Betrayed: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – Book 1 in the Legacy Thriller Series)

by William Wield

  With every drop in the price of oil and with each consequent slide of the Rouble against the Dollar, the President was getting both angrier and quicker at finding people to lash out at. His latest victim for a lashing was Komarov. Having made the mistake of boasting to the President that he was about to deliver the stunning new weapon with which to bargain with the West, he now looked foolish to say the least, giving excuses within days of his crowing.

  It was not surprising, therefore, that he had been on the telephone to Wheeler a number of times. It was understandable too, that when Wheeler finally did ring back, the reception he got from the Moscow end was sour – and this was not helped by the fact that Komarov was in the middle of dinner which had been delayed because he had been trying to reach Wheeler.

  ‘So you have some news for me, at last?’ said Komarov, ‘Here in the Federation, such inefficiencies are dealt with in a pretty forthright manner, if you get my meaning, Mr Wheeler.’

  ‘I get your meaning all right Mr Komarov,’ replied Wheeler, ‘but may I remind you that I’m talking to you from London, I’m not in bloody Moscow.’

  ‘Mr Wheeler, each of us has far too much to lose if this does not work out, so let’s try and keep this civil and continue in friendly co-operation, that’s surely still in both our best interests.’

  Wheeler took a deep breath; this was no more than common sense.

  ‘Of course you’re right Mr Komarov …’

  ‘Igor. Please …’

  ‘Indeed, Igor, my name’s Max, short for Maximillian,’ replied Wheeler.

  ‘Very grand name Max, anyway, you were saying?’

  ‘Just saying that between the island of Craithe and the mainland, the seas have just been too rough for small boats. All of this not helped by the Corryvreckan whirlpools – you could look it up on Google if you have Google in Russia.’

  ‘Can you spell that for me please,’ said Komarov, ‘and yes we do have Google here in Moscow, we’re not too bad on technology as I think you’ve discovered.’

  Duly put down, Wheeler spelt the name out for him, and then continued.

  ‘It’s only a hiccup, I assure you, Igor,’ he concluded.

  ‘Okay, Max, but let me know the moment you have better news, all right.’

  ‘Of course I will, Igor, the moment I have any news at all.’

  They rang off and Wheeler let out a sigh of relief. At least that was over and he was relieved that he had no need yet to ring Nat Matthews. So, now, all he had to do was wait for Flaxman to deliver the kidnapped prisoner or prisoners to the Major at some wilderness rendezvous on the rocky coast of Scotland – something over which he had no personal control whatsoever.

  God, how come I pick impossible missions such as this? He thought about it as he got up from his chair and went to put on his coat. Forget about it all for a bit, he continued - though he did spare a thought for the Major, alone in a Crinan hotel, perhaps biting his finger-nails down to the bone with anxiety, knowing that the police might come knocking at any time.

  Chapter 24

  Saturday evening,

  Glengarrisdale, Island of Jura

  After turning back from an almost inevitable fate in the Corryvreckan, McKinnon took the Calistra west and then turned south, away from Craithe and down the coast of the Island of Jura. Soon, as dusk fell, they were out of sight of Craithe and Flaxman seemed to relax – especially as there had been no sign of police boats or helicopters. He wondered why this might be so, but soon just counted his blessings and put it from his mind. In time, they eased into the bay at Glengarrisdale and as they approached a small jetty, much in need of repair, MacKinnon brought her gently alongside and Flaxman and Tulloch got onto the jetty and helped to tie her up. The Macraes were then allowed up on deck but with Flaxman keeping an eye on them seated in the stern.

  McKinnon brought all his remaining stores up from the drawers and lockers, and laid them out on the table in the wheelhouse. There were some tins of thick stew-like soup for when beautiful mornings degenerate into miserable wet afternoons and cold customers get tired and hungry. There was also a goodly supply of biscuits, some small cakes, some beers and several bottles of diet Coca Cola.

  After a meagre supper, Flaxman and Tulloch went ashore to stretch their legs but, not trusting McKinnon and Calistra to stay tied up at the jetty if left alone, they took it in turn for this exercise. For the night, there were the two bunks down in the for’ard cabin for the Macraes and benches for McKinnon, Flaxman and Tullock to stretch out on. There were blankets enough though what was not so readily available, was sleep. Each had their own particular torment to keep them tossing and turning.

  Although Angus tried to reassure Tatiana as best he could in the noise of the for’ard cabin, he could offer no evidence that things would turn out all right the next day. So her worries for little Jerry could not just be smoothed away even though he cuddled up to her and held her tight. Eventually the regular noise of the water lapping at the hull outside began to have a soporific effect and she began to sleep lightly. Angus had recovered from the smack to his head from Flaxman’s gun, and tried to put out of his mind the fact that, had he been a bit more prudent, he would never have gone out fishing in a dingy and though he knew it was futile to speculate who might be behind this kidnapping, his mind drifted back to the question time and again. The kidnap was obviously with a view to getting something in return for their release – but what was the ‘something’? Not knowing that the authorities had failed to brief Nat Matthews about using his company for the demonstration, meant that he was still unaware of Matthews’s fury over the issue. Indeed, at this time he still assumed that this was only about someone getting their hands on Athena and therefore spent several hours of fitful half-sleep going over in his mind the same unanswerable question.

  Flaxman was disappointed, frustrated, angry and afraid, all at the same time. His main torment was that he should have listened more to the hints about the dangers of the Corryvreckan which, had he listened, he might have taken steps to mitigate. So now he wasted several hours going over what he might have done. Might he not have paid more attention and planned with the Corryvreckan firmly in mind? They could easily have set off for Craithe at nine, ignoring the Major’s visit to Oban. If they had set off earlier from the Galley of Lorne, they might have got through the Corryvreckan if they had done so by four in the afternoon. With a bit more forethought, he might have insisted that McKinnon top up with fuel when they arrived in Stanleytoun – that might have allowed them to return to the mainland round the top of Scarba. These fruitless musings on might-have-beens kept him from sleeping and worsened his mood as the hours passed. By around four o’clock in the morning, however, he realised that dwelling on the past achieving nothing and he began to doze off consoling himself that he had at least accomplished the most difficult part of the mission – the kidnapping.

  McKinnon, lay on the bench seat in the main cabin. He envied the young kidnapper – the one who went by the odd name of Bookie. There he was, sprawled out on a bench in the stern of the boat - off to sleep almost as soon as his head had fallen onto one of McKinnon’s pillows. Seemingly the one person without a worry to keep him awake. His own mind tumbled round how to foil Flaxman’s plan to reach the mainland and spirit away the Macrae couple. Though they had not discussed it, he guessed that Sandy Grieg would have got the Louisa repaired by now. With her stability and being capable of twice the speed of Calistra he was confident that he and Sandy would manage some kind of rescue.

  As a plan for the meeting of the two boats began to crystallise in his mind, keeping an eye on Flaxman and Bookie, he began to write a note to Angus. In the morning, on the pretence that he was ensuring that all was battened down for the passage through the Corryvreckan, he would drop the note down through the plastic hatch cover so that it landed at Angus’s feet in the for’ard cabin. This plan’s details would need to be refined but, with the framework for a rescue now in mind, he, like the others, began to drift off int
o fitful sleep.

  * * * * *

  The morning was cold and grey. The five of them managed to eat some breakfast, the last of McKinnon’s supplies. McKinnon was keen to delay departure as long as possible so that, after more squalls in the night the Corryvreckan would be at its wildest – the wilder the seas, the more advantage the Louisa would have.

  Flaxman seemed well pleased with the thought that by midday he could have got his two captives over to Northern Ireland by helicopter and handed them over to Rollo. As soon as he deemed that breakfast was over, he insisted that the time had come to get back to the mainland. Everyone was forced to gulp down their tea or instant coffee and to finish off the few remaining biscuits. McKinnon played his Captain of the boat role and warned them that although they would probably get through the Corryvreckan this time, it was going to be rough. Despite Flaxman’s eagerness to get going, he insisted he be allowed to take the time to check round the boat. During this process, whilst making his way round the boat, checking the tightness of a rope here, or a fastening there, he glanced back at the wheelhouse to see if he was being watched. There was no one in sight. He quickly bent down, undid the latch of the plastic hatch-cover above the for’ard cabin and dropped the note he had written last night down the hatch. He saw it land on the floor in front of one of the bunks and immediately shut the hatch cover but making sure that it was not latched and could be opened easily from below when the time came for the Macraes to use it for their escape. Getting up again he, checked – no one seemed to have seen him doing all of this.

  Before long, with everything battened down or stowed away, McKinnon had run out of excuses to delay their departure any longer and came back into the wheelhouse. Flaxman was there pulling some lengths of fine but strong rope which he had taken from inside his picnic basket and said that he wanted Angus and Tatiana tied up.

  ‘It’s going to be worse than yesterday in the Corryvreckan,’ said McKinnon, ‘so not only must they remain untied but they must also wear life jackets.’ For a moment it looked as though Flaxman was going to challenge this so McKinnon added for good measure, ‘it’s not as though there’s anywhere for them to run to, is there?’

  The idea of the two of them absconding was so preposterous that even Flaxman momentarily grinned. Bookie went up onto the jetty and cast off and soon Calistra was nudging back out into the rougher waters. Flaxman and Bookie refused to wear the somewhat cumbersome life jackets, especially as Flaxman worried about agility if Angus tried anything, but did not seem worried when the others put on theirs. Angus and Tatiana were then bundled down into the for’ard cabin and, just before securing the door up into the wheelhouse, McKinnon saw that Angus had bent down and picked up his note.

  As soon as Bookie had cast off the mooring lines, given Calistra a push-off from the jetty and jumped aboard, McKinnon took Calistra out into the roughening waters beyond the shelter of Glengarrisdale Bay. Motoring round the point at the end of the bay towards the Corryvreckan and the mainland beyond, they came into view to the Castle on Craithe. This no longer seemed to worry Flaxman, yet even at this early hour, up on the roof of the South East Tower, Perry had uncovered the large telescope again, having volunteered for the first shift watching out for the reappearance of Calistra.

  * * * * *

  The previous evening the Laird, Boreyev and Sandy Grieg had held talks up at the castle about how to attempt a rescue. They agreed that, without communications with McKinnon, he and Sandy would just have to act on instinct to bring the boats close together. The hope was that Angus and Tatiana would take advantage of what the Louisa was built for - plucking people out of the sea. Though this meant both of them jumping into the icy cold waves of the Gulf, it was such an obvious way to effect a rescue that they hoped it would also occur to them on board Calistra.

  The Louisa’s repairs were completed by late evening and Sandy made her ready for the work ahead. The most important of these was the preparation of two lengths of rope with grappling irons at their ends. These would be deployed when they made contact with the Calistra. For extra support and either to take the helm or help with the rescue, he had got his younger brother Jimmy to join the trip. Three of Boreyev’s men arrived down to the boat early so that the Louisa could set off for the Corryvreckan before the Calistra would be likely to leave Glengarrisdale Bay.

  It was just after six o’clock in the morning that Sandy edged the Louisa out through the harbour walls and as soon as she was at sea, he powered her up to near top speed of some twenty-five knots. The tide had recently reached its peak, as she went through the narrow straits, the welling up of the waters from the deep caused the Louisa to wallow and dip as she forced her way through the six foot waves, only slowing down for the worst tide rips near the whirlpool area itself.

  Sandy had thought about the outline plan a number of times and, soon after passing through the Corryvreckan, he turned south and motored a short distance along the Jura coast. On finding a good sheltered spot, he turned her back north the way they had come and put down the anchor. The Louisa now sat under the cliffs of Jura’s eastern shore just near the little harbour of Kinauchdrachd, out of sight of the Corryvreckan but now within the range of the mainland mobile phone relay masts; he even moved her a couple of times to get the very best reception. It had been agreed that he would wait here till given the message to move by the castle. With the help of the Laird directing him from the top of the south-east tower, and monitoring Calistra’s progress, Sandy reckoned he would be able to pick exactly where to intercept her and aimed to confront her at the most difficult point in the gulf. The Louisa’s greater stability would also allow her to dominate the meeting of the two boats and allow Louisa to scoop up the young couple almost as soon as they were in the water, and although it was not certain that those aboard Calistra would hit on this plan, as a back-up, they borrowed an electrically powered ships loudhailer from Brown’s yard.

  Aboard the Calistra, Angus seen McKinnon’s message and had quickly picked it up a stuffed it into his belt. As soon as Calistra was well under way he sat down and read it carefully. It was starkly simple. On hearing two blasts on Calistra’s horn, he and Tatiana were to climb up through the hatch cover in the roof of the cabin, and jump overboard the same side as the Louisa. He showed the note to Tatiana.

  ‘Remember, Douchka’, he said closely into her ear, ‘my father’s boat is a Lifeboat - she’s built precisely for what for we’re going to do soon - rescue people out of the water. We’ll actually be in the sea for maybe a minute or two at the most. You’ll see, they’ll have us out of the water and into the nice warm cabin and a hot drink before you can say boo’.

  Tatiana smiled back up at him, grateful for his efforts to reassure her - although, in her heart, she knew this was going to be one hell of an ordeal. Angus had one arm around her the other helping to brace them against the boats increasingly uncomfortable ride. His feet were planted firmly against the benches opposite and, with his free hand, he held onto a hand-rail that ran around the cabin at what was now head height.

  As Calistra came round the western shoreline of Jura, McKinnon kept as far out from the shore as he could to be nearer to the Castle and in the wheelhouse, Flaxman once again stood forward up next to him, watching the sea changing before them as they progressed. Coming round Jura the swell had been heavy but the waves still not much more than just choppy, but as they approached the Corryvreckan, they got noticeably steeper, the boat’s progress became ever more laboured and Flaxman was forced to keep a strong grip the bar in front of him.

  Progressively, as the waves got to about Calistra’s size, the beginnings of the Corryvreckan came into sight. Bookie stood behind Flaxman, pale, and clutching a plastic bag MacKinnon had given him.

  ‘I thought you said the Gulf here was going to be Okay this morning,’ said Flaxman, now he was peering with a worried look on his face as the waves had increased sufficiently to be throwing water up onto the glass in front of them at regular intervals.


  ‘Never can tell just what it’s going to be like till you’re actually here’, shouted MacKinnon back to him, and the Calistra wallowed and crashed on from wave to wave. Suddenly, Flaxman threw up his arm and pointing ahead, shouted out, ‘What the hell’s that?’

  McKinnon, who for a second had been checking his bearing, looked back up and, right in front of them, coming at speed straight towards them, was the Louisa. She was throwing up large bow waves and through the wind chased spray, it looked as though a collision was imminent.

  Just as the two boats seemed to be on the very point of impact, Sandy, from his higher vantage point in the Louisa’s cabin, swung his wheel sharply to starboard - the rule of the sea being that boats approaching each other from opposite directions should pass port-side to port-side… MacKinnon, taking his timing from the Louisa, also threw his wheel also sharply to starboard. Thus, travelling in opposite directions, the two boats veered off away from each other, nudging as they grazed past each other at the combined equivalent of nearly forty knots.

  As soon as they were past, Sandy spun his wheel back to port and added on full power to bow propeller. Keeling over half onto her side, at an angle of some twenty or thirty degrees, the Louisa turned back round towards Calistra. As this manoeuvre was just about complete, Sandy shut off the power to the bow propeller and the Louisa finished directly astern of the Calistra, and Sandy then nudged her forward alongside and just ten feet or so away from Calistra.

  Flaxman, slow to realise what was happening, quickly plunged his hand into the deep pocket of his trousers to find his gun but, in letting go of his firm grip on the cabin railing whilst doing this, fell heavily to the side and then down with the full weight of his seventeen stones right on top of Bookie. Before either of them could get up, McKinnon again spun his wheel hard to port and this time Calistra came round, beam on, that is, sideways on to the heavy seas. The huge waves, now flecked with foam, and some ten feet from trough to crest, tossed Calistra about as though she were as insignificant as an empty cardboard box. She now lurched over the top of one wave only to fall over in a great arc of more than sixty degrees, down into the next. This constant changing of the angle of the bounding deck was just about manageable for MacKinnon, who had the ship’s wheel to steady him, but it was too much for Flaxman and Bookie on the deck beside him. A few seconds later McKinnon had to shift himself out of the way as both of them were thrown right across the boat. They landed in a writhing pile of arms, legs and torsos on the cabin deck behind him. Flaxman, now desperate, pulled himself clear of Bookie just as a grappling iron came flying through the air from the direction of the Louisa. It bounced off his back and then caught the boat’s side-coaming piercing it and holding firm. As the broad line went taught, it pulled the hook through the glass reinforced plastic gunwale. With a breaking strain of several tons, the line held and Calistra keeled over violently. McKinnon reached up and sounded the Calistra’s horn twice. Already keyed –up and waiting for it, Angus and Tatiana clambered up out of the cabin through the for’ard hatch. Then, just as the Calistra did another sixty degree swing down into the trough of another wave, the two of them jumped together, holding hands, over the low railings and into the froth and spume of the wild seas.