“I can’t stop, however tempting. I hardly slept a wink last night. I could so easily fall into bed right this minute.”
“Now that’s sounds like right up my street,” Hattie said, starting to undo his tie.
“It’s eleven in the morning, the boys are at school and I was only about to do yet more washing. Distract me, my Detective Inspector.
“Hatts, I’d love to, I really would, but I have to get back to the office. I’m only supposed to be here to grab a quick shower, shave and change of clothing before heading back to the mayhem.”
“Are you sure I can’t tempt you?” she said, rubbing her body against his. ‘You do look very poorly. You should call in sick.”
“I mustn’t,” he said ruefully.
“So, no time for a quick coffee before you go?” she asked him.
“Well now,” he said smiling, “is the rabbi Jewish?” and with that, headed off to take his shower.
“How’s school?” Zeltinger asked. He was freshly shaved and laundered and sitting at the kitchen table nursing a mug of coffee.
“Fine. Nate got into a fight yesterday. Apparently it was nothing serious and his teacher told me that it was all brought under control quickly. Zach has decided he wants to be a footballer when he grows up. Apart from that, nothing much has changed.”
“How about you?” he said, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said, fiddling with one of the large buttons on the front of her cardigan. “Just a bit bored, if I’m honest. I have been thinking about going back to my old teaching job. They’ll have me back part-time, I’ve asked. That could work, couldn’t it, Darling?”
Zeltinger was very conservative, quite the traditionalist, especially ever since Hattie had given birth to twins. But he knew that Hattie had loved being a nursery school teacher and that she missed her working life considerably.
“If that’s what you want, Darling. Let’s discuss this later, if that’s okay? I’m exhausted and I don’t want to say the wrong thing.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ve asked Ben Lewis round for a game of chess tomorrow evening, by the way. I said he could join us for supper, if that’s all right?”
“Isn’t he the one who took you on that wild goose chase to Switzerland recently?”
“That’s him. He also, and I probably oughtn’t be telling you this, was the person who single-handedly foiled the attempted beheading outside Westminster Cathedral yesterday. I actually quite like him. He’s meant to be a pretty good chess player.”
“Is he good looking?”
“He’s a former Marine. You know, all muscles and withering looks.”
“I shall very much look forward to meeting him, then! I might get my hair done especially.”
Zeltinger knew she was teasing him and pretended not to be taken in. Looking at his watch, he finished his coffee in one gulp.
“I must go. I’ll try my hardest to be home early. Give my love to the boys. Please thank them for the paintings.”
12
“When you make a lot of money, you find that, along the way, you also tend to make a lot of enemies.”
“I can believe that.” Lewis studies the chessboard for a few seconds before taking Nemikov’s white knight with his bishop. “What about friends?”
“Rich people rarely have true friends, Ben. Most so-called friends are scroungers and bottom feeders, tagging along for the ride to feed off any scraps that fall.”
“Who or what exactly are you most fearful of at the present time?”
Nemikov once more steeples his fingers together under his nose and contemplates the chess game.
“Well, for one thing, I fear I am about to lose this game to you, Ben.”
He moves his queen to b3. It is a defensive move, designed to protect his one remaining knight. It is a weak play and both he and Lewis know it.
“Actually it is the Russians who have the most to gain by my death and financial demise. They view me as a Ukrainian interloper, someone who has deprived them of what they see as their God-given right to earn a decent living from their fellow Russians. I am a thief and a renegade, someone who in their eyes needs to be punished.”
“Anyone in particular?” Lewis moves his own queen diagonally across the board and positions it adjacent to a white bishop.
“There is one individual in particular who’d like to see me get my come-uppance, as you English like to say. He used to be my business partner. A certain Muscovite named Viktor Plushenko. Viktor would love nothing more than to see my life in tatters, if not ended rapidly. Probably both, knowing him.”
“Is the feeling mutual?” Lewis asks.
“That’s a smart question,” Nemikov answers, moving his queen two squares to his left so as to put him in an attacking position on Lewis’s rook in the corner. Nemikov sighs, looking at Lewis as if wondering how much to tell him.
“Viktor and I have done some crazy things together in our time, both as business partners and more recently as adversaries. Sure, there are times when we may have both wished each other dead. Perhaps more than wished. Nowadays I prefer to outsmart him. I enjoy seeing the pain in his eyes when I am doing better than him. That gives me more pleasure than would staring at his lifeless body in a coffin.”
“What makes you think you are more at risk right now? What’s happened to inflame the situation?”
“Sanctions have happened, Ben. There are some seriously pissed off people in Russia currently. A small number have had access to their money, their freedom of movement, their ability to make money, all severely curtailed. From the Russian President downwards, there is anger brewing. They see this crazy Ukrainian doing deals here and there, winning contracts they would like to have had. I was awarded a big gas pipeline concession recently. It is going to make me lots and lots of money. Viktor was unable to participate and that will have made him really angry. The Russian bear has woken and is in a severe mood. Suddenly I am the Bad Boy that it sees in its sights.”
Lewis studies the chess pieces in quiet contemplation. He peers up at Nemikov, a half smile on his lips.
“My apologies,” is all he says before moving his bishop to d2. “Checkmate.”
Nemikov stares at the board for a few seconds. He then shakes his head, smiles, and reaches across the table to shake Lewis’s hand.
“You beat me fair and square, Ben. You’re good.”
“Sometimes by losing one battle you learn a new way to win the war.”
Nemikov stands up and walks over to the window.
“That is very profound, Ben.”
The Sikorsky rotors are turning, the two pilots in the cockpit preparing for the short trip to Luton airfield. He turns and looks Lewis directly in the eyes.
“Come and work with me, Ben. I would love you on my team, helping to protect my family and me. I can make you a wealthy man.”
“What about Fedorov? How is he going to react to having a British interloper appear on the scene?”
“Sergei? He’s been with me for years. He’ll do as he’s told and accept it. What did you make of him, by the way?”
He continues fixing Lewis with a stare that, even across the room, is penetrating.
Lewis hesitates before replying. Then he too stands up and walks across the room towards Nemikov. Reaching behind his back, beneath his jacket and shirt, he moves his hand into the small recess at the base of his spine. Moments later, he withdraws a small knife with a retractable blade that he places in the palm of his hand.
“Fedorov looks and acts the part. However, as a security guard he needs to be a lot more thorough. He searched me earlier and missed this. If I’d wanted to, by now you would be dead and I would be long gone.”
Lewis puts the knife back in his rear waistband and adjusts the belt on his
trousers.
Nemikov closes his eyes and shakes his head from side to side, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers as he takes this in.
“I shall have to speak to Sergei,” he says eventually.
“You should let me do it. If you speak to him, then my relationship with him is forever going to be toast.”
“Perhaps. Let me think about that. Meanwhile, come with me. I want to show you something.” He leads the way out of the room but this time heading towards a small door set to one side.
The fish is nibbling the bait. All that remains is for Nemikov to reel it in.
Nemikov’s study is spacious, light and has views that draw the eye on a journey: down through rolling green lawns bordered by chestnut trees, and across to a private lake in the middle distance.
“This is my special place. No one comes here but me. Now,” he waves his hand towards the lake, “you can perhaps understand why I love it here so much.” They are sitting at chairs around a big round table made of solid oak. Nemikov has a photograph album on the table next to him.
“I’d like to take some time to introduce my family to you, Ben.” He opens the album and starts to turn the pages. “Firstly, my wife, Valentyna, whom you have just met. She is the only woman I have ever married and I love her dearly. She is an independent lady. By training she is, just as our daughter Olena soon hopes to be, a qualified doctor. We lead separate but connected lives. Our principal points of connection other than our children are our house here; our main residence in London; the yacht that we keep fuelled and ready to sail at a moment’s notice in the Mediterranean; and several other properties mainly across Europe, that we visit from time to time. People have tried, and continue to try, to get to me through her; sometimes through coercion and sometime via the bedroom, if we can speak frankly?”
Lewis nods but says nothing, unsure where this is all heading.
“Valentyna is a beautiful woman. You have seen the charm she possesses. No one can be a saint all the time. Despite the occasional affair that I know she has had, I trust her with my life and respect her independence.”
“That sounds a challenge, from a security point of view.”
“Perhaps, but she always has one of Sergei’s team with her the whole time. As much as possible, that is. Being a Nemikov is a risky business, which is why I have taken certain precautions that I’d like to share with you in a moment.”
He turns the pages in the album and stops a short while later.
“Now, this is my daughter, Olena. You can see, she looks a lot like her mother.”
Lewis stares at the photographs and marvels at the similarity between Valentyna and her daughter. He can feel Nemikov look at him.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Very. You are a lucky father. How old?”
“Twenty-five next March. You and she could make a perfect couple.”
Lewis chooses to ignore the comment.
“Where is she training to be a doctor?” Lewis knows the answer to this from his earlier briefing with Jake Sullivan but wants to hear it from Nemikov himself.
“Cambridge. She’s due to qualify next summer.”
“Boyfriends?”
“None that I know of.”
“You mentioned that you had a son as well. What’s he doing and where?”
Nemikov turns another page of the album and photos of a younger version of himself but with long scraggy black hair stares back at them.
“Borys is also at Cambridge, in his final year as an undergraduate Law student at Christ’s College.”
“Girlfriends?”
“Nothing serious.”
“Do they get on, as brother and sister?”
“For the moment, yes. They share a large duplex apartment right in the very centre of the city. Sergei has a member of his team who lives with them permanently.”
“Close protection work with students is exceptionally hard. The whole university environment poses massive security risks.” Lewis leafs through the pages committing their faces to memory. After a while, he closes the album and looks at Nemikov. “So, what about yourself? What do you do and where do you go to do it?”
“Me? I am constantly on the move and very difficult to pin down. I have the Sikorsky, a private jet, various cars and drivers at my exclusive disposal dotted around the world. My usual office is located at our Kensington house. I have a very efficient secretary who runs both my diary and plans my trips with meticulous care. Normally I have Sergei as my personal protection, but that can, and does, change from time to time.”
“So what job would you like me to do that isn’t already being covered by your own team?”
“Olena and Borys are my Achilles heel, Ben. I may at times be a cold and ruthless bastard. However, if anything were to happen to either of them, I would cave in the moment I was put under pressure. I’d do anything to protect them, including paying money: even offering my own life in exchange for theirs.”
“The current arrangements aren’t good enough, is that it?”
“However much I try to protect my family, the current arrangements can never be fool-proof. It’s for that reason that I’ve recently put certain procedures in place that I hope will help. No one other than Valentyna, Olena, Borys and my Swiss lawyer, Rudi, know anything about any of this. Not even Fedorov. I am taking a risk telling you. If I am to earn your trust, though, and ask you to help in protecting my family, I owe it to you to tell you what I’ve done and why.”
He pauses, his fingers once more steepled under his nose whilst he composes his thoughts.
“Let’s talk about money for a moment. I never know the precise amounts and in any event, it hardly matters. Conservatively, having paid off all outstanding debts, I probably have amassed perhaps over fifteen billion US Dollars worth of assets to my name, give or take some. A lot of this is tied up in property and shares of various companies that I have invested in. Stripping all that out, there is perhaps well over eight and a half billion dollars in both cash and near cash assets scattered amongst various banks and investment institutions around the world.”
If Lewis looks surprised, he keeps it well hidden.
“I employ a small, close-knit team in a tiny private bank based in Zurich to look after my private office. They manage this portfolio of cash and liquid investments and help me move money around the world as, and when, required. The lead banker there is a lawyer called Rudi Hildebrandt. Hildebrandt is one hundred per cent discreet and one hundred per cent reliable. I trust him with my money and thus, by default, I entrust him with my life.”
He pauses to see if Lewis has any questions, then carries on.
“A couple of weeks ago, just after I had officially been awarded the contract to build the new gas pipeline that Plushenko so coveted, it began to dawn on me that I needed to do something to protect my wife and family from certain jealous and aggrieved parties. Together with Rudi Hildebrandt, we concocted a scheme of arrangement: if I was to die or disappear, assumed kidnapped or otherwise coerced, then all my assets would immediately be frozen. The only people able to allow this freezing order to be unblocked would be the combined agreement of my wife, Olena and Borys. All three have each been given a unique code that they have committed to memory. They have also sworn that they will, under no circumstances, reveal their code to anyone, especially not to each other. The arrangement requires that Hildebrandt has to be given each of the three codes before he is able to release any of the Nemikov assets from the freezing order.”
“Your logic being,” Lewis says, beginning to understand the reasons behind the complexity, “that by giving your wife and children these codes, it should guarantee their lives in the event of you being killed or captured.”
“Correct.”
“Is that really a possibility?”
Nemikov stares at Lewis and decides to say something more.
“I think it is more than a possibility. You see, Ben, I am currently negotiating a game-changing deal with the new cash-starved government in Ukraine. The proposal is that I provide them with several billions of dollars of much-needed cash. In return, they grant me exclusive rights to various Ukrainian oil and mineral concessions. If this deal goes ahead, it will completely alter the balance of power that Russia believes it currently has over the Ukrainian people. I know this because my spies tell me that word has already started to filter back to Moscow. They are, perhaps understandably, becoming extremely anxious. You asked me about the possibility that Moscow will try and kill me? I don’t think it is a possibility any more. I think it is almost a certainty.”
13
Rafiq Virenque had led a troubled life from an early age. His father had been an Algerian who had had a casual affair with the woman who became his mother, Nadine. The Algerian had fled back home to North Africa as soon as he learned that Nadine had become pregnant. Virenque and he had, therefore, never met. Nadine had raised her son as best she could as a single parent struggling to make ends meet. They lived in Marseilles in a small apartment in a rough neighbourhood. The majority of residents had been either North African or, like Virenque, of mixed race. Whilst his mother had worked in a local supermarket, young Virenque, at the age of eight, had been doing his best to skip school. Rather than attend class, he had instead joined the street gangs that had roamed the streets, in particular picking the pockets of unsuspecting tourists. In his teens, he had dropped out of school altogether, becoming ensnared by drugs: initially as a user; and latterly as a small time crack dealer.
The day he had grown up and realised that he had been wasting his life was the day his mother had been killed by a drunk driver in a hit and run incident. Suddenly he had been on his own in a very dangerous and scary world. It had been a wake-up call. He had resolved there and then that he would try and do something positive with his life that would have made his mother proud. Absent any academic qualifications and otherwise at a loss to know what this might be, he had decided to enrol with the French Foreign Legion. It was a decision from which he never looked back.
The Gambit (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 2) Page 6
