Stealth, p.1
Stealth, page 1
STEALTH
BOOK TWO
of the TOM WILDER
THRILLER SERIES
JACK BRANDON
Stealth
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © David Stuart Black 2017
All rights reserved. Except as provided by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
A note from Jack Brandon
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For more information, see the end of this book,
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the JB Readers Club for free and enjoying its benefits.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Eaton Terrace, London
Chapter 2 – The Zorin Residence, London
Chapter 3 – Bayswater, London’s West End
Chapter 4 – Albert Mews, London’s West End
Chapter 5 – The Zorin Residence, London
Chapter 6 – The Rostov Residence, Moscow
Chapter 7 – The Rostov Residence, Moscow
Chapter 8 – The Ritz Carlton Hotel, Montreal
Chapter 9 – Boston, Massachusetts
Chapter 10 – Vnukovo Airport, Moscow
Chapter 11 – Kensington Palace Gardens, London
Chapter 12 – The Russian Embassy, London
Chapter 13 – Craithe Castle, Scotland’s Western Isles
Chapter 14 – Kings Lynn, North Norfolk,
Chapter 15 – Kings Lynn, North Norfolk
Chapter 16 – King Street, Norwich, Norfolk
Chapter 17 – King Street, Norwich, Norfolk
Chapter 18 – Yulian’s Apartment, Norwich
Chapter 19 – Warehouse, King Street, Norwich
Chapter 20 – Norwich City Centre
Chapter 21 – Norwich City Centre
Chapter 22 – Off South Shore Road, Bermuda
Chapter 23 – The Warehouse, King Street, Norwich
Chapter 24 – Norwich Airport, Norfolk
Chapter 25 – Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital
Chapter 26 – Ballikinrane, South Shore, Bermuda
Chapter 27 – JFK International Airport, New York City
Chapter 28 – St. Regis Hotel, New York City
Chapter 29 – Queens, New York City
Chapter 30 – Ballikinrane, South Shore, Bermuda
Chapter 31 – IPI Offices, New York
Chapter 32 – The St. Regis Hotel, New York
Chapter 33 – Craithe Castle, Western Isles, Scotland
Chapter 34 – Zorin Residence, London
Chapter 35 – Fifth Avenue, New York City
Chapter 36 – Ballikinrane, Bermuda
Chapter 37 – Ballikinrane, Bermuda
Chapter 38 – Queens, New York City
Chapter 39 – Craithe Castle, Scotland
Chapter 40 – The White House, Pennsylvania Avenue
Chapter 41 – The Kremlin, Moscow
Chapter 42 – The Quantum Installation, Queens
Chapter 43 – Wade International Airport, Bermuda
Chapter 44 – Hamilton Harbour, Bermuda
Chapter 45 – Government House, Bermuda
Chapter 46 – Government House, Bermuda
Chapter 47 – Wade International Airport, Bermuda
Chapter 48 – St. Regis Hotel, New York City
Chapter 49 – Albert Place Mews, London
Chapter 50 – The Towneley Bank, London
1
Eaton Terrace, London’s West End
It was the most devastating text message that Wilder had ever received. All the more so, as just before it arrived to upend his world, he had been thinking that he’d fixed everything. Finally, just before lunchtime, he’d felt sure he’d brought an end to weeks of turmoil. How could he have been so wrong?
That morning had started with Tatiana Macrae being kidnapped by helicopter from a Scottish island. Wilder had given chase of course – though, before he could do so, he’d had to wait for charter helicopter to get up to the island from Glasgow. Even as he waited for the chopper to arrive, he had started his fight-back. He’d made a frantic telephone call to Jessie Marker in London – the obvious destination of the kidnapper. Could she track the kidnapper’s helicopter to its place of arrival for him? There couldn’t be many London helicopter charter companies who had lent-out a machine to Russian clients. In a panic, this had not been an easy task for her, but, with the help of MI6, she had managed it.
But after that small success, she had ignored Wilder’s instructions. Having traced the kidnapper – the Russian FSB agent Izolda Volkova – to a small hotel in London’s West End, she had gone against everything he’d told her. Wilder had warned her just how dangerous Volkova was. A supreme exponent of hand-to-hand combat. But Jessie, in the heat of pursuit, had followed Volkova and her prisoner up to the hotel room and waited for Wilder to arrive. But when she had heard shouting coming from the room, it was too much for her.
Ignoring the dangers, she burst into the room. But she was no match for Volkova. It was thanks only to Wilder’s timely arrival in his pursuit helicopter that he reached the hotel room in time to prevent Jessie being killed.
But it had ended all right. After Wilder had dealt with Volkova, she’d been carted off to hospital. And Tatiana had been taken back to her husband waiting anxiously nearby. Everything was supposedly restored to normal and the Russian threat was back under control at last.
Afterwards, Wilder and Jessie had met up with Mina Falcone from MI6. They thanked her for her invaluable part in helping with the helicopter tracking. The three of them had enjoyed a pub lunch – discussing not just that morning but also the extraordinary events of the days that had preceded it. As far as they were aware, they had put the whole nightmare behind them, bringing closure at last.
Falcone had gone back to the headquarters of SIS, the British Secret Intelligence Service at Thames House. After dealing with the arrest of Volkova, Wilder had gone back to his place and tidied up. He then drove down to meet Marker for lunch at the Antelope. After a quick sandwich and a beer each, they were walking back to their cars. At six-foot-three, Wilder’s brisk strides forced Jessie Marker to break into a trot every few paces to keep up with him. Typical of him, she thought, to have already put the dramas of the morning behind him, while she was still trying to come to terms with the fact that she could have been killed.
Then that devastating text arrived.
Wilder’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Still striding along, he pulled it out and glanced at the screen; it was from his daughter Lucy. Her fight from New York wasn’t due to land till now. So why text him as soon as she landed? He opened the message. In that instant, he stopped abruptly and his mouth fell slightly open.
Jessie, slow to react, had walked on a few paces. When she noticed he was no longer beside her, she stopped too and looked back at him. She had never before seen what she saw now. The colour had drained from his face and the muscles around his jaw were standing out, clamped and strained.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer, as he was busy trying to type a response to Lucy’s text. But his fingers were clumsy and he cursed under his breath. It looked to Jessie as though he’d pressed the wrong key and deleted his half-finished reply. He tried again, frantic by now.
‘For God’s sake, what’s wrong?’ asked Jessie, putting a hand on his arm.
He was concentrating so intently on his mobile phone that he didn’t appear to have heard her. She watched him with a growing sense of dread
He put the mobile away and turned towards their cars again, but Jessie held him back by the arm. ‘What is it?’ she asked a second time, more insistent. The look in his eyes as he stared back at her made her catch her breath.
‘We’ve got to go,’ was all he said. She knew that Wilder didn’t do fear, but there was a wild look in his eyes – a look she’d never seen before – if not fear, then what?
‘What’s happened? What’s wrong? For goodness sake, Tom, tell me.’
‘It’s Lucy. She’s been abducted – I mean, kidnapped.’
‘What? Your daughter Lucy?’ Jessie shouted it out, involuntarily as though being engulfed by the same panic. ‘From New York?’ she stuttered as her mind got into gear.
‘I… yes… she’s at college there. But she was coming over to here today to spend the rest of her holidays with me – here in London to start with, then maybe Paris next week.’
‘Oh my God.’ Jessie just stared back at him, not knowing what to say.
Looking back at her with a kind of pleading expression on his face, he said, ‘I don’t understand this. She says she’s been taken, but she’s still able to send me a long text. Her language threw me for a second. She said the car pulled into a cul-de-sac as soon as they left the airport and she was taken out of the back seat and thrown into the trunk. She’s spent most of her life in the US, though – she would call it the trunk. So, she’s been able to send this long text because she’s in the boot of the car. Her kidnappers must be in too much of a hurry to have checked her for a phone. Dammit, I’ve got to concentrate.’
Jessie needed to know more.
‘Let me think this through,’ said Wilder. ‘If it hadn’t been for Tatiana being kidnapped in Scotland this morning and brought down here… and me chasing after her and Volkova… I’d still be in Scotland. I hadn’t planned to come down to London until this afternoon. Lucy was going to make her own way to my place. At the airport, there must have been one of those drivers – in a chauffeur’s uniform perhaps – you know, peaked cap, probably holding up one of those boards with her name on it.’
‘But would she just go with a driver if she hadn’t been told she was being met by one?’
‘If she thought I’d arranged it,’ replied Wilder. ‘I’ve done that for her before when I’ve not been able to meet her myself – to make it easier for her to get into London with all her holiday baggage. But in her text she talks about two of them. After that, something must have happened – the message stops mid-sentence.’
He turned and began to hurry on towards their cars again. Jessie, now taking two quick steps to every one of Wilder’s strides, hurried along beside him. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She was still trying to work out why Lucy should be involved in a kidnapping. Was this the Russians again?
‘But why kidnap Lucy?’ she shouted, trying to catch up with him.
‘This is pure revenge.’ Wilder spat the words out. ‘A swift but well-planned retaliation for our rescuing Tatiana this morning. I should have seen this coming.’ Wilder bent into the stiff breeze and walked even faster.
‘So, what do we do now?’
‘Lucy always has a tracker hidden on her if she’s travelling alone. I’ve trained her that if she’s taken, she’s only to activate it once she’s gets to a destination – wait till she’s settled somewhere from where she might be rescued. She won’t switch it on while she’s still on the move. These people are unlikely to have detected the tracker yet. It also implies they’re still on their way into London. As with Tatiana, this being the Russians, this time they’ll be taking her to the Russian Embassy.’
As they hurried along the last stretch, with their cars now in sight, he ran his fingers through his dark hair and raised his face to the weak afternoon sun, almost as though in prayer.
‘Oh shit,’ he said, suddenly stopping and looking directly down at Jessie. ‘What if they’re going to put her on some private flight and take out of here? What if they take her back to Moscow along with Volkova and that IT specialist of hers, Sasha Gulina? Volkova’s supposed to be under guard in hospital, but what if they manage to get her out of there? They’ll probably want to take both of them back home so they can’t be questioned by the police.’
‘You mean so that they can’t be asked about rigging the bank or the kidnapping of Tatiana?
‘Both. But we haven’t time to worry about that now; my focus has to be on Lucy. God knows how we’ll find her if they get her back to Moscow with the other two.
‘What exactly are we going to do about this?’ asked Jessie. Wilder was now just fifty yards from the cars.
‘We’ve got to focus on stopping them getting Lucy to Moscow,’ he shouted back over his shoulder.
As they got to his car and he fumbled, rushing to get the keys from his pocket, he looked back at Jessie, now with a look of anger on his face, his muscles taught, his deep blue eyes unblinking.
‘I know it’s only a hunch,’ he said, ‘but we know that Rodchenko’s flying into London from Moscow this afternoon. I’ll bet they opt for Northolt Airfield. Private flights. I’m going to assume they’ll send a car to collect Rodchenko from Northolt. I’ll also bet anything that they’ll then take Lucy and their two out to Northolt – put them on the same plane and whisk them off to Moscow that way. My guess is they’ll be stuck at the Russian Embassy at the top of Kensington Palace Gardens until the plane’s ready for the return flight. I’ll head for the Embassy and see if I can spot them there.’
He looked down into Jessie’s upturned face. ‘While I’m on my way there, can you contact Mina Falcone? Then, between the two of you, could you do some things for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t know in which of her two offices you’ll find Mina, but give her a ring on her mobile,’ he said. ‘She’ll either have gone back to MI6 at Thames House, or she may be in the diplomatic section of the Home Office. But get a hold of her. See if you two can pull off any images from cameras near the Russian Embassy – both at the top and bottom ends of Kensington Palace Gardens. I’ll go to the top end, up on the Bayswater road – easier to find somewhere to park while I have a look around. I’ll keep an eye out for anything coming out of the Embassy that might be headed west towards one of the three airports they could use. As I said, I reckon Northolt or Luton but it could be Luton or even Heathrow. See if there’s a flight-plan been lodged for an incoming private jet from Moscow. Outgoing flights too, of course. But I don’t need to teach you your job, do I? Just keep in regular contact with me. You’ll both need to be my eyes and ears till we get this sorted.’
‘Sure, we’ll manage that and we’ll keep you posted.’
‘Lucy’s the most important thing in my life,’ he said as he climbed into his car. ‘But I don’t want anyone knowing I’m going to the Russian Embassy,’ he said as he eased the car out of its parking space. ‘And I certainly don’t want the cavalry coming to my rescue.’
2
The Zorin Residence, London.
Victor Zorin smiled. The kind of self-satisfied smile that has no mirth in it. He was humming an old Russian war song under his breath. Even if there had been anyone else in the room, they would barely have heard it. He tapped in time to the tune with a gold Cross pen on the hand-tooled pale green leather top of his huge desk. As he sat there, he indulged himself with a few minutes relaxation, basking in a glow of quiet excitement; it was beginning to look as though a whole new life was about to unfold for him. One of Russia’s richest men, he had more money than he could spend in several lifetimes; now, a move back into the world of politics had its attractions. And with great timing, a hand-written letter from President Balakin himself had seemed to open that door for him this morning. Nor was it just that the letter was hand-written; it had come in the diplomatic bag and had been delivered to him direct from the Kremlin.
During these idle moments, he reflected on the past. Having lived in London for a few years, just a few doors down from the Russian Embassy, he felt that this letter was proof at last that he’d risen to the top. Living here in arguably London’s most desirable road – maybe the most expensive road anywhere in the world – he’d come a long way from the slums of St Petersburg where he’d been born fifty-five years earlier.
But enough of this. He stopped humming, leant forward and stretched across the desk. He had been busy earlier finishing some notes. Notes were rare for him, as he usually avoided putting things in writing – things that could come back to bite one later. He considered these particular notes, however, to be necessary, as the President’s letter demanded a series of very specific actions. From today, everything would need to be carried out with meticulous care. Each action needing to be precise, with little leeway for variations and none for errors. The notes were also needed as many of the steps would have to be carried out by Alexis Mitkin. Originally Zorin’s bodyguard, Mitkin had matured thanks to solicitous nurturing from Zorin; he had become an indispensable righthand man – though he still needed occasional guidance and supervision. He had become like an additional limb as well as a sounding-board for Zorin – almost an extension of himself.
He glanced at the exquisite eighteenth-century marble and ormolu clock on the dresser nearby – time to call Mitkin in for his briefing. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses and ran a hand over his face and his bald head; his pate was so shiny it might have been hand-polished by some minion. He took in a couple of deep breaths and let them out slowly again. Although the president’s letter opened up the prospect of a great new life, it also carried risks.
For a moment, he thought about his predecessor in the project, Igor Rodchenko. He’d taken chances with the risks inherent in the project. And though Rodchenko didn’t know it yet, those chances were going to cost him – not only his exalted position, but his life as well. Unlike Rodchenko, however, Zorin would keep a close watch on everything and impress the same on Mitkin – keep an eye on the risks, take no chances. And now the time to set the ball rolling had arrived.
