Gray Salvation

by Alan McDermott

  ‘What do you do for a living, Tim?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I’m an engineer,’ Gray said, being as vague as possible. ‘Can I get you guys a drink? Coffee?’

  Frank and Sue followed him through to the kitchen, where he tried to put Melissa down, with little success.

  ‘She’s still at that clingy age,’ he apologised, trying to prise her arms from around his neck. Eventually he gave up, and Sue jumped in to do the honours. She took a bag of roasted beans from the hamper and had a jug of strong coffee ready minutes later.

  ‘What about you guys?’ Gray asked. ‘What do you do?’

  Frank explained that they were both retired, and their two children had long since grown up and flown the coop. ‘We lived in Maryland all our lives, but decided to spend our twilight years somewhere warmer.’

  Frank had been in insurance, it turned out, while his wife had been a schoolteacher.

  ‘If Melissa needs any home schooling, or you just want to get away by yourself for a few hours, you know where to find me,’ Sue said with a smile.

  Gray thanked her for the offer and pressed her about the local schools. Sue took great delight in explaining the American education system, and half an hour later he had the names of three local preschools that would take Melissa when she hit three years of age.

  Melissa began to fidget, and Gray explained that he needed to get her down for her nap. Thankfully, his visitors took the hint. They made him promise to pop round whenever he or Melissa needed anything.

  Once they were gone, Gray took his daughter up to her room and set her down on the camp bed, covering her with one half of the open sleeping bag, and he sang her a lullaby until her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

  Back downstairs, he went through the hamper and found tinned ham, jams and a bottle of red wine, as well as a loaf of bread that was still warm and a bag of sweets that he pegged as Melissa’s.

  The first hurdle was now out of the way. He’d met his new neighbours, nobody had died, and although Sue’s voice grated on him and Frank seemed duller than dishwater, he felt confident that he and his daughter would enjoy their new lives in Florida.

  Chapter 8

  20 January 2016

  Veronica Ellis hurried along the hospital corridor, following the signs that directed her to the major trauma unit. Once she reached the nurse’s station she asked for Hamad Farsi and was directed to a private room, where she found two uniformed officers chatting outside the door.

  She flashed her ID and asked if anyone else had tried to see the patient.

  ‘No-one except hospital staff, ma’am.’

  ‘Okay, keep it that way.’ She opened the door, then turned back to them. ‘His parents will be coming down from Oldham today. Write down your phone number and I’ll send you their pictures. Apart from them, no-one gets in. Understood?’

  Both men nodded, and Ellis entered the room.

  Farsi’s was the only bed in the room, and other than a side table and one chair, the rest of the space was taken up with medical equipment. A nurse was in the middle of taking his blood pressure and looked up when Ellis entered.

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s doing well,’ the nurse replied. ‘It was touch-and-go when he first came in, but we managed to stabilise him.’

  Ellis stood by the side of the bed and looked down at Farsi, who looked anything but well. A bandage covered his skull and a plaster cast covered one side of his body from the waist down.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Ellis asked. ‘I mean, what damage has he sustained?’

  Her voice cracked just a little as she gazed upon the unconscious figure on the bed. Tubes emerged from Farsi’s arm, and his face looked terribly swollen, as did his chest.

  ‘He broke his pelvis in three places and fractured his skull. There was severe internal bleeding, but the surgeons brought it under control.’

  ‘How long before I can talk to him?’ Ellis asked.

  ‘Not for some time, I’m afraid. He’s heavily sedated, and further surgery is scheduled for three this afternoon.’

  It wasn’t what Ellis wanted to hear. When the call first came through that Farsi had been found by a factory worker at five that morning, her first action had been to call Harvey’s mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. She’d then ordered the phone’s location to be triangulated, but it wasn’t showing up on the system. Finally, she’d sent a team in to check out the factory, but they found nothing untoward.

  With her section lead missing and his number two lying unconscious in a hospital bed, all she could think of was Bessonov. The Russian mobster had to be behind this, and that meant Harvey was in terrible danger, if not dead already. Bessonov had already shown how he treated MI5 agents, and the pictures taken of the late Jason Willard jumped into her head.

  Ellis thanked the nurse and gave her a business card, asking to be informed as soon as Farsi’s condition changed. She left the hospital and climbed into her Jaguar, anger causing her to shake as she struggled to fit the key into the ignition.

  She pulled out of the car park and into traffic, horns blaring as she cut off two cars in her rush to get back to Thames House. She made it in record time, and as she walked to her office she told three members of Harvey’s team to meet her in the conference room in two minutes.

  She reached her desk and pulled up Bessonov’s file. After taking a deep breath, she dialled his mobile number.

  ‘Da.’

  ‘Alexi Bessonov?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is Veronica Ellis calling from Thames House. I’m sure you know what we do here.’

  ‘I do indeed, Miss Ellis. What can I do for you today?’

  The English was slightly accented and his voice was calm, assured, though that wasn’t unexpected. Anyone who’d run an illegal empire for so long was unlikely to be flustered by a phone call from the security services.

  ‘Two of my men were near the Olde Oak furniture factory early this morning. One of them was involved in a hit-and-run, and the other is missing.’

  ‘How unfortunate,’ Bessonov said. ‘Have you tried contacting the police?’

  ‘Don’t play games with me. I know you’re involved. I just called to warn you that if the missing operative is harmed in any way, I will come for you personally.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Ellis, but I assure you I will be passing a recording of this conversation to your superiors.’

  The phone went dead in her hands, and she sat back in her chair, cursing herself for being so hotheaded. It had been a desperate attempt to ensure no harm came to Harvey, but it looked to have backfired big time. If Bessonov carried through with his threat, she would be warned off him, giving the criminal carte blanche to carry out his plan, whatever it might be.

  She rose and walked quickly into the conference room, where her team were already gathered, their laptops open and ready to take notes. If she acted quickly, she could still get her message across to Bessonov before her hands were tied.

  ‘How is Hamad?’ Elaine Solomon asked. With Harvey missing, she was the most experienced remaining operative on the team, and Ellis had given her temporary section lead until Harvey was safe and well.

  ‘He’ll live, thank God, but he’ll be out of action for a while. Our focus now is on finding Andrew. How did you get on with the CCTV cameras?’

  ‘Nothing from Olde Oak, but the neighbouring unit recorded two SUVs leaving the scene, including the moment they took out Hamad. He got off five shots before the lead car swerved to hit him. I watched it twice and can’t believe he’s still with us.’

  ‘Can you ID the vehicles?’

  ‘Too dark and grainy,’ Solomon said. ‘I’ve asked Gerald to work his magic on it, but he isn’t hopeful. It’s an old system re-recording on VHS tapes.’

  ‘I’m in sore need of an update,’ said Eddie Howes, adjusting his glasses as he took a sip of his energy drink. ‘Can we start with who’s behind this?’<
br />
  ‘Alexi Bessonov,’ Ellis said, as she moved to the head of the mahogany conference table.

  ‘Do we have enough evidence to bring him in?’ Gareth Bailey asked. He’d been with the team less than two months, and the training manual was still fresh in his mind.

  ‘What we have is circumstantial,’ Ellis said, before giving the team a condensed version of events over the last forty-eight hours. They’d all heard about the discovery of Willard’s body, but not the surveillance mission carried out at the restaurant the day before.

  ‘It sounds like we have enough for a search warrant,’ Bailey persisted.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Ellis agreed, ‘but his team clearly left the building. You saw the video. It seems highly unlikely that he’ll have left any incriminating evidence or personnel behind.’

  ‘What about elsewhere?’ asked Bailey.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Ellis, ‘but where do we begin? Bessonov owns or controls over seventy businesses in London alone. Would he choose to leave useful evidence at any of them? And if he has Andrew, do you really think he’ll keep him at a location that’s clearly under his ownership?’

  ‘We could search them all,’ Howes suggested.

  ‘Nice idea, but I have the feeling time isn’t on our side.’

  ‘I assume we have access to his phone records,’ Solomon said.

  ‘We do,’ Ellis confirmed, ‘but he uses it purely for his legitimate businesses. We’ve been listening in for over two years and haven’t heard anything incriminating.’

  ‘We could dig up the floor plans for each of his businesses and see which of them has a basement,’ Bailey suggested. ‘If you’re going to hold someone prisoner and interrogate them, underground would be the logical choice.’

  Ellis thought he watched too much television, but it was at least a start. ‘Okay, you run with that. Elaine, get me a list of all Russian and Tagrilistani nationals who have entered the country in the last thirty days and cross-reference them through HMRC against Bessonov and his companies, particularly Olde Oak Furniture Limited. Use that same list to find matches in the Interpol database. Eddie, follow the CCTV trail. They must have been picked up by other cameras in the area, so find out where they went. Bessonov will want to distance himself from Andrew if he has something big coming up, so his out-of-town team are the ones we’ll concentrate on.’

  Ellis sent them on their way, and once she was alone, she sat and closed her eyes, saying a silent prayer for her fallen colleagues.

  Alexi Bessonov ended the call and checked the Total Call Recorder app to make sure it had captured the conversation. Satisfied, he dialled Grigory Polushin’s number and told the diplomat that they had to meet, urgently. As usual, Polushin didn’t ask why. He simply said he’d come to the restaurant within the hour and hung up.

  Bessonov opened a new browser on his phone and typed the name Veronica Ellis into the search engine. The results confirmed her position within MI5, and he wondered how the security services could have possibly known about his men at the factory. His people knew better than to open their mouths; the recent death of Nikki Sereyev had been a timely reminder to all that betraying Alexi Bessonov came at a high price.

  He thought long and hard about whom he’d spoken to regarding the Spetsnaz team, but all he could recall was the conversation with Polushin the previous day, and the senior counsellor was unlikely to be talking to the enemy.

  He knew the restaurant couldn’t have been bugged, but he couldn’t help thinking back to the previous day, when a drunk had sat in his seat. Bessonov stood from the table, then got down on his knees and looked under it once more, seeing nothing apart from the manufacturer’s sticker. He tried peeling it off, but it was stuck too firmly. After a few attempts, he gave up. Nothing that thin could be a transmitter, but to be on the safe side, he told the restaurant manager to arrange for the entire booth to be replaced.

  ‘I want new seats, table, flooring. In fact, everything in this area. Understood?’

  The manager nodded.

  ‘Good. And make sure you use our people. No outsiders.’

  Another nod, and the manager got on the phone to make arrangements, just as Polushin walked through the door and made his way to the booth. Bessonov signalled for a bottle of vodka, even though this would be a fleeting visit. He put a finger to his lips, bidding Polushin to remain silent, then poured two shots.

  ‘It looks a nice day for a drive,’ Bessonov said. ‘Come, let’s see a little of the city.’

  Polushin downed the clear liquid and followed him out of the restaurant, telling his driver to remain where he was. Outside, he saw Bessonov’s armour-plated Lincoln Navigator, the engine idling. They climbed in the back seat, and Bessonov’s driver pulled into traffic.

  ‘This is all very cloak-and-dagger,’ Polushin said. ‘I trust nothing is wrong.’

  ‘Merely precautions,’ Bessonov said. ‘I’d like you to listen to this.’

  He played the brief conversation he’d had with the head of MI5.

  ‘Who is this missing operative she refers to?’ Polushin asked.

  ‘I don’t know his name yet, but I’m working on it.’

  ‘So you do have him?’

  ‘My team does,’ Bessonov said. ‘He was snooping around the factory where they were staying and they spotted him on CCTV. They knew the hideout was compromised, so they seized him and left. They called our intermediary and explained the situation and I told them to take him to a farm in Oxfordshire. They’re awaiting further instructions.’

  Polushin was clearly unhappy with the developments. ‘How does this affect the plan? If you were to fail in your mission . . .’

  So it’s now my mission, Bessonov thought. The first sign of trouble, and Moscow’s already covering their arses.

  ‘It makes no difference at all,’ he assured Polushin. ‘In fact, it is a blessing in disguise. The team have already scoped out Milenko’s route and think it will be hard to get close to him, but a single sniper might be able to pull it off. It’ll take a specialist, though.’

  Polushin raised his eyebrows in enquiry.

  ‘I have someone special in mind.’ Bessonov wrote a name and contact number on a piece of paper and handed it to Polushin. ‘I want you to pay for this man’s services.’

  Polushin nodded and pocketed the sheet. ‘That still leaves this Ellis woman crawling all over you.’

  ‘It does indeed,’ Bessonov said, ‘but I have a plan that will take the heat off me and cause severe embarrassment to the British government. I’m going to need your help.’

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Some medical equipment and access to the diplomatic bag.’

  Chapter 9

  20 January 2016

  When the bag was finally pulled from his head, Andrew Harvey blinked as sunlight assaulted his retinas.

  He reckoned the journey had lasted two hours, not counting the stop they’d made to move him from the back seat to the trunk of the vehicle. After arriving at their destination, he’d been dragged from the trunk and forced to walk over slick ground to a building. The smells reminded him of a school trip many years earlier, but apart from identifying the location as a farm, he had no idea where it might be. Two hours by car from the factory meant he could be anywhere from Yeovil to Northampton, or even Norfolk.

  On entering the building, he’d instantly known he was in a kitchen, the familiar smell of fried bacon reminding him that it had been almost half a day since he’d last eaten. It soon became apparent that they hadn’t invited him here for breakfast. Two muscular arms forced him into a chair and bound his arms behind him. His legs were also tied to the chair, and the waiting had begun.

  In the hours that had passed before the bag was removed, Harvey had spent most of that time thinking of three people. Hamad had been a good friend for more than five years, and they’d been through more than a few scrapes together. Most of them had involved Tom Gray, a man he wished could be with him right now. Gray was a loose cannon at tim
es, but he was the one man you’d want around when the shit started flying. It hurt to think he’d never see Hamad again. Or Gray, for that matter.

  More prominent in his thoughts, though, was Sarah.

  After living alone for much of his adult life, he’d finally found someone he cared enough about to say goodbye to bachelorhood and settle down in a proper relationship. He’d had flings over the years, and one woman had managed to stick to him for a few months before his unsociable work hours had driven them apart, but none of them was like Sarah. The stunning body was one thing but more importantly, she was his intellectual equal. They shared the same tastes in music and television shows – not that they’d spent much time listening or watching. As a single man, he’d cooked for himself on his days off, but most evenings he’d settled for sandwiches, takeaways or microwave meals. In the past year, his passion for cuisine had been reignited as he fought Sarah for title of best cook in the household. On most weekends they’d entertain guests, usually Hamad or Sarah’s friends, but he looked forward to the time in which they relaxed together with a bottle of red wine, laughing at the way MI5 was portrayed in TV dramas.

  Now, as his eyes adjusted to the bright morning light, one of his captors turned his chair around so that Harvey faced a wooden table. Opposite him sat a man with a thin face dominated by a bulbous nose, his head sporting a crew cut. A slight scar ran from the side of his right eye to his upper lip; Harvey couldn’t see an ounce of fat on him. Five more men sat around the room, all dressed in jeans and short-sleeved T-shirts. Each of them had the same haircut, confirming his assumption that they were a military unit.

  While memories of Sarah had seen him through the previous hours, Harvey now felt something he hadn’t experienced in a long time.