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I increased the pressure. Wes’s spaniel eyes popped. His lips clamped shut. ‘I suspect our dead scientist was engaged in a little more than finding the cure for the common cold. Right?’ I didn’t get a nod. I got a double-blink. Good enough. ‘She was working in strategic defence against bio-weapons.’ I didn’t know this, but it would do. I said nothing about my source, nothing about secret departments. Wes tried to swallow, difficult under the circumstances. ‘In an enterprise like this I’m guessing we’re talking dirty bombs, chemical warfare, terrorism. Nod if I’m on the right trail.’ He didn’t nod. I released my grasp. Wes coughed, cleared his throat, and shook himself like a wet dog after a walk in the rain.
‘I have to go to the men’s room,’ he rasped, standing up.
I stood up opposite him. ‘I’m coming with you.’ It would be easier to work him over in the tiled confines of a public lavatory.
He gazed up at me with defeated eyes, saw I wasn’t screwing with him and, with the same raised hands that had undressed dozens of women, showed me his palms in surrender. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, slumping into the leather, ‘but you didn’t hear it from me.’
I sat back down. Right, now we were getting somewhere.
‘Wilding was working on a blueprint.’
‘A blueprint for what?’
Wes looked round, furtive. ‘Some new kind of drug, works in a different way. I don’t know. I’m not a chemist.’
I stared at him and read deceit in his eyes. Again I cursed my own stupidity, lack of professionalism and downright criminality for embroiling me in something unspeakable. Without doubt, I was treading on unhallowed ground.
‘Honest, that’s all I know,’ he burbled, distracted. He ran a hand through his hair again. It stuck up in dark tufts. Pale, his face a mass of lines and edges, he looked genuinely stricken. I hadn’t just opened a can of worms. I’d eaten them.
‘I don’t believe you.’
He squirmed in his seat, desperate to escape. There was no escape. He seemed to come to the same conclusion because the fight went out of his body and he leant in close and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Drugs that kill certain types of people.’
My face stiffened. ‘This is a bit of a departure from your usual line of business, isn’t it? I thought the object was to get addicts hooked, not kill them. Who exactly?’
Wes shook his head, his expression contorted. ‘I don’t know,’ he said shooting me another beseeching look. ‘On my mother’s life.’
I looked him hard in the eye. ‘Fuck’s sake, Wes, don’t you care?’
He shook his head sadly. ‘Man, it’s business. It’s money. Just money.’
I swallowed hard. No point in getting into a fight with Wes, snake that he was, about moral distinctions. I had no stomach for it and it would have been supremely hypocritical. ‘So the data for the blueprint was what I was ordered to steal, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Who wants it?’ I’d tried before and got nowhere, but I was all for catching Wes unawares.
He recoiled as if I’d thrown boiling oil in his face. ‘I can’t, man. He’ll kill me.’
‘I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me.’
‘You have no idea what this guy does. His victims suffer agonies.’
‘Then tell me and I’ll kill him before he gets the chance.’
A flame of indecision flickered in his eyes, guttered and blew out. There weren’t many men who could inspire that level of fear. Impressive, I thought.
‘Okay,’ I said, resigned. Something I’ve learned in life: don’t expend energy on people or things you can’t control.
Wes’s relief was plain to see. ‘Can you do it?’ he said. ‘Can you find it?’ His eyes glistened with hope and fear.
‘I don’t know.’ I wasn’t telling the truth. I had to find it but when I did I wasn’t going to hand it over to Wes, or anyone else. ‘Let me get this straight, Wilding wanted to trade but welshed on the deal?’
Wes swallowed. ‘Yeah, I think.’
‘Think?’ I snarled. ‘How much was she paid?’
‘I don’t ask questions, man. I follow orders.’ He swallowed again, looked at me pleading.
‘There’s something not…’
‘Three days,’ Wes said, scrabbling to his feet. ‘Meet me in the usual place, usual time.’
‘Are you insane?’ Our usual hook-up was the Placa de Catalunya, a square in Barcelona.
‘Thursday morning. Be there. Make sure you have the hard drive with you.’
CHAPTER SIX (#u476813bc-3549-5d2f-90c9-e4bc1fec0851)
Even if I found the goods, no way was I travelling on a scheduled flight. My description would already be circulated to every customs officer in Europe. I still intended to show up at the appointed hour on the appointed day because my gut told me that if I were smart I’d find the man who’d employed me for the job. If I could pump him for information, it could give me the vital lead I needed to find who was also in the market for the stolen hard drive. It was a risk. Wes might turn up in Barcelona with backup in place.
I decided to call in a favour. A fan of the two birds with one stone scenario, I also wanted to chase down the Russian lead.
One of my main clients, Mikhail Yakovlevich, was currently in London. He had houses in Russia, France and Britain. His British home, in Kensington, was worth a cool ten million. Having made his fortune in the steel trade, he’d specialised in supplying raw materials to factories in short supply. This was the shorthand version. In reality he had clawed his way to the top of his particular grubby pile through the cultivation and maintenance of friendships within the FSB (formerly KGB) and the relentless elimination of his enemies. I knew this because I’d carried out most of the eliminating. His FSB connection was what interested me.
I arrived outside the white stucco porch, gazed up at the four-storey dwelling, and hoped he was in. Eight marble steps to the lacquered front door, and before my foot touched the first, one of the most sophisticated security systems in the world clicked into action. Yakovlevich took his own safety seriously; evidenced by the entourage of former convicts he hired to protect him. Most of them looked as though they’d been conceived in Frankenstein’s laboratory.
I rang the bell, one of those old-fashioned hand-pull affairs. The door swung open. There is a saying that behind each powerful man is a good woman. In this case, behind each discerning butler is a heavy-duty thug. Once the butler established that I was not there to arrange the flowers, Yuri, Yakovlevich’s lieutenant, stepped out of the shadows towards me. I found it difficult to meet Yuri’s eyes. Not because I was afraid of him, but because the tattoos on his face obliterated his features.
I slipped off the spectacles, popped out the contacts. ‘Hex to see Mr Yakovlevich,’ I said.
‘You have an appointment?’ Yuri knew full well I didn’t.
‘No.’
‘Wait.’ His eyes never leaving mine, he took out a mobile phone, pressed a few digits. A quick burst of Russian and I was allowed over the threshold. As usual I removed my shoes and was subjected to a full body search. Unpleasant and humiliating but essential if I was to gain an audience with Yakovlevich.
I followed Yuri upstairs to a first floor drawing room of immense proportions with fabulous views of a walled garden. The room should have been stunning. It was if one’s taste was one of decadence meets burlesque. Thick-pile rugs on oak flooring, gaudy ornaments atop highly decorated French furniture, and a series of floor to ceiling paintings of Yakovlevich’s young mistress in various states of undress, the last verging on pornographic.
Yakovlevich lay half-sprawled on a cream leather sofa. He was wearing one of his signature outfits: dark Italian suit, now crumpled, white shirt and silk tie. Red-faced, he held a glass of Chivas Regal in his hand, the half empty bottle sitting on the marble-topped coffee table in front of him. Chugging on a Cuban cigar, no doubt from Davidoff on St James’s, he welcomed me with a cheery wave.
‘Hex, my friend, come in, take a seat. I hope Yuri did not treat you roughly,’ he boomed, deep-voiced. I smiled as if being treated in such a degrading fashion happened to me every day, and sat down opposite him. He stared at me blearily. ‘Drink?’
‘Thank you.’ Refusal would only invite censure.
Mikhail summoned his butler. More whisky poured, I settled back, glass in hand. I was used to the drunken fool routine. A frustrated actor at heart, Yakovlevich was no more inebriated than his butler. He knew I knew but we all played along.
‘So what brings you here?’ His Russian deep-set eyes fixed on mine like barnacles clinging to the rusted hull of a wreck.
There was no point in using an obtuse approach with Yakovlevich. Well-connected, it was only a matter of time before he worked out my angle. In any case I really wanted to see if I could smoke him out. Making no distinction between commodities, the Russian was the kind of man who would do a mean trade in ‘babushkas’ if there were a ready market. It was rumoured that Yakovlevich had personally paved the way for the transportation of nuclear material from an old and decrepit nuclear facility. I never did discover who the buyer was and where it ended up. A man without scruples, Yakovlevich would not hesitate to deal in other forms of trade, including bio-weapons, as long as there was good money to be made.
‘Nerve agents,’ I said, suitably obtuse.
‘I know nothing of such things.’ Yakovlevich smiled broadly. ‘Only what I hear on the grapevine, as you say.’
I nodded, smiled encouragingly and took a long swallow of whisky. I had the feeling I was going to need it.
‘I remember some years ago,’ Yakovlevich began, a sage expression on his fleshy features, ‘Something about a stolen smallpox virus from a bio-containment laboratory in Siberia. A terrifying prospect.’
‘There are still bio-labs in Russia?’
‘All old. All crippled,’ Yakovlevich said morosely. ‘Before the break-up of the Motherland, there were many scientists working in the field. Many worked for Secret Department Twelve.’
I made an educated guess. ‘Part of the former KGB?’
‘The KGB’s First Directorate responsible for biological espionage,’ he explained.
‘What sort of research?’
‘The study and creation of toxins and substances specifically designed to poison reservoirs, pharmaceutical drugs and contaminate air conditioning systems.’
I stifled my interest by taking another snatch of whisky. ‘Where are these scientists now?’
‘Scattered to the four corners of the earth.’ He snorted a gust of thick aromatic smoke into the atmosphere.
‘To work for the highest bidder?’
‘Something a man of your obvious talent can surely appreciate.’ The chill in Yakovlevich’s eyes tempered the smile on his face. I returned the expression. A snake in a suit, Yakovlevich dreamt, slept and ate in terms of profit margins, marketing potential. ‘I understand there is a market for such commodities,’ I said softly.
He sat up, knifed me with a sharp smile. ‘You think I, Mikhail Yakovlevich, would trade in such things?’
‘Not at all,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said bluntly.
‘But who would, Mr Yakovlevich?’
His face assumed a dolorous expression. ‘Look at the world around you, my friend. Think of the turmoil. Think of the threat from Islam. See what they have done in Chechnya. Now that Bin Laden is dead there are any number of young radicals keen to avenge him and spill the blood of ordinary Russians.’ He leant towards me, a hawkish look in his eye, ‘What if such a commodity fell into the hands of fundamentalists?’
I snatched at my drink. Faced by such an appalling prospect it was hard to think, let alone think in clear straight lines. I attempted to factor this possibility into the context of my work. People for whom I worked, gangsters and felons, pimps and pornographers, could fill a criminal version of ‘Who’s Who.’ Many based abroad, all fell under the wide umbrella of international organised crime, yet I could no more envisage them doing deals with al-Qaeda than Santa Claus. Yakovlevich remained an exception and I knew for a fact, aside from the grandstanding, that he wasn’t choosy about his trading partners.
Temporarily forgetting his drunkard impression, he said, ‘I am guessing you did not come here for philosophical debate.’
My turn to smile, I leant back, took a verbal detour, eager to bring down the conversational temperature. ‘I need to be in Barcelona in three days.’ Which meant I had less than forty-eight hours to trace the hard drive. ‘You once offered me the personal use of your helicopter, remember?’ Originally Yakovlevich had suggested it in the particular context of a job he wished me to carry out. I’d declined. I’m not keen on flying coffins. He later proposed it in the form of a bonus. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity to make good on his offer.
‘I haven’t forgotten, Hex.’ He puffed out his massive chest. ‘I am a man of my word, a man of honour.’
He was neither of those things but I didn’t argue.
‘That’s most generous of you.’
‘Not at all, I am sure you will return the favour,’ he said, with a wily smile. ‘I will speak to my pilot and put him on standby.’
We discussed the finer details of pick-up and time. Yakovlevich took a big gulp of whisky and leant back, making the leather creak. ‘These scientists to whom you allude,’ he said slow-eyed, picking up from where we left off. ‘How is this of interest to a man like you?’
I evaded giving a direct answer. ‘In the light of the brain drain, Russia’s bio-weapons systems must be set back a couple of decades, at least.’
Yakovlevich closed his eyes. He looked half-cut. The more inebriated he seemed the more interested he was. ‘Officially, Russia has no interest in such things. Unofficially, who knows?’
‘Is this why the FSB are interested in the death of a British scientist?’
‘The Kelly affair,’ Yakovlevich ventured with another slow blink. He leant forward and deposited the remains of his cigar into an antique marble ashtray.
‘More recent, the Wilding affair.’
‘Ah, I heard something about it on the lunchtime news. Most unfortunate. They are saying that she died in suspicious circumstances.’
‘Unconfirmed, I believe.’
Yakovlevich held the glass to his thick lips, fixed me with a dragnet stare. ‘And you say this is of interest to the FSB? Since when did you work for the organisation?’
I let out a laugh. ‘I don’t.’
‘So?’ he pressed, his lips drawn back into a lazy smile.
‘I keep my ear to the ground. As do you.’
Yakovlevich let out a snort of laughter. ‘I like this game you play, Hex.’ He took another drag of his cigar. ‘Tell me what you have heard.’
‘A Russian diplomatic vehicle was seen outside Wilding’s home this morning.’
‘I know nothing of this.’
‘A pity.’
I played my next card softly. ‘I heard something was taken.’
His dead eyes briefly sparked with life. ‘Robbery? Fascinating. What exactly?’
‘Information,’ I said, obtuse.
‘Making the possibility of murder more likely,’ he said with a complicit smile. ‘In my experience, people are removed either because they threaten one’s interests, they know too much, or are offered the opportunity of collaboration but foolishly decline.’
I am not a rude man. I believe in go along to get along. Charm gets you further than aggression – to a point. I did not tell Yakovlevich that he was taking the linguistic equivalent of the scenic route and failing to answer my question. The fact he was prevaricating told me quite a lot. The wily old bastard was buying himself thinking time. Yakovlevich issued a sly smile. ‘My memory is not so good but didn’t Wilding inspect old bio-labs in Russia?’
‘I’ve no idea. When?’
‘Early 90s, I believe. Part of a UK/US delegation.’
