by Tim Heath
“So it’s possible that the signal just dropped?”
“In London, it’s possible in some patches that a signal might drop, yes. If a device is at an equal distance between two masts, then the signal can fluctuate between the two. When passing a tall building––or going under a tunnel that hasn’t yet been updated with the latest technology that allows radio waves and phone signals to continue––then dropout does still occur.” There was something in his tone that told them both he was keeping something back.
“But you don’t think that happened in this case?” Alex said.
“No, almost certainly not. This route,” and he made a line with his finger on the second map he’d opened––a more detailed map of Greater London––marking the space between the two points the mobile devices had radio silence, “has no tunnels, and the high tower-blocks are some way off. I also confirmed with British Telecom, only one radio mast services that area.”
“So what caused the dropout?”
“It wasn’t anything external, I’m almost certain. I suspect a cell phone jammer was deployed, taking out all their mobile devices at the same moment––more efficient than each being switched off simultaneously. We are talking eight separate devices here, after all.”
“Is there any way that we can work out what route they took? Try to fill in the missing section?”
“I’ve had a thought about that,” Gordon said, which didn’t surprise them. Having worked out what they were looking for, his own natural interest then took over, and he dug as much as he could. “The challenge is there are multiple route options.” It was like a coin drop game, no two paths were ever the same. “I did study their average speed both before losing the signal and then just after. Before the blackout, they’d been moving at around thirty-five miles an hour for the previous fifteen minutes, though some of that was on the motorway. After we pick up the signal again, they do an average of twenty-six miles an hour for the next ten. Even at this lower speed, they would have covered the section of radio blackout with about eight minutes to spare.”
“So they didn’t take a direct route?”
“That, or they stopped off somewhere.”
“Would it have been possible that they went near the place Price was found?” Alex didn’t need to say the specifics, nor really ask the question. He could tell that Gordon had not only asked himself that question, but had most probably already mapped out the diversion that would have taken the convoy to where the DDG’s body had been found, and then on to where the signal was next seen.
“It’s possible, yes. Even at thirty-eight miles an hour average––which is doable in these type of sides streets––there would have been time to get there and back.” So he had indeed looked into it as Alex suspected, though his face suggested then he was about to throw a spanner in the works. “The only thing is, the timing doesn’t work. Price would have still been alive when the signal came back on unless we got the time of death wrong?”
“No, that’s as accurate as we can guess. We have Price on our own CCTV leaving on foot at around midday. Even if he ran––he was far from a runner, plus he was in business attire––he’d not have made it in time.”
“And there are no CCTV images from the various streets the convoy might have used to give us a hint of where they went?” Alex said.
“No, and I’ve checked. Plenty of cameras, all temporarily offline at that point, most likely a wireless disruptor used that would block any camera footage.” Both Alex and Anissa looked a little defeated by this until Gordon started drawing with red spots on the London map before them all. “But I correlated each of the unusual blackouts,” he said, as he continued to make a path through the back streets––towards where Price’s body was found––on the map below, “and this is what route they took.”
“Gordon, you are a genius!” Anissa said, wanting to kiss him but she slapped him on the back instead.
They had the route. From the point the signals were lost for all the mobile phones in the convoy, to the point they were picked up again––and included with that was a significant diversion that had taken them down the exact road where Price would later be found dead.
“There’s more,” Gordon said, enjoying the obvious enthusiasm his work was being shown at that moment. “I timed the camera outages using a real-time process,” he said, using the invisibility of the apparently blinded cameras to in fact show the passing of the convoy at that moment, give or take a few seconds. “These cameras here,” and he pointed to the first dozen or so, the part of the route just after the mobile data went silent, “occur at the same average speed the convoy had been moving when we lost sight of them.” They could see where he was going with this but waited in silence as he explained further. “But these ones,” and he circled the gap between the two central cameras, which were two streets apart, “there was an eight-minute pause.”
“They stopped.”
“Exactly,” Gordon said, triumph showing right across his face.
“This is bloody excellent work, Gordon,” Alex said, breathing out in one long breath as if finally revealing some deeply buried secret. Anissa bent down and looked at the map, carefully inspecting where Gordon had drawn the circle.
“The alley where Price was found is just outside of this circle. What time did this camera go blind?” she said, tapping to the next one on the route, presumably once the convoy had started moving again.
“It was blind for around thirty seconds at twelve-twenty.” Still, that was too early given Price’s time of death.
“Might there have been an intercept before then?” Alex said, though tracing where Vauxhall House was––the route to the area that Price would have needed to take rather obvious now––the two paths didn’t cross. They were each coming from the opposite direction.
“But the fact Putin and his convoy stopped at the exact same location where we know Price was––and where he later was found dead––surely isn’t a coincidence? It’s got to be connected.”
“I’ve no doubt about that, but we still don’t have enough.”
“If you did, would you even be able to do anything with it?” Gordon said. “I mean, it’s the President of Russia. What’s he going to do, come across for questioning? It’s a huge accusation even to suggest he had any involvement.”
“But look, if this doesn’t cast doubt on his innocence, I don’t know what does?”
“Anissa, no one outside of these walls has any clue that he’s even remotely involved. We need more before taking this upstairs.” By upstairs, he meant to the Director General himself. A state-sponsored assassination––and by the Russian President himself, even if he hadn’t actually been the one to do the act––would cause an international conflict.
“More? I mean, we have his route, we have him being there what, maybe twenty minutes before Price drops dead?”
“The non-appearance on a set of CCTV cameras wouldn’t prove to any judge that he was guilty of involvement. It works for us to build an idea, but I don’t think we can prove much beyond that. Plus it was Sasha who gave us the mobile numbers.”
“I think I could have obtained them from the mobile networks here, anyway,” Gordon chipped in, “I mean, a group of Russian origin SIM cards travelling together like that would have been easy to spot. So if it comes out, you can land that one on me. I’ll say I sourced the numbers for you and used them to track the route.”
“That’s a good option, Gordon, well done,” Alex said, “but I’ve got a better idea. We need to find out what actually took place if Putin actually met with Price. Such a meeting would never have taken place on the street, and we now know where the convoy seemingly paused for eight minutes. We need to find that barman.”
“The barman who gave the police Price’s name when the body was found?”
“Exactly. He knew who the victim was. We find out who this man is, I think we find out a lot more.”
They could all see there was logic in his thinking. The info
rmation Gordon had put in front of them was good––it was an agent’s dream to be able to see where others didn’t want you to follow––but to take this on any further, to fully understand what was going on, they still needed more. Finding this barman, who presumably worked at the place where the meeting might have occurred, would give them a lot of answers. Alex grabbed his jacket.
“There’s no point waiting here any more Anissa, so let’s go, we have some canvassing to do,” and he patted Gordon on the back, before putting on his jacket, Anissa following him out through the door and down the stairs to his car.
25
It was a beautiful autumnal day in Monaco, as Matvey Filipov finished writing out in precise English a paper he’d been working on, his French just not good enough yet, despite the years he’d been living there. He mostly operated in English or Russian. The fact he lived in Monaco was merely a side issue––he did very little actual business there or in France, though it was true some of his subsidiaries did do their own selling to the region.
He called in one of his men––he always had people available to run errands, people to do his dirty work––and instructed the man to take the sealed envelope and deliver it to a particular address. The address in question was a professional translator from English to French. The man left Matvey’s office and took the document with him.
It was the following morning when the translated document was returned to Matvey. The translator––someone Matvey had used many times before when needing to word something correctly in the local language, had called him up the previous day after getting the document. It wasn’t what he usually translated. Matvey––through a few minutes of listening to the man go on and on––became very blunt. He was being paid well to do a job––so he should just get on with it, therefore, and stop wasting his time was all the Russian asked.
Taking out the translation––he had no idea if it was any good, though he could make out some of the words––Matvey saw that his warning had worked. If the translation was anything other than what he’d demanded, there would be a high and swift price to pay.
He called in another man––a different one to the day before, as it was never good to allow one employee to know too much of his own personal business dealings. He gave this man the newly translated document, to which he’d added another sheet of paper covered in handwriting and a sealed envelope, provided yet another address, this time further north, a three-hour drive in fact from where they were.
“I need you to take this straight away to this man,” Matvey indicated. The man in question was an expert forger, who specialised in handwriting and writing style. “Tell him he has three days to produce the goods, and the final product needs to be on this,” and he handed his man a standard-issue legal notepad, as was common in France.
The man left his presence, Matvey going to a window and just standing there––something he liked to do and did very often––watching the water below. The sea had always fascinated him. Large and powerful, unforgiving too, the calm of the surface not giving any hint to the great depths or hidden dangers that might lurk just below. Just like himself at that moment.
It’d been a frustrating week of little progress for Alex and Anissa, as they had exhausted their search in that part of London based on the coordinates Gordon had given them. In the three-block area––nothing was that precise in this particular part of Old London town––they’d called in on all the possible places they were aware of.
There were only two they hadn’t been allowed instant access: an Italian owned restaurant which was renowned for Mafia gatherings, and a private Gentleman’s club, the two bouncers on the door just denying them access without a warrant. MI5 had confirmed they had been watching the Italian for some time.
When a warrant was finally issued for both, they returned. The Italian was empty of all but two couples, who continued to chat, oblivious of the two agents who were having a look around.
The bar staff were all female, and Italian––when Anissa asked about a man who might have worked there they said they didn’t know him. The police report from the officer who’d spoken to the barman hadn’t placed him as being unmistakably Italian, either.
When they went across the road to Duke’s––this time with a warrant in hand which Alex held out before him––the same two bouncers who’d stopped them last time were at least a little more polite. They had seen the two agents arrive earlier to the Italian, taking in the fact that they now appeared to have a warrant which had allowed them access to that previously off-limits location, and they had then made their own guests aware.
The club was therefore empty as Alex and Anissa walked in from the stairway and through the double doors. The four patrons, who had been sitting there five minutes before, had been shown down the rear fire-escape stairway and were now nowhere near the building.
Alex looked around the room––small booths at the edges, a stage at one end, which was opposite the bar, and some sort of dance floor in the middle. The place was empty, besides one man standing behind the bar. Quite why two bouncers and a barman were needed for a place that was empty during the day beat them.
“Hello, can I help you officers?” the barman said, the word having been instantly communicated upstairs following their arrival, which explained the quietness. Neither agent bothered to produce their ID. The barman knew who they were––he at least thought they were police, which was as good as he’d get.
“Is it normally this quiet in here?” There were three dirty cups on the edge of the counter which the barman was removing, dropping them into trays, presumably for cleaning later.
“Comes alive mainly in the evening.”
“This is a private members’ club, correct?” Anissa said. “Men only, too?”
“We have some women,” the barman smiled, before going serious. “Yes, it’s a private Gentleman’s club. One of the finest establishments in London.”
She didn’t doubt it, though the decor was plush, at best, and the ludicrous idea that a gentleman could possibly be someone who spent their nights watching naked women dance was always a bizarre notion to her. Her husband was a gentleman and had never seen the need to go to a strip club, which was all that place basically was, come the evenings. Cheap, slutty thrills.
“Have you ever seen this man,” Alex said, holding out a photo of Thomas Price––not in uniform, so as not to give anything away––Alex himself glancing down at the image. Anissa didn’t take her eyes off the barman.
“Can’t say I have,” he said, automatically, not having even glanced at the photo. That either meant he was not allowed to answer such questions about their clients, or he already knew why they were both there.
“Last week this man was found dead in an alley not far from here.”
“Like I said, no clue about that, guv'nor.” Suddenly he’d gone cockney on them, as he dropped the last of the dirty glasses into the tray and started hanging clean glasses upside down above the bar.
“And you didn’t hear anything last week about the incident when it happened? Didn’t see the police tape, the cars?”
“No, I probably was either working in here, or at home.” There seemed an evasiveness about him, and he avoided eye contact with Anissa the whole time.
Alex left the man his card––they could both see they weren’t getting anywhere––and went.
“He was hiding something,” Anissa said when they were outside, walking back across the street and now out of earshot of the two bouncers
“Yes, possibly. Maybe he just can’t answer questions about the place.”
“We’ve covered every possible venue that Price might have been heading to. He’d been drinking heavily for a little while. His blood alcohol count was very high at the time of his death. He’d clearly been somewhere around here. Someone in his state couldn’t have walked very far.”
“That’s assuming the murder happened where we found the body.”
“But then again, who would risk c
arrying it very far before leaving it there? It was during the day.”
“I’ve left my number,” Alex said, which he had at several places, “so we’ll just have to see if someone is willing to talk when we aren’t face to face.”
Five minutes after the two British agents left Duke’s, the barman was on his telephone. The first two guests had started to return to the building, now that the coast was once again clear.
“I just had two officers in here asking about Price,” the barman said. He retold the short account on what had happened.
“Thank you,” the accented voice said in reply, “do nothing about it at the moment. I’ll keep you posted,” and the line went dead. The barman replaced the handset, as two more guests came back in through the doors. It was as if these politicians and businessmen could sense the danger that had just been there and stayed away. Indeed, the bouncers had warned two members from entering when Alex and Anissa were still upstairs. Now they were safe again. Now they could carry on their secret little conversations––conversations the barman, and therefore those who employed the staff there––were always aware of. It was priceless information.
26
As the nights started to draw in across St Petersburg––though it was hardly night, darkness falling around five already as autumn gave way to winter––the political system in Russia was starting to heat up, at a time when outdoor temperatures were plummeting.
By mid-December, three independent voices had named themselves as standing to challenge Putin at the following year’s elections. It was big news around the world, let alone just Russia.
For British viewers, the announcement that London-based Kaminski was running for President, was met with a mixed reception. The stories from a few months before––in what had been a turbulent year for the Russian oligarch––started to resurface again after his self-nomination. Questions were raised by a few British newspapers as to whether a man who had seen his own bank collapse––leaving hundreds unemployed and tens of thousands with personal losses––could ethically be allowed to step forward at all. Where was the money coming from to put together a campaign? some said.
