One Damn Thing After Another

by Dan Latus

‘From my yacht,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘Which blew up in Montenegro, remember?’

  ‘My other yacht, the Kursk. I’d had her stationed in the North Sea.’

  ‘Just in case?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And how did you get to your yacht from Switzerland – or were you never in Switzerland?’

  ‘Yes, I was there, until …’ He glanced at his watch and continued, ‘… until a few hours ago. It is not difficult to move around quickly these days, Frank. You should know that.’

  If you have the money and the resources, I thought.

  ‘Humour me, Leon. Just tell me how you did it. I’m curious.’

  ‘I flew to Rotterdam, and took a helicopter from there to the yacht. OK?’

  ‘Then another one to here?’

  He nodded agreement. ‘I didn’t want anyone in Rotterdam who might have been watching to know where I was going, out of respect for your privacy, Frank.’

  ‘Thank you, Leon. I appreciate it.’

  I would have appreciated it even more if he had stayed away from Risky Point, but I couldn’t tell him that. He was here now, and he’d gone to some trouble to hide his trail. Besides, we needed to talk.

  I poured the coffee. Martha, who had scarcely said a word so far, distributed the mugs around the table.

  Leon looked from one to the other of us speculatively. ‘So are you back on board, Frank? Or are you still resigned, or fired, or whatever it was that happened?’

  I had to smile.

  ‘OK. Don’t tell me. I can see how things stand between the two of you now.’

  ‘You can?’ I said with some surprise.

  ‘Sure I can. I’ve known Martha a long time.’

  I had to laugh then.

  Martha looked furious. ‘Leon,’ she said, ‘we’ve had a terrible time, and barely escaped with our lives. A lot of people died! We don’t need jokes.’

  ‘OK, OK! You don’t have to tell me anything – but I still know,’ he added with a smile that seemed to infuriate Martha even more. ‘Now, what happened the other night? Tell me again.’

  So we took turns putting him in the picture, and did it properly. This time, he got the full story.

  ‘So three good men dead,’ he said sombrely.

  ‘That we know about.’

  He grimaced and nodded. ‘You did well to get out yourselves.’

  I said nothing. We had done well, and we’d been lucky. That much was obvious.

  ‘It was thanks to Frank,’ Martha said quickly. ‘I was paralysed by shock. I had no idea what to do, or where to go.’

  ‘No, no!’ I insisted. ‘I’m not having that. You were fine, Martha.’

  Leon glanced from one to the other of us again and nodded. ‘Not your game, Martha. That’s why I brought Frank in.’

  Turning to me, he added, ‘Would it have made any difference if you had still been on site?’

  I shook my head. ‘The only difference is that Martha and I would probably have been dead, as well. There were too many of them. I couldn’t have held them off any more than Roman and Boris could.’

  He didn’t react. He knew the truth of it. Bobrik didn’t go in for half-measures. Blitzkrieg was more his style. Overwhelming force, and sudden impact.

  ‘What about the IT centre?’ I asked.

  ‘In chaos. Hackers have devastated the systems. We’ll get it back up and running, but it will take time. For now, Olga is operating with key personnel on backup systems.’

  ‘In Switzerland?’

  He nodded.

  I sighed. ‘Leon, like I said before, this has to be stopped. You can’t go on like this.’

  ‘Frank is right,’ Martha chimed in.

  ‘Easy to say,’ Leon mused, ‘but hard to do. We have come here today to talk to you both, and to see if we can find a solution.’

  I was a bit slow on the uptake, but after a second or two I frowned. ‘We?’ I said.

  ‘Me and Lenka.’

  ‘Lenka?’

  ‘Sure. Didn’t I tell you?’

  I shook my head. ‘So where is she?’

  ‘Outside, somewhere. She’s the chopper pilot.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  AND THERE SHE WAS, when I stuck my head out the door. Lenka, fussing over something in the cockpit, just like a real pilot.

  ‘Come and have a coffee, Lenka!’

  She waved and said something about being too busy. I left her to it, and went back inside. Leon grinned at me, enjoying the disruption he’d brought to Risky Point.

  ‘OK, Leon,’ I said, dropping into a chair. ‘Let’s get down to it. Here’s what I think. One, you either possess or can do something that Bobrik wants very badly indeed. Two, you don’t want to give it to him. How am I doing so far?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ he said with a nod. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘You’re going to have to negotiate with him – properly this time, not like in Montenegro. You have to find a compromise that will satisfy you both. Otherwise, there’ll be no end to it – the killing and destruction. As well as yourself and your staff, Leon, you have a family and innocent bystanders to think of. This has to stop.’

  ‘I agree,’ Leon said. ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘For a start, tell me what Bobrik wants.’

  ‘He wants to stop us publishing our online newspaper.’

  ‘Because the Kremlin objects to it, and getting the thing stopped will buy him favour with the Kremlin?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  It didn’t seem enough. All this death and destruction because of an internet news organ? How many people would read the damned thing anyway?

  ‘OK. What else?’

  ‘He wants to destroy Leonomics.’

  ‘Because it’s helping to keep you afloat financially?’

  Leon nodded. ‘Essentially, yes.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. I didn’t buy it. It wasn’t enough.

  ‘There has to be something else, Leon.’

  But if there was, he wasn’t saying. All he added was that any favours Bobrik did for the Kremlin would help protect his business assets in Russia. It just didn’t seem enough. This vendetta was so vicious, it was hard to believe there wasn’t more to it.

  ‘Is that really all Bobrik wants?’ I asked. ‘Is there nothing else at all he wants?’

  ‘He also wants me dead,’ Leon said flatly. ‘Me, personally.’

  There was that, of course. I’d forgotten about that.

  ‘And I want Bobrik dead!’ Lenka snapped, as she came into the room.

  I sighed. ‘This is not getting us very far, Leon,’ I said, frustrated. ‘You’ve got to offer him something as a negotiating token, something that’s important to him.’

  Just then there was a knock on the door. I went to see who it was. Jimmy Mack, of course.

  ‘I’m busy, Jim,’ I said with irritation.

  ‘That helicopter,’ he said stubbornly, standing his ground.

  ‘What about it? Is it blocking your view?’

  He glared at me, affronted, and said, ‘It’s moving. But I don’t know why I’m bothering telling you. It can go over the bloody cliff for all I care!’

  ‘Sorry, Jim. You’ve caught me at a bad time.’

  I looked outside. The chopper didn’t seem to have moved much to me, but it was rocking in the wind that had got up. Maybe it should be tied down. Or whatever. I had no idea what you were supposed to do with the damned thing.

  ‘I’ll get the pilot,’ I said.

  I called Lenka to come and check things. Jimmy took a good look at her, and then wandered away with a thoughtful expression on his face. He was impressed, I could tell. In his day girls didn’t do stuff like this.

  I walked with Lenka over to the chopper. She looked around and said everything was OK for now, but she would stay out here with it. They would be leaving soon anyway.

  Then she blurted out something surprising. ‘You w
ere right, Frank. There is something else, something between Bobrik and the Podolsky family.’

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’

  ‘Leon’s wife. She was with Bobrik first, but he used to beat her badly. Leon rescued her, and her son.’ She shrugged and added, ‘Now they are with Leon.’

  I was taken aback. ‘Are you talking about his family in Switzerland?’

  She nodded. ‘Leon also has a son and daughter of his own now, with her, but the older boy is Bobrik’s.’

  I sighed and shook my head. ‘Thank you for telling me, Lenka.’

  ‘There is more, Frank. Bobrik and me. He did bad things to me once. It is why I hate him so much. I would kill him if I had the chance!’

  I grimaced, but didn’t ask. I didn’t need details. In one sense, I already had too much information. But at least I seemed to have been given what might be the key to the whole sorry business now.

  ‘Don’t trust Martha, Frank,’ Lenka added. ‘She is not what she seems.’

  I stared at her, astonished, but she just turned and walked away.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘LET’S TAKE A WALK, Leon,’ I suggested when I went back inside.

  He looked surprised. ‘We don’t really have time, Frank.’

  ‘He wants to talk to you in private,’ Martha piped up disapprovingly. ‘Without me.’

  I didn’t deny it. Martha could pout and implicitly object all she liked.

  ‘Frank, anything you can say to me, you can also say to Martha. She knows everything.’

  ‘Which is more than I do.’ I shrugged. ‘OK, if that’s how you want it. Leon, I didn’t know your wife used to be with Bobrik. In fact, I didn’t know you had a family in Switzerland until yesterday, when Martha told me.’

  He smiled. ‘Frank, how long have we known each other? There hasn’t been time to tell you everything about myself.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I admitted. ‘You’re right. Still, this changes things for me. I can see now why Bobrik is so hell-bent on destroying you. It makes sense at last.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  ‘Not sense in the normal meaning of the word. I just mean it helps explain what’s been happening. It doesn’t really change anything, though. You still need to negotiate a settlement with him.’

  ‘He was cruel to Elizabet, who was then his wife. You know that?’

  ‘Lenka told me.’

  ‘Did Lenka also tell you that he raped her so badly she was in hospital for a month?’

  I grimaced. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘He is an evil man, Frank. I want you to know that.’

  ‘OK. But we still have to bring the feud to an end.’

  He nodded. ‘I know that. But what if he will not negotiate?’

  ‘Then shoot the bastard!’

  The discussion became sensible again. When I reminded Leon that we still hadn’t thought of anything to offer Bobrik, Martha came up with a proposal.

  ‘There’s always Svoboda, Leon. You could offer him that.’

  He looked puzzled. ‘Svoboda? Have we still got it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, well.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘A gold mine,’ Martha said.

  Nice! A gold mine Leon owned but seemed to have forgotten about.

  ‘You’re sure we’ve still got it?’ he repeated, sounding puzzled.

  When she said she was, he shrugged and looked mystified. ‘I thought we lost all the gold mines when the state took them over.’

  ‘We did – all except that one.’

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Siberia,’ Leon said, ‘where most of the other Russian gold mines are.’

  ‘Well, Amur Oblast,’ Martha qualified. ‘The Russian Far East. Leon kept ownership when the others were expropriated because the authorities didn’t realize the company set up to run it was one of his.’

  ‘We’ll lose it eventually, though,’ he pointed out, ‘when they discover their mistake.’

  ‘So?’ Martha said.

  ‘There you are, then,’ I said. ‘You have nothing to lose, Leon. Offer him that, just to get him to the negotiating table.’

  Leon looked thoughtful. ‘If he was short of cash, he might be interested.’

  I grimaced. ‘He doesn’t seem to be, does he?’

  ‘No. And he’s got plenty more salted away offshore.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Olga traced his investments portfolio. Most of it’s in Cayman.’

  ‘Most of it?’

  ‘Ninety per cent.’

  ‘Really?’ I said slowly, thinking aloud. It took a moment before the idea came to me. ‘So he’s very vulnerable. Leon, do you think…?’

  ‘Get her!’ he snapped, jumping out of his chair. ‘Martha, get Olga. Meanwhile, I want to know what the situation is at the IT centre. How soon before they’re up and running again?’

  He grinned as he took out his phone. ‘Thank you, Frank! You might just have found the solution. We’ll go after his money.’

  ‘Great minds think alike,’ I said modestly, grinning back.

  It was all checked and arranged in double-quick time. The IT centre was back online. Olga would leave Switzerland and return to Samphire Batts, with Lenka ferrying her by helicopter on the last stage of the journey. First, though, Lenka would fly Leon to the IT centre, where he would wait for his sisters.

  Simple, when you had the resources.

  ‘What about The Chesters?’ Martha asked.

  ‘Forget about it,’ Leon said brusquely. ‘It’s gone now, and we have too many other things to worry about.’

  So then there was just me and Martha left at Risky Point. Well, us and Jimmy Mack.

  I walked Martha over to Jimmy’s cottage, so the two of them could get acquainted, figuring that might stop him being so damned nosey.

  ‘Polish?’ he asked her after I had made the introductions.

  She shook her head. ‘English.’

  ‘English?’ He looked dumbfounded. ‘Well, the other one was Polish, wasn’t she? The pilot, I mean.’

  ‘What did you think of her as a pilot?’ I asked him before Martha could correct him on that score as well, and perhaps get him wondering even more.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said thoughtfully, as if he knew a lot about flying helicopters. ‘She took it up and away without any messing.’

  Martha took my hint. ‘So you’re a fisherman, Jimmy?’

  ‘I am, like my father before me, and his father before him.’

  ‘I know nothing about fishing,’ she said innocently. ‘I often wondered how it was done from those little boats. Cobles, are they called?’

  Well, I could see Jimmy’s eyes light up. ‘Oh, it’s a complicated business,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he relished the opportunity. ‘You have to be born to it. Would you like a cup of tea, pet?’

  ‘I’d love one,’ she assured him.

  ‘I’ll catch you up later,’ I said hurriedly. ‘One or two phone calls to make.’

  ‘Aye. Away you go, then,’ Jimmy said complacently. ‘We’ll be all right here, the two of us.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  THE WORD FROM LEON came early the next day in a terse phone call. We were wanted back at Samphire Batts just as soon as we could get there. Martha jumped up, ready to go.

  ‘Hang on!’ I told her. ‘Let’s just think about this for a moment.’

  ‘He wants us there, Frank – now!’

  I shook my head. ‘What are we going to do there? What’s the hurry?’

  She sighed impatiently and looked frustrated. I took her in my arms and said, ‘Think about it. Are you sure you want to do this, Martha? You’ve already been through a lot for Leon.’

  ‘So have you.’

  ‘I signed on to provide security for The Chesters. Sadly, I failed. Now I have to ask myself if I want to continue to be involved with the Podolsky family. So should you. It’s a very d
angerous commitment.’

  ‘I know that. I’ve worked for Leon for a long time. You’re right. It’s high-risk. You think we should review our involvement?’

  ‘I do. We need to think it through carefully, Martha.’

  ‘OK. I’ve done that.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m going to Samphire Batts, to the IT centre. Are you coming with me?’

  I gave her a rueful smile. ‘Nothing’s going to change your mind, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right, then. Let’s get our stuff together.’

  The decision, or the speed of it, went against my better judgement, but I was just as much caught up in the nexus of Podolsky intrigue as Martha was. Neither of us was going to back out now, it seemed.

  It was early afternoon when we got there. Inside the centre, the atmosphere was electric. We could sense it as soon as we got through the doors. Martha looked at me and I nodded. Something was happening, or about to happen.

  Plenty of people not in the know would have been carrying on with their usual work for Leonomics, but even they must have been aware that something special was afoot in the building.

  Leon greeted us and then went to join two people he referred to as his money men – one a young man, the other a middle-aged woman – who were closeted in a big room stacked high with an impressive bank of computer equipment.

  Next door, Olga was working alone at a terminal. I guessed she was being given the space and time, and no doubt all the computer power and expertise she needed, to try to divest Bobrik of his offshore investments.

  ‘Olga is supposed to be good at this kind of thing,’ I said quietly.

  Martha nodded. ‘Most people in her field would probably say she’s a genius.’

  ‘Where did she learn the trade?’

  ‘She started off in Moscow, at the university space agency, I believe. Then she spent several years in California – NASA, Stanford U, Silicon Valley.’

  ‘All the good places.’

  ‘For what she was interested in, yes. Then she came back to Europe to help out with the family business.’

  Lucky Leon, I couldn’t help thinking. From what I’d gathered, Olga’s skills were probably responsible for a large part of the family’s wealth.

  A technician moved behind a glass wall that separated him from Olga’s room. Leon suddenly appeared beside us. He said the technician was monitoring screens that told how well the systems were coping with Olga’s demands.