Code Shield (8 page)

“No, my daughter did not run away,” Michael raised his voice a little.

The sergeant did not wish to argue. “We'll relay your daughter's particulars to the Singapore Embassy in Moscow. They'll liaise with Russian Police. That's the best we can do.”

“I know my daughter, she didn't run away. She was kidnapped.”

“Mr Liam, the video also showed the two of them hugging and kissing. We thought it best not to show you those snapshots.”

Michael's elbows rested on the table, his head in his hands. He mumbled incoherently to himself.

“Okay, here's something else but off the record,” the sergeant leaned forward. “We managed to trace the hotel this
ang moh
used. The hotel receptionist said he saw someone who looked like your daughter visit the
ang moh
for two days in a row, a Friday and a Saturday. She…stayed over with him on that Friday night.”

“Not my Annette,” protested Michael.

Then Michael reached across the table and grabbed the IO's arm, “Can I have copies of the pictures?”

“No way,” the police sergeant snatched his

arm away.

“Please sir, this is my only hope, I beg you.” Michael's voice choked, his eyes turning an ugly red.

Sergeant Pang stared at the purplish swelling on Michael's cheek and continued to absently arrange and rearrange the photos and folder. Finally, he made up his mind.

“I'm going to the washroom and will be back in three minutes,” he got up, squeezed himself between the glass wall and chairs, not taking his eyes off Michael. “I don't want to see you here when I return, understand?”

Michael stared owlishly at the folder that Sergeant Pang had left behind…

Chapter 11

Late that afternoon, Venkat, the lawyer who had handled Michael's divorce, popped his head into the reception area with a cheery smile, a five o'clock shadow around his chin,

“Hi Mike, come into my office.” He was gone even before Michael could get up.

Venkat tossed his jacket on the dumbvalet, that stood in the corner behind his desk, and tugged at his tie,

“How're you and good god what happened to your face?” He sank heavily into his well-worn leather chair.

“Oh, a little misunderstanding,” Michael brushed it off.

“Yeah I heard from my friend the Sup,” Venkat leaned back, folded his arms and studied the man seated opposite him. The Sup or superintendent was his former course mate in the Police Academy and now commanding officer of Jurong Land Division. Venkat saw Michael's quizzical face and answered,

“We write letters complaining about the police, the police called to say that you're hanging around car parks waiting to harass their IO. You pushed him, he blocked and you fell.”

The rotund lawyer whizzed as he spoke, “Though it's obvious you fell on his knuckles. So, what can I do for you my friend?”

“Venkat, can you help me speak to Diana's lawyer, ask for some time and I promise to settle the outstanding money.”

“Look, the new lawyer that Diana had engaged is a divorcee herself, a real man-hater. I tried to speak to her, find some amicable solution but she resorts to diatribes, suffers from verbal diarrhoea and insists that every communication be in writing. Something that could be resolved in half an hour is dragging out over weeks and of course, it's going to cost you both.”

Seeing his client's pleading look, Venkat threw up his arms in despair, “Look, what more can I say. I'll see what I can do. Leave it to me.”

Venkat leaned forward and his ample stomach pressed against the heavy oak table that dominated his cramped room.

Three stacks of case files towered on one side of the table, an accidental brush threatening to send them all in a confusion of paper on the floor. Behind Venkat's chair was an oak bookcase with rows of heavy legal tomes. On a shelf leaned a family portrait of his wife and two smiling children, sporting the prominent nose of their father. Another picture was of a younger and slimmer Venkat in police uniform. There were also several ribbons and medals in a glass box placed at a tilt for effect.

“So, what's this about wanting to go to Moscow? You don't know for sure whether Annette is there. Hell, Mike, you don't know anyone there, you don't speak the lingo, you've never been there and you don't have much money,” Venkat counted off his fingers.

“I have to, the police can't do much and they don't want to contact Interpol.”

“Look Mike, it's not like that. Based on the facts, it seems like Annette…well, looks like she took off on her own free will. What's that, you have some pictures?” Venkat leaned forward.

Michael spread three glossy prints on the table, all of Annette with a Caucasian man in the airport, evidently taken when they departed the country.

“This is the man she left with. I'm sure that he had cheated her into following him, made use of her youth and gullibility.”

“Youth…gullibility…Hmm, you obviously don't know what goes on out there. These look like CCTV grabs, where did you get these photos from?” Venkat raised his hands, “No, don't tell me. I don't want to be an accessory.”

“This Ruslan Kashin is not the kind of gorilla my Annette would associate with.”

“Gorilla, you say. He seems quite handsome really and they seem pretty intimate,” observed Venkat. “How did you know his name?”

“The police told me. He must have kidnapped her,” Michael was adamant.

“Your IO's name is Sergeant Pang? He's right – the families are usually the last to know,” added the lawyer. “Look, I still keep in touch with my ex colleagues in the force and the number of our young girls who get onto the internet, meet all sorts of scum and get into drugs, prostitution, petty gangsterism, it's mind boggling I tell you,” Venkat shook his head as he spoke.

“Not my Annette.”

“Look Mike, okay let's assume you're right and this guy forced her to go with him. Even if you finally managed to find this Ruslan Kashin, find Annette, what do you plan to do? If he's a kidnapper, he's probably not working alone. If these guys get wind that you're onto them, you put your life in danger; you put
Annette's
life in jeopardy.”

“As soon as I locate them, I'll go to the police.”

“Hey, that's a great thought.” Venkat came around and sat on the edge of his table. He folded his arms, planted one foot on the carpeted floor and let the other leg swing loose, pivoting at the knee. “Look, so why don't you leave it to the police Mike? They're still your best bet. You're not exactly Steven Segal. You're Michael Liam but sorry to say, no Liam Neeson either. The Russians would be more vicious than Sergeant Pang was. Look, I'll write letters, put pressure –”

“I can't Venkat. I simply can't be doing nothing while my baby is –”

“You love her very much don't you?”

“Of course I do, with my life,” said Michael, biting his lips, his eyes wet.

“Look Mike, continue with this madness and you might just pay for it with your life…and hers.” The lawyer exhaled deep and sharp.

“I'm going Venkat, already taken leave, booked my ticket. Yvonne is helping to find some cheap hotel or motel in Moscow.”

“What do you intend to do when you get there? I mean, what would be the first thing you'll actually do?”

“I don't know, I suppose contact a private investigator to help locate this man,” Michael stabbed his finger at the picture of the smiling face staring back at him from the table.

Venkat decided another approach, “Look, why don't you do this, I'll get the contact details of a private eye in Moscow. I know a law firm here that represents Russian clients. You get in touch with the PI, let them handle it and you remain in Singapore, okay.” Venkat saw the pained look on Michael's face, “Look Mike… okay?”

Tara's body arched as she received the well-endowed man, but she did not gasp.

As she locked down her mind, she recalled how after the death of her pet Jack Russell, Johnny, she had admonished herself for not having felt any grief. She had been ashamed of her callous reaction or rather, lack of any reaction.

Another deep thrust from Plustarch.

Then it happened again, when she heard of her parents dying in a road accident in Malaysia. She thought of herself as strange but did not dwell on it. At the funeral, she did not shed a tear. The more generous people in church had commented on her remarkable self-control.

Plustarch grunted, as his thrusts grew rhythmic.

Several years later, she learnt from the doctors in the academy that she had
endocannabinoids
deficiency, deficiency of the chemicals that trigger pain and distress receptors in the brain.

Tara opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling, her arms wrapped around Plustarch's neck, her body jerking with every thrust from her lover.

Plustarch lounged on the carpeted floor of his apartment, leaning against the seat of the settee. Tara rested her head on his chest, her shirt buttons left undone. On a low table, an empty bottle of champagne stood next to a couple of fine crystal stemware, one upright and the other on its side.

They had again discussed the matter of insurance policies for people in their profession, a topic first broached several weeks after they had first met.

They knew that couriers, stakeout specialists, backroom analysts and other support agents usually held their grey day jobs and retired into uneventful oblivion. However, for first line operatives like them, called to handle sensitive assignments, there were only two avenues. Both did not include lazing under a Caribbean sun with a martini, whether stirred or shaken. No matter how sharp and good they were, in time someone better would always appear. That someone could be working on their side or on all the other sides – but like the martini, it made no difference, the result would be the same.

Plustarch gazed at the muted glow of light from the fireplace. Discreet backlights from the display cabinets illuminated the rest of the living area.

After every love making session, he wondered about her and today was no exception. She seemed somewhat inured to all physical pleasures and emotional distractions. Even when they made love, he grunted with exertion but not her. She did not moan with the rhythm of his thrusts but gave and received love silently. Once he had worked hard to locate and tease her spot, convinced that she would squirm as all his other lovers had. But at the moment of her climax, all she betrayed was a tiny gasp.

Yet she gave him pleasure like a raw woman. Plustarch, trained to hide all emotions, wondered how she managed to hide hers so well. Then it occurred to him.
Why and how do you hide something that you do not possess
. Yet, he had caught some small glint in her eyes, fleeting but definitely there.

The extensive resources at the disposal of the FSB, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, has not uncovered anything about her – not her childhood, family, schools, friends – nothing! The FSB had experts who painstakingly built legends, legends that they used to clothe deep-cover moles, giving them traceable but fictitious lives.

If Tara wore anything resembling a legend, the FSB would have recognised it.

But with Tara…there was nothing…absolute nothingness.

At length he ventured, “A time will come when we both know too much about our governments, or at least about the powers that pull the strings…”

“That's when some unfortunate accident would befall us,” she turned and held him in her steady gaze. “Yes, I know how this would end for people like us.”

“How many accidents have you had to arrange?”

“I've shown you mine and you've shown me yours,” she studied his face. “Do we need to go further?”

“I guess not,” Plustarch took her slender but firm hand in his large warm palm. “We're agreed then?”

Tara nodded ever so slightly.

The six foot four Russian sprang up smoothly and went to his heavy overcoat, which lay draped over a chair. He pulled out a thumb drive from a pocket and handed it to her,

“The IndoTel files. This'll cost you.”

“Does it point to the Mole?”

“It's a bunch of emails, files, reports with names and dates. To a casual observer, means nothing,” Plustarch joined her on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest. “Will it point to your Mole? I don't know. Perhaps your people might be able to put together a photo fit.”

Tara snuggled beside him and nibbled his ear lobe. “What's the price of this photo fit?”

“We have tenants looking for a landlord; somewhere we can park three hundred million American dollars without too many questions from your central bank – the MAS? We require multiple accounts, multiple names and with unfettered access.”

Their lips met and Tara allowed Plustarch to slip his tongue into her mouth, to savour her. She pulled back gently and kissed the length of his neck,

“Your tenants have names?”

“Yes, all Indonesians,” whispered Plustarch, swung her around to the crook of his elbow and leaned over her pouting lips. “They're seeking to invest in your property market. We're their financiers.”

“Three hundred million – that Sukhoi deal must be worth at least three billion dollars. Suharto is gone but nothing else has changed in Jakarta – the usual ten per cent?”

“We have the MOU in place, fleshing out the details,” Plustarch murmured into her ears.

Chapter 12

Singapore Airlines flew direct to Moscow. Michael spent the long flight napping and thumbing through the English-Russian phrase book he had picked up. He also read and re-read the sheets for first time visitors to Moscow, which Yvonne had downloaded from the Internet.

Michael felt a small chill travel down his body. He had never travelled so far from home and certainly not to a country where people spoke very little English and almost no Chinese.
Maybe Venkat was right, I should have left it to the Russian private eye
.