“As most certainly do you, Viktor,” she said with laughter in her eyes. She was naturally very confident. Plushenko knew that most people he met for the first time were usually quite nervous in his company. Not this one.
Then, to the Russian’s surprise, she became more brazen.
“So, why don’t we cut straight to the chase? If you tell me exactly what it is that you need help with, I’ll tell you whether I am the right person for the job. Is that fair?”
Plushenko raised an eyebrow. He had been warned that Tian was special: he hadn’t quite anticipated that she would be quite so forward so early on. Undaunted, he decided to continue.
“Very well. There is a man, in a senior, very privileged, position. By reputation he is a very private person, highly unlikely to succumb to financial inducements. This man is in possession of certain information that I want. I already have certain plans in progress that should get me some, if not all that I need. However,” he paused, taking a large gulp of champagne, “I find myself in need of a little contingency – in case we run into difficulties.” He glanced at her face to see whether there was any reaction to what he was saying. Kristina remained impassive.
“Is this information solely in the man’s head or will it be on a computer somewhere?” she asked.
“Likely both. It will certainly be on a computer, but I don’t know exactly which one or what it looks like.”
“Then let me ask a different question. If it is on a computer, do you think there is a chance the man has a secure laptop? Or will the information be on some hard drive, the file server itself hidden deep inside some anonymous building somewhere?”
Plushenko thought about this before answering, in the process taking another large gulp of champagne. He reached for the bottle in the ice bucket in order to refill their glasses.
“I’ve no idea, I am sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, offering her glass for a refill. “I’ll be able to find out. If you can get me in the same vicinity as the man and his machine, I am confident that I should be able to help you find what you are looking for.”
35
Time seems to stand still, Lewis taking stock of several things at once.
The taxi is heading southwards down Park Lane. The road is wide, an urban four-lane carriageway, the traffic moderately busy. The speed of the taxi is at, or close to, the maximum permitted of forty miles an hour. Too fast, if Lewis had been thinking about getting Olena to jump out whilst it was moving. In any event, the doors are locked on both sides. Another light, this one red, next to each door handle indicates that the locking mechanism is activated. The lock will only release when the driver pulls to a halt and engages the hand brake. For the time being, both Lewis and Olena are trapped, unable to get out of either door.
The rear passenger compartment has a glass partition that separates it from the driver’s cabin. In the middle, a glass panel can be slid opened or closed by the driver: currently this is closed. Lewis looks once more at the man behind the wheel. He is wearing a cloth cap and gloves on both hands. The last time, when he had left Panich for dead, the Russian had suffered a serious gunshot wound to his right elbow. Assuming that the taxi driver is Panich, he would almost certainly be using a prosthetic right arm. From Lewis’s current position, directly behind the driver’s seat, the gloves prevent Lewis from being able to tell.
On either side, the windows are electrically operated. An override switch will exist, located in the front of the cab: most likely on the driver’s side door panel, next to his right hand. The electric windows give Lewis an idea. In the mirror, the driver is looking at Lewis again, a grin forming on his face.
It is definitely Panich.
And he knows that Lewis now knows.
He also knows that his two passengers are trapped. If Lewis doesn’t act soon, he and Olena are going to end up very dead, very quickly.
The taxi filters across to the right hand lane. Close by the Intercontinental Hotel, just before Hyde Park Corner, Panich turns right, crossing the northbound traffic and heading westward into South Carriage Drive. Compared with the bustle of Park Lane, this feels like a minor country road as it skirts the southern end of Hyde Park. The neighbourhood is in relatively unlit darkness, with little, if any, other traffic on the road.
Lewis leans across and whispers something in Olena’s ear. At first she appears not to understand. Lewis’s repeated, terse, whisperings bring her to her senses. Following his lead, and now very frightened, she buzzes the window down on the left hand side of the taxi. Lewis does the same on his side.
“Get ready to jump when I say,” he whispers into her ear.
Suddenly it is cold in the cab. In the front, Panich also hears and feels the change in air pressure and temperature. Lewis watches as the Russian struggles with his right hand to operate the window closing mechanism. The taxi slows as Panich fumbles to make the switch work.
It is now or never: ‘Nunc aut nunquam’.
“Go!” he whispers loudly to Olena. “When you hit the ground, curl up tight, let your body roll with the forward momentum. Go now!”
Too numb with shock to argue, Olena dives headfirst out of the open window, Lewis pushing from behind to help her on her way. Panich, seeing what is happening, brakes hard, and turns around in his seat to look over his left shoulder. A GSh-18 handgun has appeared in his left hand. He aims it in Lewis’s direction and fires: the angle is difficult, the first shot wild. The roar of the handgun is deafening in the enclosed space. Lewis, seeing the appearance of the GSh-18, drops to the floor, ducking out of sight beneath the shattered glass screen. Looking up, as the small barrel of the weapon pokes through into the rear of the cab, Lewis knows that the next shot will be angled downwards – and thus much more likely to be on target. So instead he lunges upwards, grabbing the weapon with his left hand and then Panich’s left wrist with his right: using both to push the weapon upwards, away from his body. As the weapon fires a second time, Lewis feels a flash of searing heat as the empty shell casing is discarded. The shot again misses, the bullet disappearing through the roof of the taxi. Lewis tries wrestling the weapon away from Panich, mindful of the need to keep the barrel pointing away from his face and body. Panich swivels around in his seat, both hands off the steering wheel and his foot off the accelerator. The taxi slows to a crawl as the two men struggle, both fighting to gain control of the weapon. In the middle of this, Lewis becomes aware of the strength of Panich’s grip on his own right wrist. There is no longer any doubt whether the Russian has a prosthetic hand or not: he can feel its vice-like strength on his wrist. He knows that it will crush his bones to a pulp unless he acts soon.
Lewis is unable to match the strength in Panich’s new motorised fingers. In seconds, the bones in his wrist are going to shatter. Almost out of options, it is then that he thinks about the broken glass screen, immediately above where their hands are wrestling.
There are jagged shards of glass near the top.
For every action, there has to be an equal and opposite reaction.
With no time to lose, Lewis changes tack and starts pulling Panich’s gun hand in a downward direction. The surprise change in tactics achieves the intended objective, namely causing the Russian to counter this new downward thrust from Lewis. Feeling strength in Panich’s countermeasure, without warning Lewis changes from pulling downwards to pushing in the opposite direction, forcing the Russian’s hands and arms to shoot upwards momentarily towards the top of the glass screen. On the first attempt, Panich’s left wrist narrowly avoids the razor sharp glass shards: on the second attempt, the glass cuts deeply into the flesh behind Panich’s left wrist. The Russian cries out in pain, letting go of both the gun and Lewis’s hand.
Using the moment of Panich’s distraction, Lewis needs no second invitation: he dives out of the window headfirst in the same way as Olena had d
one. His torso clear, he feels, rather than sees, Panich finally succeeding in making the electric window-closing mechanism work. As the glass closes around his legs, Lewis responds by twisting his legs at the knee in an attempt to prevent them getting trapped. To compound the difficulty, in the middle of this manoeuvre, Panich presses the accelerator to the floor. Lewis’s twisting movement, combined with the sudden increase in speed, causes him to land clumsily and painfully on the curb. Nothing is broken, but he knows he will be badly bruised. Several metres away, Olena is back on her feet and looks unhurt. Lewis runs towards her, conscious that Panich has brought the taxi to a halt a few yards further along the road. Any moment now and he will be reversing in their direction.
“Quick, follow me.”
Together, they race across the road into the darkness and gloom of Hyde Park. Behind them, a single shot rings out, causing both Lewis and Olena instinctively to duck as they run. Stopping in the dark next to a large oak tree, Lewis watches to see if Panich comes after them. After several seconds of listening intently, they see or hear nothing.
“Are you up for running?” Lewis asks. Olena nods silently.
“Then let’s continue across the park to Marble Arch. With luck we can, perhaps, pick up a more friendly cab when we get there.”
36
The taxi drops them outside the gated Kensington mews entrance. As they stand facing two security cameras, Olena presses her electric key card against the special reader that unlocks the side gate. Seconds later, Sergei Fedorov is opening the front door to let them in. Fedorov no longer subjects Lewis to body searches each time he enters the Nemikov’s London property. However, a frisson of animosity lingers: Fedorov’s failure to discover Lewis’s knife the other day still rankles.
Oblivious to this mood music, Olena rushes into the main living room.
“Where’s Papa?” she calls out, surprised not to find him there.
Fedorov appears at the door. “He’s just back from the charity function you were meant to be attending. He’s upstairs, at the moment.”
Lewis enters the room and stands a few paces behind Fedorov. He stretches the muscles and ligaments in his right hand. He has bruising to his skin and tenderness in his wrist bones: all courtesy of Oleg Panich, the man who is somehow back from the dead. How exactly did he achieve that, he muses?
“I’ve anti-inflammatory gel in my room upstairs,” Olena says watching him, interrupting his thoughts. “Let me get it. It’ll reduce the pain and inflammation.”
“Okay – but don’t be long. We need to be away pronto. Lest we forget, Panich knows exactly where we are: we gave him this address when we got in his taxi.”
Olena hurries out of the room. Lewis hears her climbing some stairs to the upper floor.
“Has Nemikov heard from Valentyna?” Lewis asks Fedorov, once Olena is out of the room.
Fedorov turns slowly to look at Lewis, his stare cold and unfriendly.
“Nothing.”
“Any news from Gregor?”
“About what?”
“Don’t be so obtuse, Sergei! You and I have to work together. We’re meant to be on the same team. Given the bombing in Venice this afternoon is what I meant.”
He shakes his head a little.
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“She lose Gregor in Venice.”
“How can he lose her, for fuck’s sake? He’s meant to be her security detail.”
“She disappearing is not unusual.”
“Doesn’t she ever call or anything?” Lewis asks.
“Today no. It is not unusual.”
“So she might have been on that vaporetto this afternoon after all.”
Fedorov considers this before replying.
“She might. But she might not. Perhaps we never know.”
“What about Borys? Who is babysitting him this evening?”
“Pavel. I speak ten minutes ago. Borys is at Cambridge flat. He is sleeping. All is okay in Cambridge.”
Fedorov then turns and walks out of the room just as Olena arrives back. She heads over to where Lewis is standing and looks at him quizzically.
“What was Sergei saying?”
“Not a great deal. I don’t think he appreciates me being on the Nemikov team.”
She smiles at him. “Well I do, for one. If it weren’t for you, I would be dead.”
“You and me both,” says Lewis.
She holds his eyes for a moment, smiling. Then, leaning forwards, she kisses him, gently but deliberately, her kiss carefully planted to one corner of his mouth. Her lips feel soft. To Lewis it feels great, lasting as it does, perhaps a second more than might have been expected.
“Just for the record, thank you.” She smiles at him, her head coyly on one side, reminding Lewis of how pretty she is.
“Just for the record, it was my genuine pleasure.”
They stare for a moment or two longer, saying nothing, before she seems to remember something.
“Come on, give me your wrist.” She squeezes some cold clear gel onto her fingers before massaging the ointment over his bruises. “It should feel cold, but it will help stop the swelling.”
“All part of the training, is it?”
“Something like that.” They hear a new voice in the outer hallway. “That sounds like Papa,” she says, massaging the last of the gel onto his wrist, replacing the cap on the tube. “We have so much to tell him.”
37
Kristina Tian had been busy following her meeting with Viktor Plushenko. Having agreed her usual fee of one million dollars, plus expenses, the money payable only upon successful completion of the project, the next morning she had flown directly to Zurich. Her first task had been to learn as much as she could about the man with the keys to the Nemikov private office: the Swiss banker who went by the name of Rudi Hildebrandt.
Hildebrandt Private Bank AG was a family owned and run business. It had first been established in the nineteen-twenties and set up as an Aktiengesellschaft, a company limited by shares. Rudi Hildebrandt, the grandson of the founder, Tomas Hildebrandt, had lived and worked all his life in Zurich. Prior to the demise of the Soviet Union, the Hildebrandt family firm had become increasingly involved in assisting wealthy Ukrainians in managing their clandestine wealth; in particular, how to keep it well-hidden from the eyes of the communist rulers at the time. Franz Hildebrandt, Rudi’s father, had been the man who had first established links with the Ukrainian elite. When his son, Rudi, had joined the firm as a young lawyer newly graduated from the University of Heidelberg, Franz had decided to introduce Rudi to one of the youngest, and wealthiest, Ukrainians that he’d recently come across: a highly successful entrepreneur called Arkady Nemikov. The two young men had hit it off immediately. Over the years, the growing strength of this relationship had created a strong bond of trust between them. When Nemikov had decided that he needed someone to run his private office and administer his estate after his death, there was only one person he had turned to: Rudi Hildebrandt. Available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week – each and every day of the year, Christmas and holidays included – Hildebrandt had served Arkady Nemikov faithfully, always endeavouring to treat him, and his many demands, like royalty.
Hildebrandt’s life outside work had suffered. He had married late, his bride a young secretary who had been working at the office with him. They had one daughter, currently in her late teens and living alone with her mother. Hildebrandt and his wife had never divorced, but there had been little love between them for many years. This explained why he had chosen to live on his own, in an exclusive serviced apartment that overlooked the Zürichsee.
Rudi Hildebrandt currently led a fairly dull and routine life. Apart from walking to and from work each day, he occasionally shopped for groce
ries on his way home but otherwise rarely went out except at weekends. On those Saturdays when he wasn’t working, and nearly every Sunday, he would stroll from his apartment to buy the weekend papers. He would then sit and read them over a leisurely coffee, usually at one of a small number of local coffee shops that he favoured. Afterwards he might stroll the city’s streets or go for a boat ride across the lake to find a suitable lunch spot. Here he would usually choose poached perch caught fresh from the lake that morning with a glass or two of Petite Arvine. In the evenings, there would be occasional dinners out with friends or perhaps a concert or play that he wanted to attend: otherwise he would be at home, usually working. The only exception to this pattern was that on at least three nights every week – not always on the same night and often at different times – he would make his way to his local gym. Here, after a typical workout of no more than forty minutes, he would shower, head to the bar for a quick rehydrating drink, before returning home to his apartment, five minutes walk away.
Tian had been waiting at the bar by the time Rudi Hildebrandt had emerged from the locker room. He appeared with his receding grey hair swept back over his forehead, the hair still damp from his shower. She had been minding her own business, quietly winding down, sipping a mineral water and reading a book. Close by had been the self-service counter with jugs full of various juices and water for guests to help themselves. There had also been half a dozen clean glasses set aside for the purpose. Hildebrandt had opted for the elderflower and mint spritzer. He had poured a generous portion into a tall, thin, glass and had then come and sat at the stool next to her. She had watched out of the corner of an eye as he had lifted the glass tumbler and taken a sip.
The Gambit (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 2) Page 11
