by Nick Elliott
Alastair’s home was well hidden from the road, reached by an inconspicuous track leading down to a sprawling single-storey house. Off to one side was a small guest house where Eleni and I had stayed on previous visits. A path led down to a concrete jetty with mooring bollards, built onto the rocky foreshore off which his beloved little gaff-rigged wooden sailing boat would be moored once the winter storms had passed.
Dimitra, his sprightly old housekeeper, came out to greet us. She was a diminutive woman, her miniature scale given emphasis by her stoop. She wore a traditional blue dress patterned with tiny white flowers, a white scarf around her head and a dark blue woollen shawl round her shoulders. It looked like cashmere and I suspected it was a gift from Alastair. Her wizened face was always quick to break into a smile that revealed a few glittering gold teeth. She fussed around us as we entered the house then scuttled off, returning with coffee and portokalopita, a sweet orange pie she’d conjured up. She reminded me of the old B’laan woman who’d cared for me in Mindanao.
The living room in which we were sitting must have been twelve metres across, with sliding glass doors out onto a terrace where we would normally have enjoyed the view across the bay to a headland half a mile away. There, an outcrop of red sandstone that had slipped into the sea at some point in antiquity jutted out like the point of a spear.
‘You know, a settlement once prospered over there,’ explained Alastair, not for the first time. ‘There’s been much ouzo-fuelled speculation that it would have served as an excellent forward logistics base for Agamemnon’s Mycenaean army in support of their forays across to Troy, assuming the Trojan Wars really happened of course. But you know, like so many other interesting sites in Greece, it’s never been excavated and I doubt it ever will be. For the best perhaps. I don’t relish the idea of an army of archaeologists tramping all over the place.’
Today, however, we could barely see the headland for the sleet blowing across the bay. Here inside, two wood-burning stoves and a traditional open log fire kept the big room warm. We stood looking out on the bleak scene as we drank our coffee and devoured Dimitra’s cake.
‘Now,’ he said, walking away from the window to a large work table in the corner of the room, ‘speaking of naval campaigns, I believe you have some plans of your own to discuss.’
‘Before we get to that I need some answers from you, Alastair.’ Much had been left unsaid between us over the past few months. I had long suspected that our interests coincided but now I needed clarity. ‘To start with, I want to know who you’re working for?’
He had not told me the full extent of his involvement in the case and I’m sure he realised that I’d been disingenuous too. Each of us had our reasons. He was bound by the code and laws of secrecy that applied to people in his line of work, whatever that really was. And I instinctively preferred to do things on my own.
‘I can only lead you to draw your own conclusions, Angus,’ he said with a sigh. ‘You know I was with the Navy for thirty-five years, and that on retirement I took up a consultancy position with the IMTF. That sometimes means working closely with Interpol of course, but with the intelligence community too. In a case like this we didn’t want PC Plod clambering all over it in his hob-nailed boots, did we?
‘Naval intelligence was amalgamated into the Ministry of Defence’s intel unit nearly fifty years ago now, but naturally there is close liaison at all levels.’ It was as good an explanation as I was going to get.
‘Listen, Angus,’ he said, artfully turning the conversation his way. ‘Make no mistake, what these people are up to will cause enormous damage to British interests, our reputation, and our relations around the world. Not just in the Philippines or Georgia but with our allies, the US, NATO, the UN, within the EU – across the board. If our allies, not to mention our foes, see us helpless in the face of these people, we lose credibility, with all the consequences that entails.
‘Regrettably, the days when the Royal Navy ruled the waves are long gone, never mind that we determined the way the world map looks today.
‘So of course we’ve been monitoring events and I’ve been watching how you’ve handled this case. I’ve offered you support but I know you well enough to appreciate you prefer to do things your own way. And that you are seeking your own rewards. So I’ve let you run with it. But it’s time we worked together.’
‘How much do you already know?’
‘We know that Kershope was involved, that he’s out of the game now, but what we don’t know is who ousted him and who killed him.’
He paused to pour us more coffee. ‘You know, I don’t believe Kershope was ever completely in charge. The man was a delusional ideologue. Someone else was pulling the strings. And he will do untold damage. This is our biggest concern. Our plan must ensnare the kingpin. Who really runs it, Angus? Who is he? If we can’t find him we can’t neutralise these bastards.’
‘So you know all about the Revival then?’
‘Not everything. We know they were behind the fraud programme. We know their plans evolved to embrace the idea of exploiting the mineral resources of weak or failed states. And we know, Angus, they have their devotees in the Foreign Office and the intelligence community.’
‘Kershope was the chief proponent of that ideology, if that’s what you can call it,’ I said. ‘With him gone, is there the same determination to pursue his dreams?’
‘That, neither you nor I can tell for sure. Kershope knew that once leadership of the Revival had been wrested from him, its ideals would unravel. It would no longer represent the same aspirations that he dreamed of. Kershope genuinely saw the Revival as a force, ultimately, for good in the world. Call him deluded but he passionately believed his vision of post-imperial adventurism with a contemporary twist could be successfully realised in today’s world.
‘But listen, we must think of the future. Share your plan and I’ll see how best we can assist.’
We talked on. It took us through dinner and beyond. We pored over his Admiralty charts, we took notes and we drew diagrams. We drank ouzo before dinner, rough red wine from the island with it and Metaxa brandy afterwards. We ate mezze with the ouzo as we studied the approaches to the port of Perama. We demolished Dimitra’s spicy spetsofai, our plates loaded with the hearty stew made from country sausage, peppers and onions.
Later, sitting in front of the fire, the wind whistling noisily outside, and with the Metaxa bottle almost empty, we wrapped it up.
‘You’ve done an outstanding job of playing these rogues off one against the other, Angus. It’s my turn now, but timing is critical. Keep me posted every step of the way and I’ll organise what’s needed.’
I had one more question before we turned in. ‘And what role does Claire Scott play in all this, Alastair? Is she one of your agents?’
‘She’s one of a small number of people in your line of business with whom we share information and who assists from time to time,’ he conceded. ‘That’s all.’
CHAPTER 37
It hadn’t been difficult to persuade Boris Kaliyagin’s front company, Gelovani Trading, to take the Delfina on timecharter for a single voyage from the Black Sea port of Sukhumi to Cochin, or Kochi as it was now, on India’s Malabar Coast where the gold was to be offloaded and exchanged for an assortment of bonds, share certificates, promissory notes and hard currency.
The Delfina had been bareboat chartered and then crewed by Kyriakou, but there was nothing in the transaction records to reveal a connection with any of their corporate entities. She had been pre-positioned off nearby Trabzon and, as a lure, was to be offered to Gelovani at a below-market daily hire rate.
‘Not so far below market as to arouse suspicion,’ Electra had reassured me. We were back in the Kyriakou boardroom in Vouliagmeni having one of several planning meetings over the three weeks it took to set up the sting.
‘And we’ll use Mitso Carras. He’s our in-house broker,’ Michael had said, turning to me, ‘but he’ll use one of his own companies wh
en he’s negotiating with Gelovani. That way the whole deal stays anonymous.’
‘The corporate veil,’ old Andreas had nodded approvingly.
‘Mitso will explain the favourable rate by telling them the owners are looking for a positioning voyage to place her in or near Mumbai, where she is already committed to deliver onto her next charter,’ Electra had announced confidently. She was the company’s chartering director. ‘It is not unusual. Gelovani will swallow it.’
And so it had turned out. Boris was playing along nicely. They took delivery of the ship at the Trabzon anchorage and ordered her to Sukhumi to load. The call at Perama was ostensibly to take on bunkers ready for the long voyage eastwards.
As we wrapped up that final meeting the old man opened a wooden case lying on the table beside him. He pulled out a gun and placed it on the table. ‘A Webley Mark VI, Mr McKinnon.’ Then he took out a cardboard box and slid the two items towards me. ‘And some ammunition. All our masters used to carry them. Use it if you have to.’
I’d seen them before – heavy, cumbersome British service revolvers, the first mark of which had appeared before the Boer War. ‘Hopefully not,’ I’d said.
Kaliyagin’s Svaneti gold had been refined and transformed into eleven hundred and eighty bars, each weighing four hundred troy ounces – a total cargo weight just shy of fifteen tons. The gold was packed into small wooden crates, each containing twenty bars. The crates were loaded into a standard twenty-foot container. I had learned this from Dougal, with whom I was now in daily contact. He was in Georgia. There’d been developments that I’d been unaware of. It seemed he had won Kaliyagin’s confidence during his incarceration. I would have liked to share my plan with him but I couldn’t risk it.
‘Dinnae worry. I’m a trusted comrade nowadays.’
‘That’s fine, Dougal, I’m not worried. Tell Boris I’ll see you both on the ship when you arrive in Perama.’
But I was worried. On paper the plan had an elegant symmetry to it, but von Moltke’s famous words echoed in my mind: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
The bills of lading and manifest declared the cargo as three thousand four hundred tons of scrap metal, which was true, and the contents of the container as personal effects, which was not. The ship loaded in Sukhumi then sailed for Perama – a four-day passage.
Meanwhile, Carlos, who had moved with his family to stay with relatives in Manila, had been manipulating the Malatans’ incursions into the chartering world. I’d told Malatan that if he wanted to seize the gold his best bet was to bareboat charter a ship and place his own crew on board. With Carlos pulling the strings behind the scenes, a suitable vessel had been proposed – the Laila, a platform supply vessel open in Dubai. With plenty of deck space and a ten-ton crane with a twelve-metre outreach, she was capable of lifting the container out of the Delfina’s tween-deck and onto her own after-deck.
Malatan had hired a Manila manning agent to recruit Filipino officers and ratings and sign them on in the Gulf. He also dispatched a group of his thugs, along with the crew. The Laila had given her ETA Perama for two hours after I’d arranged to meet Boris on the Delfina.
Getting these two hoodlums together in one place had been easier than I could have hoped for. They’d taken the bait we’d laid, their dreams of power and glory ensuring the plan’s success up to that point.
As for my principal target, the Revival, I was sure someone would be there to oversee the ship’s call but would it be their new leader, the directing mind? For that I had had to rely on Boris Kaliyagin, hardly the most dependable of allies. But he was my enemy’s enemy. And he was my only option.
‘Leave it to me, McKinnon,’ Boris had said over the phone. ‘Whoever he is, he will be there.’ Boris wanted more than just his gold. He wanted revenge for being double-crossed. And he knew he could engineer a confrontation more easily in Perama than in Scotland. What he didn’t say was how he intended to ensure this individual’s presence on the ship.
So each player had his own objectives. All I had to do was orchestrate events in such a way that my own were met, namely to disable Malatan, Boris and the Revival. What could be simpler?
CHAPTER 38
The early evening traffic was heavy and it took the best part of forty minutes to make the twelve kilometre journey from Piraeus to where I was heading. I drove past the fish market at Keratsini and along to Perama. Keratsini smells of fish and Perama smells of marine fuel oil. If you’re lucky on a spring evening you’ll catch the heavy scent of blossom from the little orange trees lining the streets, but not tonight. I thought of Eleni and how she was always seeking a perfume that captured that scent, but had never quite found it. I thought of how I’d let her down over the years with my slavish commitment to work, my long absences abroad, and my recent infidelity with Claire. I would make up for it I told myself.
It was raining heavily and only the smell of the oil hung heavily in the air. I parked in one of the side streets opposite the shipyard where Michael Kyriakou had arranged for the Delfina to berth and walked across to the gate, passing through unhindered. They were expecting me.
Ships came here to die. Long past their useful lives, engines seized, winches rusting, derricks collapsed and surveys failed long ago, they are laid up to be cannibalised for what spares and equipment are worth having, and then await a tow to the breakers yard on the other side of the world, if and when the demolition market ever improved.
The Delfina looked out of place here, a smart, modern ship set amongst the old hulks decaying around her.
The second mate, Spyros Kostouras, was waiting at the top of the gangway. He was a bear of a man, well over two metres tall and weighing a hundred kilos or more. Spyros had been assigned as my aide while I was on board. We went up to the skipper’s quarters on the starboard side of C Deck. Captain Nikos Doukas was at his desk in the dayroom which, like all such rooms, doubled as his office. Still in his early thirties, he was young to have a command. Michael was seated on the right-angle sofa. Although he was a Kyriakou and in effect owned the ship, he clearly deferred to Doukas. It was like that when you were in the captain’s domain.
We shook hands. ‘I knew many of the officers and crew of the Astro Maria,’ Doukas said. ‘I’m pleased to help if it means bringing their murderers to justice.’ He turned and looked out of the window up the length of the ship. ‘I have placed all the ship’s operational matters in the hands of my chief officer for this port call so Spyro here, and myself and Michael of course, are at your disposal. Our two passengers have cabins on B Deck, beneath us but on the portside.’
‘Any sign of the Laila?’ I asked. He called the bridge.
‘She’s passing Psittalia now. ETA alongside us thirty minutes or so.’ Psittalia was a small island in the approaches to the port.
‘Is your own ship secure, Captain?’
‘I believe so. We are monitoring the watertight door indicator system and I have ordered half-hourly checks on all access points to the accommodation and the cargo spaces.’
The Kyriakous knew that despite having pledged their support and provided the Delfina for the purpose, I was unable to tell them what would happen next. Ever since my meeting with Boris Kaliyagin in Scotland I’d been setting up this encounter between the three parties so Kaliyagin and Malatan could confront the Revival face to face. Both Alastair Marshall and I knew it was a high-risk scenario without a dependable outcome, and that having corralled them into the enclosed space of the ship he would then have to take over and execute his own operation, details of which he had chosen not to share with me. I explained this to Michael Kyriakou and the captain. They didn’t like it any more than I did. But we were committed now. It made us all uneasy.
I went below with Spyros and an AB to find Kaliyagin and Dougal. I hadn’t seen them since that night in North Berwick. I noticed that Ivan was absent which was a relief, but my first concern was for Dougal. He looked fine. In fact he looked better than ever. He’d put on some wei
ght and there was something about his demeanour that made me wonder what had been going on.
‘How the hell are you?’
‘I’m no’ so bad, Angus. More later, right?’
‘Right. I’m glad Dougal. I thought you’d be showing the strain.’
‘Aye well, I managed.’
My feelings towards Boris Kaliyagin were ambivalent; he was such an ambiguous character. He was a crook pursuing, at least in his own mind, a noble cause. On the two previous occasions I’d crossed his path, he’d threatened me but could have just as easily had me killed. And Dougal seemed to have formed a bond with him. In the current situation I needed him as much as he needed me. But the gold was not his. He had stolen it from the Georgian state and I was double-crossing him into relinquishing it.
He was eyeing me cautiously. ‘So, McKinnon. I’m delivering your friend here in one piece. And I believe we will have some visitors shortly. I made it clear the ship would only be in port for six hours to take on fuel.’
‘I want you both to wait here,’ I said. ‘We’ve got the place locked down, so leave this with us now.’
He looked doubtful. ‘They will expect to see me. I told them I would be here to meet them. Where are they?’
‘Who did you tell, Boris?’
‘I have the means to communicate with them, with the Revival. My messages were acknowledged.’
‘That’s not what I asked. Who did you speak to?’ I wanted to know whether Boris knew who we could expect to turn up.’
‘Someone I trust.’
‘Trust? Can you trust any of them?’
‘As much as I trust you, McKinnon. You’re keeping me locked up here. How do I know what’s going on?’
