Timebomb : A Thriller (9781468300093) Read online

  Yashkin frowned, pondered, then asked the question that had long been in his mind. ‘Is it greed that motivates me – pure greed and envy of others?’

  The former zampolit was certain. ‘No, not greed and not envy. I was a judge of men – the political officer’s work. I looked for weakness, but with you I never found such a base condition. They betrayed us. They made a state that is criminalized, corrupt, riddled with disgusting disease, a state in which loyalty is no longer recognized. You have done nothing to feel ashamed of, or me … I remember the night you told me what lay buried in your garden, and you were nervous of confiding your secret. I thought then how greatly I admired your skill at removing it from the Zone and your opportunism. Now we have set off. The talking’s done.’

  Yashkin grinned and turned to his friend. He saw his tired, worn features and the long greying hair caught at the back of his neck with an elastic band, the worry lines at his eyes and the stubble on his cheeks. He knew the hardship of his friend’s life as it ticked towards its close and remained unrewarded – as his did. The grin split his face wider. ‘I have a feeling that the Polonez – as shit as we are – will get us there.’

  They clasped hands. The headlights speared the road running past wide lakes, over rattling wood bridges and through forests. Behind them was the cargo they would deliver, shielded by the tarpaulin and their bags. Two old, thin, calloused hands were held tight, and the road was clear in front of them.

  She had been warned about the man she would meet. Her line manager had said that Christopher Lawson had a reputation for verbal violence on an unacceptable scale. With the cardboard file-holder close to her chest, she’d walked down Millbank, along the north side of the river, past the high tower, the Tate Gallery and the Army Medical School, then strode across the bridge. In front of her she saw the hideous floodlit mass of the sister organization.

  The main crowds, commuters going home at the end of their day and spilling towards Vauxhall station, had thinned. She saw him easily. Not particularly tall, without horns growing from his forehead. She smiled to herself because he looked twice at his watch and it did not concern her: she knew she would make the rendezvous a full thirty seconds before the scheduled time.

  He was looking over her shoulder, maybe expecting someone older, a man, peering down the length of the bridge. She’d been told he’d be wearing a raincoat and a trilby – as if he’d been dug out of the Ark, her line manager had said – and it was, truth to tell, damn strange to meet face to face on a bloody cold bridge when the age of email communication had arrived and there were closet rooms for shielded meetings back at the Box and at his place. But it was where she had been told to come, and she thought this was the way that unreconstructed veterans did their business.

  She wasn’t tall, she was young, and probably fitted no stereotype he’d made – which cheered her. She walked up to his shoulder, saw a thin aquiline face and the growth from a careless early-morning shave. ‘Mr Lawson? It’s Mr Lawson, isn’t it?’

  He glanced down, a reflex, at his wristwatch.

  She shook his hand, gave it a good squeeze. ‘Myself, Mr Lawson, I love getting drenched, turning my feet into frozen lumps, screwing up my hair. I love everything, Mr Lawson, about meetings al fresco. So, before I drown and before I get blown away, let’s do our business.’

  They did. She was led down the steps at the end of the bridge to a bench that the wet wind hit.

  A plastic bag from her pocket covered the file, and the bullet point digests with the accompanying photographs had been laminated – thoughtfully – as protection against the rain. The full-length biographies stayed in the dry file.

  The liaison officer, rather enjoying the daftness of the setting, said, ‘I’m only doing thumbnails. Right? Top of the tree is Josef Goldmann, Russian national, born in Perm. Serial criminal, expertise in money laundering … Believed associate, try junior partner, of Reuven Weissberg, major-league Mafia, who bases himself in Berlin. It’s all in there, and lines for you to follow …’

  She was not interrupted. She thought he listened closely, but his eyes roved across the river and, maybe, took in the river traffic – tugs and barges – and, maybe, he gazed at the floodlit seat of government. The big clock chimed.

  With the photographs, the rain dripping off them, she identified Esther Goldmann, complete with shopping bags, and the children with their private-school satchels. Still he did not speak and nothing was queried. She thought of all those in the Box who would have chipped in with questions designed to demonstrate keenness or authority; many would have stamped on her fingers. Only the twitch in his mouth showed his interest. The minders’ pictures were displayed, and an indistinct image of the housekeeper. Then a man’s photograph, moderately expensive suit, with severely cut hair.

  ‘He’s Simon Rawlings – ex-sergeant, ex-paratrooper – the factotum. Drives and fixes. No criminal record and never in trouble – has the Military Medal from Iraq. Probably straight as a telegraph pole, and heavily trusted by his employer. I would say, from what I’ve read, that he walks through life with blinkers over his eyes and plugs in his ears. He’s adjacent to Goldmann, but not alongside him, if you know what I mean … and he’s muscle. Doesn’t want trouble and is unlikely to be part of any criminality. A duty man. There’s one more.’

  She lit a cigarette. The tobacco Fascists ruled in the Box, but if she was going to sit in the cold and wet she’d damn well enjoy the luxury. The smoke floated by his nose, but there was no curled lip, annoyance. She warmed to him. She held the final photograph on her lap and damp ash fell on it.

  ‘This one’s as interesting as it gets. Jonathan Carrick, aged thirty-six but only possibly … more of that. He’s the junior bodyguard, takes the lady shopping and socializing and the kids to school, a dogsbody. He, too, is a one-time paratrooper but was injured in Iraq and invalided out. He’s a phoney. Mr Lawson, put it this way, he’s not what he seems. Seems to be a professional bodyguard, but our computers show that the DVLA, Social Security and National Insurance records for that name, and that military background, were erased and replaced three months ago. It’s what they do for policemen, those going undercover. You might have the clout – national security and all that – to break open SCD10 because that’s where I think he comes from. Do you understand me?’

  There was a quiet growl beside her. ‘Understood.’

  ‘So, Goldmann is a Serious Crime Directorate target, of sufficient importance for an undercover to be introduced, but he’s pretty far down the line. That’s all I can give you. Of any use?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  She passed him the folder in its protective cover. Stood. Rather formally, he thanked her, but she sensed awkwardness as if that were unfamiliar territory to him.

  Boldness took her, a degree of recklessness. ‘So, what do you think? Are we talking of imminent danger?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Where are we on a scale of one to ten, Mr Lawson?’

  She saw that his eyes had fastened on her. In the dreary evening light thrown down by the dull lamps, they glistened, startling her. He seemed to be assessing her question … The eyes now were mesmerizing, and the voice had changed to a scraping intensity.

  He said, ‘None of your business, and unlikely to be in the future. I compliment you on your briefing. Very adequate … A scale of one to ten? Probably between twelve and thirteen. Goodnight.’

  She walked back over the bridge, into the teeth of the wind and rain, and was alone with the implications of her naming Jonathan Carrick, an undercover.

  Back in his office, feeling pressure and knowing that action was demanded, Christopher Lawson scanned the files. The programme for proceeding was instinctive. There was a number on the file, and he rang it. He asked for a name and was told the man he wished to speak to was off duty. Would he find the man of that name at home? He might. He had spoken to a voice that had a firm, decisive tone, and a hint of a Scots accent. He shuffled the picture that went with the voice
to the top of the heap and gazed at it. He thought a key had been found – and, damned obvious, keys were for opening doors. He always followed his instinct, because that way had been taught him by Clipper Reade. He called to Lucy, ‘Get into that increments list.’

  ‘Any special skills?’

  ‘God alone knows, I don’t. “General skills”, thinks on his feet – whoever’s available. To meet me in the Prince Albert, back bar, half an hour.’

  ‘Will do.’

  He left his desk, went to the floor safe and tapped in the combination numbers. There were cardboard shoeboxes in there, taking three of the four shelves, all brimful of equipment that had been standard in Cold War times, the times when he had learned a trade from Clipper Reade – pens that fired a single bullet, bottles of invisible ink, hollowed papier-mâché rocks that could hold a microphone, little Minox cameras, the detritus of a life that few recognized as having contemporary value. He rummaged through cartons of pills, each labelled, and made his selection.

  He’d rather liked the girl, the liaison from the plodders across the river. Bizarre that. Nice girl, yes – and able. And … Lucy, who never raised her voice, murmured from the outer office that he would be met, in twenty-eight minutes, at the Prince Albert, in the back bar, by an increment.

  A doorbell was rung. The man whose finger pressed down the button was a freelancer employed by the Secret Intelligence Service at an hourly rate of fifty pounds, and expenses. He did work, on a casual basis, that was either too mundane for a full-time staffer or was too dirty for a staffer to be involved in. A host of increments waited for their phones to ring and meeting points to be fixed, and the work made for a reasonable living … Above all else, an increment was deniable.

  A woman came to the door, holding a screaming child in its night-clothes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sorry to bother you. My problem, my memory’s like a sieve. Simon said I was to meet him, but I’ve clean forgotten where or if it’s here.’

  ‘You on the team … darts?’

  It was his skill that he could react at speed to whatever presented itself, was worth fifty pounds an hour, cash and no paperwork. ‘That’s right – well, if they’re still short.’

  ‘He’s already gone.’ She hugged the baby, stilled its crying. Might have been attractive once.

  ‘I’m a right clown – help me. Forget my own name next. Where’s the game?’

  ‘They’re at that one down off the Balls Pond Road, on the right, before the mini-mart. Across Essex Road, along Englefield Road, turn left into Beauvoir – can’t miss it. There’ll be a green Golf, 04 plate, parked there. His.’

  ‘Thanks so much. You’ve been a real help.’

  The increment was smiling as he backed away, and the baby had begun to bawl again.

  A photograph was glanced at, studied long enough for recognition. The door of a public house was pushed open and a wall of noise – music, raised voices and laughter – bounced into a man’s face.

  A voice shouted, ‘Come on, Sim, you’re next up. Double top, ten and a five, and we’re in.’

  A second voice shouted, ‘Your Coke’s on the table, Sim.’

  And Simon Rawlings a former paratroop sergeant who was now bodyguard to a Russian-born launderer and integral to a pub darts team, glanced sideways, saw his drink put on the table among filled and empty glasses, and walked to the line in front of the floodlit board. He gazed at his personal arrows and readied his concentration. His team, and the opposition, crowded behind him. The first arrow was the double top, neat. His people cheered and the others groaned, and he prepared to throw his second dart … and nobody had a view of the table and the Coke glass on it … and nobody saw the miniature bottle of pure alcohol – tasteless – tipped into it.

  Simon Rawlings had the ten, and elation coursed in him. He eyed the segment of the five … and nobody saw the intruder slip from the pub, or heard the door close after him.

  A quiet evening, as it always was. He sat alone in the basement ready room. Viktor and Grigori were gone with the Bossman and the Bosswoman. The housekeeper had finished the washing-up, the clearing and stacking of dishes in the kitchen, and had gone up the stairs to her comfortable chair on the landing outside the kids’ rooms. She would spend her evening there.

  He didn’t like the quiet. It made for complacency, and complacency was a killer in Johnny Carrick’s work.

  The television was off and he had read the newspaper, had completed two of the puzzles.

  Two lives were his existence. They merged, then separated. Carrick would have said that any human being who had not experienced twin lives could not contemplate the stress of deceit. Of the two, one was factual biography, and one was legend. That night, on the settee, in front of the security screens, he thought factual – which was safe, as legend was not – and childhood.

  On his birth certificate was his mother’s name, Agnes Carrick, and the address given was of his grandparents, David and Maggie Carrick, both with the listed occupation of schoolteacher. Where his father’s name and details could have been entered there was a blank space, free of the registrar’s copperplate pen. The certificate was still in place, could be referenced by a thug or a private detective or launderer who checked out his name and his story.

  The screens showed the front porch, the rear gardens, the back basement door, the front hall, the landing and the top of the stairs outside the family’s bedrooms. Only the one on the front porch moved, traversing slowly. If there was duller work than watching screens in the late evening, Carrick hadn’t experienced it.

  The address on the certificate was a road in the village of Kingston where a bungalow overlooked the mouth of the Spey river. It was Scotland’s premier salmon water then and now, and the kid’s earliest recollections were in spate time when the flow drove melted snow off the Cairngorms, carried their great fallen boulders and rolled them on its course towards the grey North Sea. Spectacular for a kid. Not so special was learning, as a kid, that his mother had gone to London for work, aged twenty, had had a fling – older man, married – and returned to bear the baby in her parents’ home. Then she had gone to work in the food factory at Mosstodloch. Hard, that, for a kid … Hard also that his grandparents were high on the church, went twice every Sunday, tried to love their daughter’s bastard but couldn’t hide from young eyes the difficulty of giving that love. On the kid’s learning curve had been the origin of his name, biblical, and an old man gripping his wrists and whispering, breath on his face: I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love for me was wonderful, passing the love of women. II Samuel, I:26. His grandfather had been David, and it was like they were inseparable friends, and it was suffocating, and he was kept in view and watched. Couldn’t go down on to the riverbanks and scramble on the stones, watch otters or seals and have the ospreys swooping over him without the eyes of his grandfather on his back. For all those childhood years, the factual life and the legend were merged. He had left school, in the big market town of Elgin, on a June morning, had taken a bus in the afternoon to the recruiting office in Inverness, had been there ten minutes before the doors had closed, had requested to join the Parachute Regiment – that regiment because David Carrick, his grandfather, suffered vertigo nightmares, was terrified of heights. It was safe for him to relive childhood.

  A telephone rang.

  He jerked alert. His eyes went to the screens, then to the telephone, on a side shelf, that was linked to the ready room. Those that the family used, and the line into the Bossman’s office, did not ring in the basement. It was for him to answer, and he did. The telephone was from the world of his legend, was where safety ended.

  He gave the number curtly.

  ‘Christ, that you, Corp? It is you?’

  He recognized the voice of Simon Rawlings, but unreal and strained, hoarse. He asked what had happened.

  ‘Bloody life’s fallen in on me, that’s what. I can hardly believe this. They’ve given me one call, an
d it’s to you. I’m throwing darts. I’m not, you know me, on the piss. Finish the game, get in the car, drive off. Gone a hundred yards, not even round the corner, and I’m pulled over – I’m breathalysed, positive, way over. If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have believed it. “Must have been spiked,” I say, and the copper says everyone uses that line. I say the kit must be defective, and the custody sergeant says it’s never the kit’s fault. I’m going into the cells overnight, that’s routine. I’m drunk in charge, I’m going to lose my licence for twelve months. Corp, I’m fucked … I’m just telling you, there’s nothing you can do … You’ll have to tell the Bossman. Don’t know whether I’ll see you again, Corp, because I don’t think my feet’ll touch the ground when the Bossman hears—’

  The call was cut and the phone purred in his ear.

  Chapter 3

  9 April 2008

  Viktor had told him.

  Esther said, ‘It is just not possible. There has to be a mistake.’

  They were back from their evening, and Viktor had gone down to the basement area. It had been a good evening, the sort that reminded Josef Goldmann of the success of his new life in London, where he was accepted and respected. He had bought a picture, and paid too much for it, but rich applause had rung round the gallery when the gavel had come down, and many had congratulated him on his generosity, while the organizers of the charity for the Chernobyl children, who had thyroid cancer, leukaemia and kidney tumours, had wrung his hand in gratitude … and Esther had flushed with pleasure. They had returned to their home, and Johnny had opened the front door seeming ill at ease, but Josef Goldmann had barely noticed it. Viktor had gone down to the basement to make himself coffee, Grigori with him. Coats off, himself flopped in a low chair, Esther perched on the arm and working her fingers on the muscles of her husband’s shoulder, relaxing him, until Viktor had come back to report on what he had been told.