The Lucifer Network

by Geoffrey Archer

  ‘Israel. The Russians issued a warrant for his arrest – for the illegal sale of state assets. Pressed Israel’s Shin Beth internal security people to snatch him, but he was tipped off in good time and did a bunk from Tel Aviv. Hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘Maybe a bullet’s found him,’ Sam suggested.

  ‘If only . . . Enough people have tried. A year ago three of his bodyguards got taken out in a drive-by shooting.’

  ‘Or else he’s enjoying himself in the sun somewhere, waiting for Moscow to invite him home to run the economy.’

  They paused by the river wall again to watch a half-empty pleasure boat steam past on its way up to Hampton Court. Waddell pursed his lips.

  ‘I’d really hoped you might remember something, Sam. Chew it over some more, will you? Give me a call later.’

  ‘From the Highlands and Islands.’

  ‘Actually, I’d rather you remained in London today. The CIA may want to talk to you.’

  ‘I can’t tell them any more than I’ve already told you.’

  ‘I know. But they’ve asked.’ He leaned his elbows on the wall as a flight of geese cackled their way to a landing on the water. ‘There’s another little matter I need to raise with you,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This Julie Jackman girl . . .’ Waddell eyed him puritanically. ‘What are you up to, exactly?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Denise Corby was spitting blood over your interviewing the woman on your own. Even suggested you had a personal motive.’

  ‘Crap!’ Sam exploded. ‘If you must know, Miss Jackman thinks Denise is a dyke. That’s why she asked me to pick up the letter.’

  ‘Homosexuals in the Intelligence Service? Heaven forfend.’ Waddell clicked his tongue and averted his eyes in mock horror. Then his face darkened. ‘One question I do want an answer to. And this is serious. How come Miss Jackman knew how to contact you?’

  Sam grimaced. ‘I let her use my mobile. She got the number off the screen.’

  ‘Well get the damned thing changed.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘In fact you’d better start changing numbers more frequently.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because we’ve heard your Ukrainian friends have sent a hit man to London.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘They have as much forgiveness in their black little souls as a hive full of Iranian ayatollahs. And they’re not beyond using phone intercepts to track down their victims.’

  Austria

  A lake south of Vienna

  Eight hundred miles south-east of London, the Austrian sun had a warmth to it that was forecast to become uncomfortably hot later in the day. Families from Vienna had left the city early to get their sunbathing in before lunch. In the parking area by a small freshwater lake, the tailgate of an elderly Volvo estate stood open. From the inside of the car, a tall blond Swede by the name of Anders Klason extracted a bright blue cool-box and a couple of folding chairs. His evenly tanned bare chest bore a scattering of golden hairs. He closed the door again, locked up and carted the gear across the scorched grass to the edge of the water where his dark-haired wife Nina had spread a rug on the ground. Their two pale-skinned children aged five and seven stomped around impatiently while their mother tried to smear them with a high-protection waterproof sun cream. Nina was German. She wore a long, cool skirt and a shirt with baggy sleeves down to her wrists. To her, sunshine wasn’t a pleasure but a danger to health. A cancer risk. But she’d long since abandoned trying to make her husband protect himself from it.

  ‘The boat, the boat, the boat!’ the children chanted, jumping up and down.

  ‘Yes, but it’s about time you learned to pump it up yourselves,’ their father told them, setting down the cool-box and opening the bag containing the small plastic dinghy. He wore a tight pair of denim shorts and Reef sandals. The hairs on his legs gleamed like a translucent second skin as he foot-pumped the dinghy to life.

  ‘Don’t go far out,’ their mother called as their son and daughter carried it to the water. It was a good lake for children. The sandy beach shelved gently and the water never got deeper than a couple of metres.

  Klason stretched out on the towel.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll watch them,’ Nina told him dutifully. He was working twelve-hour days, six of them each week. Sunday was his only break and as far as she was concerned he was entitled to seek relaxation in whatever way he wanted. So long as it was with her and the children.

  ‘I told you about the conference in Brussels next Wednesday?’ he asked, eyes closed against the glare of the sun.

  ‘No. You’re going?’

  ‘Yes. A 6.30 flight in the morning. Back late on Friday.’

  ‘Oh. That’s really convenient for you,’ she snapped.

  ‘What d’you mean?’ He raised himself on one elbow.

  ‘Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘Oh.’ He smacked a hand against his forehead. ‘Wednesday and Thursday. She’s coming to stay, yes?’

  Nina looked away. ‘You always do this.’

  ‘I don’t.’ But on reflection he knew she was right. ‘I forgot, Nina. I’ve been so busy . . .’

  ‘When won’t you be . . .’

  Anders knew that his wife had begun to resent his work. When they’d first met he was a human rights lecturer at the university in Stockholm and she an exchange student on the postgraduate course he was teaching. She’d hoped for a pleasant, unstressed life with him in the Swedish capital, never imagining he would end up as head of the EU’s new racial equality centre in Vienna, with an absurdly small staff and a ludicrously heavy workload.

  ‘It’ll be better in a few months,’ he told her. ‘We’re still settling in.’

  They spoke in a mixture of German and Swedish, each resorting to their own language when things got tense.

  ‘Grüss Gott.’

  Nina spun round. The voice had come from behind her. The accent was local.

  ‘Grüss Gott,’ she answered.

  A couple in their thirties, dressed in jeans and sports shirts, had stopped by their ‘camp’ and were pointing towards the lake.

  ‘Are those your children?’ the man asked. He had a pointed face, like a terrier’s.

  Nina looked. The altercation with her husband had made her take her eye off them.

  ‘Anders. They’re too far out,’ she whispered.

  ‘They’re okay.’

  ‘Anders, please.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ He levered himself up and ambled to the water’s edge, muttering about wanting a swim anyway.

  The Austrian couple crouched down by the Klasons’ towels.

  ‘You can’t be too careful,’ the woman said. She had dark hair that was untidily curly.

  Nina Klason didn’t like these busybodies. There was something hard about their faces. She’d seen many people like this in Austria and could imagine that it had been the same types lining the streets to greet Hitler’s arrival back in 1938.

  ‘Oh, look over there,’ the woman said, pointing to the far side of the small lake. ‘Somebody fishing.’

  ‘So it is,’ said Nina, uninterestedly following the line of the woman’s hand. The lake was narrowest at this point, where the beach was.

  ‘He won’t catch anything there.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Not with all the children splashing about. Better to go out in a boat into the middle.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Nina couldn’t care less. She had her eye on her husband whose easy crawl strokes had taken him quickly to where the children were.

  ‘He’s saved them now,’ the woman told her. The couple stood up again.

  ‘I don’t actually think they were in any danger,’ Nina insisted. ‘But thank you anyway.’ Why was she thanking these people for interfering? Embarrassment. That was all.

  ‘Auf wiedersehen.’ The couple began to walk aw
ay.

  ‘Auf wiedersehen.’

  Five minutes passed before Anders was back by her side. She’d watched his effortless swimming up and down the shore with a degree of envy. She herself had a fear of water.

  ‘It’s so warm, the lake,’ he told her, picking up his towel to dry himself.

  ‘So it should be. We’ve had over thirty degrees all week.’

  She watched him drape the towel over his shoulders and work it from side to side.

  ‘Ouch!’ Suddenly Anders froze in mid motion, arching his back.

  ‘What is it? Cramp?’

  ‘No. Something cut into me.’ He flicked the towel from his shoulders.

  ‘Let me see. You’re bleeding,’ Nina gasped.

  Anders felt it, a warm trickle down his back like a bead of sweat.

  ‘How on earth . . . Is it bad?’

  ‘No. Just a small cut. I’ll put a plaster on it in a minute.’ She found a clean tissue in her bag and pressed it against the tiny gash to stop the flow.

  Anders reached down for the towel which he’d dropped. ‘Must have picked up a piece of broken glass.’ He examined it gingerly, not wanting to cut himself again.

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I am.’ The fragment wasn’t hard to find. A smear of blood pointed the way. ‘It’s a little splinter,’ he told her. ‘Caught in the loops of the fabric.’

  ‘Can I see?’ He showed her. ‘How strange. I washed this last night.’

  ‘I’d better look on the grass to see if there’s any more.’ He crouched down, lightly touching the ground.

  ‘Be careful,’ Nina warned, fixing the sticking plaster on his shoulder blade. ‘I don’t have too many of these.’

  ‘Nothing here,’ he said, standing up again.

  Then the same thought occurred to them simultaneously. They turned towards the car park. The couple who’d warned them about their children were driving off in an old VW Golf.

  ‘Odd,’ said Klason.

  ‘Very,’ said his wife.

  London

  It was late afternoon before Sam got a call from Waddell clearing him to carry on with his postponed trip to Scotland. Annoyed about his wasted day, he was on the point of checking out the flights again when he discovered the battery indicator of his mobile was close to zero. He was about to place it on its charger, deciding to catch the first flight in the morning, when the handset rang.

  ‘Hell!’ He punched the receive button. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Foster? Simon . . . It’s Julie.’

  His first reaction was pleasure. Then he checked himself. ‘Look, you really shouldn’t be calling me,’ he said sternly. ‘Denise Corby has to be your point of contact, whether you like her or not. They’re civil servants, these people. They get upset if you don’t follow protocol.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s . . . that’s not why I’m ringing.’ Her voice sounded a little husky. He wondered if she’d been crying. ‘I’m not ringing about the letter.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s just . . . Well, you said we might meet again.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ He paced quickly to the window, as if the brief burst of exercise would help him think straight. Professionally he knew he should keep his distance from her after Waddell’s cautionary words, but all he could think of was the addictive fragrance of her orange-blossom sun cream.

  ‘This evening. Is it possible?’ she asked.

  Taken aback, he groped for a response. ‘This evening? That’s not so easy . . .’

  ‘I really do need to talk to you, Simon. I . . . I’m in a bit of a state.’

  She sounded it, her voice high and strained.

  ‘Well I can understand that. It’s all been a terrible shock.’

  ‘Yes. It has. And since you were the last person to speak to him, Simon, I just thought . . .’ He heard a sniff at the other end. ‘. . . thought that if you could only talk to me about it, about how he was that evening, it might help.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. Of course . . . The thing is, I was going away this evening,’ he hedged.

  There was silence at the other end as if the line had cut. His handset bleeped a low-battery warning.

  ‘Julie?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have rung,’ she sniffed.

  ‘No. Look. It’s all right.’ What the hell. If all she wanted was a shoulder to cry on . . . ‘I can see you. But this phone’s about to die, so where and when? You’re ringing from Acton?’

  ‘No. Woodbridge. I’m about to catch a train,’ she said, her voice brightening. ‘Could we make it eight o’clock?’

  ‘Where? At your flat?’ he suggested, optimistically.

  ‘No. There’s an Italian café in the Chiswick High Road. Corner of Turnham Green Terrace? D’you know that area?’

  ‘A little.’ It was five minutes away. ‘At eight, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  ‘Thanks Simo––’

  The battery died before she could finish. He replaced the phone on the charger then returned to the window. Down below him, the tide was out, exposing stony banks on each side of the river.

  He told himself that it was okay to see her. He was off the case now, so it wasn’t business any more. Nothing to stop them getting acquainted personally if that’s what they both wanted. No rush. He would play it by ear.

  Then for some reason he thought of Steph. She wouldn’t have minced her words if she knew what he was planning.

  ‘You’re thinking with your dick, Sam. It’ll end in tears.’

  At fifteen minutes to eight, showered and in clean clothes, he took the lift to the garage.

  He drove eastwards under the M4 flyover and down the Chiswick High Road. Traffic was heavy. The sky was purpling with dusk and the rain had stopped again. Restaurants and pizza houses were doing a good trade. He saw the café Julie had mentioned and drove past it, catching a glimpse of a lone figure at a table. A couple of others were also occupied. He turned right into a side street and parked, then walked back, pausing for a few moments in a bus shelter opposite the café to make sure it was her and that she was alone. He waited for a lorry to pass then crossed the road.

  Julie wore a grey rollneck pullover which accentuated her slenderness. Sam noted her lack of spectacles and that she’d tarted herself up with a bit of eye make-up. She screwed up her eyes as he approached, checking it was him. When she saw that it was, she became flustered. He liked her shyness.

  He sat down opposite her. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I . . . I wasn’t sure you would come,’ she whispered, with a tight, rubber-band smile.

  ‘Well . . . damsel in distress and all that.’

  She looked down at her hands, then surprised him by grimacing.

  ‘A little nervous,’ she murmured. ‘I . . . I don’t really know what I’m doing here . . .’ She seemed to be waiting for him to take control.

  He felt a compelling desire to touch her, to break through the invisible barrier separating them. He was considering how to do it without seeming too presumptuous, when he became vaguely conscious of chairs being scraped back and some of the other occupants of the café getting to their feet. Julie lifted her head again, but this time it wasn’t him she was looking at. Someone had taken up a position immediately behind his chair.

  ‘Mr Foster?’ The voice was male.

  Sam’s insides dissolved. As he turned to see who it was, a flashgun went off in his face.

  ‘Fuck . . .’

  ‘Daily Chronicle, Mr Foster. We’d like to ask you a few questions about the death of Harry Jackman.’

  Sam glared at Julie. There was an expression on her face that he’d seen once before. On a woman attending a bullfight. A knowledge that although she’d paid to see a killing, she wasn’t sure she could stomach it.

  He still wanted to touch that lovely neck of Julie’s, but this time with both hands and to squeeze them together with all his strength.

  Some men die early, he found himself
thinking. People like Harry Jackman went quickly in a hail of bullets. But others – men who were really, really, unbelievably stupid – did it slowly and painfully, in an act of professional suicide.

  8

  SAM CRANED ROUND to see how many of them had ambushed him.

  ‘You work for MI6, Mr Foster.’ The reporter spoke with a well-bred accent and stood close to the back of the chair to make it hard for Sam to stand up.

  ‘I most certainly do not,’ he fumed. ‘Who on earth told you that?’

  ‘Harry Jackman, actually,’ the reporter yapped. The camera continued to flash. ‘In a letter posted to my paper after his death. He also described how you paid him $250,000 of British taxpayers’ money to supply arms to the rebels in Bodanga.’

  All there. Everything. Harry Jackman’s revenge had been total. The chasm opened beneath his feet.

  ‘Pretty appalling piece of ethical foreign policy, don’t you think, Mr Foster? How many was it who died under the guns that the British government paid for? Two and a half thousand. Most of them women and children.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Got your wires crossed, sonny. No idea what you’re talking about.’ It amazed him how calm he sounded. ‘I’ve done business with Harry Jackman, yes. But I don’t deal in arms. And I don’t work for the Intelligence Service. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .’ He shoved the chair back against the reporter’s stomach.

  The journalist winced but stood his ground.

  ‘Did you kill Harry Jackman, Mr Foster?’

  The skin crept on the back of his neck. He shot a glance at Julie. Was that what she believed? The thought that she had so misjudged him cut deeper than the betrayal itself.

  ‘I most certainly did not.’

  ‘You were there.’

  ‘Tragically, yes. He was shot by a man in Zambian army uniform. You can check that with the Zambian police. There was nothing I could do to save him.’ He stared fixedly at the girl, his face as expressionless as he could make it. ‘And I came here this evening because in a misguided moment I felt sorry for his daughter.’ Her instant embarrassment gave him a jot of satisfaction.

  He swung his elbow back into the reporter’s stomach and stood up.

  ‘So sorry, old chap. Have to go. Do try to get your facts straight. Okay?’