by Tim Heath
Walking forward, Richard too jumped straight to the front of the next window, a couple just leaving, an older lady who was next in line not seeing him as she was picking her bags up slowly. There were a few shouts of public complaint from behind, but no one there to cause any trouble.
“I need a ticket to Moscow on the express leaving in just over ten minutes, please.”
“Passport,” the lady said, sounding more like a robot than an actual person, and showing as much charisma too. He handed her his documents, the migration card falling out from the passport as she flipped through it, taking note of his visa also that was attached to one of the pages of his passport. She tapped away, deliberately slowly it seemed to Richard, before displaying on a calculator an amount that Richard understood to be the price of the ticket. He opened his wallet and dropped three one thousand ruble notes through the hole at the bottom of the window, the lady checking the cash against an infrared device, before returning to him his change and then after another minute his tickets. She pointed in the general direction of the platforms, but Richard was already moving, having noted the platform number and its location as he’d been queueing.
The train must have been at least twenty carriages long, though he opted to board on about the sixth one and work his way through to his compartment. It was another five minutes before the train started rolling away, Richard comfortably in his seat by that point.
Around him, the Trackers were keeping him in their sights. The train option had done nothing to his odds. The longer it all took, the less chance there was of real victory. The odds would continue to lengthen that night.
In the secure location, the ten oligarchs stood around the screens, the Hunt’s Host in deep conversation with someone on his mobile, concern showing on the edges of his forehead.
“Twelve, you worried?” a man in an expensive tailored suit smirked at him. The man known only as Twelve, in this setting, ignored the comment, turning instead so that the others couldn’t see his conversation.
“So between the train arriving and the flight from Moscow to London you confirm there is a three-hour gap?” he said, anger coursing through him though he did his best to keep his composure. He wasn’t going to give the others the pleasure of thinking he was afraid he might lose this one.
“Yes, that’s confirmed,” came the reply on the phone, one of Twelve’s many people working behind the scenes. They all used such people when it was their turn to Host.
“That’s too much time. We need to arrange a welcome party for him in Moscow.”
“Is that in the rules?” the voice said.
“I don’t care. It’s my Hunt, my rules. Not a word to anyone. Now get on with it,” and the call ended.
2
The train rolled into its destination in central Moscow at the precise time it was meant to arrive, the platform first appearing a full five minutes before the train eventually came to rest. Richard was the first one off the train and was already pushing his way along the platform as people passed uniformed officers who were standing at the front of the platform, a human presence between the train and the station itself. They spotted Richard, and a group of border police walked quickly and blocked his exit.
“You must come with us, Mr Taylor,” is all they said, the use of his surname, and therefore sudden realisation that they knew who he was, only just sinking in.
“What is this about?” Richard said as soon as he was seated in a room they’d led him to on the side of the station.
A man was looking through the passport that had been demanded from him as they entered the room. After a few moments, the Russian officer replied.
“You arrived in St Petersburg two days ago, and your migration card and flight tickets confirm that you are expecting to leave on Monday, 4th and yet here you are, in Moscow, heading to the airport.” He hadn’t mentioned anything about the airport, the thought taking root as the Russian continued. “You were at Pulkovo 2 earlier today, trying to charter a flight from there, also.” The Russian information net was working overtime. They were good.
“Tell me, sir. Why are you suddenly leaving? Your actions have made you stand out. We don’t like guests in our country suddenly changing their plans, as you have today. It makes us nervous.”
“Look, something has come up, and I needed to leave early, that was all. I tried to contact my airline, but they are closed because of the holiday. I’ve come to Moscow because there are some more flights from here.”
“What has come up that you would leave so suddenly?”
Richard knew it was not their place to ask such a question, his suspicion raised. He couldn’t tell them about the ticket; they’d most certainly take it from him and maybe claim the money themselves. He didn’t trust any one of them, and that mistrust was growing the more prolonged the day was passing.
“That’s none of your business!”
“It is if I choose to make it my business. You need to tell me what you are thinking of doing; otherwise, I will be forced to arrest you.”
“Arrest me? For what? I’m just trying to get an earlier flight home than I have booked. Is that a crime in this bloody dictatorship?”
“There is no need to be so rude, Mr Taylor. We are only doing our job.”
“And what job would that be? Detaining innocent foreigners?”
“If you tell us what you are doing, we can determine if you are in fact an innocent foreigner, can’t we?”
“Look, my father has been taken ill suddenly, I’ve only just been told. I must get back to him immediately, or it might be too late.”
“You are lying, Mr Taylor. Now that does make me suspicious. They were right to flag you up for our attention.”
“Who was right? Who has made up these lies about me?” Richard was glancing around the room, increasingly more afraid. He glanced at his watch once more.
“Need to be somewhere, sir?”
“As I’ve told you, time is running out, and I need to be on that flight to London. It’s vital that I am.”
“But you are still not telling the truth. Maybe you did something in St Petersburg? Maybe you hurt someone there? Is that it? Shall I check with the authorities up there and see what they say?”
“What? I’ve done nothing wrong, you stupid people! I’m just a man who needs to change his flight to an earlier one. This is ridiculous! I demand to speak to the Embassy!”
“They’ll be on holiday too, Mr Taylor.”
“It doesn’t matter. Someone will be around. I’m a British citizen, and I demand that you let me speak with the British embassy here in Moscow.”
“Very well,” the man said, knowing the law governing that right.
Ten minutes later, the conversation was over. Richard had been told what they could and couldn’t do, and there had been a brief conversation between the embassy representative and those holding him before the call was ended. The Russians opted to take the most frustrating option open to them regarding Richard.
“Very well,” they said to him, handing his passport back to him and slowly moving towards the door. “You are free to go. But under the terms of your visa that you applied for to enter our country, we will return you to the only city you have permission to visit and allow you to take your prearranged flight home from there. Your train leaves in five minutes, and we can’t have you miss this one.”
The door opened, Richard led by the arm to another train, which was shorter than the one he’d come down on, and they ushered Richard into a carriage that was mainly empty. The uniformed officers remained on the platform until minutes later when the train started to pull away from the station.
He was heading back to St Petersburg. There was now no option, no time to make it to England. He sank deep into his seat and knew enough was enough. It had been all too good to be true, after all.
Three days later he boarded his return flight to London. The weekend had been a write-off, the thought of losing so much money eating at every fibre within him. Sleep wa
s impossible. He’d ventured mainly to strip clubs since getting back, drinking for thirty hours solid.
In the secure location, the Games day had finished with another success. The winning lottery ticket had been claimed in the end, by another anonymous person, just in time. More importantly, Twelve had come out of the day with his honour intact. The oligarchs would go their separate ways, continuing their lives of wealth and influence, never referring to the things they were a part of, until once more they’d come back together, the odds would be set, and another Contestant selected for their entertainment.
Alex Tolbert had been told about the report by a technician working with him at MI6. Both could have lost their job instantly if it was known what they’d shared. It made the seriousness of what they had learned all the more real.
Alex had been part of the British secret service for nine years and had built up a reputation for being one of the best.
The report that he’d been passed was confirmation from Russia from a secret source named Andre Philip. He’d been giving MI6 specific information on a new situation for the past year and had got himself deeply involved within the Russian political and business elite, where the real money and power was. Andre was not part of MI6 himself, and being Russian, neither really could be, but his skills and natural ability helped him to just blend into the scene and made him a reliable connection over the years. With a good track record, it made what he had been sharing with them for the previous twelve months all the more intriguing.
“Anissa,” Alex called to his colleague of six years once he found her, Anissa not in her office when he’d last checked. Anissa Edison was thirty-nine, though she didn’t look a day over twenty-five. She’d taken up a position in Military Intelligence after serving for over a decade in the army, involved in combat situations in many places around the world. She’d been wounded twice, the last time enough to cut short her army days and the offices of Vauxhall House came calling soon after. She’d connected well with Alex almost immediately, on a purely professional level. Married with two children herself, she was an excellent example of someone mixing a busy career with a growing family.
“I’ve just heard something you need to know about,” is all he said, taking her by the arm. They went outside the building for a walk, a common practice when their conversation was of a delicate nature, not sure who might otherwise be listening in, in a building full of spies.
“It’s real. Everything we’ve heard about, we’ve had a report back from Andre.”
Anissa was processing everything she heard as they walked in the relative quiet of the park not far from their offices. She was usually a frantic note taker––a pen was never far from her hand––though being outside, didn’t have the opportunity at present.
She’d known about the workings of Andre Philip, his mission to dig deep into the Russian oligarchs, the billionaires who held so much wealth and power in modern day Russia. She’d heard the whispers, as had Alex, about an organisation of these very men, who would gather together to trade power, connections and political muscle. Men who’d take part in the Igrii which means games in English. All very secretive, all very hidden. Men of wealth who wanted nothing more than privacy most of the time, besides their obvious displays of what money could buy.
“What did it say, again?” Anissa asked, wanting to store every detail in her mind at the outset.
“The report was logged three days ago, from Andre himself. He simply said that it was real, he had proof, the Games existed. He listed some names, clearly non-Russians, and there were some dates. The only other name mentioned was Dmitry, no surname.”
“It’s not like there aren’t a million Dmitry’s in the world.”
“True,” Alex said, “but maybe not so many that happen to be multi-billionaires with political influence in Russia.”
“You said this was received three days ago. Why the delay?”
“That’s just the point. I haven’t been told this officially, despite it being our operation. Someone who owed me a favour, the person who’d received the message and passed it on, was alarmed when nothing was done about it. He let me know today, checking I hadn’t been told.”
“So why are MI6 holding this from us?”
“I’ve no idea. What’s more, since he left this message, Andre has apparently vanished. He’s not reported in at any of his arranged times.”
“Do they have him?”
“It’s hard to tell, but I’d doubt that. Best bet is that he’s gone to ground, maybe wary of his position in light of them finding out what he has done. Remember, this was all just a rumour until we could confirm otherwise. These men have extreme power in Russia, and they’ll use it to shut out any knowledge of what is happening. If word got out, their Games would be over.”
“So it really is taking place? I mean, some people find these tickets in Russia and all that?”
“That’s what I want to find out. Right now, I don’t know what to believe. We have to tread carefully. The fact that our bosses haven’t thought to let us know tells me something stinks about it all and that it might even have connections here in London.”
“What, in MI6?”
“I don’t know, right now, but think about it. We went out on a limb, were granted some funding, found a mole that we insisted on keeping between the two of us. They were never happy about that set up from the beginning. Now that mole reports that he’s been successful, that he’s proved the existence of this ring and yet three days later we have not been told about it.”
“Who’s seen the report?”
“I don’t know, but it certainly went to those higher up than us. It was read the day it got reported, but we couldn’t tell by whom.”
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“Right now, we need to tread a little more carefully, but carry on as if we know nothing. We can ask questions about Andre; as far as they know, we are still awaiting confirmation from him. Let’s see if we can track down where he is. Under no circumstance must we give up his real identity.” All transmissions up to that point with MI6 had been carried out via a codename Alex had given to Andre. “That would now appear to be fatal.”
“I don’t like it. If someone within MI6 is covering for them, it means we’re rotten to the very highest level. It’s not what I joined up to be a part of.”
“Me neither, Anissa, but we can’t just leave Andre to his fate. He’s risked everything to get this information out to us, and while someone doesn’t want us to know about it, we do. So we have something to go on. We have these names and some dates. I’m assuming they are dates for previous events. So we’ll start with these. We’ll work out who these people are that he’s listed the names for, and what these dates have to do with any of them. We also have the name Dmitry. Let’s cross check that with the richest men in Russia and see how many options that leaves us. And be careful. Until we know exactly what we are up against, I think we have to keep this between us. We don’t know where exactly the Service is compromised.”
“Okay, let’s get to work. I’ll take the names, and you look at the dates and the Russian connections. We’ll chat here tomorrow, same time. I’ll work from home.”
They each parted company, Alex heading back to the office, though he’d spend most of the afternoon in a nearby café searching information on Google, and Anissa went straight to her car which was parked underground beneath Vauxhall House, home of MI6.
3
Two months later
Annabel Herbertson wasn’t to know anything was amiss as she handed her passport to border control at London’s Heathrow airport. Ever since they’d been given her name by Andre Philip two months before, Anissa had been tracking her, and some others.
Eight weeks later Anissa still had little understanding of why these names meant anything. None of them had any connections to Russia, only one of the four names given had ever even been there. Annabel was a single mum who was holding down two part-time jobs, managed mainly when h
er son was at school, though she had help on two evenings as well. Living in a small flat in Hackney, London, there was little about her that suggested anything more than your average working-class family. Forty years old, born and still living in London, Annabel had no criminal record and didn’t even have a driving licence. She rented the flat she lived in, as did most of the high rise block’s many residents, the building an eyesore that was thrown up in the late 70s to ease London’s growing housing issues. It made no sense to Anissa to even be watching Annabel, until today, when she boarded a plane to St Petersburg.
“Alex, we have movement,” she said, catching her colleague as he was driving on what was meant to be the start of a one week holiday.
“Go on.”
“Annabel Herbertson, forty years old from Hackney. She was one of the four names Andre mentioned. She’s just cleared her passport through security at Heathrow, due to board a flight to St Petersburg in one hour.”
“Christ! It’s happening––I’ll be right with you.”
At that same moment, in the small seaside city of Tarragona, on the west coast of Spain, Teo Vela was holding his bag as he waited for a taxi to arrive. When it did, he made the short journey to the city’s airport, and once there, checked in through security before waiting at his gate. With one stop in Madrid, he was then due to board an evening flight to St Petersburg. A Spanish national, his name had been the one that made little sense once it had been handed to Alex. When he had Googled the name, there had been no real leads in the UK, the few results coming up either too young or too old to have any relevance.
One time zone east of Spain, in Dublin, Ireland, Dubhán Maguire was boarding a flight from the airport of the city where he had been born, though he now lived a sixty-minute drive south. A builder by trade, he’d developed a local reputation and had a steady flow of regular work to tide him over, but not enough to keep up with rental costs in the capital. He’d downsized, twice, before setting up a permanent workshop in his new adopted village, his skills going down well with the locals, and he did as much free work as he did paid, though he didn’t mind too much.
