by Tim Heath
At that moment, Putin seemed more dangerous than ever. Not only had he obviously known about what the Deputy Director General of MI6 was doing, but Putin had also made a personal visit to prove the point.
There were now a few others in the club as Price struggled to put on his jacket. He’d been there a total of only about thirty minutes, though with his head spinning from the whisky, and his world rocked by what had just taken place, it could have been much longer. It certainly felt it.
There was no sign of Kaminski when he got to street level––why would there have been, seeing as the Russian had left in a hurry some five or so minutes before––but his time and spacial awareness were entirely absent as he clumsily and slowly made his way down the street.
As he passed an alley, not twenty metres from the front door of Duke’s, two men approached him from behind. He was manhandled into the alley, the British MI6 man unable to really do anything about the hands holding him firmly, especially given his reduced awareness and control because of his drunkenness.
One of the men slipped a needle into his neck, plunging in the liquid that would kill Thomas quickly, and peacefully, his body going limp almost immediately, the two men lowering him to the ground, before exiting out of the alley.
It was three hours later––the same two men about to board a flight leaving the UK from Heathrow––when they called the man they were working for.
“Is it done?” the voice at the other end of the line asked.
“It’s done, sir.” The phone went dead, the handset taken to pieces and left in a rubbish bin at the airport, as final boarding to Moscow was announced. They were up and away just twenty-five minutes later.
The evening function had been an expensive affair, all the stops pulled out for what was a once in a lifetime occasion. Abramovich had himself often visited Putin in Moscow––he’d given him a $35 million yacht a few years before––but this was his first time with him in the UK. Putin was looking for new financiers, something Roman had always been a little reticent to be. Gifts were one thing, actually being the one to finance an election campaign felt like something else. He declined to give Putin an answer straight away, much to the President’s apparent annoyance. He was running out of options fast.
The convoy left the property at ten––a little later than planned. The convoy approached the airport, the Russians cleared through and were quickly on-board. Air traffic control confirmed they were free to go, the huge aircraft lifting to the skies just after eleven, heading straight for Moscow, where it would arrive in the early hours of the following day.
Getting the confirmation that the flight was in the air, a collective breath was let out in the MI6 offices. The day had ended without a glitch on their watch. Noticeable by his absence was Thomas Price, who hadn’t been seen at Vauxhall House all afternoon.
23
It was the following morning before the call came through to MI6 about the body of Thomas Price being found. Alex and Anissa immediately went to the reported location––everything had been taken away by then, but they needed to see where it had all happened.
It had been around half past three the previous day when a couple walking past the alley had first seen what they thought was a homeless man just lying on the ground before they approached to take a closer look. The man on the floor was clearly well dressed, and he smelt of alcohol. They were going to just leave him to sleep off his drunken state, but there was something about how he was positioned that made the man take a closer look, much to his wife’s initial caution.
He had found no pulse once the body was turned onto its side, and they had called an ambulance. That arrived, along with a police car, just ten minutes later. Because of the government offices in the area, two other police cars came to help in what might be more than only a fall.
He had been pronounced dead as soon as the medical team got a closer look, the police taking a statement from the couple as another officer taped off the entrance to the alleyway. Significantly, there were no identification papers on the body––Price had long made a point of leaving all that at the office when visiting Duke’s, his bill paid through an eTab, his other identification papers not needed, as everything was done on facial recognition. Besides, he was a regular, those that needed to know who he was already did.
The body had been taken away to the nearest hospital at five––ninety minutes after it was discovered––where a full autopsy would be carried out to determine the cause of death. There appeared to be no impact to the head, which would have been the apparent result of a fall given his intoxicated nature, so that raised its own questions as to what had happened. They hoped to have the lab results back by the morning.
At six, coming to the end of their shift, two officers had returned to the street where the body was found, a photo of the victim in hand. They had wanted to try and see if any of the nearby offices and pubs knew anything. He’d been clearly drinking, so it made sense to speak to these first, plus most of the offices would be closing soon, if not already. There were a few pubs and restaurants in that square mile of London, plus some clubs.
They’d called at Duke’s almost straight away, not getting anywhere further than the two men on the door, who barely looked at the photo before denying they recognised him. The police had moved on to the next option a little further down the street. Inside Duke’s, a message was relayed upstairs about what they’d just been asked.
It was eight-thirty that evening––at the same time that Putin was arriving at Roman Abramovich’s home––when the barman from Duke’s had sneaked out of the back door and met the two officers by their car.
“I know who your man was,” he had said, the bouncers on the door having reported that the man in question was a stiff. “His name is Thomas Price.”
“How do you know who he was?”
“He was a regular.”
“Where?”
“Can’t say. Look, I’ve given you his name, you’ll be able to find out who he is from that, I’m sure.”
“Can we take your name?”
He looked at them as if they thought he was stupid. “I’ve said all I’m prepared to. I’m sorry to have heard he’s dead,” and he turned and ran the other way––away from Duke’s––in case they would try and follow. When he was sure they hadn’t, he doubled back twenty minutes later and sneaked in through the rear door, his break over, the evening crowd starting to arrive.
The officers had noted down the name. It was getting late, their shift was ending, so while they would make mention of the name they’d just been given, it would actually be the same two officers who would cross-check the name against the police database only the following morning after Putin had flown home.
That check happened just after eight. The body was identified as the high profile Deputy Director General of MI6–– there were no further details for security purposes––and the report got flagged and immediately sent upstairs. Within ten minutes the identity of the victim had been confirmed. A full investigation into a potential act of terrorism was set up. A call was made to MI6 to confirm what they’d just found out. They were waiting for the post-mortem results, which would be copied over to MI6 as soon as they had them.
Alex read the report from the police once more as they got out of the car, the blue and white crime scene tape flapping in the slight breeze across the alleyway.
“I guess that it’s a local barman who knew the DDG. He called him a regular.”
“That could mean anything. Massage, squash courts, doctors.” Alex waved his hand theatrically around the area.
“Do you see many of those around, Anissa?” he said, a smile on his face. Besides some visible office buildings, there were only a few pubs and clubs visible.
“I guess not––though you never know.”
“It says here there was a strong smell of alcohol.”
“Well, the toxicology report will confirm all that.”
“What I want to know is, why he was her
e? I mean, yesterday of all days, we were in the middle of one of the busiest operations we’ve had in a while, the visit in full flow, yet at some point in the afternoon, the DDG leaves to come here?”
They’d checked with the front desk. Though Price had never signed out with his card from Vauxhall House––a big no-no and something Price himself had screamed at juniors in the past for failing to do––he was spotted on the CCTV leaving just after midday. The body was found about a mile from the office––easily walkable––though it did beg the question as to whether he’d been attacked en route to somewhere, that he’d therefore just been passing through that area heading towards somewhere else?
And yet, an unknown local barman had named the victim.
Price was local, therefore, to that specific area. If they could locate the barman in question, maybe they could get some answers.
They were at the crime scene––beside the police tape, there was nothing else that suggested anything untoward had happened there––when the report came back from the autopsy. Blood alcohol level was high––that much they already knew––but not excessive. He had been restrained when his heart had stopped, and an impact wound in his neck suggested that a needle had been used to inject the fluid to kill him.
This was a professional job, he’d been murdered.
Time of death was a little harder to determine––clearly he’d died almost instantly, the type of drugs used lethal by design––and the temperature of the body when it had arrived for examination suggested a window of three to five hours before the autopsy when the death could have occurred. That gave a probable time of death of between twelve and half two the previous day.
CCTV footage from Vauxhall House showed him leaving at just before midday, his car was still in its parking space. No suitable public transport went where he was going so he must have had time to walk about a mile and down a few drinks. That pushed the time of death nearer two thirty. Clearly by half three, when the call for an ambulance was made by the concerned couple, he was already long dead.
There were no cameras in the alleyway or that part of the street––which was frustrating and annoying, given how much of the city was wired for video. Most of the establishments were yet to open––it was morning, and these places tended to start taking in crowds from lunchtime onwards, but mostly came alive in the evenings––so there seemed little the two agents could really find out.
The barman, whoever he was, had clearly been cautious about giving out the information on Price and didn’t want to be put on record as having done so. That puzzled Anissa as they walked around, though there was nowhere they were really going. She pondered the situation a little, trying to work out why the barman had wanted––maybe needed––to stay so secretive? Who was he afraid of? What did he know?
They headed back to the office––the building on alert, but mainly in shock. No one at Vauxhall House really felt they were personally under threat, and a quiet group murmured amongst themselves that because of how their now former DDG treated people, it wasn’t a surprise something like that had happened. There was a noticeable shock that it had––but they would have been mourning far more if it had happened to almost anyone else they worked with.
Now just the two of them again, coffee in hand and a pastry each before them, both purchased in the building’s canteen, Alex and Anissa sat in their own office, talking it through. Because of what they knew about Thomas Price and his connection to Russia––something they had not told anyone else, besides Gordon who’d worked the technical angle a few times––it brought the whole Russian connection into suspicion.
Price had been meeting covertly with Kaminski, seemingly part of a small British-based plan to get the Russian elected President. Had Kaminski done this––not personally, probably, these men never did––but had their relationship broken down? Was he trying to make a statement, the killing happening on the same day Putin was in town?
Putin––and Anissa stopped dead in her seat at that thought.
“What is it?” Alex said. He knew that look.
“Jesus, where is it?” Anissa said, scrambling through the reports on her desk, finally finding whatever it was she was looking for. “We lost his convoy for twenty minutes yesterday.”
“Whose? Putin’s?” and Alex was laughing at the thought, though Anissa remained deadly serious.
“Here,” she said, “between 12:05 and 12:25.”
“He was on his way to Downing Street.”
“A journey that takes thirty minutes max if you take any of the direct routes from where he’d just been, and he left there at midday.”
“But he obviously got lost. Besides, Price was killed after that.” But he was starting to buy into Anissa’s idea. What they knew of the man––which wasn’t much, but they knew plenty of men like him––anything was possible.
As far as they could tell, there was no connection between Putin and Price. Only the Director General himself had been introduced to the Russian President, which had been back in his 2003 visit. If there had been any informal meetings since then, they were unaware of them.
Anissa pulled open a map of London on her computer. She dropped a pin at where they first lost contact with the convoy––they hadn’t had any visual contact for some time, just relying on trackers, which had stopped working for those twenty minutes––and then another pin at the point when a signal was received again. There were three miles between the two marks. Three miles in twenty minutes? It was possible, given traffic. With other routes closed off––routes they had assumed the convoy would pass through, and therefore kept clear––the areas around the side had taken the strain. If he’d been lost and caught in that traffic, it was possible that the two points on the map made sense.
But why go that way? There was really one main street between the two points on the map. Where Price’s body was found, was something like another mile to the west of that road––some diversion.
“I don’t know,” Anissa said, throwing her hands into the air. “Is it possible? Maybe. Do I think Putin was involved in the murder? No frigging idea.”
“I’ll speak with Sasha. Putin’s men must have had mobile phones on them during their trip. I’ll see if he has an easy way of getting that cellphone data.”
“He doesn’t need to––plus if he tried, that would only put him in danger. He just needs to get us the phone numbers, and we can then check it out ourselves. They would have used British-based networks. We can see what signals were picked up during that time, once we have the numbers.”
Alex was already typing a message to Sasha.
24
It was two days later before Sasha had been able to send through the details that Alex had requested, most of the numbers finally obtained for Putin’s inner security detachment. He’d managed to get the information without exposing who he was or why he was collecting it. He sent it all across to Alex via their ongoing email draft thread.
“Gordon,” Alex called, having gone to find the head of technical services, “I need you to map out the path of a series of mobiles. They should have all been on the same route, so once you have one back, it should tell us what we need to know. Is this something you can do?”
“How long ago are you talking?” If the information was too old, it might not still be readily available with the networks.
“It’s recent. Last week or so.” He didn’t want to say anything about the source numbers––or the reason he was looking into where they had been––at that moment. There was still a thorough investigation going on, in collaboration with the police, into the death of Thomas Price. Because of his position, it was being treated as highly suspicious.
“Fine, leave it with me.” The numbers were obviously Russian, that much was clear to him as he went off to get the process started.
Alex went back to join Anissa. She’d been trying to find out the latest from St Petersburg––she couldn’t help but feel responsible for Josée still being locked up ther
e, now awaiting trial herself––though getting news was proving harder to come by than she had thought. The French lawyer, maybe blaming Anissa in some way for the current situation, wasn’t being as responsive as she’d been in the months before the original trial.
When Anissa finally did hear, things were reportedly still in limbo, and no date had yet been set, though the lawyer expected it to be in the next month or so. The lawyer then said she would let Anissa know as soon as she did––which Anissa doubted would be the case given her tone––and they ended the call.
Anissa updated Alex, who was by that point already standing next to her when she had finished speaking with the lawyer, before allowing Alex to fill her in on what Gordon had thought.
Now they just had to wait for information––doing nothing, not something that came naturally to either agent––so they instead started sifting through a pile of work that had been building up on their desks for the last few weeks.
It was nearly lunchtime when Gordon knocked on the door. He wore a smile––which was instantly a good sign––together with his woollen jumper and his always a few seasons out-of-fashion glasses.
“I’ve been able to track all the numbers you gave me. They were in London last week.” He didn’t need to say any more; it was clear they all now knew these were the mobile devices in possession of the Putin party during his visit. “Aside from a period of silence, all the devices were operational from first being switched on,” and Gordon pointed to a paper map he’d been opening on the table as he spoke, “here at Stansted Airport, until all the devices left from the same location in the evening.”
“You said there was a period of silence?” Anissa said though she feared she already knew what this would show.
“Yes. All the devices at the same time––which is strange, though not impossible. But for such a long time, and considering there was obvious movement during that period, it is unusual that no other radio mast had picked them up before then. I mean, for there to be that much blackout and for so long within London, is a little surprising.”
