‘Where are you?’ asked the female police constable.
‘You don’t need to know,’ said Mercy, and hung up.
‘That was a bit brutal.’
‘Somebody in the unit is watching me. Since I’ve been operating on my own, I haven’t had any threatening calls.’
‘Maybe they’re too busy with this procedural crisis you were on about.’
At 1.47, Irina Yermilov was pacing the living room, constantly checking her watch, knowing that the deadline had passed because of Sergei’s intransigence. They were already at two minutes past and closing in on three, which would mean, if the kidnappers were sticking to the letter of their threat, that Yury would be punished. She could barely tolerate Sergei’s presence in the room. His power play disgusted her. The old politics. He had thrown the Metropolitan Police kidnap consultant out of the house as soon as he’d arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Now he stood with his cronies at the other end of the room yabbering away to Moscow on his mobile phone, drinking vodka and smoking a Cohiba cigar.
The computer gave its little ringtone to signify that an email had arrived. It was entitled ‘Karla’. She called out to Sergei and the men lumbered across the room like a family of bears.
Irina opened it and clicked on the QuickTime symbol. It lasted twenty-three seconds, in which time all the strength went out of Irina’s legs and she collapsed on the floor, holding her hands over her ears to block out Karla’s screaming. When it was over, she came up on one elbow and vomited on the pristine carpet. The men looked down on her without moving. She was covered in a cold sweat. She got herself on to all fours and crawled unaided out of the room, washed her face in the kitchen, couldn’t find a bucket, didn’t know her own house. Found a dustpan and brush.
The men were standing around the computer talking. Not one of them was in the slightest bit moved by what they’d seen on the screen. Their faces betrayed no concern, pain or emotion.
The computer gave another ringtone and Sergei raised his head, indicating to one of the men to open it. It was called ‘Sophie’. They watched as the little girl was waterboarded. No one said anything. They sipped their vodka. Men so used to violence it made no impression on them to see an innocent girl suffer in such a way.
Irina couldn’t stand it. Something came into her eyes, a great rush of furious black blood that crowded her vision, and she flew at her husband and beat him over the ear with the brush, brought it down on his stupid fat head again and again and again until finally Sergei pushed her away with such a shove that she cannoned backwards, flipping over the back of an armchair and landing heavily on her bottom on the floor. The wind was knocked out of her and she slumped to one side, grunting.
Sergei made the call that Irina had been wanting him to make since the gang’s ultimatum came through. He nodded as if his point had been righteously made and slipped the mobile into his pocket. Blood trickled down the side of his face, which he cleaned up with a handkerchief given to him by one of his cronies.
Thirty seconds passed in total silence. Irina didn’t move from her position on the floor. The computer gave another ringtone. Sergei ordered one of the men to open it. In a thickly accented voice he read out the email.
‘“Too late, Mr Yermilov. Sorry.”’
This time the short film didn’t even require a click to start it. The video rolled. Some of the men in the room who’d seen action in Chechnya knew what the elephant was as soon as it appeared. They tried to stop the film but it wouldn’t respond. Yury’s head disappeared into the mask and they saw his struggle. Finally one of the men ripped the plug from the wall.
Irina, who had been facing away from the screen, went upstairs to the bedroom and stripped to her bra and knickers. She put on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a jumper and some trainers. She packed a small case and went downstairs. She seemed to change her mind at the kitchen door and put her suitcase down. She extracted the largest knife from the wooden block on the work surface and went into the sitting room. Sergei was on all fours, weeping into the carpet, roaring with pain and rage. She knew she had to act quickly and she ran at him with all the remembered athleticism of her youth. The only thing that saved him was her vomit, which she’d failed to clean up. She slipped as she ran and fell short of her target, and the knife went into the calf of one of Sergei’s cronies. One of the other men stepped forward and, with an open-palmed blow, knocked Irina into unconsciousness.
Todd Bone wasn’t seeing things very well. The lights were blurring and doubling in his vision. He felt light-headed, dizzy, sick. The pain in his side was creeping deeper into his middle and up to his armpit. His stomach was swelling and very painful. His extremities were cold. He knew these were the symptoms of an internal bleed but didn’t want to go to hospital.
‘Stupid,’ he said aloud. ‘Stupid way to go. All that time in Africa. Iraq, Afghanistan. Fucking Taliban. Suicide bombers in your driveway. Shit. And then some dumb broad in nice old London town sticks it to you. What an asshole!’
He pulled up messily on to the pavement just before some kind of footbridge; had no idea where he was any more. Just been driving to get away from the scene. Trying to contain the pain, keep his thinking straight. He looked around him, saw cranes, a building whose top he recognised, and HSBC emblazoned on the block next door to it. He looked out the other side and realised it must be a station of some sort, but no name was visible. He called the emergency number.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s me. I’m hurt. Been stabbed. Got an internal bleed.’
‘Where are you?’
‘On a road next to a station. Not strong enough to get out. On the other side is the
HSB
C building in Docklands. I need help.’
‘Throw away your phone. We’ll be right out there.’
He hung up, turned the engine back on to get the window open and threw the phone into some bushes. It took everything out of him. He collapsed over the edge of the window, an arm and his head hanging out in the cold night.
A black cab pulled up behind. The driver thought that maybe the car had crashed, or at least come off the road, especially when he saw the guy hanging out of his window, the engine still running. He got out, went over.
‘You all right, mate?’ he asked.
No answer.
He touched his face. Still warm, but unconscious. He called the police and an ambulance.
At 01.53, another email arrived at the central communications unit. It was sent straight out to all concerned.
Hello Ryder,
We’re glad your group has finally come to their senses and we’re sorry that it took some unpleasantness to get them to that point. We hope the next element will not be so troublesome because this time we’re talking about a commodity that your people understand very well. Money.
This is how we want the money for expenses to be put together and delivered. We are going to make this very easy for you. You have all day until close of business (17.00 hours) to arrange the funds. They must be loosely packed, not sheafed, and the only denomination we will accept is £50 notes.
Each block of £25 million should be wrapped in clear plastic. Each package will measure 1.56m x 0.85m x 0.665m, configured in stacks of 10 x 10 and will weigh 605 kg. Six of those will come to 3.63 tons, so you will need a truck capable of a minimum load of four tons. The truck must be open, with a crane for off-loading and the cargo visible at all times. The packages of money must not be on pallets.
Now that you have seen what we are capable of, we are confident that you will not attempt to cheat. Remember, this is not the ransom payment. This is merely for expenses. What we can guarantee is that the children’s release will not require any additional payment to us.
Failure to achieve this task by 17.00 hours today will result in the hostages drawing lots again and being punished along the same lines as before. We have no doubt that your group of billionaires can raise this kind of money in the time allotted. The only question remains: can they part with it?
At 02.27,
DCS
Oscar Hines was knocking on the door of 31 Wilton Place. The man in the blue suit didn’t take him into the lower living room but straight up to the top one, where Ryder Forsyth was waiting, sipping orange juice on the rocks and wishing it was bourbon. He was standing by the window looking out into the pitch black of the rear garden while computer and recording equipment blinked in the corner of the room. The two men shook hands, sat down simultaneously, eyeing each other warily.
‘What do you make of this?’ asked Hines.
‘If I was them, I would only want to deal with one person. Nobody wants to handle six separate negotiations. The time it would take, the possibilities for delay. No gang would want that,’ said Forsyth. ‘As for the money. That’s very interesting. Nearly four tons of loosely packed notes on an open truck. The delivery of that sort of cargo is going to be very demanding on their resources. I don’t know how they’re going to get away with it.’
‘And it’s not the ransom,’ said Hines. ‘But then they add that strange guarantee: “that the children’s release will not require any additional payment to us”.’
‘I think the idea is to get us feeding off their riddle. I don’t think we should be distracted.’
‘Another thing. “Hello Ryder” for a start. The targeting of the Kinderman’s
CEO
’s daughter, which they knew would mean you’d be handling the kidnap consultancy. It struck me that these are people who know you.’
‘Or know
of
me.’
‘I was looking at your CV before I came here. There’s a bit of a black hole for eight years or so after you left the Staffords and re-emerged in the United States. I understand that to start with you were in Africa. Can you tell me what you were doing in that time?’
‘I was a mercenary. I trained fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo – or Zaire as it was then – Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone. I was an adviser in Angola and Mozambique. I also, I might add, advised the British military on insurgency and guerrilla tactics in Bosnia and Kosovo. You might want to check that out.’
‘And presumably you came across and even worked with other mercenaries in these areas of conflict?’
‘Inevitably,’ said Forsyth. ‘It’s a big leap to think that they would have anything to do with what’s going on here. Most of that stuff was twenty years ago.’
‘Before you surfaced in the
USA
, you were working in South America. I understand from our
CIA
partners that this was your training ground for the kidnap work you eventually became involved in. And that resulted in your big coup for Kinderman and your permanent post with them.’
‘You seem to be implying something there,
DCS
Hines.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I started off working for a number of private military companies, as we call them in the US. It was strictly security-based operations: film crews, teams of engineers, technicians, sometimes politicians, especially when
FARC
were targeting them. When I started working in South America,
FARC
were responsible for nearly three and a half thousand kidnappings a year; by the time I finished, it was less than a thousand.’
‘You say you worked in various
PMC
s in the US. Do you remember any colleagues there who particularly bore a grudge against you, for whatever reason?’
‘A lot of people didn’t like me,’ said Forsyth. ‘That includes my employers as well as colleagues. I have my way of doing things and people sometimes disagree with me. I put my point of view very strongly. People don’t like that. All I can say is that my record speaks for itself. I never lost anyone when I was running a security operation. None of the hostages I was employed to rescue have ever been killed.’
‘These people we’re dealing with here. What do they sound like to you?’ said Hines.
‘I understand you’ve already captured one of them, an ex-marine, a vet of Iran and Afghanistan. I don’t know his role because I haven’t been able to speak to him, but I would imagine it was peripheral. That to me is an indicator of the quality of personnel we’re dealing with.’
‘The sort of people you used to work with?’
‘Let’s be clear about this,
DCS
Hines,’ said Forsyth. ‘I’m English but I’ve adopted some American ways, meaning I prefer it when people say what’s on their mind.’
‘You’ve pissed somebody off and they want to teach you a lesson,’ said Hines.
01.58, 17 January 2014
St George’s Square, Pimlico, London SW1
‘
X
iphos is wholly owned by Julius Klank, Hoplon by Martin Fox and Kaluptein by Boris Bortnik,’ said the police constable from the central communication centre on speakerphone in the car.
‘Do you have any information on those people?’
‘Julius Klank runs a US-based private security company called SureSafe. Martin Fox runs a London-based PSC called Pavis. And we haven’t been able to find anything out about Boris Bortnik other than in a 2009
Guardian
newspaper article he was mentioned as someone trying to help the Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout when he was arrested in Thailand in 2008. We’ve run the name past MI5 and they’ve had an initial reaction from MI6 saying they believed he had been an
SVR
agent but weren’t sure what he was doing now.’
Boxer left Mercy in the car. As he headed for Fox’s front door, Mercy’s phone rang. The voice.
‘What are you up to, Mercy?’
She gave him a recap of the night so far.
‘That’s good. Just what we want. The important thing now is that you tell Ryder Forsyth all of this first. He’s going to appreciate it. He’ll let you in to his deeper thinking, and that’s what we want.’
Boxer turned as he got to Fox’s door, saw Mercy on her phone. He was hoping there’d be a more open discussion with Fox without her presence, although nothing was guaranteed where Martin Fox was concerned. He called him, knew that Fox always slept with his mobile close to his heart, closer than his wife.
‘Jesus Christ, Charlie, it’s two o’clock in the bloody morning,’ said Fox, whispering hoarsely.
‘I’m outside your door. We need to talk.’
‘I’ll be down,’ said Fox, suddenly awake.
Fox let him in wearing a paisley dressing gown, striped pyjamas and slippers with a gold crest on the toes. Boxer followed him into the kitchen, where Fox made builder’s tea in mugs.
‘I’m going to say one word that I hope will stimulate an open and frank discussion about what the hell’s going on here,’ said Boxer.
‘Go on.’
‘Hoplon.’
The mug stopped on the way to Fox’s mouth. He shook his head in dismay.
‘Well that’s a start,’ said Boxer. ‘We’ve had it confirmed that Conrad Jensen’s company Ferguson Consulting Ltd in Bermuda made a payment to your Hoplon company. Do you want to tell me what services you were supplying?’
‘How the hell did that get out?’
‘I think Conrad Jensen keeps the people around him in the dark, so nobody knows what’s important and what should be kept secret. Jensen paid three companies, one of which was Hoplon. I found out that Hoplon was a type of ancient shield, and after our chat a few days ago, I naturally thought of Pavis.’
‘And the other two?’
‘You might be able to help me on that,’ said Boxer. ‘Xiphos, owned by a guy called Julius Klank …’
‘I know him. He does what I do, but in America.’
‘I’m assuming you mean he supplies personnel for work that might not be entirely legal.’
‘He’s an ex-Gulf War vet from 1991. He was one of the poor bastards who didn’t react well to being vaccinated against chemical weapons. He runs a sideline to his main security business employing disgruntled vets from various US military campaigns who are prepared to act in, how shall I put it, unconventional ways.’
‘We’re still trying to get more information on the third participant who received money from Jensen. His company is called Kaluptein …’
‘Strange name.’
‘It’s the root of the word “apocalypse” and it means “to cover”. And Xiphos is a double-edged sword,’ said Boxer. ‘Who came up with these names?’
‘Conrad Jensen.’
‘Kaluptein is owned by a guy called Boris Bortnik. Know him?’
‘Heard of him but don’t know him,’ said Fox. ‘He’s ex-
SVR
and has teamed up with a mafia outfit in Moscow called Dolgoprudninskaya.’
‘Any idea why Jensen would contact him for this series of kidnaps?’
‘Series?’
‘There’ve been five kidnaps and six victims, all billionaires’ kids. One of them is a Russian guy called Sergei Yermilov.’
‘Yermilov!’ said Fox, startled, scared even. ‘Why’s he tangling with Yermilov and co.? They’re lethal, those guys. The connections they have go deep inside the Russian military and intelligence establishment. But yes, I can see why they might want advice from Bortnik on that. Yermilov is with Solntsevskaya, and there’s no love lost between them and Dolgoprudninskaya. The
SVR
are going to be crawling all over this.’
‘Let’s get back to what you were supplying to Conrad Jensen, and for what purpose.’
‘Well, going back to our earlier conversation,’ said Fox, ‘Jensen wasn’t interested in anyone who’d kill people, and certainly not children, even the entitled, privileged children of the massively rich.’
‘What about killing people who were protecting the entitled children of the massively rich?’
‘Is that what happened?’
‘The Yermilov boy was under armed guard. The kidnappers were disguised as police. They stopped traffic in both directions and killed the driver and bodyguard.’
‘Were they the only casualties?’
‘As far as I know,’ said Boxer. ‘Now tell me what Conrad was interested in from you.’
‘He wanted two people. The first was a very specifically described driver who could speak some German. He had to be a certain height and build with a defined head shape and preferably blonde hair cut in a certain way. He also had to be someone prepared to work with a team of people he wouldn’t know and not averse to committing or witnessing violence. The second was someone fairly young who could supply high quality drugs.’
‘And you knew people who could do this?’
‘The first one, yes.’
‘You got a name?’
‘I’m not sure how much use it would be to you. He operates under so many aliases …’
‘How do you pay him?’
‘Cash.’
‘How do you make contact with him?’
‘We have a dead drop.’
‘OK, we’ll need to make use of that.’
‘It won’t work.’
‘Why?’
‘He never does consecutive jobs. He will only work for me with at least six months in between. He completely keeps his distance, wouldn’t even answer a dead drop from me now.’
‘OK, what about the other guy? The drug dealer type.’
‘I couldn’t access him direct. I had to source him through someone else.’
‘Would that be through Jennifer – Jeff – Cook?’
Martin Fox nodded.
‘Tell me about her.’
‘She’s an active officer in British Military Intelligence in Afghanistan. She’s left wing and hates the way the American military operates.’
‘Have you used her before?’
‘No. I know her sister. She’s given me useful information.’
‘So why did you approach her?’
‘The last time she was back here we were talking about how soldiers coped under the pressure of being in Helmand Province, and drug use came up. She talked about a marine she knew who could supply, who’d now left the army. I made a mental note, and when this approach came from Jensen I told him about it.’
‘So how did it work?’
‘I don’t know, because Jensen said he would only deal with Jeff direct,’ said Fox. ‘She refused a fee and I arranged a payment for the ex-marine in cash.’
‘How can I get in touch with Jeff Cook?’
‘Probably have to go to Afghanistan,’ said Fox.
‘So when did you set all this up?’
‘Over Jeff Cook’s Christmas leave.’
‘Do you think she met Jensen?’
‘She must have done.’
‘When did
you
meet Jensen?’
‘Last November, in Dubai.’
‘Did Jensen mention kidnapping?’
‘No. He said he just wanted to recruit people for an experimental project.’
‘How did he describe it?’
‘Not as kidnapping. Something along the lines of finding a way to make people look at the same world differently. In fact he said it was more of an artistic enterprise rather than having any criminal intention.’
‘So what did you think when I started talking to you about Conrad Jensen’s disappearance back there in Green Park?’ asked Boxer. ‘And more to the point, what about Jensen’s daughter Siobhan? How did she know about my special service, and why?’
‘I thought Jensen had disappeared to start his weird project.’
‘Why would he send his daughter to find me?’
‘Good question.’
‘They used Siobhan to get close to Amy and now they’ve kidnapped her as well.’
‘With what intention?’
‘Difficult to say, except they know I’ll come after her.’
‘So they want you too … I don’t get it.’
‘Nor do I.’
‘As for your special service, I’ve no idea how they knew about that, but it wasn’t from me,’ said Fox. ‘Jensen is mixing at all levels of social strata. He speaks lots of different languages, some human and some technological, and he operates in a highly connected world. He could have found out from any of the people you’ve done that sort of work for.’
‘There’ve not been
that
many.’
‘Maybe it was the Russian, Marat Zarubin, whose boy you rescued from the Ukrainian gang. Jensen seems well connected in Russia. Speaks the language.’
‘Text me Zarubin’s number,’ said Boxer. ‘Where did you see Jeff Cook when she was here?’
‘She has a flat in Hackney.’
‘Text me her mobile number as well.’
‘I’m pretty sure she’s in Afghanistan.’
‘This is just me at the moment. No police involved. If you and any of your people want it to stay like that, then you’d better be co-operative,’ said Boxer. ‘At the moment, your standing with Simon Deacon is safe, but don’t push me, Martin. It’s galling to hear him speak so highly of you and your spotless reputation.’
‘You know as well as I do, Charlie, that there are two worlds. The one we all see and the one that’s carefully hidden from us. All I can tell you is that the one that’s hidden is a lot bigger than the one we see and the rules are not the same. I have to operate in both to make a living.’
By 01.55 three short films of the punishments given to Siena Casey, Rakesh Sarkar and Wú Gao were finished. After each film the hostage was taken back to their cell and given a sedative.
At 01.59, a specially insulated forty-foot container arrived at the warehouse in south London and was backed into an old loading bay. Two men opened the doors to the container and three layers deep of flat-screen TVs were removed to reveal a wall with a door in it.
Beyond the door was a narrow corridor, which opened out into a space with a table and chairs. On each side were three sleeping pods with glass windows, which could be locked and seen into but were opaque from the inside.
The two men opened up the six pods and switched on the ventilation system. In the corner were a couple of emergency oxygen cylinders. There was also a drawer of medical supplies and a fridge holding IV saline drips and blood products. The men prepared the sleeping pods by laying down clean sheets, duvets and pillows.
Meanwhile a doctor went into the cells containing the hostages, who were already asleep from the drugs administered earlier, and gave them a quick medical check. As each one was passed for travel, the two men came in and removed the hostage to a sleeping pod. Within half an hour all the hostages were comfortable and the two men, who were trained nurses, locked themselves into the room inside the container. The TV units were reloaded and the doors shut.
At 02.34, the container left the loading bay and started its journey down to Portsmouth to catch the ferry to northern Spain.
At 02.36, the comatose forms of Amy Boxer and Marcus Alleyne were loaded into a white transit van, which also left the premises. The remaining team went through the warehouse and bleach-cleaned the cells where the hostages had been held. By 03.14, the premises were empty of any human trace.
At 03.10, Boxer was sitting in the car trying to call Jeff Cook. There was no response from her mobile.
‘Martin said she was in Afghanistan.’
‘There’s one way of checking,’ said Mercy. ‘It’s not as if we don’t have the means.’
‘I know, but it will take things away from us.’
‘There’s nothing we can do about her on our own if she’s out there.’
‘Are you going to call Hines?’
‘I’m not sure. I was thinking of telling Ryder Forsyth directly.’
‘Any reason?’
‘The people holding Marcus told me to make Ryder love me.’
Mercy sent Forsyth a text to ask if she could talk to him and got an immediate reply. They drove to Wilton Place.
‘By the way, I asked Ryder if he knew you and he denied it. I could see he was lying but he didn’t care.’
‘That’s crazy. We were on missions together into southern Iraq. We argued a lot, drank a lot…we even had a fight once, which I lost,’ said Boxer. ‘We had grudging respect for each other. I thought he was impossibly arrogant, but at least he was right most of the time.’
‘So why the denial?’
‘Just the way some people are,’ said Boxer.
‘Bullshit.’
‘All right, if you have to know, I stole his woman. Or rather, she left him to be with me.’
‘Was that another one of those really long relationships you had back in the day?’
And with no warning, Boxer found himself turning to the window and crying at his half-reflection.
‘Oh Christ, Charlie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’
‘Not your fault,’ said Boxer. ‘Just came from nowhere.’
They drove in silence. Boxer recovered almost as quickly as he’d gone into it. They arrived at Wilton Place. Boxer stayed in the car. Forsyth answered the door himself and led Mercy up the stairs to the living room, where she told him about Reef and Leo and the connection to Jennifer Cook and where she was serving.
‘You told anyone else about this? Like
DCS
Hines?’
‘Not so far. I thought you should be the first to know.’