by Andy Maslen
The room smelled of pain and fear. He didn’t need to guess his location. He’d arrived at the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. He looked back at the door.
You must prepare yourself, Wolfe Cub , his old mentor whispered in the space between Gabriel’s temples.
A key scraped in the lock.
His pulse jerked upwards and there was nothing he could do to bring it down again.
He watched as the door swung inwards. He inhaled sharply, then began to clear his mind of Gabriel Wolfe and fill it with Robert Denning.
Two burly men walked in, closed the door behind them, then hung their jackets on the coat rack. One carried a length of green hosepipe. They approached him, their faces expressionless. Then they began to beat him. First a few blows from the hosepipe. Then punches to the kidneys and groin. They repeated the routine until Gabriel saw black curtains swing shut over his vision.
He came to. Below the jabbing spikes of pain from his head, he felt a dull ache in his groin, and echoes of the same sensation in the region of his kidneys. Long red welts covered his torso.
The door opened. He watched as it swung inwards. Trying to prepare himself once more.
Revealed in the rectangle formed by the open door, stood a man of average height and build, a bulging canvas holdall dangling by its handles from his right hand. His olive-green uniform, bedecked by medal ribbons, was immaculate. His glossy back hair, cut militarily short, gleamed in the light. It was as luxuriant as the bushy moustache that completely hid his upper lip. His eyes were also obscured, by black-lensed, aviator-style sunglasses. Take away the tache and you could almost be my twin , Gabriel thought.
He put the bag down, removed his stiff-peaked officer’s cap and hung it on one of the hooks on the coat rack. The jacket came off next. He hung it next to the cap and slapped a few specks of dust from one sleeve.
Then he picked the bag up again, walked to the table, pulled out the other chair, dusted the seat with a handkerchief and sat down, placing the bag at his feet. He spread his hands, palms down, on the plain wooden table between him and Gabriel. They were hard hands, thick fingered, with knuckles that appeared to have been broken and healed many times. A regimental boxer? Gabriel wondered.
“My name is General Razi,” the man said. “Everything that happens, or does not happen, to you from this point in your life forwards is at my pleasure. I would encourage you to co-operate.”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Gabriel croaked out. “I came to Tehran for the book fair. I’m a publisher.”
Razi smiled.
“Are you a religious man, Gabriel?”
Searching in the Dark
LONDON
Lucian looked out of the window. His apartment had a view across the Thames to Canary Wharf. At this time of night, the towers of the financial district were largely dark, though the red lights on their tips shone through the cloudless sky across the river.
If Kuznitsa were an organisation capable of issuing business cards, it probably had an internet presence. Not a visible web presence, though. He had a feeling organisations who sent heavily armed mercenaries after state security operators liked to keep to the shadows.
He opened his laptop and launched a browser. Not the regular web-surfing tool the general public – and even the police – used to find basic corporate information. This tool was the TOR browser, used exclusively for searching the dark web. Despite the occasional media piece on this illicit area of the internet, most people really didn’t have much of a clue what went on down there. Lucian, as a forensics officer, knew only too well. Sometimes he wished he didn’t.
There was no point searching for Max Novgorodsky. Nor for Kuznitsa. The individuals and organisations who swam in these deep, dark, cold waters tended to obscure such basic facts as their names.
But he’d recognised the code he’d typed into his phone from the business card. Not in its specifics, but in its format. The previous year, he’d worked on a case spanning three continents involving law enforcement agencies from five countries. They’d been digging into a human trafficking ring, and in the process had discovered and then cracked a secure communications code. The line of letters, symbols and digits on Max’s business card fitted the personal identifier format perfectly: capital letter-one or more digits-forwards slash-three capital letters-dot-a text user name rendered as three lower-case letters plus a capital. The three capital letters after the slash represented the owner’s home base, which Lucian knew was The Russian Federation.
He typed the code into the browser’s search box.
F765/TRF.maxN
Hit the return key.
And nodded.
Buried deep below the innocuous surface web – with its cat videos, auction sites and the kind of porn most people knew about, even if they claimed never to view it – Max Novgorodsky and his kind had profiles as brazenly self-promoting as the most avid Facebook user’s. Business was business, after all. And in a globalised world, not everything could be handled face to face. Of course, without their ID code, they were harder to reach than the bottom of the Marianas Trench, but then, that’s why Lucian had taken a hundred-grand Mercedes GLS and reduced it to a pile of scrap metal.
Here was the owner of the business card in all his poisonous pomp.
Max Novgorodsky. Managing Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Kuznitsa.
Formerly of the Gradlovsk Street Brigade, the Red Army, and State Correction Institute (Maximum Security), Nizhny Novgorod.
Specialities: arms dealing, human trafficking, extractive industries, political operations.
The space for a photo was occupied by a dark-grey silhouette on a paler grey circular background. Who’d want to show their face, even on the dark web? They knew the police swam in these waters too, from time to time.
Below that was a button labelled Contact . He resisted the urge to click it. The designers of this particular interface had included a pingback mechanism that alerted users when someone was even thinking of making contact. As one Drug Enforcement Agency agent had discovered to his cost on the previous year’s mission.
Lucian took a screenshot and typed up all the information into a new document. The copy and paste function didn’t work on the dark web. One more safeguard, even if minor, to keep its occupants and their activities private.
Lucian reversed out of the dark web, closed Tor and snapped the lid of his laptop shut. He checked the time: 2.15 a.m. He hesitated, but only for a moment. Callie had been explicit on the subject.
“You find something, you call me, d’ye hear? I don’t care if it’s three in the bloody morning or I’ve just left for my bikini wax appointment. You call me the moment you have something.”
He smiled at the memory. Her soft Scottish burr hardened up when she was under pressure, which, he reflected, was most of the time, and she had a choice turn of phrase. He called her.
“This better be good, Lucian. D’ye know what time it is?”
“Well, it’s before three, Boss.”
“Go on, then. Make me a happy wee girl.”
He heard the sharpness come back into her voice. The blur of sleep had vanished.
“I’ve found Mr Novgorodsky. He’s ex-Red Army, and what looks like some kind of Russian gang before that. And he’s spent time in a Soviet prison.”
“You’re two for two, Lucian. Come and see me first thing and I’ll give you a sticker.”
“Thanks! How’s my chart looking?”
“Nearly full. Now please, and I mean this in a kind and caring way, fuck off and let me get a couple more hours’ sleep.”
The following morning, after Lucian had briefed her on his findings from the night’s trawling in the dark web, Callie called Don.
“We’ve identified Mr Novgorodsky. He’s Russian. Ex-con. Ex-Red Army. We have a route to contacting him, but my forensics guy says it needs handling carefully. You need to be ready for anything once you send the message.”
“Which we are. Thank you,
Callie. Can you send me the report? I think we’ll take it from here, if you don’t mind.”
“After what Lucian told me? No, I don’t mind at all. We’ll go back to catching serial killers and terrorists. Much simpler.”
By All the Prophets
TEHRAN
Gabriel looked across at the man who now controlled every aspect of his life. The man so similar to him in height and stature and yet who possessed every scrap of power in this temporary relationship. He could see himself reflected in the man’s sunglasses. A pair of tiny, pale, naked men looked out at him from the opaque lenses as if submerged in deep pools of black ink.
“Why do you keep calling me Gabriel?” he asked. “My name is Robert Denning. I told you. I am a publisher, and I’m over here for the Tehran Book Fair. I don’t know why you are doing this to me.”
“I am calling you Gabriel because that is your name. And I am doing this ,” Razi leaned across the table and slapped Gabriel hard, “because you are an assassin and I must discover as much about you and your orders as I can manage.”
He was frowning, but he spoke softly and patiently, as if to a slow-witted child.
“It was somewhat arrogant of your parents to name you after an angel, but then, I have never found westerners to be over-blessed with humility before God. Speaking of the Creator, it’s interesting how the founders of the world’s religions grounded their prophets in a simple world their adherents could understand, don’t you think? Take Mohammed, peace be upon him. In his early years, it was reported that he was a shepherd. Then he became a merchant.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m a publisher, not a spy.”
Razi smiled. He leaned over to the canvas holdall by his left foot. He straightened, and placed a copper-headed lump hammer on the table. The face was pitted and gouged by much use. Then he laid a six-inch steel nail beside it.
“Or take Jesus, as another example. A carpenter. A man who worked with his hands. With tools just like this one.”
He unbuttoned his right shirt cuff and folded it back on itself. Repeating the movement twice more, he smoothed the rolled cotton over his bicep. Agonisingly slowly, he performed the same routine with the left cuff. His forearms were covered with dense, curling black hair. Almost apologetically, he smiled at Gabriel.
“It’s new. I don’t want to spoil it. My wife would give me a hard time, I can tell you.”
Then he stood. Gabriel watched out of the corner of his eye as Razi rounded the table and came to stand behind him. He closed his eyes and resumed his inner chanting of the mantra against despair his old friend and mentor Zhao Xi had taught him.
Pain passes like clouds on a windy day, pain passes like clouds on a windy day, pain passes
Razi placed his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders and pushed down hard. Gabriel could smell his aftershave. Razi shouted in Farsi.
“Ali! Der aaneja. Hala!” Ali! In here. Now!
The door opened, and a heavily built man entered. He was dressed in the western style: grey two-piece suit, dress shirt open at his bull neck, black shoes. Only the Kalashnikov slung across his massive shoulders made him look like anything other than a successful Middle Eastern businessman.
like clouds on a windy day,
Razi issued a brief instruction.
“Dest khewd ra ber rewa maz neguh darad.” Hold his hand out on the table.
pain passes
The man called Ali drew a knife. Its blade whispered against the cable tie that bound Gabriel’s left hand to the arm of the chair. For a split-second, Gabriel’s hand was free before being secured in the six-footer’s iron grip. He slammed Gabriel’s hand down onto the table, exactly half-way across, and leaned down on it, pinning it in place.
like clouds on a windy day, pain passes like clouds on a windy day, pain passes
Razi re-entered Gabriel’s field of vision. He picked up the nail in his thick fingers and turned it this way and that in the harsh light. Then he rested its four-sided point on the thin skin on the back of Gabriel’s hand. He felt for a moment with the index finger of his other hand then repositioned the point. His fingertips were cool against Gabriel’s sweating skin.
“Please!” Gabriel screamed. “Don’t hurt me! I’ll tell you anything. OK, fine, I’m not a publisher. You’re right. I’m a, uh, a spy. For the British Government. I’m spying on your, your secret agents in Tehran. Robert Denning is just my codename. I’m actually called, called, Rick Stone. You have to believe me. Don’t hurt me! I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
like clouds on a windy day, pain passes like clouds on
Razi smiled. But he did not relax his grip on the nail. Or the hammer.
“Indeed you will, Gabriel. But not until you have shed every last scrap of your humanity. Now,” he said, repositioning the nail point a fraction. “We place it there. Between the metacarpal bones. In my profession, one must study an extraordinary amount of anatomy, you know. Take the man we were just speaking of. Jesus. Every statue, every icon, every painting, etching and silverpoint drawing got it wrong. You cannot crucify a man with nails through his palms. Believe me when I tell you this. Even a light body has enough weight to simply drag the nails through the flesh and out between the fingers. No. The correct way to crucify a man is to place the nails behind the wrist, you know? Between the radius and the ulna. Then he can hang there as long as you wish. Or,” an apologetic smile, “until his leg muscles are too weak to support his weight. And he suffocates. On the other hand, if you do not wish to kill a man, then you have greater latitude in where you position your nails.”
a windy day, pain passes like clouds on a windy
Gabriel looked into black lenses, at the pathetic figure he saw trapped there. He forced himself to cry.
“I told you. My name is Robert Denning. I am a publisher. I came here with The British Council to attend the Tehran Book Fair.”
“No,” Razi said in a singsong voice, extending the single syllable to three. He picked up the hammer. Gabriel closed his eyes. Inhaled deeply. And let it out in a hiss.
day, pain passes like clouds on a windy day pain passes
“You are an assassin – ”
like clouds on a windy day, pain
He raised the hammer a foot above the table top.
passes like clouds
“– sent by the British –”
on a windy day,
Government—”
pain
Razi smashed the hammer down onto the nail head.
Gabriel screamed.
Razi bellowed.
“And you came here to kill Abbas Darbandi!”
Razi issued another order in Farsi.
“Ma ra terk ken!” Leave us !
Gabriel was panting. Salty sweat stung his eyes as it mixed with the tears, real ones now.
He looked at his left hand, fastened to the table like a large exotic insect in an antique collection, bleeding heavily onto the scratched and stained wood. When he could trust himself to speak, he grunted out another variant of the answer he had been giving for, how long was it? One day? Two? More? He’d lost count.
“My name is Robert Denning. Please! I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m a publisher. We do books on ancient civilisations. That’s why I’m in Iran. We have a new book coming out on Persia. I work for Copernicus Press. Why won’t you believe me?”
Gabriel had no more need to fake tears.
Razi smiled. His hand moved to his shirt pocket.
“It is said that Siddārtha Gautama, the prince who metamorphosed into the Lord Buddha, had dreams of becoming a surgeon before his enlightenment. Did you know that?”
A silvery scalpel appeared in Razi’s fingers as if produced out of thin air by a magician.
“I don’t know why you are doing this to me,” Gabriel gasped.
“I wonder, did he ever practise with one of these, do you think?”
Razi reached towards Gabriel’s bleeding hand and took the middle f
inger in his own.
Anatomy Lesson
Razi placed the tip of the scalpel blade beneath the edge of Gabriel’s fingernail and stroked, left to right, pushing just enough so that blood welled out over the blade and flowed in rivulets onto the table.
The throbbing pain in Gabriel’s hand turned from a dull orange to a blinding, searing, yellow-white.
He groaned and felt the world lurch sideways for a second. In the far corner of the room, he saw a black-skinned man emerge from a water stain on the roughly plastered wall. A man wearing an assortment of camo items and a sand-coloured SAS beret. A man he’d buried a couple of years earlier after recovering his mortal remains from the Mozambican forest.
Smudge, mate. I could do with some help here.
Stay strong, Boss. Stay strong, yeah. You can beat this.
Then Smudge vanished back into the wall.
Maintaining his inner chant – pain passes like clouds on a windy day – he straightened and focused on the two tiny Gabriels.
Razi stood.
“Anatomy, Mr Wolfe. We have plenty of time to explore the subject.”
Then he turned and left the room, shutting the heavy steel behind him with a clang. Despite the red-hot agony threatening to unman him, Gabriel scrutinised the way the torturer walked. The slight drag to the left foot, the stiffer swing to the left arm.
Blinking away the tears that were clouding his vision, Gabriel stared down at his left hand. The pain was like a scream in the centre of his brain. So loud it drowned out every other thought. He closed his eyes and searched for a place Master Zhao had taught him to find in extremis . He focused on his breathing. Use the ten-second breath, Wolfe Cub , Master Zhao’s voice instructed. Like you did with Fariyah. In for four. Hold for one. Out for four. Hold for one.
