‘Mitcheson’s in the States,’ Palmer told him. ‘He’s got better things to do than follow you around.’ Szulu had earned his bullet wound after threatening Riley Gavin with a .22 calibre automatic. Her then boyfriend, John Mitcheson, a former army officer, had appeared and calmly shot Szulu with his own gun. Szulu evidently still hadn’t quite come to terms with the fact that making threats sometimes brought unforeseen consequences.
‘Oh.’ He seemed to relax a little. ‘He comin’ back?’
Palmer waggled a hand in a maybe/maybe not gesture. ‘The jury’s still out.’ He smiled. ‘I could bring Riley round, though, if you like. She’s joined a gun club since you last met. She uses a .357 Magnum.’
Szulu nearly gagged on his tea. ‘Don’t joke, man. That ain’t funny. I already apologised to her for that stuff.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m teasing.’ Palmer looked at him. ‘Are you on, then?’
Szulu shrugged. ‘Sure. Easy. But why you being so generous with the dough? Who’s the target?’
Palmer rolled his eyes. ‘Subject, Ray. We refer to it as the subject. A target is something you shoot at. Or someone,’ he added pointedly.
‘Subject, whatever. Who is it? And why the dosh? You could’ve got me to do this for free.’
‘Because it’s personal.’ Palmer’s face was suddenly serious. ‘And I believe in paying for talent.’
Szulu’s eyes widened and he tucked away the compliment for later. Having a man like Palmer calling him talent was rare. But he stayed with the look. He remembered all too clearly the last time he’d seen Palmer with that expression on his face. The man was scary when he got going, and prepared to go through anything. The last time, it had been a psychotic south London gang leader named Ragga Pearl and some former spy gone bad that had set him off. Him and Gavin, he had to admit, they made a good team.
‘So who is this person?’
‘They. They’re a very careful bunch.’
‘Yeah?’ Szulu shrugged again and stared into his tea, which was growing cold. He wanted to change his mind and say he was too busy driving, that he’d got a long distance trip to do and couldn’t spare the time. But a part of him wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t the money, either. Christ, a hundred wasn’t that good, even for a half day. He wondered about the subject. All he knew was, it couldn’t be Ragga Pearl, who was currently a guest of Her Majesty in Wormwood Scrubs. But he bet it was someone in the same mould. Otherwise, Palmer wouldn’t be interested. In spite of that, he was intrigued. ‘How d’you mean, careful?’
‘The subject’s got a security detail on him, twenty-four-seven. He’s also what we in the profession call ‘risk-aware’. Take street-wise and ramp it up a few notches. He’s not the sort of man to treat lightly.’
‘Okay. Sounds cool. What’s he do, this bloke?’ Szulu took another sip of tea, relaxing at the idea of doing something more interesting for a change than driving people around London.
Palmer took a long time before replying. He seemed to weighing his words with care. Then he said calmly, ‘There’s a possibility he’s connected to the Russian Mafia.’
Szulu’s tea erupted all over his face.
Palmer approached the side of Pantile House and stopped, checking the area for any signs of movement. He glanced at his watch. It was past nine in the evening and the streets were quiet. He’d waited for ten minutes already but seen nobody. From what Mark Chase had said about the building, there was no twenty-four-hour security watch, and he’d already noted and discounted the position of the nearest street cameras.
He stepped over to one of the louvred vents at ground floor level and gently removed some of the slats, placing them to one side. The opening was covered by a protective mesh grill, and beyond that, more slats which could be closed like internal shutters. He waited for a truck or a bus to go by, and under cover of the engine noise, placed his foot against the mesh and kicked it in. Removing the internal slats, he slid inside, then replaced a couple of the outer slats to cover signs of his entry.
He waited two minutes, ears taking in the hum of the heating and air-conditioning system, eyes adjusting gradually to the atmosphere. He was standing at the end of a passageway, lit every few feet by a low-wattage overhead lamp. The air was stale and dusty, with the dull lifelessness of a space largely unused and forgotten.
He moved along the passageway away from the vent. At the far end he hoped to find the base of the lift shaft and a stairway to the ground floor, rising somewhere near to the reception area. He skirted a tangle of old Dexion racking, and adjacent to it a pallet of paper bags, their gutted bellies spilling heavy grey dust, remnants of a maintenance programme which, judging by the lumps of solidified cement, had been called off long ago. Everything around it was grey and still. His shoes crunched faintly with the gritty feel of an unswept floor, and he tried to put his weight on the edges of his feet to minimise the noise. He breathed through his mouth, straining for the sound of movement in the gloom.
A fresh pool of light from one of the lamps revealed a puddle of water across the floor. Above it, a dark mould showed in the concrete of the roof support, with another drip ready to fall.
He skirted the puddle, stepping past a pile of empty cement bags, and approached a large square section of aluminium casing. It seemed to grow out of the concrete floor, stretching to the ceiling and eating into the roof of the tunnel like a square, hungry snake. The casing at floor level was scarred and battered, where careless negotiation of the narrow gap with unwieldy objects had left its mark.
He moved past it to the stairway and checked the layout. A steel door stood at the top of the steps. He turned the handle with delicate care, just sufficient to check that it was unlocked. It was. He left it and went to check out the lift shaft. But here his luck ran out; the dimensions of the shaft were too narrow and there was no handy inspection ladder to provide an alternative means of entry.
He walked back along the passage to the vent where he had come in, and slid back out. Carefully replacing the slats and the mesh, he walked away into the dark.
*********
27
Riley felt strange entering the marble and gilt portals of Al-Bashir’s flagship store in London’s West End without shopping in mind. She stepped out of the early morning sunlight and was instantly absorbed by the warm glow of strategic lighting and soft music, and the near-hallowed atmosphere of one of Europe’s best-known stores.
She approached the Information desk, where a young woman in the company’s sleek designer uniform and an ergonomic head-set was checking a computer screen. She was surrounded by a bank of phones and monitors with, Riley guessed, a panic button somewhere close to hand below the counter top. There were relatively few people about, and the day had clearly not yet begun in earnest in the field of luxury retail goods.
‘I have an appointment with Mr Al-Bashir,’ said Riley.
The young woman smiled and glanced at the screen. ‘Of course. Miss Gavin, yes? I won’t keep you.’ She touched the screen with her fingertips and spoke softly into her mouthpiece.
Riley looked around her. There were no overt signs of the Al-Bashir security system in sight, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that they were in place. She wondered if she wasn’t sticking her head unnecessarily into the lion’s mouth. It would hardly be the first time. Coming here could be a huge mistake if Al-Bashir’s fierce reputation was as bad as it was rumoured to be.
A door clicked open in one wall, and she turned to see a tall man in a dark grey suit appear. He came over to her.
‘Miss Gavin? My name is Koenig. I’m the security manager. Would you come this way?’
Riley followed him through the door and found herself in a small lobby. As the door closed behind them, Koenig turned and held out his hand. ‘May I check your bag, please? It’s just a precaution.’
Riley allowed him to take her shoulder bag. He produced a slim scanning wand and ran it over the outside of the bag, then flicked through the contents. His actions w
ere precise and practised. He had the short hairstyle of a military man and the angular face and build of someone accustomed to keeping fit, and she guessed he was in his early forties. He reminded her of Palmer, only bigger and with a less obvious charm.
‘That’s fine. Thank you.’ He returned the bag.
‘I’m surprised you don’t do body searches, too,’ she said coolly. ‘Not that it’s an invitation.’
He smiled without humour and gestured at a metal framework surrounding the door they had just passed through. ‘No need. You were screened as you came through.’ He turned towards a small lift on the other side of the lobby. ‘We’ll take this up to the third floor.’
The lift was fast and smooth, and brought them to a narrow corridor lined with thick carpets and soft lighting. Koenig excused himself and led Riley towards a set of glossy double doors. He ushered her through and into a long room furnished with a twin line of chairs around a boardroom-style table. More discreet lighting reflected off the polished wood, and a rich aroma of coffee hung in the air.
‘Kim’ Al-Bashir was sitting on the far side of the table.
He had a cup of coffee at his right hand, and looked chubbier in the flesh than Riley expected, with full cheeks and his hair cut close to the scalp. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt and a grey suit with a discreet check, and wore a diamond-pattern tie with a neat pin behind the knot.
Riley was immediately struck by how unremarkable he looked. For a man who always loomed larger than life in the headlines with news of his latest business deals, he appeared almost insignificant in the flesh.
But there was no mistaking the aura which sprang off him when he looked up.
Al-Bashir nodded at Koenig, who stepped forward and dropped a fan of papers onto the bare table.
The dramatic nature of the gesture wasn’t lost on Riley. She stepped forward and looked down at them. They were photocopies of a selection of her past work going back several years.
‘As you can see, Miss Gavin,’ said Al-Bashir evenly, ‘we know all about you.’ His voice was surprisingly soft.
Riley felt her heart thumping. The search and screening downstairs, the security guard at her shoulder, the sombre atmosphere, the display of control, power and now personal knowledge – it was all intended to dominate and intimidate.
‘I’m impressed,’ she said, and spotted a typo on the top sheet. God, she thought, how humiliating. It was the first paper she’d worked for, long since closed down, where the desire to deliver local news fast had often taken priority over presentation.
‘What do you want?’ Al-Bashir twirled his cup with a faint squeak from the elegant bone china.
‘What will happen if you win the Batnev network licence?’
Al-Bashir lifted his eyebrows in mild surprise. ‘Is that all you wish to know? My media department could have answered that question with a simple phone call.’ He frowned. ‘You said you had some information for me.’
‘I do.’ Riley breathed easily.
‘Really. Then name your price.’ Al-Bashir already sounded bored.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You have information to sell. Name your price and I’ll judge if I wish to pay.’
Riley felt a stirring of anger. He was treating her like a money-grubber. Maybe it was because of the people he usually dealt with.
‘You think that’s what it’s about?’ she said. ‘Money?’
He shrugged. ‘That is what most people want. If you are different, then please say so.’ He glanced at Koenig, and Riley sensed the meeting was about to be cut short.
‘I have reason to believe,’ she said, ‘that reports about your wife are shortly to be circulated in the foreign press.’
Several heartbeats went by before Al-Bashir responded. ‘There are often reports against me,’ he growled. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I’ve seen the notes.’
‘Notes? What do they say, these…notes?’
The door behind Riley opened and she realised Koenig had slipped out. She hadn’t seen a signal from Al-Bashir; maybe he’d been summoned by thought control.
She took a calming breath before speaking. ‘They concern issues of a personal nature.’ Riley chose her words with care. Saying something to trigger Al-Bashir’s legendary temper might do more than merely get her thrown out on her ear. Suggesting his wife was having an affair was bad enough; telling him she was doing so with another woman would likely result in a reaction she might not survive, professionally at least. For one, she had no firm proof. But the mere suggestion would be something Al-Bashir could not ignore.
‘Personal. When are they not?’ Al-Bashir made a gesture of contempt for such things. But she sensed the tension that had suddenly entered the room. ‘What sort of personal issues?’
‘Your wife’s conduct. Alleged conduct.’
*******
28
‘I beg your pardon?’ Al-Bashir sat forward in his chair, his voice dangerously low. The atmosphere in the room had suddenly changed and Riley felt a shiver settle across her shoulders. Now, more than at any time, she knew that making the allegations contained in the folder would be reckless in the extreme. It would be like poking a king cobra with a sharp stick. A short one.
‘They claim,’ she said, carefully amending the words she had been about to use, ‘to have reports of activities unbecoming to the wife of a man in your position…and faith.’
Al-Bashir crouched as if ready to spring out across the table at her. Riley noticed his fingers were pressed flat on the table before him, the skin white and bloodless.
‘What ‘activities’?’ The words came out in a near whisper.
‘Extravagance. A lack of modesty in her spending. That sort of thing.’
After a few seconds, Al-Bashir seemed to relax. He sighed and sat back, lifting his hands from the table. He nodded slowly, then said, ‘So what? Asiyah is a wealthy young woman. Do these notes suggest she should not enjoy herself?’
‘No.’
‘What, then? Is the press the moral arbiter of how my wife should spend my money? You think that bothers me?’
‘Not that, either.’ Riley had struggled on the way over for a way of testing the water with regard to how Al-Bashir might react to the rumours. She didn’t want to find herself faced with legal action – or worse, if the stories about his security team were to be believed. ‘There are implications,’ she continued, ‘that any stories circulating at this time might not be viewed in a good light by those behind you.’
‘Behind me?’
‘Your backers. The investors you represent. Specifically, those you will be dealing with in the Batnev project.’ She saw he wasn’t going to respond and continued. ‘They are going with you because the network will eventually spread far beyond the current proposed boundaries. They are banking - literally - on controlling the spread well across the Middle East, through India, Pakistan and beyond. Maybe even China.’ She waited to see if he would laugh in her face. He didn’t, so she added, ‘Potentially, you’d be controlling the biggest telecoms consumer market on the planet.’
‘Really?’ Al-Bashir smiled, and Riley felt the chill return. ‘And who told you that?’
She said nothing.
Al-Bashir tapped a fingernail on the rim of his cup. ‘I don’t know where you got your information, Miss Gavin,’ he said carefully. ‘But let me tell you this. There are no reports. There is no basis for anyone to have ‘notes’ about my wife or anyone else in my family. And if anyone - anyone - tries to suggest otherwise, they will regret it to their dying day.’ He lifted a hand and adjusted his tie. ‘Of course, if you were able to allow my security manager to have details about these notes you speak of, I would be most grateful.’
He knows, thought Riley. She could see it in his eyes. In spite of his casual demeanour, a flicker of uncertainty hovered behind the bland façade, like smoke behind glass. And the chill in the room had not diminished in any way. No wonder he’d looked ready to leap out from be
hind the table. The notes must be true.
‘I’m sure you would,’ she told him, her voice level. ‘But I didn’t come here for that.’
Behind her, the door opened and Koenig stepped up alongside her.
Al-Bashir didn’t take his eyes off Riley. ‘So why did you come?’
‘For the truth.’
‘Ah. The truth.’ Al-Bashir looked sour. ‘Not exactly what one looks for in your business, I think.’
Except when it suits you, Riley wanted to say. ‘Maybe. What would be the effects if such reports came out?’
He didn’t reply. Riley took it as answer enough, and wondered just how fragile this man’s position really was. She was beginning to see how clever his enemies might have been.
Koenig leaned forward and placed a folded sheet of paper in front of his boss. Al-Bashir opened it. Inside was a photo. He read the note, then swept it to the floor with a sharp flick of his hand. It was the first clear sign of irritation.
‘It seems you were followed here today,’ said Al-Bashir. He pushed the photo across the table so that Riley could see it. It appeared to have been taken from high up near the ceiling, and showed the area around the information desk downstairs. A man was standing nearby. He was short and heavily built, like a weight-lifter. ‘This man entered the building thirty seconds after you. He is waiting downstairs, pretending to study the floor plan, but not very convincingly. His name is Pechov.’
Riley tried to remain casual. Followed? By whom? ‘Pechov? I don’t know anyone called Pechov.’
‘Of course not. But he seems to know you. He was watching you all the way to the desk and only turned away when Mr Koenig went out to meet you.’ He nodded at the security man. ‘Mr Koenig is a very experienced security consultant. He can identify a bad tail at a hundred metres.’
NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) Page 14
