by A P Bateman
King was making the most of the late-summer sun and adding to the pile of split logs that should keep them going over the winter. He was shirtless and using the chore as exercise, wielding the ten-pound axe through the whole logs, then when he had a decent pile, he would throw them like a rugby ball to the mounting pile under the lean-to some twenty feet from the depleting pile of unsplit wood. Caroline had gone for a run, but King knew it was more about sorting out her head than simply keeping fit. She would pound the clifftops for an hour or two every day. If he was honest, he welcomed the solitude. He needed time to think, too, but not just about starting families and chalked-up failures each month. He missed the action. He missed the intrigue and subterfuge. But more than that, his constant thoughts about the life he had lived, the acts for which he felt the need to atone, were evermore present in this softened civilian life. As busy as he was developing their property, his mind simply wasn’t busy enough for him to live with himself.
King looked up as the bell sounded at the bottom of the lane. He had laid a simple old-fashioned garage forecourt style contact wire across the entrance. Nobody calling on the house noticed it, but it rang a bell just once inside the porch. He bent down and picked up his shirt, then realised he had not picked up one of the two pistols he had secreted from previous missions. To his dismay, he could not remember the last time he had carried a weapon. He always carried a folding lock knife, and during his time renovating the property he used it for certain tasks every day, but he realised he had been carrying it as a tool instead of an actual weapon. King cursed himself, wondering what his old mentor Peter Stewart would have made of it. As he walked around the side of the house and into the porch, he could hear the cantankerous Scottish drunk lambasting him for his complacency.
King opened the drawer and picked up the Walther PPK. He did not bother working the slide and checking the breech because the tiny pin above the hammer was poking out indicating a round was already chambered. A brilliant feature he had often wondered why other manufacturers had not copied. He tucked the tiny pistol into his back pocket and put on his shirt as he walked back outside.
The car was a black Jaguar saloon, and he recognised the London number plate configuration. It was a new registration, so he assumed MI5’s budget was still strong after so much government investment and bailout to businesses, workers and the NHS. The country was now in recession, but government departments would always do OK. He watched it manoeuvre between Caroline’s Mini Cooper S and his own battered Land Rover Defender. Neil Ramsay got out of the passenger seat and Simon Mereweather opened the rear door and stepped out, blinking in the sunlight. Someone King did not recognise opened the driver’s door, stepped out and did a quick assessment of the area. He looked like a bodyguard, but he’d missed King standing in the shadows of the late afternoon sun. Ramsay nodded when he finally saw King, and the bodyguard did his best not to look too bored as he waited beside the car.
“The house has come on since we saw it last,” Simon Mereweather said. “How is Caroline fairing with the boredom?”
“Who said she was bored?”
“Sorry, I just assumed. You two didn’t exactly have the quietest of lives before all this rural idyll.”
King shrugged. “Well, we’re making up for it at last.”
“I bet,” said Mereweather.
“I don’t see her watching Cash in the Attic with a cup of tea and wearing a pair of slippers,” Ramsay quipped. “Not quite the picture I’d paint of you, either.”
“She’s gone out for a run,” said King. “So, you can both be gone before she returns.” Mereweather smiled, looked around him. The sea was glistening in the distance, with the fields an array of colour with yellow rapeseed, tall grass for silage or hay and wheat creating a patchwork quilt of hues. King said, “Get on with it, Simon…”
“Rashid’s team has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Vanished,” Ramsay reiterated.
“What was the job?”
Mereweather looked around him. The bodyguard-come-driver was staring at the sea with his back to them. The deputy director of MI5 looked back at King. “Can we discuss this inside?”
King shrugged. “Fair enough.” He led them inside and into the kitchen. The cabinets and fixings were all new, but the walls were still to be tiled and painted. There were test colours on the wall, some with ticks beside them, others crossed out altogether. King put the kettle on and took four cups out of the cupboard. “So, what was it?” he asked again.
“You once crossed paths with a man called Romanovitch,” said Mereweather. “A Russian mafia leader.”
King looked at him, but he was picturing the man before him, Caroline being held captive by an adversary out for vengeance and the killing of Romanovitch being the price of her freedom. He could see the man lying still on the hard floor after their struggle, his head split open, his eyes staring wide. That day on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia seemed so long ago, and the deception which had followed had cost lives. Rashid had been there that day, at the exchange. Ready with his rifle, protecting King at a distance.
“What about him?” King asked tersely. “He’s dead?”
“But his brother is not. Ivan Romanovitch picked up where his brother left off, and over these past years he has built up a large network of drug manufacturers, weapon smugglers and people traffickers. We have been working on intelligence from SO15 to shut the organisation down. Together with an Albanian outfit called the Albanian Brotherhood of Kontroll…”
“That’s organised crime, not terrorism. SO15 are terrorist hunters.”
Mereweather nodded. “Romanovitch has his fingers in a lot of pies. It is suspected he has people inside the FSB and SVR. Romanovitch’s weapons have ended up in Islamic extremist hands, so he has found himself firmly within SO15’s remit.” He paused. “The great policers of Islam don’t seem to mind raising funds by selling drugs either and Romanovitch sells the chemicals to the Albanians, who then sell the crystal meth on to Islamic extremist groups over here.”
King shook his head as he poured hot water onto the four teabags, splashed in milk and before he could stop himself, he had shovelled a spoon of sugar into all four mugs. He hesitated, then shrugged. That’s how he took his tea, and anybody wanting it differently was simply wrong. He stirred them well, then hooked out the teabags and slid one of the cups towards Ramsay. “Give that to the driver, Neil,” he said and picked up his own cup. Ramsay looked affronted, but walked out with the cup, nonetheless. “What was the brief?” King asked, then sipped some of his tea.
“Rashid was to lead a team of four more men in subterfuge and assassination, to pitch both gangs against each other. And then, like a wise fighting-cock, watch the other two fighting-cocks rip each other to shreds, then attack the winner when they are both wounded and exhausted.”
“Great analogy,” King replied. “But it seldom works out that way. The winning fighting cock has the edge because it has lost the fear. It doesn’t feel pain, because its blood is pumping with endorphins and besides, it has the taste for blood…”
“It worked when you pitted that Russian gang against the Italian mafia.” Mereweather looked up as Ramsay walked back inside and picked up his mug of tea. “It worked for you,” he added.
King nodded. “But I was in a pinch and running out of time. I did what I did and rolled the dice. They did not have the time to figure things out.” He paused. “I was in and out. This sounds like a long-term, protracted affair. It sounds as if somebody wised-up.”
“Indeed,” mused Mereweather.
“Or there’s another possibility,” said King.
“Which is?”
“Do I know this team?”
“No.”
“How well do you know them?” King asked. “Can you trust them?”
“Implicitly,” replied Mereweather. “Especially Rashid.”
King shrugged. “I know Rashid, and I would vouch for him all day long. But I
don’t know these other four men.” King paused. “I take it they have hit the gangs financially?”
“And then some,” Ramsay interjected. “Six laundering hits, and then when the gangs used different methods, they went after the money men. They hit them up for millions. Both in Russia and Albania. More than twenty million euros in all.”
King shrugged. “Enough to disappear on…”
“But I still don’t think Rashid would…”
“Of course, he wouldn’t!” King snapped. “But that doesn’t mean the others wouldn’t have killed him and taken off with the money.” He sighed, shook his head. “Shit…”
“We have a contact. An asset,” said Mereweather. He took out an envelope, placed it on the kitchen counter and slid it across to King. “All the details are in there, along with a cash card, a bank account and a credit card, all in your name. Unlimited funds.”
“Within reason,” Ramsay added. “And it needs accounting for, so you can’t finish your renovation off with it.”
“Piss off, Neil.” King shook his head. “I’m out, and I meant it at the beginning of the summer. I no longer work for you.”
Mereweather nodded and stood up. He finished his tea and placed the cup down on top of the envelope. “I understand.”
“So, you’ll need to take that back with you,” King told him, looking at the envelope.
Ramsay sipped some tea, grimaced at its sweetness, and placed the cup and its barely touched contents back down. “It was nice seeing you again, Alex.”
King nodded. He removed Mereweather’s cup and slid the envelope back towards him. “I meant it, I’m out.”
“I thought Rashid meant something to you.”
“He does. Or did.” King shrugged. “In this game, it catches up with you eventually. If you want to dance, you’ve got to pay the band…”
“But it didn’t catch up with you,” said Ramsay.
King took the pistol from his pocket and rested it on the counter, still in his hand with his finger near the trigger. “And that’s a miracle. But because I stay prepared and I’ve stopped taking chances.” He paused, thinking about how off guard he had been earlier. He needed to sharpen up. “I’ve dodged bullets and people who would do me harm my entire adult life. And with my childhood, I was lucky to make it, full stop. And now, that’s it for me. I’m out and hopefully I’ll live long enough to start a family with the woman I love.”
Mereweather smiled. “Then, I wish you well and we’ll be on our way.” He paused. “But I’ll leave you the envelope. I understand your reasonings. And fatherhood, if you’re lucky enough to experience it, tends to focus one’s eye. Until they’re teenagers and then you’ll do everything within your power not to be home,” he smiled, managing a chuckle.
King smiled and slid the envelope towards him but frowned when Mereweather ignored it. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’re done with this,” he replied. “If there’s any chance of finding out what happened, then it lies with you. If Rashid and his team have buggered off with the money and are in hiding, then I guess we’ll find out at some stage. If they are being held captive… or indeed have been killed… then it begins and ends with you finding out. We can’t be any more involved than we have been. The team were effective, too effective perhaps, and there are people who want to find out what was going on and who was behind it. Crossing swords with those people is not on our department’s agenda.”
King shook his head. “So, that’s it? You dangle Rashid’s life in front of me like a carrot, and if I don’t bite, he’s done for?” He paused. “You bastards…”
“Well, like you said, you no longer work for us, Alex. We can’t very well use a stick, so the carrot is all we’ve got.”
12
Tirana, Albania
King looked at the copy of the police report. It had been requisitioned by Interpol and bore the agency’s stamp all over the photocopied sheets. Then the Met had gotten hold of it and it bore several stamps requisitioning the report. MI5 had received the report clandestinely, so there was nothing to link the Security Service with the documents. He studied the post office in the tree-lined square. He would have called it a piazza but wasn’t sure if it translated in Albanian. The chalk lines indicating the resting places of the bodies had long-since been rubbed away by pedestrians, as he doubted the area had any rain in the past few months. It was a dry climate, similar to that of Greece, and would rain more during the autumn months as the air and sea cooled against the heat of the sun-baked land, but summer rain would be rare indeed. He looked up for CCTV cameras, but there was nothing more than he already knew about from the report and the images he held on file.
He folded the report and tucked it back into the back of his trousers, leaving just under half of it poking out. Not ideal, but he had hired a motorbike and it had come without panniers. King swung his leg over the frame and sat down heavily on the hot seat. He pulled the bike upright and kicked up the stand. The bike was a Suzuki SV650 which he had chosen for its convenience in city traffic, ease of parking and a terrific turn of speed which could embarrass most supercars to one-hundred miles per hour.
The traffic was light, and King weaved in and out of the slower-moving vehicles to maintain a good pace. He always found he rode more recklessly than he drove. The speed and manoeuvrability became addictive. Part of the reason he did not own a motorcycle – because he would get a taste of it and unwittingly embrace the infallibility without recognising the vulnerability.
He left the main road and started riding loops of the square, widening the route in concentric circles, and watching both sides of the streets. He spotted the BMW merely by the amount of tree debris and dust covering it. There were dried seed pods, sap and fallen leaves all over the windscreen and bodywork. The dust was thick and covered the glass all around and it was evident that nobody had driven the vehicle in months. Only the fact it was parked in a quiet residential neighbourhood accounted for the fact that it had not been stolen or attracted attention from vandals. King parked the motorcycle on the opposite side of the road beneath the shade of a tree and spent a few minutes studying the street. He then got off the machine, took off the open-face helmet and hung it on the handlebar as he watched the road behind him. There was no CCTV and the houses were a few metres set back from the road with overgrown gardens and hedges giving the residents privacy. King approached the vehicle and dropped into a press up, holding himself just a few inches from the hot tarmac to survey the underside. He saw the key resting on top of the rubber bush above the shock absorber spring, but he ignored it until he had checked the other wheel arches and the rest of the underside of the vehicle. IEDs or tracking devices could be easily planted and left for the unwitting driver to return, with lithium batteries lasting for years. King also knew enough about vehicle searches that you did not see just one thing and make a move. He checked all the wheel arches and the underside on the opposite side of the vehicle, then satisfied it was clear, he picked up the key fob and walked back thirty metres or so and used a parked vehicle for cover as he unlocked the BMW using the fob. It unlocked without drama, its lights flashing twice as the locks lifted and the alarm was immobilised. King walked back to the car, glancing about him to see if he was being watched. It was a quiet, tree-lined street and by the way the hedges and fences bordered the edge of the pavement, he could already tell that it would require a great deal of effort by someone who wanted to spy on the street. Anybody watching from the top windows of the houses would have their view obscured by the trees lining the pavement.
King opened the door slowly, checking for wires, but he had already decided that the vehicle had been left for a quick getaway. That is, if it indeed had been used by Rashid and his team. Plenty of people dropped off a car and left the keys within easy reach for someone, but this car had been here for weeks, if not months. The dust and grime, seed pods and dried leaves had left a layer of debris so thick that King could barely guess at the colour underneath. He
pressed the fob again, saw there was battery charge enough to bring the display to life, so he sat down in the driver’s seat and started the engine to save the battery, and brought up the telephone options. Next, he took out his iPhone and connected to the vehicle via Bluetooth. When he had the device paired with the vehicle, he scrolled through the screen of his phone and selected an app. There was a brief pause while the two devices paired through the app and then he followed the prompts and rested the phone next to the satnav and scrolled through the BMW’s iDrive to the satnav and waited for the data to stream. King opened the glovebox while he waited and found the envelope of money and the loaded Makarov pistol. He took the money out of the envelope and folded it before tucking it into his pocket. As he got out of the seat, he slipped the pistol into his back pocket as he walked around the vehicle and opened the boot. King could see all he needed to. A comprehensive first aid kit and small carry-on bags with changes of clothes. He had operated in the same way, left an escape option ready more times than he cared to remember. Someone generally came behind him and moved the evidence. Usually a junior agent out of harm’s way but still in the field getting some miles on the clock.
King got back into the car and checked his phone. The app had opened a program on a backdoor MI5 server and had downloaded the last 250 megabytes of data from the satnav’s history. It included GPS journey start and end data as well as average speed and the time of each journey. King opened the email which the program had sent back to his email provider and checked the folder. He entered the GPS coordinates of the start location and studied the map. He doubted Rashid and his team would be there, but at least he had another lead to go on.
