Authors: Matthew Dunn
J
ust one mouthful of the gruel made Ramzi spit it out, and exclaim, “What is that?”
The jihadist who was crouching before him and attempting to feed the insipid white food to his prisoner was the short yet broad-shouldered deputy of the six-man Chechen unit. He smashed the bowl into Ramzi’s face, covering it with globules.
In the far corner of the room, Bob Oakland thrashed against his bonds and chain. “Please don’t! He didn’t mean it! Please, I beg you!”
The jihadist was silent as he unclipped the translator’s neck chain from its lock on the wall, and dragged Ramzi to his feet. The Jordanian was shaking his head furiously, trying to get the soup out of his eyes and mouth. “I’m sorry! So sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”
The Chechen yanked the chain, forcing Ramzi’s bound ankles to move his feet in an inch-by-inch shuffle across the dead room. Ramzi was crying, moaning in despair, and kept looking at Bob. “Mr. Oakland. Say something clever. Make them stop. I beg you.”
But Bob had no clever words, only ones that instead would have made him sound like a groveling beggar, his pleas being trampled on by men who viewed him as pathetic for stooping so low. “Be strong, Ramzi,” was all he could think to say though he meant every word.
When the guard and prisoner were out of the room, and the door was slammed shut, Oakland lowered his head and prayed to God, asking him to be merciful and put a bullet in Ramzi’s brain. He’d never prayed before. But this was important; he thought God might listen even though Bob had been rude enough not to reach out to him before. He looked at the ropes that were lashed around his ankles. They’d cut into his skin so regularly that he was sure his legs would carry permanent reminders of his bonds. If he survived his ordeal of imprisonment, he’d have another story to tell, he thought. Did I tell you how I got all these scars? Yes, Grandpa, a thousand times. Wanna hear it again? Yes please!
Ramzi’s screams and shouts were unmistakable from the room next door. There was banging, most likely from his head being smashed against the wall. It had happened so many times to both prisoners. But there were also knives, other instruments, and a bucket in that room. So far they’d not been used. But so far Ramzi and Bob had done everything the guards had told them to do.
A fly landed on the rope wounds on his legs. He tried to shake the fly off, but it kept landing back on his flesh. “Don’t lay eggs,” said Bob to the fly. “
Please
. Don’t lay eggs in there.”
T
he detective in Heathrow Airport’s police station stopped writing and looked at Will Cochrane across the desk in the bare interview room. “Mr. Groves—you’ve nothing else to add?”
Will shrugged. “Like what?”
The detective reread the statement he’d taken from the sole human witness to Eddie Lanes’s murder. “You didn’t know the victim?”
“Correct.”
“You were in Heathrow to meet an American colleague?”
“Yes. Like I said, it was only when I arrived that I got his message that he’d missed his flight.”
“And you never saw the killer?”
“I didn’t. Will the CCTV video you have of the murder be sufficient to identify him?”
“Not likely. But DNA’s a miracle cure for crime these days.”
Will suspected they’d never catch the killer that way.
“We’re going to need to take your DNA as well. You held Lanes. We got that on camera as well. You okay with our taking samples from you?”
“No problem.”
The detective slid the handwritten statement and a pen across the desk. “Okay. Just initial each page and sign and date at the end. If we need you again, we’ll get in touch. You may need to appear in court as a witness if it gets to trial. Possibly not, though. You didn’t actually see the murder.”
“Happy to oblige.” Will signed the document while looking at the detective and making rapid assessments about the man. Thirty-five; made detective recently; divorced; remarried; regretted doing so; was once a smoker but quit at least four months ago; is on a diet that requires him to fast twice a week; and supports Arsenal soccer club. “I don’t suppose you know the score from today’s match?”
The detective frowned. “Which match?”
“Arsenal v Everton. I’m a Gunners supporter. Would hate to see Everton even get a draw with my team.”
The detective grinned while withdrawing a soccer ticket that was previously partially exposed in his jacket pocket. “I support Arsenal, too.” His smile vanished as he flicked the ticket. “Sorry to say we lost out. The Toffees kicked our asses. Three nil.”
“Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
Will shook his head. “When I got job promotion twelve months ago, I was given a VIP pass to Arsenal games. I thought I was given a pass to Heaven. Seems I was wrong.”
“What do you do for a living?”
Will replied, “I’m an academic. I’m not a medically trained oncologist, but I specialize in the study of cancer. Am I allowed to smoke in here?”
“No. We used to allow it but not anymore.”
Will pretended to look frustrated. “Just as well I quit. My wife busted my balls about it. Said I couldn’t study cancer and smoke at the same time. It made sense, and I listened to her. It was the only thing she said that felt right. Everything else was nuts. Still, I kept going back to her for some reason. I wish I wasn’t that weak.”
The detective was silent, trying to hide signs that he knew exactly how Will felt.
Will breathed in deeply and adopted an expression that suggested he was back in the here and now and transcending personal reflection. “You’re ambitious?”
“Yeah. Well, I tell myself I am.” The detective looked pissed off. “Heathrow wasn’t my choice. All I get here is guys and gals who’ve smuggled in an extra carton of fags, and drug mules whose jaundice makes them stand out a mile when they stagger through the Nothing To Declare customs aisle. It’s when the condoms in their asses rupture and release the drugs into their systems that they turn that color. There’s no challenge in spotting them.”
“But now you have a murder to investigate.”
The detective’s eyes glistened. “Yes.”
“Can I see the CCTV footage again?”
“Sure.” The detective tapped on his laptop keyboard, swiveled the computer so that its screen could viewed by both men, and pressed Play. There was Eddie Lanes in the parking lot, pulling his bag over the lip of a sidewalk. Will wasn’t in view. A tall man appeared on the left of the screen, wearing jeans, boots, sunglasses, and a grey sweater with its hood up. He plunged his knife into Lanes’s back, grabbed his briefcase, spun him around, stuck his knife into his gut, prized the case off the journalist, and ran. Moments later, Will was on the scene.
Will said, “Go back to the bit where the man first appears.”
The detective rewound the footage and pressed Play again.
“Stop.”
The detective did as he was told, pausing the video on the moment the killer was about to make his first strike.
“Do you notice anything about the way the killer approaches Lanes?”
The police officer frowned. “Nothing odd.”
“He doesn’t run at him; nor does he use stealth. It’s more like a cocky saunter.”
“He’s done this before?”
Will completely agreed though he didn’t answer because he didn’t want the detective to know that he was doing anything other than playing at amateur detective. Nor did he want the man to know that Will was helping him crack his first murder case. “He approaches Lanes like a strutting cockerel that’s approaching its opponent in a cockfight. His walk is muscular, but there’s also self-assured rhythm in his footing, a rhythm that’s necessary to ensure his upper body is perfectly poised to make its attack. Where’ve you seen movement like that before?”
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe a boxing ring.”
“Excellent.”
“After the first bell to round one rings, he’s circling his opponent, almost floating, ready to spring.”
“You’re making a fine detective. Now, press Play again, then stop it after he prizes the case off Lanes. Watch what happens.”
When the detective stopped the video, he said, “I don’t see anything.”
“The killer might be a boxer. But when he spins Lanes around, the killer swings his arms to create momentum that wholly off balances Lanes. The killer steps in close, shifts his hips, and twists Lanes’s arm upward, putting it in an agonizing lock. That in itself would have been sufficient for the assailant to successfully force Lanes to drop his case.” Will nodded at the screen. “When I was younger, I did some mixed-martial-arts training. One of my kick-smoking-and-get-fit phases of life. These moves remind me of someone who’s had the same training.”
The detective leaned in close to the screen. “You’re right. A mixed martial artist. Probably he does it to keep him in top form for his day job, which is . . .” He hesitated.
“I’m not thinking mugger. Even the dumbest of robbers would know there are infinitely better places to randomly rob someone and get away with it. This man wanted Lanes’s case—
only
Lanes’s case.”
“And even though he got the case, he killed Lanes anyway, so the victim couldn’t identify him.”
“Or he was paid by someone to execute Lanes. If I were you, I’d look at the membership of mixed-martial-arts clubs. Start in London. Check whether any members have convictions, but also look for military combat history.”
“Why military?”
Will shrugged, careful not to appear too convincing in what he was saying. “Just a guess. I haven’t a clue about these things. But I’m thinking this through logically, much in the same way that I approach my work when I look at cancerous cells. What if this guy’s a contract killer? Maybe his employer doesn’t want to use someone who’s spent time in prison for serious assault or murder because that type of person’s profile might lead police to the employer. But the same employer might decide that an ex-military guy for hire might prove just as useful, maybe more so. Just a thought.”
The detective grinned. “Mr. Groves, you’re in the wrong job.” He stood and shook Will’s hand. “You’ve been really helpful. We won’t bother you again unless we have to.”
“I’ll send you some tickets to watch
The Gunners
if you catch the guy.”
The detective’s eyes lit up. It had been unprecedented for him to interview a witness to a crime who had so much in common with him. And Groves’s observations had given the detective a major starting point in the murder case. It had been a pleasure to encounter such a cooperative member of the public. As a result, he’d ensure that the police didn’t bother Groves again unless absolutely necessary.
Not that the police would be able to contact Groves again. He didn’t exist. And Will’s DNA samples would be of no use. There wasn’t a DNA base in the world that had records of a sample belonging to a man called Will Cochrane.
O
ne hour later, Will called from a pay phone in Heathrow’s Terminal 5. “Lanes is dead. Someone knifed him and stole the papers he was bringing me from Dubai. But not everything’s lost.” He told him about the photo that Lanes had managed to withdraw from his jacket, so Will could take it. Given he was on the brink of death, it had been an extremely brave thing that Lanes had done.
The photo was of Gorsky serving as a lieutenant in the 9th Company, 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment, during the Soviet-Afghan war. It was an official Soviet photo, had Gorsky’s name under his image, and Cyrillic handwriting in the corner saying,
Me
,
two days before shrapnel put me on my ass and into civilian life—V. Gorsky.
Will said, “I need you to do something for me fast. You might need to liaise with your DIA,” the United States Defense Intelligence Agency, “or maybe the information I need is in your databases. Either way, I’ll call you back in one hour.”
When Will called Patrick back in that time frame, he listened to the CIA officer say, “Got it. Name and address.”
Will committed the details to memory.
“What are you going to do next?”
Will glanced at the nearby flight departures board. He was in Terminal 5 for a reason. It was the terminal used for departures to Russia. Patrick’s information had confirmed Will was right to put himself here. “I’m getting on a flight to Moscow.”
D
uring his journey to Moscow, Will had eschewed offers of food and drink, had not touched the inflight entertainment, and instead had sat motionless, thinking about Eddie Lanes’s death. So often in his line of work, the imperative to rescue one individual resulted in the demise of another. Each time, he told himself that he had no way of predicting his assets’ downfalls; and yet he also knew full well that if he hadn’t entered their lives, there was every possibility they would still be alive. Will Cochrane sent people to their deaths, he frequently concluded. He was like a judge of old, who would place a black cloth cap on his head before pronouncing to a petrified prisoner in the docks that he would be hanged until dead.
He couldn’t know for sure that someone in DIFC would realize that Nadia had copied the KapSet registration files and report that to Viktor Gorsky. As a result, it was impossible for him to predict with certainty that a killer would be unleashed to murder Lanes. But Will Cochrane knew all the possible outcomes of his work before he made his first move on his figurative chessboard. What had happened in Dubai and London was one possible sequence of events that could follow his entry into Lanes’s house in the Hebrides. It made him feel shitty and angry with himself.
If he’d just been a few yards closer to Lanes in the parking lot, things could have been different. Or not. The man who attacked Lanes knew exactly what he was doing. Will had been telling the truth when he told the Heathrow detective to look for an unarmed-combat expert who was ex-military. If Will was a gambling man, he’d have bet the Lanes’s murderer was ex–Special Forces.
He took a taxi from the airport and stared out the window. He’d been to Moscow many times and knew it as well as he knew London. It was a city where he’d suffered pain and joy, had made the very best of friends and worst of enemies, shot and kidnapped high-value targets, rescued men and women, and seen some of his brave colleagues being beaten to the ground by rifle butts and dragged off in an army vehicle to be tortured. None of it had happened during the height of the Cold War. It had all taken place when Russia was momentarily best pals with the West. That veneer of bullshit had subsequently slipped. It made Moscow an even more dangerous place for a man like Will Cochrane to be.
The taxi turned into Ul. Marshala Poluboyarova, in the residential and commercial suburbs of the city’s southeastern outskirts. After paying the driver and waiting until the taxi had disappeared, Will walked a hundred yards and stopped. On the other side of the street were apartment blocks and residential houses. He stood on the sidewalk as a fine rain began to descend, cars on the street driving slowly, some of them with their headlights on even though it was late morning. There were people on the streets though not many. Most of them were solitary, moving quickly with their hands in their pockets and hoods and collars pulled up to shield them from the weather. A break in the clouds introduced a scythe of sunlight illuminating the fine drizzle of rain droplets, its long blade touching the earth and moving with the shift in clouds. As the clouds became still, the scythe was motionless, pointing at Will and the house he was observing.
He waited for a gap in the traffic, so he could cross the street and knock on the door. He looked left and right along the route and glanced back at the house. An old man emerged from the property. He was wearing a thick overcoat even though the temperature wasn’t cold, a wide-brimmed hat, and carried a cane to compensate for his limp. Will subtly looked at his surroundings, walked across the road, and followed the man.
They walked for several hundred yards along the side of the road, the old man moving slowly, Will matching his pace from fifty yards behind. All the time, Will examined the handful of people they passed—a construction worker with arthritis, a housewife who was heading to shops, an off-duty cop who was in trouble at work, and a junior civil servant who could no longer bear the mundanity of his work. Though he’d never seen them before, Will knew that’s who they were.
On the other side of the street, behind Will’s field of vision, was another man whom Will had previously seen, albeit on CCTV footage in London. He was tall, had a powerful athletic frame, and was wearing sunglasses and a grey sweater with its hood pulled up. He was watching the old man and the person following him, certain that neither of them was aware of his presence.
The old man entered Kuzminsky Park; previously a nine-hundred-acre nineteenth-century estate owned by Prince Golitsyn, now it was a peaceful expanse of grass and trees within which were the ruins of a palace, bathhouse, other neoclassical buildings, gates, iron fences and lions, pavilions, and a stable yard with sculptures of horses. Will had been here before to conduct a brush contact with an SVR agent. That was a long time ago. Now, he couldn’t yet decide if the old man was walking through the park to reach another destination or whether he was here to get some exercise and soak up the peaceful ambience.
It was the latter, Will decided, when he saw the old man stop, pull out some bread from his coat pockets, and toss chunks of it into the adjacent pond, where ducks paddled and squawked in a sound that resembled hysterical human laughter. The Russian sat on a metal bench, both hands clasped over the top of his cane, staring at the waterway. Will glanced around, walked quickly toward him, and sat next to the man.
“Good morning, sir,” said Will in Russian.
The man lifted the rim of his hat and looked at Will. “Good morning.” His thin face was clean-shaven, and a scar was on his chin.
“The day would be better without the rain, I think.”
“I
know
it would be better.” The old man made ready to leave.
“Mr. Mikhaylov—please stay for a moment.”
The Russian was visibly suspicious. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”
Will had thought about who he wanted to be when meeting the old man. There were manifold false identities he could have used, but only one brought with it justice and closure. “My name is Eddie Lanes. I’m a journalist with the British newspaper
The Independent
though I’m here in a freelance capacity.”
“Journalist?” Mikhaylov’s evident suspicion remained. “Your Russian is perfect.”
“I was based with our Moscow bureau for a number of years.”
The man huffed and jabbed his cane on the paved sidewalk. “You could be Russian secret police, trying to trick me.”
“I’m not. But if I ask you anything that makes me sound like a liar, walk away. I won’t bother you again.”
“What do you want?”
“Just information.
Old
information.” Will’s eyes imperceptibly took in details about the man—his coat was frayed at the cuffs; a tear in its sleeve had been stitched and restitched many times; there were spots of blood on the collar that its owner had attempted to remove, first with cold water, then with cheap vodka; the spots were recent, and ranged in age from weeks ago to a day old; his mottled facial skin betrayed a penchant for vodka though of late he’d stopped drinking altogether, maybe through conviction, more likely due to fear about his ill health; shoes that were once pristine were now ragged, yet still highly polished, and had been resoled at least six times; his suit smelled of mothballs, and had only recently been taken out of its wardrobe after decades of no use.
There were eighteen other indicators that told Will that Mikhaylov was a poor man who couldn’t afford medical care and was determined to see out his end with dignity. “I have an expenses budget for my story. If you can help me, I’ll pay you $5,000.”
The suspicion evaporated from the Russian’s face. “That’s a lot of money.”
“I’m hoping to sell the report to the
New York Times
or one of the British tabloids. They pay well.”
Mikhaylov rubbed his scar. “I can’t say I don’t need the money. But I’m not sure I’ll be of any use to you. I don’t think I’ve got anything interesting to say. My life’s been fairly unremarkable.”
“Maybe once that wasn’t true.” Will glanced around. They were alone. “I’m doing an investigative feature on a man called Arzam Saud.”
“The prisoner in the news? The one the terrorists want released?”
“That’s him. It’s topical news right now.” Will shrugged, hoping he looked unthreatening and nonchalant. “I’m looking into Saud, trying to do a human-angle story on him. Who is he? What makes him tick? What turned the young man toward terrorism? That kind of stuff.”
Mikhaylov smiled. “Just write one line—
Arzam Saud turned crazy
. That should sum it all up.”
“I’m hoping there’s a bit more flesh on the bone than that.” Will also smiled. “Though you might have nailed the truth. They’re all crazy.”
“Maybe, but I don’t know Saud or anyone like him.”
“I didn’t expect you to.” Will checked again to ensure they weren’t being watched or overheard. “What interests me is his business association with Viktor Gorsky.”
“Gorsky?”
“He’s a very private man. I’m having a devil of a job finding out about Gorsky’s background. I’m hoping that’s where you can help.” He withdrew the photo that Lanes had given him. It was smeared with the journalist’s dried blood. “This was Gorsky when he was in the Soviet Army. Looks to me like the shot was taken in a combat zone or lookout fortification. Gorsky was in an airborne unit. Maybe he was working in a four- or eight-man team. Judging by what he wrote at the bottom of the photo, he was invalided out of the zone two days later because of an injury from an artillery or mortar strike.” He handed Mikhaylov the photo.
The old man stared at the image, his frail hand shaking and his eyes watering, as he said, “My goodness, that was a long time ago. Why is there blood on the photo?”
“I had a nosebleed while studying the image. You were Gorsky’s captain, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And I suspect this was taken when the Soviet Army was advancing or retreating in the Afghan mountains during the war there in the 1980s.”
“Correct.” Mikhaylov ran a finger across the image. “In fact, there were six of us there. It
was
an advance lookout post, high up in the mountains. Our job was to spot Afghan troop movements and relay those movements to command. Sometimes we were ordered to engage any Afghan advances if our troops couldn’t get there in time. We had a name for that tactic—
Suicide
. This photo was taken two days before our last suicide engagement in the region. It went badly wrong. We thought we were hitting a small skirmishing party. Then Afghan armor appeared. They hit our position with everything they had. Were it not for our bunkers and Soviet reinforcements arriving later, we’d have been obliterated. Still, Gorsky got severely clipped.” His finger rested on the official Soviet photo of a man in combat uniform; underneath his image was his name in type. “I can confirm that the man you see in the photos is Viktor Gorsky.”
“What happened after the assault?”
Mikhaylov’s voice trembled as his memory took him back to Afghanistan. “We were exhausted, our minds weren’t working, nobody could hear because of the bombardment. We’d managed to hold off the Afghan advance for two hours until we were relieved by hundreds of our men, who were supported by airstrikes. Most of the Afghans were killed, the others retreated. When it calmed down, four KGB officers came to our position and asked us if any of us had died in the battle. I told them, no, but that one of us was on the brink of death unless he received urgent medical treatment. I pointed at Gorsky.”
Will handed Mikhaylov a brown envelope containing cash that had been meant for Lanes by way of payment for what he’d done in Dubai. “Do me a favor: Take a different route home, and if anyone asks, you never came to the park today.”
“Why?”
Will didn’t answer. “What happened to Gorsky?”
The old man stuffed the envelope inside his jacket. “The KGB took him away, and I’ve never seen him since.”
Will frowned. “You must have seen Gorsky on television or in the papers. He’s now a powerful businessman.”
“You mean the billionaire Gorsky? The property developer?”
“The recluse who’s done business with Arzam Saud.”
The old man shrugged. “He may share the same name, but that’s not the Viktor Gorsky I knew. My eyesight is not what it was. But as far as I’m concerned, the businessman you reference looks more like the highest-ranking KGB officer who came to the mountains after our battle than the man who I served alongside.”
T
he killer who’d followed Mikhaylov and Will could easily see the two men from his hidden position on the other side of the pond. Holding his binoculars in one hand, he used the other to call Gorsky. He told his boss what he could see. “The tall man with Mikhaylov is one hundred percent the same man I saw walking toward Lanes, before I killed him. I’m in no doubt that he’s a special operative. Probably British or American.”
Viktor Gorsky’s response to the former Russian Spetsnaz commando was immediate. “Kill the operative. Then go to the old man’s house and put him out of his misery.”
W
ill watched Mikhaylov hobble away. The retired army officer had done what Will had asked him to do, taking a different route out of the park. It was a perfunctory precaution. Anyone who wanted him dead could easily get to the old man at his home or elsewhere. Once again, Will felt he’d entered someone’s life and ruined it. This cycle had to end. His mind raced because of Mikhaylov’s certainty that the man in the photo was not the man who’d submitted the photo alongside KapSet’s other DIFC registration documentation. The truth was that Viktor Gorsky was a former senior KGB officer who’d assumed the identity of a soldier called Gorsky. He’d wanted a dead casualty after the Afghan assault. When none was forthcoming, he’d taken the next best thing—an injured soldier. No doubt he’d taken the wounded paratrooper to a remote mountain gully in Afghanistan and shot him in the back of the head.
Will checked his watch. He had to get out of Russia. He started walking back along the route he’d taken in the park and used his cell phone to call Patrick. “Tell the president that he must not make any decisions about Saud. Not without me present.”