The woman had moved closer to the buildings as if seeking the shadows. The van came closer, then swerved violently, jumping the kerb. Was the driver trying to avoid an obstacle in the road? Had they lost control for a second? The van continued along the pavement, then stopped sharply.
The woman on the pavement had disappeared.
A fleeting figure jumped out of the van and ran into the shadows. Woman or man, Harry couldn’t tell. Then the figure returned carrying something: a bag – no, two bags. The way the figure moved looked like … a woman? Seconds later the van was on the move again and disappearing from sight.
The street was now clear except for an indistinct shape in the background, where a leg stretched out into a patch of light. A woman’s leg, coat rucked up. Still.
Harry almost didn’t dare speak, his throat dry and stunned by what he’d just seen.
‘Where’s the van?’ he said at last, his voice unnaturally calm. ‘Find that van.’
Davis began toggling from one set of screens to another. He widened the search, but the van had gone. Eventually the screen was filled with other vehicles as he flicked from one camera view to another. Lots of cars, pedestrians and the square shapes of London cabs. Eventually he stopped and sat back.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This is going to take longer.’
‘Keep looking,’ Harry told him. ‘It must be there somewhere.’
‘I agree.’ Davis tapped the keys and closed his screen. ‘But that’s all I’ve got so far. I’ll need to ask for more.’
‘How do you do that? Can’t you access the other cameras in the area?’
Davis nodded but without conviction. ‘It’s possible but it would need a team on it. It would take a while, covering all the routes away from there. It’s a big area to check.’
‘South or west,’ Harry told him.
‘What?’
‘They’d have been in a hurry to get away. Going north into the city would double the risk of an accident or being stopped in a random road block. That leaves south across the river or west along the embankment.’
‘Would that happen?’
‘Of course it would. The current level of alert is Substantial. Anything that looks out of the ordinary stands a high chance of being spotted and reported city-wide. They will have gone for the least risky route away from there. Tell your philandering mate to check for similar vans heading away from Westminster. If he argues the toss, tell him I’ll track him down and hang him by his balls from a lamp-post.’
Davis laughed. ‘I’d buy tickets to see that.’ He nodded at the phone and said, ‘You want to call Mr Cramer, tell him what we found? He’ll be getting edgy.’
Harry nodded. Davis was right. He seemed to be enjoying this. By nature, most of his tech work would be close-ended, with little information about end results. But this was a chase, albeit a frustrating one. Talking to Cramer was something that might be better done in confidence.
He found a quiet corner table at a nearby café and called him. He ran quickly through what Davis had found in the hotel and on the street cameras.
‘Wait,’ Cramer said, after he’d digested the information. ‘You think the suits were mine?’
‘You tell me.’
‘They weren’t. There’s nobody else on this. Just Alicia, the woman you saw before. But she’s been called off as you asked. Did you get the registration of the van?’
‘Davis has. He’s very good.’
‘Glad you think so. Talking of which, the sandwich eater who was following you has left the country. One of our Russia desk observers recognized him from the street cameras.’
A pity Alicia hadn’t done so, Harry thought. But he knew how close surveillance occasionally threw up a loss of all-round perception, focussing too much on what lay in front. ‘Who was he?’
‘A fly-in from Moscow. He’s been to London twice recently, two-day stops only. He’s probably a courier and low-level surveillance operative.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No. His passport number is just three away from a batch used by the Skripal poisoners.’
Harry felt a chill breeze touch his neck. ‘So this was a GRU operation.’
‘It seems so. A number of others from the same batch went to Russian mercenaries working in Africa, all issued by the same desk in Moscow.’
‘Not exactly subtle.’
‘That’s one description. Thing is, why would a Moscow GRU operative be interested in you? It must be connected with Ferris.’
‘Search me. I’ll think about it and let you know. What about the suits at the hotel?’
‘I’ll ask around. If I come up with anything I’ll let you know.’
The connection was cut and Harry pulled a face. He was about to leave the café when his phone rang. It was Davis.
‘I got a ping on a face from a few days ago. Ferris flew from Dublin to Amsterdam with KLM-stroke-Belavia, then on to Minsk. His ticket ended there. He might have bought an onward flight but I don’t have that information. For somebody being hunted, I have to say he didn’t look like he was trying to hide.’
Harry grinned. Davis was right. It told him a lot about Rik’s disappearance: if he wasn’t trying to hide it was because he probably didn’t know he had any reason to do so.
‘There’s something else, too,’ Davis continued. ‘You might want to see it.’
Harry disconnected and walked back round to the office. Davis let him in and opened a screen.
‘This was not long after the woman was knocked over,’ he explained. ‘I decided to trawl back to see if anything jumped out at me.’ He changed screens and showed the corridor which Harry recognized as the one containing the dead woman’s room. A man was walking under the camera. He was dressed in smart-casual clothes, his face obscured by a peaked cap. He stopped at a doorway and knocked.
‘That’s her room,’ said Davis.
The man looked around, then did something with the door handle. ‘He’s using a key-card device,’ Davis explained. ‘It goes through every permutation until it gets to the right one and … bingo.’
The door opened and the man disappeared inside. Less than three minutes later by the on-screen clock, he emerged and walked away. He was carrying a holdall.
‘I bet he’s not one of ours,’ Davis concluded.
Harry was impressed by the speed with which the man had moved. He’d entered, checked the room and walked out with whatever he’d found in there. No evidence left, and no clues to help tell them why the woman had been there.
Or why anyone would want her dead.
He stood up. ‘Davis, if that daughter of yours wants another upgrade for her Micro, it’s on me.’
Ten minutes later Harry was on his way back to his flat. He’d managed to snag a last-minute cancellation on a direct flight to Minsk. He hadn’t got time to dog-leg the journey to lose any possible followers because it would take too long. Instead he’d have to rely on luck and trade craft. As for Cramer he’d tell him where he was going when he was ready. If he did it now there was a risk the information would leak out and somebody else would be on their way over there.
For now the chase was on.
TWENTY-FOUR
Leaving Kraush to do whatever he was planning with the prisoner, Irina went in search of Alex. She’d checked on Ferris earlier and seen the bottle of water by his chair. She hadn’t left it there and was certain Kraush hadn’t. That left Alex. It was confirmation to her that the man was a weakness and a liability and had to be dealt with.
She had waited for darkness to fall, checking the windows to make sure there were no intruders nearby, even scouting the outside perimeter for signs of scavengers collecting wood. For what she was about to do she needed to make sure that nobody heard anything and raised the alarm.
She found the former FSB man checking the outside perimeter through the windows of one of the warehouses. She waited until he had finished, then beckoned him to follow her to a side room. It had probably been an office on
ce, with the remains of an ancient pin-board on one wall, although it contained no furniture now and was fighting a losing battle against the ravages of time. The walls had once been plastered and painted and where the plaster remained, still showed a faint sheen of lime green colour. A pile of mouldy cloth lay in one corner, and she saw something skitter away beneath it. A rat.
‘Wait here,’ she told him. ‘I have a job for you.’
She returned to the storeroom where she went to a cardboard box in one corner. She took out an empty plastic bottle that had once held engine oil. She had earlier discarded the screw top and used a kitchen knife to cut a hole in the base, then sliced up a coarse blanket into strips, which she’d wrapped around the bottle and secured in place with some string.
Humming to herself, she left the storeroom, closing the door softly behind her. When she got back to the former office, Alex was standing by the door, picking at his nails, an almost dreamy look of unconcern on his face.
She put a hand on his shoulder and steered him backwards into the room, kicking the door shut behind her. Alex moved without resistance and thrust his hands into his pockets, no doubt waiting for instructions.
‘You gave the prisoner water,’ she said.
His mouth opened to deny it, the colour draining from his face. But no words came out.
‘Are you armed?’ He wasn’t supposed to be but you could never tell with trauma victims; some of them thought they were still fighting a war, even when at home. And former FSB men, and she’d known a few, were in the habit of thinking they could carry a gun even when ordered not to. It was ingrained into their daily thinking, like putting on a favourite belt or a pair of boots.
‘No.’ He frowned and held out his hands. ‘I was told not to. Why would I?’
‘Turn round. Let me see.’
He did so, raising his arms to show her he wasn’t hiding a weapon. ‘See?’
Irina lifted the oil bottle, and with her other hand reached round behind her and slid the semi-automatic out of her waistband. She thrust the snout of the gun into the neck of the bottle and waited for Alex to turn round. When he saw the gun he made to step back and stumbled, one of his shoes coming off and a look of shock on his face. Before he could recover Irina pointed the base of the bottle at his face and pulled the trigger. He was thrown back against the wall by the bullet’s impact, dead before he hit the floor.
Irina nodded slowly, satisfied with the result. The shot had still been loud in the confines of the room, although reduced by the make-shift suppressor. But no worse than the slamming of a door.
She dropped the bottle on the floor and stamped on it, killing a few sparks in the fabric caused by powder burn, then dragged the dead body across to the corner, before throwing some of the mouldy cloth over it and leaving the room, closing the door behind her.
TWENTY-FIVE
Night time. Other than an occasional scraping noise from the darker corners of the vast structure Rik was in, the rest of the natural world appeared to have been switched off.
With his head clearing after the exercise, Rik was able to appreciate the serenity of nightfall. But not the cold. He shivered as it reached deep into his body. Something had woken him, but he couldn’t identify the cause. A late-night vehicle; someone nearby, perhaps, and a bang … but that might have been the tail-end of a dream brought on by whatever drug they’d been feeding him.
He stood up and stretched cautiously, wishing he had a source of light to give him a sense of perspective. The darkness was messing with his balance and his head was spinning like the aftermath of too much deep breathing. His leg muscles were tight but a few high steps and careful stretches on the spot loosened them up a little. He felt around for the water bottle and took a sip. His throat was dry but he was beginning to feel better than he had in a while; less fuzzy and more alert.
It was time to take a sneaky peek at his surroundings.
If what Kraush had told him was true, and not merely a bunch of lies to scare him into staying where he was, he wouldn’t be able to go further than the main fabric of the building. But that left him some leeway. He made his way to the door and slid it back on its runners, wincing at the rumble that seemed to echo through the building. So what if they caught him? What could they do but lose whatever source of information they were keen to exploit?
He stood outside the door and listened. Nothing. No sounds of voices, nobody rushing out of the dark to beat him senseless and kick him back into his cell. But there had definitely been a noise. He tracked his way by feel along the wall, his eyes growing accustomed to the dark. Not enough, though, for getting out of here and losing this thing on his leg.
He heard the sound of an engine and stopped. It was coming closer and definitely beyond the brick walls. A truck by the sound. A big one. Then he saw through minute holes in the metal part of the walls a wash of light moving past and a hiss of air brakes, followed by the slam of doors and the low hum of voices.
He kept moving, finding more doors. Some were locked or jammed shut, others opened into empty rooms, some big with echoes, others small and claustrophobic, the scrape of his footsteps flat and dull. All contained the smell of damp and decay, of a place long unused and deserted. The skittering of small animal sounds slid past him in the dark at ground level, and he hoped none of them were feeling hungry. He didn’t like rats, not unless one of them had a degree in electronics and was skilled at bomb-disposal.
He smelled the familiar aroma of garlic. He pushed at a door opening off a corridor and the smell became stronger still. He saw the vague shadows of boxes on the floor and a sink against the wall, and heard the drip-drip of water against metal. He checked the boxes by feel, testing the contents. Tins. Probably the bean mix they were feeding him on. And packets of something wrapped in grease-proof paper. Sausages … the smell was enough. He turned to the sink and ran his hands across the metal drainer. Bits of plastic wrapping, greasy paper and … something metallic which rolled as soon as he touched it. He grabbed for it before it could roll onto the floor, his gut heaving with nerves, and felt for the shape.
A torch. He’d found a torch! Metallic and cold with a ribbed case. He crouched and felt for the glass lens, then turned it against his stomach and switched it on. The relief he felt when it worked was all-consuming, as if he’d won a major victory against his imprisonment. He turned it off and continued his exploration, but that was the end of his fun for the night so far. If they had any tools for preparing his food, they had been very careful not to leave them lying around.
He used the torch sparingly, catching snatches of items as he moved. He was almost ready to give up when he spotted a familiar outline on the floor. It was a laptop with a smiley face on the lid bearing a penned-in moustache.
Damn. It was his. But there was no sign of his phone.
He knelt down and opened the lid. He’d had it with him on the journey over; they must have taken it from him when they caught up with him at the apartment block. He pressed the power button. Maybe he could get a message out to Harry.
He swore. Dead as a doughnut. And no sign of the power cable.
He put it back where he’d found it and scratched at his leg. The skin around his ankle was itching. His instinct was to blame the plastic bracelet but reason told him it had more to do with the lack of a shower. It made him realize that he’d been here three days now – or was it four … he couldn’t tell. He shrugged it off; he’d got more to worry about than personal hygiene, like how many more steps before this thing decides to go bang?
A rattle of distant laughter reached his ears and he stopped. There were voices and the hum of an engine in the distance. The sounds seemed unconnected with this building, and he wondered if a rescue attempt had been mounted. But why would they take a chance on being heard? He took a few cautious steps forward, expecting at any moment to see the glare of lights and find himself on the wrong end of Kraush’s taser. But everything remained dark and silent. He eventually arrived in a large space with
windows very high up. These were not blocked by plywood, and he could see a faint glow of light moving through the dirty glass. He needed to get up there and see what was going on. On one wall was a heavy-duty pipe running from floor to rafters and disappearing through the roof. One of the windows was close by.
He pocketed the torch and tested the pipe. It rattled but seemed solid enough. If the only way he was going to see out was up here, he’d better get to it.
He began to climb, bracing his feet against the brickwork and leaning out to gain purchase. It was hard going, and by the time he was halfway up his shoulder and leg muscles were screaming and his feet threatening to slip on the damp wall. He gritted his teeth and dug hard, eventually reaching the window level where he hugged the pipe and peered through the filthy glass.
At first he couldn’t make out anything through the film of dirt and the darkness outside. He didn’t dare scrape at the glass in case Kraush or Irina spotted the movement. Then he realized what he was looking at: it was a large passenger coach parked outside the next building. It had blanked-out windows but he could see people climbing out and moving into the structure where someone was directing them with a flashlight. Some of the arrivals were carrying bags, others had boxes. They were moving in concert, a line of worker ants, as if this was a practised procedure they had gone through before.
Then he noticed two familiar figures standing watching them. It was Kraush and Irina. Standing alongside them were two others, taller, clearly male and heavily built. They were carrying holdalls and dressed in dark clothing.
Rik felt a rush of unease. He’d seen men like this before, similarly equipped and dressed, usually about to go on an operation. The holdalls were canvas and usually carried a minimal change of clothing, basic supplies and an assortment of weapons. Whatever they were here for, they weren’t a cheer-leading team.
He was desperate to see more but his energy levels were diminishing fast and his breathing was becoming forced and harsh. His legs were trembling in protest at holding this position, threatening his precarious grip on the pipe. If he fell from this height he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. He slid back down, his feet dragging against the brickwork, and dropped to the floor with a groan. He crouched still for a moment, stress pains burning through his legs, shoulders and arms, and listened for some sign that he’d been heard.
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