There was an audible gasp from Komarov who moved sideways and leaned heavily on one of the desks near him. ‘Andrei?’ was all he managed to say.
‘Good evening General,’ said Angus, ‘I hope that this timing suits you as I know it’s around ten in Moscow.’
‘It’s absolutely fine,’ replied the General, smiling broadly.
‘In our earlier conversation you had something to say about the two attempts to steal the Athena programme from Craithe Castle – one of them being successful,’ said Angus.
‘I did indeed,’ replied the General, ‘and I have had a chance to speak to him since then; he has commanded me repeat our apologies on behalf of the Russian Federation for these outrageous and completely unsanctioned invasions of your Castle on a Crown Dependency island. I said I also hoped that you would convey our heartfelt apologies to Her Majesty, your Queen. When we catch up with Mr Komarov, you may rest assured that he and the other culprits will pay a due price for their effrontery. And as Mr Komarov is presently in London, you might ask him to contact me personally right away, I need to tell him that when he returns to Moscow, he is not to go back to his old offices. Mr Pavel Rostov will be taking over all his former connections and duties.’
Angus found it hard not to smile at this over-the-top performance for, although he had discussed what was needed to get the message across to Komarov, he had not made any suggestions on what the General was to say.
Komarov had turned pale but after this brief speech he put a hand up to his forehead and was now gently massaging it, preferring to look no longer at his old friend, General Yolkov.
‘Thank you for making that so clear for us, General’ said Angus.
‘Our pleasure,’ replied the General, as he gave a sidelong look to his right to someone just outside the camera’s view, ‘and I hope shortly that we may meet and do some business over your Athena programmes’ he added.
During the latter part of the General’s speech, Angus had made a sign to Perry up on Craithe who had acknowledged the pre-arranged signal,
‘I’m also pleased to tell you General,’ said Angus, ‘that my people have just sent the password for the website you were interested in. If you care to look at your mobile phone – the number which you gave me earlier – perhaps you can check that it has reached you?’
The general pulled his mobile out of an inside pocket, fiddled about with it for a moment and then looked up at the camera again. ‘It has indeed arrived,’ he said.
‘Good,’ said Angus, ‘I hope you have fun doing whatever you wish to do with it.’
Then General just waved and then must have switched off the camera because his image faded from the big screen.
Angus turned to speak to a now ashen-faced Komarov who just stood there in a state of shock – his world had just evaporated.
‘I thought the General put our position on Athena well, didn’t you?’ but before Komarov could reply a fusillade of shots rang out from the main hall just outside the computer room. All of them in the computer training room ducked out of sight below the level of the glass as the next shot shattered one of the classroom panels and they were showered with broken glass. Angus squirmed towards the door trying to see across and into the small room where Izolda was guarding Kim. He saw that they too had come under fire and that Izolda, crouching by the classroom door, was retuning fire. He also looked back to the reception area where the new intruders seemed to be. He saw one figure get up and go back out of the Centre’s main entrance; maybe going round for an attack a different way; not a moment to lose.
Boreyev had pulled himself across the floor and was rummaging around in a five-foot long, black canvas bag. He pulled out a mortar and some of his canisters of crowd-control gunge and pulled himself over to the doorway past Angus. Rolling over onto his back he prepared the mortar and put two canisters on the floor right next him. When he was ready, he nodded to Angus, knelt up to peer over the partition wall and through the gap of the broken glass panel, and gave covering fire with the AK47 which Boreyev had passed him for this purpose. As soon as Angus laid down an arc of fire, Boreyev swung himself up onto his knees, pushed the mortar into the doorway, and angling it as best he could, he dropped one of the canisters into the tube. As soon as it hit the firing pin at the bottom of the tube, it fired the canister and a swirl of smoke traced a shallow arc over the reception area where the new intruders were still firing towards Izolda and Kim.
The first canister burst, like a firework and a wide umbrella of thick charcoal-grey gunge shot out in every direction, spattering the windows and temporarily blocking Boreyev’s view. On the assumption that he could not see them, they could not see him he squirmed further out of the door, and fired two more canisters in rapid succession but in different directions. The gunge flowed down the door beside him for a few seconds, and then the droplets began to gel and form into the same netting that had covered Rollo’s men and the helicopter on the terraces at Craithe. At this moment the gunfire ceased and was replaced by cursing and the noises of struggling gunmen. Angus had already leapt to his feet and ran through to the room where Izolda and Kim had been under a hail of fire for several minutes.
Izolda was lying, covered with blood, her body twisted into an awkward shape, her head in Kim’s lap, her eyes looking up into Kim’s. As he got closer to the two of them, he was just in time to see Izolda smile faintly and say something to Kim who was looking back down at her, gently pushing away the blood matted hair from Izolda’s forehead.
Boreyev had followed Angus out of the computer room, taking with him a number of sets of plastic hand-cuffs and both ran forward half crouching towards the main reception desk, being careful not to slip on the now almost set netting of gunge. On getting to the desk, Boreyev rose slowly from behind its cover and could see three of intruders struggling in the meshes of the setting gunge. As fast as he could Boreyev ran to each in turn, cuffing first their wrists behind their backs and then their ankles. As a final precaution, he then put a third cuff on each binding their wrists to their ankles. The three of them could now hardly move at all, looking somewhat like game trussed for the oven. Two other men lay dead over towards the Centre’s entrance, presumably shot by Izolda in the early exchanges of fire.
Angus knelt down and comforted the quietly crying Kim and laid a hand on Izolda’s neck searching for a pulse. There was none and on looking again he could see that Izolda’s eyes were staring, unblinking, up to the ceiling. She was dead.
As though suddenly remembering something left burning in the oven, Angus leapt to his feet and reassuring himself that Kim was all right, ran back towards the computer room. He was joined by two of Boreyev’s men who had now emerged from just beyond Izolda and Kim classroom, and tucked their guns into the backs of their trousers.
The three of them quickly but carefully approached the computer room where the smoke from the firing of the canisters was now clearing. As they entered it, even a cursory look was enough to tell them that is was empty – in the smoke, gunfire, canister firing and confusion, Komarov must have made his escape.
With the intruders trussed and the gunge now turning to white powder, Boreyev cut the plastic cuffs binding their wrists to their ankles and those round their ankles too and ordered the three of them at gunpoint to move to a row of chairs against the wall opposite the main reception desk. As soon as they were seated, new cuffs were put on them, tying their ankles to one of their chair-legs.
Angus took Kim into the computer room, sat her down in one of the more comfortable chairs from in front of one of the consoles, drew up a chair next to her and sat down.
‘How are you doing?’ he said softly, ‘this has all been one hell of an ordeal for you.’
Kim straightened up, and brushed smudges of drying tears away from her cheeks, then to Angus’s surprise, she smiled and even gave a brief laugh.
‘You know, one never remembers the worst bits,’ she said, ‘and some of it was really exciting. Looking back, all I can say is, t
hank God I was kidnapped by someone as unbelievably good at her job as Izolda.’
Angus smiled back at her, puzzled for now as he did not know how Izolda had extricated the two of them from the clutches of Lupo – and he would later be horrified by the story of that ordeal.
‘Look, I’ve got to go back and find out who the hell these other intruders are, and see if it’s not too late to find Komarov’ he said gently and then added, ‘are you sure you’re all right?’
‘I’m fine, really,’ said Kim and getting up from her chair at the same time as Angus, added, ‘and if you’ll point me in the right direction I could go and see if I can make cups of tea for everyone.’
Considering that an activity of this kind would be good for distracting her for a spell, Angus pointed out for her how to get to the canteen and kitchen behind it.
Returning to the main reception hall, he found Boreyev watching over the prisoners. ‘I’ve sent my two off to look around and see if they can find any trace of Komarov,’ he said, ’though I suspect that he’s used all the confusion to get the hell out of here and may be well away by now.’
‘I’ll bet that by now he’s well on his way to the Connaught Hotel to pay his bill and get himself out of the UK,’ said Angus. ‘It’ll be interesting how that develops because, of course, General Yolkov would have said anything to get our website destroyed and, with it, all the President’s secret files. And I wonder what Komarov’s going to do. On the face of it he may feel that he has been betrayed by the president but, on the other hand, for all we know, he may secretly be welcomed back into the President’s arms when he gets back to Moscow – who knows?’
‘I doubt that bit about being welcomed back into the President’s arms,’ said Boreyev, ‘the President’s persona of being completely in control of everyone and everything about him is the very essence of the man. Anyone who challenges that personal view – such as Komarov being caught stealing something as high profile as Athena from another sovereign state – or, even worse, being responsible for putting the president into such a potentially embarrassing position, is unlikely to be soon forgiven. Anyway, that’s my opinion of Russia today,’ said Boreyev.
Angus realised that Komarov and his whereabouts would now need to be left till later and he turned to face the three remaining intruders. They sat there, shock and bewilderment on their faces.
‘Before calling the Police and handing you over to them,’ he said, ‘you have just five minutes to explain what this is all about. If you think that all you have to fear is what the Police can do to you, think again. For starters, ballistics will soon establish which of you is up for murder – the other two will be accessories to murder – take your pick.’
The eldest-looking of the three raised his hands a bit off his lap, as though to raise a hand in class.
‘I’m Alfredo Favero,’ he said. ‘Mr Lupo who’s lying over there dead, next to my father, rang us only today. His family used to be friends with ours. As he was over staying at the Dorchester Hotel, he said he would like to meet some old family friends. Our father and the two of us went over to the Dorchester to represent the rest of the family and as an act of British hospitality. When we got there Mr Lupo quickly persuaded my father that, we were honour-bound to join him in something he was involved in. He said it was an old association, but still very much alive. We know how important our family’s word used to be so we went along with him. We had no idea it would involve any of…er…this.’
He paused and looked pleadingly from Angus to Boreyev and back again. Then he went on. ‘Mr Lupo gave us guns but said he was being persecuted by some Russian and that they were only for protection – he said there would be no violence. Beyond that we know nothing of what he was involved in.’
Angus smiled back at him. ‘Though there may be a few elements of truth in some of that,’ he said, ‘I think we’ll just let the police deal with you – though I will be giving my views on this matter to them – especially after we’ve delved a little further into your family friend, Mr Lupo.’
He turned, nodded for Boreyev to continue watching over the three, and went back to the computer room to ring for the Police. There he found Kim had brought back a tray of tea and was handing some of it to Boreyev’s two men.
‘You all right now?’ said Angus putting a hand on her shoulder.
‘Fine,’ she said, ‘just fine now’, she replied.
Angus rang the police, gave a basic run down of the scene and happenings at the centre and then went to one of the laptops. On it he dialled up Perry on Skype, and when Perry answered, told him what had happened at the centre and asked if all was well at Craithe.
‘Everything’s fine here,’ replied Perry, ‘in fact as quiet as a graveyard.’
Whilst waiting for the police to arrive and deal with Izolda’s, Lupo’s and Favero’s bodies and take away the remaining three intruders, he got Perry to find Tatiana up in the Castle so that he could have a talk with her on Skype.
Just as he finished this his mobile phone, buzzed and vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and scrolled through to new messages where one, just arrived, was flashing. He opened it and read it and then read it again.
‘I am most unhappy at the way you, single-handedly, destroyed my name, my credibility and my long-held position and favour with the President. You have not heard the end of this nor of me’. It was signed Komarov.
The Police and forensics arrived, took away the three bound intruders and the bodies of Lupo, Favero and Izolda. DI Morgan, in charge of the investigating team spent some time with Angus, Boreyev and Kim getting their stories and took statements from Boreyev’s two men as well.
As a result of Angus’s persistent pleading, Morgan promised to let Angus know of any developments still not obvious right now – well, at least developments that did not break the ‘ongoing investigation’ rules of confidentiality.
Angus, got on with tidying up from the fall-out of the Easter weekend’s quite extraordinary happenings and Kim helped him with all of it, learning the full story as well.
‘Well, I must say Boss,’ she said at one point, ‘I have to take my hat off to you as they say,’
‘What on earth for?’
‘The sheer cunning of your ploy with Komarov,’ she replied, ‘that was far more the pirate’s blood in you than the royal name of Stuart that you also carry.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Angus.
‘Remember when we had all just arrived in Craithe and you showed me the big book and the family tree, Bonnie Prince Charlie and the pirate chap?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, yes bad Jack Black’ said Angus smiling, ‘fancy you thinking of that, maybe you’re right.’
Although Boreyev’s men returned to Moscow after a short holiday sightseeing in London, Boreyev stayed on to help Angus find a suitable new, secret home for Athena in London – and were successful in finding just such a spot above a busy Italian restaurant in the West End where comings and goings of people connected with the further development of Athena would go unnoticed amongst the busy restaurant’s human traffic.
Though the team had been happy in the wilds of Scotland these past couple of years, Angus persuaded them all to move to London as soon as the new centre could be made ready and, with the help of the conglomerate’s deep pockets, also helped very generously with relocation and expensive London housing costs for all of the team.
It was some two weeks after the shoot-out at the Newby Centre that DI Morgan telephoned Angus.
‘I thought you might be interested,’ he said, ‘a completely unexpected finding from one of the bodies from the Newby Centre shooting,’
‘Unexpected,’ repeated Angus, ‘in what way?’
‘The unexpected bit is to do with the shootings of Mr Lupo and Mr Favero,’ said Morgan, ‘we found that both had been wounded by shots from Izolda Valik’s gun but what killed them both were shots fired from a gun not even found at the Centre.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said A
ngus, ‘how’s that possible?’
‘Must have been fired by someone who was with the group before you clobbered them with the sticky stuff,’ said Morgan, ‘someone who fired the shots that killed both Lupo and Favero, but left before the gunge was fired. Oh, and another strange thing, in both of them the shots that actually killed them were shots in their backs. We’ve managed to trace the gun to who it’s registered to – an Alessandro Scaalay, originally of Sicilian origin, was involved in a mugging a couple of years back but was stolen from a police lock-up. Does that name, Scaalay mean anything to you?’
‘Scaalay? No I don’t think so,’ said Angus, How’s it spelt?’
‘S-c-a-l-e,’ repeated Morgan, ‘as I said, Sicilian, Italian in origin.’
‘And his Christian name?’ asked Angus.
‘Alessandro, as in Alexander,’ said Morgan.
Angus suddenly noticed his heart-beat in his chest, but did not immediately mention a number of quite extraordinary things that had suddenly stormed into his mind. Need to think about this a bit more, he thought.
‘Sorry, nothing at the moment,’ said Angus, biting his lower lip,
‘Well, we’ll carry on following that up, especially the Sicilian connection as both the Lupo and Favero families were not only originally from near Palermo in Sicily, they were also Mafia,’ said Morgan, ‘but if anything occurs to you, give us a bell, will you?’
‘Of course,’ said Angus and they rang off.
Betrayed: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – Book 1 in the Legacy Thriller Series) Page 28
