‘What do you mean?’ Her voice trembled.
He laughed. ‘You always were a lousy actress, Elena.’ She flinched as he grasped her shoulder and swung her round to face him. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘Who?’
He slapped her across the face. Not too hard. Just hard enough to remind her of what was coming.
‘Silver. And Blondie, her little lawyer friend.’
‘Why would I talk to them?’
He slapped her again, harder.
‘What did you tell them?’
‘I told them nothing.’ Elena spat and a tooth rattled onto the concrete floor with a stream of blood and saliva. ‘I know nothing.’
Boris raised his hand and then stopped.
‘Any new girls here tonight?’
Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘You leave my staff alone.’
Boris laughed. ‘If you treat all your customers like this, I have no idea how you stay in business.’
‘If you take more girls away, I will have no business,’ she retorted.
‘So, let’s go and talk to them, maybe they remember something about the visitors.’
‘No,’ Elena said, squaring her shoulders. ‘You talk to me.’ She met his gaze with a fierce one of her own. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’
Saturday 9 July, Minsk, Belarus
A crescent moon hung low in a black sky. A street light flickered above the car; the shadows writhed and danced.
‘Where to now?’
‘Back to Terespol?’ Jaq said.
Emma shook her head. ‘Too late.’ She showed Jaq her phone. ‘The European arrest warrant was issued at noon. Birth name, maiden name, married name. They’d arrest you at the Polish border.’
‘Does the EU have an extradition treaty with Belarus?’
‘Nope.’
‘Then let’s find the best hotel in Minsk.’
The room was grand, with high ceilings and two queen-sized beds. One wall of glass, floor-to-ceiling windows three storeys above Lenin Street and directly above the imposing entrance canopy. Behind the beds were mirrors, with a dressing table between them. The other wall had a heavy wardrobe containing an ironing board and trouser press on one side of the entrance door, a chest of drawers on the other. The beige carpet stopped at the entrance to the bathroom where the thick pile carpet ran smoothly into cream tiles.
Emma plugged the memory stick into her laptop. A new icon appeared on the computer, a wheel of fortune: 1% downloaded, estimated time . . . twenty minutes. A big file.
A knock at the door. Merda. Jaq’s heart missed a beat.
‘Room service.’ A woman’s voice.
‘Put the chain on. Check who it is,’ Jaq said.
Emma raised her eyebrows but did as instructed. She released the chain and accepted the room service trolley, barring entrance to the inquisitive waitress by means of a large tip.
Emma laid out the meal on a small table: borscht, pork meatballs in a vegetable stew, fruit salad and a bottle of wine.
‘Cheers!’ Emma said.
‘Bottoms up!’ Jaq drained and refilled her glass. Her first wine for weeks tasted so good. The faint yellow dot was growing brighter.
Outside, the government buildings were lit up against an indigo sky. The rest of the city was in near darkness. Where did their power come from these days?
Ping! Download 100% complete.
Emma pressed a few keys. ‘I got the Tyche software from Raquel, Frank’s unhappy PA,’ she said. ‘Damn, it doesn’t seem to work.’
Blank screen, blinking cursor. Jaq knew what to do.
Login –
Password – 12016834
Bingo.
A picture formed on the screen. A map of Central Europe and the Middle East. Ukraine lay in the centre, coloured dots connected by ribbons weaving through Russia to Grozny and then fanning out to Iraq and Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The dots growing smaller and fainter with time. Exponential decay. Known half-lives for each radioisotope declining as time progressed, each at a different rate.
How were the deliveries made? By helicopter and then private vehicle? Regular small quantities heading for the basket case countries of the world, the flashpoints of geopolitical distress.
Jaq scrolled through the maps. Wait a minute. She clicked in increasing frustration and then threw her head back. ‘Bolas!’ She slammed her fist onto the bed.
‘What’s wrong?’ Emma asked.
‘This is only half the story.’
The memory stick had no data for the first leg of the journey, the material moving from Teesside to Chornobyl via Kranjskabel. The screen showed only the second set of maps, the routes from Chornobyl fanning out to end customers.
Proof the complex existed.
But no proof of Zagrovyl supply.
Would it be enough?
‘I’m sending this to Johan.’ Emma typed a few keys. ‘Damn! The file is too big . . .’
A knock at the door. Heart skipping, Jaq sprang to her feet.
‘Relax.’ Emma loaded the trolley. ‘Room service, for the dishes.’
‘Wait.’ Jaq put the chain on the door and called out. ‘Who is it?’
No reply.
The rasp of a key in the lock.
Someone using the pass key. Credo! Jaq rammed a shoulder against the door and gestured to Emma to get out of sight.
The door moved; Jaq slammed it closed again. She put her back to the door, leaning against it, panting. A sudden force threw her across the floor. The door flew open as far as the chain would allow. Emma screamed.
Jaq caught sight of a man through the gap, his leg raised for another kick. Black beard and thick brows. Boris.
‘Emma, call hotel security, the police . . . anyone!’
Boris kicked the door again, but the chain held.
Emma yelled into the phone as she ran a hand along the window, looking for a way to open it.
Boris raised a gun, pointing it at Emma silhouetted against the window.
‘Get down!’ Jaq hurled herself across the room and lunged at Emma, pulling her to the ground as two shots rang out.
‘Stay down.’ Jaq crawled away from Emma and grabbed the table, hurling it against the window. The glass disintegrated, showering onto the roof of the canopy below. Thank God for shoddy construction.
More shots, but the door held. Jaq pulled the quilt from the nearest bed and wrapped it around Emma. ‘When I say go, you jump out of the window. Okay?’
Emma’s face was as white as the quilt, but she nodded.
Kick. Kick. Smash, splinter. The chain was giving way.
Jaq crawled under the bed and across the floor. With her feet she opened the wardrobe. The trouser press fell out and she jammed it under the lever of the room’s door handle, wedging it closed. Never had a trouser press been more useful.
Bullets were flying everywhere, deflected but not impeded by the door and trouser press. Jaq looked around for something else, anything she could jam against the door. Just to buy Emma a few minutes, long enough to get her friend out of here. At the noise of a police siren racing down the boulevard, the shots stopped.
‘Go!’ Jaq shouted.
Emma approached the window. She glanced over her shoulder, trembling, uncertain.
Something was happening on the other side of the door, the slap of plastic, rasp of a match, the crackle of a burning fuse and a faint but familiar scent of almonds. The trouble with Semtex is the smell . . .
‘Jump!’ Jaq yelled. ‘Now!’
Emma screamed. The explosion lifted the door from its hinges, shattering it into smithereens, lumps of MDF and splinters of wood flying everywhere. The twisted metal frame of the trouser press hurtled across the room and smashed into the wall. Jaq was thrown to the ground, the signature blast ringing in her ears. Heart pounding, she waited for Boris to emerge through the dust, her fingers scrabbling among the splinters for a weapon to defend herself.
Was this it? Death in Belarus, the evidence dest
royed by Semtex, her long and dangerous quest in vain?
A low groan. She crawled towards the noise. It came from the corridor. As the dust settled, she could make out a human shape on the other side of the demolished doorway. Boris lay on the blackened carpet, bleeding from a cut to his head. That would teach him not to play with explosives. But where was Emma?
Had she jumped? Had she fallen? Jaq struggled to the window. Emma lay motionless, lodged between the canopy and the wall of the hotel. A flower of red blood blossomed out through the white quilt that enveloped her.
‘No!’ Jaq hurled herself through the window. She bounced on the apex of the canopy and landed on the wrong side, rolling towards the street. Her fingers squealed against smooth polycarbonate as she scrabbled for something to arrest her fall, a handhold, anything.
She slipped over the side. In desperation, she grabbed at the guttering and hung on, her legs dangling over the pavement ten metres below.
The plastic guttering creaked, it was moving, parting company with the canopy.
How do you attach a uPVC half-pipe to a sheet of polycarbonate? With glue? With screws? What force will it withstand? A 62-kilo woman pulled by gravity at 9.81 metres per second squared gives a force of about 600 kilonewtons. Significantly more than the design case based on rainwater and leaves, with the odd pigeon or rat thrown in for safety.
The join began to weaken, to creak, to rip, to unzip.
Please! No!
As the plastic gutter gave way, Jaq fell onto the stone pavement below.
Saturday 9 July, Minsk, Belarus
Jaq opened her eyes and looked up to heaven. Where was Emma? She mustn’t be hurt. Emma the soft, the resilient, the unflappable, the indestructible – please God, don’t let something have happened to Emma! Anything but that.
A car screeched to a halt and the siren stopped. Doors opened.
‘Stop! Ruky vhoru!’
Why were the policemen shouting at her? She wasn’t going anywhere. Her hands were already thrown up behind her head as she lay spreadeagled on her back, unable – or unwilling – to move.
Boots thudded on the pavement beside her, then sirens, cars screeching to a halt, warning shouts, gunfire.
What to say to Johan, to little Ben, to baby Jade? How would they live without Emma? Valha-me Deus. How would she live with herself without Emma? It was all her fault. All those deaths. Sergei, Bill, Stefan, Petr. What had she done? What had she become? Please God, let Emma live. Take me, but save Emma.
Something clinked beside her. She turned her head to see shards of glass slithering over the edge of the canopy and shattering on the pavement. She needed to move. Why bother? What did it matter? What did anything matter if Emma had been shot?
A shower of glass was followed by a familiar voice.
‘Jaq, are you okay?’ Emma’s freckled face peered over the edge of the canopy.
The surge of relief numbed all pain. Jaq shot up, reckless, and hooted with joy. Merda. What about Boris? She spun round in time to witness him being manhandled into a police van. Graças a Deus.
Only then did she check for damage. Starting with her hands, swivelling her wrists, bending her elbows, rolling her shoulders, rotating her neck, then lifting her hips, curving her knees and twisting her feet – no broken bones, only cuts and bruises. The gutter had ripped along its length, controlling her descent, slowing her fall. She’d taken a nasty blow to the back of the head. If her fingers hadn’t felt the egg-sized lump pushing through her hair, she wouldn’t have noticed it, running on adrenaline now.
A drop of blood fell onto the pavement. The fear returned.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Jaq shouted up. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Just a cut from the glass.’ Emma held up an arm. ‘I may sue the hotel.’
Another car pulled up. The door flew open and two Belarusian policemen leapt out followed by a sandy-haired man in plain clothes who ran towards her: Will-O’-the-Wisp.
Jaq met the clear green eyes of Detective Y’Ispe of the Slovenian Specials. She held up her wrists. ‘Am I under arrest?’
‘I have no jurisdiction in Belarus.’ He flashed her a smile. ‘You are not under arrest, but I could use your help.’
CODA
Thursday 14 July, Den Haag, Netherlands
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, towers above the leafy centre of The Hague, hundreds of windows lit from within, unblinking eyes scrutinising the very worst of man’s inhumanity to man. A Tower of Sauron searching for evil, the semicircular eight-storey building sits between Europol and the European Court of Justice.
Inside the operations centre, a bank of video screens streamed live footage from Chornobyl.
Detective Y’Ispe had downloaded the memory stick before driving Jaq and Emma back to the NATO base in Terespol, Poland. The Tyche tracker maps, together with Frank Good’s belated testimony and Brigadier Dr Marion Fairman’s resolute support, had been enough to convince the authorities to act. Jaq had begged to be allowed to accompany the inspectors, but the medical team were curt in their refusal; the brigadier offered to go herself.
The rapid response team were mobilised in record time, so that by the time Jaq arrived in The Hague, the expert operatives were already jumping out of helicopters over the Chornobyl complex.
Now Jaq was to take an adviser’s seat in the OPCW control room.
‘Welcome.’ A grey-bearded man dressed in a dark suit extended a hand and introduced himself as the liaison officer. He hurried Jaq from the entrance steps to the operations centre. Three men and two women sat in front of a bank of screens. The liaison officer indicated a chair in front of the central screen and handed Jaq a headset.
Each screen showed the complex from a different angle. Separate teams dressed in hazmat gear – inflated silver spacesuits with self-contained breathing apparatus – moved stealthily towards the production building. The head and tail of each team gripped automatic weapons; those in between carried a variety of probes and portable analytical devices.
‘Dr Silver has joined us,’ the liaison officer announced.
One of the spacesuits stopped and saluted the camera. ‘We found your factory, Dr Silver,’ Brigadier Marion Fairman announced. ‘Or what’s left of it.’
The image became jerky as her team entered the first production hall. It took a moment for the picture to stabilise. Even then it was unrecognisable. Gone was the laboratory of pain, the giant flask, the tall glass column, the fat condenser. Gone was the toxic golden liquid cascading over a blue helix. All that remained was a glittering carpet of broken glass. No working equipment, and not a soul in sight.
The deployment of the rapid response team was fast. But not fast enough.
The debriefing was delivered from a hastily constructed chem hazard operations tent inside one of the empty storerooms of the Chornobyl complex.
Brigadier Fairman pulled off her helmet and addressed the screen. ‘Dr Silver, do you recognise this?’ She held up the Tardis bag. ‘We found it in the laundry.’
‘Yes, it’s my bag.’ Proof that she had been in the complex.
‘You said that you saw a fully functional factory. When was that?’
Jaq closed her eyes as she reconstructed the timeline. So much had happened to her since escaping from the complex. ‘June,’ she said. Two months and a lifetime ago.
‘Well, whoever took charge of the exit has done a thorough job. The large equipment is empty.’ The screen flicked through a series of images: the tank farm, production halls and utility sections. ‘Looks as if any smaller specialist equipment has been removed, and all the glassware destroyed.’ A close-up of empty fume cupboards and bare benches. ‘Everything was thoroughly cleaned first. We can find no residue in the production equipment.’
‘No evidence?’ The anxiety crept into Jaq’s voice unbidden.
‘Plenty of evidence, m’dear. A thorough job, but never thorough enough. They forgot the waste treatment.’ The brigadier smiled. ‘Every
body forgets the waste treatment. Toxic residues in the effluent pipes and unburnt documents in a bonfire.’ The brigadier held up a sheaf of fire-curled papers in a gloved hand. ‘Customer names, addresses, material data sheets, instructions for use. There is absolutely no doubt that this was a chemical weapons factory. We’ll clean up these documents and scan them over.’
Jaq collapsed back into her chair. It was over. She wasn’t insane. Finally vindicated, the tsunami of emotion made her feel dizzy. Weightless with relief, she resisted the surge of triumphal elation. No. It was never enough to be right; no one succeeds in isolation. She’d failed to convince the authorities in time, had been too slow to collect the evidence, taken too long. The bastards had escaped.
The liaison officer tapped the shoulder of the man next to him. ‘Check the customer addresses against the Tyche tracker maps and the last debrief with Dr Hatton.’
She sat up straight. Wait.
‘Dr Hatton?’ Jaq’s voice trembled. ‘Dr Camilla Hatton?’
‘Yes, our technical expert.’
‘But she works for The Spider. She was there, in the Chornobyl complex. He called her his Swedish expert. She was in on it, she was working with SLYV.’
Greybeard tapped a button on the control panel. ‘Permission to go to Level Two?’ A disembodied voice came over the loudspeaker. ‘Permission granted.’
Greybeard stood up and stretched. ‘It’s a beautiful day out there. Can I tempt you to a walk in the park?’
Jaq and Greybeard walked out into the sunshine in the direction of Scheveningen Woods.
‘Why don’t we start at the beginning?’
She adjusted her stride to match his.
‘Some say Chernobyl was the tipping point. The Soviet rush for nuclear power, the disastrous planned economy, suddenly exposed for what it was. The Soviets needed money. The arms race was a drain. America and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to destroy their stocks of weapons.’
They stopped to let a nursery group pass in the other direction, babies in multi-seat strollers and a crocodile of toddlers in checked gingham pinafores, linked to each other by a continuous yellow ribbon.
The Chemical Detective Page 33
