Authors: Matthew Dunn
T
he plane from Dubai was taxiing toward Heathrow’s terminal. During the flight, Eddie Lanes had availed himself of a few glasses of champagne. With his first sip of champagne taking place somewhere over Saudi Arabia, Lane had initially been in a celebratory mood and decided that he would have one glass for every country he flew over. By the time he’d reached Eastern Europe, he was buzzing nicely. Then, somewhere over Germany, his mood changed. He’d thought about Nadia and his manipulation of her to break the rules of her job. He felt grubby because, though his personal habits at home were less than desirable and the nature of his job sometimes meant he had to trawl through gutters, Lanes wasn’t by nature a sleaze. In his career, he’d won awards for his insightful and honest scoops; his deceased parents had raised him to know right from wrong. As his plane had left German airspace and entered the stratosphere above Belgium, Lanes decided that he had to meet Nadia again soon and tell her the truth. The truth, including his real name.
She wasn’t attracted to businessmen, didn’t want a man’s money, and saw something in Eddie Lanes that she liked. That much was now clear to him. Somehow, in the artificial bubble of Dubai, he’d encountered something real.
But he’d need money to return to see her. By then, Groves would have no use for him and certainly wouldn’t be bankrolling his trip. Aside from his temporary role as a spy for MI5, Lanes scraped together a living by selling freelance articles to journals and blogs. Money from them barely covered his monthly Scotch bill. He opened the file Nadia had given him and stared at the photo of a young Viktor Gorsky in the army. This was his paycheck, he decided. He’d give the other documents to Groves and hold on to the photo until such time as he could persuade Groves to pay him extra to hand it over. He replaced the file in his briefcase and shoved the photo in his jacket’s inner pocket.
W
ill Cochrane drove his rental car through the multistory parking lot within the vast complex of Heathrow Airport. Though he was enthused by Lanes’s success in obtaining more details about KapSet’s registration, he was fully cognizant that the papers the journalist had gotten hold of could be completely irrelevant—Gorsky’s association with Saud might have no bearing on the proposed exchange of Bob Oakland for the ISIS terrorist. Patrick was right to be skeptical. Oakland was almost certainly going to be butchered.
But these were the types of risks that Cochrane had taken throughout his career as an intelligence officer. Spies aren’t paid to think and act in conventional ways. They have to take a gamble, deal with possibilities, and pursue notions that might appear absurd to many but sometimes produced jaw-dropping success. Trouble is, they can also result in abject failure.
And though his career was deemed remarkable, even by the standards of his superb peers, Will had made mistakes. Some of them had resulted in the deaths of others. He lived with those consequences every day.
He brought the car to a halt in a space, checked his watch, and waited.
D
espite being a heaving and sweaty place in the summer, somehow London retains a fresh scent in the air during the warmer months of the year. Perhaps it’s due to the frequent westerly breezes that skim across the River Thames, flushing out all things noxious and replacing them with the delicate scent of grass that has been cut in leafy neighboring Oxfordshire. As Eddie Lanes exited passport control and customs, and entered the arrivals section of the airport, he thought he could detect that smell. It should have been impossible to do so. The vast concourse was jammed with people and an assault of pungent odors—chauffeurs holding placards indicating who they were waiting for, their formal attire unconducive to bodies that spent upward of sixteen sweltering hours in the confines of vehicles; passengers physically sick from travel, shuffling toward exits, or bolting to restrooms, their scents identical to those in the latrines of a cruise ship caught in a force-ten hurricane; electric fans in fast-food restaurants, pumping out the aromas of greasy burgers and fries; men and women dashing left and right while hoping their stale smell had been disguised by a few squirts of sample perfumes in the Free shops; and a hundred different nationalities crashing into each other in the confines of one zone, each bringing with them a hint of where they had come from and creating an enticing blend of street smells from Mumbai, New York, Jakarta, Rome, Cairo, Hong Kong, Melbourne, and many other places. Perhaps Lanes’s nose was playing tricks on him. It was imagining a smell it wanted. Either way, Lanes was glad to be home.
He was chewing peppermint gum to disguise the champagne fumes though goodness knows why he bothered. It wasn’t as if he needed to prove anything to Toby Groves aside from the fact he’d done what the bloody government man had coerced him into doing. Still, Lanes’s respect for his self-worth was growing. He didn’t want to add the smell of booze to the multitude of other fragrances around him. Until recently, he wouldn’t have cared. Now, he told himself he had a woman in his life. This was a turning point. He would chill more about Hamish’s sheep, would restore and clean up his home in the Hebrides, would cut out the hard liquor for good, and would invite Nadia to the Isle of Lewis.
He smiled as he followed the signs to the multistory parking lot he’d been instructed to go to. Nadia in Scotland? Would it work? Would she revel in her change of circumstances? Or would she still wear short skirts and totter around while bitching about sheep shit covering her heels? Lanes didn’t know because he didn’t really know Nadia. But the fantasy of obtaining that knowledge was beguiling and made his blood pump. He felt like a teenage boy, every sense in his body attuned at an optimal level because there was the possibility of happiness that had never before been imagined. Most likely it was all crap. It didn’t matter. The notion of the journey did.
It took him a while to find the right level in the parking lot, having gotten confused by Green Zone and Red Zone arrows and different numbers telling him that he was exactly where he should not have been. But when he was on the right level, he moved along the walkway, dodging exhausted travelers pushing carts stacked with cases. Three people were walking in front of him: a sixty-something old Indian woman who was wearing beautiful silks and scarves and was moving at the speed of a snail, no doubt due to exhaustion and the fact her cart must have weighed a ton. Behind her was a Caucasian Englishman similar to her in age, and a younger chauffeur who was carrying the Englishman’s baggage. Indian woman and Englishman were not together. The man had expensive clothes, a gold chain visible under his open-neck shirt, gold watch, and good haircut. But all of his finery couldn’t disguise the person underneath. Nouveau riche, Lanes decided. Maybe a few million quid under his belt from buying and selling houses. The Indian woman was so dog tired she accidentally veered in front of the man, who seemed hell-bent on getting out of there as fast as possible.
The nouveau riche man shouted, “For fuck’s sake!” in a London or Essex accent, and shoved her out of the way with both hands. The Indian woman staggered, tears on her face. “Two fucking months I had to put up with you people in fuckin’ Bombay. You can’t fucking queue. You can’t fucking learn manners,” he shouted while walking on with his embarrassed aide. “And my crippled mother walks faster than all of you lot!”
Lanes went to the Indian woman and asked if she was okay. She told him it was her fault. Lanes told her it wasn’t; that she’d just encountered the very worst of England. He placed his bag and briefcase on top of her luggage and pushed her cart to the place she wanted to go—a car in the middle of the lot, outside of which her English family members were standing with big welcoming grins on their faces, delighted to see their grandmother from Rajasthan. In the distance, the Englishman was still ranting, his despicable language citing “wogs” and ”Pakis” and a whole host of other ignorant labels that sounded completely at home on his hateful lips. What a bastard, thought Lanes.
He then realized that the man was dressed similarly to Lanes. And if he had made his money flipping houses, that brought the oaf into Lanes’s pretend line of work. It crystallized in Lanes’s mind that this was the last time he ever did anything that wasn’t true to his soul.
After retrieving his two bags, in the distance he spotted Groves walking toward him. The oaf who’d abused the Indian lady walked right past Groves while still muttering obscenities. He must have lost his footing because he collapsed to the floor a few yards behind the MI5 man. Funny, though. Groves didn’t seem to have noticed, and bizarrely he seemed oblivious to the oaf’s chauffeur shouting that he needed help because his employer might be having a heart attack. Instead, Groves kept his eyes on Lanes and continued walking, a smile on his face.
Of course. Groves had seen what the oaf had done to the Indian woman. With a lightning-fast, powerful sleight of hand, he’d delivered justice.
The act made Lanes view Groves in a wholly different light.
The man he’d assaulted slowly and painfully got to his feet. Now, he was mute. He limped onward with his chauffeur.
The MI5 man was eighty yards away, his face and most of his body was partially obscured by stationary vehicles. He must have driven here, Lanes guessed; most likely in some nondescript car that drew little or no attention. Lanes wouldn’t be using the car because after this was done he’d return into the airport and take a domestic flight to Glasgow. There, he’d stay in a hotel for the night before making the journey back to his home on the islands.
He saw Groves more clearly now though his face was still obscured. He wondered how much cash the MI5 officer would pay for the photo. At least a couple of grand, he decided. He yanked his suitcase over the lip of a sidewalk and, as he did so, he felt excruciating pain in his lower back. At first, he thought he might have torn a muscle. But in the space of one second, the pain increased to a level where he thought he might black out. Someone behind him grabbed his briefcase. But Lanes still held on to it, and was spun around by whoever was pulling on his bag. A man was before him, wearing shades and a sweater with its hood covering most of his head. A mugger? Something flashed by the man’s free hand. A knife. It went straight into Lanes gut.
The man prized the briefcase away from Lanes, turned, and ran, dodging between cars until he was out of sight. Lanes twisted around, released his bag, clutched the wound in his stomach, and staggered toward the place he’d last seen Groves. Blood covered his fingers, and more of it was dribbling out of his mouth. His eyes were screwed up, his body shaking, and a piercing ringing was in his ears; and the pain, my goodness, the pain. Groves came into view, his expression immediately turning to shock when he saw the journalist.
The MI5 officer sprinted toward him. “What happened?!” He cradled Lanes as the journalist fell backward.
Lanes couldn’t speak. He just stayed on his back, Groves’s arms underneath him, the officer looking in quick succession at his stomach wound and face. It took all of Lanes’s willpower to do it, but he managed to move his arm and pull the photo of Gorsky out of his jacket. Still clutching the photo, his hand dropped to his chest.
“Stay with me. I’ll get you help!” said Groves while desperately looking around.
When he glanced back at Lanes, the journalist was dead.
N
adia entered her apartment on level ten of Amwaj 3, a thirty-three-story apartment block in Dubai’s Jumeirah Beach Residence complex. She was conflicted as to whether to fix herself a coffee to try to wake herself up after her awfully long day at work, a shift that had seemed like a week because her hangover had gotten progressively worse. She decided caffeine wouldn’t help her one bit and opted to make a multivitamin drink. She dropped her bag onto the small breakfast table where she always dined alone and went into her kitchen. Normally, this was a room where she enjoyed making Lebanese food while sipping a glass of wine. Now, the prospect of cooking and alcohol made her feel nauseous. If she was still awake, in an hour she’d order a pizza and ice-cold Coke.
Drink in hand, she walked across her tastefully decorated yet minimalist living room, pulled open the sliding windows, and stepped onto her balcony. Sitting by her wrought-iron garden table, she sipped her drink and watched people strolling on the beach below, some of them moving ankle deep along the sea’s edge while enjoying the calming influence that dusk seemed to bring to the less hectic outskirts of the city. Maybe later, she’d go down there with the hope that a stroll would make her feel human again. Perhaps not. Her best option was to go to bed and just get this day over with.
Had yesterday been worth the pain of today? She thought so. Though she’d initially wanted to strangle him, it had been nice to see Edward Panes. He’d been charming over dinner, kept reiterating that he was seeing her to say sorry and that she should rest assured that the very last thing on his mind was to try to get her into his bed. As the evening had progressed, the more she thought she liked him. Probably that was the influence of the alcohol. Or loneliness. For all of its parties, and clubs, and activities, and tax-free lifestyles, Dubai was one of the loneliest places on the planet if you were an individual who had depth of character. By contrast,
the shallows
, as she called them, just loved it here—partying, making hordes of friends just like them, getting rich, spending it all, the husbands thinking they’d become Rockefeller, their wives carving up their days with coffee mornings, tennis matches, sex with their tennis instructors, and all the time treating their impoverished servants like slaves. People like Nadia spent every day in Dubai wishing she was somewhere where grass grew naturally and one could dip one’s feet in water that wasn’t as hot as a bath. The shallows, on the other hand, embraced their new lifestyle, right up to the moment the party would inevitably come to a crashing halt. Marriages would turn sour, jobs got lost, money would run out, and the shallows would inevitably return to their tiny homes in England or wherever and realize that they were no longer lords and ladies of the manor. In fact, they were once again who they always had been. Trash.
Nobody stayed here long term. The question was whether you left on your terms or Dubai’s terms. If she stayed, Nadia knew her life would either become more introverted, or she’d have no choice than to join the ranks of shallow, good-time idiots. Either would be hell. But she had no home in Lebanon anymore. Her parents were dead, and her siblings were grown-up and had families of their own. Like many Lebanese do, all of them had left their home country.
By now, she guessed that Edward was close to landing in Singapore, if that’s really where he was headed. And was Edward Panes his real name? After she’d first met him, and he’d had sex with her and subsequently disappeared, she’d Googled his name to find out more about him. There were lots of people with that name listed on the Internet. Some of the links showed photos and vocations. None of them matched the man she’d slept with. Thing was, though, there were so many false people in the Emirates. Edward was just yet another. It had become almost de rigueur for people in Dubai to exchange made-up names and lie about their vocations. But what got her about Edward was that she thought he didn’t want to be like that. Over dinner, he’d spoken with intricate precision and insight about the machinations of British politics and its marriage of convenience to the UK’s media. And he’d asked her many questions about her life and aspirations. In her experience, male businessmen in Dubai would almost always take up the lion’s share of dinner with a lady by talking about themselves and how much money they were making.
She supposed she’d never hear from him again. He was out of here. That was all that mattered to him. Lucky man, to be out of here. Still, the foolish and impetuous side of her wished she’d gotten on a plane with him. Maybe when they landed in Singapore, they’d have parted company. Who knows? It would have been worth it to find out.
She gulped the rest of her vitamin drink and headed into her bedroom, adjacent to which was an en suite bathroom. After turning on the shower, she closed the bedroom curtains so she couldn’t be observed by occupants of the other towers in the neighborhood and to shut out Dubai. Right now, she wanted to be alone, to wash, to sleep, and maybe in doing so start making plans about her future. Nobody else was going to make those plans for her. Perhaps she’d move to London.
That’s where Edward said he lived. Another foolish dream.
She sighed, opened her wardrobe, and screamed.
A man was inside.
Tall.
Caucasian.
Staring straight at her.
He punched her in the face with sufficient force to throw her body onto the bed. She held her hands to her bloody nose while kicking wildly through the air with her feet. She was about to cry for help, but the man wrenched her arms away from her face, thrust her bed’s pillow on her mouth, and put his full body weight behind his hand. She lashed, punched, and scratched at the man’s arms and body, but he held her firm, pressing even harder as he squeezed the life out of her.
No air in her lungs, which were now convulsing in agony.
Her mind was exploding.
Eyes and throat, too.
It felt like an hour, but in one minute her body gave one final convulsion, her back arched, and Nadia was dead.
S
ignor Gorsky was tasting a glass of Argiano Solengo while listening to Igor Stravinsky’s
The Rite of Spring
on his living room’s CD player. The red wine was an extremely good vintage and had been difficult to obtain. He was pleased that for the most part it met his exacting standards though the taste was not quite right on the receptor cells in the center of his tongue. His telephone rang. He left it unanswered as he never picked up a phone unless he knew exactly who was calling. Before she’d left home to pursue married life, many times his daughter had purchased cell phones for him and showed him how to add contacts so that their names appeared on the screen when they rang. All of the phones were in a drawer, unused.
His housekeeper walked quickly into the room, answered the phone, nodded, and held it toward her boss. “It’s okay, sir. One of your associates.”
The old Russian got to his feet and walked to the phone. “Yes?”
“It’s done. Both business transactions have been successfully executed.”
“Excellent.”
“But there’s a problem. The photograph of old business was not among the paperwork. Maybe it’s been given to someone who shouldn’t have it.”
Gorsky asked, “You’re sure?”
“I checked the case many times. It was possible the photo was on his person, but I didn’t have time to search him. The location was too public. Plus, there was a tall man walking toward the place where it was done. I’d earlier spotted him waiting nearby. There was something about him I didn’t like. It was too risky to hang around.”
Gorsky was silent for five seconds. “We must assume the photo was handed to that person or someone like him. You’re of no use to me now in London. I want you to go to Moscow and keep an eye on the last of them. You know who I’m referring to?”
“Yes. That loose end should have been permanently tied up long ago.”
“Ah, but I am a sentimental when it comes to old memories. But my sentimentality has its limits. Call me again if anything happens. I’ll issue you fresh instructions.”
Gorsky replaced the handset in its cradle, walked back to the sumptuous arrangement of armchairs, rugs, and sofas, and sat down. Stravinsky’s music filled the vast room. He tasted his wine again. It was now perfect. He decided that was because it had been allowed to breathe.