Timebomb : A Thriller (9781468300093)

by Seymour, Gerald

  ‘Ten million euros each, paid through the Caymans or the Bahamas. That is the price we should be looking to pay, Reuven. Pay too much too quickly and the vendor worries. Pay too little, haggle too much, and the vendor goes elsewhere. A total of twenty million euros, which is available on call. That’s a decent price for the two properties.’

  Reuven Weissberg stood alongside Josef Goldmann. He listened to Josef when the talk was of money. Viktor, Mikhail and the young Englishman, who walked with an awkward limp, were away from them and could not have heard their conversation. It was a residential street without residents. Reuven Weissberg had no interest in the investments that Josef Goldmann placed in his name, or in using the profits that Josef Goldmann fashioned for him. He thought he sensed excitement in the man, as if the opportunity to trade gripped him with pleasure. Reuven thought the houses gaudy and pretentious, and he believed they would attract attention from the revenue authorities. He had many such investments, and his identity was hidden in the paperwork by the names of the nominees Josef Goldmann created for him.

  ‘Yes, I can do that. You leave it with me and I’ll do it. I think, Reuven, they’re very suitable for you, and there isn’t a better part of Berlin for return on capital investment. This area, off Königstrasse, between the lake and Potsdam, will become the new residence of the capital’s élite. Consider it done.’

  He thought that Josef Goldmann would have chosen either of the houses – if he should ever move from London to Berlin – as a home for himself, Esther and his children. Goldmann believed an address made a statement. The statement that Reuven Weissberg made was an apartment in the city centre that was small, adequate for himself and his grandmother, enough. Josef Goldmann had said he would not move without the young man, Carrick, at his side. He had babbled about an attack. Reuven had heard the story, but had interrupted once to put a single question: had there been warning of an attempt on Josef’s life? ‘No warning. Nothing has ever happened in London that gave me to believe I might be a target for assassination. I tell you, I had one piece of luck, one, but it was sufficient. My English driver, an idiot, was caught by the police while off-duty with excess of alcohol in his blood. I upgraded Johnny. I let him drive me into the City. I was leaving a meeting, coming on to the pavement, and was attacked and Grigori, whom you chose for me, froze and was useless. I would have been dead but for Johnny, his courage. He risked his own life to save mine, and it was lucky he was with me.’ Then they had come to the houses and the talk had changed to money.

  ‘But the reason I’m here, is that in place?’

  Reuven nodded.

  A breathy hiss. ‘You risk so much for all of us … On my side, all is prepared.’

  Reuven cuffed his launderer’s arm.

  ‘If you had asked my advice, I wouldn’t have suggested …’

  He walked away.

  ‘… that you proceed. But you didn’t ask it.’

  He quickened his stride, turned his back on the two houses he would buy. First, Josef Goldmann scurried to keep pace with him, then the three other men – Mikhail, Viktor and the Englishman – jogged to catch up. He thought the one called Johnny had a good face, perhaps an honest face … It was three days away, and two old men drove from Sarov to deliver it, and he did not take advice on the matter – would not … He remembered that his own man, Mikhail, had not reacted with sufficient speed to block the gunmen who had shot him in the arm, had not risked his own life. It was an honest face.

  In the car park, Bugsy circled the vehicle. Back when he had started his career, an electronic tracking device had been the size of a house brick and had needed clamps and supports to hold it in place – always more reliable than the magnets police forces used. Graduating out of the workshops – in the secure lock-ups of what had seemed, to a casual eye, a small industrial estate in Kennington – he had reckoned ETDs to be high risk. Then they had called the brick-scale metal boxes ‘tags’, still did.

  He only needed one circuit of the car that had driven Target One and November to the lakeside and the car park at the near end of the iron bridge. It was a perfunctory check. In his steel case in the back of the minibus, Bugsy had a selection of tags that ranged in bulk from a cigarette packet to a matchbox. Easy enough to attach one – and easy enough to blow the whole show away.

  He turned away from the car. He understood the importance of getting a tag under or into it, but shook his head – to himself – ruefully as he calculated the risk factors. In the ideal world that, as a professional, he hankered for, Bugsy would have identified the make and series of a vehicle, then called the showroom that sold it and a demonstration model would have been delivered. It would then have been driven into the lock-ups and lifted up on a ramp. He would have crawled under, over and through it to learn where was the best chance of secreting a tag, then the tag would have been activated and Bugsy would have checked the quality of the signal. He prided himself on that professionalism, and on his ability to make the decision as to where in a car the most satisfactory hiding place equated with minimum interference in the signal the tag emitted.

  If they were organized crime – which the guv’nor, Mr Lawson, said they were – then it stood to reason they would have access, and frequently, to the best gear. Trouble was, their gear was usually better than that issued to Bugsy from the industrial-estate workshops. The trick that high-level organized crime employed, in Bugsy’s experience, was to drive a few kilometres, stop, deploy with the detector, then sweep. Good tactics. The batteries of a tag had a life of no more than twenty hours and were activated by remote. A target car drove away and the tag was switched to transmit, but the chances were pretty damn near certain that there would not be time to cut the transmission bleep before the detector had registered the signal – even if it was on ‘deep snore’, the weakest – and that was a show blown away.

  Bugsy reached the minibus and went past it to the car to report.

  He thought that the guv’nor might be dozing but an eye was opened when he climbed in. The girl they called Charlie watched him keenly.

  Bugsy said, ‘Wouldn’t be possible to lodge a tag and maintain integrity. Sorry, but we have to do without.’

  The guv’nor nodded, didn’t seem disappointed.

  Bugsy said, ‘Not the circumstances where I could do the business and feel satisfied. Just have to be the eyeball stuff.’

  The girl, Charlie, reacted – blazed. ‘Brilliant. Left out on his own, is he? Aren’t you aware of the shit he’s facing? How do we keep close if there’s no bug on his wheels? Have you a better description, or is this cutting him adrift? I thought you were supposed to be the bloody expert.’

  Bugsy said, ‘If you didn’t know it, Miss, putting our November in a vehicle with a tag in it, and the tag’s found, puts him at higher risk. And I am the bloody expert and that’s my assessment. Oh, and putting a wire on him adds to a greater risk. When it’s possible I’ll do it, and when it’s not I won’t. Got me, Miss?’

  He went back to the minibus, unlocked it, climbed in. He settled on the back seat. He was alone. The others, his travelling companions, were all across the far side of the bridge, putting the eyeball on November. Adrian and Dennis would be up front and closest. He’d seen November walking away over the bridge that spanned the narrow point and had thought the man pale-faced, shoulders hunched, as if his confidence ebbed … Well, it would, wouldn’t it? He was alone, cut off from them. He thought of the meal he had toyed with last night in their hotel, foreign food that he couldn’t abide, and he yearned for what he would have had the previous evening if he’d been at home – a village in the Surrey hills near Guildford – a plate of butcher’s sausages, the chips his wife cooked and sharp brown sauce in a puddle across them.

  The undercover man, November, was isolated – might be lost, might be taken beyond eyeball capability, might be beyond reach – but anything was better than a show blown away. Reputations didn’t survive failure.

  She attacked. ‘Have you done, Mr Lawson
, any sort of risk assessment on this?’

  His eyes were on her, clear and unwavering in their gaze.

  The absence of response stoked her anger. ‘Don’t you know there’s legislation on health and safety that applies to him as much as to a roofer on your house?’

  He seemed to smile, cold, and little cracks appeared at the edge of the thin lips.

  Katie Jennings’s voice rose, battered the interior of the car. ‘So, no risk assessment, no acknowledgement of health and safety, and you reckon that satisfactory. Not where I’m coming from, it isn’t.’

  He tilted his head and stared out through the windscreen, looked down the length of the bridge.

  ‘Has this gone through the Office of Surveillance Commissioners? Does it have their approval?’

  A quick frown had nudged on to his forehead, as if she was a fly that annoyed him and needed swatting away.

  She persisted, ‘What about duty of care? Does duty of care to an undercover not exist in your bloody games?’

  ‘Before your tone develops to hysteria, understand, please, you are now operating in a different world. Learn that, and quickly.’

  He had jerked upright. Now she was ignored. He was out of the car, went to the bonnet and settled his weight on it. She looked past him. They were coming back across the bridge. She saw Johnny Carrick and he seemed to walk slowly, leaden, behind Josef Goldmann. The Russian minder was ahead … There was no tag in the car. If the eyeball was lost, he was alone. They had no bloody right to ask it of him – but it was a different world, the man had said. The nice guy, the best of all of them, Luke, was a clear fifty yards in front of the little group on the pavement of the Glienicker bridge and strode fast, had a good athletic walk, and never looked behind. She saw Bugsy come sharply out of the minibus and trot forward to intercept him at the point where the bridge met the bank, and he seemed to point to a distant part of the lake, in an innocent way, and was talking. Would have been telling Luke there was to be no tag in the car. She swore, and felt no better for it.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Goldmann, I need to use the toilet.’

  ‘What, Johnny?’

  ‘There’s one down there.’ Carrick pointed to a concrete block beside a café complex. ‘Be as quick as I can.’

  The toilets were next to the walkway that led alongside the lakeshore. Couldn’t think of anywhere better. He had been aware of the tall guy, codename Delta, on the bridge in front of him. Just had to hope … Carrick had gone two days, or three, since he’d been on the plot and in the Goldmann household without contact with his cover officer, and it hadn’t seemed to matter. Once he had gone a full week without filling in the Book with the log of events – so bloody much to report. Would only have confessed it to himself, but he had felt lifted by the sight of the man ahead of him on the bridge. Also, would not have confessed, except to himself, that the associate – Reuven Weissberg – oozed threat. Thought he had come through the trick played on him. Hadn’t slept on his breaks in the guard roster, was damn near knackered. Knew he was under a new level of scrutiny.

  There were steps down to the toilet and they had a railing for older people. He had to hold it. Could remember former certainties – at the interview board, and saying he had believed he could cope well with the stress of going undercover.

  He pushed open the door. Had no change in his pocket, so dropped a five-euro note into the saucer on the table in front of the attendant. It won no gratitude from the old guy sitting there. Went inside and into the Herren section, then to a stall, unzipped and tried to piss. Could not. A man was beside him and a child. The man eyed him. He had opened his fly but couldn’t do it. Stood there. Willed himself. The man left with the child. He looked at the cubicles, saw the three doors were ajar, that he was alone. It came in a dribble. The door opened behind him but Carrick didn’t turn.

  He heard – soft Yorkshire accent and quietspoken, ‘Don’t know how long you have … As much as anything to let you know we’re here and close.’

  ‘Fuck that – try something important.’

  ‘Easy, friend. We have you on eyeball, and—’

  ‘I don’t have time now – has the car a tag?’

  A hesitation. ‘No.’

  ‘Why the fuck not?’

  ‘Absence of time and opportunity. What are you learning?’

  ‘What am I learning? That’s good. I’m learning that I’m regarded here with the fondness, and trust, of a live rat. Weissberg and his hood are suspicious – suspicious times ten – and—’

  ‘We’re staying close, guaranteed.’

  ‘That’s a fucking comfort. I’m not a Russian speaker, not a German speaker. I don’t know where I’m being led. It’s like I’m blindfolded.’

  ‘You lead, we follow.’

  ‘Great – how far behind?

  He heard the footsteps, then the squeal of the door. He lost the whisper. Spoke loudly, ‘Sorry, can’t help you, don’t speak German.’

  Carrick pulled up his zip. Viktor was in the doorway. He tapped his wristwatch. Carrick said, ‘Apologies if I’ve kept you waiting.’

  He followed Viktor out of the public lavatory.

  Yashkin peered over the wheel, eyes never off the centre of the road as he spoke: ‘As we are now in the Bryansk oblast there are things about this place you should know. The total number of hectares is three and a half million, of which half is agricultural land, a third is forested—’

  ‘Do you talk this crap because you think I’m interested, or so that you stay awake?’ Molenkov yawned, and did not hold up his hand to shield his mouth. His teeth were exposed, the gaps in the upper and lower sets.

  ‘It’s education. Education is an important part of our lives. Even at the end we should strive to learn. I’ve read a great deal about the economy and history of the Bryansk oblast. Did you know, my friend, that a monk, his name was Peresvet, challenged and defeated the giant enemy, Chelubey, at Kulikovo? I learned that.’

  ‘Was it raining that day?’

  ‘How should I know? You should demonstrate greater respect. We’re near now to Borodino where Napoleon vanquished the Tsarist army but weakened himself so much that he failed in his march on Moscow. That was in 1812, on September the seventh, and he won only half a victory, which contributed to a whole defeat.’

  ‘And was it raining on September the seventh, 1812?’

  ‘What’s your problem, Molenkov?’

  They were crossing a land of flat fields and forests. The Bryansk oblast, cut by swollen rivers, was featureless as far as Yashkin’s vision reached. A mist was brought down by the rain, not falling hard but with the blurring persistence sufficient to make every pothole a small lake. Yashkin did not dare go fast, and his speedometer showed a constant forty kilometres per hour; had he driven faster he would have risked plunging any of his tyres into a rainwater pool that had formed above a pothole and he would not have known its depth. Greater speed risked the tyres.

  ‘It’s like you merely recite pages from a book.’

  ‘I’ll ask again, what’s your problem?’

  ‘I have no interest in the slaying of Chelubey, or the half-victory of Napoleon in this oblast. I think, my friend, we’re embarked on a journey of greater importance than the trivia you offer me.’

  ‘Are you answering me? Is that your problem?’

  Yashkin would not have described himself, or his friend, as a man given to sentiment or nostalgia, but as they crossed the rain-sodden roads, bisecting the flooded fields and dripping forestry, each hour he travelled and each kilometre he covered seemed to increase the risk of a soul searched and determination weakened. He imagined the questions bouncing in Molenkov’s mind. What would be its target? Who would carry it to the target? Did not know. Over all lay the question, would it work? Here, he could absolve himself. He had not the faintest idea. He was not a Kurchatov, a Khariton or a Sakharov. He was not an academician or a scientific leader of the old community of Arzamas-16. He was Major (Ret’d) Oleg Yashkin, forcibly removed, w
ith a pension that went unpaid, driver of a taxi for drunks and addicts. He thought trivia would work well for them.

  ‘Will you talk about it?’ Molenkov asked of him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You refuse to talk about it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We carry that fucking thing, and you won’t talk about it?’

  Yashkin said, ‘We’ve done the talking.’

  Again he heard the sigh. Had he spoken, before his dismissal, with that cutting whip in his voice to a ranking colonel, and a zampolit, he could have expected savage disciplinary sanctions, demotion, perhaps a posting to the Far East or the Arctic cold of the northern test sites at the island of Zemlya, which was close to the eightieth parallel. But the old days were dead and buried.

  Molenkov asked him, ‘Do you know what day this is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know what happened on this day?’

  He knew it wasn’t the anniversary of the death of his friend’s son, Sasha, in the furnace of an armoured vehicle by the entrance of the Salang tunnel in Afghanistan, or his boy’s birthday. He knew too that it wasn’t the date on which his friend’s wife had died, or the date on which his friend had come to his office and confided his shock at seeing a physicist, a man of science who was spoken of as a director of a research zone at Arzamas-16, in a field digging for potatoes.

  ‘I don’t know what happened on this day – I apologize because I’m an ignorant bastard, and know very little.’

  ‘On this day, I ran the fifteen-hundred metres.’

  ‘At what level?’

  ‘The final of the Olympic trial. The first three were to represent the Soviet Union, go to the Seventeenth Olympiad, at Rome in Italy. Had I been in the first three, and had I gone on, to Rome, to the Olympic final, I would have competed against the great Herb Elliot who was to take the gold medal. In the trial, on this day, I achieved a personal best. I was twenty-one, and reaching the final of the Olympic trial was enough to gain my entry to State Security … I can still see it, the stadium, the crowd, us lined up and the starter with his gun held high.’