by James Phelan
“Excuse me,” she said, and touched his arm before heading off to the bathroom. He watched her walk away, and then watched as his drink was being mixed.
He’d avoided the hotel bar in the Park Hyatt up till now, despite the spectacular view over Shanghai. He and the others had found some wonderful little places in and around the Bund and the older districts of Shanghai that evoked a different time and place. This, despite being so high above the city, was just another hotel bar.
Now that the summit was underway, and the world leaders and their entourages were here—the US President had over three hundred staff and security guards housed in the hotel next door, not to mention a small naval armada out at sea in case a quick helicopter evac was necessary—the security made it too hard to leave. They were hotel-marooned.
It meant no more nights out in the Bund. No more nights out with Helena, an attractive woman from the Danish contingent who had something of a name among the male staffers. He’d constantly reminded himself that given her role as the EC President’s right hand, an affair with her was too dangerous for his career. Still, they’d come close on a night out, returning to the hotel at 3 am, drinking through Jacob’s mini-bar and singing karaoke until the sun rose, ending with a kiss that led them into bed, but ten minutes later he’d prised himself away from her while they still had their underwear on. The next morning, over a greasy breakfast across the river, he’d learned that his reservations had been well-placed: his friend from the Dutch consulate told him that Helena was a spy with Denmark’s foreign intelligence agency. When Jacob had seen her at lunch today, laughing at a window seat with yet another guy from the Russian delegation, the world had made so much more sense.
The drinks arrived as the reporter came back. He realised she’d left her purse on her chair the whole time—he could have used the opportunity to take a peek at her ID and learn her name. As she sat back down she nudged the purse, revealing her press card: Felecia.
“Cheers,” she said, holding out her glass to meet his. “So, shall we order dinner or go out?”
“Out?” he said. “I don’t know, Felecia … With all the security…”
“True,” she replied. “We could just get room service?”
78
PARIS
They had ditched the unmarked police car and joined the tourists ambling along the banks of the Seine. The tourists were seemingly oblivious to danger, the earlier shooting in the nearby Louvre not spooking them enough to change their holiday plans.
“So slow and dumb a getaway, no one will look here,” Gammaldi said, seating himself at the prow of a tourist barge.
“We had to get off the roads,” Fox said. “And mate, it’s a similar pace to your driving, anyway.”
Gammaldi pulled a face.
“This barge follows a canal to Parc de la Villette,” Zoe said. “I have friends living near there.”
Kate stared at the river as they passed along it.
“Canal Saint-Martin is a piece of Paris that locals like to keep secret…” the tour guide began over the barge’s PA.
They passed under the Pont Royal, a beautiful stone bridge with five arches. Fox was thinking back to that billboard he’d seen not five minutes ago. He ran through the map of Paris burned into his memory. They’d be heading the right way, but it would be a tough sell to the others …
Fox sat next to Kate, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“We’re seeing Paris,” Fox said, trying to lighten the moment.
She turned to face him now, but her eyes were angry.
“I know … This isn’t anything like how you wanted to see it,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
They watched the view as their barge turned past Notre Dame Cathedral.
“Can you even imagine being here as a tourist?” Kate asked, quietly. “Could you do that, ever?”
Fox wanted to say yes, he wanted to believe it himself, but he knew whatever he said right now would only lead to a fight. He remained silent and put his arm around her.
They navigated around the Ile Saint Louis, where Gammaldi stood to take in the sight, and the barge continued on, below the Place de la Bastille.
The tunnel was dark with only the occasional beam of light glistening on the water, while vines snaked down from the concrete above. Another world. So quiet, but for the dull thrum of the barge’s motor.
Kate’s iPhone rang. She passed it to Fox. McCorkell’s number.
Fox asked, “You get the image of the document?”
“We have to get it back,” McCorkell said.
“Good luck with that,” Fox said, almost laughing. “He’s probably halfway to—”
“You read it?”
“Not in detail—”
“It gives Russia the Arctic waters that currently belong to the US.”
“How can that—?”
“I’ve got some experts headed here now to confirm it, but it doesn’t look good. We’re talking economic and security concerns that are almost incomprehensible.”
Fox’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could see his three companions were all listening in close.
“Babich has popped up, just spotted in Shanghai,” McCorkell said. “Hutchinson is headed there as we speak.”
“So that’s it—the document is headed for China?” Fox replied. An opening above allowed a shaft of bright sunlight to cut through the darkness and he could see the look of fear and anger on Kate’s face. When would he let this go? he imagined she was asking. When it ended.
Shanghai. So far away. He couldn’t look Kate in the eye. He told McCorkell about the flights the Russian Ambassador had booked to Shanghai as well.
“With the G20 we’ve got all the major world leaders and media there this weekend,” McCorkell said. “Babich has the biggest audience he could hope for.”
“Would they stand for it?” Fox asked. “Couldn’t they—?”
“We can’t extradite from China, neither can Italy,” McCorkell said. “And the Russians won’t if he has leverage back there, which we know he has.”
“What kind of—?”
“There’s all sorts of stuff brewing, no clear picture yet.”
“Can someone there stop him?” Fox asked. “Surely you’ve got guys you can use in Shanghai?”
“There’s no easy or obvious options,” McCorkell said, letting it hang a moment. “The odds on us getting a bead on him are slight, and the implications of a sanctioned snatch and grab or assassination…”
“Yeah, I got it.” Fox thought about it.
“Why don’t we make Russia believe that the US want Babich to succeed in this?” Fox asked. “How about we make them think we are behind this whole thing—and we’re letting him go, so he can run to a safe place and start bitching to the media to air all his dirty little secrets.”
He could tell that McCorkell was thinking about it.
“They’d buy it, easy,” Fox said. “If you sell it right. If you say that Babich had been a CIA guy all along, or at the very least that he’d rolled and made a deal after we caught him. That he’s out now pushing for a regime change in his own country.”
“That’s probably not far from the truth.”
“I’ve been working against this guy for a long time.”
“Yeah, I know…” McCorkell said. “You want to force them to take care of it for us?”
“It might help put a rocket under them,” Fox said. “Worst case, it could buy us some time as Babich scrambles to set the record straight with them. Get him moving. He might make a mistake we could exploit.”
There was a long pause.
“One thing we don’t have is time,” McCorkell said eventually. “We’ve got teams working up a heap of options here. Let me kick this around my end a bit more; you get somewhere and lay low.”
“Got it, talk soon.” Fox ended the call and handed the iPhone back to Kate. She looked like she wanted to throw it in the water. T
he Canal Saint-Martin opened up to the sky again. It was a glorious bright day, but Fox couldn’t rest just yet.
Gammaldi said to Fox, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Pie and a beer?”
“Please … Pizza. And a beer.”
“I have to go to Shanghai,” Fox said.
“See, I knew you were thinking that! I knew it!” Kate almost hissed.
Fox explained, “Babich was spotted there—”
“And that’s our problem—because?” Kate looked sick.
“That guy from the palace is headed there right now. It’s where the document was going the whole time, only it was going to go to another recipient.”
“The Russian government,” Zoe said. “Only now it has a different courier, it is going to Babich.”
Fox nodded.
“I will go, too,” Zoe said. “Catching this man is the only thing that will save me from … Well, probably from jail, now.”
The morning’s actions had finally sunk in for Zoe. Fox had no doubt that if she ended today empty-handed, she’d be hung out to dry.
“Hutchinson is in transit to Shanghai as well,” Fox said. “I’ll get there and help any way I can. You guys can stay here if you want, but I have to see this through to the end.”
Kate was staring at the buildings overlooking the canal. Little cafés dotted here and there. Busy normal life.
“Shanghai, hey?” Gammaldi asked. “As in Shanghai, China?”
“Yeah, Al, Shanghai’s in China,” Fox said. “It’ll be an adventure, like that time we went to Venice.”
“I got my arse kicked in Venice.”
“You made it through, though, right?”
“Minus a tooth.”
“You got plenty in that big gob of yours,” Fox replied.
Kate wasn’t amused.
“You really are going to go?” she asked Fox.
“I have to.”
“You have a lifetime of bad decisions to make,” Gammaldi said. “May I suggest we don’t make this one? Sit it out from here, no more car chases and breaking into palaces?”
Fox shook his head. “I gotta stop him, Al.”
“You can’t just go back to Manhattan and blog about this one?” Gammaldi pressed, for Kate’s benefit, Fox guessed. “Make up what happens next?”
“Who do I work for, The New York Times?” Fox replied. Kate wasn’t laughing or even smiling, she just kept staring at the happy people as the barge drifted past them.
“How would you get there?” Gammaldi asked.
“De Gaulle,” Zoe interjected. “It’s about twenty-five kilometres from here.”
“Here we are coming up to the cruise’s end,” the guide announced. “This is Parc de la Villette, the abattoir that once supplied all the meat for Paris, but now is transformed into a modern family park. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Fox thought back to that billboard he’d seen earlier. Advertising the Paris Air Show.
“Wasn’t there a closer airport?” he asked, looking at Zoe, and then Gammaldi.
“Well, there’s Le Bourget,” Zoe said. “It’s only about ten kilometres from here.”
“It’s the air show this weekend,” Gammaldi reminded them. “It’ll be closed to commercial traffic.”
Fox looked at Gammaldi, a glint in his eyes.
“What?” Gammaldi asked.
“No way,” Kate said, reading Fox’s mind. “You can’t do that.”
“What?” Gammaldi repeated. “What can’t we do?”
79
CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT
Malevich checked into his Air France flight and pocketed the ticket. He walked over to an information counter nearby.
“Terminal three?”
The attendant was on the phone and pointed in the direction.
He took the shuttle to the terminal, and five minutes later he was at the counter for a charter airline he’d called during the train ride from Paris. Ten minutes after that, he was walking towards his aircraft with the flight crew.
Seventy thousand euros. Most of what remained of the operational budget he’d planned to keep for posterity. He didn’t like the expense but he was sure he’d done the right thing. Too many people had already been killed for the diary, this document, and he was beginning to think he was a throwaway asset. He was wary of Lavrov now—he’d agreed to the five million too quickly. Wouldn’t he need to check that through Moscow? And, the more he thought about it, the more he knew there would be others willing to kill for the document he had in his bag.
Imagine what the Americans would do if they knew I held the title, all future claims, of their waters off Alaska …
But he had to see this through, for himself and, more importantly, for his sister. She was the only family he had left, and her life was far harder than his.
His parents had both been killed in a random attack when he was a boy. Some thugs had entered their house to rob them. It was the transition time, the Soviet system had folded and with it most people’s worlds. His father had fought and they’d shot him. His mother too. She’d died in his arms. The day after their funeral he’d gone to the FSB office in Moscow, determined to help stop that kind of violence. They turned him away—they had too many staff already. A call came a week later telling him that a man would like to meet him to discuss a job: that man, Lavrov, had offered him so much and all he had to do in return was be ready one day in the future for a job that would probably never come. And to prove his credibility, the man had those thugs tracked down and killed in an arrest that ‘went bad.’ In a way, Malevich had had blood on his hands since then. He’d been sent to Paris as a state-funded student, chose to study science and then veterinary medicine, and had worked the past ten years there, almost forgetting that the rug of normalcy could be pulled out from under his feet with a simple phone call or message.
He thought about the document in his possession. What it said … So much space … Priceless, surely? He himself could hardly believe it—all those rumours about Russia only ‘leasing’ Alaska to the Americans—well, that was wrong, wasn’t it? He laughed. This was the next best thing to getting all that land back, surely. He read the science periodicals, knew the kind of resource wealth there was in the Arctic, untapped.
“Thank you,” he said as the air hostess offered him a drink while they waited for take-off. Champagne. Why not celebrate a little? He settled into the plush seat of the Bombardier Global 5000 executive jet.
He’d be a hero to his country, Lavrov had said. Malevich was sceptical of that too—such power, such a coup, would surely be claimed by Lavrov. How well did he really know the man? He’d bought Malevich’s trust many years ago. Bought it. What had he done, personally, for Malevich to truly trust him? Compared to what he’d done for the state this week, what had Lavrov really done for him …
80
PARIS AIR SHOW, LE BOURGET AIRPORT
“Great, this might take a while…” Gammaldi said, as the car they’d borrowed from Zoe’s friends slowed to a halt behind a long line of others trying to get into the air show.
“Hang on,” Zoe said, in a tone that was going to take no arguments. She drove on the grass verge next to the traffic.
“Okay!” Gammaldi responded from the passenger seat, Zoe driving as fast as she dared off the bitumen. Several cars honked horns at them, either in support or protest.
At the chain-link fence a pissed-off security guard held up his hand.
Zoe waved her ID out the window like it was an emergency.
“All right!” Gammaldi said as they were waved in.
Kate had been quiet next to Fox for the entire journey. She hadn’t said anything about China and he didn’t press the issue, he just assumed she’d come. When they parked, she got out of the car without a word. He walked beside her as they headed towards the aircraft manufacturers’ marquees, but still she didn’t talk or look at him. It might take a
bit to mend, but he figured he had the time once this was over. He’d do this tonight, and then reassess his options. This Umbra stuff had started as a story of corruption, developed into a way for him to get to the bottom of what had happened to a dead friend, and then turned into a nightmare from which he couldn’t wake. Babich was at the heart of it all. If he could just get the guy back into custody, or maybe even have the Russians take care of him … then he could sleep soundly at night. He hoped.
“Al, what’ll get us to Shanghai fast?” Fox asked.
“The F-22,” Gammaldi said without hesitation. “Mean machine.”
“Al…” Fox pushed. “How about something that can seat us all?”
“Concorde?”
“Jesus, Al, what was that aircraft you wanted to see here? The one you wanted GSR to lease?”
Gammaldi’s eyes lit up. This was it—this was Gammaldi Day.
The trio followed Gammaldi, his aviator’s nose leading the way. They passed through a marquee and Fox grabbed a laptop and its bag of cables from an unattended table.
Gammaldi looked back at him, an eyebrow raised.
“What?” Fox said, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “You’re about to steal a multi-million dollar aeroplane and I can’t take a computer?”
“I’m borrowing the plane,” Gammaldi said. “And if it’s good we’ll be leasing one back at work—but is that poor guy ever going to get his computer back?”
Fox looked over his shoulder at the stall from where he’d taken it.
“He was from Halliburton,” Fox said. “I think they can write off the loss.”
Gammaldi’s face broke into a smile. “Our taxes bought that thing anyway.”
“There’s our ride,” Gammaldi said.
Fox looked over at the supersonic business jet, a joint project of SAI and the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works designed to travel at speeds around Mach 2, twice the speed of sound.
“Steal a state-of-the-art private jet,” Kate began, “fly to Shanghai, get there before the protocol does, stop Babich getting it and save the planet. Is that your plan?”
