by A. R. Zander
“What makes you think he isn’t still in Russia?”
“If he was still there, it wouldn’t have taken the FSB long to find him. He stands much more chance of staying anonymous in Kazakhstan.”
“Have you got friends out there?”
“We’ve got as many friends as the Russians.”
They walked a bit further as a jogger appeared on the far side of the bridge and trotted slowly past them. Lonaghan brushed his cheek with his palm and looked at the back of his hand. “I’d like your boys to work with our people in Central Asia. I think they could be helpful. Strictly support.”
“Are you asking me or are you telling me?”
“I’m asking you. But I’m telling you it’s in your best interests. The bosses want to take over the whole op. This will give you a bit more time.”
“Ok. But strictly support. I don’t want some goon with a buzzcut bossing my boys around as soon as they land.”
“Strictly support.”
Alpha looked up at the sky as a few spots of rain escaped from the grey clouds hovering over the city. “How scared are they up on the Hill?”
“Those in the know are banging the drum pretty loud. If the Russians get hold of that algorithm, they’re going to have more money than they know what to do with. That means more military spending, more chest beating and, most importantly for our politicians, less reason to listen to us.”
“Do they understand that a bankrupt Russia is a dangerous animal?”
“We don’t want them bankrupt John. We’ve been there before and it’s not a good situation for anyone. No, we don’t want them bankrupt, we just want to keep them honest. They have zero incentive to change things when they are swimming in money.”
“Tom, there’s something I should probably tell you.”
“Go on.”
“We got some intel in last week on the actual value of this thing. The potential returns. It’s much bigger than we initially thought.”
“How much bigger?”
“We’re talking a 200 percent return. If the Russians put 50 billion into it, they’ll walk away with 100 billion profit in the first year. Guaranteed.”
“Guaranteed?” said Lonaghan. “There’s no such thing.”
“He found the Holy Grail Tom. Their tests proved it conclusively.”
“Hell. They would hardly need to collect taxes with that on their side.”
“You’re right. It’s a licence to print money.”
“You need to find this guy John. For all our sakes. I don’t want to have to tell the President that the Kremlin has full control of the world’s most profitable hedge fund.”
- Chapter 16 -
The Spoils of War
Harper sniffed the flowers as he walked through Rublyovka. The high gates on the Katusev mansion were locked and two armed guards watched his approach. As he got closer, one stepped forward and demanded to know his identity.
“I’m one of Nastya’s teachers,” Harper said in English.
“Ne panimayu,” said the guard. I don’t understand.
Harper gave him a small card with his name and the name of the school and pointed to the intercom system. The guard relayed the details through to the house while his colleague patted Harper down and looked inside the bunch of flowers. There was a tense silence before the intercom buzzed and he was allowed to walk up to the house. The door was open when he got there, so he walked through into the familiar reception area.
He stood looking around, but no one came to greet him.
Without the party guests, the house had the feel of a museum. He walked slowly towards the ballroom. It seemed far larger without people. He hadn’t noticed the intricate Russian Orthodox Frescos that covered the ceiling while he was at the party. A depiction of Christ adorned with shimmering gold outlines formed the centerpiece of the domed roof. He jumped slightly as he heard footsteps coming towards him. He turned to see a plump woman with a white hat and pinafore. She had Asiatic features and her tight skin showed signs of sun damage. The wary look on her face suggested she wasn’t overly pleased to have an unknown foreigner standing in front of her.
“You are from the school?” she said in heavily accented Russian. Harper nodded and gave her the flowers. “You can’t be here for very long I’m afraid.” She led him back through to the front of the house and into a side room. Several bunches of flowers were stacked on the floor and she placed his offering alongside. As she stood up, he noticed tears rolling down her cheeks. He instinctively walked over and gave her a hug, before sitting her down on a nearby chair and holding her hand.
“He was a good man,” she said in her native Uzbek.
“He was a very good man,” Harper responded in the same language.
She looked up at him, with a shocked smile on her face. “You speak Uzbek?”
“I love to speak Uzbek,” he said. “It’s a beautiful language.”
He felt a new warmth from her as she held his arm. “Nastya is just getting out of the shower. She will be here soon. You can give the flowers directly to her if you like.”
“That would be nice. Everyone at the school is thinking of her.” Harper stood her up and gave her a tissue from his pocket to wipe the tears from her face. “It’s such an awful thing to happen. And so unexpected…”
“It all started when that damn Kazakh boy came here,” she said. “Everything was fine before that. He poisoned the fortune of this family.”
Harper’s mind focused. “You mean Seva?”
“Yes, that was his name. Seva. He was a quiet boy and never opened his mouth. I had a bad feeling about him immediately.”
“Did he come here more than once?” said Harper, trying to sound uninterested.
“No, only once. He came with his parents and that professor who stayed in the car.”
“Professor?”
“It was his university teacher or something. I told him to move the car because it was parked on the grass and he refused. He looked at me like I was some peasant.”
Harper heard footsteps coming down the stairs and picked up the flowers. Nastya Katuseva wore a purple designer tracksuit and had her hair tied up inside a towel as she stepped down to meet him.
“Look, Nastya, I know this is a difficult time,” said Harper. “But people at the school wanted to let you know we were thinking about you. I just volunteered to bring these down for you. I won’t stay. I’m sorry for your loss.”
She took the flowers and managed a weak smile. “That’s nice. Please say thank you to everyone for me. I’m going to need my English lessons for when I need to fight for my inheritance in your courts. The vultures will already be circling.”
“Vultures?”
“I have just inherited a $6 billion fortune Ryan. You think that people are going to allow this to simply become mine. In my world, sentiment does not last very long. I can handle his gold digging little wife, but there will be plenty more formidable opponents looking for their share of the spoils, I can guarantee you.”
Harper looked for some sign of grief, but struggled to find it. They both looked towards the door at the sound of raised voices coming from the entrance to the property. A large crowd of men had surrounded the security and were demanding they open the gates. One of the new arrivals suddenly lost patience and grabbed a guard by the neck, kicking his legs from underneath him and pinning him to the ground. The second guard backed off with his hands up.
“Vultures,” cried Nastya Katuseva, hitting a button on the wall to open the gate and marching off down the drive. Harper watched her remonstrating before giving up and allowing them to come up to the house. They ignored Harper as they filed into the house with boxes and headed upstairs.
Nastya marched after them, shouting while holding the towel on the top of her head in place. “How long has he been dead? Tell me? His body isn’t even cold and you FSB bastards already divided up his fortune. If you think I’m going to make this easy for you, believe me, you’re wrong.”
> Harper made a quick call for his taxi driver to meet him outside and headed towards the gate with his head down. One of the guards was calling for assistance on his mobile phone, while the other nursed his throat. A line of black FSB BMWs blocked the road. Harper looked for his cab, but it wasn’t in sight. As he set off in the direction of the estate’s exit, a voice called out in Russian from the motorcade.
“You, come here.”
Harper kept walking, but the voice got louder and more forceful. “You. Who do you think you are walking away from?” Harper stopped as he heard the spin of car tyres behind him. One of the vehicles lurched in front of him and skidded to a stop. Major Oleg Nikolaev kept his eyes firmly on Harper as he got out the car. The back window of the BMW rolled down and more eyes bored into him from inside.
“Documents,” Nikolaev barked as he stood toe-to-toe with Harper, leaving just inches between their faces. Harper reached into his inside pocket and handed over his passport.
“Why are you here?” Nikolaev said, flicking through the pages. “Ryan Evans.”
Harper stuck to English, figuring knowing Russian could lead to more complicated questions. “I teach English to Nastya Katuseva. I was just leaving.”
Nikolaev spat on the floor. “English? That’s the problem with these fucking people. They hate being Russian. It humiliates them when they are in fucking London or wherever they go. So they pay people like you, to teach them a new nationality.”
“Ne ponimayu,” said Harper. I don’t understand.
Nikolaev walked back to the car with Harper’s passport and picked up his radio to phone in the details. Harper froze as a rifle barrel emerged from the window and pointed straight at him. He looked around for an escape route, but there was nowhere to go. The man in the back of the car smiled as Harper squirmed and pulled the gun back inside. Nikolaev’s radio finally buzzed to life and he returned to Harper and pushed his passport into his chest.
“Are you here to fuck our women?” asked Nikolaev, stepping forward.
“I’m here to teach English,” said Harper, avoiding Nikoalev’s eyes.
“The only Russian women that sleep with foreigners are whores.”
Harper said nothing and stepped back slightly.
“Dirty fucking whores with fucking diseases.” Harper turned his head to the side to avoid the smell of coffee on Nikolaev’s breath.
“Now leave,” he said finally, shoving Harper backwards. The taxi suddenly pulled round the corner and Nikolaev watched as Harper got in and it drove off into the distance. He walked back to the BMW and sat back down in the front seat. He adjusted the rearview mirror, so he could see his men in the back.
“Check him out properly. Today.”
*****
Danny Garrett sat sipping coffee in the small café below his fifth-floor office. He bobbed his head a little to the Russian pop music filtering through the speakers and turned the page of his newspaper.
“Shame your boys got pumped the other day,” said Harper, sitting down opposite him. “I suppose it was the ref’s fault?”
“Where are you in the league now? Oh yeah, below us.”
“Touchy,” said Harper. “Can I have one of these,” he said, pointing at some biscuits sitting in a small bowl on the table.
“Help yourself.”
“Do you still fancy coming on a little holiday with me?”
“Almaty? I thought you weren’t keen.”
“I think if I go missing, not too many people would be interested. I’d prefer it if you were around to document my downfall.”
“You want me to come as an insurance policy?”
“Yeah, partly, but I reckon we can cover more ground together. You find facts yeah? That’s your job.”
“Last time I looked.”
“So you up for it?”
“What do I get out of it?”
“I think I know where our missing researcher is, or rather, who he is with.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“I see.”
“And if you’re still not convinced, I’ve got a little story for you too.”
“Go on.”
“The FSB raided Andre Katusev’s house yesterday.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was there.”
“You really have got some brass balls you know that.”
“You’re very kind. Are you coming?”
“Of course I’m coming.”
- Chapter 17 -
Warwick Avenue
A paper dragon hung in the window of the Beijing Paradise Chinese restaurant next to a faded menu. A motorbike courier and a well-heeled lawyer sat waiting for their orders on the plastic chairs in the small reception area. Cohen flashed his badge at the man behind the counter while Russell struggled to park the car in a small space across the road.
“I’m DS Cohen. I’m here to see Mr Lau.”
The man behind the counter examined the badge as the customers pretended not to listen. “Yes, Mr Lau, one second.” Russell came walking into the shop as the man behind the counter disappeared into the back.
“It’d be rude not to order something while we’re here,” said Russell.
“Here’s a menu. Knock yourself out.”
The man appeared from the back and beckoned them to come through. They ducked under the counter and walked back into the kitchen. Russell’s mouth watered as a delivery man packed up a freshly-made Peking Duck and disappeared out of the door.
“Mr Lau is in here,” said the man, motioning to a social area where several staff were sitting around chatting in Mandarin. All but one man stood up and left as Cohen and Russell walked into the room.
“Alfred Lau?” said Cohen.
“Yes, please sit down.”
“I’m DS Cohen and this is DC Russell. We’re sorry that you had to cut your holiday short, but it really was imperative that we speak with you.”
Lau shook his head a little. “Oh sure, sure, it’s okay, I am happy to help police.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. Now, we understand you made a delivery to this flat recently.” Cohen showed Lau a piece of paper with Cavendish’s address.
“Yes, I remember. A nice English man. Very polite. He gave me good tip.”
“Did anything seem unusual when the man answered the door?”
“No, no, just as normal. Normal delivery.”
“What did they have?” said Russell.
“I think just some special fried rice, sweet and sour pork Hong Kong style and satay chicken sticks.”
“You’ve got a good memory,” said Russell.
Lau laughed. “Yes, like a photo camera.”
“Was there anyone in the street maybe when you delivered the food?”
Lau sat back and thought. “There was a man. He was in a car, just not far from the place. I remember because he looked at me when I was unpacking order.”
Cohen leant forward. “Do you think you can describe the man?”
“Yeah sure. I remember, he looked like Albanian or something.”
“Excuse us, for a second Mr Lau.”
Russell followed Cohen back out into the kitchen. “We need to get a sketch artist down here. I don’t want to let him disappear off again if we can help it.”
“I know one that lives in St John’s Wood,” said Russell, pulling his mobile from his pocket. “Let me get on the blower.” Cohen sat back down with Lau as Russell made the call.
“Do you think that memory of yours works for faces too?”
“Sure, sure, I am good with faces, no problem.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Russell walked back in the room. “He’ll be here in half an hour Sarge. We may as well eat I reckon.”
Cohen gave Lau £20 and he brought them an assortment of piping hot Chinese food as they waited in the small room. Once they’d finished the meal, a pot of Chinese tea was set down on the table and Russell poured three s
ervings into some ornately decorated cups. As Cohen took his first sip, the man from behind the counter walked in and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Your friend is here now.” The long-haired sketch artist walked in and cleared a space among the discarded food containers.
“Shall we get straight to it?” he said
“Go ahead,” said Cohen.
Lau’s memory kicked into gear like a video recording. The sketch artist struggled to keep up as he blurted out the description, regularly turning to a small Chinese-English dictionary he kept in his trouser pocket. The artist added the finishing touches as Lau made sure he had extracted everything he could from the mental image of the man in the car.
“Okay,” said the artist. “Here’s your man.” He flipped his sketch board round and showed Cohen and Russell the face.
“Looks like a wrong ‘un,” said Russell. “But they always do on those things, don’t they Sarge?” Cohen said nothing and just stared at the picture. “Don’t they Sarge? Sarge? Are you okay?”
Cohen took the picture from the artist. “I know who that is.”
“What? Who?”
“His name’s Yuri Gershov. He’s muscle for a guy called Leonid Ashansky.”
“Jesus, Ashansky? You mean the Prince?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t he sitting in Belmarsh prison?”
“That’s exactly where he is. Time we paid His Royal Highness and his little helper a visit.”
*****
Pavel ignored the homeless man lying motionless a few metres away from the entrance to the flat. A strong smell of urine filled the corridor and he held his sleeve to his nose as he stepped carefully around him. Why do people let them in, he thought, as he hurried inside and closed the door behind him. The man stirred as the door slammed. He looked up to make sure no one was around and whispered quietly into a microphone stitched to the inside of his sleeve. “One of them is here.”
Nikolaev and his team got out the car and walked into the building. As they exited the lift, the watcher pointed to the flat and disappeared down the stairs. One of the agents took out a master key and opened the door. Nikolaev walked in and looked around. The door to his right opened and Pavel faced the four men with a puzzled look on his face. The confusion turned to fear as they advanced on him and pushed him back onto his bed.
