleeping. The blankets and sheets were rising and falling in time with Dukka’s breathing, and the room smelled of farts and sweat – Dukka’s signature blend. Kasym reached down to the head-end of the twisted bundle of bed linen and gave the lump there a hard prod.
“Hey, Fatso! Wakey-wakey. We’ve got goods to move to Tartu. So if you want any breakfast to pad out that skinny little frame of yours, get up and get ready.” He was smiling as he uttered these words, and Dukka could tell.
“Fuck off! Sleepin’.”
“Now, you big ox. I’m sending Elsbeta in here in two minutes unless you present yourself for duty.”
“Fine, fine. Bloody tyrant that you are. No need for blondie and her lover’s arms. I’ll be down.”
Kasym’s final port of call along the upstairs hallway was the women’s bedroom. He stood a moment, listening at the closed door. Faint snoring. The girl perhaps.
He knocked quietly, but firmly, three times.
“Mrs Bryant. Chloe. It’s time to rise and shine.”
Silence. The snoring had stopped.
He knocked again.
“It’s Kasym, my ladies. Morning has broken. Did you hear me?”
“Yes, we heard you,” Chloe shouted through the door.
“Cover yourselves, please, I have to come in,” he said, then counted to three and pushed the door open.
The women were lying still in their single beds, both with the covers pulled up to their necks. Although the younger woman had a defiant jut to her chin, the two sets of wide eyes betrayed their owners’ nervousness.
“Please come down for breakfast; we have a long drive ahead of us.”
“Suppose we just lie here?” Chloe said.
“Then we will manhandle you – that is the word, I believe – into the truck in your night things, which will not be very dignified. Now, please, get dressed and come downstairs.”
So it was, ten minutes later, that this odd group of people sat around the plain kitchen table, or stood in the corners of the room, munching croissants with thick, black cherry jam, and drinking strong coffee. Conversation was sparse. Elsbeta and Makhmad stood to one side, muttering to each other in Chechen. Dukka was too busy cramming the warm pastries into his mouth, a rain of buttery brown flakes littering his belly.
Sarah and Chloe Bryant sat silently, eating the croissants spread with the sour-sweet jam, quickly but daintily, Kasym thought. Amazing how these Englishwomen would maintain their cool even in the most extreme of situations. He imagined women just like these two, sitting astride elephants as they toured their plantations in India or Ceylon, as they liked to call the country everyone now knew as Sri Lanka. They had the ease of empire in them, the casual assumption that the rest of the world was grateful to have them in charge, just like the Russians in Chechnya. Well, maybe not for too much longer. He wiped a splodge of jam off his lip with a thumb and then clapped his hands together.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to go. Now, Mrs Bryant, Chloe, a word of advice, if you’ll permit me.” He waited for a sign of acknowledgement, much as a parent waits for a child to establish eye contact. The mother was quick to comply but, as usual, the daughter took her own sweet time. That was all right – she was still angry about her ear. It probably did still hurt, but not as badly as the sorts of injuries they could have inflicted. Eventually, Chloe looked at him, eyes glaring from under her fringe. “Thank you. We are transferring you to a new location in another town. It’s good: more space for you. For this purpose, we have bought a truck. I’m afraid the accommodation in the back is primitive, but we have fitted it with a couple of mattresses and some cushions for your backs. You may feel, as we leave Tallinn, that this is your moment to make a run for it. Or perhaps to raise a hue and cry from inside the truck. Bang on the sides perhaps, scream for help. That would be unwise. Running? You would have to be faster than Elsbeta. She is swift, and she is apt to become irritable. As to noise from the truck, we don’t intend to shackle or gag you, but I am perfectly willing to adopt those measures if it will keep you quiet until we reach safer ground. So, the choice is yours. I know which way I’d vote. Shall we?”
Kasym gestured to the door. The Bryant women stood together and trooped out past him, keeping as far from his body as they could as they went through the door. Elsbeta escorted them outside to the truck while Dukka retrieved their bags from upstairs.
“Makhmad, you and Dukka take the Peugeot. Pick up supplies. Meet us there as soon as you can.”
“OK, Kasym. One other thing, are we going to make another video do you think?”
“I don’t know. I think it depends on what we hear from England. Bring the equipment anyway, just in case.”
Outside, the street was empty. The people who lived in this part of Tallinn had comfortable white-collar jobs – no need for these accountants and middle-managers to be heading to work at dawn. The windows of the neighbouring houses were all curtained or shuttered. The residents slept on for the last precious hour or so, dreaming of a new car, a new TV, or a new lover. No need for any of them to dream of freedom; that was theirs already. Kasym swiped a hand across his brow. With that butcher sitting in the Kremlin, whetting his knives and whistling Russian folk songs, they should be having fucking nightmares. One slash of his arm, and Estonia could be bleeding into the Baltic like a pig with its throat slit. Rain was falling, cold and sharp, despite the summer. He yanked open the rear doors of the truck. They swung back silently – how Ferdy Motors loved his grease guns – revealing the basic-but-comfortable accommodation he’d arranged for his hostages: an old but clean double mattress, a battery-powered storm-lamp made of hard grey plastic, and a bright-orange bucket with a lid, for emergencies.
He spoke to the two women, in a tone he hoped was kind but firm.
“Mrs Bryant, Chloe, please, get in.”
He offered his hand to Sarah Bryant. She looked at the inside of the truck, then at Kasym.
“It’s a bit high. I need some help.”
She placed her hands flat on the floor of the load compartment and then bent up her left knee as if mounting a horse. Kasym laced his thick fingers together and placed this cradle under her shin. Without waiting, he lifted her and felt her muscles push off his hands as she bounced a couple of times on the road with her free foot then sprang, balletic, into the truck.
“Thank you,” she said, “Chloe, darling, come on, you next.”
“Fine, but I don’t need any help from you,” she said to Kasym. She placed both hands flat on the floor and boosted herself in, getting one knee up first then the other before jumping to her feet and turning round quickly to look down at her captors.
“Where are you taking us?” she said.
Looking up at her, at her blazing eyes, her long blonde hair, her slim build, Kasym wondered whether his own daughter would have emerged from the chrysalis of childhood into a young woman with as much fight in her as this one.
“A place of safety. You don’t need to know more.”
“How long is it going to take? There’s no food in here. Or water.”
“No, there isn’t. We have the refreshments up front. Maybe we’ll stop once we’re out of Tallinn and share them with you. Behave yourself and we’ll see.”
“Well, can I least have my phone? It’s got music on it.”
“I don’t see why not. One second.”
Kasym called out. “Elsbeta, bring me the girl’s phone.” He smiled pleasantly at Chloe. No teeth, gentle eyes. An indulgent father’s smile.
Elsbeta appeared at his side holding out Chloe’
s phone in its turquoise case, a spark of spring colour in this grey dawn. He took it from her.
Chloe’s eyes lit up as she looked at the phone and she reached down from her lofty position. Kasym held it out of her reach, peeled the case off the phone and stuffed the wriggling sheet of silicone into his jacket pocket. Then, with small economical movements, he removed the plastic back to the phone and flipped out the battery with his thumbnail. He slid out the SIM card, replaced the battery and put the phone back together. The tiny sliver of electronics, Chloe’s lifeline to the outside world, joined the case in his pocket. Kasym felt for the girl as her expression dulled into passive acceptance. Had she really thought he would hand her a working phone just like that? The optimism of youth, maybe, coupled with a casual assumption that her elders were as unable to grasp the intricacies of technology as an ass walking round inside a water mill.
He held the phone out to her.
“Here you are. Enjoy your music.”
Then, with a smile, he slammed the doors of the truck together and swung the fastener across and down to lock them in.
Inside the cab, he looked straight ahead.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Elsbeta started the engine, put on the windscreen wipers to clear the rain, and coaxed the gear lever into first. Then, with a rattle from the still-cold engine, they moved off, away from the safe house, towards the next phase of the operation.
The drive to the scrapyard would take three hours, Kasym had calculated. Three-and-a-half with a stop. He had coffee in flasks, and rough sandwiches, and had always intended to share them with the Bryant women. The little threat to leave them inside the back of the truck was merely an attempt to keep the daughter in line. He figured he wouldn’t have much trouble from the mother.
As Elsbeta negotiated the traffic, which was starting to thicken, Kasym spoke.
“Do you think Tarbosy and his crew of geniuses can fool the management at Dreyer long enough?”
“Sure they will,” she said, taking her eyes off the road for a second to look across at him. “We just have to keep Bryant on track and any investigators at bay until Farnborough. Then boom – drug discredited, Abramov in the shit with the Kremlin, and we make our move on him and his empire.”
