Sins of the Master

by Catherine Taylor

  She heard movement beyond the wall, in her parents’ bedroom.

  “Dad?” Adele rolled over and rose up on her elbow to stare at the wall. She went to call out again, but froze as she saw the shadow move into the light.

  Her heart leapt and Adele readied herself to escape the bed. She had barely thrown the covers back when a gloved hand came over her mouth and a huge arm went around her waist, pulling her back onto the bed, rolling her face down and holding her there. The weight was enormous on her.

  Adele bucked the little she could, but there was no escaping. Her assailant lifted her night shirt, and suddenly there was a sharp sting to her hip. Adele screamed against the glove, realising she had just been injected with something.

  Her hip was burning, but the grip on her was too powerful to resist. It was hard enough to breathe, as her body tingled and grew heavier. Strangely, she wasn’t afraid for herself as much as she was for her parents.

  * * * * *

  It was after eleven as the car made its way out of the city. The uphill road was dark and void of traffic. Cooper hid her yawn behind her hand as she looked at the driver.

  “Can I at least know where I’m going?”

  “The Russian Embassy, Ma’am.”

  Cooper’s eyes widened. “What the hell for?”

  The driver said nothing and Cooper settled back in her seat, tired but curiously thrilled by the summons to this meeting.

  The car slowed down and Cooper looked at the length of tall, barred fence as they turned into a driveway. A security guard came to meet them at the gates and looked in at them.

  “Detective Sergeant Cooper,” the driver told him.

  He shone a torch on the badge that Cooper had pinned to her jacket and nodded. Moving back from the car, he nodded towards another guard in a booth. The gates swung open and he waved them through. There was a short drive until they stopped outside a stately house, with steps leading up to two tall, double doors. There was a light above them and lights on in windows further along. A door opened and a suited man waited at the top of the steps.

  “Just follow him,” the driver told her.

  Cooper got out, shivering from the cool air and hurried up the steps. The man smiled a greeting but offered no introduction. She saw from his badge that he was part of the staff of the Embassy with a Russian name.

  “This way.” His accent was broad. “If you have a phone, please shut it off until you leave.”

  Getting her phone out, she switched it off, following him down a dark hallway, to the light of an open door. When she stepped in, she gazed about at the occupants of the room. Her boss was smiling awkwardly at her, but another familiar face was that of Martin Kutcher, the Deputy Prime Minister. There were several other faces not known to her.

  Collins, came to her and led her further into the room to make introductions. She hoped that she wasn’t blushing as she shook hands with Kutcher. Except for his position, he was just an average man who happened to have the second highest position in the country.

  “Thank you for joining us, Miss Cooper. Allow me to introduce everyone else.”

  She shook hands with a large older, white-haired man who was one of the Russian Diplomats, and who seemed to have a permanent frown. Another man, standing next to him, was smiling as Kutcher introduced her.

  He was tall and attractive, with a thatch of sandy blonde hair and brown eyes. He was dressed in a formal military uniform which only gave him more appeal.

  “This is Colonel Nikolaev from the Russian Military Police.” He smiled. “I hope I have that right.”

  “You are quite correct.” The man replied in a thick accent, before smiling at Cooper. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Cooper.”

  Cooper kept her smile. “That’s actually Senior Detective Cooper.”

  He nodded. “You’re heading up the case, of course.”

  She looked back, frowning at her boss who stepped forward. “We haven’t briefed Elizabeth on our meeting here, as yet. She is completely in the dark.”

  “We’re just waiting on Bevan.” Kutcher frowned at his watch. “But we need to get started.” He nodded towards two men in suits.

  They went out shutting the door behind them. Kutcher indicated the long table to one side of the room. He sat at the head while the others took seats to either side. The door opened and Bevan Miller walked in, headed to Kutcher and stopped to speak in his ear.

  Whatever was said, was enough to make Kutcher gape and stare back at Miller. The exchange concluded with Kutcher frowning. “Let’s make a start and we’ll get to that.” He looked at Cooper.

  “Senior Detective Cooper, early this morning, allegations came to light through a Miss Adele Easton, regarding the assault of Brendan North, the case to which you were assigned. For the rest of us, a former New Zealand journalist, Brendan North, was seriously assaulted in an apartment belonging to Vivian Easton, Adele’s mother and wife of Lance Easton, Minister of Economic Development and a personal friend of mine. Adele had the extreme displeasure of finding North’s badly beaten body, whereupon she called the authorities.”

  He stopped to look at his notes in an open folder. “Upon arrival of forensics, evidence was found which concluded the following morning with the arrest of James Vaughn, a nightclub owner. At first appearances, it seemed to be a simple case of assault by a jealous and angry husband. Quite lewd pictures of his wife were discovered on North’s laptop. A watch belonging to the suspect was found at the scene, and identified by Adele as belonging to Vaughn. His blood was also matched to blood found at the scene. The pictures of his wife were immediately recognisable to the attending officers, allowing a quick arrest.”

  He looked up towards the Colonel and the diplomat. “Mairead Vaughn, formerly Kavanagh, was a gymnast and bronze medallist at the Commonwealth Games. She left that career and now works at her husband’s nightclub, as a pole dancer, I believe.”

  The Russians laughed quietly and Kutcher grinned. “Interesting people.” He looked down again. “James Vaughn was taken into custody and later charged with the assault. He claims to have been drugged and has no recall of the several hours during which the assault took place. It was when Miss Easton approached the investigating officer…” He looked up at Cooper. “Which was you… that another matter came to light, regarding a man named Dylan Tyler. Miss Easton put forward this man’s name, accusing him of being a hacker who has created false accounts in a Cayman Island account, to which Miss Easton is facing tax evasion charges.”

  Kutcher took a breath and skimmed over the notes. “There’s so much more here, but I’m going to hand this over to Colonel Nikolaev to put his bit forward.” He smiled. “Colonel.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” He looked about at the others, but gave his attention to Cooper. “I arrived in New Zealand a few weeks ago, with the kind permission of your government. Exchanges have been made between us, concerning a criminal from our country whom we now suspect has been hiding in your country for some years now. We have had recent intelligence that supports this theory, but of course, we are unable to pursue this without negotiations between our two countries. I have been here in a capacity to do that, but Miss Easton appears to have done our work for us. She has brought to light this Dylan Tyler and we believe that he and our man are one in the same.”

  He opened a manila folder and took two photos out. He pushed them towards Cooper. One was of a man in a hospital. The other was the face of a man who looked similar if not much older than the other.”

  “The first was taken at a military hospital in Russia, back in 1995. The second was taken outside the Vaughn’s wedding earlier this year, by Miss Easton.”

  Cooper looked from one to the other. “Quite possibly the same man.”

  “Yes,” Nikolaev nodded. “And this man is no ordinary criminal. He was a former soldier for the Russian Army and a KGB operative trained in surveillance and explosive ordinance engineering. It has also come to our attention that he worked on our own satellite technology.
It has since been discovered that he built software into these satellites, and was able to control them.”

  “Jesus,” Kutcher breathed.

  The Colonel nodded. “Yes, a powerful weapon in the hands of a dangerous man. The suspect satellites have long been put out of existence, but such is the capability of this man.

  “It’s taken many years to put this dossier together and this man’s history goes back a long way. We now know his real name is Damyen Kravek, though he was also known as Jahn Zaleski. When the KGB dissolved in 1991, he was recruited as a spy by a political party and implicated in the assassinations of several government officials. Through our research, we learned that this man had spent time in our Russian prisons during his youth, and while in there, made the association with a dangerous criminal named Igor Ivanchenko, responsible for the deaths of men, women and children. If this Dylan Tyler is the same man, then we must not delay his apprehension. Miss Easton’s attempt to find him, through Brendan North, has obviously become known to him, and at any time he could leave the country.”

  Cooper looked at Kutcher. “Question, Sir.”

  He nodded absently, caught up in his own thoughts.

  She looked at the Colonel. “If it’s him, why not just kill Brendan North, outright, quietly and without attracting attention? Why the need for such a violent assault, or to pin it on someone like James Vaughn? For a man who wants to avoid attention, he’s actually putting himself in the spotlight, as this meeting proves.”

  It was Miller who answered. “That’s where Mairead Vaughn comes into it. As I informed you earlier today, Adele believed that a relationship existed between her and Tyler, and what better way to get rid of the husband?”

  Cooper frowned. “Then why marry him in the first place? Why even be with him?”

  “Again,” Miller replied less patiently. “We are aware there are other women involved, such as Esther Manning, and the report of James Vaughn’s arrest mentions a room in their house, containing sexual implements of bondage and other fetish. Do we really need to try to understand the workings of this relationship?”

  “We do if we don’t want the wrong people convicted.”

  “At present,” the Colonel interrupted. “We have more urgent matters. If this man has been alerted, he will attempt to flee the country, but not before he ties up loose ends. In the past, his solution has been to take out anyone associated with him and his activities. I am strongly advising your government to stop this man from leaving.”

  “We would need evidence that he’s done something first,” Cooper said. “You can’t just restrict someone’s travel without just cause.”

  “On Bevan’s advice, I’ve executed a special warrant,” Kutcher told her. “If Tyler attempts to leave, he will be arrested. His passport has been cancelled and an alert has been set up at the airports.”

  “May I ask on what grounds this warrant is issued, Sir?”

  “Suspected terrorism,” Kutcher replied. “What the Colonel has been telling us, seems to hold a lot of water. Bevan has just informed me that a raid was carried out on Tyler’s gallery and home address earlier this evening. Our operatives found the body of a man named Kenneth Lister at the address. Lister had been subjected to extreme torture before his death.”

  Cooper stared at him. “And Tyler?”

  “He wasn’t there. Neither was anything that identifies him. Bevan has been conducting research since Tyler’s name first surfaced and there is little that proves he ever existed in this country, apart from taxation and visa records. There are no bank accounts, medical or dental records, mortgages…”

  “Exactly,” the Colonel said. “Just as it has been in my own country and in Ukraine, where this man is from. That is how this man operates.”

  Cooper frowned at Miller. “So you were aware of Tyler before Adele made mention of him.”

  “I was,” Miller nodded. “I’ve been in direct contact with Colonel Nikolaev since November, and it was my recommendation that he be brought to New Zealand to help with our inquiries. The aim was to conduct this investigation discreetly, but recent events have made that impossible. Now it is a matter of containing the situation to avoid a media circus and panicking the public.”

  “And once we have him,” Cooper said. “What exactly are we going to charge him with if we only have hearsay and no evidence?”

  “The problem won’t be ours,” Kutcher told her. “We’ve agreed to set up a temporary extradition treaty with Russia, and allow them to return Tyler to face charges in his own country. This is not something our taxpayers want to be burdened with. The costs could be enormous.”

  “Aren’t we jumping the gun a bit? We first need to establish that Tyler and this other man, Zaleski, are the same man.”

  “Which will be easily achieved,” the Colonel said. “Once we have his fingerprints.”

  “What’s important is that we get this man,” Kutcher stated firmly. “Before any other people are hurt. From this point, the SIS are in charge of the investigation, restricting the chances of the media getting hold of it. The journalists that were present in the courtroom with James Vaughn, have been issued with a court order forbidding any discussion or publication of anything to do with Vaughn’s charges.”

  Cooper glared at him. “And my role in this, Sir?”

  “Both you and Tobias remain part of this investigation and will report directly to Bevan.”

  Cooper wanted to comment, but sensed they wouldn’t want to hear what she had to say.”

  Kutcher closed his folder. “We’re going to leave it there everyone. It’s near midnight and I’m ready to go home. Cooper, you can catch a ride back with me.”

  It wasn’t an offer and she nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

  While it was a treat to be driven home in a limousine, Cooper knew that her ride came with another purpose when Bevan Miller climbed in with her. Kutcher addressed her soon after they had left the embassy.

  “Your thoughts about the meeting, Detective.”

  Cooper took a deep breath. “With respect, Sir, if this threat is as serious as it sounds, then we need to act swiftly to protect the people most likely in danger from this man. That would be both James and Mairead Vaughn, Adele Easton and her family. We need to compile a list of others who may also be affected, possibly Esther Manning and her mother.”

  “I understand your concerns,” he replied. “But there is another aspect of this case that we are much more concerned with. You are aware that Adele was charged with tax evasion.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I was one who was shocked by the allegations made, having known Adele’s family for many years. This almost comes as a relief to know that she is innocent.”

  “That’s quite presumptuous, Sir. We haven’t established that.”

  “You don’t know Adele as I do. She used to babysit my own daughter when she was little. I would trust her word anytime over someone like Mairead Vaughn. While Mairead’s father is a good man, his daughter has given him nothing but grief through the years. The girl is a spoilt, little bitch to put it bluntly.”

  Cooper didn’t answer.

  “Adele has linked her to this man which doesn’t surprise me, but it’s what Adele has also revealed about Brendan North which concerns us more.”

  “You’re talking about Mary Whittaker.”

  “Yes, something we didn’t want the Russians to learn about. The whole matter would be an extreme embarrassment to this country.”

  “You believe that it was Miss Whittaker that was with Tyler in that car park.”

  “Of course it was. We’ve known it was her there since she was murdered in Paris, though we had no clue who the man was. After 9/11, security was upgraded enormously, and as you know. Mary was already head of the GCSB and in charge of that upgrade. The Americans became curious when she managed to get knocked off in France. Mary had worked with them prior, overseeing the setting up of the networks required for National Security. After her death, they insisted on ma
king their own investigation into her.

  “What they discovered nearly destroyed our relationship with the US. Installed into our system was highly sophisticated software that allowed a third party complete access to everything that went on in communications between us and the United States, and every other member of our Five Eyes. As it turned out, this software was similar to a forerunner of Prism. It was stolen from the US military back in the eighties, by whom they believe were Soviet spies. For years they waited for it to resurface, especially as the Soviet began to crumble, but it never did. The Russians remained far behind the US in Internet and satellite capabilities. It was assumed the software had long been destroyed. You can imagine what the United States government was thinking when it turned up twenty years later in our network, sophisticatedly updated beyond anything of the time. Of course, Mary wasn’t alive to explain this and all records of installation had been destroyed.”

  “And now the US have this software.”

  “No.” Kutcher sighed deeply. “Their first attempt to examine the software launched a virus throughout our entire network that caused havoc by disabling anti-virus software and duplicating and overwriting common files. Every computer in the country was a sitting duck for any malware that came its way, and then in a matter of days it was over, but the spyware itself was nowhere to be found. Some of the analysts believe it still exists somewhere in the system, disguised as any ordinary file and still operating as a backdoor into our system. It’s taking many years for the US to put trust in us again.”

  “I thought that was over our anti-nuclear stance.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “That’s insane. Who the hell is this guy?”

  “Well, you heard the Russians. I tend to believe them. Someone has to get hold of this man. At the very least he is responsible for Mary’s death.”

  “Tyler killed her?” Cooper gasped.

  “Yes. We assume that if Mary had maintained this relationship with Tyler or whatever the fuck his name is, until she outlived her usefulness. It could be that she was going to turn him in. We don’t know. Cooper, the only reason you are being made privy to this is that Adele Easton chose to approach you and requested to speak to you in private.”