by Rob Sinclair
‘What did you do?’ Fleming said, his tone suspicious but his look one of intrigue.
‘It’s a long story.’
‘And it’s a long winter. There’s not much to do in Aktobe when the temperature’s minus twenty and there’s fifteen feet of snow. I’ve got plenty of time. So try me.’
‘Let’s just say Butler is right. I need your help.’
‘You’ve got some balls coming to me for help.’
‘The way I figure it, you owe me.’
‘You broke my arm, you piece of shit!’ Butler shouted. ‘I never made it back into the field because of you. You ruined my life. I should kick the living shit out of you. I’m not going to help you.’
Logan glared over at Butler but said nothing.
‘It’s true,’ Fleming said. ‘I’m not sure why you think you’re welcome here.’
‘I think you’ll find I suffered more than either of you.’
‘Perhaps we’ll have to agree to disagree on that,’ Fleming said. ‘What exactly do you need from me? Tell me that and then let’s see.’
‘We need somewhere to stay. Just for a few days. This place is secluded and off the grid.’
‘And yet you managed to find it.’
‘I’m good at that sort of thing.’
‘So that’s it? You need a place to stay?’
‘And I thought you might know some people who can help us get to our next destination.’
‘And where’s that?’
‘China.’
Fleming humphed. ‘China? I can’t stand that fucking place or its squinty-eyed people. They might be pumping money into Kazakhstan but they pay peanuts and expect the world.’
‘I wasn’t inviting you to come with us. We just need help getting there.’
‘And why the hell do you think I’ll help you?’
‘Because you do owe me. And because the people who are after me, who screwed me over – they screwed you over too.’
Chapter 20
‘This is some weird shit, Captain,’ Butler said to Fleming.
They were standing in Fleming’s kitchen, each drinking a cup of tea. Fleming had made it. As usual, it was weak and yellow like piss-water. Even though it tasted like crap, it was at least warming and soothing.
Bulat, one of the guards, had taken Grainger and Logan to a guest bedroom upstairs so they could shower and rest. Fleming hadn’t exactly agreed yet to help them, but he was accommodating them for now. Albeit Bulat had been ordered to stand guard outside their room and not let them out until instructed to do so.
‘You have to admit, though,’ Fleming said, ‘them showing up out of the blue, in the middle of this damn awful winter of all things, does pique your interest.’
‘Not really. It piques my suspicion. I’m not sure that’s the same thing.’
‘You worry too much. You always have.’
‘I didn’t say I was worried,’ Butler said, offended. ‘Just that I don’t trust them. Especially Logan. Don’t forget who he works for.’
‘What harm could he do? If the JIA or someone else wanted us dead, or even if they were just trying to snare us, why would they send Carl Logan here under this pretence?’
Fleming had a point. Butler knew about the JIA. As secretive as it was to the outside world, the SAS had worked closely with it more than once in Butler’s time. The JIA served a purpose – much like elite combat units of the army – but Butler couldn’t think of a reason that he or Fleming would be on the JIA’s watch list. Unless Logan was just there on some personal mission. But like Fleming said, if that was the case, why the pretence?
‘And anyway,’ Fleming added, ‘didn’t you say you knew who the woman was?’
‘Of course. Don’t you remember all that fuss about Frank Modena, the American Attorney General, being kidnapped in Paris?’
‘Yeah. They found him, didn’t they? That mad terrorist was behind it.’
‘Kind of. Youssef Selim was involved, yes, but Angela Grainger is the one the Feds are pinning the kidnapping on.’
‘You know as well as I do how the Feds and their ilk like to pin things on the wrong people,’ Fleming said, the disgust in his voice clear.
It was the American intelligence services who had cynically brought Fleming’s army career to an end. At least, that was how Fleming had portrayed it to Butler. He’d been made a scapegoat following what had been labelled a botched hostage rescue mission in Syria. Botched meaning that details of the mission had somehow come into the public domain, leading to the Americans swiftly denying their involvement in Fleming’s apparently gung-ho tactics that had resulted in the deaths of two civilians but seen ten others safely rescued.
‘Either way, she’s wanted,’ Butler said. ‘And that means there’s heat following her. Do you really want that brought to your door?’
‘The Feds and the CIA aren’t interested in us or what we do here. They got what they wanted from me when they had me turfed out the army.’
‘The CIA may no longer care, but the NSC do.’
Fleming shrugged. ‘I don’t think Carl Logan has the slightest idea of what we’re doing here,’ Fleming said. ‘And even if he did, why would it concern him?’
Butler did agree on that. He knew that the US and UK intelligence services posed very little threat to Fleming’s operation. In reality, the Kazakh NSC didn’t either. They were easy to pay off. Experience had already shown that. After all, the agents at the NSC were gaining from Fleming’s business enterprise too. In fact, there really weren’t any losers. Except for Fleming’s competitors.
What had started out for Fleming as an entirely legitimate security operation had morphed somewhat over the last few years. It always did in that part of the world once the big C took hold – corruption.
After leaving the army, Fleming had quickly made a name for himself in the local market, providing security services to foreign nationals and to the large foreign oil and gas companies. They paid top-end for simple services like transporting delegates and maintaining personnel at important sites.
There was even more money to be made if one had a little more guile. And the Chinese, American and European companies had no problems in passing over big bucks for little in return, as long as it meant they got to keep hold of what was coming out of the Kazakh ground.
The foreign companies poured billions of dollars into the region. All Fleming had to do was skim a little off the top, entering into bogus service contracts – the larger and more complex, the better – and, as long as everyone involved in the scam got their cut, the money flowed for doing next to nothing and everyone was happy.
Well, almost everyone.
The armed guards at Fleming’s house were a necessity in his line of work for two very good reasons: to keep competitors at bay, and to keep the NSC at bay.
The NSC were easier to deal with. Usually a back-hander here and there was all that was needed. Whenever things got more heated, on the odd occasion the NSC had tried to rough up Fleming or Butler or their men, a little more money was always a deal clincher.
It was with the competitors that the real dangers lay. The problem was only so much could be skimmed from each master contract. Get there first and there was always an angry line of people behind wanting their slice too.
Fleming’s largest contract was worth fifty million dollars over three years. For that, he’d provided just a handful of man days of security work to a local gas venture operated jointly by the Kazakh government and Chinese investors. His competitors hadn’t got a cent. Fleming had used all his charm, bravado, arrogance and scare tactics to get rights as the sole security provider to the venture. And that had led to an armed stand-off with his closest rival, a Georgian named Tamaz Graneli, at Fleming’s house.
Graneli had turned up drunk in the middle of the night with three of his men, all armed with sub-machine guns and assault rifles. It hadn’t been his wisest move. Unprepared for the attack, Fleming and Butler had nonetheless quickly gained the upper hand a
nd had shot dead two of Graneli’s men before he and his last guard had hastily fled the scene.
In fact, as far as Butler knew, Graneli had fled Kazakhstan altogether in order to reignite his flailing business. The last anyone had heard he was now in Uzbekistan, trying to sweeten up the local oil and gas ventures there.
That day had shown Fleming he could no longer rely on himself and his own training to keep safe. Not long after, he’d begun to employ security guards around the clock at his house.
‘What if Logan isn’t working for the JIA anymore?’ Butler said. ‘You’ve moved into consulting. Perhaps Logan has taken his skills into the private sector too.’
‘If someone had hired Carl Logan as a hitman to take me out, then I don’t think we’d be having this conversation. And if someone had hired Logan, why the hell would he be running around with the FBI’s most wanted?’
Butler shrugged again. It was a fair point.
‘I believe what he said,’ Fleming said. ‘Logan’s in trouble. He needs my help.’
‘And you’re going to give it to him?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe there’s another angle to all this. For us.’
Butler raised an eyebrow, then finished his cup of tea before responding. ‘What angle?’
‘The way I see it,’ Fleming said, smiling, ‘we’ve got ourselves one hell of a prize here. What would the Feds pay if we gave them Angela Grainger on a plate?’
‘How do you suggest we do that in a way that doesn’t give away who we are and the fact that we already have her?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Fleming said. ‘I’m still trying to figure that one out. But there’ll be a way.’
There was a knock on the kitchen door and Fleming shouted for whoever was on the other side to come in. The door opened and in walked Maksat, Fleming’s most experienced and most reliable guard. He was six foot seven and built of pure muscle. Before coming to work for Fleming, he had spent many years as part of Kazakhstan’s Republican Guard. While he’d not seen action in the field to anywhere near the extent Fleming or even Butler had, he fit the mould of security guard perfectly. No one in their right mind would mess with a giant like him.
‘I’ve finished searching their car,’ Maksat said in as close to Russian as he could manage.
Fleming could speak Russian fluently. Butler’s Russian was getting better by the day. While he couldn’t speak it with much confidence, he could usually understand what others were saying as long as they didn’t speak too quickly and their accents weren’t too strong.
‘And?’ Fleming said.
‘And this.’
Maksat slapped down onto the table three handguns. One was a Glock. The other two were an MP-443 Grach and an SR-1 Vector. Butler could guess even before Maksat continued what this might mean.
‘The MP-443 Grach and the SR-1 Vector are Russian-made guns,’ Maksat said. ‘Standard issue for the Russian military. Also very common for the special forces and the FSB.’
‘I know that,’ Fleming said. ‘I know my guns.’
‘You think Logan and Grainger are working for the Russians?’ Butler asked.
‘That’s crazy,’ Fleming snapped, though the frown on his face told Butler he was thinking through the possible implications nonetheless. ‘Those guns are Russian made, but they’re standard military issue for just about every ex-Soviet state. Kazakhstan included. It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Maybe,’ Maksat said. ‘But either way, I don’t think those two are working for the Russians. I also found these.’
Maksat took from his pocket two Russian passports and placed them on the table next to the guns.
‘Look at the photos. Those aren’t of Logan and Grainger. Think about where they are. Where they might have come from. How did they get these guns and passports? And how did they get into Kazakhstan?
‘What are you suggesting?’ Butler said.
‘He thinks Logan and Grainger aren’t just running from the Americans,’ Fleming said. ‘They killed, or at least attacked, some FSB or SVR agents to get hold of that gear. They’re running from the Russians too.’
Fleming rubbed at the stubble on his chin and raised his eyebrows.
‘Well, Butler, my dear friend, it looks like the stakes are even higher than we thought. And the rewards too.’
Chapter 21
Grainger sat on the bed and looked out of the dirty window at the endless white outside. The snow had stopped falling but there were still wisps and flurries of flakes in the air from the wind, which was whipping fiercely across the wide, open plains. There was no sign of any town, village or even other buildings outside the walls to Fleming’s compound. No sign of life at all. Which, in a way, was a good thing, Grainger realised.
She’d finished in the shower and was now dressed. Having been stuck in the car for the best part of twenty-four hours, her body was aching all over. Even though they’d kept the temperature in the car at a steady sixteen degrees, it felt like she’d caught a chill. Or maybe it was just her mind imagining the cold as she stared at the snow outside. Either way, her body was slowly thawing now and the hot shower had certainly helped.
Logan had headed into the bathroom as soon as she had finished. There was a strange awkwardness between them. Grainger guessed it was as much to do with the unease that she was feeling at their current location than anything else, but she couldn’t help but feel disappointed by their tepid reunion.
But then what had she expected? Until Logan had turned up at her apartment, she hadn’t been sure she would ever see him again. She was on the run from him, from the world, and after what she’d done to him, the least she’d expected was that he was probably there to turn her in. In fact, she was still trying to get her head around why that wasn’t the case.
He said he wanted to protect her. She didn’t feel she needed protecting. She never had. She’d always been able to take care of herself just fine. Yet she was still drawn to Logan and couldn’t deny that from the moment she had seen his face on the other side of the apartment door, all of the strong emotions that she’d once felt for him had come rushing back.
Did he still have feelings for her too?
Regardless, now was hardly the moment for her to jump into his arms and plant kisses all over his face. Whatever strong connection they had once had, a unique bond that had brought them so close together, Grainger wasn’t sure they could ever forge a real relationship now. Not after what had happened. And not while their lives were still in so much turmoil.
When Logan emerged from the bathroom, he was fully dressed but looked noticeably fresher than he had minutes before. Grainger couldn’t help but think how great he looked, how secure she felt in his presence, and that only made her feel worse.
‘That’s so much better,’ he said. ‘I can actually feel my toes again. How anyone can live through these winters I really don’t know.’
He sat down on a chair at the desk by the window. Both the chair and the desk were old and battered. Everything in the house felt un-homely and plain. Grainger wondered whether it was a deliberate attempt by Fleming to make the house not feel like a real home or whether he just didn’t care. Logan had told her that Fleming had been in the SAS for more than twenty years, always on the move, so maybe he’d simply become accustomed to living in less-than-salubrious surroundings.
In some ways, she was the same. She’d spent so much of her FBI career working away that the house she’d shared with her ex-husband – Tom, a fellow agent – had rarely felt like a true home. Just another stopping point. Perhaps that was one of the reasons their marriage had been doomed to failure from the start.
‘What do you think Fleming is doing here? In this place?’ Grainger asked.
‘He’s a security consultant,’ Logan said. ‘For the oil and gas companies.’
‘Yeah, right. So he just likes to bring his work home then. Is that the explanation for the barbed wire and commandos?’
‘It’s not so unusual in this part of the world to
have armed guards. Believe me, I’ve seen it before.’
‘Surely you’re not telling me you think he’s legit? No one who’s legit lives in an armed fort.’
‘No, I’m not saying that at all. But I don’t think he’s some sort of master criminal kingpin either. Money is so easy to come by around here and that brings its own dangers. I’m betting he’s taking the multinationals for a ride. That’s how he’s making his money.’
Grainger had never met Fleming before, but she wasn’t a complete novice when it came to corruption. The world’s large oil and gas companies sprayed money around in the cheap, underdeveloped, mineral-rich countries that they plundered. Wherever they went, there were always the telltale signs of their destruction. Governments and politicians got rich. Keen and lucky businessmen got even richer. They were the ones you read about in the papers, the multibillionaires who made their money overnight.
Others, like Fleming, were happy to skim what they could. Most of the population got nothing from the involvement of the multinationals, or at best a low-paid, back-breaking labour job. That, unfortunately, was the way of the world. Having said that, embezzling money was one thing. Armed guards? That was a new one for her.
‘You really think Fleming would have all those guards if that’s what he’s up to? Just a common fraudster?’
‘Yeah, I do. It’s like the Wild West out here. The same in many countries. It’s the power of money.’
‘You know there’s a guard right outside our door?’ Grainger said. ‘We’re basically prisoners in this place.’
‘For now. But it’s better than any other option I can think of. Would you rather be in here or out there in the car? Fleming will come around eventually. And until then, we’re safe and warm at least.’
‘I don’t know why you’re so sure about him.’ Grainger stood up and took the towel she’d had wrapped around her hair back into the bathroom. When she came out, she stood in the doorway, hands on hips. ‘It doesn’t strike me that you two, or you and Butler for that matter, ever got along too well.’
