The Gambit (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 2)

by David N Robinson

  Which leaves the two denial options. Ignore the message completely and deny that it ever came his way – and, for good measure, say nothing to Laura. If the other guy is Virenque, he will be thinking like a soldier. Soldiers obey commands. So when Lewis is ordered to head to platform 10 and sharp, Virenque will be expecting Lewis to comply. Especially because of the pager gimmick. It makes the whole communication piece feel more personal: more one-to-one, one elite soldier to another. Virenque will be expecting activity, but see none. This option has the very real danger of pissing Virenque off. Which is why Lewis likes it so much.

  He likes the fourth option even better.

  Lewis knows that whichever option he chooses, the other guy, Virenque, has to be concealed on the station concourse somewhere. As the two minute deadline expires, under the fourth option, Virenque will be watching as a number of Laura’s assets start to converge on platform 10. It is just that Lewis won’t be one of them. Which will make Virenque firstly puzzled: and then secondly, angry.

  Under these conditions, Lewis is hoping that Virenque will risk emerging from his hiding place, to find out whether Lewis actually has made it to the rendez-vous: in time, he might yet be tempted to pick off one or more of Laura’s team. Before doing that, he will probably type another instruction, his mood visibly changing. He will be fast becoming pissed off. He will watch as the worker bees that are Laura’s team start swarming around this new destination. Still with no sign of Lewis, Virenque’s angry mood will only be getting worse.

  Under option four, Lewis won’t be where Virenque expects him to be. He’ll be using this window of confusion, and Virenque’s growing infuriation, to try and locate exactly where Virenque is hiding. If he can do that, he might just be in with a chance.

  It is time to give Laura’s team a heads up.

  “This is Lima One,” he whispers into his hidden microphone. “I’m instructed to head to platform 10 within two minutes. I’m going to need some cover.”

  102

  Virenque hated seat of the pants operations. With virtually no time to prepare, let alone plan, he’d been forced to improvise as soon as he arrived at the station. He’d had two lucky breaks: firstly, in spotting Lewis so easily; and secondly, in Moscow agreeing to supply the girl and certain equipment at short notice. For a last minute operation, he’d also been pleased with his disguise: that day he was a newspaper deliveryman, wheeling unused copies of the free Metro morning newspaper off the station concourse. He wore a baseball cap and a zippered fleece, and had a tilting hand trolley as a prop. He had found this, folded and tucked behind one of the newspaper kiosks on the concourse.

  He urgently needed data about what – and who – he might be up against. It was possible that Lewis was here on his own: he’d already spotted one or two people he felt were potential watchers. Therefore he wanted first to flush them out. His current plan was to draw Lewis into the open and see who followed. Eventually he’d lead him out of the station, to a place he could be bundled into the van that was waiting. He had even contemplated the direct approach to Lewis in the coffee shop: pointing a gun into his ribs, marching him out of the station like a convicted criminal. That idea didn’t last long: Lewis was never going to let himself be taken as easily as that. Hence the idea with the pager. It had actually been the girl’s: simple but effective.

  Two minutes goes very quickly when you want them to go slowly. Lewis is walking around the upper floor perimeter, directly above the entrance to platform 10. He is completely fed up with Laura and the team’s pointless chatter.

  “Where are you, Lima One?”

  “I can’t see you, Lima One,” and such like.

  Ignore them. Concentrate on what you can see, Lewis.

  On this level, there is the shop attendant who is standing outside his shop giving a big yawn, his hands and arms outstretched above his head. Further along a mother and child stroll along, window shopping before their train departs. Down on the floor below, there are crowds of people milling about: a pair of uniformed British Transport Police patrolling side by side; business men and women – some emerging from the Underground railway: others about to go down into it. A number of passengers are standing below the massive train departure information board; staring to see what platform their train will be leaving from. A few people are sitting down: some reading newspapers; one or two tucked into a book. Then there are the railway workers: train drivers making their way to and from various trains, ticket inspectors heading to their appointed trains; men with trolleys delivering boxes of goods to various shops; and a newspaper delivery man pushing a pile of newspapers.

  His two minutes are up and he can, as yet, find no trace of Virenque. He keeps walking, deciding that it is time to descend to the lower level. As he does so, he feels the pager buzz in his pocket. Carefully picking it out of his pocket, he catches a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. When he looks up, the pager in his hand, the moment has gone. But there was something, he feels sure of it. He looks at the message.

  Where were you? 2 mins Boots the Chemist next to platform 1 - last chance.

  Does Lewis imagine this or is this person sounding angry?

  “Lima One, I am now being ordered to head to Boots by platform 1, in two minutes.”

  Again another barrage of questions rains down on him from Laura and her colleagues.

  “Are you in trouble, Lima One?”

  “I still can’t see you, Lima One.”

  “Where exactly are you, Lima One?’

  He finds himself walking directly past Boots and heading west, on the pedestrian walkway out of the station. He passes three of the watchers, for sure: he can see their lips move. One of them sees Lewis. Lewis blanks him and continues as if nothing has happened. There are more businessmen and women now, fast approaching the Broadgate exit from the station. This is the enclave where large numbers of different office buildings reside. Lewis stops near the exit and, turning back around, almost collides with a man pushing a pile of newspapers on a two-wheeled trolley. A newspaper man. That’s what he’d seen moments earlier. When he’d caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A man in a baseball hat, setting off from a stationary position pushing a pile of newspapers. Except this isn’t a newspaper man.

  It’s the bomber from the train.

  It is Virenque.

  103

  Fight or flight?

  Lewis wants to fight; he loves fighting. If he’s allowed the chance, he should win: one on one is his speciality.

  Virenque drops the trolley and starts to square up in front of Lewis. The man moves effortless on the balls of his feet. Just like Sergei Fedorov had done the first time he and Lewis had met. Virenque’s is a boxer’s tread, dancing feet, everything is being kept fluid and flexible. The two size each other up. Lewis can sense Virenque debating: fight or flight?

  “What’s the matter, Virenque? Too afraid to throw the first punch?”

  Lewis always tries to goad his opponents. The man is evidently surprised that Lewis knows his name.

  People are starting to make space for the pair of them, their aggressive posturing drawing a hesitant crowd of onlookers. This suits Lewis fine. If they want to watch a fight, it’s not going to last for long. On further reflection, a street fight with spectators is not going to suit Virenque. There’ll be little room for escape afterwards. The police will be arriving sometime soon, and then it will be game over. What tips the balance is the sudden arrival of one of Laura’s helpers, although this man hardly helps. He makes Virenque realise that he really only has one option: to run for it. The decision made, without warning, he bolts, taking off like a fully-fledged sprinter.

  Lewis is no slouch, either. He, too, is quick off the blocks, following close behind. Virenque has about a two second time advantage. Lewis has no idea about Laura’s man – he’s just not interested. In Lewis’s
ear he hears a sudden burst of noise: people all talking at once. It is Laura’s team-mates scrambling in an attempt to come to his rescue. He rips the earpiece out of his ear, stuffing it into his pocket and keeps on sprinting.

  Virenque races towards Broadgate circle, a pedestrian only area that in winter has an ice rink in the middle. He skirts the perimeter and veers around to the right. An office building is under construction immediately ahead. Virenque makes a running leap, grabbing hold of a lower piece of scaffolding and pulling himself up. He begins scaling the scaffolding, one floor after another, eventually reaching a level where there is a concrete floor that has been laid down.

  Lewis is close behind. As he reaches the concrete platform, Virenque takes a shot from the Glock-17 pistol he stole from the traffic cop. The shot goes wild and costs him almost a second of time advantage. Lewis, seeing a bullet coming, does a forward roll on to the deck to avoid being hit. Both these actions keep the two of them still no more, no less, than two seconds apart.

  The building floor plate is L-shaped. Virenque heads to the right-hand corner of the construction and, grabbing hold of another piece of scaffolding, starts sliding back to the ground. As his feet hit the deck, he turns, taking aim with his Glock again, pointing it directly towards Lewis’s rapidly descending body.

  Lewis senses rather than sees the imminent danger. Whilst only halfway through his descent, he leaps off the pole to his left, landing heavily on the ground in a forward roll to cushion the impact. Hearing the deafening roar of the gun, he narrowly escapes being hit by the bullet as it whistles past his jacket. Lewis knows that he has had a lucky escape.

  Virenque is off and running again, this time around the side of Exchange Square and along a pedestrian cut-through to Bishopsgate. Lewis, despite bruises and grazes from the fall, still manages to keep up. The traffic on Bishopsgate is light. Virenque darts across the road looking for inspiration. He finds it in a motorcycle courier who is about to get off his bike to deliver a package. The man is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Virenque takes aim with the Glock and fires at point blank range. He drags the dying man off the machine, stopping the bike from falling to the ground as he clambers on. Casting a rearward glance at Lewis, he opens the throttle and takes off at speed.

  Now it is Lewis’s turn to look for inspiration. Another terrified but anxious courier comes to his aide. Having seen his colleague killed in cold blood, he offers Lewis his machine, its engine running. Lewis, needing no second prompting, takes the bike, jumps on and accelerates after Virenque.

  104

  Around the back of Houndsditch and heading towards Aldgate, Lewis keeps Virenque in his sights. Lewis loves being on a motorbike. He would pitch his handling skills against most bikers and expect to come out on top: but Virenque is good. Whether out of skill or desperation to stay alive, he sets a tough pace as the two bikes head into the Aldgate one-way system. Virenque ignores traffic lights, darting down Mansell Street towards the Tower of London, heading the wrong way down the busy one-way street. Cars, buses and lorries blare their horns at him. He ignores them, ducking and weaving in and out of the oncoming traffic.

  Lewis is closing in. With Virenque in the lead, gaps have already been made in the oncoming traffic making Lewis’s life, as pursuit bike, easier. Horns continue to sound as they both hurtle around the Tower at speed, ignoring the red lights.

  Virenque is faced with a decision: head south over the river by crossing Tower Bridge; or continue west on the northern embankment? He chooses Tower Bridge, for reasons that are soon to become clear. The traffic on the approach road to the bridge has come to a halt. The warning lights immediately in front of the bridge are blinking red.

  The bridge is being raised.

  Over to the west, a tall ship is waiting to be allowed to pass through it. As Virenque turns into the bridge approach, the right hand lane of traffic is empty; the oncoming traffic long since departed.

  Virenque is going to jump the gap.

  The ramp is of a height where Lewis cannot see the other side, already about one third of the way raised. The gap between the two bikes is less than three seconds. By the time Lewis makes the jump, the bridge will be almost half way raised. Easier than when Robbie Maddison did his backflip over the fully-open bridge in 2009: but nonetheless challenging. Lewis is game, if Virenque is.

  It appears he is.

  Both bikes accelerate down the empty right hand lane towards the end of the bridge. Lewis knows he must angle his approach so that he is pointing slightly to the left. Otherwise the bike will crash directly into the lead vehicle waiting to cross on the other side. In his head, he goes through the mental checklist: approach speed, fine; angle of the ramp, okay; position on the road, good. He watches as Virenque clears the gap. At the very last second, loud warning bells start to sound in his head: Virenque’s departure position on the road looked too straight. Lewis compensates by consciously steering to the left, pointing his bike at about the eleven o’clock position, just as he leaves the ramp: ready for a safe landing, he hopes, on the left hand lane on the other side.

  105

  Even whilst he is in the air, Lewis knows that Virenque has made a fatal blunder. He sees, before he hears, the massive fireball, the result of nearly five hundred kilogrammes of bike and rider travelling at over seventy miles an hour crashing head first into a container lorry waiting to cross on the other side.

  Lewis lands pretty near perfectly and brakes hard, bringing his bike to a halt in the narrow confines of the bridge. He walks back as close as he can to the burning wreckage. There are, however, no questions that need answering. Virenque will not have survived that by any stretch of the imagination. Walking back to his bike, Lewis digs in his pocket for Laura’s microphone and sticks the earpiece in his ear.

  “Lima One back on air,” he says into the ether.

  “Where the hell are you, Lima One? What’s been happening?”

  “Tower Bridge, Laura. Virenque is dead. I repeat dead. A massive head-on collision with a lorry whilst trying to leap Tower Bridge. I’m on my way back to the van. I’ll see you in about ten minutes.”

  Lewis arrives in five. The traffic over London Bridge is light. He zigzags his way through the back streets to where Laura’s van is parked up. Banging on the van’s rear door, Laura fumes at him as she opens it.

  “What the hell did you think you were playing at?” she rants once the door is closed. “Trying to get us all killed, yourself included? Why didn’t you stay on air as we agreed? Why didn’t you answer when we were trying to talk with you? You put the whole team at risk, you know that?”

  “I think the only person I put at risk was myself, apart from the poor bugger Virenque shot dead when he stole the bike.”

  “What? Who was shot dead? For God’s sake, Ben, we’re in London, not a war zone.”

  “You could have fooled me,” he says and lets his eyes wander around the inside of the van.

  “Is that my phone there on the desk?”

  Laura doesn’t answer. Lewis picks it up and checks.

  “Please thank Naomi for looking after it,” he says, putting it back in his pocket.

  He turns and puts his hand on the door handle to leave.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’ve got two hostages to try and find.”

  “It’s a pity you couldn’t have kept Virenque alive: then you might know where they are.”

  “I don’t think it was me that killed Virenque. One of your team did. He tried to intervene when Virenque and I were about to fight each other. The thought of two against one seemed enough to scare the shit out of Virenque. That’s why he ran for his life. I wasn’t, I’m afraid, about to let him get away. You and your team need to get real, Laura.”

  With that, he turned and left her to it.

  106

 
There was a muted knocking at the door before Plushenko’s valet entered the room, coughing twice before crossing the threshold. The pretty blonde, who had been sitting astride the Russian oligarch, quickly rolled off, covering her nakedness with the sheet.

  “I am sorry to intrude, sir, but I have a Miss Tian on the phone for you. She suggested it might be extremely urgent.”

  Plushenko scowled, disliking intensely being interrupted during such moments of intimacy. He then remembered who Tian was.

  “Of course. I’ll take the call in the next room.” He rolled out of the bed and began searching for his dressing gown. The valet, anticipating this need, was holding it for him.

  “I’ll put her call through right away,” the valet said. Then, with a knowing wink at the blonde, he withdrew from the room.

  “Kristina,” Plushenko said. “I hope you are calling with good news?”

  “Viktor, my apologies for interrupting your busy day. However, yes, I have some very good news! I have located one of the codes you have been looking for.”

  “Only one?” said Plushenko, his voice sounding concerned.

  “At the moment, yes. It was the one that previously belonged to Nemikov’s wife – now, passed to someone called Ben Lewis.”

  “What about the other two?” Plushenko said impatiently. He was not about to let on that he already had those, courtesy of his call with Oleg Panich a short while earlier.

  “I need a little more time. I thought you said that you were interested in having a periodic progress report?”