by Tim Heath
“Please, don’t hurt us,” she said, the gun pointing at the pair of them, switching back between the two every few moments as if he would fire at one of them any second.
A photo of Phelan McDermott was very purposively dropped in front of the woman. Her reaction to the smiley Irishman’s face looking up at her showed that she recognised him––as they knew she must have done––performing the role she did within the lottery.
“Where did this man go?”
“I’m sorry? What man? I’ve never seen this man before in my life.”
The Russian now placed the barrel of the silenced firearm squarely against the forehead of the man, causing the woman to whimper in fear.
“Please, don’t hurt us!” she begged once more, “I don’t know what it is you want from us.”
“The location of Phelan McDermott or I blow your boyfriend’s brains out,” he said, looking down at her while keeping the gun pressed into the man’s head. “Three, two, one,” he added, the sound of resignation in his voice as his finger moved onto the trigger in one fluid motion, the recognition in the woman’s face at that moment that these guys weren’t there to mess around. The bullet killed him instantly, blood and brains hitting the wall behind, the only sound being his body crashing to the floor––and her crying out in shock.
The gun was then aimed in front of her eyes, making her go silent, suddenly aware that her own life was very much in danger. She wasn’t going to lie anymore.
“He had a wallet full of American dollars. He wanted to leave me some money, as his way of saying thank you just before he was leaving––and I saw it. I asked him about it. He just said he was going to America.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard now,” he smiled, as if nothing had just happened, the blood from the kill now seeping across the carpet in every direction. “What part of America?” he added, grave once again, the gun pushed harder into her forehead, heat instantly noticeable as it made contact with her skin.
“Please, that’s all I know, honestly. I didn’t see him for long,” she said, crying hard now, the words coming out through thick waves of emotion, her eyes closed, pleading with everything in her for this to all go away.
“That’s a shame,” he said, taking a few steps back now, the other two already moving out of the room, “such a waste, too,” the gun firing, two shots to her heart, killing her within seconds.
They left the property, having touched nothing, though they pulled the door closed behind themselves, wiping down any possible prints they might have left on the door handle in the process.
As they got back to their car––which had been parked halfway between the house they’d just left and the offices of lottery HQ––the team leader had his phone out, a call connecting to the rest of his men.
“They’re in America, that’s all we managed to get from them,” he said, ending the call before anyone could say anything. It hadn’t been as specific an answer as they had hoped for––but it was a start.
Phelan was out on another run. The settling in process had been very smooth. They hadn’t yet worked out what to do with schooling, but there seemed little option than for his wife, with the help of her parents, to homeschool. They weren’t going to be entirely registered in America for some time, if at all. Getting into a local school might prove problematic, especially if another move was required, though even Phelan, the longer they were all together there, could see them all being very happy staying where they were.
They were surrounded by the most spectacular scenery, in a place very few people ever got to see, let alone live.
The locals, those few that they actually saw on their occasional trips into town, seemed friendly, keeping themselves to themselves. The locals were all Americans, so being from the UK and Ireland, they did stick out in that sense, but no one was bothered. They’d heard the phrase more than once since arriving; what goes on in Montana stays in Montana. Phelan understood the feeling perfectly.
Getting back to the house, his wife was coming out through the front door, car keys in hand.
“Wait a moment, and I’ll just change and come and join you.”
“Okay,” she said. “Don’t be too long, I’ve asked Mum and Dad to watch the kids, and I don’t want to put them under too much pressure.”
Phelan turned, coming back to his wife at that moment. “Darling, there isn’t any pressure here. Relax, they’ll love more time with the grandkids.”
She smiled, kissing him on the lips. “You’re right. It has still not all sunk in I guess. Old habits.” Phelan kissed her back on the lips a second time, lingering a little, enjoying her taste.
“Go get changed you red-blooded male, and I’ll pull the van around the front.” He smiled and jogged back inside, t-shirt coming off as he went in through the door.
Five minutes later they were pulling onto the main road, a left turn from the entrance to their ranch and about a five kilometre run into what formed the community hub in the region.
There was everything you would expect, the size of the town surprising at first given the few people that lived there, though many travelled in from miles around, it was the central hub for a long way in any direction. There was a Target outlet there, a supermarket chain they’d always heard about but now got to use as their local shop.
Still, they preferred some of the small, independent and quieter shops that lined the central street––the more extensive Target store having been built about five years before and on the other side of town. They’d been there once, but it was a little further away, and they enjoyed the more artistic layout and shops of Main Street.
They were still working in cash, using a card to withdraw money from the ATM that they’d found worked for them at the only bank, situated at the end of Main Street.
They entered a small independent food market, which had all the essentials they needed. Phelan wandered the four aisles aimlessly, his wife pushing a small trolley around, working through a list. When it was time to pay, Phelan joined her again and unloaded the shopping onto the counter, his wife remembering one more thing, asking the lady where it was located, before going off in search of it.
They’d been there several times already, and it was the same lady each time. Phelan assumed she owned the place, or at least ran it with her husband. They’d seen a man of similar age unloading boxes on previous visits, though it was just her at the moment, as far as he could tell.
Reaching into his wallet, he realised they didn’t have enough cash, having not gone to the bank yet.
“Damn,” he said, the lady behind the till putting their purchases into brown paper bags, looking up, a smile on her inquisitive face. “I meant to get some more cash out. I’ll have to go and get some before we can check out.”
“Honey, don’t you be worrying about that,” she said, her accent like something out of a classic American movie, her tone smooth, the rhythm slow. “My husband set you up with an account after you showed up that second time the other day. News spreads fast in this part of the country when new folk arrive,” she said, Phelan’s wife coming back at that point, a bag of caster sugar in hand, which she placed on the counter.
“All done?” she said, adding the sugar into the third bag standing on the counter in front of her. “I’ll mark up the account, just pay it once in a while, is all we ask. Most folks settle every two weeks or so, and some do so once a month. Welcome to the neighbourhood,” she added, handing Phelan two of the bags, which he got his arms under, holding them against his chest.
“That accent is Irish, isn’t it, and your's ma’am, is English, right?”
“Yes,” his wife said, taking the third bag that she was being passed.
“Good, my husband thought so. You see, we had to put down a nationality on the system, you know, for the tab. It isn’t every day that three generations of Irish and English turn up into our little part of the world. We’ve set tabs up for all of you, even your parents.” Phelan looked at the lady, sudden concern on hi
s face. “They are your parents, aren’t they?” she said, seeing his look.
“Yes, of course,” he said, before coming back to the counter. “You mentioned putting our names on a system. Would that be a computer system?”
“Why, yes, it is now. We shifted from a purely paper system maybe ten years back. No, fifteen years already––my, how time flies.”
“You’ve put onto a computer the fact that our parents and my family have just arrived, and noted our nationalities, too?” he said, now more forceful, looking at his wife as the thought dawned on her.
“Yes, why, was that a problem?” the cashier said, confused and started to be a little concerned. His wife glared at him.
“No, it’s nothing,” he smiled, trying his best just to dismiss it, and turned and left the store, both of them saying farewell as they went. They took the bags straight to the van, dropping them into the boot.
“Do you think it’s a problem?” his wife said, concern now showing on her face.
“It could be, I’ll have to speak to Matvey. But he’s told me in the past how effective these people are at hunting down what they are looking for, mainly using the internet to track and find people. If someone was looking this way, and if they somehow knew we were coming to America, how long do you think it would take them to wonder who the Irish and English couples were, arriving with their son and daughter and grandkids? And in a place like this, for god’s sake,” he said, hands picking out an eagle as it soared high above in the sky.
They got back into the van, both thinking through it all, Phelan driving. They made the return journey in silence back to the ranch––a place that had become home so quickly but now might have to be left behind.
In London, news of the murder of two lottery employees had been circulating, the information falling onto the desk of Alex at MI6, only because of his interest in that particular organisation. He called over to Anissa, who joined him immediately. Once they’d both read through the report, they looked at each other.
“Do you suspect it’s them?” Anissa said.
“Hard to say, but we can’t rule it out. Police are more concerned about the victim’s husband. They were both found dead in the male victim’s own home, not far from the offices they shared. CCTV reports they left late, the camera images from inside were quite revealing. So the police are looking along the lines of a jealous husband who’d found out about the affair.”
“But you can't be sure?”
“I think it’s highly likely someone was sent to find out information about the person who claimed that prize.”
“Can we not go to them now and get this information? The murder angle has surely got to allow us access to the information we’ve been denied so far? It could have something to do with the murder, for all they know.”
“Good point. Let’s do that. If we can find out who it was, we might discover what the Russians did––assuming it was them that made the hit––and assuming that they even managed to glean any information before shooting them both. Also,” he added, on the way to the door already, but turning to one of the technicians working at the desk next to the door, “dig into the husband the police are looking at so that we can be certain it wasn’t just a revenge killing. Make sure his story matches. There would be no point us pursuing anything with the lottery if it just turns out to be a domestic.”
In Paris, the three-man team who had just made the kill in London were sitting waiting for further information. Following the hit, they’d fled that night to France, catching the train which brought them to the centre of the capital. They’d instructed their team of technical experts to focus in on America.
The results came through as they sat at a street side café across the road from a park.
“Entry made on a shop’s database of Irish/English family arriving. No names but it’s three generations.”
“Show me,” the team leader said, looking at the information before him, which said all that he’d just been told, only adding the name Savage, Montana. He opened up Google, tapping the name into the maps page. A small town was shown next to a river, in the far eastern edge of the State. He pointed at the screen with his finger. “We have a location, guys.” He pulled out his mobile phone, calling his boss, connecting after three rings.
“What?” Dmitry Sokoloff snapped, his temper worsening by the day––especially when there seemed little progress made.
“We have a location. Eastern Montana, a small town named Savage. Three generations of Irish/English reported new to town.”
Dmitry sat up in his chair, aware of the lifeline now thrown to him. “Very good. Can you get there right away?” It wasn’t as much a question as it was him pleading with them to get moving.
“We’ll be on the next flight out of Charles de Gaulle today.”
“Very good. If you need any help over there, you know who to ask. I’ll leave this in your capable hands.”
“Thank you,” the leader of the team said as the call ended. The man sitting next to him at the café was already searching for tickets for flights to America that day. There was a flight leaving within the hour that had one stop in Seattle before a connection to Billings airport, the main airport coming up on the search results for trips to Montana. That would get them in just before midnight that same day, the flight time long but they were saving hours by travelling west.
Looking at the map on the screen, Savage would be about a four-hour drive from the airport, especially if they tackled it right after landing, though the seventeen-hour flight, and late landing might make that option somewhat undesirable.
The map showed a small airport about half an hour north of Savage which connected to the town via one road. There were four flights a day between Billings and that smaller airport, named Sydney-Richland Airport, though the latest of these left at half five in the afternoon. The first departure out would be at eight the following morning and would take about an hour.
“Very good,” the leader said, “get us tickets for that Paris flight right away,” the price a real premium for such short notice, but money had never been a thing his team needed to worry about––it were results that their boss was looking for most. “We can discuss what to do when we land. I guess we won’t be able to hire a vehicle until the morning, so maybe a night’s sleep and that morning flight to the east of the state would work best.”
The third member of the trio got up, going to the counter inside the café, dropping the required euros onto the worktop once the amount was shown, before returning to the table, where they all put their jackets on and their computers away. Three tickets had been purchased, their online clearance for entering America sorted out ahead of the inevitable questions they would face once at the airport in Paris.
They left the van where it was, parked in a multi-storey car park in the centre of town. They then jumped on the metro which had an entrance right next to where they had been waiting, and after a few stops were pulling into Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, in a hurry to catch that afternoon’s flight to Seattle.
28
In London the same evening that Alex had been notified about the double murder, he was leaving the lottery HQ offices with Anissa, the warrant finally issued that afternoon giving them access to all the information they demanded. The warrant had been general––nothing specific, no mention of the British security service––but whatever assumptions the folks at the lottery might make, it had worked.
The fact that the murdered pair were a couple was widely known. It became clear after speaking with just two colleagues that the supposedly secret affair was a subject of office gossip, though no one had tried to interfere. They were all aware that the lady, a person solely responsible for working with those that were claiming large amounts in prize money, was married.
When Anissa had requested information on the previous week’s winner, there was only a momentary pause as the warrant was still lying on the table, giving them the backing they needed.
The two
agents walked out of the offices of the lottery HQ in London with everything that there was on record about Phelan McDermott, which besides a few essential details, wasn’t that much. Winners who wanted to keep their identities secret, after all, weren’t about to give more information than was necessary to the representative asking them the questions. They confirmed that the money had been initially wired to an account in Zurich. Beyond that, they couldn’t tell. Getting a Swiss bank to divulge that information was next to impossible. It didn’t matter––they did have a name now, and for those within MI6, that was an important start.
They drove back to the office, hoping to get at least an hour’s work in before the day was out. They were now wondering whether the lady––the murder victim in the home of the man she was having an affair with––had given up the information they were now confident the Russians had been after.
Having looked at the domestic angle, it didn’t make sense. The widower had been alarmed and shamed to have found out where his wife died, his reaction to hearing the news showing that he didn’t have any idea what had been going on. He said they’d had a happy marriage, or so he had thought. He was genuinely shocked. He didn’t match the profile of someone who could have pulled this off, and he had a rock solid alibi for the time during the killing.
An off the record search had been done on the family bank account. There were no significant payments made to anyone, no hint that cash had been withdrawn that might have been used to hire a hit man. Nothing about the man suggested in any way that he had anything to do with it. For the police, this caused them a problem, as it would get added to the growing list of cases for which they didn’t have an answer.
For Alex and Anissa, it pointed solely at the Russians, their involvement in the crime and the nature of their own ongoing investigation meaning they would have to keep this knowledge from the plods, for the time being. At a later point, they could be brought up to speed, and maybe those responsible would have been identified by then, too.
