Caroline Kent, feisty oil troubleshooter, isn’t the kind to take an insult lying down. She gives as good as she gets when a derogatory remark about a third party leads to an incident with another customer in a New York diner. Unfortunately, he is powerful Mafia boss Salvatore Scarlione, who feels his dignity has been compromised and must be avenged. Caroline soon finds that Scarlione isn’t prepared to let the matter drop. Also, that he appears to be able to find her wherever she is in the world, placing her in mortal danger. For the Mafia have stolen something which gives them the power not only to restore their waning fortunes but to effectively control the entire developed world by seeing whatever anyone is doing, at any time, anywhere. Meaning that far more than just Caroline’s life is at stake. She and her friends must fight back, by finding the secret of Scarlione’s power and destroying it. But to take on an enemy with the gift of omniscience will require all their courage, determination and ingenuity.

PANOPTICON





Guy Blythman




















AUTHOR’S NOTE
Obviously when I wrote this book, the intention was that it should be published not too long afterwards. In fact it wasn’t, and I can only ascribe this to the way the publishing industry operates these days. To be fair to them, they are inundated with so many manuscripts, everyone wanting to be the next J K Rowling or Ian Rankin, that they don’t have time to consider but a tiny fraction of them. The rest are sent back without being read, accompanied by a generic cover letter. Consequently it is very difficult for many new writers to get published. I would humbly suggest that the quality of the work has nothing to do with it. Naturally the publishers seek to give a contrary impression, since otherwise people might have stopped submitting manuscripts and thus deprived them of the source of their livelihood.
They are also, I think, wary of experimenting with anything a little bit different in approach and style from what they usually get, in case it doesn’t work out – doesn’t, in other words, prove a money-spinner. We still live in a Thatcherite world where commercial success matters more than anything else and where there is therefore a constant race to make that much more money than one’s rivals in the field, in which putting a foot even slightly wrong could be disastrous.
In my case unemployment, which was a more serious problem in the days before the recession that is commonly admitted, and which tends to cut off your funds, plus the rising cost of everything combined with the factors mentioned above to delay publication for many years. It meant that by the time the first few books in the series finally saw the light of day they had effectively, and inevitably, become historical novels. The alternative would have been extensive rewriting to the extent of scrapping the whole lot, and this I wasn’t prepared to do. Sorry.
As a result, the world Panopticon describes is clearly that of the 1990s and early 2000s, though it’s not too different from our own – it was, after all, only a decade or so ago – in that it is consumer-orientated, materialistic and often dysfunctional. The issues they deal with are of course very much relevant today. To those who think that the passage of time renders the story an impractical proposition, and that I ought not to have attempted it, all I can say is that the necessary delay between penning and publication and any problems it might cause highlights the dangerous extent to which commercialism has become dominant over all other principles within Western society, and cautions us against allowing such a culture to ever develop again.

DISCLAIMER
It is important to stress that a certain sequence in chapter thirty-four was written entirely from imagination. I have no idea whatsoever how to defuse a bomb, since that would imply a knowledge of how to construct the device in the first place, information which military experts are never going to give me and quite rightly too because if published it would be of inestimable value to budding terrorists and criminals. If there is any resemblance between the description of the bomb mechanism and any explosive device which currently exists in real life then it is purely coincidental.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to Ian Passingham, Ken Neville-Davies, Josie Coltman, Peter Morley, and Surrey Libraries for providing the kind of essential background information on certain subjects which you can’t get just by tapping into the Internet.

















Prologue
I guess this world won’t ever be Heaven, thought Ken Amata, but there are times when it gets pretty close.
Sitting on the deck of the yacht, under the blue sky of a beautifully sunny day, and watching the light gleaming off the sparkling, gently rolling sea he felt great to be alive, and young. It being his gap year between finishing his course in Oceanography at Berkeley and looking for a job, he had nothing much to do at the moment.
Of course he wasn’t going to spend all his time indulging in hedonistic pursuits. He’d be sure to gain some work experience, doing temporary or part-time jobs which had some kind of connection to his chosen profession; and if the offer of something more permanent did come up, he’d take it. Meanwhile he had the money to do more or less whatever he liked, for the immediate future at least.
Yes, right now Kenneth John Amata of Ladyoake, New Jersey, felt very much alive. Everything around him was alive too; he knew that because of the salty tang of the sea, the smells of fish and engine oil, the cries of seabirds and of holidaymakers frolicking in the water. The sounds from the little beach due east of the marina were dying away gradually in the distance as the yacht chugged on towards its destination.
Wasn’t it a beautiful world. And, he thought, a fairly stable one right now, offering the right conditions in which to build a successful, lasting career. At the same time, what he liked about it was its fluidity. The Cold War had been over now for years, and still nothing like the former Soviet Union had arisen to divide the planet into two hostile blocs, conflict between whom threatened global destruction. You couldn’t be sure where the next threat would come from or indeed if there would be one at all. That there would be none seemed less likely, but it was a lovely idea all the same; dare he hope it would actually come to pass?
And everyone was being brought closer together by the global village, the mass media, the world wide web. The rapidly expanding network of international business links made it less likely to his mind that people would start wars like they’d done in times past, because they’d have so much to lose by the general dislocation to trade and the barriers that would go up.
All that had to be good. Sure there were problems; regional trouble spots which kept on flaring up, environmental pollution, and too much poverty still in what people continued to call – without much justification now that the old geopolitical alignments were a thing of the past – the Third World; and all those things had to be watched. But he preferred to look on the bright side.
He wasn’t quite sure why he had come here on his own. With everything looking good he didn’t really feel the need to be by himself. Maybe a time like this was still a time to take stock, to try and decide what to write on a sheet of paper which apart from the certainty, more or less, that with his qualifications he’d be able to get some decent employment was pretty much blank.
Normally he went on vacation with some of his buddies from college. Well, there was no reason why he shouldn’t invite them down later. They’d have great fun drinking and surfing and picking up pretty girls, doing the coastal roads in Shaun’s father’s car at just within the safety limit, and at night touring the bars and discos, whether in search of female company or simply to have a good time.
He hadn’t specifically planned to do any diving but he had little doubt it’d figure on the agenda at some point. He loved that strange, silent underwater realm where you could be yourself, away from all the noise and bustle of the streets, which he had to admit got on his nerves at times.
All the world was at his fingertips. His life was a wide open space stretching away before him to the horizon; virgin land on which he hadn’t yet decided what to build. It seemed he had sole power to determine the shape his future took; to choose such things as his employer or the point at at which to start looking for long-term commitment in personal relationships. He’d have to make his mind up sometime, of course, especially with respect to the job question. He didn’t want to lose any of his freedom in a hurry. But once the money ran out, he’d be at a disadvantage if he didn’t get that job, and knew it.
Now the right oportunity had come along, or so it seemed, and he’d taken it.
Yesterday he’d been sitting outside one of the seafront bars drinking a beer and perusing the quarterly magazine of the diving association to which he belonged when a guy had come along and sat down at the table opposite him. He could have chosen a different table, one that wasn’t occupied, but maybe he didn’t want to seem to be giving Ken the cold shoulder. He was about fifty, with a tanned, bronze face and silver hair. He had sat for a while drinking his cocktail and gazing out towards the harbour and the sea beyond. Then he’d noticed the Underwater Exploration Ken was reading. “You’re into diving, huh?” he smiled.
“Could say that. You?” His easy friendliness and familiarity didn’t faze Ken because both of them were Americans and that was what Americans were like.
“I run a company that makes deep-sea diving equipment. We sell our gear to scientific institutions, private oufits too, anyone who needs it. We do a few salvage operations ourselves and sometimes I go along to lend a hand. I’m a qualified diver…”
“Me too,” Ken grinned, unable to keep the note of rather smug, he supposed, satisfaction out of his voice. It had been quite an achievement for someone only just out of university. But then he’d always had an affinity for the water.
It was a pity that his aims in life had always diverged from those of his father. Ken had made it clear he wanted a job that had something to do with the sea. He didn’t share his father’s interests, regarding them for the most part as sterile and boring, though he never said so openly for fear of offending his parent who had after all paid for this trip, among other things.
Dad had grinned at him, winked, and told him to go off and do all the things he had done, or wished he had done, at his age. After all, though being young was great you could only do it once, so far as you knew. His mother had warned him to be careful, but nonetheless expressed the hope that he’d enjoy himself.
“What are you doing down here?” his new acquaintance had asked.
“Well, I’ve just graduated from Berkeley in Marine Sciences and I’m taking a year off. I call it my gap year though I’m going to be looking for work some of the time at least. But I’m counting this as a holiday; not a lot will be going on this time of year anyway. My folks often used to take me here when I was a kid and I kind of liked the idea of going on my own. I love this place.”
“Me too. Weather good all the year round…but you’ll be looking for a job once you get home?”
“That’s the idea.”
The man was looking thoughtful. “From next January we’ll be looking for someone to join our management team at a junior level, working as assistant to our chief scientist. Seems like you’d be just right for the job.” Ken’s eyes lit up, and the silver-haired man smiled. “There’ll be other people going for the job, of course, but I’d certainly be pleased to consider you when the time comes, if you’re interested.”
“Yeah, I’m interested,” said Ken.
The man leaned forward, offering his hand. Ken took it.
“I’m Bob Devereaux.”
“Ken Amata.”
“And you’re into anything to do with the sea, right? I can sense it.”
“Always have been.”
“If you like I’ll take you out for a cruise sometime, to the headland and out beyond it for a few miles. There’s some interesting wrecks there, and we could do some deep-sea fishing if you’re into that sort of thing. I’ve got all the gear.”
That sounded great, but Ken was thinking most of all about the job offer. Maybe his hunch that he should come here for a few days had been a nudge by Fate in the right direction. It had just deposited something potentially absolutely wonderful right in his lap. Just think of it, being paid to enjoy your number one interest in life.
“Yeah, OK,” Ken smiled. “When were you thinking of? My time’s my own while I’m down here, and I’ve got the whole week to play with.”
“Tomorrow afternoon be OK?”
“Should think so.”
“Then I’ll meet you two o’clock down at the quay, after lunch.” He told Ken how to find his boat.
They’d chatted for a while longer about matters marine, about Devereux’s company and its work. Then Devereux had shaken Ken’s hand and said he looked forward to seeing him at two the following day.
At the appointed time, Ken had gone down to the quay and searched among the vessels moored there until he found Devereux’s yacht, the Marilu. He’d introduced himself to the deckhand who’d challenged him, and the man welcomed him on board. Devereux appeared and shook hands. They sat and talked in the yacht’s bar for a while over cocktails, then went out on deck. One of the crew started the engines and they set off. Bob invited Ken to choose a deckchair and relax while he saw to something in his cabin, where he had a computer and fax machine set up so that he could keep in touch with the company and continue to attend to business matters while on holiday, if he wished.
They were some way out by now, round the other side of the headland from the town, which you couldn’t see from here. The coast had receded to a faint black line with clusters of buildings, individually unidentifiable, at intervals along it. It wouldn’t be long before they reached the spot where they planned to dive.
To be honest, Ken didn’t actually feel like diving right now. The air was so fresh and invigorating, the sunshine so glorious, that if anything the sea when you were beneath it seemed an oppressive presence, dark and clinging and gloomy. He just wanted to sit here and enjoy the sun. But he didn’t want to disappoint his new friend, and possible future employer, so he guessed he’d have to play ball.
The sun was so bright that leaning back in your chair with it shining into your eyes, you could barely see properly. Through the haze he saw Bob coming towards him. Time for the dive, he guessed.
He rose from the deckchair. “OK, I’ll get kitted up.”
And then he realised that his new friend was pointing a gun at him. At first he stared open-mouthed in shock and horror, then he looked round wildly in search of some way of escape and saw the two men who had come out of the cabin of the yacht and planted themselves solidly between him and the deck, squashing any chance of jumping over it and swimming to safety. Even though, to be honest, the gun rendered the matter somewhat academic.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make. But finally Joseph Amata had made it.
He had been standing at a window of the apartment, looking out beyond the other buildings of the Facility to the stretch of gently undulating hills on the horizon, for what seemed to have been forever. The trees in the garden and the woods it gave way to that succeeded it were already a rich golden-brown, the colour of autumn, and somehow it gelled with his thoughts entirely. He had been out for a walk earlier, and although the cool peace and quiet of the forest had relaxed his fevered mind to some extent he still hadn’t been able to resolve the matter.
But then it wasn’t an easy decision to make.
A lot hinged on it; more than just his own future. He had shared his doubts with his wife. Had had to in the end, even though he’d been breaking confidentiality; she’d kept on asking him what was wrong and his refusal to tell her had created a barrier between them.
He knew there were beneficial applications to what he was doing. After all, it was progress, regardless of what the thing was used for. And it could be used for good, there was no doubt about that. As well as for evil.
Only he really understood how it all worked. Which was why such a responsibility weighed crushingly upon his shoulders.
In many ways he’d be glad to be rid of it. He had every possible creature comfort here at the Facility and the people who lived and worked there formed a close-knit, friendly community. But the strain of the project, the hours he’d had to put in, had been wearing him out and at the same time keeping him apart from his family even though his wife and daughter – currently away visiting Megan’s relatives out west – were allowed to live here with him in the Residential Block as long as they didn’t talk to anyone outside the organisation about his work. But wasn’t it wrong to put such personal considerations before the security of his country – perhaps of the entire western world?
Before him he saw the beauty of a North American forest in the Fall, rather than a brilliantly sparkling blue sea off Florida, but his thoughts were the same as Ken’s had been. Such a lovely world. And Joseph Amata didn’t want to spoil it.
Finally, with a harsh, bitter sigh, reflecting his resentment at being asked to make such a difficult choice, Amata returned to his computer nd his fingers began to move about the keyboard, typing out a letter.

“To the President of the United States, the White House, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC.

Mr President
For the last four years I have had the honour to be chief scientist on Project 231. When the Project was conceived, it was in a spirit of patriotism, its object being the defence of our country against terrorists and rogue states, an aim with which of course I heartily concur.
Nonetheless, I would be failing in my duty to Mankind if I did not express my growing doubts and reservations about the Project. The human desire to push forward the frontiers of science is a fundamental impulse which cannot be eradicated or ignored. The need to recognise that truth has perhaps led us to be casual about the dangers involved.
The potential of the Project is obvious. It will have important applications in other areas than national security. In my opinion, however, it extends the frontiers of human technological achievement too far. It will give whoever possesses it power of a kind I do not believe we have yet learned to use wisely. The potential for abuse is too great and I am convinced we ourselves would suffer, as well as inflict suffering on others, to an extent I do not regard as acceptable.”

After setting out in what way precisely the Project was likely to be so dangerous, he continued:

“What I am saying is that I believe the dangers outweigh the benefits. It is time we asserted the view that scientific progress is not a black hole sucking in every other consideration. It will of course continue, in this and in other fields. We should be prepared to accept the disadvantages of abandoning the Project and compensate for them by continuing to make advances elsewhere. I wish to terminate all involvement with the Project, accordingly I am resigning from my post as chief scientist to it. If you would prefer me to keep silent about my reasons for doing so, and I imagine you would, I am happy to comply with that. But you would be well advised to do as I recommend and cancel the Project before it progresses much further.
There is a certain action which I am about to take, and of which you will no doubt hear before long, that I imagine will seem particularly unhelpful to those wishing Project 231 to continue. I can only assure you that it is motivated by what I believe to be the best possible intentions, and hope that I am correct in that estimation.”

Yes: tonight, before posting the President’s letter, he would go over the road to the Facility and destroy the plans. He’d get into trouble for that, of course; lose any chance of working for the government ever again, maybe wreck his entire career. He might even be charged with treason. But he knew it was all worth it.
What would his wife think? She’d be disappointed, of course, but relieved at the same time. As for himself…he still had a string of illustrious scientific achievements behind him in which he could take pride. But this would have been the crowning glory, wouldn’t it?
He needed to think about it. He needed to think about what would happen to him afterwards, and whether or not he ought to change his mind while there was still time. He needed another walk in the woods.
So he took the car down the road to the point where they began, turning off into a little clearing where a couple of other vehicles were parked. He wasn’t by the look of it the only one to seek solitude in the forest today, but that didn’t bother him. It was extensive enough for a single person to lose themselves in entirely.
Making sure the car was locked and the alarm turned on, he started out on his walk. He wandered around for hours, gloved hands thrust deep into the pockets of the thick overcoat protecting him against the autumn chill. The air was so clear up here in the hills that it rendered his thoughts likewise. Pretty soon Amata knew why he had taken the decision he had, and that it was the right one. All the same, he’d better get on with sending that letter and seeing to the destruction of the plans. Before he changed his mind. He was about to turn back when -
“Dr Amata?” It was a female voice, youngish and with a note of authority that stopped him in his tracks. It was high, sharp and clear, cutting through the cold afternoon air like a knife. He didn’t recognise it but supposed it must belong to someone from the Facility, or from officialdom. Must be something urgent, he thought, for them to track me down here. Something wrong at the Facility. They know my habits, my hobbies, and guessed where I’d be if not at home.
He turned to see two people he didn’t know. Both wore overcoats and scarves. One was a heavily-built man with prematurely greying hair, the other a woman in her thirties or early forties. The woman had shortish, well-groomed raven hair and was petite, with olive skin and dark brown, almost black eyes.
Something about those eyes caught his attention immediately, held it. And made him shiver.
She spoke again. “Dr Amata, we’d like to speak to you for a moment if that’s alright.”
“May I ask who you are?” At once he was on his guard. He mustn’t volunteer any information about his work to those he couldn’t be sure of.
“We’re not concerned with that at the moment, to be honest,” she said.
“Oh, I see,” he muttered, disconcerted by her choice of words. He was sure now they weren’t from the Facility, certainly he’d never seen either of them around the place before, or from the DOD either. FBI? No, they’d say who they were and they’d probably be wearing name badges, which these two weren’t. CIA? Much more likely. Why would they want him though? Did they know of his doubts about Project 231? He couldn’t see how, he’d been very careful not to let anything slip. Perhaps Megan had blurted something out to a friend; but then they’d want to speak to her about it, not him. In any event it seemed strange that they’d accost him here, deep in the woods, rather than call on him at the apartment.
“What was it you wanted to see me about?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and steady, courteous even.
“Dr Amata, we have your son.”
For a moment he stared at them in confusion. Then bewilderment gave way to alarm.
“You – “ He knew what it meant, but couldn’t take it in. No, it was impossible, surely. His head was reeling. He swayed, clutching at a tree for support. “What do you mean, you have my son? Ken’s on vacation in Florida. I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Perhaps it might help if I showed you some pictures.” For the first time Amata saw she was carrying a plastic folder, from which she took a sheaf of blown-up colour photographs and thrust them at him.
The first showed a young man lying on his side on an uncarpeted floor, naked, his knees drawn up almost to his chin as if in a protective gesture, or to brace himself against some excruciating pain. There were ugly, livid bruises on his face, chest and stomach. What could be seen of the room appeared devoid of furniture apart from a radiator against the one wall part of which was visible. Underneath it ran a pipe; the young man’s hands were handcuffed together behind his back and a chain led from the cuffs to the pipe. His mouth was partly open, his eyes wide and staring. It was a face that showed pain and fear, though there was a suggestion its owner was struggling to suppress them.
Amata didn’t bother looking at the other photos, because he’d got the message. He stared at the image in horror, shock and distress. Suddenly he snapped and launched himself at the woman in a frenzy of rage, teeth bared like an animal. He couldn’t have helped himself. “You shit! You filthy Goddamn festering little bitch! I’ll – “
The man stepped between them and seized Amata’s wrists in a vice-lke grip. The scientist kicked and twisted, yelling obscenities at the top of his voice, but there was nothing he could do to break free. He gave up trying and slumped in despair. The man let him go, then kicked him hard in the pit of his stomach. He fell to his knees, gasping and spluttering.
Recovering his breath, Amata stood with an effort. “I hope there’ll be no need for any more violence,” said the woman. “But that depends on your full co-operation.” For the first time he became aware of the nasal, New York twang in her voice. And beneath it, a slight trace of a foreign accent. “I imagine you consider the conditions in which we are holding your son and the treatment he is receiving to be degrading to him. All I can say is that if you wish it to cease, you simply have to do what we tell you. By the way, I think he’d like to speak to you.”
She produced a mini-cassette recorder and switched it on. A voice, shaky and distorted but just recognisable as Ken’s, issued from the tape. “Dad…Dad, listen. I guess I don’t quite understand what all this is about; and I certainly can’t make you do what they tell you to. I just want to say that if you don’t, they’ll kill me. And the way they’ve said they’ll do it…it’s not very nice. I don’t know if they’re serious or not.
“That’s all, Dad. Try not to worry about me, although I know you won’t be able to help it. Stupid thing to say really…give my love to…” The tape ended.
Again Amata glared at the woman in helpless rage. “You…you just can’t do this, you realise that? It’s inhuman, it’s monstrous…”
“Well Dr Amata, I don't think you’re in a position to object right now. We hold all the cards, and for your own peace of mind and that of your wife, who would I am sure be very distressed if any irresponsibility on your part were to lead to tragedy, you’d be well advised to remember that.
“Dr Amata, I want to emphasise most strongly the dangers of contacting the authorities at any point regarding this matter. If you do, if you tell your superiors or the police about this meeting, your son will die. You do not wish to know how we intend to dispose of him; it’s sufficient for me to advise you that there won’t be much left for you to bury.”
“How did you know who I was?” he asked flatly.
“That is another thing which does not concern you. Personally, I had thought you would be more interested in ensuring your son’s safety and wellbeing. So if we could continue? It’s time I explained what precisely is required of you.”
He had hardly dared ask, because he thought he knew, and knew too well, what the answer would be. All the same it made him feel sick. His heart seemed to plunge from a giddy height into a pool of freezing cold water.
“We require you to obtain for us all copies in existence of the plans for the device. I believe they are kept in a safe in your office at the Facility.”
“How did you know – “
“Remember your son, Dr Amata.”
“Do you realise how tight security is there? I’d never be able to do it. Everything has to be signed and counter-signed – “
"You'll find a way, Dr Amata. Believe me you will, if you want to see Kenneth alive again."
"Well...I suppose it might be possible to smuggle a copy out."
“I should think it would be quite possible for someone like yourself. You are, after all, Director of the project. A trusted, reliable employee, a good servant of his country who has national security very much at heart. No-one’s going to ask any questions or show undue concern if you appear to be bending the rules a little.”
Her voice hardened, the New York accent becoming more pronounced. “You have the necessary authorisation to remove the material from the premises. Don’t play games with us. We’ll see you here, with the plans, this time tomorrow. Then you might just get your son back, not before. Alright?”
“Uh-uh-uh-alright,” Amata gasped, drawing a weary hand across his forehead.
“That’s good, Dr Amata. I’m glad you’ve decided to see reason. Now - you walk in these woods a lot, you probably know them like the back of your hand. Will you be able to remember the way here? To this exact spot?”
“I should think so,” he answered.
“I should hope so, Dr Amata, for Kenneth’s sake.” The woman smiled briefly, but it was a cold smile, the smile of a brass plate on a coffin. Amata shuddered at the thought, and briefly wondered if he ever actually would see his son alive again. But he had the impression that it wasn’t Ken who had died but something in the woman, unless it had never been there in the first place. She obviously wasn’t too bothered by it. “That’s all for now. Don’t forget: same time, same place. Goodbye now. Oh and don’t try to follow us. You know what’ll happen if you do.”
She and her companion started to move off. “Wait,” Amata called desperately.
They stopped and turned, the woman’s eyebrows raised quizzically.
“Do you realise how potentially dangerous the device is? The things you can do with it - ”
“Whether it’s dangerous depends on your point of view, Dr Amata. It’s not dangerous to us. To us it could be of incalculable benefit.”
With a brief wave she turned and walked away with her companion along a path leading in the opposite direction to that Amata had come from. The scientist was left standing there, eyes closed, head bowed.
“You bitch,” he whispered softly. ”Oh, you bitch.”
He checked his watch. Four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Today had been his day off, although the people who ran the Facility didn’t know he had taken it in order to help him resolve doubts about the wisdom of the project. Two in succession…they might wonder. He’d just have to think up a reason.
How did the people who had Ken know where the plans were kept? How did they know about the Project in the first place, or his role in it?
And should he still send the letter? Might as well do. They didn’t seem to know about it and it wouldn’t make any difference anyway, not now.
He heard a car engine rumble into life some way off. It didn’t sound as if it had been parked with his and the others, so he couldn’t tell the police anything he remembered about one or other of the vehicles in case the information proved useful. Supposing that would have been wise. And supposing he’d noted it down anyway, because he’d no idea – oh Jesus, he’d no idea this Goddamn, awful, evil thing was going to happen.
Besides, they wouldn’t have been that stupid.
Gradually the sound died away and Amata was left alone in the wood, with his thoughts.

*

He just said he’d left something at the office and needed to go back for it. Once there, he deleted the copy of the plans which had been held on his computer, after transferring them to a disc. He was familiar enough with computing to know how to avoid the unauthorised transmission being detected and recorded.
His briefcase would have been opened and searched by the security guard on leaving, so instead he tucked the disc and the folder containing the paper copy of the plans inside the thick overcoat he had put on before leaving home; it worked. The guards just nodded and smiled at him, and said goodnight.
He supposed he could tell his employers all that had happened once Ken was back safe and sound. Meanwhile he couldn’t ring Megan in case Security were tapping his phone and because he didn’t know whether he should abruptly terminate her visit to her folks, which she’d been looking forward to, by giving her the news or let her go on enjoying herself in blissful ignorance of Ken’s and his plight. He couldn’t decide which would ultimately upset her more. And maybe she might take the view that they should go to the police. With any luck Ken would have been freed before she returned.
Unless Ken, in his captors’ estimation, knew too much. By that same token, would they harm him?
And what would be the consequences of his action, the forgiveable but fateful action he was taking in order to get his son back safe and sound? It would help if he knew who they were. Agents for a foreign power? That accent…
They were there as arranged. The woman took the plans from him, and the disc, and deposited them inside the shopping bag she was carrying. “Security at your workplace really isn’t very good,” she commented. “I’m most disappointed.”
“Where’s Ken?” he demanded, his heart thudding. “You promised me…”
“We didn’t actually promise to deliver him to you here if you gave us the items. We just said what would happen if you didn’t.”
“So when – “
“We’re taking you to see him, Dr Amata. If you’ll just come with us.” The man produced an automatic pistol from beneath his coat. They led him along the path down which they’d disappeared the day before, the woman in front and the man behind, to a clearing where a convertible was parked.
At least he’d get to see Ken. But what did it mean if neither of them were to be granted their liberty just yet? That had to be significant. These people wanted more from him, it was clear, when all he desired was for Ken to be freed alive and unharmed. Oh God, how long was this nightmare to go on for?
They reached the car. The woman opened the boot, which caused Amata a twinge of unease, and then he sensed the man move behind him. “What’s this?” he demanded, starting to turn. Then something cold and hard slammed down on top of his head, and for a while he knew no more.

The man checked his watch for the fourth time. Nearly eleven o’clock.
The bustle and chatter inside the bar had a comforting monotony about it, in which you could easily lose yourself if you were in the right frame of mind. But he wasn’t. He sipped at his fourth glass of Bourbon and glanced around furtively at his fellow customers. His nerves were preventing him from getting drunk, which was fortunate because he didn’t want to miss the appointment. They were also making him increasingly self-conscious. Mustn’t let it show, he told himself not for the first time since entering the bar. Otherwise people might remember having seen him here, and that he’d been agitated and uneasy.
It was a something that constantly nagged at his mind; could his employers have put him under surveillance? He was doing an important enough job. Maybe he’d better call a halt to it now.
But how could he? They would want to know why he hadn’t shown. There would be…consequences. He’d already committed himself too far to pull out now.
The thought helped to ease his conscience.
He decided that if they – his employers, that was - had been watching him, he’d have realised it by now. You got to recognise the signs after a while, and there had been nothing.
As for chickening out; he could stay in the bar beyond the deadline, not leaving until it closed at about two in the morning. But how was he to know they wouldn’t be waiting for him?
11.15, they’d said.
He caught the bartender’s eye. “If I was you I’d make that your last one,” the man cautioned. “Though if I may say so, it doesn’t look like it’s doing you any good.”
“My wife just left me,” he said, affecting a dull uninterested tone of voice.
The bartender’s face changed. “Gosh, I’m real sorry. All the same – “
He shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll be alright. I’m going soon.”
Eventually, unable to stand the tension any longer, he left his seat, his drink unfinished. Before departing the building he looked round to see what the bartender was doing. Busy serving another customer. He slipped out.
He stood on the pavement outside the building with his free hand in the pocket of his overcoat, waiting. His other hand held a Samsonite briefcase.
After a while he began to pace restlessly up and down.
He had actually forgotten all sense of time when the convertible pulled up beside him and the window was wound down. The man in the driver’s seat called out to him, and he walked over. “Get in the back,” the man ordered. The tone wasn’t unfriendly; they wanted to put him at his ease in case he did decide to pull out whatever the consequences for himself.
He obeyed. He presumed he was to hand the material to the man sitting on the back seat, on the far side by the window. A black man, he noted for no apparent reason.
“Well, here they are,” he said, trying to sound cheerful, and took from the briefcase a sheaf of flimsies on which the notes and sketches had been executed. “I had to do it all by hand as otherwise it’d have looked too official and I’d never have been allowed to take it out of the office. I don’t know what you can do with it…”
“But it’s all there?”
“It’s all there. It was done partly from memory, at home. Only way to get round security.”
“You’re sure it’s accurate?”
“I’m sure. Over a long enough time it was quite possible to memorise the details. And I do have experience in this kind of thing, after all.” The man was being modest. He was one of the greatest experts in his field of work in the entire world.
The black man studied the diagrams, and after a while nodded. “Our people are pretty good. Yeah, it can be done.” These days his organisation had clever people working for it, people with education and qualifications. It had adapted. To some extent, it had not so much been washed out as evolved into a new form more suited to changing times, like dinosaurs turning into birds.
The black man folded the notes and tucked them away inside his coat. “OK, now let’s take you home.” It needed to look as if they were being social, and not as if some shady rendezvous had taken place for the purpose of handing over to the “wrong” people information which ought to be the sole preserve of the intelligence services.
“Pete, you reckon anyone saw anything?” the black man asked.
“Don’t think so. Let’s be off, anyhow.” The driver’s voice held a trace of an accent that an inhabitant of the United Kingdom might have recognised as originating from the Clydeside area of Glasgow. He turned the key in the ignition and depressed the accelerator, pulling away from the kerb. As they drove off the black man reflected that it was nice that this time they hadn’t had to threaten anybody to get what they wanted.

FBI Headquarters, Quantico, Virginia
“We can find another scientist who’ll take over the Project,” said Dr Holtzmann. ”Amata’s a clever guy but he’s not the only one who could do it.”
“Oh, sure, the Project’s gonna continue,” nodded the Director of the CIA, Sam Tyzack. “That’s a foregone conclusion. But it may not benefit us as much unless maybe we can find those plans. Without them we’ll have to start again from virtually nothing, and it’s going to take us ages to get to where we were before this happened.”
“He’s probably destroyed them,” sighed Winston Caulfield, current Director of the Bureau, in whose office they were. “Must have done, if he didn’t want anyone to have the knowledge. “There is a certain action which I am about to take, and of which you will no doubt hear before long, that I imagine will seem particularly unhelpful to those wishing Project 231 to continue.” It’s got to mean that, I don’t see any other possibilities.”
“Meanwhile someone else presumably knows how to build the thing, or will do once they’ve had a good look at those plans. That could be…I don’t need to tell you how dangerous. If they just have a head start on us, that’ll be enough.
“Of course it depends who they are and what purpose they intend to use the device for. The mere fact they’ve stolen the plans doesn’t mean they’re necessarily hostile to us. They could just have figured we wouldn’t want to share the information.”
“No, but the thing could be dangerous in anyone’s hands.” Except America’s, of course.
“It has to be significant that Amata disappears at the same time as the plans. And that he does so after writing a letter saying he’s got cold feet about Project 231 and doesn’t want anything more to do with it.” They had found the letter to the President, still unsent, on Amata’s desk at his home at the Facility.
“But Amata didn’t say anything about disappearing in the letter. That’s what’s bugging me.”
“Could he have committed suicide?” asked Caulfield. “I mean, he must have known it’d screw up his career bigtime. Not resigning from the Project, but destroying the plans. It could have been seen as an unpatriotic act. He’d have been worried about how he’d be perceived afterwards, by the public, by his colleagues, by the government.”
“The letter didn’t say anything to suggest he was going to kill himself,” said Holtzmann. “And his wife doesn’t think it’s very likely.
“A lot of people do it on impulse. Of course, there has to be some underlying reason, some ongoing problem in their lives, that keeps surfacing from time to time, which ultimately explains it. The thought of it suddenly gets to them and they…”
“So you didn’t notice anything about his behaviour over the last few months that indicated unusual stress?”
“Not unusual stress. Unless maybe it was due to the particular nature of the Project. It’s required of all those involved an exceptional amount of effort, mental, physical or both, in order to overcome the technical difficulties we’ve faced. To get to the stage where we can even contemplate starting to build the thing…of course someone can do a pretty good job of disguising just how much they’re suffering.”
Caulfield pondered this for a moment. “The possibility Amata killed himself can’t be ruled out. That’s why we’ve ordered a nationwide search for him. We might find the body if not the living man. But something about this whole business bothers me.”
“You think he might actually have been kidnapped?” Tyzack seemed sceptical. “It’s a bit of a coincidence that it should happen just after he writes that letter, there’s got to be a connection. And it must have been him who took those files.”
“Coincidences do happen. If there’s been foul play, they might want Amata as well as the plans. He designed the thing in the first place, so he’d understand the finished product better than anyone else would. They’d needed him on hand in case anything went wrong with it. Or if they wanted to build in modifications – remember, what was on the drawing board didn’t quite represent the ultimate development of the device as we’d envisaged it. There were things we wanted to do with it but didn’t yet know how to, so they weren’t provided for in the design.”
“From the sound of it Amata didn’t want anyone to have it. If he gave the plans to someone else, it can’t have been willingly. They must have had some kind of hold over him. The fact his son’s also gone missing clinches it, surely.”
“How did they know about the Project in the first place? Or that Amata was chief scientist? His daily routine, details of his family and their movements?” Caulfield looked to Holtzmann for an answer.
“It must have been an inside job. We’re already conducting an investigation, which will be accompanied by a thorough review of security. It’s pretty worrying, I agree. But…well, hopefully if we do find Amata we’ll find the plans.”
“They could have murdered him to stop him talking,” Caulfield said. “The plans will be gone.”
He stared fixedly at the model of a Union soldier of the Civil War which sat on his desk. One of his interests was military history. “Assuming I’m right and it was a snatch,” he said finally, “who could they be? Iraqis? Iranians? Something else entirely?”
Tyzack pursed his lips. “In this uncertain world there are all kinds of candidates.”
In all of this none of them gave a thought to Amata’s misgivings, expressed in the letter that they’d found at his home, and which had now been handed back to them after being read by the White House staff. That wasn’t the issue as far as they were concerned. It was a foregone conclusion that the device was vital to their country’s security. That made no difference to the dangers of its falling into the wrong hands.
Whoever’s the wrong hands were.






















One
At the end of 18th Street in Brighton Beach, New York, just a few yards from the water’s edge there is a bar, where food may be served and which is popular with all kinds of people from all walks of life; it has an atmosphere that’s lively and friendly but nonetheless still allows for moments of peace and quiet, of reflection.
At the table nearest the window looking out to sea, not so long ago on a warm evening in early spring, sat three people. Relaxed by the gentle tinkling of the piano, the comforting burble of the other diners’ conversation, and the faint sound of the waves lapping on the boardwalk, they talked softly in low voices, partly it seemed because it was their habit at times like these; it was as if they were a little club who all knew each other and whose friendship had been cemented by shared experiences, of a kind which for some reason outsiders weren’t meant to know about just yet. Every now and then over their drinks they laughed at some joke one of them had told, suggesting that whatever they had all been through together some of it, at least, had been fun.
One was a woman, an attractive and striking blonde in her mid- to late-twenties, to whom the heads of the male diners kept turning; the female ones too, because something about her commanded attention. It would have done even if she had not been quite so pretty. She carried herself with an air of mature sophistication and self-possession, yet when she laughed at a joke or showed pleasure, surprise, puzzlement at some remark by one of the others there was something engagingly childlike about her manner. She flirted mildly with her two male companions, from time to time patting one or the other on the wrist or cuddling against them in sympathy at some misfortune they were relating, or as a way of demonstrating gratitude for some past favour, but the gestures came over as spontaneous, a part of her natural personality rather than an affectation. She had an oval face with fine, high, narrow cheekbones and a pert retrousse nose. The eyes were fascinating; a rather startling Pacific blue, they commanded attention by more than just their colour. They reflected right now a range of emotions from the exuberant to the whimsically thoughtful, subtly shifting, sometimes from moment to moment, but none negative. They were, indeed, not unlike the sea; one whose waters were so clear and pure that you could see what lay just beneath the surface, so vividly that to some she might seem transparent and shallow, yet if you looked closer there was a sense of fathomless, mysterious depth. A hint of something complex and meditative beneath the bold, brash exterior.
The two men with her were both stockily built, but otherwise presented a contrast. One was shortish with a pleasantly rounded, vaguely handsome face and dark wavy hair. His accent might have been described as classless, though it owed more to London than the Home Counties, by someone who knew anything about British accents. The other man, fairish in his colouring, was a big, tall fellow whose clipped public school tones, not dissimilar to the woman’s, carried an unmistakable note of authority. They suggested an army officer, which in fact he was, although he didn’t as a rule advertise which branch of the army he belonged to.
Caroline Kent was in America to celebrate the merging of International Petroleum Limited, the oil company for whom she worked as a general troubleshooter among other things, with the US firm Amacon. To be honest it wasn’t so much a merger but a takeover. The thought that in these days a British company (which IPL effectively was, despite its name) could swallow up an American one gave her a certain feeling of patriotic pride. Though her country’s political power might have dwindled in recent decades, it could still exert a degree of economic muscle when required. Which was good because athough she liked Americans for their friendliness, their dynamism, she sometimes felt they needed to be taken down a peg or two. Though she wasn’t sure if she should ever share the sentiment with her friends Dan and Lisa Beckenbaum in San Francisco.
To be honest Amacon had been doing badly of late, otherwise the takeover might not have happened. Her fellow executive Chris Barrett, who often accompanied her on her troubleshooting missions, was there as her number two at IPL’s Personnel and Public Relations Department (of traditional tastes in such matters, Caroline was fighting what she suspected was a losing battle against the transformation of the Personnel bit into “Human Resources”).
Major Michael Hartman, SAS, was present as an indirect result of an assignment Caroline and Chris had undertaken in the South American state of Camaragua. The three of them had met in adjoining Brazil in what might be called extraordinary circumstances. On Caroline’s assignments extraordinary things did seem to happen, whether or not from design.
Since the Major had happened to be on leave and spending part of it in America the three of them had taken the opportunity to hold the annual general meeting of what they referred to as the Camaragua Survivors’ Club. It seemed not inappropriate that those who had been through the whole incredible – and often perilous - affair should meet up at least once a year to find out how each other were doing, as well as reminisce about their experiences in South America; editing the conversation, or not having it too loudly, in case anyone either thought they were crazy or heard something which the intelligence services of Britain and the US would have rather they didn’t.
“Camaragua,” Caroline sighed. “What a country.”
“They seem to be doing OK now,” commented the Major. “Everywhere in Latin America is. Viellar was the last of the really big drug barons and we terminated his contract, alright.”
“All the same, I’m not sure I want to go back there in a hurry. Long queues at the post office, people calling me "Senorita" all the time..."
"That was hardly the worst of it. Getting kidnapped, taken hostage, nearly killed by hostile Indians or eaten by alligators…”
"Oh, that," she said nonchalantly.
Actually, despite its faults she had evolved a certain affection for the place. Apart from anything else it was Camaragua which had broken her in as a troubleshooter, if rather more drastically than she cared to contemplate.
For Chris also it had been a baptism of fire. He still couldn’t get over, whenever he thought about it, the fact that he’d actually killed somebody. Quite a few somebodies. It wasn’t something he’d ever envisaged doing.
“We did have some fun,” he acknowledged. “I heard what you did to Viellar when you escaped from his bondage den.”
Caroline gave a loud, cackling laugh. “Best part of it,” she said.
Chris raised his glass. “Here’s to the next one,” he said.
“The next what?”
“The next adventure.”
“Are you kidding?” she sniffed. “The last one nearly got us all killed.”
“Don’t tell me that Caroline Kent, fearless oil troubleshooter, is afraid to risk her life for the sake of truth and justice,” teased the Major.
I’m not sure how much truth and justice you’ll find in an oil company, Caroline thought. It looked after its own, the high-flyers anyway, but IPL hadn’t always been solicitous of the welfare of indigenous peoples whose way of life was affected by its projects; she was continually having to sort out that kind of thing.
“No-one does that lightly,” she said with dignity, in response to Hartman’s ribbing. “Even you, I suspect.”
Chris grinned. “We’d sort of figured it out,” he said, his voice dropping again, “but all the shame it was a bit scary when you told us you were in the…you know…”
“I only told you because you asked, and because you’d so obviously worked it out for yourselves there wasn’t much point in denying it,” Hartman reminded them severely. “Would have been a bit irresponsible otherwise.”
“You’re sounding like a crotchety old colonel,” Caroline chided.
“I’m a crotchety young Major. Tell me, why was it scary?” he asked Chris.
It was Caroline who answered. “I thought at one stage you were going to kill me to protect your secret.”
“That’s spies,” Chris told her.
“It’s not, actually,” she said. “It just means you blow your cover. So I gather anyway.”
“I hope Dattari and his people are alright,” she mused, thinking again about indigenous peoples. “Wouldn’t mind paying them a return visit someday.”
“Would be nice,” agreed Chris.
“No,” she said airily, “I’ll leave fighting for truth and justice to this guy here.” She smiled at the Major.
Hartman wore a dubious expression. “Is it?” whispered Chris. “Is it “truth and justice”, would you say?”
“Some of the jobs I’ve done,” Hartman muttered, “were a case of doing the government’s dirty work for them. Of course they called it “protecting British interests.” It probably helped to keep us relatively wealthy and powerful in the post-colonial world. But innocent people got killed. The thing is…suppose it was wrong. If I’d refused to do it I’d have been cashiered. And then I wouldn’t have been able to fight for what was true and just.” It was an excuse, but a good one.
“Shame Barney couldn’t be here,” sighed Caroline.
“Where is he, by the way?” asked the Major.
“He’s off at some rally or other in support of the rain forest,” she replied. “Still, good luck to him.”
“Not sure he’d come anyway,” Chris said. “Funny bloke, Barney.” Mention of the ecologist reminded Chris that he had killed people too, though for a very different reason from Barrett or the Major. It hadn’t really been his fault, but nonetheless they’d agreed afterwards not to talk about it.
Caroline smiled at Hartman. “Glad you could make it.”
“I was over here to visit someone,” he explained, a little diffidently.
Caroline and Chris exchanged glances. “Were you now,” said Caroline thoughtfully, eyebrows raised.
Chris nudged him, grinning slyly. “Come on, let’s have it. Who is she?”
“She’s called Gillian and she’s very nice and sweet. Works on the clerical staff of the Department of Defense over here. She was in London on a fact-finding trip and that’s how I met her. As you know, I do a lot of liaison work with the Yanks between assignments.” Soldiers had to find something to occupy themselves between battles or training exercises. “We got talking one day and…well, she invited me over here to meet up with her sometime. That’s all.”
He seemed embarrassed. Caroline’s eyes had grown big and were twinkling mischievously.
“I imagine she just wanted to talk business,” she said. “Nothing more than that.”
“Nothing more than that,” said the Major unconvincingly.
“So she’s American?” Chris asked.
“Very. That’s why I like her.”
Both of them were pleased for him. Somehow, you got the impression the Major needed something like that.
He fished out a photograph and showed it to them. “That’s her.”
“Pretty girl,” said Caroline. She was being polite but in fact the woman wasn’t unattractive, all told. That face, slightly elfin and framed by strawberry blonde hair, certainly had character, suggesting an impish sense of humour. She looked not unlike Cameron Diaz, perhaps Michelle Pfeiffer.
“How’s your folks, by the way?” Caroline asked Chris. “Your father was going to have that operation, wasn’t he?“ Her concern was genuine.
“Turns out he didn’t need it after all. His results had got mixed up with someone else’s.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling despairingly. “Still, it doesn’t happen that often, I suppose.”
“Must be a relief for him. Means some other poor sod’s got to go under the knife, though. Such is Fate.”
“They’ve a pretty good success rate. No, Mum and Dad are both fine. How about yours?”
“Not too bad. Still arguing.”
“They’ve got to learn to do it affectionately,” said the Major. “That’s the secret.”
“More or less what I told them. I also said they were too old to get divorced, but I don’t know if that’s true nowadays. They didn’t appreciate it anyway.”
“They’ve had a lot to cope with lately,” said Chris. “I mean, with Douglas…” Caroline’s brother had been killed by a terrorist bomb just as he’d seemed on the point of sorting out his traumatised, chaotic, messed-up life.
“Yes,” said Caroline softly, bowing her head. She fell silent.
“Are you alright?” Chris asked. She didn’t reply.
Gently he took her by the arm and led her out onto the terrace, where he waited until she had recovered her composure, then they went back in. The Major had remained in his seat, knowing she might find too much solicitous attention, however well meant, not to her liking. “OK now?” he asked her. She smiled back a little weakly, and managed a nod.
For a while the mood was subdued. Soon, however, she was back to her old self, and the conversation once again in full swing.
Outside, the lights of the seafront were twinkling in the water, the moon shining down from a star-studded sky, reflected in the gleaming black surface of the sea as a wavering, ghostly shape.
Their main course arrived and was tucked into with relish. The bar had filled up somewhat, signifying that they should cease talking about confidential matters to do with spies and Special Forces. Caroline found her eyes travelling over the other customers. She noted that a man was taking his seat at the table next to theirs, along with two women and a fourth, male, companion. In his late forties, he was short and of compact build, perhaps once muscular but now gone a little to flab; heavy-featured with hooded, slightly protruding eyes and thick lips. His brown hair was sleekly combed and he had on an obviously expensive Versace suit with silk tie. As well as the suit he wore a disgruntled expression which amounted to a fixed scowl, as if something weighed heavily on his mind. One of the women was blonde - with dark roots showing, Caroline noted disparagingly - the other brunette, and both wore flashy necklaces and bangles and low-cut dresses which left little of their generous busts to the imagination. The other man was tall with curly hair and something in his face seemed to recall the first, although the features were more refined, the lips thin and tightly compressed. He too was smartly dressed, in a similar fashion to his – father? Uncle? Certainly there was an age difference of some twenty, maybe thirty years between them.
The younger man perused the menu while the older stared moodily through the window at the dark sea.
The head waiter, hovering solicitously in the background keeping an eye on everything, caught sight of Versace and immediately went over to him. “What can I get you, Mr Scarlione?” he asked. Although the service was good here, he seemed particularly eager to please. Evidently a valued customer. “Some wine to start with?”
“Yeah, OK. I’ll have a glass of Chianti.” He glanced at his companions, who nodded to signify they’d have the Chianti too, as if choosing something different would be a form of disloyalty. The maitre d’ beckoned over a waitress.
Caroline noticed that two men had entered the bar and were standing with their backs to the wall, not far from where Scarlione and his party were sitting. She found their presence a little intimidating, but the other diners seemed to take it for granted, carrying on talking and eating quite happily with only the occasional glance in their direction.
“Wonder who he is?” she said.
“Who?” asked Chris.
She nodded towards Scarlione. “That chap. You get the impression they’re falling over backwards to please him.”
“Yes, I noticed,” said the Major thoughtfully.
The waitress, a young girl in her late teens or early twenties, approached the table where Scarlione’s group sat, smiling nervously. Caroline studied her. The type who would grow to be competent, but at the moment wasn’t quite sure of herself; she must be fairly new to the job, this could even have been her first day in it. She thought back to when she herself had started at IPL, feeling all the time desperately self-conscious and struggling manfully to hide it.
Earlier she had gone the rounds, taken their own order. Observing her talking with the customers, a little nervously but realising she had to make the effort to be friendly, Caroline hadn’t been able to help sizing her up. Despite her nerves she had a pleasant manner and would be an asset to the establishment, given time.
She rested the tray with the four glasses and bottle of wine on the edge of the table, poured the wine into the glasses, then transferred them to the table. Scarlione grunted what might have been a thankyou, and raised his Chianti to his lips.
Maybe it was nerves again, maybe it was a simple mistake, but as the girl turned away with the tray the edge of it caught Scarlione’s arm and jogged it as he drank. A little of the wine splashed onto the cuff of his freshly starched, gleaming white shirt.
“Hey!” he shouted.
The girl turned and saw what had happened. “Sorry,” she grinned, embarrassed. “Shall I clean that up for you?”
“I think you’d better,” said Scarlione dangerously.
“Sorry.” She went to fetch something to do it with, Scarlione glaring after her as she moved away. “Stupid bitch,” Caroline heard him mutter.
Though he obviously had something on his mind the unfairness of the insult, of his whole manner, grated with Caroline. “Charming,” she commented. Whether by accident or design, she said it just loud enough for him to hear it.
At once Scarlione’s head snapped round and he glared hard at her, the fleshy lips compressing. “You got a problem, sweetheart?”
“Don’t think so,” she replied evenly, “but it’s very kind of you to ask.” She went happily back to her meal.
Scarlione pushed back his chair, which scraped hard on the floor, and stood up sharply. Slowly he took a few steps towards Caroline, to halt with his arms held rigidly by his sides, the fists clenched.
“Hey,” he said in a low, menacing, warning tone. “You don’t talk to me like that, OK?”
Caroline was busy chatting to the Major and didn’t hear him.
Chris suddenly realised that the music had stopped, and forks paused halfway to mouths. Everyone was staring at Caroline and Scarlione, their faces uneasy, yet at the same time showing a certain fascinated interest. You could have heard a pin drop, etc etc.
He and the Major twisted round to face the American. The Major got up and went to stand in front of Scarlione, looking stern. He put an authoritative, parade-ground note into his voice. “Alright, that’s enough.”
For a moment the American faltered, then the scowl returned to his face. “Hey, pal, do you mind? I was having a nice friendly little talk with the lady here.”
Chris joined the Major. “Look, we don’t want any trouble.” He tried to sound friendly and reasonable, non-confrontational. This approach didn’t work either. Ignoring them, the American moved round the table until he was standing beside Caroline, who was still trying to eat her food as if nothing had happened. He bent to whisper in her ear. “I said, you don’t – talk – to – me – like – that. Goddit?”
Caroline winced and flinched away. “Your breath smells,” she told him. “I’d clean your teeth a bit more often, if I were you.”
“Jesus,” he gasped, astonished by her refusal to be intimidated. It obviously wasn’t something he encountered very often.
“Or maybe it’s a bowel problem. They can have that effect.” She realised she had put herself off her food and regarded it uncertainly, lowering her knife and fork.
“I think you need one or two lessons in manners, babe,” he told her. “Wanna step outside?”
“Not particularly,” said Caroline. “Look, why are you making such a big thing of this?”
The waitress, who had by now returned with a cloth to wipe up the spilt wine, was hovering uncertainly in the background, as was the maitre d’. The other staff were attempting to go about their business as normal, but their unease was palpable. Scarlione’s two bimboes were shifting about in an exaggerated fashion, forced smiles on their faces. The two men by the wall had moved forward a little, tensed to intervene if it seemed necessary.
Someone tapped Chris on the shoulder and he turned. The diner leaned over and whispered a few words in his ear.
“Oh,” said Chris, starting. He went decidedly pale. “Oh, er, thanks.” He tried to attract Caroline’s attention, without success, while she and Scarlione continued to exchange pleasantries.
The Major went up to Scarlione, and the heavies marched to intercept him, hesitating as Hartman only put a placatory hand on their boss’s shoulder. “Listen – “
Scarlione shook the hand off and rounded on him. “Get off me, you fucking homo.”
Hartman ignored the insult. “She’s right, you’re over-reacting.” He wasn’t quite sure what had caused the argument in the first place. “I’m sure the lady’s sorry for whatever she said.” Caroline’s sour expression suggested she wasn’t.
“Sorry, is she? That’s no fucking good unless it comes from her own Goddamn lips, is it?” He clenched his fist and shook it, a fraction from Caroline’s face. “Well I’m telling you, you’d better be sorry or you’ve had it, blondie. Yeah, you’re dead meat, you lousy worthless cock-sucking little slut.”
Caroline froze. She scraped her chair round through a half-circle and very slowly rose, Scarlione straightening up with her until their faces were on a level. The blue of her eyes suddenly became very prominent. Her manner might have served to chill the wine being served that night, had it not already been so treated. There was a brief moment’s silence.
“What did you call me?” she hissed.
Before the gaze of everyone in the room Scarlione seemed actually to flinch. But the fear itself, and the knowledge that he had shown it, only made him angrier, the more so because he couldn’t explain quite why he had been so afraid. “If my memory serves me well,” he snarled, “I called you a cock-sucking little slut. And if you don’t apologise to me, I’ll do to you what sluts deserve. Got that?”
A man who was presumably the manager hurried up to him, clearly agitated.
“Keep the fuck out of this,” Scarlione snapped. “This is between me and the slut.”
“Slut, am I?” Caroline said. “Well if I’m a slut, then you’re an obnoxious arrogant slimy putrid little toad.”
Scarlione’s jaw dropped, his eyes popped from his round football-like head. It was a whole minute before he could say anything. When he did it was more a series of strangled gurgling sounds than proper speech. Gradually it penetrated through to his consciousness that people were laughing at him. Others were cheering, egging Caroline on, or trying to look nonplussed, or going through a variety of extraordinary expressions in an attempt to keep a straight face.
One of the hoods, if that was what they were, suddenly saw the funny side, his icy look melting. He stifled a giggle, not entirely successfully. His companion jabbed him in the side with his elbow and whispered something fiercely through the corner of his mouth. The hood regained his composure remarkably quickly.
Scarlione was still gasping and choking gutturally. You might have thought he was about to have a stroke or a heart attack. “Feeling all right?” asked Caroline pleasantly.
The manager was glancing helplessly this way and that, uncertain what to do. Certainly no-one seemed to be interested in calling the police.
The young man with the curly hair suddenly decided he should intervene and sprang from his chair, bounding over to Scarlione. “Cool it, Dad. We don’t wanna start a fight in here, OK? Just cool it.”
Scarlione didn’t hear him. When he finally managed to speak coherently his voice was like fingernails scraping down a blackboard. “You called me a turd,” he said slowly. “You got any idea who you’re talking to, honey? Uh?”
Caroline looked puzzled, then her face seemed to clear in realisation. ”Oh, I see,” she laughed. “You misheard me. No need to get worked up, I only called you a toad. That’s all,” she finished, as if that settled everything.
Then fear flashed across her face as Scarlione lifted an arm to strike her.
The Major’s hand shot out and grabbed it just below the wrist before it could descend. The American struggled to break free but it was like trying to budge solid steel. The Major took his other arm and pushed him slowly back, away from Caroline. The two heavies marched forward, honour bound to intervene if someone laid hands on their boss, but Scarlione’s son waved them away. They hesitated, uncertain whose orders to obey.
Scarlione erupted in a torrent of quite remarkable, and seemingly endless, abuse. Eventually he gave up, slumping helplessly in the Major’s grip. But if looks could…
Still holding Scarlione by the wrists the Major spoke to him calmly but firmly. “Listen, Mr Scarlione. I don’t normally get physical, but if you’re not careful you’ll leave me no choice. You were about to hit the lady and that I’m not standing for, alright? I don’t want a fight, but if you insist on one you may just get your wish. However, I’m sure that at heart you’re big enough not to let words rattle you so much. Right now all you’re doing is making a spectacle of yourself. Just go and sit down, yeah?”
He held Scarlione for a moment more, then released him and stood back, still eyeing him with the warning look that had frozen many a troublesome new recruit in terror in the days before he had left the mainstream army for the SAS.
For a moment it looked as if Scarlione might be prepared to go on making a confrontation of it. Then, with a final glance at Caroline – it was as if he had hurled a dagger at her with his eyes – he returned to his seat. The curly-haired young man did likewise. The heavies returned to their place by the wall, their gaze now focused on Caroline and her friends in case of any further trouble from that quarter.
Chris and the Major sat down also. “Are you alright?” Chris whispered to Caroline.
“Of course I am,” she snorted. Though unsettled by the incident by a greater extent than she was letting on, she was still more angry than shaken.
“What happened? Why did he flare up at you like that?”
Caroline told him. “I know how you feel,” Chris said. “The guy’s obviously a state-of-the-art, card-carrying, first generation arsehole. But I’m not sure it was wise to get into an argument with him.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Do you know who he is?”
“No.”
Chris raised his voice a little so that the Major could hear him too. “That was Salvatore Scarlione, the local Mafia boss.”
Caroline went very still and very quiet, her mouth half open. ”Oh,” she said at last.
“Yes. Not the sort of bloke you get on the wrong side of, if you’re sensible.”
She came back to him at once. “And I’m not?”
“I didn’t say that. Just that it might be a good idea to leave now.”
“I’m not leaving because of him,” she insisted. “I’ll stay as long as I like.”
“Alright,” said Chris. “If you want to. But me and Mike are a little tired, we’d both like a early night. So we’ll be off now, if that’s OK.” He rose. Catching his eye, the Major did the same.
Caroline started. “Er….wait…..”
Their faces studiously impassive, the two of them sat down again.
The evening wore on. After a while Chris and the Major ran out of conversation but Caroline went on talking, the others politely nodding and “mmm”ing at everything she said. She listened attentively to the music, had a couple more drinks. She appeared to be enjoying herself, although Chris suspected she was only trying to show she wasn’t frightened by Scarlione. An hour, maybe two, passed during which her companions managed from time to time some desultory small talk, between trying to stifle bored yawns.
Eventually she decided the charade had gone far enough. “Right, time to go,” she said briskly.
As they filed out, Chris noticed that Scarlione and his entourage had gone.
They emerged from the building into the parking lot. Most of the other customers had already left. As they approached the bay where the company car was parked, there was a flicker of movement in the shadows behind a nearby vehicle, and then a group of figures were coming towards them out of the darkness.
Instinctively the Major tensed, ready to fight.
They stepped forward into the lighting; Salvatore Scarlione, his son and the two heavies. Scarlione’s plump face wore a broad grin. “S’alright,” he beamed. “I wasn’t planning on giving you any shit. Just got a proposition to make, that’s all.”
“Well, I suppose we may as well hear it,” said the Major genially.
Scarlione was looking directly at Caroline. “The thing is,” he began, “I’m a guy who’s…let’s say I employ a lot of people. I’ve an important function to perform in the local community. Means I gotta have some authority. It’s kinda bad for discipline if you show me up the way you did back there. I gotta reputation to maintain. Got to think of my standing within society. That’s why, this business of an apology, it’s important to me y’know? Lot could hang on it.”
“And if I don’t apologise?” said Caroline.
“Like I said, I employ a lot of people.” He paused to let the meaning of the remark sink in.
“Are you threatening me, Mr Scarlione?”
“I ain’t threatening you, honey, I’m promising you. If you don’t

let me settle my account with you here and now, this is gonna go

on and on until I finally get satisfaction. The stakes will get

higher and higher. Am I making myself quite clear?”

“That’s stupid talk,” Caroline snapped. “Of course you’re threatening me. Anybody with half a brain listening to this conversation would see it that way. What do you mean by “settling your account”, anyway?”
“I just need to give you a little something to remember me by. Leave my calling card, so to speak. That way honour’s satisfied.”
“What’s honourable about mutilating people? That’s what you’re proposing to do to me, I take it?”
“You got it, sister. You won’t be so high in the glamour charts once one of my boys has slashed you right across the face. All I’ll need to do then is spread the word that it was me, and make damn sure everyone sees the photographs. Then the message will sink in that you don’t badmouth Salvatore Scarlione if you got any brains in your stupid head.”
“I also asked what was honourable about mutilating people,” Caroline said, angry at his evasion of the issue.
“What’s honourable about letting yourself be made a fool of?”
“Better to be a fool than a…pig,” she retorted, unable to think of a suitable alternative epithet.
Suddenly losing his temper, Scarlione lunged forward. Chris and the Major closed ranks to protect her. He skidded to a halt, breathing hard and fast.
“Just drop it, Scarlione,” Hartman snapped. “Now. Or we’ll have the police onto you. I’m sure you don’t want any trouble with them.” Scarlione scoffed at this. “I’m not stupid,” he laughed. “I’d be careful to make damn sure there was no proof I did it. I haven’t survived in my line of work without a little discretion.” He signalled to his companions. “Vito, keep watch. Charlie, Mario, take care of these two will you?” He indicated Chris and the Major. “I’ll see to Goldilocks here.”
The two heavies moved to close with Barrett and Hartman. The Major shot out an arm, jabbing with two fingers at Mario’s windpipe. The man folded silently in two and collapsed at his feet. Like the rugby player he was Chris dived at Charlie’s legs the action taking the Mafiosi by surprise, and brought him down. As he picked himself up the Major seized him from behind in an armlock.
Caroline was surprised at the speed with which Salvatore Scarlione came at her. Despite his bulk and relative age he was remarkably strong and agile. She stopped thinking this and reacted to his attack just in time.
She needed to evade it, and also to incapacitate him through pain. A skilled dancer, if not professionally trained, and a keep fit enthusiast into the bargain she dodged nimbly to one side and executed a smooth, neat turn through a half circle, at the same time slashing at his face with her fingernails, the best and sometimes the only weapon a woman had against a stronger man. Scarlione screamed and staggered to a halt, covering his face with his hands.
Vito shouted out a warning, and ran to pull his father away from Caroline. “Dad, hold it!”
Scarlione had put a hand to his cheek and was now staring down at the blood on his fingers, as if in astonishment. “Yeah, what is it?” he grunted, absently.
“Someone’s coming.” A couple of clients were emerging from the bar; one was a little drunk and the other, concentrating on trying to support him, didn’t seem aware of the fracas that had been going on.
“Ah, it’s nothing,” Scarlione scowled. He caught sight of the heavy the Major had knocked out. “Mario OK?”
Vito bent to examine him. “Well, he’s breathing alright. Yeah, I think so.”
“He’s lucky,” the Major told them. “I knew exactly the right place to do it. A fraction lower and he’d no longer be with us.”
“Oh, right,” muttered Scarlione. “Yeah, well, you hurt any of my boys and you’ll be sorry.” He transferred his attention back to Caroline. In the moonlight they could see, gleaming, the stripes of blood she had drawn across his face. “You just made a big mistake, blondie,” he snarled. “A very big mistake.”
As he spoke the last few punters were leaving the bar. The Major released Charlie and gave him a push which sent him staggering. He put his hand on Caroline’s arm, intending to usher her back to the car.
Scarlione glanced briefly at the punters, then leaned towards her, lowering his voice slightly. "Tell you what, sister," he said, grinning slyly, "I'll let you off if you'll do me a favour or two. Free of charge, with plenty of extras included."
And THEN I’ll carve you up like I said, he thought savagely. Caroline’s expression showed exactly what she thought of his offer. “You must be stupid as much as anything else if you think I’d do that, especially after what you called me earlier on.”
“You’re the one who’s stupid, bitch, to make an enemy out of me.”
“I’m not from round here, as you can probably tell. There’s little point in turning this into a vendetta.”
“Yeah, well,” said Scarlione, “that’s as maybe. But believe me, you’d better watch that mouth of yours if you want to keep those good looks. Just a friendly piece of advice.”
"I'd rather lose my looks and keep my dignity," she said. She probably would, Chris thought, however much she’s proud of them. Scarlione made a derisive noise. “Some day you’ll make one smart-ass remark too many.”
You might be right there, Chris mused.
“And then,” Scarlione went on, “you’ll be sorry you ever poked your head out of your mother’s – “
Again, something flashed in her eyes that he didn’t like, and the cold rage in them made him quiver – he, Salvatore Scarlione. Then, before the eyes of those who had stopped to stare at the altercation, she marched up to him and slapped him across the face. He felt it. The blow made the sore skin where she’d scratched him sting like hell.
This time he didn’t lash out. Not physically, anyway, or even verbally. Instead he returned her look of hate in kind, and now it was Caroline’s turn to quail. She rallied a little, and for a few moments they stood trying to stare each other out, Caroline ignoring Chris and the Major’s efforts to drag her away.
Vito tugged at his father’s shoulder. “C’mon, Dad. She ain’t worth it.”
Caroline reacted to this immediately. “I’m worth rather a lot actually.”
“Cool it, both of you,” snapped the Major. “Look, this has gone on long enough. Are we going to stand about here arguing forever? Let’s just put it behind us.”
“You keep out of it,” the Mafiosa spat. But he seemed to have decided it might indeed be better to call a halt. “Get Mario into the car,” he ordered his accomplices. Between them Vito and Charlie started to drag their colleague by the arms towards a gleaming black Buick. As Scarlione set off after them he looked back over his shoulder at Caroline. "You can curl up and fucking die, you fucking whore."
“Why do you call me a whore?” she asked, raising her voice as the distance between them increased.
“’Cause you ain’t got no respect.”
“For who?” she shouted. “You?” Her nose wrinkled in disdain.
“Just remember this. If I ever set eyes on you again, you’re in trouble. You and your friends.”
She brushed the threat aside. “If you mean respect for myself, I’ve plenty. That’s why I don’t let myself be intimidated by the likes of you. And there are some “whores” who’ve got more decency in them than you have.”
“Don’t fucking preach to me.” Scarlione and his companions climbed into the Buick and were gone. Caroline stood glaring daggers after it until the Major tugged her away. Suddenly longing to be safe in bed back at the hotel, she let herself be escorted to the company car.
They drove out of the parking lot, the Major at the wheel. Chris glanced over at Caroline and saw the studiously expressionless look on her face. “Don’t let it rattle you,” he said.
“I’m not rattled,” she lied.
“He left first. And it’s dark, makes it more difficult for anyone to follow us to the hotel.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” she insisted. “Besides, I didn’t think the Mafia had that much power these days. Aren’t they supposed to be on the way out?” Losing power to black gangs, the Russians, the South American druglords.
“It’d be as well not to chance it.”
“Are you saying he really will come after me?”
“If he can. You know what these Mafia big shots are like. But I shouldn’t think we’ve anything to worry about. We go home tomorrow, and Scarlione can’t touch us once we’re out of the country. Still, I suppose we’d better stop off at the cop shop first and report it. Meanwhile don’t worry, OK? There’s nothing more to be said or done about it. Anyway, you certainly left him with something to remember you by.”
“Yes, I did,” she said. Cheered by the thought, she forgot her fears and her smouldering resentment, and for the next few days was pleasant company.

















Two
"I've reason to believe we may be in danger," Caroline told the desk officer at the police station nearest the hotel, once she and her companions had introduced themselves.
"What's the problem?" he asked.
She gave her account of the incident in the restaurant. She was quite happy to repeat to him word-for-word the things Scarlione had called her, though her face twisted in disgust. “I, I’m afraid I used some rather strong words myself,” she coughed. “Not like those, but…”
“What did you call him, may I ask, ma’am?” the policeman enquired. “You see, if you don’t mind me pointing it out someone could accuse you of causing a disturbance, if you get my drift.”
“The bloody cheek,” snorted Caroline. She described in more detail how she had insulted Scarlione. The look on the policeman’s face made clear he thought it had been an unwise thing to do. “OK, so what happened then?” he prompted. Not that Caroline needed any prompting. She launched into an indignant summary of the following events, the desk officer’s eyes widening in increasing astonishment.
Once he’d finished taking down the details he turned to Chris and the Major. “And you guys?”
They more or less corroborated what Caroline had said. The policeman wrote it down and then took the trio’s details. The Major described himself as a member of the British Armed Forces and said he could be contacted through the Ministry of Defence in London.
“Fine. You’d better write out your own statements in case this gets to court, or there are any further…incidents. And you’re leaving…tomorrow?”
“That’s right,” said Chris. “Probably not much he can do between now and then, but I thought we’d better be on the safe side.”
“Did this threat apply to all of you?”
“Yes,” said the Major, “but I think it’s Caroline he’s most interested in. I guess if Chris or I got in his way somehow he wouldn’t scruple to harm us.”
The policeman seemed to think very carefully about the whole business. “Alright. Well, all we can do is to inform him you’ve made this complaint and to caution him. Do you want to bring any charges of attempted assault?”
Caroline thought about it, then decided she didn’t want to be tied up here in some complicated legal case. “No, I don’t think so,” she said. With some satisfaction she paraphrased Vito Scarlione’s remark of the night before. “He’s not worth it.”
The policeman glanced enquiringly at Chris and the Major, who shook their heads.
They filled in the forms and handed them to him. “OK, I guess that’s it,” he said. Flashing a smile at him, Caroline led the way out.
Chris was the last to leave the room. The policeman stopped him just as he got to the door. “Hey, one sec.”
Chris turned to face him. “Uh-huh?”
“Your friend; she’s an exec, yeah? For a big multinational.”
“That’s right.”
“So her job involves being nice and friendly to people. You have to be to make deals and sort out union disputes, period?”
“I suppose so.”
“So how come she manages to piss off the most powerful Mafia boss in the country? Not a very smart thing to do, in my humble opinion.”
Caroline, who had overheard something of the conversation, came back into the room. “Look here, I’m not psychic,” she protested. “How was I to know who he was? And besides, when I’m at work I have to spend most of my time being polite to people I’d much rather tell to get stuffed. When I’m unwinding and trying to enjoy myself with friends I shouldn’t have to put up with some lout coming along and spoiling it.”
She tugged at Barrett’s sleeve. “Come on, Chris.”
The policeman gazed after them for a moment or two once they’d gone, then smiled, shaking his head at the same time, and went back to his paperwork.

Despite everything, Boris and Anna Tchernikayev were happy. Their standard of living was not good – they barely had enough to buy food and to keep themselves decently clothed - but they nonetheless felt they had all they wanted out of life. Their one regret was the loss of their eldest son, who had joined the army and been killed twenty years before in Afghanistan; every morning Anna would stand for few moments before his photograph on the wall, which showed him looking spruce and handsome in his new uniform, and mouth a silent prayer for his wellbeing in the next world, even though he hadn’t believed. But they still had two other grown-up children, one currently enjoying a distinguished career as an engineer, of whom they were very proud. And they had each other. Besides, Russian history was so characterised by hardship, stagnation and administrative inefficiency that neither of them expected things to get better anyway. For Anna at any rate religion provided some measure of consolation, as the icons dotted around the house and displayed in the windscreen of their ancient car testified. On a regular basis she would nip across to the Orthodox church over the road to attend a service, not caring that there weren’t enough seats and she often had to stand, the other worshippers tending to block her view of the priest. However grim things were in this life there was always the prospect of a better one to come, without which they would be that much harder to bear.
Having nothing else to do that afternoon the retired couple had taken the car intending to travel from Smolensk, on whose outskirts they lived, to visit Anna’s relatives in the town of Jarcevo. They were driving along the highway between the two towns, about halfway to their destination, when the car gave a shuddering lurch to first one side, then the other. It slowed a little, and didn’t respond when he pressed the accelerator.
Next the vehicle was zig-zagging all over the road, twice narrowly missing cars in the other lane, whose drivers honked their horns in anger and alarm.
And Anna could smell burning.
The engine was making a ghastly screeching sound, like an orchestra of lost souls. Anna was shouting at Boris to stop, and he was inclined to think it might be a good idea.
He pulled off the road onto the grass verge. They got out to inspect the car and almost immediately saw smoke coming from beneath the bonnet, thinly at first, then in much greater quantities, making them cough and splutter.
“The engine has overheated,” Boris announced crossly. He couldn’t see why it should do that. Their surviving son, Maxim the engineer, checked the car over regularly and could arrange for it to be repaired – not replaced, they were far too fond of it for that – whenever necessary. And at their age they had no taste for fast driving anyway, so nothing got worn out from being overstretched. Something here wasn’t quite right.
Boris sensed, more than anything else, what was about to happen. “Run!” he screamed at his wife. She stared at him briefly in incomprehension, then took off after him as he sprinted along beside the road desperate to get as far away from the smoking car as possible.
They didn’t get far enough. For just a second they felt the blast of heat on their backs as the petrol tank ignited and the car went up in an enormous fireball. Then the sheet of flame engulfed them, their minds going blank like a wiped tape, their bodies shrivelling into two charred lumps of carbonated flesh on whose crumpled faces the expressions of fear and alarm seemed to have frozen.

As he started work that morning at the depot from which his fleet of garbage trucks had already departed to collect the accumulated waste of Mansfield Borough, New York, Ben Kowalski wondered with some trepidation what the day might bring.
The depot also served as the administrative headquarters of the firm. It wasn’t much, just a small private office to which he retired whenever he needed to be alone, like now, and the poky little room where most of the time he and his secretary Gloria, a plump, cheerful Italian woman, worked, containing a couple of desks with a telephone and computer on each and a filing cabinet. Though cramped, it was cosy and the two of them got on well, as both did with the manual workforce. Although the company hadn’t been in existence for long, there’d always been a good atmosphere at the depot; but now unease was starting to creep in.
Made redundant from his job as a garbage worker as part of a ruthless cost-cutting exercise, Kowalski had decided to start out on his own. He got together a good bunch of guys and set up the company, which bid successfully for the contract to collect and dispose of the borough’s garbage. Remco – the name didn’t actually mean anything, it just sounded good and like the sort of appellation a private company might have - wasn’t a big outfit, its catchment area was small as yet, but it was doing pretty well. He earned enough money to give his children what they wanted at Christmas and birthdays and for the family to go on holiday three times a year. As for the job itself, it was pretty unglamorous but someone had to do it. Of course he himself, being a manager, was insulated from all the stink and the filth in his comfortable office smelling of disinfectant painstakingly applied by Gloria. Though he still went out with the workforce from time to time to show that he was one of them. Along with the decent wages he paid them, it helped to keep them happy.
He had had no previous experience of running a company on his own. But yeah, things had been going alright until the incidents had started.
The police hadn’t been any damn use. Just said it would be investigated, but it would be difficult because no-one else seemed to have witnessed the incidents. Like hell they hadn’t. Someone must have seen or heard something, they were just too scared to sing out.
He sighed. It looked like he was going to have to fight this. He had no idea how, only knew that he couldn’t let it grind him down. He had already taken on new men to replace the ones who’d left, repaired the damage caused to company property. Yes, he was going to fight it and he knew his wife and kids would back him all the way, which made a lot of difference.
There came a knock on the door. “Ben?” he heard Gloria call. He went to open it.
“Ben, there’s a coupla guys want to talk to you. They say it’s urgent.”
“What’s it about?”
“They didn’t say. Just that it was urgent.”
“Where are they now?”
“Outside. If you speak to them through the Intercom – “
He went into the outer office and spoke into the grille on Gloria’s desk. “Hello? Heard you wanted to talk to me.”
“Mr Kowalski? We…we have some information concerning the attack on your home last night.”
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
“I, I don’t want to go to the police.” It sounded like the guy had one or two things to hide himself. But he seemed nervous, frightened. Ben hesitated for a beat or two, then said “OK, come in.”
“Is there anyone else in there with you?”
“There’s my secretary.”
“I’d rather see you alone if you don’t mind. It…it’s confidential.”
“Hang on.” He put the receiver down on the table and called out to Gloria. “Gloria, go take a break for a few minutes. Buy yourself a coffee and a hot dog. OK?”
Her eyebrows rose. “OK,” she said, not objecting despite her dedication to her job, but bemused. “I’ll be back about…three?”
“I expect we’ll be finished by then.”
She gave him a thumbs-up sign. “OK, see you later.”
Opening the door, she saw the two men who had been standing just outside it, caught the eye of one of them and smiled. He smiled back, stepping aside to let her go by.
And as she passed, turned sharply on his heels. She felt the movement, frowned for a second, then gave a muffled cry of shock as his hand, coming out of his pocket with the pad of chloroform in it, was clapped firmly over her mouth. She breathed in the thick, cloying fumes and at once everything went blank.
Ben addressed the Intercom again. “It’s OK, you can come in now.” He frowned at the slight delay before the door opened and they stepped into the room. “This way,” he said, and they followed him into his office.
“OK,” he said, gesturing to them to sit down. “You said you wanted to talk to me about the intimidation I and my workers have been subjected to these last few weeks. You had information I might be interested in.”
Neither of them accepted his offer of a seat. “Oh yeah,” one said. “Yeah, we know a lot about that alright.”
Ben stared at them.
“You did it, didn’t you,” he said slowly. Silently he cursed himself for a fool.
“Well, not personally,” one said. “But we know the people who did. Buddies of ours. We’re a big outfit, nice friendly bunch…”
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Mafia?”
“If you like.”
Ben rose slowly from his chair, trembling with anger. “My daughter opened the door to find the cat dead on the doorstep. She had that cat since it was a kitten…..it was her cat. And I guess it’s you who’ve been beating up my drivers.” Slashing the tyres on the garbage trucks and putting things in their petrol tanks so they wouldn’t start. Sending threatening telephone calls to his wife. And firebombing his house while everyone was in bed asleep; on that occasion they’d been lucky to have escaped with their lives.
“And you didn’t take the hint,” tutted the man, shaking his head slowly. “Well we can’t be held responsible for that, can we?”
He looked hard at them. “I wanted to start out on my own. I wanted to do well for myself.”
“And we offered to protect you from anyone trying to muscle in on your patch.” They had come to see him almost as soon as it was known there was a new kid on the block, offering help should rivals resort to sabotage and other dirty tactics in order to put him out of business. He had refused, knowing very well what was being proposed here. The following day the attacks had started.
“And what do you think YOU’RE doing?” he shouted.
“Ah but you see, Ben, it’s a lot simple when there’s only one operator in the business. It’s just that we know what we’re doing, whereas other people too often don’t. Deregulation; I was never that keen on it myself. Reaganomics…”
“I assure you I provide an efficient and reliable service to the citizens of this borough. I’ve had very few complaints.”
“With us as your business advisers you’ll do even better. You won’t get any.” Because folks will be too scared to complain, Ben thought. “And…well my point, my point is Ben, you must be worried about rivals. We’ll make sure they don’t even think about bidding for the contract next time it comes up for review.”
“That’s not how I want to do things,” he snapped. He liked to think Remco had the contract because they were good, not because their competitors had been scared off by bully boy tactics. That was no hallmark of quality, no object of pride. It was a degradation of everything he believed in.
“Oh yeah, I know who you are alright,” he told them. “What you are.”
“There’s still areas where we’re influential,” said the smaller man. “I mean both geographically and economically. You thought we were finished when you set up your little outfit, didn’t you? Big mistake.”
“And I guess you’ve got the police round here in your pocket.”
“Combination of that and letting people know what might happen if they decide they don’t like our business methods and say so. We’ve got to safeguard our interests like anyone else.”
“Where’s Gloria?” Ben demanded, suddenly fearful for her safety.
“Hog-tied round the back. We’d no idea how long this was going to take, you see, and we couldn’t risk her coming back and seeing everything. But we haven’t harmed her, don’t you worry.”
That wasn’t entirely true, as the scar on her face that Gloria would find she had acquired when she woke up testified. Since she had disobeyed the warnings not to continue working for Remco, they’d decided they might as well.
“Concerning yourself, Bob…well, you didn’t take the hint. The fire, we guessed you had smoke detectors and that they’d wake you up. We just wanted to scare you off. But now it looks like we’re going to have to go all the way.”
They moved with frightening speed, yanking him from the chair and wrestling him to the ground, one man holding him down while the other tied his hands and feet.
“What are you doing?” he howled. Sweat poured down his forehead at the thought of what they might have in store for him. A length of thick masking tape was torn off and wound around the lower part of his head, sealing his mouth. He felt himself being lifted and slung over the bigger man’s shoulder.
They carried him from the building and onto the tarmac apron behind it where the fleet of sanitation trucks was parked. Then towards the nearest of the trucks. To his horror, he thought he could see what they were going to do.
The crusher was up and a third man stood by the controls, his hand poised over the lever that turned it on.
Muffled screams issued from beneath the masking tape as panic overwhelmed Bob. They made not the slightest impression on his assailants. He was dumped roughly in the back of the truck, rolling a few inches along the floor. At once he tried to stand up, but it was impossible to gain the leverage and he simply flopped about like a stranded fish, struggling in vain against the ropes and the masking tape and issuing muffled curses and obscenities from beneath the latter.
“Nice to have met you, Bob,” the man at the controls smiled. “Sorry it was so short.”
The most Bob could manage was to get to his knees. From this position he saw the man press the button. Next moment his bladder and bowels evacuated themselves.
He heard the whine of hydraulics, the grinding sound of the mechanism in operation as the huge sheet of metal swung down, propelled by the twin pistons of the electrically-operated ram. The square of daylight shrank until he was plunged into darkness, then the steel box in which he found himself imprisoned began to shrink too. Desperately, seeking to prolong his life for another few seconds, he scrambled backwards toward the far wall of the compartment, trying to use his buttocks for leverage. When this didn’t really work he rolled instead. He came up against the wall and pressed himself as tightly to it as possible, in the frenzied hope that this might save his life. He turned his face away from the advancing metal surface as it travelled remorselessly towards him with a sound like a hungry monster devouring its prey.
Then when it was mere inches from him it stopped moving, a shuddering tremor running through it. He slumped down, sobbing with relief. There followed the ghastly thought that they were merely toying with him, and would start it up again in a moment; then the wall of metal retreated, rising back up into the open position. They hauled him out and dumped him on the ground at their feet. He was shaking uncontrollably, his nerves shot to pieces, his clothes soiled and sodden with sweat and urine. They waited for him to get over the worst of it.
“Next time it’ll be for real,” one of them said. “You want to work for us, that’s fine. Or maybe you feel a change of job might be on the cards. We don’t much care what you decide as long as you don’t go singing to the cops. That wouldn’t do you a lot of good anyway, round here, but we aren’t taking any chances. ‘Bye now.” They left him to untie himself.
He stared after them, continuing to stare for a long time after they’d gone; in the end crushed not physically but by the realisation that after what had just happened he didn’t have the guts, just didn’t, to take a stand against it. In a way that was just as bad.

“You should have seen his face,” laughed Frankie Liddell. “Oh boy, was he mad! I’ve never seen anyone so mad. Jesus Christ…”
“Who was she?” asked the man he was speaking to on the phone, a business associate.
“Some Brit woman. Had two guys with her, I dunno who they were. That’s all I know.”
“He got upstaged by a broad?”
“Yeah! He must still be pretty mad about it. She slapped his face…in public. And those scratches…my God…Jeez, I knew a woman’s fingernails could do a lot of damage but…”
Liddell heard the doorbell ring. “’Scuse me a moment.”
It was Scarlione, with Vito standing beside him and Charlie hovering in the background. ”Frankie,” Scarlione said, “I’d a like a little word with you if that’s alright.”
“Sure, Sal,” said Liddell. “Come on in.” He returned to the phone. “Sorry, Mart, got to go. Something important to see to. Talk to you later.” He replaced the receiver.
“Frankie,” said Scarlione softly. “Heard you’ve been going around telling everyone how funny it was when that blonde bitch showed me up in Maxie’s the other night.”
Liddell went cold. For a moment panic almost got the better of him, then on an impulse he decided to brazen it out. “Well, I mean you gotta admit it was pretty…” His voice tailed away.
Scarlione’s voice was unnaturally calm. “Was pretty what, Frankie?”
“I mean…” Liddell’s courage failed him. “Look, Sal, I’m sorry if I cut you up the wrong way. I guess I don’t blame you for being pissed off with me. If anyone’s going round saying you’re a laughing stock because of this, all I can say it’s pretty mean of them.”
“It’s exactly what you’ve been doing. You’ve been telling all your friends what a dork I’ve been made to look, laughing your sweet head off over it just as they have. Only reason you’re licking my ass is because you can see I’m so sore about it. That’s not good enough, Frankie, I want loyalty. And that’s why I’m disappointed in you. I shouldn’t have to do this to make sure you stay in line.”
While he’d been talking to Scarlione Liddell hadn’t noticed Charlie come and stand beside him, as had probably been the intention. Now Charlie took hold of his hand, swallowing it up in his, knuckling the fingers and bunching them into a ball.
Charlie squeezed, gradually increasing the pressure. Liddell screamed out in agony; a shrill, high-pitched scream like a woman’s. Not only were his fingernails being forced painfully into the palm of his hand, but the very bones were on fire with searing agony. He was sure he could hear them cracking. He twisted and tugged in a desperate attempt to wrench himself from Charlie’s grip. “Ah, no Sal! Ah, for Chrissakes get him off me, please! Ahhhhh…oh shit…oh my God! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh….” Vito Scarlione looked on without expression, while his father’s eyes gleamed in vicious satisfaction.
At the sound of the bone splintering Charlie let go and Liddell staggered away from him, doubled up, clutching at his broken knuckles and shrieking. Gradually the mist of pain cleared, and through it he heard Scarlione’s voice. “When the doctor asks you how it happened, tell him whatever you like. Just remember this, Frankie. You go to the police about this, I’m gonna arrange for something nasty to happen to that little daughter of yours. Got that? And you tell all your friends that if I hear they’ve been crapping themselves laughing because some Brit princess bad-mouthed me, they’ll get the same as you. Or worse.”
Liddell collapsed into a chair, sobbing and wailing like a child. Silently Scarlione and his companions left, closing the door. Once he’d recovered his composure Liddell glared after them, eyes smouldering in helpless rage.
Outside they took their seats in the black limousine they called the company car. Charlie was to drive.
“Shame we had to do that,” said Vito as they buckled up.
“I guess it is,” his father growled. “But like you say, we had to do it.” A prominent local businessman with his own considerable private army of henchmen, Liddell had his uses as a fixer. But like everyone else, he had to be disciplined whenever he stepped out of line. “There’s guys in this organisation who want to get rid of me, you can bet. I can’t afford to be shown up like I was last night.”
The car started off. “Dad, everyone knows where they stand,” Vito insisted. “They’ll get the message, especially after what we did to Liddell. They’re all too scared to lift a finger against you. Look, I know you’re feeling mean right now because you can’t be sure our, our new project is going to work out OK. I feel the same way. But it will work out, you’ll see. And as for the business with the girl, everyone’ll forget about it given time.”
“Hope so,” Scarlione muttered darkly.
“I mean, in a hundred years’ time – “
“I’m not gonna wait a hundred years. By the way, you did have a little word with Mario and tell him it isn’t a good idea to laugh when someone lips me the way she did?”
“You bet, Dad. He said you ought to see the funny side.” Scarlione bristled, drawing himself up. “I mean, she’s got guts, you have to admit.”
Scarlione swung round on him suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“Chill out, Dad. I docked Mario’s pay. And I warned him he wouldn’t last long in this outfit unless he learned to treat you with respect. Next time he’s dead, of course.”
Finally Scarlione nodded, satisfied. But there was silence in the car from then on, until Vito’s cellphone rang.
Listening to what the caller had to say, he broke into a wide grin. “That’s great. I’ll let the boss know. Stay on the line in case he wants to speak to you.”
Scarlione tensed, shifting to the edge of his seat. “What is it?”
Vito’s eyes, gleaming delightedly, met his father’s. “It’s up and running,” he said, breathless with excitement. “The Project. Fully operational. Online. They’ve tested everything and it works. We’re in business, folks!”
In an instant Scarlione’s manner completely changed. His eyes lit up and he smiled. For the time being he forgot about Caroline Kent. His gloom thoroughly dispelled, he punched the air with a yell of triumph. They both did.
You wouldn’t appreciate it right now, thought Scarlione. But we’re very grateful to you, Dr Amata.

Some months later
The four men sat around a table in what had been the study of a Victorian gentleman, a prosperous farmer with extensive lands in the area and a generous patron of the local church. The place where had once stood a mahogany escritoire was now taken by a hideous-looking desk coated in some green plastic material, on which sat one of those pen holders like the Giant’s Causeway, of matching colour with the desk, along with a computer and printer, flatbed scanner, mobile phone and fax machine. The walls were lined with video cabinets and bookcases, and the matter on display was of a sort which would probably have made the Victorian gentleman explode in righteous wrath. There were complete sets of Men Only, Club International and Penthouse, along with some titles that weren’t supposed to be legally available. A few pages from a Pirelli calendar had been turned into framed prints which were the only form of decoration, apart from the garish psychedelic zigzag-patterned wallpaper.
Joe Hickman leaned back in his chair at the head of the table, a posture which had the effect of forcing his burgeoning paunch downwards so that it resembled the pendulous breast of an old woman. His smooth, almost hairless dome of a skull gleamed in the shaft of bright sunlight from the window as if the bare bone was itself exposed. Other things which gleamed were the enormous gold watch Hickman was wearing and the jewelled bangle on his other wrist. The air was thick with cigarette smoke.
“So,” Hickman said. “We’re bringing them in evening of next Tuesday, the 27th. Agreed?”
The East European, a tall gaunt-featured man named Gheorghiu, nodded. “Everything should be ready by then.” The lorry would arrive at Calais around mid-afternoon and at approximately six o’clock drive onto the train that would convey the vehicle and its contents along the Channel Tunnel to Dover. The cleverly constructed false compartment should hopefully conceal from the prying eyes of the customs people at either end what its trailer contained in addition to the cargo of meat it was officially registered to be carrying. As an additional precaution, one or two people had been found who could be paid to turn a blind eye. Having gone through Customs, the vehicle would stay overnight at a lorry park at the port and then, early the following morning when it was still dark, go on to a warehouse on the outskirts of south-east London where it would discharge the human part of its cargo before delivering the frozen meat to the superstore. The people would remain at the warehouse, one of a number of “reception centres” Hickman had established around the south-east for his illegal immigrants, until all the arrangements for them to start their new life in Britain were in place.
“So once they’re over here, what happens exactly?” asked Ray Selnick, a stocky fair-haired man, anxiously. “I’ll need to be sure no-one’s gonna ask questions.”
“Don’t worry, Ray,” said Vidler, the tough-looking Eastender with the scarred face who acted as Hickman’s general Number Two, as well as having various specialised functions within his organisation. “I can fix them up with fake IDs, work permits. Make sure they get the right benefits.” After that they were on their own, which wasn’t a problem since they’d be having a cushy time of it, much better than many of the indigenous population who were on the dole or low incomes. The men would, anyway. The girls would find over half their earnings creamed off by their employers, depending on where they finished up – certainly Hickman would want his cut for helping to supply them - but they were unlikely to make a fuss even though Hickman didn’t imagine they’d be happy at the situation in the least. To put it in a nutshell, the men would have nothing to complain about and the women would be too frightened. Make sure they’re alone and afraid in a country whose language they know only a few words of; that was the trick. And for Christ’s sake, Hickman thought, it was their own fucking fault if they were stupid enough to be duped like that, so where was the sense in blaming him?
There was however one thing he needed to establish before they proceeded much further. “Do they know each other?” It might cause undesirable complications if they did. Often, once one of them heard that a free passage to a better life in the UK was to be had, a group of friends would try to go over together; even if it could be arranged so that each made the journey separately from the others, they might afterwards want to know what had happened to their associates, where they were living, so they could stay in touch in the new country. If they found out the truth or got an evasive answer it could set alarm bells ringing and then someone might go to the police, if they were brave enough.
“The men do.” But they weren’t really where the potential problem lay. “The girls are strangers to them and to each other.”
Hickman nodded his approval. “That’s the way we want it,” he said brightly. “So – the girls. What do you think, Ray?”
Selnick considered for a moment. “Nice arse on the older one, and she’s not bad in the tit department either. Reckon she’ll do for our outfit, or I could sell her on for a decent profit.” There were establishments in Soho, and elsewhere in the country, who were constantly on the look out for new pole- or table-dancers, since for their customers variety was the spice of life. Or who catered for those men who wanted to touch and not just look, and whose appetite might only be whetted by what was termed a “private dance.”
“And the other?”
“Nah, she’s too skinny.”
“Some blokes like that sort of thing.”
“She’s flat-chested and her hair’s dyed. I tell you, I don’t think she’s right for the meat trade.”
Hickman glanced at the Rumanian. “What about – “
Gheorghiu nodded. “She’s healthy enough. Yes, I should think so.”
With a serious native shortage of donors, there were those in Britain who would pay handsomely for a replacement liver or kidneys for themselves or a loved one, without inquiring where it might have come from.
The men could be put to work in illegal, back street businesses making clothes and other commodities for low wages, the main cost to their employers being the generous payment Hickman expected for supplying them. Considering the poor quality of the product its cost on the shelf or a street trader’s stall might be considered exorbitant, but small businesses often had to charge higher prices to make ends meet and if nothing ever broke or wore out and had to be replaced then everyone’d go bust, wouldn’t they? Use your fucking brain.
“Right, so it’s all settled. You’re sure the driver’s kosher?” It wasn’t uncommon for organisations like Hickman’s to run this kind of operation without the knowledge of the lorry driver or indeed anyone at the haulage company. It could be pulled off if you were clever, and careful, enough but not always. Unless the driver was in on it there was risk he might suspect something and take a closer look at what he was supposed to be carrying, leading to a prison sentence for all those involved in the scam. Hickman no longer took such chances.
“He’s kosher all right,” Vidler confirmed. “Mate of mine. And he knows what’ll happen if he talks.”
Hickman nodded briefly. “OK, so it’s settled then.” He looked at Gheorghiu. “Oh, one last thing. They’ll be right next to the refrigerator where they are. Make sure they don’t freeze to death.” That had actually happened on one such operation. Or, sometimes, they had tried to cram in too many and several had suffocated. In any case the conditions the human cargo would have to endure would be cramped, stuffy and uncomfortable, with toilet facilities rudimentary to say the least, but Hickman didn’t care. His main concern was that he didn’t deplete his assets to the point where overall profits were significantly reduced.
“You OK with everything then, Ray?” Hickman asked Selnick.
“Seems like you’ve got it all sorted,” the blond man commented with approval. “I don’t think the boss will have any cause to complain.” Selnick was the representative of a gangster who owned a string of brothels and strip clubs and had a long-standing relationship with Hickman’s gang by which the crimelord provided him with the girls from Eastern Europe who these days were his bread-and-butter. He had been checked out and pronounced clean, from the gangster’s point of view anyway.
But he wasn’t “clean”.
It had not proved possible to break into the house and plant bugs. So the police had tried a different approach. Beneath “Selnick’s” shirt was a body belt to which was clipped a miniature radio receiver recording every word spoken at the meeting and relaying it to the Operations Room at New Scotland Yard.
Minute by minute, the evidence against Conrad Joseph Hickman was mounting.

Mrs Dorothy Westernheimer stood on the doorstep of her ground floor apartment and looked out into the street, surveying the scene before her with approval. Not a scrap of litter in sight. At the best of times the district of grim tenement blocks where she’d lived all her life was a little depressing – though it was her home all the same - but it made such a difference when the waste disposal was efficiently executed. And the garbage men were so nice, so polite and helpful and friendly, not like so many other people these days.
Nearby two men had just finished unloading the last of the bins on her side of the street into the compactor at the rear of their truck. One of them caught her eye and greeted her cheerfully. “Hi, Mrs Westernheimer! How’s your grandkid’s measles?”
“Oh, he’s much better now, thankyou.”
“Glad to hear it. Say, did you see the Chicago Redskins last night?” Mrs Westernheimer was a fan.
“Five-nil,” the old lady said disgustedly, shaking her head. “I must say I’m ashamed of the Dolphins. They’ve rather gone to the dogs lately.”
“Oh, but you should have seen them against the Yankees last Tuesday. Reckon they just hit a bad patch, that’s all. ’Bye now!” He climbed into the cab of his truck, his partner joined him, and they drove off down the street, their work done for the day. Dorothy gazed after them with a smile.
The rubbish was always collected on time, without leaving a scrap behind, and they didn’t seem to have any trouble with strikes. Mind you it had been the same with the previous outfit, which was why their sudden disappearance from the scene puzzled her. She’d heard one or two rumours about the new bunch, about why Remco had closed down, which had disquieted her for a time. But they surely couldn’t be true. Malicious lies spread by competitors, most likely. In the end Dorothy wasn’t sure she cared. They were doing the job properly, and that was all that mattered.





Three
As Vito Scarlione drove his hired car up to the gate at the entrance to the driveway his eyes travelled over the imposing red brick frontage of the big former farmhouse, with its modern extension built on. Vito knew enough about architecture and history to guess that the original building must be eighteenth century, erected at about the time his country was fighting its war of independence against Britain. He thought of it as “his” country, though he was equally proud of his family’s Italian roots. It did seem to him that they mattered increasingly less as the years went by, but he didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. He suspected it was still important to his father, and had been even more so to the first and second generation of immigrants as they made their way in the New World, getting by through and drawing comfort from the old traditional networks and community support structures. But how much it mattered, and ought to matter, to him personally was a moot point. He didn’t feel he was advancing the interests and increasing the influence within society of a particular ethnic and cultural group so much as keeping alive a tradition, one it was nice to feel yourself a part of even if a lot of it was nostalgia for times you never knew.
The house looked quite grand, all in all, though the extension, which had probably been built in defiance of planning regulations, clashed with it uncomfortably, the brickwork of a different colour and clearly made by machine rather than by hand. Not that the owner of the house had bothered about that sort of thing when commissioning the work.
Here out on the Essex marshes it was lonely, which suited Joe Hickman. The landscape had its own kind of bleak attractiveness, but Hickman wasn’t concerned about the aesthetics of the natural environment, any more than he was about the quality of the built one. As long as the house had all the mod cons, as long as he could live in the style and to the standard to which he felt himself entitled, and as long as he was isolated enough from the city to somehow feel safe from the law’s attentions.
Now that agriculture in the UK was becoming less important, a lot of farms were being sold off and the houses snapped up by property developers who modernised them ruthlessly before putting them on the market. The premises now boasted a satellite dish, a swimming pool, a table tennis court and riding range. Some of this Vito had seen from the road long before he neared the house, some he was already aware of from the extensive research his father always commissioned into prospective clients.
He got out and pressed the button on the gatepost. A moment later a voice issued from the grille beneath it. “Yeah?” it demanded. Vito announced himself.
After a pause the voice said “OK,” and Vito heard a click, followed by the whine of the electronics as the gate swung slowly open, allowing him to drive onto the forecourt of the house. He alighted from the car and stood waiting for a moment or two.
The front door opened and Hickman stood there, a smoking cigarette in his hand. He muttered something Vito didn’t catch and gestured to indicate the American could come in. As he reached the threshold Hickman turned and led him down the hallway to a door which stood open on the left. Once in the room Vito was told to take a seat.
Hickman raised his voice. “Tyson!” he called. “Hagler!”
There came an answering bark, and the sound of a pair of large dogs racing each other down the hallway. They bounded into the room and at Hickman’s command seated themselves, front paws crossed before them, just a few inches from Vito’s chair. Vito contemplated them briefly before catching their eye and averting his gaze sharply, afraid of what might happen if he seemed to stare. He could tell from the shape of the sleek, evil-looking heads that they were Rottweilers. Devil dogs, he thought. The Romans had bred them to take down lions in the amphitheatre, lions for fuck’s sake. And they had no facial expression, so you couldn’t tell what mood they were in. They were unpredictable, even more so than other dogs. He and other leading members of the Family kept Dobermanns, German Shepherds and bull terriers as a necessary precaution against burglars and none of those were the sort of beast you got on the wrong side of if you were smart, but Rottweilers….He marvelled at someone who could actually like them and quite happily keep them as pets, letting them stroll around the house as they pleased, as if they were like any other dog, any other animal.
By now Hickman too was seated, and sizing Vito up with his cold, piercing eyes. “Mafia,” he said slowly. “I thought you guys were finished.”
“I’d say reports of our demise are exaggerated. We’re still around, and we’ve got a proposition to make to you. I came to your outfit because it’s the biggest in London, maybe in the whole of the UK. Wouldn’t make sense not cutting you in.”
Hickman nodded slowly. “Suppose not. OK, shoot.”
He listened in something like astonishment as Vito outlined what Salvatore Scarlione had in mind. He didn’t know whether to be angry or to laugh. Eventually he decided that the sheer nerve of what Vito was suggesting, its offensiveness as he saw it, was the central issue. “Fuck off,” he snarled. “I’m not taking orders from a bunch who are finished, kaput, screwed, yesterday’s news. Even if you weren’t I wouldn’t do it. I’m not against us working together, if you’ve got something in mind that could be to our mutual benefit. But right now I’d say you’re pushing your luck. Sorry, it’s a no-go. Me and my boys are doing absolutely fucking fantastic right now, and we don’t want to split the dosh with anyone else. We’d hardly, with everything going so well. Nor would you.”
“There’ll be so much money, and for everyone, if this gets off the ground that your share of the profits, if you decide to come in with us, will increase proportionately. You can’t lose.”
Hickman made a short, sharp, savage gesture. ”Not interested. I’m not so stupid as to think there are no benefits in it for me. I know there are and I still don’t give a fuck. It’s our thing, right? Just like you call your own outfit. Our thing.”
The rottweilers shifted, restless, and Vito wondered if they’d picked up on their master’s hostility towards him. He chose his words carefully.
“OK,” he said slowly. “Well I guess I don’t blame you being sore about playing second fiddle. Thing is, I’m convinced it’s in your interests, and in those of everyone concerned. In a little while you’ll see why it might not be wise to turn our offer down.”
“You threatening me, mate?” If Vito was, he’d regret it.
“No,” said Vito. “You won’t come to any actual harm. It wouldn’t be fair anyway. You’re not likely to see the sense in what I’m proposing until you’ve had a little demonstration of our…influence.“
“Yeah, well I’ll look forward to it.” Hickman chuckled drily. “I mean…you trying to make me laugh? There’s no way anyone could do that kind of thing. It’s crazy and it hasn’t got a hope of succeeding, which means that apart from anything else you’re wasting my time, dickhead. Well I’ve told you what I think of your “proposal”. You’d better fuck off out of here while you’re still in one piece.” He glanced significantly at the two Rottweilers.
Vito got to his feet, his expression deadpan. Without speaking, Hickman showed him to his car. He stood in the doorway, not budging from there until he saw the vehicle disappear from sight. Then he went back into the house.
He lounged by the pool for a while, had a brief swim followed by a session in the gym. He knew he was becoming seriously unfit and feared that with physical decline his authority over his associates, and his victims, might diminish. Then he decided it was time for another check on how well his organisation was doing financially. He went back into his “office” and turned on the computer. He called up the menu screen, found the file he wanted and clicked on it. The screen changed and Hickman was presented with a run-down of the profits from the drug trafficking, the immigration scam, the knocking shops and strip joints, the organ trade, the protection rackets, everything. He pretty much knew what he’d see but he still liked to gloat over it. Yes…all looking good.
Hickman was a millionaire, albeit unofficially, and he’d got to that stage without being born with a silver spoon in his mouth or having to answer questions from fucking Chris Tarrant. There was enough to keep it all going for the rest of his life, as long as he was careful not to leave too much evidence of his activities behind him. High-class prozzies in abundance, holidays in exotic places, creature comforts many people born into much more advantageous circumstances could only dream of; and finally a comfortable retirement somewhere like the Costa del Sol. Ah, life was just fucking brilliant!
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the screen flickered and changed again. “What the fuck…” Hickman exclaimed.
He was back to the menu, the directory of all the files currently held on the computer. Frowning, he was about to return to the “Proceeds” document when he noticed something which froze him cold in horror.
Beneath the name of each file was given the number of bytes it amounted to. Apparently, the Proceeds file consisted of approximately 0 bytes.
In other words, it was empty.
Not only that, but all the others were the same.
Although he knew what this meant he began clicking on each file in succession, in a desperate bid to convince himself it wasn’t true. He got the same result every time. Just a blank page.
They’d all gone; the proceeds from his various operations, his holiday snaps, the photos of him and his mates on their stag nights or celebrating having pulled off another haul…shrugging, arms spread wide with the palms upturned, he stared at the computer in helpless bewilderment. “What…woss going on?” he gasped, addressing the question to no-one in particular.
Then it clicked.
“Ah, you fucking Yank-Wop cunt,” he snarled. His voice rose to a shout of pure, hate-filled rage. “You arsehole!”
Babs, his wife, a highlighted blonde in her early thirties, came running in. “Joe, what’s the matter? I heard you shouting – “
“You don’t wanna know,” he told her. Like all women she would gossip. The less she knew about the business side of his activities the better. “Just a problem with the computer, all my fucking files have gone down. I’ll get Jonty to sort it out. Hang on…“ A large blue square had appeared in the centre of the screen. On it white capital letters began to form. Babs came to stand beside him and peer at them. ”I said you don’t want to know,” he hissed. She left him, seeing the sense in such a policy. What she didn’t know she couldn’t be personally blamed for, hopefully.
Hickman read the message on the screen. TOLD YOU IT MIGHT NOT BE A GOOD IDEA TO TURN US DOWN!
The letters vanished, and new ones appeared in their place. WE CAN READ YOUR FILES, CORRUPT THEM, WIPE AND THEN RESTORE THEM, WHENEVER WE WANT. WE CAN CONTROL ANYTHING YOUR COMPUTER DOES, AT ANY TIME.
He got the Menu screen again. To his relief he saw that all the files were back. The blue message box superimposed itself over the list. IF YOU LOOK YOU’LL NOTICE A FEW THAT WEREN’T THERE BEFORE. The box vanished and he saw that tagged on at the end of the list were a number of files that no, he hadn’t created himself and which shouldn’t be there. He selected one at random, called simply “1”, and clicked on the icon.
With a mixture of alarm, disgust, and a certain horrified fascination which made him feel embarrassed, he found himself looking at images of children, some naked and some wearing what seemed to be swimming costumes, being forced to take part in intimate sexual acts. It was a website used by a paedophile ring. There were a number of links on the homepage and simple curiosity might, he supposed, have led him to find out more, to learn something of how these characters went about their sordid trade, the mental world they inhabited. But…
In his estimation the police were pretty useless nowadays. He would have said that anyway because he naturally didn’t like them, even though they were often rendered ineffectual by the stupid laws that hamstrung them - and of which he shamelessly took advantage. But even they would drop everything and come down on him like a hundred-ton weight if they found out he was looking at kiddie porn.
He tried to delete the file, but nothing happened; no dialog box appeared asking if he really wanted to ditch it. He felt panic start to come over him.
The images suddenly disappeared, and he was back to the menu screen once more. He tried again to delete the file from the directory and this time succeeded, almost sobbing with relief.
The blue box was back. NOW CHECK YOUR OTHER FILES.
He did. They all seemed to be corrupted. Photographs were blurred and indistinct and text had been replaced by a jumble of characters some of which didn’t seem to belong to any known language.
A ripple ran across the screen as they changed back to what they had been before, resolving themselves into proper English.
ARE WE IN BUSINESS? said the blue box. IF WE ARE, SEND AN E-MAIL TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, OR WE’LL LET THE BRITISH POLICE KNOW ABOUT YOUR RECENTLY ACQUIRED INTEREST IN LITTLE BOYS. THE CHOICE IS YOURS, JOE. LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU.
Hickman stared at the message. Filled with a sudden savage resolution, he smashed his clenched fist down on the desk. “Yeah, well we’ll fucking see about that,” he snapped, and picked up the phone.

In his car heading towards Heathrow Vito grinned at the thought of the shock Hickman had just received. It shouldn’t be long before he was brought into line. Meanwhile, there were a few more visits to make. To France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Holland – the drug, prostitution and child porn rackets – Denmark, Sweden, Greece. His grand European tour. Simultaneously other fixers would be concentrating on the former Eastern bloc countries and Russia, before moving on to China and Japan. The thing would spread gradually from those centres, as the big players – like the Yakuza, the Triads, the Russian Mafiya - snapped up those in the countries adjoining their homelands.
He knew what to do in the event of anyone objecting. Let the authorities know what their plans were, and where their leading members lived if the information wasn’t on police files. His father had considered using the tactic to completely destroy all the various organisations so that the Mob would have direct control of all international criminal enterprises. But it was better to let them remain in existence and make use of their resources, their expertise. Against other criminals the technology was to be used primarily to blackmail; even if Salvatore Scarlione would never consider involving the Mafia itself in the child pornography trade, those who lacked such scruples could find their sordid practices used as a weapon against them.
By such methods, an empire would be built which would far surpass in extent anything that had ever been achieved by political or military means. And one day, Vito reflected with a warm thrill of pride, all of it would be his.
*
Jonty Slade was the best in the business, and nowadays an indispensable requirement for an organisation like Hickman’s. There was nothing he didn’t know about computers. To him they were everything, a toy he could play with for hours on end without getting bored, a turn-on he found vastly more satisfying than drugs or sex or alcohol. In their modern form they were the greatest achievement of the later twentieth century, far surpassing the ultimately pointless, in his opinion, putting of a man on the Moon. They could do virtually everything, and as far as he was concerned were everything. The guy was a geek, so obsessed with cyberspace that he didn’t bother questioning the morality of what went on there – fortunately. He was a tall, pale, skinny young man not long out of college, with lank dark hair and enormous spectacles not unlike those worn by the Thunderbirds character Brains. He looked so placid, scholarly, harmless that no-none ever suspected he could possibly be involved in any way with organised crime; which had always been his strength.
First he checked there’d been no further penetration of the computer by the Mafia’s virus. Then he got down to work, inserting various discs into the slot in the tower and copying their content to the computer; calling up an assortment of programs and sub-programs and either overwriting them or deleting them from the directory. The job took him about an hour, during all of which time Hickman watched with an almost inhuman patience and stillness, arms folded, eyes staring fixedly over Jonty’s shoulder at the screen of the computer.
“That should do it,” he said finally. “I’ve built in about as many firewalls as the system has capacity for. All the ones anyone’s ever designed. You should be OK now.”
“Thanks, Jont,” grunted Hickman. He still sounded uneasy. Twenty-four hours until the Mafia’s deadline expired…the first indication that it hadn’t worked would be a visit from the Scotland Yard vice squad. Christ, if he did end up in prison he’d never be safe.
Maybe he ought to do as Vito Scarlione wanted after all?
Jonty glanced at him curiously. “You alright?”
“’Course I’m alright,” Hickman snapped. He seated himself at the keyboard and called up the list of files, more on a whim than anything else.
His jaw dropped. As before, the number of bytes for each document was zero. There was nothing at all on the computer except for the child pornography site, which was back. Nor could he gain access to the Internet.
By now the pattern of events had become established. The kiddie porn site vanished and his deleted files came back; so did the abominable blue box. SORRY, JOE. YOUR COMPUTER PROGRAMMER’S GOOD, BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH. WE, WE’RE THE BEST. WHATEVER FIREWALLS YOU BUILD TO KEEP US OUT, WE WILL KNOCK DOWN. NO-ONE ELSE HAS THE KIND OF EQUIPMENT WE ARE USING TO DO THIS.
They’d known, straight away, that he’d put the firewalls in. “I don’t get it,” murmured Jonty, both puzzled and upset by this defeat. He relished a challenge until he failed to overcome it, something which until now had never really happened. “I just don’t understand.”
NEXT TIME WE WIPE THE FILES, THEY STAY WIPED. SO I REALLY THINK IT WOULD BE WISE FOR YOU TAKE UP THE OFFER WE MADE TO YOU EARLIER TODAY. YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU, LA COSA NOSTRA. “OUR THING”.
“I’ve never come across anything like this before,” said Jonty, collapsing into a spare chair. His chagrin had been replaced by a kind of admiration. “If they really can do this, no-one’s safe.”
Hickman stared at the message on the screen for a long time. “Shit,” he said eventually. “Fucking shit.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You really can’t work out how to get round this?”
“No. They must be using something pretty advanced. What it is I haven’t a clue. I wasn’t too sure before. Only thing I can say is that it probably originated in America, because they’ve got the most advanced equipment. That’s about all.”
Hickman’s fingers beat a tattoo on the desk. Maybe eventually Jonty could find a way to get round it. In the meantime, these people were going to cause him all sorts of problems if he didn’t do what they told him.
“Well,” he muttered, “I don’t see that we’ve got any choice. For the moment we’ve got to go along with what they want.”
“And see what we can get out of it?”
“Uh-huh.” That, on the whole, made more sense. These people obviously knew what they were doing. Despite the hold they had over him, they must know what they were proposing wouldn’t really work unless he could be assured of a decent share of the rich pickings.
It had better be bloody good, he thought.



















Four
At his ranch near Dallas Senator Jerry Rothwell was on the phone. “You got it all sewn up?” asked the caller.
“I think so. My vote should clinch it.” If Rothwell declared his intention to do that which the caller had indicated would be most advantageous to his friends, then so would the voting bloc in Congress which tended to follow his lead. There would follow a relaxation in the planning laws which would enable the caller’s associate to build his power station regardless of the environmental lobby’s concerns.
“You’ve spoken to all the other waverers?”
“Uh-huh. But if it goes to the Supreme Court?”
“Don’t worry, we’ve taken care of that.”
“Now if we could discuss payment? Five hundred thousand pounds directly into my account. You’ve got the details.”
Of course we have, the caller was thinking with a grin. It occurred to him that they could get away with not bothering to pay the money at all, these days. Best to keep Rothwell happy, though. He had no choice other than to obey them anyway, but let him find that out in his own time.
After finishing with Rothwell Tony D’Enrico, alias Bob Devereux, rang another prominent Senator to discuss another Bill due to go before Congress the following week. “Frank, we think it’s important full diplomatic and commercial relations are restored between the US and those countries as soon as possible. I know we’ve had our differences with them in the past, but the world’s a different place from what it was twenty years ago. And I’ve a number of clients who are looking to expand their business overseas and would lose out if they didn’t have this opportunity.”
D’Enrico would see to the parcelling out of the contracts separately.
“I got the message,” said the Senator wearily. He sounded a little pissed-off.
“You’ll get a good return on your investment. All the same, Frank, I’d better remind you what’ll happen if you should experience a sudden attack of conscience.”
“There’s no need to threaten me,” said the Senator indignantly. “I’ve always been happy to go along with this, you know that.”
“Sure, I know that. ‘Bye, Frank.”
D’Enrico consulted his diary to see what else he had to attend to that day. Thornton had to be persuaded to stand down as chairman of the Congressional Committee on Law and Order; the aim was to replace him with Dowling, who wouldn’t be quite so effective. The hotel people wanted the contract to build that place in London; Vito could see to that, or Joe Hickman. It seemed Eckstein, fearful with good reason that Scarlione was after him, had changed his identity and gone underground somewhere, but they had one or two good leads and could probably track him down fairly easily. Once Hickman had finished with a certain business whose resolution he considered long overdue.

Ronnie Bowker was no angel. He’d beaten people up himself, in one case leaving the victim permanently crippled; then there had been instances of rape, pimping, robbery with violence. It had been a personal dislike of Hickman, who in his estimation had not given him as big a cut as he deserved of the proceeds from that bank raid, which had led Ronnie to grass. Hickman had accused him of “always whingeing”, blamed him for messing up a couple of jobs – unfairly, Bowker felt - and seemed to be leaving him out of the planning for any major operation. So, feeling enough was enough, he’d gone to the cops and given them the names and addresses of the other people involved in the robbery, during which bank staff had been tied up and threatened with one or two afterwards suffering recurring nightmares as a result. They’d all got thirty years, depriving Hickman of some of his ablest and most trusted lieutenants. There hadn’t been enough evidence to convict the ganglord himself, largely because all the accused were too scared to supply it. And Hickman was always careful to remain the shadowy, nameless figure behind the scenes, ultimately responsible for everything that happened but never identifiable with certainty – at least, there was never any proof of his guilt that would be legally admissible. Perhaps also it was a case of thieves’ honour.
So Joe Hickman was safe from arrest. But Bowker’s action had ruined one of his most promising and potentially lucrative ventures. And though Hickman was always careful to reward favours, he never forgot a betrayal either.
Ronnie could have sought police protection. But he had no desire to live the rest of his life a virtual prisoner. He decided to take another route.
He had plastic surgery and grew a beard, took to wearing glasses. He got an associate to make a false passport and other documents to create a whole new identity for himself. Using his reward money, plus the fifty grand he’d had stashed away that the police didn’t know about, he went to the Spanish embassy, applied for Spanish citizenship, bought a villa in the hills overlooking the Costa del Sol and caught the first available plane out of Gatwick to Madrid. He took with him just a few possessions and sold off the rest, along with his house in Peckham; anything to do with his former life had to be destroyed, for there must be no way Hickman could trace him. All documents that could give a clue to where he’d gone were burned in a massive bonfire the night before he left Britain. He’d seen to the whole thing as quickly as possible, so that no-one who might be after him had time to realise what he was up to.
Ronnie was now enjoying what he considered a well-earned retirement, spent mostly relaxing in the sun, boozing in the nightclubs of Malaga and pursuing women of easy virtue, whether prostitutes or tourists. He was careful to tank up with Viagra and the house had a gym, which he used to keep himself in good shape with the result that unlike most men in their sixties he could still wear trunks and not look silly.
Right now he was stretched out on a sunbed by the pool, which Carmen, his housekeeper, had cleaned that morning and whose surface gleamed brilliantly in the noonday sun, as did the sea a couple of miles away in the distance. Apart from Rita, his German shepherd bitch, he was alone in the house; Carmen, who worked mornings only, had gone home and Julia, the woman forty years his junior with whom he currently lived, was out shopping. Meant he was getting some peace and quiet.
Which was suddenly disturbed by a furious barking from Rita. “Oy, shut it,” he shouted.
The dog failed to heed his command. She sounded increasingly agitated. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” With a sigh Bowker lifted himself from the sunbed and went to investigate. It sounded like she was out the front, in the garden, and had become excited by something she saw there. Well as long as he could calm her down and stop her making that awful racket he didn’t give a toss what it was. Nothing to worry about, anyway; of that he was sure.
He heard Rita give a low, warning growl. It cut off suddenly in an anguished yelp. Ronnie stiffened, and a chill of unease began to creep through him. “Rita?” he called. “Rita, what’s the matter? You OK, girl?”
Still in his trunks, he ran through the sliding door into the living room, where a bank of TV screens on one wall showed the approaches to the house and various locations around it. He’d had the cameras installed at the time he moved in, not wishing to take the slightest risk. The looks his ex-colleagues had given him at the trial were printed indelibly on his mind and if any of them managed to escape, or were let out for good behaviour…
Ronnie froze in utter horror. One screen showed the body of a dog, apparently dead; another a group of five men, moving slowly and with sinister purposefulness towards the house. Each carried a pistol, evidently silenced as he hadn’t heard the shot which had killed Rita.
No, he thought feverishly. It isn’t possible. How could they…for one thing, the gates at the top of the drive were electronically operated and you had to look into the camera positioned there, at the same time speaking into a grille to announce your identity and business before Ronnie pressed a button to open them. They must have succeeded in bypassing the system, but he couldn’t see how.
At the back of his mind, though he’d never liked to admit it, had always been the mortal fear that somehow they would find him, despite all precautions. And now…
As he watched two of them broke away from the rest, each heading for one side of the house. They were seeking to block all his escape routes. His best chance might be the woods which bordered the property. If he could lose himself in there…nothing alarming was showing on any of the cameras which covered the part of the wood adjoining the house. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. He couldn’t have cameras dotted all over the wood, and there might be more of them hiding among the trees and bushes, lying in wait…after all, it was what they’d expect him to do. They’d have sussed out the lie of the land well. Just as they’d known Carmen and Julia weren’t in the house, having been watching it since early in the morning and seen them leave.
There was a door in the high fence surrounding the property, but someone could be hiding on the other side of the fence waiting to jump him as soon as he came through it. The thought terrified him.
His only hope was to find somewhere else to hide and then call the police on his mobile. He snatched up the phone from the sideboard.
On an impulse he ran back out onto the patio, then into the garden. There was the shed, also the wooden summerhouse which had been built by the villa’s previous owners: a retired expatriate couple, themselves British, fleeing here from a cold, damp, rainy country where life was becoming increasingly stressful and expensive. He never bothered to lock it, his security already being tight enough to deter burglars, so he wouldn’t have to lose time looking for the key.
The summerhouse was full of bric-a-brac accumulated by the couple over the years, and among which a man could easily conceal himself, for a time at least. But then so was the shed, which he didn’t lock either.
Sweating like a pig, he padded across the grass to the little wooden hut, knowing he couldn’t run because they’d hear him, and slowly opened the door. The grounds were extensive, which meant they weren’t yet close enough to see him go into the shed. Or hear the noise he made as he climbed into an old trunk, after shifting various pieces of junk so they hid it from view, and crouched down low inside it, closing the lid. Thank God he hadn’t got around to clearing any of this stuff out yet.
He listened to the sound of their movements. They weren’t far off but it didn’t seem as if they’d gone into the house, which was just as well, because they might have seen enter the shed on one of the monitor screens. They’d probably check the summerhouse first because it was bigger and you could see through the windows that it was full of rubbish. Altogether a more likely place for someone to hide.
But they’d find him eventually. Trembling, he dialled the number for the emergency services. He remembered that the lid of the trunk might muffle the signal and raised it, checking first that his hiding place was out of line with the window and no-one could see the movement from outside.
In his fear he spoke in English initially, then got a grip of himself and started again in Spanish. “Someone’s broken into my house. Five men. I think they’re going to kill me. They’ve got guns. Please, get down here right away, do you hear me? It’s an emergency.” He gave the address. There was a pause in the proceedings while the telephonist passed on the call.
Hardly daring to breathe, his heart beating like a tom-tom, he listened again to the footsteps. And felt a warm liquid with a slightly acidic feel collect inside his trunks, soaking into the lycra.
They had regrouped and were moving towards the shed. Straight towards it. Ignoring everywhere else, as if by some miracle they’d known at once he was there.
But how? They couldn’t have seen or heard him go in. The very spookiness of it added to his fear, made him sob like a little child.
A sixth sense…it was like they had a sixth sense…
Ah, there was no chance of the cops getting here in time. He swallowed, retched and was violently sick. Such was his state of mind that he didn’t realise he’d fouled himself for good measure.
Instinct told him he must stay alive as long as possible. He closed the lid again and lay down, struggling frantically to stop himself shaking with fear. If the trunk started to move about, scraping on the floor, knocking things over…they’d hear…
The door of the shed was flung open and then they were inside, shifting the rubbish and chucking it out, clearing away anything which might be being used to hide behind. He clasped his hands together and prayed silently, feeling somehow ashamed as he reflected that prayer was something he hadn’t done, silently or otherwise, for a very long time.
He let out a long, wailing scream as they lifted the lid of the trunk and looked down at him. They recoiled at the smell, faces screwed up in disgust.
Ronnie erupted from the trunk, knocking two of them back, and bolted for the door. “I’ve called the police!” he screamed. “I’ve called the police! I’ve called the police!”
Several pairs of hands seized him and then a hard metal object descended on the back of his head, plunging him into oblivion.
The blow had been designed merely to knock him out for a few moments, during which the smell subsided a little. He woke to find himself lying on his back on the grass with his hands and feet manacled, the five looking down at him with wolfish grins that seemed to peel their lips right back.
Immediately he began shouting. “I called the - ”
One of them dealt him a vicious kick in the stomach, driving the breath from his lungs. He rolled onto his side and drew up his legs, curling into a ball.
“You…you heard what I said,” he gasped. “You’d better get out of here right now.”
“Oh, we’re not worried about the police, Ronnie.” The speaker was Vidler, Hickman’s number one enforcer. “There’s been a change of plan, they’re not coming.”
“What – “ Ronnie spluttered, both puzzled and afraid.
“It’d take a while to explain,” Vidler said. “Just as I’m not going to tell you how we knew where you were. Could still make things awkward for us if anyone saw or heard something they didn’t like. So we won’t waste time in doing what we came here for.
“There’s no point in telling you why we’re doing it either, is there?” Vidler kicked him again, in the ribs this time. “Yew scumbag,” he snarled.
Ronnie’s eyes were shut tight against the pain, tears forcing their way past the lids and trickling down his cheeks. “Please don’t hurt me,” he wailed. “Please…I’m sorry….”
Vidler’s manner seemed to change. “Tell you what, Ronnie. If you promise to keep quiet about this, we’ll let you live. Rough you up a bit, teach you a lesson…have to be something surgery isn’t going to cure, not altogether. Or we’d lose the point of the whole exercise. But we’ll let you live, OK?”
It sounded like a fair deal to Ronnie; the best he could hope for right now, probably. He nodded like a jackhammer. “I-I-I won’t scream, I promise you,” he sobbed. “Just get on with it, yeah? Please.”
Vidler signalled to one of his companions, who produced a length of ducting tape and gagged Ronnie with it. Bowker’s frightened eyes darted in all directions. Whatever they were banking on doing to him, it still wasn’t likely to be very nice.
Again Vidler inclined his head. One man hooked his arms through Ronnie’s, another took him by the ankles, and together they carried him into the garden and towards the house, the rest of the hit team following.
The procession halted by the swimming pool. “Messed yourself a while back, didn’t you,” said Vidler. “Reckon we ought to get you cleaned up. Eh lads?”
He savoured the look on Ronnie’s face as Bowker realised what he meant. “Yeah, we lied. Not very nice of us really, was it? But then it wasn’t very nice of you to grass on us, was it shitface? OK boys – bath time.”
Ronnie’s protesting whimper turned to a shrill piping sound as the two men holding him swung him to the left, then to the right. And let go, stepping back to avoid being splashed.
Immediately Ronnie started to sink. The group gathered at the edge of the pool erupted in sniggering laughter as his bound limbs jerked uselessly in a pathetic attempt to keep him afloat. For a brief moment it seemed he actually succeeded; his head broke the surface, water pouring in twin streams from his nostrils, for a brief moment before going under again. He thrashed and twisted in a desperate attempt to snap the manacles, churning up the water, coughing and spluttering as it filled his nasal passages and forced its way in behind the gag, the harsh stinging taste of the chlorinated liquid burning the inside of his mouth.
The pain in his chest, in his head…it felt like his brain was about to explode. He willed that moment on, because after it he would feel nothing.
The shape in the water gave a final convulsive twitch and was still. For a moment Vidler’s gaze lingered on its distorted, rippling outline. “Goodbye, Ronnie,” he whispered softly. “And good riddance, you fucking piece of trash.”
As he led them all back to the car, he thought that perhaps Salvatore Scarlione’s “thing” hadn’t been such a bad investment after all.

House of Commons, Westminster, London
“So, Mr Daniels, what can I do for you?” asked Stephen Goddard, MP, closing the door of his office. Daniels, a smartly if rather flashily dressed young man who couldn’t have been long out of school, had rung his secretary saying he was a representative of a lobby group for the music industry who wanted to discuss ways of giving greater encouragement to young British pop artists.
“Oh, all sorts of things,” said Daniels cheerfully. He paused. “But first I’d like to have a little word with you about last night, if I may.”
At first Goddard was merely puzzled. “”Last night”?” he frowned. “Er - what do you mean? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Daniels selected a chair and leaned back in it. “You were seen coming out of a certain establishment in Soho; by us, anyway. You’re no doubt anxious to discuss how the matter can be kept from too much public scrutiny, and that’s why I’m calling you today. I have to advise you that photographs were taken; and it would no doubt be very embarrassing if the tabloids were to get hold of them. So I thought we ought to open negotiations. Are you interested?”
The man studied Goddard’s reaction with a detached interest. His face showed shock, horror, amazement, disbelief, distress. Such a heady cocktail of emotions that it was a moment or two before the MP could collect himself enough to speak.
“Who…who are you?” he asked in a small strangled voice.
“Never mind who we are. I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”
“You…you’ve got photographs?”
“Not of what went on inside, unfortunately. That would have been even more juicy. But they’re enough for our purposes. You’re on videotape, as well. That should prove beyond any doubt that this isn’t a frame-up. You go into the building and a few minutes later you come out of it.”
From his leather briefcase Daniels took a sheaf of blown-up black-and-white photos, handing them to the MP. They showed Goddard coming up to the half-open door of the establishment, standing there thoughtfully as if trying to make up his mind whether to go in, eventually taking the plunge, being greeted by the man who had been standing just inside, and finally leaving the building. In each shot the sign which had been stuck on the wall beside the door was clearly visible. “MASSAGE TWO FINE LADS COME ON UP.” There were gay brothels in Soho, too.
The decision had been taken on impulse. Maybe the latent homosexuality which perhaps lies dormant in all of us to some exent had in him happened to break surface. Whatever the reason, he was now regretting his action. It made him sick that just one wrong decision, taken on the spur of the moment, could have such terrible and far-reaching consequences, trapping him so inexorably.
“But you…you must have been following me…” Were they MI5, letting him know they were aware he did this sort of thing and that it wasn’t a good idea? He’d had to have already looked like a security risk, and wouldn’t have have done because it was the first time he’d…He wasn’t in possession of state secrets. Though he was an influential backbencher, and a former Chief Whip, who could sway opinion by the authority and prestige he enjoyed with fellow members of the governing party, including the Prime Minister, and was generally regarded as a shrewd political fixer.
“We decided to check on all the people we needed to target, their lifestyle, hobbies etcetera, to see if there might be some means of…bringing pressure to bear. Thankyou for being so helpful in the matter, Mr Goddard.”
Goddard’s head slumped while he considered the implications. He thought of the effect on his career, his marriage, if this was to get out. After all it was sordid homosexuality. Most disagreeable, and frightening, of all was the throught that he was now these people’s tool, their puppet, because he didn’t have the guts to call their bluff.
“What are you expecting me to do?” he asked, his voice flat.
“We need you to ask a few questions in the House for us. You’ll get the details later. The other thing you can do is vote in favour of the Gambling Bill when the time comes.”
Again Goddard’s chin dropped onto his chest. “Yes. I can do that for you, if it’s what you want. It’ll just look as if I’m concerned about the effect of the new law on businesses.”
“That’s fantastic. We may need you to do other favours for us in the future.” Goddard’s heart sank in dismay as his worst fears were confirmed. “Do you have to do this?” he shouted. “I mean, it…it’s disgusting. Unacceptable. I-I-I-I…” He realised how he must appear and his shoulders slumped miserably.
The “lobbyist” was unimpressed. “It was your decision to get yourself sucked off by another bloke, or whatever went on in there. So there’s no point in blaming us, is there? Think about it.” He waited for Goddard to collect himself.
“Well, I’ve said I’ll do what you ask,” the MP snapped, raising his head and looking at his visitor with distaste. “Unless there was anything else you wanted to say, you can get out now.”
“It’s not a very good idea to speak to us like that,” the man said darkly. Goddard couldn’t be sure whether he was really angry or simply enjoying the power he had over a well-known and important parliamentarian.
“Well I’ll be off now,” the man smiled. “It was a pleasure to meet you, I hope we can do business again in the future.” It was clear from “Daniels’” tone that they would. “Meanwhile if we need to contact you we will. I’ll see myself out, don’t worry.”

That evening after dark there was a meeting between two men in the car park of some tenement flats on a housing estate in South London. One, a senior detective in the Metropolitan Police, handed to the other a thick manila envelope containing some highly confidential official documents. In return the other gave him a cheque for several thousand pounds.
The policeman lingered for a while after his contact had driven off, thinking. Then turned away. He was too far into this now.
A few days later a similar scene, involving a High Court judge this time, took place in an alleyway behind some lock-up garages on the northern outskirts of the capital. In fact similar scenes were taking place, on virtually a daily basis, all over the developed world.

A British dependency, the small group of Caribbean islands served as a place of refuge, a retirement home one might say, for members of the criminal fraternity; they were also a repository for money that wealthy businessmen wanted to keep free of tax. Some would have maintained that these two roles complemented each other ideally.
In the capital and chief seaside resort of the largest island, on the coast road overlooking the beach, was a bar where the criminal brotherhood of all nations, whether retired or still active, whether running from the law or from former colleagues they’d got on the wrong side of, frequently met to compare reminiscences and, if they were sure no-one could hear them, plan some new scam or heist. Such as that maturing in the mind of Maltese financier Horace Oliviera as he sat sipping his Bourbon and listening to the
muzak playing from the old-fashioned juke box in the corner. It involved what was termed “insider trading” and hopefully wouldn’t entail having to beat someone up this time, although he was quite prepared to do that if necessary. The islands’ laws meant the money would be difficult to recover. The UK government hadn’t yet seen its way to reforming them, seeing it as an interference with the normal working of the free market.
“Olly, how you doing?” The Maltese looked up and saw a man in a floppy-brimmed sun hat, brightly-coloured short-sleeved shirt, jeans and sandals. His thick beard was streaked with grey and he wore spectacles. The beard and the glasses were recent acquisitions, intended to throw up a smoke screen around their owner and prevent him being identified by certain people who he had managed to offend during the course of his criminal “career”.
They weren’t the reason why Oliviera didn’t at first recognise the man – though he hadn’t known where he was he did know he’d had to change his appearance after defrauding the Mob out of millions of pounds from that racing scam. The American hobbled across the floor of the bar to meet him with a stick, like the ones blind people carried, clutched tight in one hand and the whole left side of his face was a mass of scar tissue, not yet fully healed.
“Johnny?” Oliviera gasped. “Shit, what happened to you?” He pushed forward an empty chair with his foot.
Johnny Blanco collapsed into it. “Scarlione,” he muttered. “You know what happened and that he got pretty mad about it. Well, they got me in the end.”
“You should have had the surgery.”
“I’m not sure it would have made any difference.” Oliviera looked at him strangely, startled by the remark and by something in his old associate’s manner. “How d’you mean?”
“What I don’t understand is how they could have known where I was. I’d changed my name, and my appearance…used what was left of the cash to set myself up here. I hadn’t told any of the guys where I’d gone. Should have thrown them right off the trail. But somehow they found me.
“Shit, pal, I was afraid they were going to kill me but they did these instead.” He pointed to the scar, then down at his crippled leg. “Said it was something to remember them by.”
“They often do that. All the same I guess you’re one of the lucky ones.”
“Sure am,” Johnny Blanco grunted. Though it seemed he was out of danger now he shuddered nonetheless. “I tell you, I don’t know how they knew I was here but they did. They seem to know everything. Everything…”

The young man stood before a gathering of about twenty people, all male, who were seated beneath a glittering chandelier at the huge mahogany table in the living room of the house. The room was plushly carpeted with oak-panelled walls and French windows looking out onto well-kept lawns.
The man’s right arm was raised and in the hand he held aloft a piece of scrap paper. The other hand was grasping a cigarette lighter. His face was taut and grim but no fear showed in it, yet. A little tense themselves, those around the table waited, anxious to see if he could stand the ordeal he was about to subject himself to.
The man held the lighter to the scrap of paper and flicked the wheel. The jet of blue-yellow flame flashed, and then the paper was alight, crumbling into ash as the tongues of fire licked down it towards the man’s unprotected fingers. They saw him swallow, sweat breaking out on his forehead and glistening in the light from the chandelier. He could feel the heat now, but the flames weren’t quite close enough to cause him pain. In a moment…
His face twisted as the heat became uncomfortable yet still the fragment of paper, what was left of it, remained firmly clutched in his hand. If he lost face before them all now…
He was shaking, but knew that if he dropped it before the flames reached his fingers….
They lashed at his flesh, and he screamed. The burning paper fell from his hand and fluttered down onto the cork mat which had been placed for it to land on. He staggered, face contorted in pain. Then the memory of that pain faded and he straightened, his expression changing to one of triumph. He knew he couldn’t have stood it for a moment longer and that therefore, because he had been tested to the utmost limit and not chickened out before that stage was reached, he had passed the test. He was now a Mafiosi.
“Let’s see,” said Salvatore Scarlione, and nodded to one of the seated men, who rose and went to examine the candidate’s fingers. He saw the red weal and nodded to the gathering, who erupted in a chorus of cheers and hurried to congratulate the candidate, slapping him heartily on the back.
Salvatore Scarlione smiled. It brought back memories of his own initiation and the celebration afterwards. He remembered the good old days, which now were back and which he intended should not go away again. He had missed the old rituals; the pricking of the finger, the burning paper. People were scared of going through the ceremony because if anyone was secretly filming them they would be marked down as Mafiosi and targeted by the law. But from now on they shouldn’t have to worry about that.
As for the actual point of Omerta and the rites by which the pact was sealed, they gave purpose and focus to it all. They were a kind of substitute for religion. To be a Mafiosi was to belong to a club, a fellowship cemented by powerful ties of blood or friendship, codes of loyalty and honour – Omerta. A team that acted for the good, the advancement, of its members. He liked the comradeship, the sense of belonging to a clan who would protect him and who he could protect, the way a father liked to nurture a child so it would grow, as he had grown. The continuity of tradition and ritual; the sense of power he had from being the one in charge of it all; and last but not least, the material wealth he gained from it. .
The other thing Scarlione had missed, and now revived, was the more formal organisation that had existed during the golden age of the 1920s and 30s, but later broken apart, the process starting with the reforms of Lucky Luciano. The democratic structure Luciano had given the Mafia, in which the boss had less power, had not been to Scarlione’s liking.
But some of Luciano’s reforms were good. He had also removed the power of Mafia capos to execute their soldiers. In future a capo must prove his case to the family's consigliere before he could order a killing. You had to have discipline, it was what the world increasingly needed. And you had to kill with care, with discretion, with precision. Or you’d have the cops on you. The change had greatly improved morale among the troops; discipline could be maintained not only though fear, but also through loyalty, which was how it should be with La Cosa Nostra (the actual term Mafia was one he, along with most of his associates, rarely used). You wouldn’t work for it if you thought you could be killed, perhaps on a whim, by your own people just because you’d made one or two mistakes or knew things that could be of great interest to the police if you got arrested. When you started killing each other it was a sure sign you’d lost it. But you shouldn’t lose it. You had to stick together.
There was no way the Mafia could prosper while riven by internecine slaughter, and Luciano had known that. Discipline had fallen apart again later on but now Scarlione had successfully restored it. Thanks to Argus.
For a long time there had been a steady haemorrhage of “made men” as they opted out of life in the Mob to take ordinary professions. And the ones who stayed on were no good at their jobs a lot of the time. The guys were soft, unlike the first generation of Mafiosi who’d had to fight their way to wealth and power and influence from poor immigrant beginnings (he’d had it fairly easy himself, to tell the truth). But even before Argus – which made sure the foot soldiers did their job properly - the Scarliones had seen the need to move with the times, and many of the academics and business professionals were recruited to help the organisation break into white collar crime as it became something of a growth industry.
The Scarliones had moved like all the other families into the Sunshine Belts of Florida and California, exploiting the wealth those regions gained from tourism and the silicon chip. They had concentrated their efforts very profitably on gambling, loansharking, and manipulating the stock exchange. They employed smartly dressed, clever, smooth-talking lawyers to defend their members and clients in court. They’d got rid of a lot of dead wood, culled the sick and the lame, and as a result had become stronger in some ways than anyone ever suspected.
One change that Scarlione both regretted, in some respects, and could do absolutely nothing about, was the relative dilution of the Mafia’s ethnic composition. He regretted it not because he was a racist - he had nothing against non-Italians in general, though he felt contempt for the poor blacks and Hispanics – but because it meant the end of a cosy little club. However, employing people from other ethnic groups was another example of the way the Mafia had changed and diversified in order to survive. They joined it either because they had no choice or because they admired its power and ruthless efficiency in maintaining control, were bewitched by the aura, the charisma, which surrounded it.
We were a multi-racial society these days, weren't we? All in the same boat, all playing the same game. It meant that Scarlione could kill whoever he liked, if they got in his way or crossed him in any fashion, regardless of their colour or race. In his view the ideas and feelings which made the unlawful killing of a white person by a non-white particularly atrocious were dead, buried, gone right out the window. A black or a Chinese could kill a white - or vice versa - without compunction if they trod on his patch.
But by whatever means the Scarlione family had survived while others went to the wall, moving in on another family’s territory whenever it was wound up. They, and the wider Mafia, were still there seventy, eighty years after the poor Sicilian immigrants began to arrive in large numbers, Scarlione’s grandfather among them. It seemed incredible to him, as well as a source of pride, that what had begun as a collection of brigands on a small island in the Mediterranean had grown into something that had such influence – perhaps the controlling influence – in the most powerful nation on Earth. The Mafia had survived for centuries as a kind of guerilla movement, a loose confederation of rural bandits and urban racketeers, who set themselves up in opposition to foreign oppressors and absentee landlords. They were able to pose as protectors of the people. In effect they were still doing so now, albeit unofficially, against bureaucratic inefficiency and unpopular laws.
Yes, they were still there. But something had been missing.
Where they did not love the Mafia, people were still afraid of it – its reputation persisted regardless of any threat it actually posed. That suited him fine. But if the reality didn’t match the perception, sooner or later people would get wise. And fear gave La Cosa Nostra power over the rest of the underworld.
In the old days they had had style. And they had done things properly. For the Mafia to recover its former position it had to go back to what it was before – to the status quo in the US before Luciano. Trouble was, in the new conditions that just wasn’t possible. Somehow, a way had to be found of making it possible.
If the Mafia was in decline it was because everything else was too. Nobody had faith in the traditional centres of authority any more; and the Mafia was one of those centres, because the fear it caused enabled it to command respect. The world was falling apart and somehow it had to be made to pull itself together. The Mafia couldn’t do that unless it was more efficiently organised itself. It was harder to maintain order and authority with a loose structure which people couldn’t identify with a particular organisation, a particular leader.
Another problem was Witsec and the RICO statutes, which by making convictions more likely scared the younger generation out of joining the Mafia. Scarlione had needed something which would get round that problem, show them there was nothing to worry about.
Academics studying the growth of new, often ethnic-based crime groups who while not pushing the Mafia out were at least challenging its supremacy commented that in the contemporary criminal world there was room for everyone. Sure. But if there were different criminal groups all competing, none of them in overall control, that to Scarlione was anarchy. With one group in charge you knew where you stood; there was order and stability. It wasn’t enough for him just to have a decent share of the cake.
How to change things? He doubted the Mafia would ever disappear entirely, but it would never again be what it had been in Al Capone’s time. Unless…
And then along had come Argus.
Thanks to Argus, and to other things as well, the Mafia was undergoing a further evolution; a synthesis of the old and the new. It could consolidate its control over the new areas into which it had moved, while moving back into old ones such as the drug and sex trades. It could force the black and Hispanic gangs to toe the line and pay it protection money. It could get round the wiretaps and the bugging devices with the equipment it had “acquired” from the FBI and CIA. In fact it could control anything and anyone it liked, with impunity.
It was easier now to operate more formally (the informal way of doing things had its advantages, in that it was harder to identify people as belonging to a particular crime organisation) and openly. Yet Scarlione still preferred to eschew flamboyance the way the Russian Bratva did, somehow feeling uneasy at the attention it attracted. He’d dine out at a good restaurant, with his minders on hand because he felt safer that way, but that was about all.
In any event “Our Thing” - his thing – was alive and kicking. Giving him power and giving him companionship; a family. We are Mafia. And I, Salvatore Scarlione, am the head of it, the spider at the centre of the web.
Everyone returned to their seat and chatted among themselves while they waited for the food to arrive. The gathering comprised the heads of all the other Families, along with their senior capos. The entire National Commission was meeting here today, for the first time since Scarlione had announced the institution’s revival. It was a historic occasion, of which the initiation ceremony had been intended to be the highlight. The routine business had already been got out of the way.
Scarlione waited for a lull in the conversation and then turned to the man sitting beside him, one of his own capos. “Oh by the way, Jimmy, I never knew you had a heart condition.”
The capo froze in surprise. “Uh…I’m sorry, Mr Scarlione?” Then puzzlement turned to unease, and finally alarm, though the capo tried hard to hide it. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“That thing you’re wearing under your shirt. It’s a pacemaker, isn’t it? At least that’s what you’d have said if it happened to fall out by accident, wouldn’t you? That happened to one guy who was spying for the cops, as you are, but he managed to convince them it was a pacemaker. We’ve got ways of making absolutely sure.”
Scarlione got up and came round the table towards Jimmy. Jimmy backed away from him as he approached. “I don’t know what you mean, Boss, I don’t…hey, what – “ Suddenly Scarlione lunged towards him, took hold of one of the buttons on his suit and ripped it off.
Jimmy ran for the door. “Get him!” Scarlione barked, and two of the capos sprang from their seats, rushing at Jimmy and intercepting him just before he could get there. They held him fast between them as Scarlione bore down on him again, eyes narrow with hate.
In full view of everyone in the room, Scarlione tore away a patch of Jimmy’s shirt to reveal a slender grey-coloured metal object, about the size and shape of a matchbox, taped to his chest to the right of his navel. “Wired for sound, weren’t you?” Savagely he ripped away the recording device, causing Jimmy to squeal in pain.
“OK, boys, you know where to take him. Find out who he’s working for and how much they know. And then if he co-operates, we’ll make it quick.” This was a lie, of course.
“How…did you know it was there?” Jimmy gasped.
“Never you mind,” said Scarlione vaguely.
Jimmy looked round the room in dismay, still shocked by the suddenness with which it had happened. It dawned on him that the whole thing had been stage-managed so he could be dramatically exposed.
“You betrayed Omerta,” said Scarlione quietly. “That’s about the worst thing anyone can do, y’hear me? You’re gonna go for a little ride.”
They dragged him out screaming and struggling wildly. He had no doubt whatsoever that Scarlione intended him to die and nor did any of those at the table. Neat, huh, the Don thought smugly. The new “made man” had not only sworn the oath of allegiance and cemented it by the ritual, he had just had a demonstration of what would happen if he ever broke it. Scarlione always liked to kill two birds with one stone.

Briefing Room, New Scotland Yard
Sir Kenneth Ransley, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, generally preferred to let his subordinates get on with their jobs and restrict himself to general matters of administration and policy. However in view of the seriousness of the threat the man was deemed to represent he’d decided to sit in on the planning meeting for the operation against Joe Hickman. Besides him those present included Derek Watkins, the Deputy Commissioner; Celia Rimmer, Acting Assistant Commissioner responsible for the Specialist Crime Directorate, whose brief included all serious and organised crimes; and Gordon Featherstone, head of SCD7, the Serious and Organised Crime Group, one of the eight Operational Command Units which made up the Directorate. Under SCD7’s umbrella were the Flying Squad, potentially likely to be called in where firearms might be involved, the Vice Squad, the Kidnap and Special Investigation Unit and the Hostage and Crisis Negotiation Unit, though the latter would not be needed if things turned out according to plan. Representatives from all these groups were present at the meeting. Finally there was “Ray Selnick”, in reality a Detective Sergeant with Vice called Tom Thorogood.
“After the meeting at Hickman’s house we think we now have enough evidence against him,” Celia Rimmer told Ransley.
The Commissioner wasn’t a man to mince his words. “With respect, Celia, “think” isn’t quite good enough. I’d like to be bit more certain.”
“From what DS Thorogood has learned, including the contents of the tape, and our other sources I believe there should be sufficient material for the Crown Prosecution Service to work with.”
“I want them caught in the act,” Ransley told her. “I want a watertight case against him this time. Something he can’t wriggle out of.”
“Are we confident the trail will lead back to Hickman?” asked Derek Watkins. “He’s not going to be at the warehouse personally, is he?”
“No, probably not,” answered Gordon Featherstone. “But he was at the meeting, his voice is on the tape. On top of the evidence we’re likely to get tomorrow, it should be enough.”
“I hope so,” muttered the Commissioner. “We had several promising informants but they all seem to have chickened out after what happened to Ronnie Bowker. Everyone’s too scared of Hickman to talk.” Ransley breathed hard. “I still don’t understand how his men managed to find Bowker. Somehow it’s a bit worrying.”
“With any luck Hickman won’t be able to do a great deal anyway, soon,” Watkins said. “However he tracked down Bowker.”
Ransley turned to Celia Rimmer. “So…the other evidence we’ve got, the other sources you mentioned; what are we talking, exactly?” “We’ve got film of Hickman meeting with Gheorghiu. There’s no record of what passed between them, unfortunately, but in the light of everything else it’s going to look highly suspicious.
“And one of the girls is prepared to talk. Some friends of hers here, English people, who’d realised what was going on and wanted to help her, managed to get her away from the prostitution ring. I think it’s because she’s a foreigner and not familiar with Hickman and his reputation, as we are, even though she’s certainly suffered from his activities, that she isn’t afraid to co-operate. Another…she was a Catholic and she went and told a priest. We’ll just have to hope Hickman’s people don’t get to them before the case comes to court.” The gang was a large one, with branches in different parts of the country. “They shouldn’t, of course, if the witnesses are receiving protection.”
“That’ll be crucial, bearing in mind what Hickman is like.” The witnesses would be probably be moved to safe houses rather than guarded in their own homes. The Hickman gang was large, its members forming a network that covered the whole country, and Hickman expected absolute loyalty from them, which would extend to getting him out of trouble when it struck. If any happened to find out where a witness was living that person was sure to be intimidated, beaten up or even killed.
“Of course, there’s all sorts of things we can get Hickman for,” Featherstone said. “Drug dealing, illegal possession of firearms…he’s been up in court for those offences before, and we know very well he’s still committing them. So far we haven’t been able to produce firm evidence but I strongly suspect that it’ll turn up during the course of the investigation into the immigration scam.”
Ransley glanced at Thorogood. “You’ll be there of course?”
“Yes, Sir, I’ll have to be. They’ll get suspicious otherwise.”
“Take care then.” Ransley’s eyes gleamed. ”Well, it seems we’re definitely in with a chance, one we’ve been waiting for for years.” Hickman had been careful to avoid arrest, by abuse of legal technicalities and other such devices, in the past but now his luck had run out. “It’ll give me the greatest of pleasure to see that repulsive fat bastard banged up for the rest of his natural life.”























Five
The following morning, the lorry carrying the illegal immigrants turned off the main road down the long gravel drive which led to the warehouse. It slowed as it approached the building, and turned off again onto a covered forecourt which served as a loading bay. Gheorghiu, Vidler, “Ray Selnick” – who needed to inspect the goods at first hand to testify as to their quality - and two more of Hickman’s men, Kane and Walters, had been standing there waiting for it. The driver got down from the cab, nodded to Vidler, and made for the rear of the lorry to open the doors, the others following.
All at once, seeming to appear from nowhere, two police vans and a police car came racing down the drive from the main road and onto the forecourt. The rear doors of the vans burst open and a dozen police in assault gear, with Heckler and Koch rifles, jumped out of each. Although Tom Thorogood had not thought it likely the gang would be carrying guns, it was nonetheless considered safer for the officers to be armed.
The gang froze, startled. An officer got out of the car and addressed them through a loudhailer. “Police!” he shouted unnecessarily. “Get your hands up!”
There wasn’t much else they could do but obey. Two officers ran to the back of the lorry while the others rounded up the gang and handcuffed them. They forced open the doors with crowbars and cutting gear and scrambled in.
Faint sounds from inside the secret apartment as the Rumanians shifted nervously, hearing the shouts and hurried movement from outside and wondering what was going on, led the officers to them. The false wall was unscrewed and lifted out.
The immigrants were helped down from the lorry, looking anxious and frightened, uncomprehending. An officer who had been brought along because she spoke Rumanian introduced herself to them and explained what was happening. They were ushered into a third van which had by now appeared and driven off to the nearest police station to make their statements.
The officer in charge of the raid studied the group of villains as they were led away. They looked sullen, resentful, but to him their feelings seemed strangely muted. Not what you’d expect from people who stood a good chance of spending the rest of their days in a prison cell.
Vidler was looking around him almost casually, appearing to the onlooking police to be slightly puzzled. He thought Selnick had been nabbed along with the rest of them, but couldn’t see him anywhere. Then he glimpsed the fair-haired man, his hands free, standing talking to one of the policemen as if they were colleagues.
“Arsehole,” Vidler snarled. Thorogood heard him, but wasn’t unduly bothered. Abuse from criminals was a fact of life for someone like him. He climbed into a police car just as the doors of the van closed on Vidler and the other gang members, and in a moment the convoy of vehicles was on its way to the police station in south London where the suspects would be held for the time being, while Forensics arrived to search the warehouse for any clue which might assist in building up the case against one of the most vicious and ruthless criminal organisations the country had ever known.

Checking the gang’s balance sheet again on computer, Joe Hickman wondered how things were going at the warehouse. A certain percentage of the money from the operation – from all his operations, in fact - would have to go to Scarlione. But to compensate for that Hickman would receive a not insubstantial sum of cash from the Mafia’s own operations. It wasn’t really the financial aspect which bothered him about this, he was getting quite enough to maintain him and his friends in their cushy lifestyle; what stuck in his craw was the loss of independence, the knowledge that he wasn’t doing this entirely off his own bat but as part of a co-ordinated international concern overseen by someone else. Not that he could do a thing about it at the moment.
Time to ring Vidler at the warehouse. Much to his annoyance, his sidekick didn’t answer. Then he heard what sounded like a lot of cars pulling up outside the farmhouse, and knew what it meant. Somehow they must have deactivated the alarms and overridden the gate control.
His wife came in, white-faced. “Joe, there’s police all round the house.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out,” he said, seeming to her maddeningly calm. “Just keep out of the way.” She stared at him.
“I said go!” he snapped, and Babs scurried off.
Hickman dialled a New York number and asked to speak to Scarlione. He had to wait a few moments, then was put through to the Don. “Hi, Joe, how ya doing,” the American greeted him, as if they were already old friends. “Guess I’m fine,” he replied. “But I think I might need the help of your little toy.”
“I’m using it for something else at the moment…shouldn’t be too long, though.”
“OK. Just keep watching the British news and you’ll know what I was talking about. ‘Bye for now, got to go.” Hickman heard someone bashing away at the front door with an axe, several axes. He stood waiting while it disintegrated, listening to their colleagues running round the back of the house to cover the other exits. The Rottweilers were barking furiously.
The door finally gave up the ghost and two officers rushed in and overpowered him, forcing him to lie flat on the floor while they handcuffed his hands behind his back. As they hauled him to his feet a third officer entered and stepped up to him. “Conrad Joseph Hickman, you are under arrest on suspicion of the offences of people trafficking and consorting with known offenders for criminal purposes. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be taken down and used as evidence against you.”
Hickman shrugged.
One of the Rottweilers attacked an officer and had to be put down, but otherwise there was no hassle. Hickman was taken out to the van while a policewoman went to see to Babs, to offer her counselling if she wanted. Given what Hickman was and the seriousness of the crimes of which he was accused, the issue of a warrant to search the premises had been considered justified, and the police now began to comb them for incriminating evidence.
The officer in charge of the raid studied Hickman’s face as he was led away. He didn’t think the man was particularly happy but his expression, his whole manner, seemed too casual for the policeman’s liking. However, an arrogant nonchalance in the face of arrest was something he’d encounted before, many times, in habitual criminals like this. It was nothing to worry about.

Scotland Yard, Metropolitan Commissioner’s Office
“We’ve got him!” Derek Watkins grinned, raising both fists high in the air and shaking them in triumph.
“You think there’s enough proof then?” asked Kenneth Ransley.
“They found some of the jewellery stolen in the Hatton Garden raid. And a few notes from that bank job last year. Stacks of hardcore porn, though that’s not really what we want him to go down for. Plus a lot of other things that can now be returned to their rightful owners, including several priceless works of art. Yes, it’s enough.”
Watkins was literally rubbing his hands with glee. “The people trafficking; sex slavery; drugs; illegal porn; robbery, grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, protection, extortion…take your pick. He’s got to go down for something. I reckon we can put away half the gang at the same time. We won’t get all of them but we’ll certainly make the world a far better place to live in.”
Two days later Hickman, currently being held at Pentonville Prison, was formally charged with people trafficking, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit a crime, protection racketeering and several other offences. The witnesses at the trial would be police officers involved in the human trafficking and other investigations; participants in Hickman’s operations who had gone straight or turned snout and been undeterred by the fate of Ronnie Bowker from giving evidence; members of the public who had witnessed certain things, overheard dodgy deals being made or were among bank staff – for example - who had found themselves kidnapped/tied up/threatened/taken hostage; victims of Hickman’s sex trade who had been persuaded to talk. As evidence accumulated it was added to computer or stored in paper form at Scotland Yard’s Records Section.
At the station in North London which had been charged with the task witnesses were being allocated to the various safe houses and officers detailed to protect them. As the officer supervising this operation finished his briefing, the man sitting in his car a few yards down the road from the building put away the device with which he had been listening to the conversation and smiled coldly.

It was like being in prison, thought Sharon Rossiter. But it wouldn’t last forever. In the meantime at least she was safe, and presumably any danger there might be would disappear when Hickman was jailed.
But might he be let off on a technicality? Or could she and the other witnesses be targeted in revenge, by any of his associates who had managed to remain at liberty, after he was put away? Did that sort of thing happen?
She thought back to that awful day at the bank where she had worked as a cashier, to the incident which explained why she was now cloistered here in the safe house unable to go out without an escort. She recalled the terrifying speed with which the armed men, all dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, had appeared, the violence with which she had been flung against the wall, the robber’s mouth twisting in a vicious snarl and the eyes gleaming coldly and mercilessly in the slits which had been cut in the mask. The barrel of the sawn-off shotgun thrust savagely in her face; the harsh voices which seemed to bark and snarl like dogs. “Over there! Give me the key – yeah, the key, that’s what I said and if you don’t do what I fucking tell you…or are you fucking deaf or something…I said shut it, you fucking bitch! One peep out of you and you’re dead!” Was it hatred they felt for her, real hatred, or simply a psychological weapon to get her to do what they wanted? It was hard to tell.
Then the tape wrapped around her wrists and ankles and pulled tight. It was painful, and partly because of that degrading, an assault against her person, an infringement of her dignity.
At first the idea of giving evidence publicly with her tormentors present shook her rigid; she really didn’t think she could face it. It had taken a long time to psych herself up. In the end she decided that it was precisely because they had been so vicious and callous that she ought to do it. She wanted to show them that she wasn’t afraid to face them in court, to stare them out if their eyes happened to meet hers. She’d tell her story alright, and if it helped to get them sent down for a substantial slice of their natural life then she’d have done the world of good.
She was sitting downstairs with the other witnesses and one of the two officers protecting them, PC Mark McSorley, watching the news while the other officer, PC Helen Sutler, was in the kitchen washing up, having told her charges to relax while they were here and let she and McSorley do all the work. It was a kind gesture, and one which had assisted a bond in forming between guards and guarded.
McSorley heard the sound of a car on the drive. Though the shift wasn’t due to change until tomorrow he presumed it was his colleagues. All the same he drew back the curtain and peered out, but it was dark now and he couldn’t see much.
It happened so suddenly he barely had time to feel surprise or alarm. The car screeched to a halt barely inches, it seemed, from the front door. The four men jumped out, ran to the door and two of them, armed with sledgehammers, began to batter it down. It splintered like matchwood under the heavy blows. When they thought they’d weakened it enough they hurled themselves against it, snapping the chain and bursting it open.
PC McSorley just had time to call the station and yell for an armed response team.
A man sprang into the room. He wore a black tracksuit, balaclava mask and gloves and carried what looked like a sub-machine gun. He aimed the Uzi point blank at McSorley’s chest and fired, the impact of the bullets knocking the young policeman backwards. Riddled with holes, his bloodstained corpse slumped like a sack to the floor.
The men split up and searched the house. One went into the kitchen and shot the WPC, a second looked upstairs, a third took the living room where the witnesses were starting to their feet in alarm. Flinging the door open, he ran in and started firing.
While bodies collapsed to the floor all around her Sharon Rossiter ran for the sliding door that opened onto the patio, intending to escape through the garden. Two more balaclava’d figures appeared at a rear window and her guts turned icy cold as she realised she was trapped.
Desperately turning this way and that, she caught the eyes of the man in the balaclava and a sickening sense of déjà vu filled her. It seemed that time had flashed back several years to that dreadful day at the bank. All she could feel was utter, unbelieving horror. No! No, you can’t! No….this isn’t fair! Oh God, how could You do this to me?
The gun was already aimed point-blank at her chest. It fired.
Once satisfied everyone was taken care of the men ran out, jumped into the car, and drove off into the night. By the time the response team got there they had left the house of death far behind them.

In plain clothes, PC Jane Mitchelmore came out of the store where she had been buying food for the people in her safe house and set off down the street towards it. From some way away she heard a car revving its engine to full pitch. It shot off in her direction, going much too fast by the sound of it. But lots of people drove irresponsibly like that. She sighed inwardly at the perversity of the world but otherwise gave the matter no thought. Then she heard the car pull up with a screech right opposite where she was standing. Immediately she was on her guard, a sudden suspicion, a sudden sense of danger, freezing her where she stood.
Before she could act on it the muzzles of the rifles poking through the car’s windows spat a hail of bullets, which ripped her to pieces. She crumpled and fell, her blood running from the pavement into the gutter, her shopping bag spilling its contents around her, while her killers made their getaway at full throttle, taking no more care than was absolutely necessary to avoid an accident and seemingly unconcerned that they might nonetheless be stopped for speeding.

Scotland Yard
“Using Kalashnikovs?” Ransley gasped. “Uzis?”
Watkins nodded solemnly. “Smuggled into the country somehow.”
“Evidently. We need to find out how. And a drive-by shooting…here in England?”
“It’s happened before. Particularly, but not exclusively, in black crimes.”
“But this is something more. I know it.”
“We need to tighten protection,” Ransley said, once he’d finally got over the shock of it all.
“The trouble is, protection’s about as tight as it can be.”
“How did they know? How did they know where the witnesses were?” The thought instantly flashed through Ransley’s mind. The same way that they found Ronnie Bowker. It can’t be a coincidence. There’s something going on that we don’t understand. “There’ll obviously be a full enquiry,” he said. “And from now on we’d better make sure that any police guarding witnesses have such weapons themselves. Some of them will need special training. That’s about all we can do. And this has happened at three other safe houses?”
“Yes. They seem to be getting nastier. Some of the witnesses are refusing to give evidence, and I’m not sure we can force them to do it.”
“They’ll be alright if armed police are guarding them.”
“I hope so. Er, the Home Secretary rang while you were out. He’s expressed his concern.”
“I expect he has,” Ransley said.
*
“What now?” demanded the Commissioner. He could see from Watkins’ expression that he hadn’t come to impart good news.
“They let Vidler walk out. The duty officer claims it was a mix-up, they got him confused with someone else, but I’m inclined to be suspicious.”
“Any particular reason?”
“As we know, in the past week quite a few other bigtime crooks, all associated with Hickman, have been released from the stations where they were being held. Each time it was a clerical error, apparently. We’ve also had one escape, it only happened in the last few hours which is why you didn’t know about it. It was up north; the van taking the prisoner to the station stopped on an isolated road so they could let him out to have a pee. Would you believe it?
“You think people are being got at?”
“Compromised and intimidated in some way, yes I do. It’s the only explanation. What puzzles me is how they could have known that the duty officer in the Vidler case was going to be that particular man. Unless it was an inside job.”
Or, if someone had had the right equipment, an outside one. Or both.

Cheryl Hampson gazed proudly from the kitchen window at the two young boys happily kicking a ball around on the communal play area adjacent to the estate’s car park. They were her pride and joy. She wondered what they would be when they grew up. By the look of it the younger one, Ricky, could be a professional footballer if he set his mind to it. Perhaps he would. Sean, the elder, looked up to his father with something like awe, regarding him as a very important figure in the community because of his job. There was no doubt which career he would choose when the time came.
The microwave pinged. Cheryl opened the window and leaned out to call to the boys that their supper was ready. The words had just left her mouth when it happened. A car came through the gates of the estate at breakneck speed and turned onto the play area, then wheeled and raced back the way it had come.
The car’s front fender smashed into the two little boys and sent them flying. They hit a wall and bounced off it. At first Cheryl stared in disbelief, unable to comprehend what she’d just seen, paralysed by the violence of the incident and the realisation that it had happened to her own children. Then, screaming hysterically, she ran to where the broken, battered little bodies lay unmoving and clutched them to her. Those who had witnessed the attack, for that was what it was, could only hover in the background, appalled, while she gave full vent to her grief and rage. Someone had already called an ambulance.
Ricky was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. Sean was placed in intensive care where it was found that his ribcage was shattered, causing massive internal bleeding, and several vital organs ruptured. He also had severe brain damage and would be a vegetable if he lived. But he didn’t live.

PC Roy Hampson, currently on compassionate leave, sat in his living room trying to make sense of the shattering loss which had turned his world inside out. Of course his colleagues had been
fabulous, kindness itself, but no amount of sympathy could bring Sean and Ricky back and they all knew it. Fortunately, he and his wife were still young enough to have more children, but of course it was far too soon to start thinking about that just yet. All he could think about was the obscenity of losing both his kids after all the love and care that had been expended on raising them from birth. Since going to bed for the first time following the deaths his wife had barely stirred from there; it was like she was in some sort of coma. So far the counselling wasn’t doing her any good.
Vaguely he thought that it was time to check his e-mails.
The Menu screen came on, but before he could click on Outlook Express a blue square appeared in its centre, superimposing itself over the directory of files. On it in white capital letters was a message.
YOU WERE ON THE TEAM INVOLVED IN THE ARREST OF JOE HICKMAN.
THINK ABOUT IT.
They’d known of course that the hit-and-run must have been deliberate. All the same he sat and stared at the screen, uncertain whether the emotion uppermost in his mind should be anguish, shock, disbelief or rage.

Scotland Yard
“How did they know Hampson was on the team that arrested Hickman?” asked Ransley.
“Our first thought was that there might be a connection,” said Celia Rimmer. “But I still don’t understand why they would target him after the event.”
“Pure spite?” suggested Derek Watkins. “Like I said, they’re getting nastier.”
It was a vicious but simple and effective technique, the best way for people to get the message. Just target anyone who had anything to do with the matter, directly or indirectly. Their families too, because whereas they might be noble enough to risk their own lives and limbs for the sake of fighting crime, they couldn’t force someone else to be sacrificed to that cause, possibly against their will.
“Well, we’ll launch an investigation,” Ransley sighed. There wasn’t much else they could do.
The phone rang and he took the call. “There’s been a threat to the family of one of the officers guarding a safe house,” he reported.
Again, they had known.
Later that day, in Edmonton, two young children were walking with their nanny along the road from the shops to the house where they lived when a car drew up alongside them and a sub-machine gun blazed away, killing all three instantly. The children’s mother had been one of the officers involved in arresting members of the Hickman gang who’d hijacked a security van a couple of years previously.

Dave Trickett worked as Head Records Clerk at the Yard. One day during his lunch hour, when he was alone in the office, he was surfing the Net on his laptop and a message came up on the screen.
“Your kids could be in trouble, big trouble, unless you do something for us. And don’t go to your colleagues and tell them we’ve got them. You’ll know from all that’s been happening that we can find anyone we want to.”
We’ve got them….
Another blue box appeared. RIGHT, THIS IS WHAT WE WANT YOU TO DO.
He read the following message almost in disbelief. He couldn’t do that…could he? He was horrified at being put on the spot like this. What they were asking of him was…wrong…
A part of him hoped this was merely some kind of sick joke. It was half-term, so the kids should be at home, with Lorna looking after them. He rang but received no reply. He rushed there immediately but his loved ones were nowhere to be seen. The door had been forced and there were signs of a struggle.
Over the next few days hundreds of other police personnel, including civilian clerical staff like Trickett, received messages from the gang over the phone or on their computer. There seemed to have been no problem finding their contact details. The gist of each message was either “you’ll be next” or “we want you to do us a little favour.” It was either the recipient themselves or a loved one who was threatened with death in the event of non-compliance; in each case the result was the same. No-one ever succeeded in tracing the calls.

“I think it’s for the best,” Inspector Dave Newcomb told his wife. “If they targeted Roy Hampson the chances are they’re targeting us too, since I was on the same investigation. I want you to take the girls and go to your sister’s place. With any luck they won’t find you there.”
So Rose Newcomb and the couple’s two teenage daughters jumped in the car and set off for Rose’s sister’s cottage in the Lake District. On their way there they stopped at a service station for snacks. As they were returning to the car afterwards, another car pulled up beside them and three men jumped out, seized them and bundled them into it.
“We can only assume they’d been watching the house,” Derek Watkins said afterwards. “They followed the car from there.”
“But they could only have known at very short notice that Newcomb had decided to send his wife and kids away.” Ransley seemed angry.
“Don’t ask me how they did it, Sir. Oh, and I’m afraid Tom Thorogood’s dead. He was out for a walk in the park when he was ambushed and knifed. There’s no clues as to who did it. Either no-one saw anything or they won’t talk.”
Ransley’s head fell into his hands. “Jesus, what next? For Christ’s sake, Derek, what is going on here?”
*
Dave Trickett glanced at his watch.
Ten minutes to nine. There was hardly anyone else in the building, apart from the security guards and he’d told them he’d be working late. He had the place to himself, and plenty of time in which to carry out his instructions.
He went through the connecting door from his office into the room where the archives were kept, and turned on the light. Rows and rows of shelves each stacked with bulky folders containing the documents and exhibits to do with criminal cases both current and closed. He selected the ones he wanted and stuffed them into a large black plastic bag, in which he carried them to the room containing the enormous shredder in which files were destroyed after a certain period of time, along with general office waste.
He turned on the shredder and started to feed the papers into the machine, several at a time, taking care not to overload it. Naturally he wouldn’t log his use of it, how much he’d destroyed and when, as he was supposed to. Whenever the bag inside the machine became full up he changed it. After a while, he could smell it becoming dangerously hot. Time to pack it in.
There was still quite a lot to go. He’d have to painstakingly return the remaining papers to the folders and the folders to where he had found them, at some convenient time starting again where he’d left off. It was likely the files wouldn’t be needed immediately, the start of the trial being still some days off, so no-one would notice they were missing.
He took the bags full of shreddings and carried them down to the incinerator in the basement, for the janitor to burn the following morning. You could reconstitute a shredded document if you had the time and the patience, but the stuff would have gone before anyone realised what had happened.
Anyone who saw him would assume that the items were no longer needed, and were being disposed of in accordance with the regulations.
His next stop was the exhibit room. He found the items he wanted, removed the labels from them and put them in his briefcase, to be taken home and disposed of some suitable time and place. He repeated the process with the remaining exhibits the following night, and the night after, until he had done all that was required of him.

Vidler had decided it wasn’t necessary to actually kill the relatives for he and his colleagues to achieve their objective, which was the release within a week of Hickman and the other gang members who’d been arrested. Instead they had started kidnapping them instead, letting the authorities (but not the hostages, who they didn’t want to panic) know what would happen if the demand wasn’t met. He wondered if that had been a mistake. Hostages were a pain in the arse to look after, an expensive and bothersome liability. One in particular was always complaining that it was too cold at night or her kids weren’t being given enough to keep them occupied during their captivity. Posh bitch, Vidler thought. He hadn’t needed her advantages in life to do well for himself.
The house was surrounded by Leylandii in a remote part of the country near the Welsh border. The hostages were all in the living room watching TV. A couple of members of the gang, to whom they had to apply whenever they wanted to leave the room for any reason, stood watching over them, their gaze occasionally drifting to the screen.
Their sources didn’t indicate anything to that effect was being planned but Vidler suspected that the authorities, who so far hadn’t replied to the gang’s ultimatum, were planning to storm the house and rescue the hostages, probably at night and using the SAS, rather than capitulate. They’d have to be on their guard. But so far the police hadn’t found the house, and hopefully wouldn’t until it was too late.
Vidler’s gaze, full of contempt for anyone who could be married to a policeman, travelled round the room and over its tense, frightened occupants. A little girl was shifting restlessly beside her mother, who had wrapped an arm round her in an attempt at comfort. “Mummy, when can we go home?”
“Soon, dear.”
“Mummy, I don’t like it here. I want to go home.”
“We can’t go home yet, dear.”
The little girl looked up at her imploringly. “Why?”
“Because we’ve got to stay here.” They were going round in circles, and the girl’s expression showed she wasn’t reassured.
Suddenly one of the kids, a baby boy, started crying. The sound turned into a high-pitched scream. “Calm the kid down,” barked Vidler.
The mother tried, but to no avail. Vidler scowled. The noise was splitting his skull open, besides which he was afraid it would attract attention. “I said shut him up! What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m trying!” She rounded on him furiously. “Do you have children? Do you realise how hard it is sometimes to be a parent?
What do you do with your kids when they’re like this?” Vidler looked blank. He simply beat them, just as his own father had beaten him.
“Oy, SHUT IT!” he shouted at the child. This only made the boy cry even louder.
“Ah, let me do it.” Vidler wrenched the baby from its mother’s arms and shook him furiously. “No!” shouted the mother. ”That’s not the way!” She tried to grab the child from him but he gave her a shove which sent her staggering. She tripped over something and fell, the other hostages immediately making to help her up.
Vidler shook the baby until its teeth rattled. “I said shut it, you little wanker!” More crying. Vidler shook him even harder.
The wailing suddenly cut off.
“There, that’s sorted him,” said Vidler. He thrust the baby back at its mother and turned away curtly. “And if the little cunt gives me any more hassle I’ll fucking kick his head in, understand?”
Cradling it in her arms again, the mother began rocking the baby gently from side to side, whispering words of comfort. After a moment the other hostages saw her stiffen, the blood rushing from her face, on which a look of horror had appeared.
The little body in her arms was cold and still.
She looked up, her face crumpling into a mask of rage. “You…you killed him! You killed my baby!” Screaming and sobbing, she threw herself at Vidler and started to punch him. In a kind of sympathetic group madness the other hostages rushed the second gang member, overwhelming him before he could draw his gun and pulling him down. Vidler too was knocked over and trampled on as everyone flooded towards the door, dragging their children after them. A third gang member burst in, alarmed by the commotion, and saw what was happening.
He started shooting.

Scotland Yard
“This is getting ridiculous,” sighed Ransley.
The attack on the safe house had not been repeated, as the gang had guessed they’d stand a good chance of getting shot. But the cost of providing armed guards, with body armour etc., for both witnesses and their families, plus the police officers and their families, was proving too much. Overstretching resources.
“Who guards the guards, eh?” commented Watkins.
“Quite. We’re getting literally hundreds of cases where officers – including those guarding the witnesses - and their families have been threatened. Dozens have had relatives actually killed or kidnapped in the last few weeks. And each person has to be fully protected.” That included the witness to the Michelmore and Hampson killings who were themselves now in danger.
It was the strain, mental and physical as well as financial, of the entire operation that was causing the protection system to collapse. “Logistically, it’s just…it’s just impossible.”
“Are you saying we may not be able to keep doing it?”
“Yes,” said Ransley quietly. “I am.”
They were silent for a while.
“Oh,” said Watkins wearily, almost as an afterthought; “you’re not going to be pleased about it, but…”
“You may as well get it over with.”
“All the paperwork relating to the Hickman trial. In fact any evidence at all…it’s gone from the Archives. We’ve looked and it’s just not there.”
“But how – “ Ransley realised there wasn’t any point in asking.

Terri O’Dowd sat in her bedsit and thought. She knew what she had seen, alright. A woman bundled into a van, screaming and struggling, and driven off to some unknown fate. At a guess it was prostitution, enforced prostitution. An abduction, at any rate.
The scene had appalled Terri so much that it would remain forever imprinted upon her mind. She was sure she could remember the men’s faces, and the girl’s, and had had the presence of mind to note the van’s registration number. That information would surely be important.
There was a time when she would have come forward. But after what had happened to those other poor people she was virtually certain that if she did testify it would mean being kidnapped, murdered or both. No, sorry.
Sobbing, she got down on her knees and begged the girl’s forgiveness for what she was doing, or rather choosing not to do. She knew it wasn’t going to help matters. She knew she was giving into evil. But no.

Scotland Yard
The physical evidence might have gone, but it was thought worthwhile to check that they still had all the data on computer. They didn’t. All the information relating to the Hickman gang and its activities had disappeared from the Met’s computers and however hard they tried, they couldn’t get it back. It had also been wiped from HOLMES (Home Office Major Enquiry System), the police national computer, from which it had originally been copied.
The following morning Derek Watkins reported to Sir Kenneth Ransley that the trial had collapsed. Somehow Ransley had been expecting it. All the same…
“Incredible as it seems, we’re going to have to release Hickman and his pals. Unless we want to overturn the whole basis of the law and have a police state. And that people won’t accept.”
Christ, thought Ransley. There were implications which went way beyond the Hickman case. He could see nothing now to stop all sorts of criminal rackets going on without anything to stop them. “How’s this going to affect our investigations into other gangs?”
“It looks like Hickman’s snapped them all up. Seems to have absorbed all the ones of any consequence in this country. He’s terrorised those who wanted to preserve their independence into giving in. He can’t have accounted for all of them but you don’t know who’s a member of his outfit and who isn’t.”
“Can the Security Services help?”
“They don’t know how it’s being done either. Apparently there’s some problem with their investigation, not quite sure what but it’s something to do with the Yanks. That’s all I can tell you.”
And as with the blackmail and fraud and corruption, the pattern was the same all over the world. In France, in Germany, in Italy, in Russia, in Holland, in Hong Kong and many other places investigations were dropped, witnessed scared into refusing to testify, notorious criminals freed without charge even though they were clearly guilty.
“And the families who were taken hostage? What’s happening to them?”
“No word from the gang,” said Watkins. “But we think we’ve found them. The hostages.” A telephone call from a concerned member of the public had led West Mercia police to the now abandoned house where they had been held. “I, I’m afraid they’re…”
“Oh.”
Something told Watkins that Ransley didn’t want to hear the details. “Er, that was about all,” he said. When Ransley didn’t respond, Watkins nodded and quietly left the room.
For a while Ransley thought about nothing in particular. Then his mind began to drift back through the years. His father had been a copper, back in the fifties. God, that had been such a different world. He liked to think there had been some degree of reality behind the its cosy image, that the British bobby of those years really was dependable, decent and trustworthy. Well some of the time he had been. In those days the problem had been corruption. “If you want to know the time, ask a policeman.” He knew the origin of the saying. He remembered his father telling him about the time when his station had received a call from a jeweller in the area who thought someone had broken into his shop. It was a false alarm; when a team of officers got there they found nothing missing. There was, however, rather a lot missing after they’d gone. Robert Mark had put a stop to all that. Afterwards, though Ransley didn’t like to admit it, the problem had been racism and brutality. Now, as an overreaction to those things, the police were too nice; hamstrung by liberal legislation, much of it originating with the EU, which prevented them from being as hard on criminals as they’d have preferred – or judges from properly punishing the villains they apprehended.
What they were supposed to be was a body of people who the public could trust, who protected them from vicious and distressing criminal acts. They had their faults. They possessed an authoritative, forceful manner which could sometimes offend people; he supposed it came with the job. They might sometimes be too eager to close ranks to protect their own; that too was understandable when you were doing a difficult, often dangerous job where it was essential that each member of the team supported all the others, and frequently facing criticism, often unjust, for your actions. But basically, they were a Force for good. And now…
Occupying pride of place on Ransley’s desk was a silver statuette of a Victorian sergeant with which he had been presented by colleagues at his old station on his promotion to Scotland Yard. To him it symbolised solidity, dependability, uprightness. There might have been a lot wrong with that era, but it had upheld standards which later came to slip disastrously; many people in those days could have a comforting certainty that things would always be the same, that you’d be as safe from violence and intimidation as one ever could. He thought he knew why they had clubbed together to buy him it; they might have thought it looked cute but he was certain there was a bit more to it than that.
Sir Kenneth Ransley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, sat at his desk, picked up the little statue, cradled it in his hands and gazed down at it, memories flooding back. And in the privacy of his office, unseen by any other human being, he wept.






















Part Two















Six
Director’s Office, FBI HQ
Winston Caulfield looked round at the others in the room, collecting his thoughts. “OK,” he began.
“During the past year – in other words, a relatively short time, which is what’s striking – there has been a clear increase in certain forms of criminal activity; in corruption, fraud, and intimidation. We think the Mafia, and the Scarlione family in particular, are at the heart of it. In just the last few months, they’ve undergone considerable growth in both membership and influence.
“They’re up to all their old tricks again. Through strongarm tactics or the threat of them they force any business they don’t own to close, or to let themselves be taken over. The businesses earn them cash which is then laundered.
“They appear to be moving back into areas from which they’d been seen to be withdrawing, like drugs. There’s also evidence that many of the black, Israeli, Hispanic, Chinese and Puerto Rican gangs are now operating under their umbrella, working for them either directly or indirectly. We thought the newer crime groups were successfully challenging their monopoly and had managed to retain their independence. Turns out we were wrong.
“What’s made this possible is a return to a more formal organisation, with a concentration of power in the hands of one “family”. In the past couple of years Salvatore Scarlione has established a dominant position over the other Mafia families, in Illinois, Florida, California, Wisconsin, Las Vegas, Texas, Arizona, New Orleans, New Mexico. He’s revived the National Commission, on which each of the families has a seat, but integrated it into a much wider organisation which goes beyond the Mafia itself, yet is under his control. The infighting between the various Mafia and other criminal groups has stopped, more or less, now that Scarlione has knitted them all into one outfit under his leadership.
“This new Mafia is bolder, and others more afraid of it. And as they’re proving more successful, and by the look of it more impregnable, more people are joining them. Either because they’re afraid or because they want a share of the rich pickings.
“It uses cyberspace and the IT industry to expand into new areas and spread its influence, as the old Mafia was beginning to. Scarlione was one of the last of the old school, but he had the wisdom to see that things had to change. He’s learnt a lot of new tricks with the aid of his son, Vito, who’s college-educated and has degrees in business and computing. I think Vito handles a lot of the technical and financial side of the operation. Altogether, it’s a very successful combination of the old and the new. The structure of the Scarlione family appears to be traditional Mafia, but its MO is modern and very effective.”
“We’ve all become a bit complacent about the Mob recently,” admitted the Attorney General, Raymond Houseman. “But these new developments…it’s all got to mean something. We knew the new breed of mobster was smart; and now they’ve hit on something very smart indeed to strengthen their hold on this country.”
Caulfield nodded. “They seem able to secure deals in favour of their front companies fairly easily. And I suspect they’ve been able to force changes in government policy where it is thought to threaten their wealth by its effect on the stock exchange.
“So far they’ve had no problem protecting themselves from the authorities while they’re doing it. A lot of people are suddenly refusing to testify in court cases. And incidents of witnesses or their families being murdered, or intimidated, have gone up. It’s like the witness protection scheme isn’t making any difference anymore. Furthermore there have been a number of recent acquittals of mobsters, which has only served to encourage organised crime generally. And for which I’m not quite sure what the reason is.”
“You think the judges were compromised in some way?” The Secretary for the Interior glanced at the Chief Justice.
“Judges are compromised, in one way or another, from time to time. I must admit, a whole string of unexpected acquittals…but why should the Mob suddenly be able to pull off something like that when they haven’t been for a long time?”
Unsurprisingly, the Chief Justice didn’t look happy. “You’re suggesting all those judges were – are - corrupt? That’s a pretty serious allegation. I’m not saying you’re wrong in making it, only that we’d need something pretty substantial to back it up.”
“We need to revive the strike forces,” said the Attorney General, referrring to the special police teams which had at one time been set up to investigate and punish Mafia activity, and were disbanded in 1990. “Something tells me it won’t make a lot of difference,” said Caulfield quietly.
“It won’t?”
“There’s nothing to prove it’s Scarlione who’s behind it all. He’s always been careful to avoid being fingered. Besides, like I said people are just too scared to talk.”
“But Witsec…for one thing, it applies to judges too. At least they can be given police protection from anyone wanting to threaten or blackmail them.”
“I’m thinking about the people who are running Witsec.”
“If the Mafia are now operating in a more structured way they should be easier to indict and bring to trial under RICO.” RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act) was a Federal law under which penalties for criminal activity were increased and might include civil actions being brought as well.
“That depends on whether RICO’s working in the first place. Right now I’m not sure it is.”
“Ray’s right,” said the Secretary for the Interior. “It’s true we’d been sitting on our laurels over the Mafia, thinking they were busted when in fact they were lying low, recovering their strength. But even given their new power, I still don’t see why RICO and Witsec and the wiretaps and everything aren’t making any difference. I’ve no idea what we’re dealing with here, and it’s making me very unhappy indeed.”


PM’s Office, 10 Downing Street
“Well, it…would seem,” said the Prime Minister slowly, “that these…criminal elements are exercising an undue influence over this country’s affairs.”
Paul Martens, Minister Without Portfolio in the government, general political fixer and one of Tom Buchan’s most trusted colleagues, agreed. “It certainly would.”
“Do we know how far it extends?” Buchan asked.
“Quite a way, going by all that’s happened.” Marten didn’t directly broach the subject of whether anyone in the government might be involved. “I mean, if you look at the collapse of recent criminal trials, and some of the legislation that’s been passed lately, particularly when it was a close-run thing and it all depended on winning over a few waverers…fortunately, a lot of those measures tie in with our own plans to increase the opportunities available to private enterprise and to create a fully competitive commercial environment within this country.”
The Prime Minister still looked unhappy. “I can’t believe they really do run everything…are we working with other governments on this? I mean clearly, it’s…not the sort of thing we should…”
“They all have the same problem. This criminal consortium is just too powerful and they don’t want to make an enemy of it. I thought maybe the Americans might make a difference but they don’t seem to want to get involved, presumably for the same reasons as everyone else. The security services are afraid of getting targeted themselves and won’t do anything unless the government tells them to. Of course, if we did tell them to…”
The PM continued to look perturbed. Then he seemed to brighten. “If the situation is as it seems to be, then we must arrive at a solution which is acceptable to these organisations.”
Marten nodded vigorously, but asked, “in what way, Prime Minister?”
“I think we must accept realities. It is clearly impossible at the moment to reverse the decision of the organisations to involve themselves in the conduct of public business. On the other hand I am sure some understanding is possible, if not desirable. There is no option but to allow these people to make their maximum contribution to the life of the nation.”
“You mean we’re not to take action against them?”
“It seems that would be quite out of the question.” Buchan shrugged. “Of course, if the situation changes…but in the meantime, everything will continue as normal and most people won’t get hurt. No…as I see it, for this government the issue is not at the present time a priority.”

A summons to the MD’s office frequently led Caroline Kent to wonder “what have I done now?”; on the other hand, it could mean another troubleshooting assignment and there was always a certain thrill in never knowing where you were going to be sent next. So it was with mixed feelings that she made her way there, a heady blend of apprehension and excitement.
“Morning, Caroline,” said Marcus Hennig, looking up from putting a golf ball across the floor of the as she entered. He put down his club and poured a couple of sherries for them both from his drinks cabinet. “So what did you think of last night?”
Yesterday had been the seventieth anniversary of IPL’s founding, and she had been invited along with all the other illuminati of the company to a celebratory dinner at the Institute of Directors. There had been plenty of speeches, punctuated with awful jokes, and someone had dug up the son of the founder who was now himself in his nonagenarian dotage and did little more than smile at everyone with senescent benevolence and pick from time to time at his food. It would have been a lot kinder just to have left him at home.
“Oh, very interesting,” said Caroline. In fact she’d found it mind-numbingly boring, but she had to give the impression that she had enjoyed it because if she didn’t it would get back to the Board, even though she knew Hennig’s opinion of the event was much the same as hers.
Following some banal small talk Hennig gestured to her to sit. He plonked himself down behind his enormous desk. “Now,” he said, getting down to business, “something funny seems to be going on at the refinery in the Caucasus.”
“Uh-huh. Is it anything like the trouble we had in Camaragua?” she asked, a little nervously. “Have they had any problems with terrorists, political extremists?”
“I don’t think so. There is a Caucasian separatist movement and it’s been causing a lot of trouble lately in Chechnya – we all know about that – Dagestan, North Ossetia, Ingushetia.” Military clashes, kidnappings of aid workers and foreigners, violent crimes and muggings had all increased. “But the refinery is north of those areas, where things are relatively safe.
“No, it’s not really political. But there’s some reason to suspect the petrol that’s being produced at the plant isn’t of the right quality.”
“Could that be a technical problem?”
“I know a lot of things in Russia don’t work properly. But we sent an engineer to check the place over – in case anything dodgy was going on, we couldn’t trust them to make their own inspections. He reports that everything seems to be working properly. But it may not be the equipment itself that’s going wrong. We can’t rule out someone adding something to the process that’s changing the composition of the oil.”
“How do we know there’s a problem in the first place?”
Hennig put on his sad expression. “There’ve been a number of accidents, several of them fatal. Cars catching fire, that sort of thing. In one case a whole family were burnt alive.”
Caroline closed her eyes in pain. “Nasty,” she murmured. She was distressed by the thought of the company for which she worked being responsible for such a tragedy.
“Last week a tanker went up at a terminal in Rumania, killing the driver. It was a miracle the fire didn’t spread to the tanks, and if it had there’d have been an inferno of Dantean proportions. We also know of at least one plane crash that can attributed to something in the fuel, which was refined at our installation at Kamchuk.
“It’s all in here.” He handed her a file. “It looks like what that refinery is actually producing is a low-grade form of petroleum not unlike diesel oil, which shouldn’t cost as much as it does. Our customers in the region are getting ripped off. And in addition, the stuff’s highly dangerous. Volatile. It’s touch and go whether anything happens and most of the time nothing does. But when it does, the results are horrific. There’s already been talk of suing us. And that’s because of what’s already happened. It’s only a matter of time before a filling station goes up and when it does…”
He made to lit a cigar, then remembered her long-standing aversion to smoking and abandoned the idea. “It’s a bit of a dilemma, I suppose. The longer this goes on without our being able to trace the source of it, and the more people get killed, the greater the hassle in the long run. But if we do find it was us, then of course we’re liable.” He looked more worried than he had been by the problems in Camaragua. “You see what this could lead to. With so many countries in the region dependent on oil from Russia; I don’t want an international scandal with us at the heart of it.”
“The Russians will be keen to make sure we get the blame for it and not them. Are they shouting for action?”
“They’ve made a few noises. I have a letter from their Energy Minister – it’s in the file – which makes clear they’re expecting action. If there isn’t any, you can bet they’ll cancel the contract and come to a new arrangmement with one of our rivals.”
“And not all the incidents have been on their territory? You mentioned Rumania.”
“Most of them have. One or two in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Byelorus, each of the Central Asian republics. What scares me, apart from the general damage to our reputation, is the possibility of a nasty accident at the refinery itself. You can bet those responsible will make sure they steer clear of all the places where it’s most likely to happen.”
“But why would someone do it at the point of production?” Caroline wondered. “Why not at the pumps? That’s happened, loads of times.”
“We can’t be sure it’s happening at the refinery. But the police in Russia and the other countries involved have already been investigating the scam, and they can’t find evidence of wrongdoing at any of the filling stations where our petrol is sold. The owners all seem to be honest people.”
“Or they wouldn’t risk their lives everyday by handling such a dangerous substance on their own premises. A filling station…well you can imagine what would happen if one did catch fire. Nor could anyone make them take such chances. But there’s all sorts of places, apart from the refinery itself, where the adulteration could be carried out.”
“It’s hard to be sure because there’s so much corruption in the former Soviet Bloc, now the iron hand of Communism has been removed. It extends to the police, I’m pretty sure of it. But usually some evidence turns up. It looks to me as if in this case, someone’s decided it might be an idea for the adulteration to be done at the point of production for a change. They thought they’d be less likely to be suspected, also that the intensive safety precautions in place at a refinery would minimise the physical risk to those involved, which they do – to some extent. Of course there’d have to be people in place at points further down the line to make sure no-one got suspicious. People paid to turn a blind eye, or to make sure that others did. Intermediary companies who act as a front for the organisation that’s behind all this. But they’d still be selling an ersatz product that doesn’t get taxed as highly as the real thing, with all those concerned in the scam, including the people at the refinery, getting their share of the increased profits.
“We should know for sure pretty soon. When our engineer was there he took a sample of the oil directly from the plant, after it had been through the refining process but before it could be pumped to the terminal. It’s now at Southampton where it’s being compared with samples taken from the filling stations or from the destroyed vehicles, which certainly show evidence of adulteration.
“In a way it’s not worth the fuss. Oil reserves in the Caucasus have been declining for a good many years, it won’t be long before they’re not profitable. But I want every last drop squeezed out of them, if possible. And I don’t like people turning my company into a criminal enterprise, you understand Caroline?”
“Well, I wouldn’t in your shoes. And the company belongs to all who work for it, so they say anyway.”
“Yes, of course,” Hennig nodded. He certainly had a major stake in it, with the extensive shares he had bought and could profitably sell whenever he liked, his director’s salary, and the generous company pension scheme from which he could expect to benefit when he retired. But then she was a shareholder too, and wouldn’t have said no to either a higher salary or the pension scheme, which in fact she had already joined to cover herself against accidental injury while in the company’s service. We took whatever advantages came our way, and in itself there was nothing wrong with that.
“Personally I think the Siberian refinery’s a more profitable investment, in as far as it’s anything to do with me,” Caroline said. It was located in an area of vast, relatively untapped mineral resources which in the last few decades had been gradually opened up, the process beginning under the former Soviet Union, although it was still, compared to most places in western Europe, a wilderness.
Hennig frowned by way of making clear it was nothing to do with her. “There’s some doubt as to whether the Siberian refinery is viable,” he said gloomily. “It’s too remote, for a start. I know they’ve got all the facilities they need at the commune but I’m still not sure I’d want to work out there, to be honest.”
He didn’t mind if someone else did, of course.
“It’s not that remote,” said Caroline. “I know it’s more expensive to supply and to staff it but there are more isolated refineries in existence. It hasn’t been as productive as we’d hoped, I know, but then it hasn’t been open for all that long either. And we could always resite it. The cost of the move might be balanced by the long-term savings in other areas.”
“I know that,” he said with an edge to his voice.
“But we’d have to abandon the new devolatalisation process.” Because of the Siberian refinery’s remote location, the poor state of the road network in that area, and the resulting costs and practical difficulties of transporting the finished product to where it was needed, the refined oil was pumped to the point of distribution along a pipeline, in the same way that the crude had reached the plant from the drilling rigs further north. Great care had to be taken, using robot vehicles called pigs, to keep the inside of the pipe clean and so avoid contamination of the product. The other major consideration was safety, especially in view of the amount of oil the refinery was intended to process each day. Normally, pumping refined oil – petroleum - through a pipeline in large quantities would be incredibly dangerous, since it was considerably more flammable than crude. Fortunately, IPL’s scientists had invented a chemical which when added to the oil during refining rendered the end product less volatile than it might otherwise be. The whole process was very finely tuned. In the particular conditions existing within an internal combustion or jet engine, which after all did not normally destroy the vehicles they powered when turned on and full of fuel, it would still ignite. But it would not be ignited by accidental means such as a workman dropping a lighted cigarette through a hatch in a pipeline – IPL did not encourage its workforce to be so irresponsible as to smoke in the environment of an oil refinery, but occasionally someone might choose to disregard the rules – or a spark from malfunctioning electrical equipment (though whenever the pipe had to be manually inspected and the lights turned on to allow the workmen to see better, the flow of petroleum was of course stopped anyway).
Hennig nodded at Caroline’s words. “Yes, and that’d be a pity.” The devolatalisation process had undoubtedly been a remarkable achievement, the team who’d developed it winning several awards for their ingenuity and application. “Shame we can’t adopt it at all our other refineries. But the tanker drivers would moan at being out of a job.” Caroline felt obliged to say she didn’t suppose one could blame them.
“We’re not social workers,” Hennig growled. She decided she’d better keep to the subject. “And with any luck, the refinery being so far out means someone’s less likely to infiltrate it with criminal intent.”
“I hope so,” Hennig grunted. “Anyway, I’d like you to fly out to Kamchuk with Chris Barrett as soon as Southampton confirms that sample is like the others; assuming it does. An unannounced visit. I want you to poke around and see if you notice anything suspicious. Interview all the people who could have been responsible; make it sufficient to put the frighteners on whoever it is without directly accusing anyone.
“But be careful,” he warned. “If someone’s up to no good they may harm you to protect themselves from exposure.”
“I understand the risks.”
“I know it’s a dangerous world, but the criminals seem to be getting even more vicious. What’s happening in our own country is bad enough. That chap Hickman; I don’t understand how he managed to get away with it. All the nasty things he’s done and yet they still say they haven’t got enough evidence…I just don’t get it.”
“Nor do I,” said Caroline. “Though he’s probably got friends in high places. It’s the only explanation I can think of.”
*
Later that day, in white coat, Caroline stood beside Reg Broadhead, the company’s chief research chemist, at his workbench on the floor of IPL’s principal research laboratory on the outskirts of Southampton. She’d felt it would give her more ammunition if she’d actually been there when he’d examined the sample. She watched him unstopper the phial containing it and pour the contents into a test tube that had a series of gradated markings down one side. Raising it to eye level, he squinted at it under the halogen lighting. It was half full of a colourless liquid which appeared at first sight no different from ordinary petrol, the petrol used in the tanks of cars and all manner of other vehicles.
“There’s no doubt about it,” he said after a moment. “See that black line there?”
“I see it.”
Before her very eyes the vertical strip of material like litmus which ran down the inside of the tube was gradually changing colour; turning black. “That indicates impurities. This oil's been adulterated, all right. Someone's trying to con us."
Next he transferred the contents to a centrifuge to analyse their composition. As he turned it on a sensor went off, flashing and bleeping, and a needle began to rise up a gauge.
He studied the figures on an LCD. “There’s definitely been a change in the chemical composition. I estimate 30 percent benzahyadrine, fifteen per cent thyrrinium.”
“What would the consequences be if this were to be introduced into the fuel tank of a car or other vehicle?” Caroline asked.
“I should think it would be potentially catastrophic. Mixed in with other substances, and with the type of process we use, it’s an explosive combination. This probably wasn’t intended by the people responsible, they just didn’t care. Besides, I doubt if there’d be an accident at the refinery itself because of the particular safety procedures in operation there, so they wouldn’t personally be in much danger. But in its new form I’d say the stuff’s considerably more flammable than would otherwise be the case. The very act of ignition makes it unstable. It depends on variables such as local temperature…but once it’s left the refinery, having been processed, any further exposure to intense heat, or any uncontrolled discharge of the same, could set it off.”
“So now there’s no doubt,” she said slowly. “Right, thanks Reg. I’ll need some record of it, of course.”
Broadhead entered his findings on a computer and printed them off. He handed the documents to her and she inspected them briefly. “Well, I’m only an executive but it looks like it’s all there.”
She stood thinking. “I suppose it could have been done at night when there wouldn’t have been so many people around. In the daytime…well they’d have to be personnel with some knowledge of the process. But it’d be possible, as long as no-one noticed anything.”
“Not my territory, sweetheart,” grinned Reg. “Sorry.”
“I know,” she muttered, reminded of what she might be taking on. An assignment which, if some criminal operation was behind the trouble, might well be dangerous.

“Hey Mike, tell me something,” said Gillian Lands suddenly. “Why do you do it – be a soldier, I mean?”
They were having drinks in her London flat. She was perched on the sofa opposite him, her legs curled beneath her, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Her feet were bare.
Mike Hartman grinned. “Why do you do it?”
“I’m not a soldier. I’m a civilian worker with the Department of Defense.”
“Would you like to be a soldier?”
She thought about it. “Not really.”
He raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Why not? You help us in our work but it seems you prefer to keep us at arm’s length if you can.”
Gillian sensed that now she was the one being psychoanalysed. She wondered what she should say. “I...I know someone’s got to do it, and I know that if I’d rather it wasn’t me that makes me a bit of a coward, I guess. But I can’t understand how someone could be in a job where there’s such a high probability of getting killed.”
“Being prepared to do that is a virtue. And I often think virtue’s sadly lacking in modern western society.”
She was more interested in his response than offended by any suggestion, though there hadn’t necessarily been one, that she was lacking in courage. “I see.”
“You’re trying to find out what makes me tick, aren’t you? You’ve been reading too many of those pop psychology books your lot keep churning out.”
“And you are dodging the issue. Evading questions with counter-questions. You know, I don’t think you like people trying to figure you out. You’re a funny guy,” she added after a moment.
He pretended to look offended. Then smiled. “Maybe I am. I don’t care.”
Which was what he sensed she liked about him.
“I guess I’m kind of intrigued.”
“By me? Why?”
“I’ve a hunch there’s more to you than meets the eye. But I reckon I’m not ever going to find out what it is.”
Depends how far we get to know each other, maybe.
“Well I’ll tell you one thing,” the Major grinned. “You’re right, someone’s got to do it. But maybe you can’t unless you’re a bit mad, because no-one would risk their life as often as a soldier does unless they were. So there’s a method to the madness.”
Gillian knew she had got her answer. There was really no need to enquire any further.
“Why do you do it?” he asked. “Be a civilian worker with the Department of Defense.”
“Protecting my country, I suppose. I’m not too happy when an American family loses a son or a daughter, a wife or a husband, because someone decides they don’t like us and bombs one of our embassies.”
“Like in Kenya? Most of the victims there were Africans though, weren’t they?”
“Small consolation to the Americans who did get killed.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – “
“No sweat. Besides,” she went on, “those people don’t care who gets caught up in their bombs, and never have. That’s why they’re a danger. But my job, my priority, has first and foremost to be to prevent them from harming America.”
“As mine is to protect Great Britain.”
“And is it still great?”
The Major thought. “It depends how you look at it. We’ve still got nuclear weapons, though realistically I’m not sure we could use it without your say-so. And any country which has nukes is a superpower compared to those which don’t.”
“Period. Not sure who the enemy is now, though. The world’s still in a state of…flux.”
“The enemy could come from any quarter. It’s best to be prepared.” Hartman sighed wistfully. “I don’t think you can have the Empire back. But I can’t help regretting that we don’t count for as much in the world as we used to.”
“You can’t help no longer being the ones on top. And I guess the bigger they come…”
“Which means America will probably suffer some major disaster sometime in the future which destroys it as a world power.”
Gillian shrugged. “I guess that’s the way it goes. Civilisations rise and fall..mind you, it may not happen for hundreds of years. The Roman Empire lasted quite a while.”
Now it was she who was being reflective. “Americans…well we have our problems too. In our personal lives, and as a people. Being on top isn’t what it’s billed as a lot of the time. There’s too many people who’re jealous of your success and like to show it.”
On her way to refill their glasses she paused at the window and looked out over the sprawling city. “Y’know, I like London. It’s a big city but it always surprises me how much goes on there. Hey, why don’t we go out on the town later on? See a movie or something?”
It was the first time she’d actually suggested anything of the kind to him; his military and staff duties had prevented him from staying too long with her in America and the opportunity just hadn’t arisen.
He brightened. “Yeah, why not?”

The helicopter settled onto the tarmac of the airfield at Kamchuk, its rotor blades whipping up clouds of dust. The rotors slowed, stopped, and the exit ramp was lowered. Thanking the pilot, Caroline Kent and Chris Barrett stepped down onto Russian soil, or rather Russian tarmac-surfaced runway, and looked around to see a small group of people coming towards them from the administration section.
Looking around at the landscape beyond the refinery, Caroline saw an unappealing prospect of low hills covered in a thin, arid-looking brown soil from which clumps of scrubby grass occasionally sprouted, and sand dunes. Not the most uplifting environment in which to work. The temperature was hot and clammy and she flicked away a large insect which was dancing about her face, its long legs brushing her skin.
The reception committee halted a few feet away and Caroline regarded them expectantly. ”Mr Ardzhikian?”
One of the group came forward. “I am Eduard Ardzhikian.” A Georgian, he was short, squat and stockily built with a beaky nose, bushy eyebrows and a fierce sweeping moustache which made him look not unlike the late Josef Stalin. They could sense the undercurrent of hostility in him.
Caroline shook his hand. “I’m Caroline Kent, IOM(2). This is my colleague, Chris Barrett.”
Ardzhikian nodded curtly to Chris, but otherwise ignored him. “To be honest I am not happy about this,” he grumbled.
“I don’t suppose anyone ever is when an IOM comes calling,” she smiled. Unless perhaps they were devastatingly attractive, and even that didn’t always work; she should know. “Don’t worry, I understand how you feel.”
“But I had had no prior warning.”
“That I was on my way? Well, unannounced visits by IOMs aren’t unknown. Best way to keep people on their toes, you see.” At the Georgian’s puzzled look she explained what the expression meant. She couldn’t be sure if he understood or not, but he didn’t seem any happier.
Ardzhikian introduced his colleagues; they were the chief PR person, the chief engineer, and the chief security officer, Josef Okhranov. She nodded to, smiled at, and shook hands with them all in turn, as did Chris. “Thankyou for coming to meet us.”
“We’d like to see you in your office for a few minutes, if that’s alright,” she told Ardzhikian. “I may need to speak to the rest of you later.”
He led them to a people carrier parked at the side of one of the airfield buildings, and the six of them climbed in. Nothing was said on the drive to the admin block, at the end of which Ardzhikian dismissed the others and showed Chris and Caroline to his office. There was a teasmade there but he didn’t offer them anything. They dumped down their briefcases and the holdalls which contained their luggage, and he waved them brusquely to chairs.
“Before we get started I’d like to say just one thing,” Caroline began. “IOMs never pay unannounced visits like this unless there’s something seriously wrong. Believe it or not, we much prefer to leave people to get on with their jobs without any interference from us. I’m not trying to make your life difficult.”
She didn’t always blame people for resenting it when she turned up, uninvited or otherwise, at their refinery wanting to know where everything was, poking into every nook and cranny, requesting innumerable reports each in triplicate and subjecting the management to a barrage of probing questions. The implication, after all, was that they weren’t doing their jobs properly. But then sometimes that might be the truth of the matter. Or something crooked might be going on.
She took a deep breath. “A sample of oil from here – refined, not crude - was tested at the laboratories at Southampton and found to contain impurities. We think it explains the recent spate of accidents in this part of the world involving petrol manufactured by this company.”
Ardzhikian drew himself up. “You took a sample of oil from this refinery? I do not remember anyone asking for permission. I knew there had been these regrettable accidents, but I thought you were simply going to check the refining equipment, the cracking plant, to see if the fault lay there. Did your engineer do it on his tour of inspection?”
Chris Barrett nodded. “You’ll understand the situation, Mr Ardzhikian. If someone here was responsible for the adulteration, we wouldn’t have wanted to alert them to our suspicions. Our enquiries elsewhere had produced no result so by elimination we guessed the root of the trouble must be here.”
“This sort of thing is not calculated to inspire trust between the national branches and the parent company.”
“Perhaps not,” agreed Caroline. “But there was an excuse for it.” She wasn’t comfortable about the business at all, but then Hennig and the top management must have had good reason to suspect Ardzhikian and his colleagues long before they’d acquainted her with their misgivings. It took one slimy rat to know another, she reflected. “If there was anything wrong with the oil being processed here I would know about it,” insisted the Georgian.
“That depends who the person responsible is,” Chris pointed out. “Though we’ll assume it’s not you.” He had to say that of course.
For the adulteration to be carried out successfully, a number of people would have to be involved. Ardzhikian unless he was really incompetent and didn’t know what was going on; the cracking plant foreman and the technicians working under him; and some at least of the security guards, including their supervisor.
“I assure you all my colleagues are reliable, entirely trustworthy. You are sure the scientists could not have been mistaken about the sample?”
“They’re normally pretty good at their job. I was there when they did their analysis.” Caroline took a laminated plastic folder from her briefcase and placed it on the table before him. “There’s the report.”
Ardzhikian took it and began to read through it, clearly intending them to assume all else was to be suspended until he had finished. She cut ruthlessly through this stalling. “I want you to be extra vigilant from now on, to tighten up security. I want – “
“Our security is already adequate, I assure you Miss Kent.”
“And yet the oil is being adulterated – the evidence is right there in front of you. So it can’t be adequate, can it?”
“Surely the blame lies with Head Office,” the Georgian said. “As soon as they suspected the adulteration was being carried out here, they should have told us and we would have taken steps to prevent it.” She sensed he was trying to make her feel guilty at that family’s being burnt to death, and all the other tragedies.
“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?” she said sweetly. “And besides, if your security officer was in on the scam…”
“That is an insulting suggestion,” said Ardzhikian. “If you will forgive me saying so.”
Chris felt her bristle, but she kept her cool. “I’m quite prepared to forgive you. I can understand you resenting what I’m saying. But I don’t know your security officer as well as you do. Do I?”
Ardzhikian shrugged. “I suppose not.”
“As I was saying, I want you to tighten security from now on until further notice. Especially at night, which is when I suspect it’s being done – the adulteration. It’s only fair to warn you that if the problem continues you may find yourself and your security people, maybe other personnel too, being replaced. I’m only concerned for the company’s image and its profits – and of course the danger to the public.”
She’d long ago begun to take a dislike to him. “I don’t like to have to say these things, of course,” she said insincerely.
He sat there with a wooden expression, saying nothing. Something told her that despite his show of baffled indignation he’d been expecting this visit for some time.
“As for me, I’ll be here for the next three days, doing mainly routine checks.” And prowling around to see if she could catch the perpetrators in the act, though she wasn’t going to let Ardzhikian know that. “Part of the job, of course.”
“Of course.” Ardzhikian seemed suddenly to brighten. “It could be that the adulteration is the work of someone with a grudge against the company. Someone who wants to discredit it in the eyes of the public and does not care if innocents get killed in the process. There are such sad people. As a matter of fact we have had to dismiss several employees for inefficiency during the last few months…”
That wouldn’t surprise me, thought Caroline. “So you think it might be them?” She had to admit the possibility hadn’t occurred to her.
But I know when you’re covering something up. I know when you’re trying to throw me off the scent. “I suppose I’d better look at your personnel records at some point.” It would give her something to do if she found herself at a loose end.
“With respect, I think it would be appropriate to explore such possibilities before anyone currently working at this plant is accused of some wrongdoing,” Ardzhikian said.
“Quite,” Caroline nodded. She stood up, prompting Chris and the manager to do the same. “I’ll need to speak to your security guy myself at some point. Where would I be most likely to find him?”
“When not at his duties, in Hut….” Ardzhikian glanced at a list on the wall. “Hut 26. But such information should be in your quarters. I’ll have Josef show you there, if he’s available.” He pressed a button on his desk and spoke into an Intercom.
It turned out the security officer was available, but would take a while to reach the office from the part of the refinery he had been inspecting. Ardzhikian asked if they would like some tea while they were waiting. “English tea, I suppose,” he grinned. He seemed to be in a more friendly mood now, perhaps because he thought he had, indeed, thrown them off the scent.
He made a cup each for the three of them. They chatted cordially enough for a while, then Ardzhikian seemed to grow uncomfortable and little was said until Okhranov turned up to escort the two executives to their living quarters. Later Chris went to see Caroline in her hut, one of a complex of prefabs which served as accommodation for those staff permanently on site, plus visiting executives from Head Office or the regional branches. “What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s like at the plant in Camaragua. Something’s not right here.”
“Ardzhikian and his people could have been threatened, of course.”
“The vibes are different this time. They’re in on it from…well, in some cases it could be fear, like you say. In others…I think it’s something that’s become a habit.”
“We’ll have to be very careful how we handle this. Try and get close enough to make them worry, but not think any particular one of them is in danger of being found out. It’s going to be difficult.”
“And I think we’d better go around together as much as possible. Safety in numbers, even if there’s only two of us.”
She stared out through the window of the Portakabin at the distant mountain range. “Yes, you’re right. It’s going to be tricky. Very tricky…"

Headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Vauxhall Bridge Cross, London
The top management of MI6, the British external security service, were meeting as they periodically did in the building’s Briefing Room to discuss what seemed to be the most serious threat to national and international security and how to respond to it. As on all such occasions the organisation’s Director, Sir Derek Winlett, and his deputy Sophie Cameron-Davies, plus the various Section Heads were present. This time the Executive and Senior Case Officers had also been invited, Winlett thinking it would help them gain a clearer idea of the kind of issues they would have to deal with in the future.
Winlett explained what the subject of the meeting would be this time. “I believe this is not the first time we have discussed this matter,” said Cameron-Davies.
“That was the drug barons,” said the head of the South American section, Jeremy Farmer.
“Well they’re still a problem, though less so after Viellar’s operation was smashed,” Winlett told the meeting. “However, there’ve been suggestions in the past that we take on organised crime, of which the drug trade is a part. I think it was worth seeing what you all thought about that.
“Dealing with gangs operating in this country will of course be the job of the police or MI5. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t assist foreign intelligence services on their own territory, given that the problem affects everyone. We’ll be taking a hand because the problem has an international dimension.” Besides, they still needed something to do in the post-Cold War world. “And the drug trade, for example, affects the quality of life of people in this country.”
“Who do we regard as the main threat?” asked an EO.
“Well, globally the Russian Mafia’s influence is on the increase; we’ve all been slow to wake up to how powerful they’re getting. Apart from them…there are Triads, Yardies, Yakuza, Chechens, Israelis, Nigerians. Drugs are being smuggled into this and other Western countries from Afghanistan. There are prostitution rackets smuggling women from the Far East into Europe and America, and from Europe – particularly the former Eastern Bloc countries – to the Gulf States. And, of course, the Mafia – the American one. Organised crime is carried out in all sorts of places by all sorts of people. The whole situation’s become impossibly complicated.”
“I imagine we’ll be tackling the problem by means of infiltration, surveillance?” asked Rachel Savident, a Senior Case Officer.
“Yes. We’ll have to work very closely with Interpol, other intelligence services, and the national police authorities. Everyone concerned will need to stress that they’re assisting the police in this, not taking over from them.”
“Are we agreed in principle that we should do it?” he asked. Everyone nodded. “I mean, since the scale of the problem is so severe…” said Cameron-Davies.
“Quite.” Winlett’s face fell. “However, recent developments completely change the nature of the problem. This new international syndicate which sees to have emerged…at the moment it’s too difficult and too dangerous for us to take on.”
“We need to identify who could build the kind of device the -Syndicate are using to spy on everyone,” said Nigel Haverhill, another SCO. “We know how they’re doing the computer hacking and the electronic surveillance. But this…”
“So far we haven’t had any leads. The most likely source of the thing is America, since they’re so far ahead of everyone else technologically. But they insist they don’t know and can’t help. And no-one else has been able to turn up any clues.”
“Generally I don’t think the Americans are being very co-operative,” Cameron-Davies said.
“I think they’re hiding something. They developed the device and somehow it fell into the wrong hands. Apart from that being a major embarrassment to them, they want to eliminate the slightest chance of anyone else getting hold of it. It’s something they’d prefer to reserve for their own use.
“Because they’re being so cagey we’ve no idea if they’re planning anything on their own, although it could be they’re completely hamstrung like us.” Winlett asked for suggestions on how to break the deadlock, but no-one had any. The meeting ended without reaching any clear decision.
Afterwards Rachel Savident went back to her office, to find Bob Deller waiting by the door. He was one of the team of Junior Case Officers working under her. Slightly older than herself, he had joined the Service at about the same time, since when they had got to know each other well. They operated together smoothly when at work, and also enjoyed each other’s company outside of it.
“Can I have a word?” he asked.
She nodded and let them both in. The door closed. “I just want you to know I meant what I said last night,” said Bob.
“It was very sweet of you,” Rachel smiled. Then her face changed. “But – “
“Are you saying you don’t think it’d work out?” Bearing in mind how well they’d always got on, it seemed to him that a romantic involvement, if they wanted to take things that far, would only be a logical extension of their current relationship.
“For one thing, I’m a higher grade aren’t I?” Rachel pointed out. Could they perform two separate roles, live in effect double lives, be husband and wife at home and senior and junior at the office? Was that possible?
“I…” Bob hesitated, not wishing to sound conceited. “When the next round of promotions comes up…the rumour is Bullard and Haverhill will be moving up a peg or two. They’ll need to be replaced and I stand a good chance of being made an SCO.” Rachel was glad of that. It meant it would be less improper her having certain feelings towards him. However…
“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s because…because whatever rank either of us was, there’s the danger I could make the wrong decision just to keep you from harm.”
“We did all right together on the Kassabi case.” But then he hadn’t known then that he…loved her?
“Besides, the Israelis do it.”
“That’s very different.”
“And because we’re both in the Service, we wouldn’t have to keep secrets from one another.” He shrugged. “In the last resort, I could always find another job.”
“But then I wouldn’t be able to tell you about my work, would I?”
“As a former member of the Service I’m sure I could be trusted to keep quiet.”
Rachel bit her lip. “I’ll think about it a bit more, Bob. I promise you that at least.” She sat down behind her desk. “Look, I’m sorry but I’m a bit busy right now…”
“Well for what it’s worth, I like you,” he told her. “I mean…more than like. I just felt I ought to say that, even if it was just once. Even if it doesn’t mean a great deal to you.”
With the briefest of nods he went off, leaving her with much to think about.

Both wearing donkey jackets and hard hats, Caroline Kent and Chris Barrett patrolled the night-time corridors of the refinery, the sound of their slow, measured footsteps ringing out hollowly. There didn’t seem to be anyone else about. However security guards needed to do their rounds, and an emergency might occur which required staff to get out of bed and over to the refinery to deal with it, so the lights were usually kept on, enabling them to see what they were doing and justifying what would otherwise have been a waste of energy. Production often went on through the night anyway, although on this occasion the whole place seemed still and silent, apart from themselves. There was no sound from the cracking plant where much of the refining process went on, no hum and whine and clank of machinery in operation.
Caroline found herself listening for any noise, any at all, that might disturb the peace of the night, her senses unusually alert. Despite Chris’ presence beside her, she couldn’t help feeling nervous, wary at any rate. Any sound she did hear made her stiffen, ears all but physically pricking up. Shafts of moonlight from the windows threw spooky shadows on the walls and floor.
It was especially important she did not go unaccompanied about the place at this time of night. Or that she went with anyone other than Chris, because she couldn’t be sure right now she could trust them.
From time to time they talked in low whispering voices. “You know what’s going to happen, of course,” said Caroline wearily. “They’ll make sure nothing suspicious goes on while we’re here, then as soon as we’ve gone…”
“We could stay a bit longer,” Chris said, without much enthusiasm.
“Somehow I’ve even less desire to be here for any length of time than I had to hang about in Camaragua,” she muttered. “At least there you could go walking in the Andes, or take trips into the jungle to visit interesting ruins. Here you have to travel vast distances to find anything worth seeing.”
“It must be interesting to the locals.”
“I’m sure.” She wasn’t in a particularly good mood at the moment.
“Tourist industry’s been screwed up by terrorism anyway,” Chris commented.
“Rest of Russia’s no different,” she complained. “Aesthetically speaking I mean.” What she had seen of the place from the train between Moscow and St Petersburg on a school trip some years before had been drab and scrubby, like one huge patch of waste ground.
“But there are things worth seeing,” he reminded her. “Even if, like you say, you have to go a long way to – “
He froze. So did Caroline. From down a corridor to their left they could hear footsteps, slow footsteps. Coming in their direction.
They waited, hearts pounding, once or twice glancing at each other anxiously. Then security officer Okhranov, appeared, his hands clasped behind his back. He saw them and paused for a moment. He was a balding, heavy-featured man in his early fifties.
“Everything alright?” Caroline asked.
“Yes, everything is fine,” Okhranov said. With a nod and a smile he moved on, Caroline and Chris stepping aside to let him pass. Although she could have been mistaken, Caroline thought she saw a brief look of resentment on his face that they were doing what he considered to be his job. It’s like this, Caroline thought. If you’re innocent, I don’t blame you. If you’re not…
It was an added complication that he was about. She noted that he didn’t offer to accompany them on their tour of inspection, and wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. If he was innocent it was arguably a wasteful duplication of effort, though no more than that. If he was guilty, he’d try and make sure they didn’t see anything they weren’t meant to.
So did the fact that he hadn’t offered to go with them mean he was in the clear?
“What do you think of him?” Chris asked once he was sure Okhranov couldn’t hear. She’d spent some time earlier that day talking to the Russian, as planned.
“Hiding something like everybody else,” she sniffed. “Certainly if any funny business is going on here, he’d have to be aware of it. And if he’s not hiding something he’s incompetent. Even if it is a DFE – Disgrunted Former Employee – behind everything, which I don’t believe for one moment, they couldn’t possibly break in here to do their stuff – and they’re obviously doing it on a regular basis - unless Mr Okhranov simply isn’t doing his job properly.”
“We should have called in the Russian police,” Chris said. “Be a way of putting additional pressure on Ardzhikian.”
“I don’t think Hennig trusts them. Still, there’s nothing to stop us. Thing is, if they can’t do it I don’t see what luck we’ll have.”
“We’re not corrupt,” he pointed out.
“No. But we aren’t a police force either.”
Certainly they hadn’t had much success so far. They had checked everywhere; the oil storage tanks, the workshops, the cracking plant, the maintenance section where among other things the pigs were kept that set off at intervals surveying the pipelines which conveyed the oil hundreds of miles to locations in southern Europe, central Asia, and Russia itself. A lot of it was simply routine checking that had nothing to do with the mystery of the adulterated oil. But whatever the purpose of the inspection there had been nothing out of place, nothing that shouldn’t have been there, nothing that appeared to have been tampered with. Ardzhikian still insisted, despite the evidence of the sample, that the funny business was more likely to take place at the pumps than at the refinery. She was once again becoming impatient with him. He might have a point when he suggested that on one occasion at least someone could have done it at the refinery to draw attention away from the filling stations; they might have been an outsider who got lucky rather than a member of staff who knew the best point at which to contaminate the oil. But she had the impression he was searching for anything, anything at all, which would cause Head Office to think the scam was centred elsewhere. And nothing changed the fact that what evidence there was did point to the refinery.
The checking was best carried out at night rather than during the day when there were more people around, going about their various tasks, and you were likely to get in someone’s way – causing them obvious annoyance, whether or not they were involved in concealing something from the company management. That was why they now repeated the search they had made a few hours earlier.
The most likely place where the adulteration could be carried out was the cracking plant. And so they inspected it again, Caroline opening the door, which was locked at night, with the keys she’d been given by Okhranov. Inside there was no natural lighting, but the neon lamps suspended from the ceiling illuminated everything with their harsh, yellow-white glare. Under it gleamed the banks of huge, complex machinery, dead for now but still giving an impression of tremendous, slumbering power. They split up, each concentrating on one end of the room. The sound of their feet echoed eerily in the vast, high-ceilinged chamber.
Neither of them, to be honest, had a clear idea what they were looking for. The adulteration would have to have been done while the refinery was actually in operation, most likely during daylight hours. There were CCTV cameras in here and they were on all the time, but to Caroline’s annoyance the film from them for the last few weeks - right up to just before she’d arrived here, which in itself was highly suspicious – had already been thrown away. It could, of course, have been plain carelessness, and since there was no way of knowing for sure their investigations were thus somewhat hampered. But they might still be able to find some clue, whatever it was, which proved that illegal and dangerous practices had been going on.
Caroline made for the nearest of the vast machines. She was right in the centre of the room when the lights flickered, hurting her eyes, and dulled. “What’s going on?” she heard Chris ask.
“Don’t know,” she replied crossly. “But I can’t see very well now.” She was having to squint a bit.
“We’d see better if we had a couple of torches.” He pointed to a door in the far wall. “I think that’s a storeroom. We should find some in there.” They started to walk towards it.
They were almost there when suddenly Caroline’s feet shot from under her and she fell. Or rather sat down heavily, her backside cushioning the impact as backsides were designed to do. Anyway it hurt, sending a stab of pain up her spine from her bruised coccyx. “Ow!” she yelled.
Chris crouched down beside her. “Are you alright?”
“I think so,” she winced. “Watch out, there’s something…something on the floor…”
He squinted. The patch of flooring where she had fallen seemed slightly darker than the rest. He reached out and touched it. Oil; he recognised it by that sticky, slippery feel. They hadn’t seen it in the dim lighting.
“You’re lucky you didn’t injure yourself,” he told her. She could have twisted her ankle or even broken a leg. As a matter of fact, so could he. The patch of oil was large enough for them both to have stepped in.
She managed to stand up. “Now how did that get there?” she wondered, realising what the stuff must be. There was nothing nearby from which it might have leaked.
“I think that was a warning,” Chris said quietly. “Shall we find those torches and carry on with it, or…”
Caroline considered it for a moment. “I think I’ve had enough for one night. In the morning I’ll have a word with Okhranov about it. It’s obvious it was staged so one or both of us would have a nasty accident.”
“You think he could have been responsible?”
“Him or one of his team. It depends if there was anyone else on the premises at the time.”
“If it is Okhranov, the more suspicious he knows we are of him the more we’re putting ourselves in danger,” Chris said.
“Danger is sometimes part of the job,” she replied. “Anyway, let’s go and find Okhranov. That oil’s a safety hazard and the sooner something’s done about it the better.” They went looking for him, calling out his name at intervals. And noting that it seemed to be only the lights in the cracking plant that were malfunctioning.
At length Okhranov appeared. “Is there anything wrong?”
Caroline told him what had happened. “Are you hurt?” he enquired.
“No, but somebody else might be. You’d better tell Maintenance about it. They’re to get it cleared up and also see to the cracking plant lights. First thing in the morning, please. No-one must go in there in the meantime. And I want you to make a few enquiries. We need to find out how that oil got there in the first place. Report back to me once you’ve found out, if you would.”
“Of course. If that’s all…”
“For now.”
Chris saw Caroline back to her quarters. Fortunately he didn’t have to go far to get to his own, it being next door. He was a bit worried about something happening on the way.
“What are we going to do now?” he asked anxiously once they were out of earshot from the refinery.
“Take things one step at a time,” she told him. “If too much happens too quickly, if we go through this like a bulldozer, it could panic them and then we don’t know what they’ll do. Tomorrow we’ll have a good long think about it.”
He shared one final thought with her before they parted. “That was a bit too obvious a warning, in my opinion. They must be pretty confident of getting away with the scam. But when we saw Ardzhikian yesterday he seemed nervous of us, in my opinion.”
“Some people are naturally shifty. Well, goodnight.” She turned her key in the lock and disappeared inside.
She didn’t get much sleep that night, and not only from trying to work out what their next move should be. Every now and then she thought she heard footsteps approach the hut, pause and then go away. And whenever the wind rattled the door in its hinges she wondered if someone was trying to break in.
But it is only the wind, she told herself. Isn’t it?

Private residence of the US Attorney General
“Thanks for agreeing to this meeting, both of you,” said Raymond Houseman to Winston Caulfield and the Chief Justice. “Now what I’m suggesting is this. It’s quite intolerable our country should be debased in this way, by being run by a group of criminals. But it is; there’s no doubt the Mob are trying to control, have virtually succeeded in controlling, the police and judiciary and political system. They may not be concerned with everything that goes on, but what they are doing is having a bad enough effect on the life of the nation. The President doesn’t seem to know what to do about it, so it looks like it’s going to be down to us three. He hasn’t said he’s gonna stand in our way.
“We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to be the Untouchables – you know, like Elliott Ness.” Houseman grinned. “I suggest the three of us make a pact to prosecute any Mafiosi found guilty of a criminal offence. Winnie’s boys catch the criminals and I – or Mr Chief Justice here if there’s an appeal - prosecute them. There’s a risk involved, of course. We’ll need to obtain maximum protection for our families so no-one can compromise us by threatening them. Generally we’ll watch our backs. And if we’re successful, hopefully others will follow our example. What do you say to it, gentlemen?”
There had to be some discussion first; but eventually, the other two agreed they couldn’t keep putting up with the Syndicate’s poisonous influence and had to do something to draw its venom. “We’ll need someone to bring a case first, though,” said Caulfield. “Won’t they be too scared?”
“I can’t believe that someone, somewhere, won’t decide they’ve had enough of it and do something. Meanwhile, I’ll guess we’ll just have to wait.”

Caroline sat at her desk in the living section of her hut, going through the personnel files on the three sacked employees. They included a typewritten summary of the information in English, for her benefit. It seemed one of the men had been guilty of striking a colleague, the other two of absenteeism and general inefficiency. She’d known charges to be trumped-up before, and if they had been it would be an incentive, though not a justification, for sabotage. But there was no way of telling without interviewing the men personally, and although that could be arranged if necessary they wouldn’t be likely to admit they’d taken their grievance to the extent of jeapordising innocent lives. It would be a job for the police, she decided. Meanwhile, she was really only looking at the files in order to keep Ardzhikian happy.
Chris, accompanied by an interpreter, was off chatting to the workforce to see if they had any matters they wanted to discuss with a representative from Head Office. Though no doubt they would prefer to be talking to her, his genial and open manner made him good at that sort of thing, and increased the chances of him learning something.
As for the oil on the floor of the cracking plant, she had made it quite clear to Okhranov she considered it had been left there deliberately, with the aim of frightening she and Chris off their investigation, if not hospitalising them and thus eliminating them from the situation. He said he was still looking into the matter but at the moment could find no clue as to who had sabotaged the lights or put the oil where she could slip in it. Without admitting that she included him among the principal suspects, she pointed out that once again he’d been shown to be inefficient, if the culprit had been able to do the job undetected.
She heard someone press the buzzer and went to the screen in the wall which showed what the CCTV camera covering the approach to the hut was seeing. Three smartly-dressed men in suits and ties, with ID cards clipped to their lapels, were standing just outside. Obviously company personnel of some kind. Probably from the headquarters of the Russian branch in Moscow, here to complain because Hennig had sent her to investigate the scam over their heads. Well, they’d have to take their moans to him personally. In the meantime, out of politeness, she’d better hear what they had to say.
She opened the door to let them in. "Good afternoon," she smiled. "Can I help you?"
The words were barely out of her mouth when one of them barged forward, pushing her back and nearly causing her to lose her balance. Wrapping one arm around her waist he whipped something from his pocket, a small gleaming metal object, and held it against her throat.
"Do not make a sound," he hissed. “Don’t scream or you’re dead.”
By now the other two were in the room, closing the door behind them. They pushed forward a chair and he shoved her into it. His colleagues held down her arms, pinning them to those of the chair, while he brandished the knife menacingly before her eyes. It looked like he might be intending to use it, and she panicked.
It had been a mistake to leave her legs free. She kicked out savagely, and the man staggered back with a shriek of pain, one hand going to his genitals. He had no idea a woman could kick so hard.
He recovered his wind. “Do that again and you will wish you had never been born.”
She fought to control her fear, knowing she wasn’t entirely succeeding. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What’s this all about?”
The Russian ignored the first question, but answered the second. "Mr Salvatore Scarlione asked us to have a little word with you,” he said.



Seven
Caroline’s first reaction was to freeze with fear. If these men were acting on behalf of Scarlione, who had obviously conceived a bitter hatred for her because of what she’d said and done to him in the bar in New York, then something unpleasant was surely about to happen.
Once the initial shock had passed, it was succeeded by a sense of astonishment. Scarlione…here?
The main thing was what to do about it. If she did scream it might only make matters worse. On the other hand it might alert Security to the fact that something was wrong. For the moment the conflicting considerations cancelled each other out and she just sat there staring blankly at the man before her.
She became aware he was speaking. “But first, I think we’d like some answers.”
“What do you mean?” she asked calmly. If she co-operated with them it would buy her a bit of time. She wondered how she could best make use of it.
“Scarlione told us you were one of these investigative journalists who had been taking an interest in organisations like ours, and needed to be taught a lesson. Yet it seems you are not a journalist, you are an oil company executive.” They must have agents at the refinery, who’d tipped them off as soon as she’d shown up here. “Or perhaps you are both, yes? The English expression is “moonlighting”. An intriguing combination, wouldn’t you say?” He chuckled. “Do they pay you so badly you have to supplement your income by investigative reporting?”
“He said I was a journalist?” For a moment she was puzzled. “I don’t know why he’d – “
“Something strange would seem to be going on. I would like to know the real reason why he wanted you hit, and thought perhaps you could enlighten us.”
At first Caroline didn’t reply. She was thinking that events seemed to have taken a totally unexpected, and not entirely unwelcome, turn. Could it mean she was out of danger?
The man’s face looked as though it had been crudely carved from a block of granite. “I am waiting for an answer, Miss Kent,” he reminded her. The voice matched the expression.
The knife was at her throat again. “Our orders were to disfigure you. And I will do it here and now if you do not co-operate, is that understood?”
No skin off my nose, she thought, though that might be an unfortunate way of putting it. “Scarlione’s only mad with me because I insulted him.” With a certain pleasure, she related in detail what had happened between her and the Don in New York. “I’m struck by the fact that he didn’t care to tell you the truth. He didn’t want everyone to know how he’d lost face. I think it’s pathetic, quite frankly.”
The Russians absorbed the news. Then they started laughing; loud, hearty laughter coming from deep in their lungs. For a moment they staggered about room helplessly, tears of mirth glistening on their cheeks, clapping each other on the shoulder and poking each other in the ribs.
Momentarily forgotten, Caroline jumped up from the chair and ran to her desk, slamming her hand down on the panic button which was wired to the Security Section. It might not do any good, but she presumed they still meant to harm her and wanted to avoid that if possible.
Outside, alarm bells began to ring. The Russians froze, then looked at one another uncertainly. She bolted for the door, flung it open and shouted out a call for help.
One of the Russians grabbed her and flung her away from the door, slamming it shut. She stumbled and fell, landing on hands and knees. The other two seized her and dragged her back to the chair.
They could hear shouting and sounds of people running, far-off for the moment. The Russian with the knife looked down at it and then at Caroline, hesitantly. He didn’t relish the job, spoiling a beautiful face like that, and the alarm would serve as an excuse not to do it.
“We still have a score to settle with you,” he told her. “Be careful.” With a nod to the others he turned from her, marched to the door and yanked it open. The three of them hurried out, leaving her to slump in the chair with her eyes closed, sighing in sheer relief.
She made herself a cup of tea and sat down to drink it. A couple of minutes later Chris appeared with Okhranov and a couple of his men. “What happened?” Chris demanded.
“I was – threatened.” She took a deep breath, her nerves still a little frayed. “By three men.”
"Who were they, Caroline?” asked Chris. “What did they want?”
She looked hard at Okhranov, not getting up. “I think I need to have another little talk with you. In confidence, please. You can stay, Chris.”
After a moment Okhranov nodded to the two security guards, who left. Caroline waved him and Chris to seats. The pair looked at her expectantly.
“They said they wanted to carve me up.” Chris shuddered at the thought of that face so hideously mutilated. “At a guess, they were Russian Mafia. But the point is, they said Salvatore Scarlione had asked them to do it.”
Chris did a double-take. “You’re kidding,” he said.
“No. No, I’m not. My guess is they would have had a go at me anyway, because they’re probably the ones behind the petrol scam. But Scarlione wanted them to say it was from him.”
“I think you had better explain one or two things,” said Okhranov, sounding a little more businesslike. “Who is this Salvatore Scarlione?”
His eyes widened as she told him. “I sense you have a way of making enemies,” he commented. She gave a noncommittal shrug. “Well I think we had better put an extra guard on this cabin while you are here. There’ll also have to be an enquiry into how they got in.”
“And would it make a lot of difference?” she said challengingly. “Or are you a changed man now, Mr Okhranov?”
Okhranov stared at her, then let out a weary sigh, his head slumping onto his chest. Slowly he looked up. “You see, the problem is, Miss Kent…the problem is, these people are very influential.”
“They’re not going to stand in the way of this company doing what it was set up to, and in an ethical fashion,” she said severely. “But carry on.”
“Yes, they are Mafiya. Although I caught a glimpse of the men I think may have done it and I suspect one was a Chechen.”
“That’s surprising,” interjected Chris, passing by the fact that Okhranov had seen the men but not succeeded in stopping them. “I wouldn’t have thought the Chechen and Russian mafias would work together. Russia and Chechnya aren’t exactly best buddies at the moment.”
“Evidently it is possible. Perhaps it is the case that crime knows no boundaries. Anyway, the Mafiya are certainly involved in the oil swindle. They have been involved in many similar scams in the past, before and after the fall of Communism. And they are very well informed. They seem to know where each employee of the company lives, from the manager downwards, where their children go to school, the daily movements of them and their loved ones.” He looked at Caroline significantly.
“They threatened you?” she said.
“Yes,” he answered softly. “How else could your attackers have got onto the premises? How else could the oil have been contaminated?” In a sudden burst of courage he admitted it. “And why do you think I spilt that oil on the floor of the cracking plant, and then sabotaged the lighting?”
Again he lowered his head. “I didn’t really want to do it. At the least I could have gone to the police. But…not long ago a foreman here was run down and killed by a forklift truck. Another was crushed when a stack of oildrums fell on him. The young son of a workman who had refused to act as a spy for the Mafiya here was picked up from school by two strange men one evening and not seen again until two days later when his body was found in a ditch by the road with the skull smashed in. I don’t know how they do it but their influence is everywhere. Always you feel they are watching you…excuse me, Miss Kent, it is not a polite thing to say in the presence of a lady but…”
“Oh, that’s alright,” she told him.
“In his retirement the former Soviet leader, the late Nikita Khrushchev, was always being spied on by his successors. He used to say he only had to fart on the toilet and the KGB would know about it. That is exactly how I feel.” He buried his head in his hands. “I would resign, but how could I guarantee getting a better job anywhere else? Your company pays well, whatever people might say about it. And it wouldn’t mean I was free from the Mafiya. They would be listening to make sure I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t.”
Okhranov looked from her to Chris in appeal. “Tell me, what would you have done? Either of you?”
I’d have fought it, Caroline decided. But then not everyone’s as brave, or as daft, as I am.
“Well, I’m not sure, really,” said Chris. “But we’ve come across this sort of thing before – haven’t we?” He glanced at his colleague.
“Yes, in South America,” Caroline nodded. She came to a sort of decision. “Despite the fact I was nearly crippled I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame you, Mr Okhranov. You were naturally concerned for yourself and your family – you do have a family, I take it?” Okhranov nodded. “And I don’t think it’s practical to employ only single people at our company. In any case there’d still have been the consideration of your own welfare. If we were to sack you we’d only get the same problem with your predecessor.”
“So what are you going to do, may I ask?”
“I’m not sure yet. In the meantime, just get on with your job as normal. OK?” She gave him a friendly smile. “I’ll just have to consider the position very carefully. Rest assured I will.”
“Of course he’ll go and tell his friends all about that conversation,” Chris said once Okhranov had gone. “At least he might do, if he thinks they’d have liked to know about it.”
“Can’t be helped,” Caroline sighed. She appeared to think things over. “Russian Mafia…to be honest, I already had my suspicions. I think this is something bigger and a lot more difficult to deal with than Viellar. It’s too widespread, and it’s got its finger in too many pies. Not just drug trafficking – I’m pretty certain it’s involved in that – but prostitution, extortion, fraud, blackmail – and oil scams. It’s got too many centres, and I don’t think there’s any one person or group of people in charge of it, though some might be more important than others. It’s an international thing, too. I keep hearing rumours it’s active in Britain. They think that Hickman scumbag’s got links with them.”
“We know Scarlione does. Which means he could be in on the oil scam too.”
“As regards the Russian end the most we can do is speak to the government in Moscow and impress upon them how important it is this thing is dealt with. In the meantime I’m going to recommend the plant be closed. As a temporary measure while we plan our response to the problem.” That would be so much more satisfactory than a permanent closure, which would leave her afflicted by a sense of failure. Failure was something she took badly. “How the Mafiya will react to that I don’t know. But we can’t have any more people being killed.”
“I agree with all that,” Chris nodded. “But I don’t think we ought to hang around here any longer.”
“No.”
“Do you think you’re safe for the time being?” he asked.
“Maybe, if I don’t linger for too long in Russia. With any luck they’ll think they’ve frightened me off.” She didn’t like to leave her enemies with the impression that she was running scared, but if it helped to keep her safe…
She suddenly seemed to shrink back into herself. “Chris, I’m scared,” she said in a small voice. He rested a hand on her arm. “It’s alright.”
For once she wasn’t making a point of downplaying her feelings. Which shows how much she really is rattled, he thought.
"It’s not entirely suprising,” he told her. “It's a known fact there are links between international criminal organisations.”
"All the same..." It made her shudder.
"The Russian Mob are active all over the world. Scarlione obviously asked them to do him a favour and keep a lookout for you. Shit, he must be really cut up about it."
"I hurt his fragile male ego, you see," said Caroline contemptuously.
She fingered her cheek. She could have afforded plastic surgery, but it had always been a source of great pride to her that her beauty was natural. Though no doubt ugly people didn’t want their faces carved up with a knife either.
“How do you suppose they knew who you were?”
“Someone in management here must have tipped them off. Ardzhikian, at a guess.”
There came a knock on the door, and Caroline jumped. Chris went to look at the screen. “It’s Okhranov,” he reported.
“I’m afraid they got away,” said the security chief. “There’s no sign of them anywhere on the premises.”
“I didn’t think there would be,” Caroline sighed.

The dacha served as the headquarters for what in Britain would have been called a country club. One specifically for gentlemen, which meant what it so often did in the West; though there were frequently women there, they were not present as guests but rather to provide entertainment, and of a particular kind.
Ivan Grishkov was sprawled in a seat in the front row of the little auditorium watching one of them, a willowy girl with a bob of dark hair, swing herself around a pole to the accompaniment of a thumping Western pop number. Her discarded clothes, such as they had been, lay in a heap on the floor. A bluish light played over her smooth white skin, giving it a purple tinge. In a corner of the room vodka brewed in the illegal still round the back of the building was on sale. Guests leaned on the bar and chatted to one another, when not watching the “performers” do their stuff, or took their drink with them to their seat and sipped it in solemn-faced silence while the women gyrated provocatively before them.
The dance came to an end and there followed an interlude while the stripper went around asking for money, shaking the bag she was carrying so that the coins inside rattled by way of reminding the punters that if they wanted to feast their eyes on her unclothed flesh they ought to pay for the privilege. It was notable that she didn’t approach Grishkov with such a request, but then she wouldn’t have dared.
When the bag was filled to her satisfaction she went off to change, having finished work for the day, and the performance resumed. This time it was a Nordic-looking blonde with generous breasts and backside. Grishkov had seen her dance on a number of occasions already and she no longer held much interest for him; instead he concentrated on the music, which was slow and seductive and made him feel relaxed, turning his thoughts to an assessment of his life so far.
He had been born in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, in 1960 into a prosperous family, his father being one of those who had done relatively well out of the Soviet system, partly from luck and partly because they knew one of the local party apparatchiks. The family’s fortunes changed for the worse when their patron lost his job following a scandal; nevertheless Ivan was able to go to university where he obtained degrees in politics and business studies. For him involvement in crime was not born of economic necessity but rather a way of life. It soon got him into trouble, the Mafiya – or “Organisation”, or “Brotherhood” (Bratva in Russian) as it was more commonly referred to by its own members -
in those days having rather less freedom, and he ended up in the Gulag for black marketeering (a common offence in Russia at this time) and fraud. While in prison he associated with many hardened, more experienced criminals from whom he learned a lot, forging contacts which were to prove useful later on. His fellow inmates gave him plenty of advice on how better to work the system and avoid arrest. Following his release he successfully operated a money-laundering scheme and a scam by which Jews seeking to emigrate to Israel were defrauded, Grishkov selling the possessions they could not take with them and keeping the money for himself instead of sending it on as he was supposed to do. Identifying corrupt officials who could protect him, he built up an extensive and profitable business based on prostitution, gambling, extortion, drugs and arms trafficking, and protection racketeering. Besides money-laundering. The organisation was divided into different sections each of which was responsible for one of these activities. He established a number of bases around the country which he used among other things as punishment centres for those who had failed to pay him extortion money, kept a larger share of the profits than they were entitled to, or sought to betray him to the authorities. There the offenders were beaten up until they were permanently crippled; one was even castrated. Those who worked for him willingly meanwhile grew in number, their ranks added to by unemployed ex-soldiers and, later, KGB agents who had lost their jobs with the end of the Cold War as well as civil servants made redundant by the scaling down of the public (meaning government) sector. There were now numbered many thousands of them – some estimates put the figure at several million.
With the Gorbachev reforms, which lifted restrictions on private enterprise, and the collapse of the Soviet bloc Grishkov’s empire grew even further and extended its operations into both eastern and western Europe, setting up bank accounts and purchasing property there although strictly speaking not allowed to do so by Russian law. In the east he set up the oil scam, which was continuing to prove highly lucrative, though before Scarlione came along and things changed he had to periodically shift the focus, the target, from one company to another as each got wise to what he was doing. The spread of his influence was assisted by the growth of the European Union, which in the 1990s gradually relaxed border controls between its members and also expanded to include former members of the Soviet bloc.
During the later Soviet era exceptions to restrictions on Jewish emigration were made in the case of those known to be involved in criminal activities, the government seeing an opportunity to ride the country of those whom it considered undesirable (while its leaders made use of the prostitutes, and from time to time other services, they supplied). It dumped them instead on Israel, the US – where they settled in large numbers in New York, Miami and LA - and Europe. Though Grishkov himself was not Jewish he knew many of these people and they later proved invaluable to him in extending his empire worldwide. The Brotherhood was active in Israel and many of its members held Israeli passports.
Wherever he went Grishkov either took over existing companies or set up dummy ones to act as fronts for the Bratva. With the smaller businesses the profits went to underground dealers in the commodity in question, with everything buttressed by intimidation and bribery, as it was at a higher level. White-collar frauds, involving companies both at home and abroad, lost the public hundreds of millions of dollars. Grishkov’s people came to virtually own the Russian banking system; honest bankers and businessmen who objected to what they were trying to do and formed associations to resist it were murdered, or kidnapped and tortured into submission.
Within a few years Ivan Grishkov had become the most powerful, if not the only, Mafiya boss in the country. He counted himself as one of the oligarchs, the new tsars of post-Communist Russia, sending his children to an expensive English public school and wining and dining at the best restaurants. Riding around in fast cars – his only concession, in fact, to ostentation, and that motivated by the practical consideration of needing to get around fast in order to supervise his vast empire effectively. His dachas and other residences throughout the world were well-appointed but unremarkable in design and décor. Grishkov was content simply to enjoy the material pleasures and the feeling of power his success brought him. Though he got VIP treatment at any establishment he visited, and appreciated it, he didn’t feel the need to advertise his success by the clothes he wore, his architectural tastes or his means of transport. He was always driven around by a chauffeur but this was a necessary security precaution, like the bomb-proof armour-plating in which his limousines were coated. If anything, Grishkov tended to shun publicity; it could after all be extremely dangerous. And although he should be able to operate these days with less fear of arrest or assassination, old habits died hard.
Not all the oligarchs were criminals, of course, but there was little doubt the criminals were oligarchs; those of Grishkov’s standing, anyhow. He was, in fact the most powerful Mafiya boss in the world. Reaping the benefits from thousands of business concerns, both licit and illicit, across the globe, sharing the profits out fairly generously among his associates and subordinates so that he could retain their loyalty while keeping the biggest share for himself; shipping prostitutes from Asia to Europe and from Europe to the Gulf States, and drugs to anywhere there was a market for them. Through his influence over the international stock exchange and banking system he could control the prices of the commodities he traded in, to his benefit, and enjoy a certain amount of political influence, forging multi-million dollar business deals, where they materially benefited his organisation, from behind the scenes through his friends in government.
He maintained control of his global operation through an international communications network run from one of his dachas. It used secure satellite and cellular clone phones, encrypted fax machines, and of course the Internet, and its computers, which stored information on potential enemies as well as on any business opening which looked particularly lucrative, were of the most modern and advanced kind, serviced by highly intelligent, college-educated experts. The base had about three hundred permanent staff, all on Grishkov’s payroll.
Beneath Scarlione his eminent position within the criminal world was unassailable. He controlled a vast number of other criminal gangs who might or might not themselves be described as Mafiya (though subordinate to him they were doing much the same kind of thing, which meant that the distinction between Mafiya and non-Mafiya was blurred at best and at worst meaningless). In the past there had been vicious turf wars, in which innocent citizens had died as well as mobsters, between his organisation and all the others, for domination of the various rackets going on in Russian and eastern Europe. There had been car bombings, with the explosives put together in special factories and detonated by mobile phone, shootings by professional hitmen armed with sniper rifles. Today these methods were employed mostly against those in the political establishment or media – or concerned citizens acting outside either group – who sought to expose him for what he was out of misguided moral objections to “crime”. Grishkov could have successfully absorbed all the other Mafiya groups (which themselves had a substantial membership covering many countries) into his own, but there wouldn’t really be much point. Everyone worked for Scarlione now, even the Chechens who had been the most powerful crime group in Russia after the Mafiya, as well as Grishkov’s bitter rivals. This applied overseas as in the motherland; there were no more clashes with the Triads or Yardies as those groupings tried to prevent the newcomers muscling in on their territory. And certainly not with the Italian-Americans; because they had taken on the new boys and won.
Grishkov felt himself to be equally safe from those challenges to his power which came from legitimate authority. He frequently hired hitmen to kill reporters who were getting too close to uncovering the extent of his influence. He had successfully blackmailed a Federal Prosecutor who had shown more interest than most in waging a determined campaign against organised crime and might have got him arrested. No-one else had sought to assume his mantle, either from fear or because they were implicated themselves in the kind of activities he had wanted a stop put to. Ultimately Scarlione would always bail Grishkov out if he did get into serious trouble, but normally he could rely on his friends within the Russian police, government (his close associates included elected members of the Duma) and judiciary, who took bribes to ensure that businesses owned by him remained free to operate without interference and had delayed the legal process by which he was banned from entering Britain by failing to supply crucial information to Scotland Yard.
He had had setbacks; his clubs, strip joints and other businesses were occasionally raided and closed down, although they were soon back in business again under different names. For a time he had been banned from America and Britain; but now, thanks to Scarlione (to whom he supposed he should be grateful), he was able once again to operate freely in both countries, even if it didn’t matter anyway if he wasn’t because though he couldn’t be physically present in either country he still enjoyed the wealth generated by his operations there, which remained unaffected.
Of course whenever questioned, Grishkov always denied everything he was accused of doing.
He left his seat and crossed to the bar. There he was joined after a while by Vladimir Dubienkin, his number two and general enforcer. The two of them talked for a while, their eyes occasionally straying to the stage and the figures performing there.
“That new girl,” muttered Grishkov. “She’s got it alright.”
Dubienkin nodded eagerly. Despite his bespectacled, scholarly appearance he was as interested in the pleasures of the flesh as any other man.
Grishkov found his gaze held by the smooth contours of the girl’s body. He decided he wanted her, and badly. After each dance there was a special room where the girls could entertain the clients in a more intimate fashion; it might not be a private dance, though some were content with that, but actual sex. They had been told that their duties would include this, and got extra money for it, but had this not been the case they’d have been expected to do it anyway, on pain of punishment if they refused.
In the last few minutes a man had come in and been watching the stripper; now his eyes and Grishkov’s met. “Viktor’s back,” Grishkov said. He rose from his seat and walked to the door, nodding to the new arrival as he passed him. Viktor and Dubienkin followed Grishkov down the corridor to an office where Grishkov seated himself behind the manager’s desk, waving his subordinates to chairs.
“We weren’t able to hit the girl,” said Viktor. “She managed to sound an alarm. We thought it best to get out.”
Grishkov regarded him searchingly, a wry smile on his face. “Weren’t able to, or didn’t want to?”
Viktor shrugged.
Grishkov weighed the possible consequences of it in his mind. “I suppose Scarlione will be angry.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“Possibly reduce our…allowance. Though I suspect he will be willing to give us another chance.” His tone hardened a little. “We’re going to have to hit her if she keeps poking her nose into our operation at the refinery,” he reminded his companions. “Perhaps Scarlione’s interests in this matter and ours are not too different. Why did he want her anyway? I don’t suppose you managed to find out?”
“We did actually.” Viktor repeated what Caroline had told him and again Grishkov smiled; this time the smile broadened, and broadened, until the crimelord burst into a peal of booming laughter.
His mirth subsided. “Interesting,” he remarked, then became serious. “No, she’s going to have to suffer if she doesn’t get the message. Only I don’t really want to do it.”
“We already tried to break her leg.”
“A broken leg can be repaired,” Grishkov said. “But a face…such a beautiful face, an exquisite masterpiece of natural craftsmanship…once damaged, it can never be quite the same again. Even with plastic surgery. If only she’d taken our hint, but I somehow don’t think she did.” He reached a decision. “If she interferes again we’ll arrange for her to have another little accident. Preferably nothing permanently crippling or disfiguring, but enough to put her out of action for a while. Scarlione will have to be satisfied with that. And if she decides to stay safe in England instead…well as far as I’m concerned that will be the end of the matter.”
Viktor nodded. “By the way, our friend wants to talk.”
For a moment Grishkov was puzzled, his eyebrows lifting. “Our friend? Oh, yes of course. So he wants to talk, does he?”
“He rang while you and Volodya were at the meeting with the Minister. I told him you were busy but he called several times more to see if you had finished.”
“Well I suppose I’d better keep him happy,” Grishkov muttered. “Would you leave the room please for a moment, Viktor?”

General Yuri Solokhov stood at the window of his Moscow apartment
looking out over the lights of the city, and dreaming, as he was often wont to do, of the past.
The girl had left a few minutes ago. It was fortunate that his wife had chosen that evening to go out with her girlfriends, although she accepted his whoring with a world-weary resignation. It was quite amusing really; sometimes she would arrive just as the girl was leaving and their deliberately blank, rather solemn expressions were a sight to see. But she didn’t spend a lot of time here anyway, these days.
“You can’t let go of it, can you,” she had said to him once. “That’s why you just sit there moping all the time, never talking to me.” He found it surprising that she hadn’t walked out on him already; but then she probably had a fancy man somewhere he didn’t know about. Maybe that was where she was going tonight.
He was comfortable here in these flats, reserved for former military and political leaders and maintained at the state’s expense. He also had a dacha in the country where he could holiday. But there was still something big missing from his life, that no amount of luxury could replace.
Solokhov had been thinking about the old days, before the Soviet Union had opted so spinelessly to dissolve itself and become the Russian Federation. Its demise had been followed by what he saw as a decline in Russia’s international status and military strength. When the Union broke up and its constituent republics become independent states, it weakened Russia’s prosperity and diminished her power by denying her their resources. Though she remained a member of the nuclear club she had significantly reduced her numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and withdrawn them from sites in the Baltic Republics and Transcaucasia. There were reductions also in the size, in terms both of personnel and equipment, of the conventional army, navy and air force. And not only were they more or less halved but corrupt and incompetent leadership, military and political, had diminished their prestige; those who had opposed the coup of 1991 were rewarded for their loyalty – in Solokhov’s view, treachery – by being appointed to senior positions in the armed forces or government even when they lacked ability and intellect. Solokhov had been fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to be out of the country at the time of the coup. Had he been there he would most certainly have become involved in it, might even have assumed its leadership, and under that leadership it would have succeeded and restored the Soviet Union to its previous greatness.
Morale plummeted and discipline suffered, hampering the army’s effectiveness, which was what leaders like Yeltsin wanted since it made another coup attempt less likely. In Solokhov’s view Glasnost had resulted in a decline of respect for the military; it was certainly true that many officers and their families had returned from serving in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to a reduced standard of living and a frosty reception from the civilian population. The lot of ordinary soldiers was worse and while their equipment was privatised and sold off, they deserted to become hit men for the rising Mafiya or form armed criminal bands of their own.
At least they’d brought back the old Soviet national anthem from 1943 (Russia, our holy country, Russia, our beloved country), but that was small consolation, especially when military decline and the loss (arguably) of international status was accompanied by social collapse and moral degeneration back home. Unemployment was rising and population declining, the number of deaths exceeding births. Women were almost ten times as likely to die in childbirth than their sisters in the West (Solokhov still thought of it as the West, though he had no objection to Russia being considered part of Europe). One in ten newborn babies died of some infection due to poor hospital care. Poor diet and alcoholism (both of which claimed lives on a large scale) led to infertility.
There was domestic violence, prostitution, pornography, a rising divorce rate (which some reckoned at about 70%), and illegitimacy (over a quarter of the population were estimated to have been born out of wedlock). Single mothers who could not afford to look after their children abandoned them to fend for themselves on the streets where they were snapped up by criminal gangs, joining the latter either willingly or unwillingly. According to the latest estimate there were between two and five million of these children. The family as a social institution was breaking down as many men couldn’t afford enough money to support a wife and children and women sold their bodies to support themselves and their dependants. Also on the increase were mental health problems, sexually transmitted and other diseases, suicide, and drug abuse (there were reputed to be some twenty million addicts in the country).
There was poverty; twenty per cent of the population had incomes below subsistence level. And crime was bleeding the country dry. There were the vodka tsars, whether Russian or Chechen, with their illegal shebeens. And Grishkov. Capitalism had got out of control and the scum of the earth had all flocked to jump on the bandwagon.
What was happening to his beloved country made him sick. He blamed it on the influence of decadent Western ways to which Russia had become exposed since the end of the east-west divide. All the purges, the atrocities, of the Tsars and the Communists, brutalised us and made us insensitive to suffering, Solokhov admitted to himself. The question is, with Western-style consumer comforts have we now become too soft? Yes, we have.
Some would have blamed things on the state of the country in the last years of the Soviets and on the too sudden transition to private enterprise, which Russian men, unaccustomed to the new system because the Communists had so rigidly suppressed individualism in business, couldn’t cope with, taking refuge from the stress of redundancy or bankruptcy in drugs and booze. Fair enough. But Solokhov’s reply was simple. You wouldn’t have had the problem if the Soviet system had not been dismantled in the first place. Given proper leadership, proper management, that system would have worked. If, say, we had fully exploited the resources of Siberia – all that oil and gas - during those years we could have taken on the West and won, he muttered to himself with a scowl. Economically if not militarily. We would not have been saddled – as we are now – with a crumbling infrastructure. If only reform had been implemented long before Gorbachev, and not delayed until it was too late to change without dismantling the whole edifice. Though Gorbachev could still have turned things round if he hadn’t been too weak and had sent the tanks in to quell the protests in Eastern Europe and the Federal German Republic, ignoring what would been the howls of protest from Western liberals. Carried away by the momentum of change, and basking in the goodwill of the world, earned by his reforms and the reduction in nuclear arms, Gorbachev had lost his head and his nerve.
And because of his weakness, the culmination of which had been the Union cravenly voting to disband itself without a fight, we now had to put up with the Federation and the Commonwealth of Independent States, which in Solokhov’s view was a fiction, a farce…and its leaders! The less said of that drunken buffoon Yeltsin the better. And so far he wasn’t impressed by Putin. As for alternatives; well there was Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist leader, who seemed the most likely candidate though he’d been a bit quiet of late, probably because the less savoury side of his nature had attracted too much attention. That begged the question; the man was an idiot and a thug. His physical attack on a woman member of the Duma, for example, had been disastrous for his chances. And some of his statements…he had vowed to fight for Scottish independence. Huh! What could he possibly care for Scotland? The only thing that mattered to him was making Russia strong again and that as much for the sake of his own ego as the motherland’s. At best he was discredited, at worst a liability. Lebed seemed to have given up and had opposed the coup anyway. That left only Yuri Solokhov.
The Intercom for his flat bleeped. “Hello?”
“Comrade General, it’s me, Ostrosky.”
“Come on up.” Solokhov pressed the button ad a minute or two later Sasha Ostrosky entered. He was a tall man in his forties with a young-looking face, with which the streaks of grey in his blond hair contrasted strangely. They dropped the formalities, embracing and kissing each other on the cheek which was still the custom among male friends in Russia. “Sasha, how are you?” beamed the General.
“I’m fine. Petya and the kids too. Did you enjoy your holiday?” Solokhov had not long returned from a week at a Black Sea resort, on which his wife had not accompanied him.
“Very much so. I’m feeling fitter than I’ve ever been and I’m keen to see some action. Can everyone make the training session next weekend?”
“Yes, everyone’s free. I – “ Ostrosky bit his lip, and contemplated the floor awkwardly. ”Yuri, I was wondering…is there still any point in what we are doing? I mean, if you think about it…”
Solokhov stared at him, shocked and appalled. His face clouded. Then he closed his eyes and sighed wearily. “Sasha, I had not expected defeatism like this from you. And yes, of course there’s still a point in it. Look at the state of the country, it’s desperate.”
“But Putin…”
“You think he’s any different? I haven’t had much cause to be optimistic so far. He should have asked for Western assistance over the Kursk. Seek their aid, use their help…until you no longer need it. That was what Peter the Great did, and he made Russia for the first time a power to be feared, a force that counted for something on the international stage.” But Vladimir Putin had decided that for reasons of national pride Russia should deal with the disaster on her own. And men had died. He thought of the widow of one of the drowned sailors, declaring that if she set eyes on the President she would be unable to restrain herself from physically attacking him. It had been a serious miscalculation and not one Solokhov would have made.
“It’s true that was a mistake. It might have made a difference if - ”
”And that girl; she wrote to him with some helpful suggestions as to how the country’s problems could be solved and he railed on at her about how poor her spelling was. He should have encouraged her, for goodness’ sake.”
“He’s relatively young, and hasn’t been in the job for long. All men in such a position make mistakes at first. Give it time, he’ll turn things round.”
“I hope so,” grumbled Solokhov.
He drifted off again, losing himself in his memories. Once more was watching the May Day parades with the members of the Politburo, having the Order of Lenin pinned to his chest for his bravery in Afghanistan when he had taken on a group of fanatical Mujahiddeen almost single-handed, gunning them all down and so rescuing the young Russian soldier who they had captured and were threatening with beheading if he did not convert to Islam. Getting the handshake from Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko.
He believed in the Union because it had made Russia great. And the army had been his life. Even now he still got up at five o’clock in the morning, to eat a frugal breakfast and then exercise for a couple of hours in his private gymnasium.
It was a moment or two before he realised Ostrosky was speaking. “You do think I’m right, don’t you? At heart.”
Solokhov’s eyebrows lifted sharply. “No, actually I don’t.”
“There aren’t enough of us and we don’t have the resources, the equipment. We might have succeeded in ‘91 but we couldn’t do it not now.”
“We’ll have enough equipment if – “
There was a call on Solokhov’s mobile. “It’s Grishkov. I understand you wanted to talk.”
“I did. Put simply, Ivan Alexandrovich, I need more money. I am of course grateful for what you have given us in the past, but it is not enough.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. We have done a study and we are considerably short of the funds we need to buy the material we need.” To purchase vital tanks and aircraft which had been sold overseas with the end of the Cold War and now needed to be got back, reclaimed for the Revolution.
“I am sorry to hear that,” Grishkov said. “Well, I will consider your request.” He didn’t bother to ask how much Solokhov needed.
“May I remind you of the one hundred thousand roubles you had already promised me? It was nearly a year ago and still I have not seen it.”
“Please be patient, Comrade General.” The use of the title was intended to mock, Solokhov was sure. “I urge you to remember that I am a busy man with many responsibilities – “
“From what I hear you should have no reason to fear bankrupting yourself through being a little more generous towards me. So where is the money? I warn you, Ivan Alexandrovich, I am becoming impatient.”
Grishkov sighed. “I said I would consider your request. But I would advise you to abandon your plan to seize political power here in Russia. You realise it has little hope of succeeding.”
“Perhaps that is why I have not received the money,” said Solokhov slowly. “In truth you are not really committed to the project.”
“I did not say that.”
“If you were to give me the money the project would succeed.” This looked like becoming a circular argument.
“I will consider your request,” repeated Grishkov. “That is all I can promise you. It is true my business is doing well at the moment, but there are other demands on my time.”
“I think perhaps we should meet,” Solokhov said.
Grishkov didn’t seem particularly interested in a get-together. There was a long silence, as if he was considering how he should reply. “When would you suggest?” he said curtly.
“Tomorrow at your dacha? Four o’clock?”
“It will have to be Thursday. I have urgent business in America tomorrow. Otherwise the time and place are acceptable. As always I will look forward to seeing you. Das vdanya.”
Solokhov’s clenched fist crashed down on the table. “The son of a whore,” he snarled. “He just said he would “consider your request.” He agreed to meet but only so I’d shut up. We need that money, Sasha, and he’s obviously not going to give it to us. And with the nation in the state it’s in, so corrupt and crime-ridden…”
“But we turn to those same criminals for funds,” pointed out Ostrosky, struck by the irony of it.
For a moment Solokhov looked uncomfortable, then he shrugged. “It is in a good cause. In any case, once we are in power we shall turn on them. That was the plan, wasn’t it? But it could be they realise that. That is why they have failed to lend us any further assistance. They’re not stupid.”
“We needn’t turn on them entirely, nor would it be wise. As a criminal himself Grishkov is hardly likely to support a political movement he expects to deal harshly with crime once it becomes the government. And there’s always been organised crime, perhaps always will be. It does have its uses; remember the old KGB were quite happy to use us on occasions when they wanted someone taken care of.”
“I suppose you are right. But Grishkov was expecting to be the power behind the throne in our new Russia.”
“He’s the power behind the throne now. He doesn’t need us.”
“Then why are we bothering at all?” In fact, Solokhov had often been troubled by the thought that Grishkov might betray him to the authorities, like a public-spirited citizen committed to the new Russian democracy, in order to increase his standing with them. It might have been because he couldn’t do so without revealing he had himself been involved in treasonous activities. A more likely explanation was that he simply didn’t think Solokhov and his followers were worth bothering about. “You really don’t think he’s interested in our project any more?”
“In the early days he might have been. The Mafiya backed us because they weren’t sure whether Putin would turn out to be their lackey or decide to wage war on them. They felt we were more controllable.”
“They thought I was but a fool,” snorted the General. “Well if I ever do succeed in taking power they’ll get a shock, that’s for sure.”
“But Grishkov doesn’t seem bothered about anything the government might do,” Ostrosky continued. “Of course I know how powerful the Mafiya are…but even so, it seems strange to me somehow. There’s something happening in the world we haven’t been told about, and I don’t like it.
“Anyway. The issue we must decide is, do we go ahead without Grishkov’s money?”
Solokhov pursed his lips. “We could seize the government buildings, perhaps the whole of the capital. That’s the easiest part in these things. I’m not so sure we could hold our gains against a determined assault by the Army.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“We’ll all meet some time to decide what to do. But I think we should keep on training, whenever happens. It’s an uncertain world and we never know when it might be needed.”

“To be honest,” said Dubienkin, “these days our friend the General is something of an embarrassment to us, wouldn’t you say?”
Grishkov shook his head. “He’s not even that. I think we can safely afford not to bother should he stick his head out of the woodwork from time to time. You know, Volodya, I’m sometimes not sure why we decided to back him in the first place.”
“We thought we could control him more easily than we might Putin. He’s a good soldier, I’ve no doubt, but he’s no politician. Once he seized power he’d have no idea what to do with it. Much better to leave the running of the country to us, we’d keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t start World War Three. And he’d have been beholden to us for the help we gave him in obtaining power.”
“I’m not sure he would have seen himself as beholden to us. For one thing he doesn’t like us much, for another he prefers to be his own boss. But he wouldn’t have been able to cope on his own, despite what he thinks. We’d have been laughing.” There was no doubt that for a time, Solokhov had seemed to the Bratva a good investment. He was their route to even greater power.
And then Scarlione had come along, and changed everything.
Grishkov had no intention of giving Solokhov the money he needed because it would mean sacrificing a large part of his “allowance” from the Syndicate and because he knew Scarlione wouldn’t authorise use of Syndicate funds for such a purpose. It would be in his view a waste of resources. Somehow Grishkov sensed Scarlione would see Solokhov, assuming he was even aware of the man’s existence, as a buffoon, a madman, a relic from a vanished age who ought to take a time machine, if that were possible, and go back there. It wasn’t even as if a successful Communist coup d’etat would benefit Solokhov. If he did succeed in seizing power he’d have to dance to Scarlione’s tune, and wouldn’t like that.
“Why don’t we tell him about Scarlione; about just how powerful the man is?” said Dubienkin. “That’ll get him off our backs.”
“I told you, he’s nothing to worry about. In any case, it wouldn’t stop him. He’d still go and do something stupid, given the chance. Of course what he’s planning would be crazy enough even if there wasn’t any Scarlione, any Syndicate. But for that reason no-one would support him when the time came.”
“We don’t know that,” said Dubienkin.
“Besides, he’d go and tell someone and I don’t think Scarlione likes too many people knowing that he’s running everything.” There was a third reason, although neither of them could mention it. It would be a blow to Grishkov’s pride, his ego, if everyone knew it was Scarlione and not him who was the world’s most powerful crime boss. And Dubienkin couldn’t allude to that without seeming to offend him, which wasn’t wise.
But both men were unanimous in the conviction that the Bratva didn’t need Solokhov. They were successfully running everything in Russia without his help. Or rather, Scarlione was.
Though even if the General was little more than a nuisance, they would still prefer to be rid of him. “You know,” Dubienkin said, “I don’t think it would hurt us if we betrayed Solokhov to the government, even if it meant admitting to our part in things. We’re untouchable now.” By the same token Solokhov would not abandon his dreams of power and in a fit of pique betray them.
“We might have to go to prison for a time, for the sake of appearances,” Grishkov told him. “It isn’t worth the inconvenience, not over a minor irritant. Also…it seems cruel somehow. Let the man go on playing with his toy soldiers, if it keeps him happy. He’s but a ghost, a has-been. We’ve got our own business to attend to, so let’s get on with it.”

After her last meeting with Okhranov Caroline and Chris got their papers and their luggage together, and then Caroline rang Ardzhikian to tell him they were returning home “to discuss matters in more detail with Head Office.”
“I hope you have enjoyed your stay,” he said politely. “Apart from one or two – unfortunate incidents.”
“It’s been very nice,” she replied vaguely. He arranged for the helicopter to fly them to Volgograd where, after a brief rest and something to eat, they caught a plane to Moscow.
They took a taxi from the airport at Sheremetyevo to the company’s offices. It pulled up outside the building, they alighted and Caroline paid the driver. He took the money without a word and drove off.
One of those “wedding-cake” office blocks with the spire on top, which had sprung up around the city during the Stalin era, on the other side of the street caught her eye. She looked up at the huge, grim concrete edifice and shuddered. They had been designed to crush the soul, and still did so.
St Petersburg, with its many buildings still surviving from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, had character and a sense of grandeur. Apart from the area around the Kremlin with those lovely old churches Moscow, most of which was post-World War Two, had nothing. It was very like some of the grimmer parts of London; a collection of faceless, monolithic concrete buildings which left you feeling intimidated and depressed. This one had probably been the headquarters of some equally faceless bureaucrat who spent most of his time filling in forms recording how many people had been arrested that week for dissident activities, or the production figures from some tractor plant or power station.
At its foot a woman hawked into the gutter.
Beside the building was a junkyard which contained among other things a number of statues and busts of Lenin, some in pieces or with the heads missing, that had somehow escaped total destruction in the period immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union. They wondered how the founder of Russian Communism would feel if he could see how his achievement had ended in failure and disillusion. It might depend on where he was now; if in some blissful afterlife he might be rueful, but not, given his surroundings, so upset as to be permanently depressed by it. Although of course Lenin had been an atheist.
Inside IPL Russia Chris bought himself a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner of the lobby while his colleague found herself a spare office and from there made her call to Hennig explaining to him what had happened and recommending that the refinery be closed for an indefinite, though hopefully short, period. He agreed it was the right policy. “What happens if the Russian authorities can’t do anything, though?” she asked.
“I sincerely hope we don’t have to close the refinery permanently,” he answered. In any case it would be his decision, not hers, for which she was profoundly grateful. “We’ll see. As for your quarrel with Mr Scarlione, well frankly I’m not surprised, on the evidence of what happened in Camaragua. I guess you’ll be OK as long as you avoid Russia or the States for the time being.”
“If we are staying on at Kamchuk, it might be an idea to send a different IOM out there next time. I wouldn’t want the business to have a disruptive effect on the company’s operations.” Thus she saved her face.
The following morning she and Chris went to see the Russian Interior Minister. She asked if the government could consider assigning a team of police officers to the refinery to assist Okhranov in his duties and also protect staff and their relatives from intimidation by the Mafiya. He replied that he did not think the proposal feasible as it would mean relocating the policemen and their families to another part of the country, one where they would find it hard to settle in and which in parts was politically unstable. In truth, Caroline was inclined to agree with him. In the end he contented himself with a promise to look into the matter and see what could be done. They all said that, of course.
Having done their duty by the company, the two of them took a taxi to the airport to catch the next flight back to London.
*
The idea was that the governing committee of the Syndicate met four times a year, always at a different venue. This was the second such gathering, and the scene was the living room of Springlands, Scarlione’s sprawling early twentieth-century house – some would have said mansion – on the outskirts of New York. Scarlione, Vito and Tony D’Enrico, the latter as a trusted right-hand man and confidante, were all there. Also seated at the table were representatives of the Russian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, the Triads and a South American drug cartel; crime bosses from France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Holland and Nigeria, a few of the emerging Central Asian and East European nations. In addition the committee’s membership included some who, like Gershon the drug baron, specialised in particular activities; there were one or two international arms dealers and the head of a sex trafficking ring. Altogether about two dozen people were present. The air was thick with cigarette smoke.
The first item on the agenda, and generally seen as the most important, was allocation of profits. First the Syndicate’s accountant, a Yale graduate named Waldermann, passed round a sheet with graphs and pie charts showing the turnover for the last quarter – effectively, the period the Syndicate had so far been in existence – along with distribution of the proceeds. Having been laundered several times over the money was paid into a number of different accounts, each in the name of an outwardly legitimate company which was usually a front for one of the Syndicate’s constituent organisations. The precise sum which went to each organisation was reviewed at the quarterly meetings.
“Our total funds amount to…well the fact is it’s impossible to estimate,” Waldermann told the meeting. “But since we need to have a rough estimate to work with, the figure we’ve arrived at is something like one hundred billion pounds. We have attempted to apportion this roughly equally among the membership but the amount each receives depends on the size of the organisation and how active it has been.
“I am aware that the Tokyo branch has not received the full funds due to it.” This had been a matter of some sensitivity. “There was an error in our calculations but this has now been rectified. My apologies.” The Yakuza inclined his head graciously.
“So does everyone agree that the figures are correct?“ Waldermann asked once everyone had had time to read the paperwork.
The representatives nodded, but their faces betrayed the fact they were still resentful that the biggest share of the cash was going to the Americans. Scarlione sensed this. “The way it works out, there’s still more money for everyone,” he told them. That should be compensation for their not being their own bosses any more. “And besides, we’re the ones who set this up. It wouldn’t have been possible without us, don’t you think we deserve one or two special favours?”
“Us guys…” He meant the US-American mafia. “Are the past masters. You gotta take your cue from us, we know how it’s all done.” With that made clear, he moved them on to the next item. “Understand the Nigerians have been sort of taking over the crack trade in Holland. You got a few people pretty mad, Chris.” Chris Ojuka, the Nigerian representative, looked stony-faced. “Stay out of there, OK, leave it to the local boys. Keep to France and Germany. Holland’s a small country, there’s not enough room there for everyone. OK?” Ojuka nodded solemnly. It would have to be OK, because what Mr Scarlione said went, or…
Scarlione turned to more general matters. “Now, security. Do we think we’re fully protected?”
“In respect of our surveillance and computer technology, we’re as protected as we can be at present,” answered Gershon. “I mean, we can’t be sure the authorities won’t develop a counter to anything we’re using, but we’ve got state-of-the-art technology and the brains to make it even better, so…”
“Does anyone want to move against us at the moment?” asked the Frenchman.
“I’m sure they want to,” answered Vito. “But they’re afraid of the consequences if they do, and they’re reluctant to go rogue. They’ll do nothing except by order of the governments, and we’ve got the governments in our pocket.”
“And the public?”
“It varies from country to country, as the reports from each branch confirm. There’ve been protests in Latin America and the Mediterranean region, but the troublemakers only succeeded in getting themselves arrested. However, most people don’t mind us as long as they’ve a roof over their heads and enough money to keep body and soul together while enjoying a certain degree of luxury.”
“If that is so,” said the German, “if no-one, not the public or their leaders, is going to seriously oppose us then why do we not announce our existence officially? Give ourselves an emblem, demand diplomatic representation in all the world capitals and at the United Nations? It would save us a great deal of trouble.”
Scarlione looked uncertain at this. “We don’t do it because we don’t need to,” he said finally. It was true enough. “And some people wouldn’t like it.”
“But if everything you and your son have said is true, that wouldn’t be a problem.” Scarlione seemed to be contradicting himself.
“They wouldn’t like it,” repeated the Don. “Look, I don’t take chances. Now we’ve got this thing up and running and it seems to work, there’s a danger we’ll become complacent. I know it’s a pain in the ass but we have to go through the motions of being afraid of the cops and trying to avoid being caught by them. If we don’t, people will know what’s going on.”
“But they do anyway, or will soon,” said the Australian.
“I tell you, we don’t need to do what Helmut’s suggesting,” Scarlione insisted. “I mean, we don’t stand for any nonsense. We just tell people that if they don’t do their jobs properly they’re gonna end up with their eyeballs split. That way you don’t get any shit. My point is, it means we do things better than anyone else. Better than any government. In time people will see that, even if in the short run some of them may not know what’s good for them. They’ll support us whether we have an…official existence or not.”
The matter seemed to have been settled. “Anything else anyone wants to bring up?”
“I don’t suppose you would care to tell us,” said Ivan Grishkov, representing the Bratva, “how exactly it is that you are able to know the movements of all your enemies with such ease?” It wasn’t the first time someone had asked that question.
Or got the same answer. ”That’s my secret,” Scarlione smiled craftily. “As it always has been.”
“Surely if we are all to work together there can be no secrets between us,” said the Triad Kuan Ho.
“It was agreed when we started this thing up,” Scarlione said, “that I would retain certain…privileges. Prerogatives. You owe it to me. I tell you again, without me none of this would be possible. I created this thing, set it all up…and as I keep telling everyone, for security reasons it’s better to keep some things in the Family.” He laughed at his joke. “If we want this thing to work out you’d better remember that.”
The meeting broke up. Some left straight away, others accepted Scarlione’s offer of drinks and women. Afterwards when everyone else had gone home, Scarlione stayed up boozing for a while with Tony and Vito.
“They screwed it up,” he snarled as soon as the door had closed behind the last of the delegates. “Can you fucking believe it, they screwed it up.” He had made his disgust perfectly plain to Grishkov, without actually saying anything.
“Maybe they got soft on her,” said Vito. “I mean you have to admit, she’s a babe.”
“We can’t afford to get soft in our business,” Scarlione snapped. “And in case you’ve forgotten, she made me look a laughing stock in front of – ah, what the hell, I shouldn’t have to keep saying it.
“Whatever happens, that bitch has got to suffer for what she did to me. They may not show it but behind my back they’re all laughing at me because of it. As long as she’s still in one piece, grinning fit to bust because she made me look stupid, I’m weak. They’ll be tempted to disobey my orders, or worse, even if Tony has their pricks cut off afterwards.” He knew there were some people in the organisation who resented his power and would have liked to topple him off his throne, Argus or no Argus. Kent had publicly humiliated him, caused him to lose face before his subordinates. Neither his ego or his prudence could permit that.
“She’d better not show her face over here again, anyhow,” he snorted.
“Let’s hope her friends aren’t around when she does,” said Vito. “That big guy could give us a lot of trouble. He's tough. Army, I think."
"I don't care what he is," snarled Scarlione. "He gets in the way, he dies. No, if you think I'm gonna leave things as they are you got shit for brains. We oughta let her know where she stands."
He went on smouldering with resentment. He had meant to mark her; instead she had marked him. He stroked his cheek, where the fading traces of the three parallel slashes were still visible. It had taken a lot to get rid of them.
For a moment, something about her had actually left him feeling afraid. That was another thing he couldn’t forgive her for.
His anger burst forth. "You know what she called me? I think people who call me that should be shot, should be put down like a fucking dog. You hear me, Vito? Tony? You hear me?" He turned to his son. “Vito, do you promise me that after I’m gone, if she’s still around you’ll settle my account with her?”
“If I can,” Vito nodded. If that was his father’s wish then in the end he would honour it.
“From now on I don’t want just her looks spoiled, OK? I want her alive and in one piece, locked away somewhere till I’m ready for her; then she’s gonna die, slowly, with me looking on and loving every minute of it.”











Eight
Solokhov decided on one last try. “The world today is falling apart,” he commented. “It needs order. I will bring that order to Russia.”
A faint hope, thought Grishkov. No-one has ever succeeded in governing Russia properly; apart from perhaps the Syndicate.
“Another five hundred thousand roubles,” Solokhov said. “That should do it. Enough to hold the capital, and maybe St Petersburg, long enough for elements in the army to rally to our support and decide the matter.”
Grishkov was silent, calculating. It was possible he might still need Solokhov at some point. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to jettison him entirely.
“How about one hundred thousand?” he suggested.
“That’s nowhere near enough. Four hundred and fifty thousand?”
“Not possible. Two hundred thousand?”
“Still not enough.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand, then?”
“I can’t accept anything less than three hundred.”
“Very well,” Grishkov nodded. “Three hundred thousand it is.”
Solokhov realised he was lucky to be getting anything at all. He knew his supporters would not be pleased. But it was better than nothing. “Thankyou,” he said.
“You do not sound grateful.”
“My apologies for that.”
By itself it would not be enough. Perhaps he could build on it from other sources; the trouble was that apart from Grishkov Solokhov lacked powerful and wealthy backers. And all Grishkov would do was throw him a few titbits every now and then. It would be years before he could accumulate enough for a successful coup, and by then he would be too old to lead it. Even supposing the money wouldn’t end up being squandered, fritted away on beer and women, long before then by an unreliable treasurer.
Or by himself.
Certainly some of his colleagues were less than trustworthy. He suspected they babbled about his plans to anyone who’d listen whenever they’d had too much to drink, which was frequently the case. He often had the feeling, disquieting rather than reassuring, that the authorities knew perfectly well about his activities but weren’t in the least concerned because they didn’t actually consider him much of a threat.
Grishkov smiled charmingly. “Now that our business is concluded, would you like to watch the entertainments?” Knowing what he meant by that Solokhov frowned, uncertain, then decided it would take his mind off things. He nodded curtly.
Grishkov showed him to the auditorium, where he sat watching the nude dancers with, the crimelord thought, a look of exaggerated solemnity. If anything Grishkov found it increased his contempt for the man.
He was wearing civilian clothing, but all the same Solokhov couldn’t help wondering if any of the punters recognised him. He realised, not altogether to his liking, that he wasn’t sure he really cared.

Director’s Office, CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia
Though in the past the CIA and FBI had sometimes been rivals, there was little doubt that on a matter like the Syndicate they needed to work together. Even if the scale of the problem meant they wouldn’t achieve anything much.
In the room with Sam Tyzack were his deputy, Patrick Lerpiniere, and Winston Caulfield. “It would appear,” Tyzack was saying, ”that the Mafia’s new-found influence extends overseas as well. Over recent months we’ve come to realise that what’s happening here has been happening everywhere else too. The expansion in organised crime is global. The various national and international criminal groups are working together. Including the US-Italian and Russian Mafias, which is unusual as previously they’ve been rivals.
“We already knew there was an international dimension to all this. The Mafia have been using their influence to ensure our government passes laws that are favourable to its expansion of its businesses in other countries. But there’s more.
“There’s an international syndicate, with the Mafia at its head, which involves all the major criminal organisations, and probably the minor ones as well, in the developed countries. Of course, it’s the situation here in this country which is your main concern, Winston. But the cause of the problem is the same. It’s pretty certain the source of the Syndicate’s power is Argus, there’s nothing else it could be. The readings we’ve been picking up confirm that."
Caulfield nodded slowly. “I guess we were reluctant to admit it at first. Even though the thing would have been just as dangerous in the hands of a rogue state.”
"Scarlione knew the old, Italian-controlled Mafia was on the way out. This is a way of revitalising it. He wanted it to be the dominant force in the new world order; to resuscitate La Cosa Nostra by forming an international alliance with other crime groups, using state-of-the-art technology to maintain both the Mafia’s dominance within that consortium and the consortium’s effectiveness as a group. He’s revived the National Commission but subsumed it within a wider, global organisation. One that right now is more powerful than any nation state.”
“If this is an international problem,” said Caulfield, “then it needs to be tackled on an international basis. I presume you’re going to be working with the foreign intelligence agencies?”
“That’s the problem,” replied Lerpiniere, darkly. “We can’t. Argus is the reason behind the Syndicate’s success. So if we co-operate too closely with other countries on bringing them down, there’s a risk they may find out about it. Someone besides the Syndicate may want it for themselves. And Argus is so effective, so dangerous a quantity that it’s best only America should possess it for the time being. We might offer to use it on our allies’ behalf against their or a common enemy. But if they so much as set eyes on it, or the plans…”
“But we’ve got to get it back off the Syndicate, somehow.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Tyzack said. “While they’ve got it they’re virtually impregnable. And everyone’s too afraid of reprisals if we move against them. I’m afraid, for God’s sake. And we’ve no idea how they’re doing it, where Argus is being controlled from, which kind of hog-ties us. I doubt if they’ve got listening equipment better than Fort Meade – I’ll wager it’s as good, which means everyone’s quits on this score, but not better – but with what they stole we can’t spy on them, even if they can’t spy on us.” He paused. “And they may have compromised people within the Federal and state authorities, maybe even the intelligence services, who can warn Scarlione of anything we decide to do.”
“But you must have some idea where the control centre for Argus is,” protested Caulfield.
“Well, in fact we’ve identified several likely locations. But we can’t just go storming in there without permission from the national governments concerned unless we want to cause an international incident, and we’re not likely to get that permission if they’ve been compromised by the Syndicate. Who might in any case retaliate, and in some way I don’t care to think about.”
“So what do we do?” Caulfield asked, despairingly. There wasn’t even any point in continuing the search for Amata. It was quite obvious now what had happened to him.
Tyzack shrugged. “Just get on with our normal business. Crime isn’t entirely the preserve of the Syndicate. And just hope that some day something comes up.”
Caulfield remembered he was supposed to be an Untouchable. Perhaps his group represented the last chance to do something concrete about Scarlione; if they couldn’t attack him at the source of his power they could still prevent him from wielding it. If things went according to plan.

It’s always good to be back home again, thought Caroline as she sat with her cat, Jack, on her lap and a mug of tea in her hand, relaxing in the comfort of her well-appointed living room in her house on the edge of Richmond Park.
Finishing her tea, she gently eased Jack from her lap onto the sofa, giving him a consoling pat on the head. A great believer in knowing your enemy, she seated herself at the keyboard of her computer, clicked on Google and proceeded to look up the Mafia. Not the Mafiya, the Mafia: the Italian-American one. It had begun life in Sicily as a guerilla movement, a rag-tag band of bandits and thieves, who gained popularity by taking a stand on behalf of the people against foreign oppressors or tyrannical rulers. In this form it lasted for centuries. Later it grew into a more coherent organisation which spread first to the mainland of Italy and then, with the emigration of millions of Italians to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, spread its influence to that country, eventually becoming the most powerful criminal organisation there. Its principal base was within the Italian population but its influence, where felt, extended beyond that and it was able to bend the entire community to its will, by fear if necessary. But the vast majority of people, whatever their ethnic origins, never experienced at first hand its violence, its vengefulness, because they didn’t ask who was providing the services they needed for a healthy and happy existence, merely got on with the business of using them.
The Valachi papers had revealed that the Mafia was in fact a number of different “families”, each ruling organised crime in their respective cities. Most cities had only one crime family but New York had five. The members of each family were bound to the others by ties of biological relationship, sentiments of loyalty and honour, or simple fear. The families did not necessarily form part of a single coherent organisation; the Mafia was a…She groped for a suitable word. A tendency.
Traditionally, the families rarely worked with one another and on many occasions were rivals. The head of each family was called the "boss" or the Don, the latter a title of respect. Directly beneath him and of equal status were the "under-boss", his deputy, and the consigliere, who acted as advisor to the boss and also as the outfit’s general fixer. In Scarlione’s organisation his son Vito was believed to be underboss and a man called Tony D’Enrico consigliere; D’Enrico’s area of responsibility was the US itself while Vito looked after the family’s interests abroad. Beneath the under-boss and consigliere were the "caporegimes", each commanding a number of "soldiers". The latter were the hitmen who carried out the task of executing, punishing, and intimidating. Though the lowest rank in the Mafia hierarachy they were often major criminals in their own right and it was sometimes necessary to step in to prevent them getting too big for their boots. They were able to pursue their own criminal careers as long as they didn’t encroach on their superiors’ territory. Nationwide there were around five thousand of these “made men”, through whose associates the Mafia’s criminal network was effectively extended. Within the US the total number of people working directly or indirectly for the Mob, as the organisation was collectively known, amounted to roughly fifty thousand men and occasionally women. There was at least one Mafia family in Canada.
In the 1980s and 90s, according to the FBI, there were some twenty-five “families” in America, although some of the smaller ones were effectively controlled by the larger – for example the two families running Rockford and Springfield in Illinois came under the Chicago Mob, San Francisco and San Jose under Los Angeles. Other centres of population where the Mafia had been influential in the past included Boston, Kansas City, New York, Miami, New Orleans and Las Vegas where the casino had often been under their control. From time to time there had been a “National Commission" – existing unofficially, of course – of all the major families, which settled disputes between them, made policy decisions, apportioned profits where families co-operated in an enterprise and decided on the exact boundaries of each one’s territory.
By extortion, graft, intimidation, kidnapping and murder, the families had amassed a vast fortune for themselves, shared out sufficiently with their henchmen to ensure the latter’s continuing loyalty. They set up all manner of businesses as fronts, money-earning ventures for themselves, either directly or by money-laundering, and terrorised legitimate concerns into either being absorbed by them or closing down. They were reputed to have powerful figures in the government and judiciary in their pocket.
The Mafia was the arbitrator to whom underworld figures turned when they wanted a dispute resolved peaceably. In the past when one arose it would take the side of whoever was willing to pay them more for their services as mediator. They would then force the other party to cough up money owed, or close down its operations, on pain of physical violence against their property, their families or themselves. And when all other means of persuasion (including violent ones) had failed they paid contract killers to assassinate anyone who was threatening to expose them to the authorities or start out on their own and thereby become a threat to Mob interests. Their decisions were enforced by violence and they had a code of honour, which they called Omerta, according to which severe punishment was meted out to anyone who sneaked on and so betrayed the team ethos of the organisation, whose members referred to it as La Cosa Nostra - simply, “Our Thing”.
Directly or indirectly the Mafia’s influence extended well beyond the shores of America, or of Italy where it still remained powerful despite the clean-up campaign of the 1970s and 1980s which had seen many Mafia chiefs convicted. The Mob owned, and therefore controlled, casinos and banks throughout the Caribbean and had interests in all the world's leading financial centres, including London. They were earning quite a bit from the international drug trade, as well as from investment on the stock exchange.
The Mafia was thought by some commentators to be on the wane. There was competition from drug dealers, especially the South Americans, and crime organisations within the growing and relatively young black and Hispanic communities in the States, which had forced it out of some street activities such as bookmaking, gambling and loansharking. There had been a certain haemorrhaging of its membership; some were joining the new, rising crime groups while others chose to work as legitimate businessmen, working in information technology and related fields, or law, and studying for college degrees to help them in their new careers. La Cosa Nostra was losing control over its foot soldiers.
Improved electronic surveillance techniques such as phone taps and listening devices, the results from which could now be produced as admissible evidence in court, had resulted in an increase in convictions, something which deterred many young men from joining the Mafia. The FBI and CIA could prove connections between it and its front men, could know what the Mafia was doing and exploit divisions within its ranks. Witsec, the government’s witness protection programme, had encouraged hundreds of Mafia members to turn informant without suffering an unpleasant fate (though sometimes they might still do so). The RICO statute allowed mobsters to go to jail for life for crimes that in the past might only have meant a few years. The thought that the man who might take revenge against them would be in prison for life helped persuade people to come clean and give evidence. In the last couple of decades hundreds of Mafiosi had been jailed, including many family bosses. Links between La Cosa Nostra, as the Mafia was called, and corrupt cops and judges could be proved, taking away the protection that mobsters enjoyed and rendering joining the outfit a less attractive proposition.
As the old Dons, the “godfathers”, died off discipline tended to fall apart among the Mafia’s ranks and it was harder to prevent demoralisation at the way things were going from resulting in faction struggles within and between the families as they started killing each other. Omerta became a thing of the past and “family” members started killing other Mafiosi or shopping them to the authorities. Meanwhile new laws prevented Mob families from owning casinos and they lost their control of the trade unions, which were taken over by Federal “monitors”. A combination of all these different factors was strangling them. They had ceased to exist altogether in some places, such as Cleveland and Phildelphia. FBI officials felt confident enough to make bold statements that the organisation was finished.
However some commentators disagreed with this rosy view of things. In their estimation the convictions of Mafia bosses in America and Italy merely served to weed out the older generation of Mafiosi who had failed to move with the times. A new leadership, perhaps more clever and ruthless, had simply moved in to replace the old. Rather than giving up the Mafia was changing its modus operandi, concentrating more on white collar crime, a field in which the new generation of college-educated high flyers who knew how to use a computer and to work the stock exchange, and what to say when defending a client in court, enabled it to excel.
While some families had died out others were growing in strength. They could still take over certain industries, such as construction and waste disposal, and newly opened businesses. They simply operated less flamboyantly, and without the same time-honoured customs and terminology as before. Some felt the Mafia was going back to what it had been in the beginning, before the first moves towards a formal structure were made in the early 1930s: a loose alliance of people who would work freelance but not be permanently on the payroll of a particular family. That would make it no less dangerous and, in fact, harder for Mafiosi to be fingered. Meanwhile, some families had stopped making new members, because they wanted to preserve their traditional identity and cohesion but also because they wanted to keep a low profile and quietly recover their strength while the forces of law and order, thinking the problem had been solved, became complacent.
Increased Mafia activity had been reported in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Florida. It was, after all, a crime-ridden world and there was no reason why the Mafia, in a different and somewhat reduced form, should not continue to prosper.
It was hard to actually tell which was the more accurate analysis of the situation. Whether the Mafia was really in decline or not. She rang Chris, who had been doing his own research in the meantime, and they compared notes. “The evidence all seems to be contradictory,” she complained. “But we know from our own experiences it’s alive and kicking. If Scarlione, in the States, can order a hit in Russia…”
"I've been doing a little swotting up on him,” Chris said grimly. “He won’t let it go. He'll hunt you for years if that's what it takes. His brother was once beaten up in mistake for him during a turf war, when Salvatore was finding his feet as a young “soldier” for the Mob. Thirty years later he finally managed to track down the bloke who did it. The bloke protested he was sorry and that he’d retired from crime and gone legit, which was true. It made no difference. Scarlione had his goons kidnap him and take him to a lonely spot where they, well, put bullets in every orifice; the mouth last, because that would have been the one that killed him.”
“Which only goes to show what a vicious bastard he is.”
"Well, considering that you slapped his face in public…Scarlione has rivals within his organisation, people who might want to take over from him. He can't afford to look vulnerable. He has to show he's at least trying to settle his account with you." Chris paused. “You know, I really do think it might have been better to have kept your thoughts to yourself back in that bar.”
“Oh, I see,” she said huffily.
“I’m only saying it out of concern.”
As always she was touched by such solicitousness on his part. “Bless you. But believe me, I always know what I’m doing – are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m just clearing my throat…got a bit of a cold. Well, let’s just say it’s unfortunate.”
“I suppose it is,” she agreed. “Most of the time, if you don’t -tread on the Mafia’s toes, they won’t tread on yours.”
“That’s not always true. There was a guy once in the States who knocked down and killed the son of the local Mafia boss. It was the kid’s fault entirely, wasn’t looking where he was going and ran right in front of the car. There was no way the driver could have helped it. But not long afterwards, they guy...well, he disappeared.”
A deathly silence seemed to fall. After a moment Chris heard Caroline breathe in sharply. "WHAT?" she gasped, outraged and astonished. "They killed him...just because of that?"
“Apparently.”
In Kingston Caroline's jaw dropped and her eyes widened, before astonishment gave way to other emotions. Even several miles away Chris could see those blue irises gleaming dangerously, sense the temperature in her vicinity plunge. She seemed to detest, more than any other crime, the killing of people for tragic accidents that weren't their fault.
“There are lots of lovely theories as to what they did to him. You know, I read about one case where they…” She listened in horror as he told her the story. "That's not possible," she protested. "That doesn't happen in real life, only in cartoons."
“I seem to recall Viellar had some cruel and unusual tastes in these matters.” He adopted a more serious tone. “It’s always possible people have been killed, deliberately or otherwise, in ways that would cause distress to the public if the truth was known…even the relatives aren’t told the full story because it would upset them too much. Instead you get rumours, urban myths. I heard a story once about a guy who got trapped in a car crusher, or something similar, by accident. They managed to turn it off but couldn’t dismantle it without starting it up again and…well, mincing him. But they didn’t want to leave him to starve, so…”
Caroline pulled a face. “Chris, I don’t really…”
“And then there was another bloke who fell into a furnace they used to make blocks of graphite, and apparently they buried the block…”
“Oh shut up!” she snapped.
“They’re supposed to have killed the Black Dahlia, remember her? Although it’s only a rumour. And did you ever hear about Estelle Carey?”
“Did I ever hear about who?” she asked wearily.
“Estelle Carey. She worked as a prostitute among other things in a dodgy casino the Mob ran. She was the girlfriend of the casino’s owner. He’d been fingered by the law and the Mafia thought he might be about to turn informer to get an early release, so they killed her to teach him a lesson. They thought it would better serve as a warning if it was someone close to him.”
“That’s the worst kind of crime there is,” she said. “That’s how it seems to me anyway.”
“To be honest, they were also trying to get her to reveal where he’d hidden his share of the money from an extortion racket.”
“I’m sure that manifestly excuses it.”
“Anyway, do you want to know how they killed her?”
“Not particularly.”
“They tied her to a chair, tortured her and then poured petrol over her and set it alight.”
“Oh no.”
“The fire destroyed her legs up to her knees,” he informed her.
“Ugh,” she winced.
“Actually it’s not funny,” he conceded. “Whatever she was.”
“Was she Italian?” Caroline asked.
“I don’t think so. But if you swim with sharks sooner or later one of them’s going to eat you, whatever its ancestry.”
“Hmm, maybe,” she said. She had nothing against Italians, of course. Most Italian-Americans were honest, decent law-abiding people. But it was a strongly held opinion of hers that when people emigrated somewhere, they should leave their bad habits behind.
"It was as long ago as 1943, but judging by the general state of the world, if people were capable of doing that sort of thing then they're capable of doing it now."
The image of a burning girl etched itself into Caroline’s mind. “Why are you treating me to all these delightful graphic details?” She didn’t appreciate being wound up like this. All sorts of unpleasant thoughts were going through her head right now. She had visions of Jack’s head turning up in her bed…or was that horses?
“Sorry,” Chris said guiltily. “I guess it’s because I don’t think you’re actually in any real danger right now.”
“How so?”
“Well,” he said, “I doubt if they’re likely to do anything nasty to you in England.”

As he relaxed on the beach at Honolulu, Luigi Beretta reflected nostalgically on his life of crime, the proceeds from which kept him comfortable in his retirement. But as always, his mind was not entirely at ease.
He had turned state’s evidence during the clampdown on the US Mafia during the seventies and eighties, in return for a reduced sentence. He had committed the ultimate sin; he had betrayed Omerta. When he came out of prison he’d used the money set aside to help resettlement of ex-offenders to buy a condo out here, at the same time changing his identity and appearance, which the authorities had helped him do as part of the witness protection scheme. Whether this meant he was safe, well…
Luigi knew from the grapevine, both criminal and legit, that the Mob seemed able to find anyone these days, wherever they were. But he had decided to give Scarlione a run for his money – he hadn’t anything to lose. One guy he knew, who had also turned reformer, got religion out of the fear that the Mafia would find and kill him and in fact was now a monk. As far as was known he was still alive, though Beretta wasn’t sure whether Scarlione would be deterred by any respect for religion from breaking into a monastery to kill his targets.
But the monastic life wasn’t for Luigi Beretta. Like the late Ronnie Bowker, he wanted to spend the rest of his days partaking of the pleasures of the flesh, or at least living in reasonable comfort and security. He had decided to defy Salvatore Scarlione. He took precautions of course. He had surrounded his house with CCTV cameras and owned two fierce dogs he was quite prepared to set upon any visitor he didn’t like the look of. In view of the danger to his life from his former employers he had secured a permit to own a loaded hangun, which weapon he carried with him wherever possible.
But one thing was puzzling him. When he considered what had happened to other people who’d gone on the run from Scarlione, or the crime groups under his control – he’d heard about those incidents either on the news or through the criminal grapevine, which he occasionally still made use of – he couldn’t quite figure out why he was still alive. Whey they hadn’t yet found out where he was.






Nine
Caroline finished the washing-up, leaving the plates and cutlery to drain, and went back into the lounge. There she poured herself some sherry, put on Nora Jones, and sat down to relax. She’d got home late from work, but there was still three hours to go before bedtime and she meant to use it unwinding in preparation for the long hard boring day she’d have to go through tomorrow.
The bell rang and she wondered who it could be at this time of night. Was anything wrong somewhere?
She peered through the little peephole she’d had made in the door on taking possession of the property. The porch light had come on, as it was programmed to do whenever anyone approached the door, and in it the man standing outside was revealed as big and black, dressed in chords and a leather jacket. He was stockily built and getting on for six foot. His size alone made him seem intimidating, but that didn’t mean he was necessarily up to no good.
She’d put the chain on so she could feel safe and secure for the evening. She opened the door as far it would allow and leaned forward. “Er yes, can I help you?” she asked warily.
She gave a cry of shock and jumped back as a hand was thrust through the gap. The hand closed on the chain and gave it a sharp tug.
A man that size, if his strength was in proportion to it, might well succeed in breaking the chain. In which case he’d be in the house and on top of her, in one way or another, before she could get to the phone and call the police, or find some way of concealment/escape. She thought fast.
She ran to the downstairs lavatory, where she snatched up the can of air freshener standing on the shelf above the toilet, twisting off its top, then back to the door. As she got there she saw and heard the wood around the slot where the chain went in start to splinter. Then the chain snapped.
Before he could pull open the door she aimed the aerosol spray through the gap, pressing the button down hard with her thumb. The gas hissed out in a single sustained jet, straight into the man’s eyes. The piercing scream he let out probably woke the whole neighbourhood. She saw him turn with his hands clasped over his eyes and stagger off into the night, shrieking like a little boy.
Caroline slammed the door shut, bolted it and ran into the lounge, to where the phone sat on the sideboard. She snatched it up and dialled 999. As she stood there waiting for a reply she heard the sound of a car driving off.
As always these days it took ages to get through to the police, but eventually she did so. She told them what had happened and they promised to send two officers down to talk to her within the next half-hour.
She turned to the phone to see Jack coming towards her with what she always thought of as his worried expression, demanding to know what was going on. “It’s alright, sweetheart,” she smiled, bending down to stroke him reassuringly. “The nasty man’s gone.”
But of course he, or one of his friends, might be back. Depending on what he had wanted.
Her immediate thought was of Scarlione. A bit of a coincidence, if this was some totally different matter. Coincidences, of course, did happen.
But could it possibly be…
Surely not…
Best not to chance it, though.
It seemed to take the police considerably longer than half an hour to arrive. When they did, she gave them a full account of the incident with as detailed a description of her would-be attacker as possible. The man could of course have been a burglar, who might or might not have had rape on his mind as well. He wouldn’t necessarily have been staking out the house, and known who lived there. They asked if she knew of anyone who might want to harm her.
This was the moment when she had to make her mind up. Did she mention Scarlione and the threats he had issued to her, the incident at the refinery in Russia? She wasn’t sure if they’d believe her.
The two policemen must have noted her uncertainty, and decided that if there was something she wasn’t telling them about it was her business, and her fault if anything bad happened as a result. “Right,” said the older and senior of the pair. “We’ll log the incident at the station and put out an alert. You’ll be notified of any developments. That door should be OK for the moment but you’d better get it fixed as soon as possible, have a new chain put in. We can arrange to have that done for you.” He gave details of a scheme by which the work could be carried out free of charge. “In the meantime I’ll have a couple of officers, one of them a female, stationed in the house at all times.”
“I’d like that.”
He made a call to the station. “We’ll stay here with you until they come.”
“Then I’d better go and make the three of us a cup of tea,” said Caroline, who needed one just then. She paused. “Er, there was something else actually.” The men looked at her enquiringly.
She told them about Scarlione. “If you check with the police in America they’ll confirm it. But I’d like to apply for permanent round-the-clock protection if I may. Permanent until we can be sure they’ve given up, that is. There may not be a connection of course, but with a man like Scarlione it’s better not to take risks.”
“I understand, Madam,” said the senior policeman sympathetically. “It’ll be a matter for the Chief Constable to decide, though. But we’ll certainly consider your request.”
“I’d be grateful for that,” Caroline said.

Fyodor Zubin didn’t altogether like being manager of the Siberian refinery. For one thing there was the cold; for another the general isolation of the place. On the other hand the refinery and the “village” a few miles away with its own shops, meeting room, cinema and other facilities, where the workforce lived constituted a friendly, close-knit community with all necessary facilities and was regularly supplied with a variety of consumer goods by helicopter.
And there was one other very important consolation.
Zubin was on one of his regular tours of inspection. Right now he was in the cracking plant watching the refined oil being fed into one of the pipelines, which would carry it to the terminal hundreds of miles away, from where the tankers collected it and delivered it to the filling stations and other customers. It really was a remarkable process - and one which had presented Zubin and certain of his associates with an opportunity. But the pipelines could also be used to transport crude oil as at most conventional refineries, in this case from the drilling rigs further north or the fields in Kazakhstan for refining.
He moved on, to the maintenance section from which the pigs set off on the tours of inspection of the pipes, scanning among other things for impurities which could contaminate the oil/petrol. Normally they did the job entirely by themselves, but the design IPL used could carry a gang of workmen to wherever a job needed to be done manually. Zubin was just watching one enter the pipeline with just such a crew when his mobile rang. “Reception here, Mr Zubin. Your friend has just arrived.”
“Thankyou. I’ll come over to meet him.”
When he arrived at Reception Zubin saw that a very fair man was leaning against the desk, tapping his fingers on it idly. He smiled on seeing Zubin and went to join him. Zubin moved off, nodding to the visitor to follow.
In his office Zubin treated his “friend” to a glass of Bull’s Blood, while he himself chose vodka. “Everything well?” he enquired.
The other shrugged. “I suppose so. Our enterprise needs a lot of hard work to run. The main thing is no-one else can do anything to sabotage it.”
“I hope so,” Zubin said. “I’m a bit concerned about events at Kamchuk. If Head Office knows the oil from there has been adulterated, they may wonder if it is being adulterated here too. They may send a troubleshooter out.”
“Then we deal with her like we did this woman Caroline Kent,” replied the blond man with a shrug. “We scared her off, anyway.”
“What if they decide to close the refinery down?”
“They can’t close down every refinery in Russia. And Siberia is too important a source of oil still.”
“But bearing in mind the safety issue…”
They could go back to adulterating the oil, or switching it, at the pumps. But it was easier to do it this way. There were only a small number of refineries, but hundreds of filling stations. Besides, it wouldn’t be in Zubin’s interests for them to go back to the former method. He was making a lot of money out of the scam.
“It depends how scared they are of reprisals,” Zubin’s companion told him. “And if I were them I’d be very scared. These days there’s nowhere for anyone who opposes us to hide. Nowhere at all.”

Joe Hickman stiffened, drawing in breath sharply. “You screwed up? How come?”
The Yardie’s eyes flashed with anger. “Don’t diss me, man. Not my fault, OK? She sprayed fuckin’ air freshener in my eyes.”
“Ah dear,” said Hickman. “Did it hurt?”
“I had to split, I tell you. They’d have heard what was going on.”
“Yeah, I bet you screamed fit to bust.” On the whole Hickman felt safe indicating just what he thought of the Jamaican’s failure to do what had been required of him. Normally something about these guys chilled him, made him wary of them; it was that constant sense of aggression and hatred they left you with, whether suppressed or manifested in verbal or physical violence. And whenever doing business with them in the past he’d had to be very careful. But Scarlione, who didn’t seem to have much regard for the Yardies’ judgement, considered them to rank below Hickman in the hierarchy of the Syndicate and with the Don backing him up there wasn’t a lot they could do.
“I knew it was a mistake using you guys,” Hickman sighed. “All right, just get out of here. Let’s just forget about it, OK?”
“What about our share of the dosh, man?”
“You failed,” Hickman reminded him, making it clear by his tone that this decided the matter. “Just be glad you’re still in one piece. Now fuck off out of my sight.”
The Jamaican shot him a look of pure venom, and seemed about to say something, but he bit off the words and stomped from the room, perhaps remembering the presence of the Rottweilers, who had been eyeing the confrontation with an apparent disinterest that could be converted instantly to aggression at a command from their owner. Hickman dialled Vito Scarlione’s mobile number but got no response, Vito no doubt being busy on some urgent job for the Syndicate that had required turning it off. He decided to try Salvatore Scarlione himself.
A telephonist put him through to the Don. “Joe?” answered Scarlione excitedly. “You got her?”
“No joy, I’m afraid. The stupid dopehead messed it up.” He elaborated.
Four-letter words had been a part of Hickman’s vocabulary for as long as he could remember. Everyone around him had used them and he was always slightly puzzled, as much as anything else, by people who objected to such language. But even he winced at the torrent of abuse which burst from Scarlione, although it wasn’t directed at him personally.
“Seems there’s only one way to do it,” Scarlione said when he’d calmed down. “I’m gonna have to use a professional.”
“And what are me and my boys?” Hickman said flatly. His gang were nothing if not experienced killers, having been doing it for twenty years or more, although until recently they’d had to observe some discretion. And nowadays he himself tended to delegate that side of the business to his subordinates.
“No disrespect, Joe, but believe me this one’s the best.”
“You got somebody in mind?”
“I have,” said Scarlione. “And believe me, you don’t want to mess with her if you’re smart. Well, I’ll call you if I need your help again.” Abruptly he cut Hickman off.
Since I obviously can’t rely on these idiots, Scarlione thought, I’m gonna bring in someone I can trust to do the fucking job properly.
He laughed to himself at the thought of how the Brit public would react once they realised such things were taking place on their territory. The British liked to think they were above all that. Too sober and sedate. Well they had to be told, they lived in the global village now, were a part of it like everyone else. London was still a major international financial centre, which made it a legitimate sphere of activity for the likes of Scarlione. It was a hard, ruthless, cut-throat world, especially these days, and he saw no particular reason why the Brits should be spared from it and others not, because there wasn’t one. As Caroline Kent would shortly, and to her disadvantage, find out.

The house was a couple of hours out of town, and its grounds were being patrolled twentyfour-seven by security guards with dogs. Its owner had been told to take a week’s holiday in Bermuda, all expenses paid.
In the back room the girl was playing a little desultorily with the doll they’d bought her to keep her occupied and thus out of mischief. She had been taken to make sure her father didn’t testify against the Buccetti family in a major fraud trial. The case had been heard by the District Attorney the previous day and the suspects were duly acquitted, but they still weren’t sure what to do with her. The dark little woman was of the opinion that she’d seen too much and might be able to identify her, along with others of the kidnap team, to the police. She was a bright kid who could be relied upon to remember details correctly.
On a whim she decided to check on her charge. She opened the door of the back room and peered in.
The girl looked up, an appeal in her wide eyes. “When can I go home?” she asked. At first she’d just been puzzled but now she was beginning to get restless, uneasy. It looked like she might have been crying.
The dark little woman answered her question. “Soon.”
“You said I could go home today.” She was both frustrated and uneasy at the constant deferral of what she most wanted.
“Your Mom and Dad aren’t back yet. We’ve got to look after you till they come back.”
“But you said they’d be back today.”
“They called to say they’d be late. Sometimes it happens that people can’t come back from somewhere when they want to. Their plane couldn’t take off because there was something wrong with it – do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” said the girl emphatically. Then she frowned. “Why didn’t Mommy and Daddy take me with them?”
“Sometimes you can’t take your kids with you when you go away.” “But Mommy and Daddy never go away together. Except when they go on holiday and then they always take us with them.”
“This is a special kind of holiday. It’s called a “business holiday.”” The dark little woman hoped the girl wouldn’t ask her to explain what that meant. “Don’t you worry, honey, they’ll be back tomorrow and then you can go home.” Sniffling, the girl went back to her play.
“That’s it,” the dark little woman smiled. “You just sit there and play with the nice dolly.”
She considered their options. Scarlione had said he’d leave it up to her to decide what happened as long as the kidnapping wasn’t traced back to him personally – though such things never were. They weren’t that bothered about getting fingered, not these days. As Scarlione kept saying, sometimes they had to go through the motions of being arrested so that people didn’t realise the true extent of their power (while the police for their part had to make it look as if they were doing something), but they’d probably be at liberty again in a few weeks. However, it was always tiresome and on this occasion she decided she didn’t want the hassle. It would also assist generally in ramming home the lesson if a loved one died.
Her mind was made up. Slowly, her small feet making little sound on the carpet, she stepped up behind the girl, taking the knife from her pocket. Engrossed in her play, her victim wasn’t aware she was there.
The dark little woman put the knife to the girl’s throat, and slashed the blade across it, all in one swift lightning movement. She probably couldn’t have known what had happened to her, although afterwards the dark woman fancied she wore a faint look of surprise. She heard the blood spatter on the floor, then the little body slumped forward onto its face and lay still.
Her mobile rang. “Yes?” she answered. “Oh, Mr Scarlione.”
“What have you done with the kid?” Scarlione asked, almost casually.
“She’s been taken care of. I think we’ll leave the body to be found by the police, it’s the simplest way to make sure Dad gets the message.”
“Fine,” Scarlione said. “Now listen, Maria, if you’re finished over there I’ve got another job for you to do. It means taking a little trip across the Atlantic.”












Ten
A party was in progress at Scarlione’s house, one of those regular gatherings of his extended family. Not all the guests were part of the Mob; a lot had come simply from social and biological ties to the Don. These events were fun occasions, although everyone missed the presence of Scarlione’s wife Alessandra, who had always acted as hostess, shepherding the recalcitrant or those who didn’t know where to go in motherly fashion. Tragic she should suddenly decide to kill herself like that – they still didn’t know the actual reason - but then a lot of people had problems that never showed on the surface. Such was life.
Italian parties were a voluble affair, and Ray Volcker, caporegime for the western half of New York City, wandered off after a while because the noise was giving him a headache. A drink in his hand, he sauntered along the corridors of the house casting an appreciative eye over the furnishings, the chandeliers and candelabras, the carpeting and oak panelling. He’d always thought it tasteful, if a little ostentatious.
He came to a substantial oak-panelled door and paused, intrigued. The woodwork was new. Scarlione had had the door changed within the last few months; Volcker couldn’t work out why, since the old one had been quite good enough. And the new lock was different; instead of an ordinary Yale it had a slot where you could insert a swipecard. These revised security measures suggested there was something within the room Scarlione was particularly anxious to prevent people seeing.
On a whim more than anything else, Volcker went to take a closer look. A shrill alarm signal went off, almost startling his heart out of his mouth. He must have broken some kind of light beam.
He thought it best to creep away as quietly as possible. Unfortunately for best results he’d also have to move as quickly as possible, and the two were somewhat contradictory. He heard footsteps heading in his direction, coming fairly fast, and steeled himself, realising he was going to have to face the music.
Vito Scarlione appeared around a corner, and stopped dead on seeing Volcker. “Uh, hi Vito,” Ray grinned. Scarlione junior was always addressed by his first name to avoid confusion with his father.
Ignoring him, Vito went to the locked door and produced his card, inserting it in the slit. The alarm cut off and Vito took the card out.
Vito had got there as fast as he could and there wasn’t anyone in sight other than Volcker. “You’re interested in what’s behind that door, aren’t you Ray?” he said.
Volcker tried to decide what he should say. “Well yeah, I mean no…”
“I wouldn’t bother, Ray. If you tried to break in…well you saw what happened. And you forgot there’s CCTV everywhere.”
“I wasn’t trying to break in,” Volcker protested, sincerely enough.
“And if I caught you, I’d kill you.”
“I swear, Vito, I – “
“I don’t blame you for being curious. But there are reasons why some things are kept a secret. The fewer people who do know about something, the less likely the wrong bunch will get to hear about it. And in this case the ones with the knowledge will guard it with their lives, if they know what’s good for them. So run along now and enjoy yourself; have another drink. And remember what happened to Jimmy Brancuso.”
Volcker went on his way, a little embarrassedly. Vito waited for a moment then put the card in the slot again, the other way round this time. The door – of solid steel behind the fake wood cladding - slid open. It was always kept locked whether or not someone was actually using the room. Only himself, his father, Tony D’Enrico and the trusted people who manned the place had copies of the card and none of the copies were allowed to leave the building.
In the room was a telephone bank where a row of people sat wearing headsets, taking calls and relaying them to his father’s study at the house or to one of the Syndicate’s millions of members worldwide. From time to time they would key information into the computers in front of them. By contemporary standards it wasn’t particularly advanced equipment; the really impressive stuff was elsewhere, operated by people who could be relied upon not to sell the technology to anyone outside the Syndicate. The room was merely a means of maintaining contact with them, or with other Syndicate members including those here and abroad who worked directly for La Cosa Nostra. The house had a satellite dish on its roof, but then so did a lot of houses.
On the wall was a series of flow charts setting out how various of the Syndicate’s operations were run, how the profits from them ultimately ended up in the Scarlione family’s hands. One showed the international drug trade, the air and sea routes it used, and the role of various national crime groupings in it. The Nigerians and Russians dealt with the cocaine, the Ukrainians the cannabis, and central Asians the opium. In the case of the heroin Scarlione preferred not to deal with the Pakistanis and Afghans who initially manufactured it, because he didn’t like operating in Muslim countries. He left that to the subordinate organisations, stepping in at the next point along the line where the product began to be distributed worldwide. The Syndicate’s cut was either conveyed to them in strongboxes full of notes or gold bullion or transferred electronically to Scarlione’s or a front organisation’s bank account.
The telephonists looked up as Vito entered. “It’s alright, just a false alarm. Anything interesting going on?”
“Berlin should send us their quarterly payment within the next week,” one reported. “And the French want to borrow Argus for a while.”
“Is there anyone else who does?”
“No, not at the moment.”
Vito made an executive decision. “Then they can have it.” Sometimes a queue built up but a lot of the time the device wasn’t necessary anyway, except in so far as it created discipline merely by the knowledge that it existed.
Vito nodded to the telephonists and left. Thinking of Volcker, he decided it probably was just curiosity; and what was in the room wouldn’t, in itself, be of much value to him anyway. If he did want to find out what exactly the Syndicate derived its power from, so he could tell the authorities or try to steal it himself, there were ways that could be done; for example, kidnapping one of the few people who knew - he could probably guess who they were – and forcing them to divulge their secret. But he would be terrified by the thought of something going wrong, of any unforeseen flaw in the plan leading to his discovery and subsequent butchering.
Sometimes, simple fear was enough.

IPL
“I’m sorry,” gasped Chris. “I never thought…” He stared at Caroline in horror, remembering how he’d made light of things on the phone to her a couple of nights before.
“That’s alright,” she told him. “I didn’t exactly think it was possible myself.”
Chris scratched at his chin pensively. “As a matter of fact, maybe we shouldn’t be all that surprised. Organised crime gets everywhere. It’s always been international, because it’s opportunist, wants to maximise profits. Spread its web as widely as possible. And if these people are mad enough about something… not so long ago there was a gangland killing in Woking, Woking of all places. It was the sister of a woman who was married to some East European gangster – at least he had criminal connections - and some rival outfit wanted to kill his wife to teach him a lesson. They came calling one day while she was visiting, she opened the door, they mistook her for her sister and shot her.”
“It wouldn’t have been any better if it had been the wife,” she muttered, eyes narrowing. “And if I suppose if the wife was a citizen of a foreign country that ought not to have made any difference in their opinion?”
“I can’t answer for such people,” Chris shrugged.
Her fists clenched and her face froze in anger. Not only her patriotism but her sense of justice was offended.
“Besides, it’s globalism,” he went on. “Internationalism. Easier these days to get a plane ticket to anywhere in the world you fancy. More than that, it’s the whole modern mindset, the way we jet between continents to do business with one another. Organised crime tends to think that if you can fly to Hong Kong to discuss a trade deal with a Chinaman, you can fly there to kill him as well. National barriers have been broken down and the only loyalty is to business, legit or otherwise. We all live in a global village nowadays, you know.”
Caroline snorted, then remembered that as someone whose job involved ensuring the efficient running of a big multinational corporation she couldn’t very well knock globalisation. But then she often found herself asking if she was really happy in that job.
“So it’s not something new,” Chris said in an attempt to make her feel better about everything. But he hadn’t really expected it to work, and it didn’t.
“This is different,” she insisted. “I’m not a criminal or related to anyone who is. All right, so I said a couple of things he didn’t like, but to go to such lengths to kill a foreign citizen…I’m not an American or an Italian, am I?”
“The Mafia has outgrown the Italian community in the States. It’s mushroomed into something that’s much bigger than that…always was, I think.”
“But there’s still a big difference between offending someone and actually trying to do them out of business, tread on their patch. You hear a lot of rumours about how corrupt everything’s getting, and the extent of international crime, how it’s growing…especially if it’s imported from abroad, we’ve no idea who really makes the clothes we wear, the food we eat…”
Or what goes into it, Chris thought, thinking of rumours about the bodies of Mafia victims being disposed of in sausage factories. But he thought better of it.
Caroline still couldn’t quite accept it, or didn’t want to. “Here…in England…of course there’s no one hundred per cent proof it was the Mafia.”
“Would they employ blacks?”
“They employ all sorts of people nowadays, according to one of the sites I looked at. You were right about it having expanded beyond just one ethnic community. But was that guy black British?”
“There’ve always been links between criminals in different countries.”
“I still think this is something different. But right now I don’t know what.”
“I reckon it must be Scarlione,” said Chris. “It’s too much of a coincidence. And I think you should apply for police protection.”
“Too darn right I will. I’m going to Kingston cop shop this afternoon, as soon as I’ve finished my final report on the Kamchuk business.”
“Well that should do the trick, surely.”
“I imagine so. I just hope I’m not going to have to be too restricted in my movements.”
"They won't be so daft as to try to kill you at the office. Or in the street; not in broad daylight, anyway."
“I don’t want them to kill me at all,” Caroline said.

The Major’s mother had bought the farm, which had belonged to a distant relative, with the money from her husband’s legacy when he died. It nestled in a little valley deep in the Cotswolds, near the Oxfordshire-Gloucestershire border, and earned the family valuable income which would serve to keep her in comfort when she retired from her job as a company secretary.
The Major, his mother and Gillian were sitting drinking tea (or coffee in Gillian’s case) in the living room of the red brick eighteenth century farmhouse. The fittings were a mixture of ancient and modern, enough of the former remaining to give the room a character too many places lacked on the inside, these days. On the mantelpiece above the fireplace was a framed photo of the Major’s father, a fine-looking man with grey-edged dark hair and rather fierce bushy eyebrows. He had a stern face, but with a hint of kindliness about the eyes.
Alison Hartman, a handsome woman in her fifties with dark blonde hair highlighted in places, was quizzing Gillian as to what she thought about the differences between America and Britain, native and foreigner comparing their impressions of the States based on holidays Alison had taken there in the past.
“What always strikes me is how polite everyone is here,” Gillian said. “Polite but…reserved. Not like us. And so many of those cute old buildings…” The Major pitied the Americans for not having so much of a history as most other people, though that didn’t apply, of course, to the indigenous inhabitants of the country.
He sensed Gillian was slightly bored. “Gill and I thought we’d go for a walk sometime, mother,” he said, hoping with all respect due to his parent that she wouldn’t want to come with them. “Maybe you’d – “
But she seemed to sense they wanted to be left to themselves, and understand. “Oh no, you go. I’ve got plenty of work to do around the house so I’ll see you both later.” And so they set off, to spend the afternoon exploring the lanes and footpaths around the village.
“Was that your Dad’s picture on the wall?” Gillian asked some way into the walk.
“Uh huh.”
“He looks kind of awesome. I mean, scary. I hope I’m not offending you.”
The Major laughed. “He was scary. A bit…Victorian. Had his good side, though. I think he wanted the best for us. I like the Army, I like the way it can knock some decency into rough types by disciplining them. But I joined it partly because he wanted me to, he’d been a soldier himself as was his father before him and liked to think of me carrying on the family tradition. I didn’t like to disappoint him.” He smiled wryly. “Now what’s a shrink going to make of that?”
“Some unhealthy Oedipal compex leading to excessive guilt and overcompensation, I’m sure.”
They talked more, in light-hearted vein, about the differences between US and British culture, between two countries divided by a common language. As before, the more they bantered the more at ease they felt in each other’s company.
It had happened by degrees; the affectionate gesture which was not objected to, or which originated with her in the first place, the realisation that for the two of them shared pleasure was particularly pleasant. Yet there was still a way to go before they could assume they were in what was called a “relationship”. It could be that both of them wanted one but were too afraid to take the plunge. Well one or the other would have to, sooner or later. Meanwhile it was clear Gillian liked England. “Do you think you’d like to live here?” the Major asked her. “To be an Englishwoman?”
She seemed uncertain. Probably she found Britain a less dynamic, more static society than the US. Would she get bored after a while? For his part, would he be at home in America? There was that lack of a history to identify with, and he would miss the sedate, though often appealingly eccentric, way of life which was one of the things he so loved about his own country.
She seemed to come to a decision. “I don’t think I’d mind as long as I had plenty to do.”
“I’d make sure you did.”
They walked on. She listened enthralled as he recounted his exploits in the Amazon, in the process rising even futher in her estimation.
After a while, almost unconsciously, his hand slipped into hers and grasped it. She didn’t resist. It was a stage in that gradual, unconscious, subtle process, all but impossible to describe but of which both parties are well aware, by which friendship turns into something more.
They wandered a little from the path, onto land which the Major said was part of the farm so they wouldn’t be trespassing, and found themselves in a clearing within a dense thicket, into which enough light penetrated from above to make it a pleasant, as well as secluded, spot. Brilliant sunshine, the trees in full leaf, the flowers beautiful and nature going about its business all around them, the air ringing to birdsong, the drone of bumblebees and the chirping of crickets. “Why, it’s lovely here,” Gillian smiled.
“Sure is. Used to play a lot in that woodpile over there as a kid. Let’s stop for a while, shall we?” They sat, then lay down at the base of a tree, the grass there forming a comfortable bed on which to rest.
When they returned from their walk a couple of hours later they were lovers, if they had not been before.

Caroline sat before the senior CID officer at Kingston police station. “We have indeed checked with the Americans,” he was saying, “and I can assure you the senior officers who made the decision were in possession of all the relevant information. However in view of there being no proof of a connection with this Scarlione, we don’t think there is a justification for providing round-the-clock protection in the long term.” Because that kind of thing was expensive, placing strain on an already overstretched budget, especially on top of the many thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on elaborate protection schemes for Joe Hickman’s victims and the witnesses at his trial, which had completely failed to achieve their desired result. “Naturally, if any such proof does emerge we’ll have another look at the situation.”
It occurred to Caroline that the proof could only come if something nasty happened; if there was another attempt at a hit on her, one she might not survive. Oh, great.
She decided there wasn’t any point in arguing.
“In the meantime, I can only advise you to take maximum care. Be extra vigilant, maybe vary your daily movements for a time. Don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know.”
Why do you think I put the chain on it? she thought.
“I believe a new chain is being made for you right now. And we’ve got some leaflets on home security you can take away with you.”
“I’ve already got plenty of that sort of thing, but thanks anyway.” She stood up. “Well, I suppose I can see your point of view. Thankyou for your help.”
What is the country coming to, she muttered beneath her breath.

Located on the edge of a wood among scrubby little fields, the airfield had been chosen by Solokhov and his associates because it wasn’t too far from Moscow, thirty-two miles to be exact, and the tanks and armoured personnel carriers wouldn’t have that far to go in order to do their stuff. The faithful had pooled their resources to buy it as their training camp and general base of operations. Fortunately, the area was sparsely populated and the trees screened it from view from the nearest road. Officially it was simply a private airfield used for recreational purposes.
On the runway stood an ex-Air Force Antonov troop carrier and a few helicopters. For the moment all these aircraft bore civilian markings. Concealed out of sight in the hangars were about half a dozen tanks – not enough for a successful coup even if they struck swiftly and in the right place – and APCs. The vehicles were mostly Russian but had been snapped up from both sides in the Cold War when declared surplus to requirements as part of the downscaling of the armed forces. Solokhov’s supporters had bought them on the pretence they were intended for private use or conversion to other purposes, and spent a great deal of time lovingly repainting them with Soviet insignia.
In a clearing in the wood men were drilling, wrestling each other bare-chested, carrying out manouevres which included storming a mock-up of a government building, and undergoing an assault course. Apart from the wrestlers all the soldiers wore Soviet military clothing, in the form into which it had evolved by the dissolution of the Union and appropriate to their respective ranks. Some of it had been kept by its sentimental owners, some had come from shops that dealt in militaria.
Solokhov and Ostrosky had been inspecting the proceedings, both in full uniform (Ostrosky’s was that of a colonel). At the moment they were watching the wrestlers, Solokhov wondering if he ought to challenge one of them to a bout; probably not. He could still give a good account of himself but the chances were the younger man would win, which he felt would diminish his prestige and authority before his troops.
A platoon marched past, saluting as they caught sight of him. He saluted back and they marched on stiffly.
They seemed dedicated enough, most of them. But even if all had guns, which were easy enough to lay hold of nowadays, they wouldn’t without more tanks have the right degree of mobility.
Solokhov’s aim was to seize the Duma building and key radio and television stations in the capital by a helicopter assault, taking the deputies hostage. The tanks would then roll in and his forces – a couple of hundred men strong – occupy the centre of the capital. He had abandoned the plan to seize St Petersburg as well, in case it weakened the effectiveness of his forces by dividing them. If only he was a little wealthier…
Sympathisers at the air-, army and naval bases – there were a few – would rally the troops there. Solokhov’s calculation was that once he had declared his manifesto and shown that he had been bold enough to take the initiative, others would follow where he led.
The manifesto would include the rebuilding of the Russian armed forces, conventional and nuclear, to their pre-1991 strength, the restoration of the Communist party to a supreme position in the state, and the reannexation of the former republics. The West would be alarmed but wouldn’t intervene militarily while Russia remained a nuclear power. They could however cut trade links; but he’d worry about that when the time came.
Without telling Grishkov, who might still come in useful at some point, in case he decided they didn’t need him any more and finally gave up on them, they had decided to try and raise the cash from other sources as well as the Bratva, using front organisations. Solokhov was doubtful they’d succeed. He didn’t know how to work the system, didn’t have the same network of underworld contacts that Grishkov did. And the criminal outfits, who seemed to run everything these days and not only in Russia, wouldn’t fund him if they knew what he was really about because they thought he would restore the whole repressive apparatus of state control and regarded a climate of unrestrained capitalism as the one in which they could best flourish.
Returning to the airfield, Solokhov and his companion looked in on the gymnasium, where a group of men were performing physical training exercises. On the wall were propaganda posters from the Revolutionary era, including a number of Lenin. After a while the General and his second-in-command drifted off to the still at the back of the building, where the barman served them a glass of vodka each.
They sat down on a bench, just out of the barman’s earshot. “Have you liked what you have seen today?” Ostrosky asked.
“By and large,” grunted the General. There had been something listless about the way many of the men had performed their vartious activities; he had seen one or two mistakes he hadn’t liked. They both knew very well why it was happening.
“I’m willing to try it if you are, when the time comes,” Ostrosky said. “But that doesn’t mean I think it’ll succeed. No-one is going to send money to us. Our cause just isn’t popular. No-one wants to bring back what they were glad to get away from in 1989-91. They think it means stagnation, oppression. They don’t want a return to a Cold War when it looked at times like the world would be annihilated in a nuclear holocaust.”
“That would never have happened,” growled Solokhov. “Not after Khrushchev.” That gentleman’s incredible folly in stationing nuclear missiles in Cuba, so close to American soil, had led to his replacement by a more oligarchic form of leadership which had tied itself in bureaucratic red tape in order to restrict its own capacity for bold initiatives which might prove dangerous. The result had been inefficiency, but at least it had preserved international peace. “Neither us nor, I suspect, the Americans would ever have let it. That we should all commit mutual suicide…” He wondered if he, Solokhov, would ever have invaded the West had he been in charge in Moscow. Well maybe, if it didn’t have nuclear weapons and if the cost of such an undertaking had not been prohibitive. But his main objective was for Russia to be strong and respected, and he saw the Communist system as the best way of achieiving it, not because of its crack-brained ideology but because of its totalitarian nature. Strong autocratic control was what was needed. It occurred to him that he had no idea how to deal with the faults in the system which Gorbachev had all too starkly exposed; he only knew he couldn’t stand the present democratic regime and the only other alternative was to bring back the Tsars, only the weakness and incompetence of Nicholas II had discredited the hereditary system permanently.
“You know,” said Ostrosky, “they say that nowadays it is organised crime that runs everything, not just in Russia but everywhere. There’s supposed to be some American Mafiosi at the heart of it and he’s even more powerful than Grishkov, all the governments do exactly what he tells them to.”
“Then that is a very sad state of affairs,” Grishkov told him. For a while he was gloomily silent. There was no doubt the world was changing, and he didn’t like what what it was changing into. Nothing but greed, materialism, lust for money and the power it conferred.
Who will there be to uphold the values of the Revolution after I am gone? he thought. In ten, twenty, thirty years’ time will our young people even understand what it was all about, let alone sympathise with those ideals? We could only do whatever was possible, in the present, to arrest the decline. Even if it turned out to be gloriously pointless.

As soon as Caroline got home from the police station – she felt she ought to be there while the new chain was fitted, although it shouldn’t strictly speaking be necessary - the two police officers who had been staying in the house until the job was done said their goodbyes and left. As they saw it there was no longer any need for them to be there, and besides they were urgently needed to help in a current criminal investigation. She knew the police were heavily overstretched these days, but it still seemed a far from satisfactory state of affairs.
The door had been taken off its hinges and left leaning against the wall. The man from the private security firm employed by the police to put in the new chain, which they’d said would be stronger than the previous one, was hard at work cutting away the old doorframe, which would have to be replaced, with a chisel and Stanley knife. A plastic sheet, now covered with wood shavings and sawdust, had been laid over the hall carpet. The new chain and slot, bright and shiny, sat in their box waiting to be fitted.
The man had an ID card clipped to the lapel of his overall. He turned to face her as she approached and smiled. Caroline smiled back. She was certain he was reliable and trustworthy; he must have been cleared by the police, all sorts of security checks carried out, before he could work for them. And employees of these security firms were very often ex-coppers themselves.
She surveyed the work. “That looks like it’s coming on well. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Ta, thanks very much, love,” he replied. “That’d be grand.”
She made two cups, one for herself, and after she’d handed the workman his went into the living room to do some paperwork she’d decided to take home with her. A section of the room, where there was a table and a couple of chairs, could be partitioned off to form a study, though on this occasion she left the folding doors drawn back in order to be accessible to the workman if he needed her. She’d told him where she’d be.
She felt soft fur brush against her ankles and looked down to see Jack. He tended to be nervous whenever there were strangers in the house, and hide himself away; now he’d heard her come in and gone to greet her. It always struck her as remarkable, and a little uncanny, how animals seemed to identify people by their footsteps, or by sensing their individual body language before they saw them.
“Hi, honey,” she said. “Come to help me do this report? All right then, let’s get started, shall we?”
Briefly the sound of the repairman at work ceased. She heard him go outside, presumably to fetch something from his van.
She took off her coat and hung it over the back of a chair, got out the papers from her briefcase and spread them out on the table. Jack jumped on the chair and then onto the table, scattering the papers. Wincing, she rearranged them. She sat down and so did Jack, right on top of a particularly important file. She decided she hadn’t the heart to move him until she needed it.
Most of the paperwork was returns from a questionnaire sent out to company employees in the UK asking them for suggestions as to how IPL could improve the conduct of its business and the leisure facilities, etcetera, it provided for them. Basically it was asking them if they were happy in their work. Her job was to analyse the findings and write a précis for Hennig and the Board of Management. She hoped nobody would take the opportunity to be too vitriolic about anything since then disciplinary action might have to be taken, which would seem unfair given that the workforce had been more or less invited to say what they thought. Unpleasant situations had been known to result from that kind of thing. She hoped the matter would be handled sensitively by those to whom the responsibility of dealing with it fell, or she might find herself acting as the final court of appeal, which only added to her workload and did little for her sweet temper, as colleagues and subordinates could readily testify.
While Jack made himself comfortable she read through the returns one by one, making notes, and occasionally pausing to take a sip of tea. From the hallway she could hear the sounds of the workman installing the new door frame, hammering in the nails that fixed it in place.
At length the hammering ceased. She presumed he’d finished putting in the frame and would now refit the door.
In the hallway the workman paused and glanced out through the doorway, to see the car which had pulled up to the kerb in front of the house. He gave a brief nod and the woman in the driving seat of the car took off her sunglasses, unfastened her seatbelt and climbed out. She was short, with dark hair and olive skin.
She approached the house slowly and hesitantly, all the time looking around her. An observer might well conclude she was simply uncertain if she’d come to the right place. They probably didn’t need to take such precautions, not now. But for her caution, cunning, stealth were all engrained habits of a lifetime. Besides, you never knew.
The woman stepped into the house, and the workman closed the door behind her. Just inside the threshold she kicked off her shoes, put down the bag she had been carrying and took from it a length of cord. The gun was in her pocket in case the target turned out to be facing her, and since they were unlikely to have one themselves they didn’t stand much of a chance. But she preferred the rope; it was cleaner.
The man nodded at the door of the front room, which stood ajar. The dark little woman slipped through it and for a moment paused in puzzlement. There seemed to be nobody in the room. Then she saw that it was in fact L-shaped, turning to the right at what appeared to be the end.
She padded over to where the short section began, and saw Caroline seated at the table, back to her, bent over the pile of papers. Good. The dark little woman’s small size, and the disparity in height between her and most of her victims, made it best to attempt to kill them while they were sitting down. And she was deeply engrossed in her work, which would make it harder for her to detect the dark little woman’s approach.
Slowly, silently, the dark little woman began to approach her, her small feet in their stockings making little sound, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on the back of Caroline's neck.
This method of killing suited Scarlione fine, because it left no bullet wounds – and no bullets, come to that – or residue from a gunshot, no clues which might lead the police to the perpetrator. Holding one end of the cord in each hand, she would raise it high above the victim’s head, then bring it down and pull it back. Death occurred in one of two ways; either the windpipe was severed or the sudden jerking back of the head broke the neck, cleanly and painlessly. It wasn’t her concern whether the victim felt anything or not. She was simply doing what she was paid to.
Just that swift sharp backward jerk, the chair serving as a fulcrum, and Caroline Kent’s neck would snap in an instant, consigning to everlasting oblivion. Salvatore Scarlione would have preferred something nastier and more protracted, but the dark little woman couldn’t be bothered. She could always say they had been surprised in the act and had to get things over with.
She took a couple more steps forward, raising the rope high above her head, tensed to loop it round her victim’s neck and pull. Barely a couple of feet now separated the two of them. Any moment now…
Out of the corner of her eye Caroline saw Jack lift his head, apparently looking at something behind her, and hiss.
His was a timid, gentle, affectionate personality. But like many animals, he knew a bad one when he saw one - and didn’t always need to see them at all, having senses additional to those most humans had to rely on.
Caroline shifted her chair round, curious to see what had rattled him. She saw the woman and stiffened. Jack jumped off the table and ran under the sideboard. The woman had dropped the rope, the advantage of surprise gone, and was already taking an automatic pistol from a pocket of her dress.
Speed was of the essence. Caroline reasoned the safety catch must be on and the woman would have to turn it, then aim the gun. She had to take advantage of that slight delay to overpower her opponent. She launched herself off the chair and the two of them collided.
When she had been sitting down the two of them were at the same level, but now Caroline straightened up and she became aware of the difference in height between the two of them. It was awkward because it meant she had to bend down to look at her antagonist and she was afraid of losing her balance as they stumbled about, Caroline gripping the woman by the wrists and trying to shake the gun out of her hand. Not only that, but although Caroline wasn’t a weakling, especially when her life was in danger, the woman was tremendously strong, a fierce little ball of energy fizzing with rage, and at any moment might break free.
Caroline decided on a change of tactics. Letting go of the woman, she jumped aside and shot out a leg, sweeping the other’s from under her. Caroline dived on top of her as she fell, bracing herself for the impact as the two of them hit the floor. The impact jarred the gun from the dark woman’s hand and Caroline snatched it up, jumping to her feet and backing away.
She heard running footsteps and retreated a little further, until her back was touching the wall. A man came into view, young, white and casually dressed, a pistol in his hand. Before he could properly aim it he saw Caroline’s gun, which was pointed straight at him, and hesitated.
The dark little woman swore softly beneath her breath. Had the target’s body not been hiding the cat from her view she would have used the gun instead. Animals were one of the most effective alarm systems in the world.
“Who was it who hired you to do this?” Caroline demanded. “Was it Scarlione? Salvatore Scarlione?”
“Since you ask, yes,” the small woman replied, after a moment. Her manner was calm and controlled. “Scarlione doesn’t like being made a fool of, you see.”
“That’s his problem,” Caroline said. “But here in Britain?”
“His arm has a long reach.”
“So it seems.”
“What’s your role in all this?” Caroline asked the man. “You’re English, aren’t you?”
“I work for a friend of Mr Scarlione’s,” he told her. She decided this probably meant Joe Hickman. After all he was supposed to be the most powerful crimelord in the country. Scarlione would work through him, not the smaller fry.
“That’s all you need to know,” he said.
“You know,” said the short woman, “I get the impression you’ve quite an affinity with guns. The way you handle them…”
Caroline wasn’t disposed to go into an explanation as to why that should be. She was trying to decide what to do next. Should she order the man to throw down his gun? If they were prepared to make a fight of it, that might not be a wise thing to do. It would only precipitate a struggle in which she could get shot.
“You can’t run from Salvatore Scarlione,” said the woman softly. “Not these days.”
“What do you mean by that?” Something about the words curdled Caroline’s blood.
The woman smiled. It was an enigmatic, and thoroughly chilling smile. “I’m just saying you won’t be able to run from him. Not for long. So you’d be well advised to get it over with. Scarlione doesn’t want to kill you anyway. He wants to humiliate you, to degrade you, to disfigure you, in order to satisfy his honour. But that option is better than death. I’d advise you to take it.”
“What if I don’t believe you?”
“That’s your problem.”
“Get out of here,” Caroline said. “Get out and don’t come back.” That might be the simplest way out.
The man looked afraid to turn his back. “She won’t kill,” the woman told him. The dark eyes had been sizing Caroline up. “Only if her life’s directly threatened. She’s got principles, you see; that’s how she’d describe it. One day they’re going to kill her. I only survived by – “
“Just get out of here,” repeated Caroline.
The woman bent to pick up the rope. There would be fingerprints on it. “Mind if I take this?”
“If you like.”
They turned away and stalked out of the room. Caroline waited, and after a short while heard a car door slam shut. The car drove off.
She called the police, explained what had happened and told them to come over as soon as possible. Venturing out cautiously into the hall, hoping none of her neighbours would happen to glance through the empty doorway and notice the gun in her hand, she saw no sign of the bogus repair man. For bogus he must have been, by her reckoning. She inspected the new door frame; the job had been crudely done and it didn’t look at all sound to her. But then the man must be a cowboy, even supposing he belonged to a registered security firm at all. Then she rang a builder she knew and trusted, who had done good work for her before, and asked if he could come over at short notice and fit a new door and chain. She didn’t trust the ones the bogus repair man had brought with him.
Jack was venturing out cautiously from beneath the sideboard. Caroline scooped him up and peppered the top of his head with kisses. “Ooh, Jacky, you saved my life bless you! Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah.” Jack looked bemused.
Putting him down, she hovered indecisively for a moment, unsure what to do next, then slumped weakly into a chair as delayed shock suddenly overcame her.

Two men sat in a bar, a disreputable one in some people’s view, in downtown New Orleans comparing the latest news from each other’s lives.
“You’re still sore Scarlione took over your joint?” said one.
“You bet I am,” muttered the other, who owned a construction company and had been told by Scarlione’s men that he’d be propping up the foundations of his next major project if he didn’t let them have a share of the cash, in return for protecting him against bully boys from a rival firm which he doubted actually existed. Since the Mafia controlled everything anyway…Ah, shit, it was meant to be his thing, not theirs. He’d built it up from nothing…
“And you can’t do a damn thing about it? Know how you feel. He took over mine. If it’s any consolation, everyone’s got the same problem.”
“I was going to take all the cash from the company’s bank account and scoot, go somewhere he’d never find me. That’d teach him a lesson. But it wouldn’t work. You heard what happened to that British guy, the one who went to Spain. Scarlione fixed it for his pals to ice him. He gave false information when he applied for his passport, so they couldn’t have hacked into any computers and found him from the British authorities’ records. But they did find him.”
“Maybe. But look at Look at Luigi Beretta – he’s still alive and well so far as I can see. And if he had killed him Scarlione would have wanted everyone to know, just so’s they’d get the message. No, Beretta’s given him the slip right enough. I mean, Scarlione isn’t superhuman. You can get away from him if you’re lucky.”
The other seemed to be thinking about it.
“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t wanna chance it. It’d be like playing cards with the devil. If you lose…no, I won’t take the risk. Maybe something went wrong somewhere, maybe Beretta was just…well it was you who used the word. Lucky. But I’m not going to chance it.”

Kingston police station
“Is there a witness who can confirm what you’re saying?” asked the senior CID man.
“No, because unfortunately my cat can’t speak. But do you doubt my word? Are you suggesting I could have imagined it, or made the whole thing up?”
“No, Miss Kent,” the policeman assured Caroline, shaking his head firmly. “Not at all. But we still don’t have any proof, and without it…”
“What happened just now was proof enough for me,” she said.
“I’d be happier if it was corroborated.” He fell silent, and for a little while tapped the edge of the desk with his pencil, chin in hand, until Caroline began to grow annoyed. “One moment,” he said at last. He picked up the phone and started to dial.
There followed a lengthy conversation between the senior CID officer and a Detective Inspector, Caroline then having to wait for some time while the Detective Inspector spoke to Special Branch, Special Branch to the Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the Met, and the Deputy Assistant Commisioner for the Met to the senior CID officer. “It definitely looks like this character’s out to get her,” said the senior CID officer. “And I’ve a feeling she isn’t going to go away until we agree to lay on protection. I don’t want to have to arrest her.” He gave Caroline a good-natured smile. “Altogether, I think it’s the best course of action.” Finally he put down the phone. “Yes, he’s given the all-clear,” he told Caroline. “It’ll be until there no longer seems to be any danger. Meanwhile we’ll take the matter up again with the FBI, although I don’t think there’s enough evidence for them to convict Scarlione.” He was probably right there; there’d have to be a tape recording, at least, of the woman admitting that Scarlione had hired her to kill Caroline.
“If you’d wait here until all the necessary arrangements have been made, my officers will escort you home,” he said.
He sat back in his chair. “I can’t understand it. We’ve done business with that firm for years, I thought they were thoroughly reliable. You can rest assured there’ll be a full enquiry.”
“There certainly ought to be.” She tried to piece things together in her mind. “Apart from your two officers, and a few people at IPL all of whom I’d trust with my life, that workman was the only one who knew I was going to be there. Once I turned up and the officers left he rang Scarlione’s people on his mobile to say they could move in.” When she thought he’d gone out to his van he’d actually been making sure she couldn’t hear him call them.
And then a chilling thought froze her blood. It was the firm whose representative had opened the door of her house to Scarlione’s killers. But it was the police who had engaged the firm to do the repair in the first place.

















Eleven
“Does she bear a fucking charmed life or something?” snarled Salvatore Scarlione down the phone.
“Her luck won’t hold forever,” Joe Hickman said. “Law of probabilities.”
“Well, let’s have another go. This time I’m leaving it entirely up to you guys.” He had let Hickman’s man act as a backup as a sop to the ganglord. “I can’t chance giving it to Maria because Kent’s gonna be on the look-out for her.”
Fortunately, thought Scarlione, the dark little woman was sensible enough to understand that. He didn’t like to make her angry, because something about her scared him. Even though, of course, there wasn’t a lot she could do if she did get mad, not nowadays.
Hickman’s temper seemed to have improved on his being told that his gang was to carry out the hit. “All right,” he said briskly. “Can we screw her first? Bit of a waste otherwise.”
“I don’t care if you screw her first, as long as you kill her second. But I want to be there when she dies, I want to see the look on her face when she realises I’ve won. OK? ‘Course if you have to shoot her to stop her getting away, that’ll be just too bad. Especially for her.”

Hennig was in a meeting with one of the Board of Directors, and Caroline had to wait for over an hour before she could see him. She hovered outside his door until finally the director left and Hennig admitted her.
“Caroline,” he said expansively. “And what can I do for you, my dear?” He was evidently in a good mood. She hated to think what had been transacted between him and the director.
Still, it suited her purposes. “I wonder if I might have a month’s leave?” Normally one would have to clear this sort of thing with their immediate superior, or the head of personnel. Since she was the head of Personnel, she had to go to Hennig, and a lot depended on what frame of mind he chanced to be in.
He frowned. “That’d use up all your annual leave, at a guess.”
“Is that all right?” she asked.
“Well, it means you won’t be around, will you? And I might need you.”
“I’ve got several perfectly good deputies who can stand in for me.”
“Well, alright,” he shrugged. “I don’t suppose it matters that much to me. But I’m just puzzled as to why you should decide to do it.”
Yes, well don’t think I’m happy about it for one moment. She’d have to spend most of the time at home, apart from visits to the shops or the cinema, since she couldn’t very well expect her bodyguards to accompany her on sunny holidays to Ibiza or the Caribbean.
She decided she ought to tell him. “The fact is, I er…sit down.”
He returned to his chair. “I’m sitting.”
“The fact is I’ve got on the wrong side of some pretty nasty people.”
“You seem to have done that in Camaragua, as I recall. Who is it this time?”
“We’re talking Mafia.”
His eyes bulged incredulously. “What, here?”
“Here.” She decided to tell him the full story.
“You never told me before that the attack on you at the refinery was part of a Mafia vendetta,” he complained.
“They’d have gone for me anyway, to scare us off investigating the oil scam.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But I think the real reason why you didn’t tell me is because I’d be annoyed with you for getting yourself into trouble again. It’s an inconvenience to the company as much as anything else.”
Oh, I see, she nearly said. Just an “inconvenience”.
“I don’t appreciate dishonesty, Caroline,” he said severely.
“I’m sorry.”
“So you jolly well should be.” He went quiet, and Caroline realised that now he’d got over his initial grouch he was shaken by the revelation of how far the Mafia’s influence extended. “And now this. Jesus Christ. I can understand this happening in South America or the Balkans, but here…”
“Global village,” she observed solemnly.
“But death threats; actual…actual attacks…I don’t believe it.” He shook his head again.
“Maybe it was only a matter of time,” she said. “I’m not just talking about me and Scarlione.”
“All the same…” He sighed. “It happens to you, doesn’t it?”
She managed a bland smile.
“And you think a month might be enough for this Scarlione character to lose interest?”
“I hope so. We’ll…review the situation after then. Meanwhile, I can’t have the police following me about all the time, even when I’m at work, constantly patrolling the place to make sure Scarlione’s people can’t get in. It’d be a bit awkward. So I think taking time off would be the best option.”
“I suppose it would.” He didn’t want a bloody Mafia killing on IPL premises. “So yes, alright, you can have that leave, starting from tomorrow if you like.”
“Thanks. By the way, has there been any progress with the investigation into the adulteration scam?”
“Not really. They’ve arrested one or two people and then let them go for lack of evidence.”
“Do you think they’re trying the same thing at the Siberian refinery? The Russian Mafia, I mean.” Would the long hand of organised crime reach even to there, remote and inhospitable as it was? On the evidence of all that had happened to Caroline it was impossible to rule out.
“I bloody well hope not,” grumbled Hennig. “We can’t go on closing refineries until there isn’t a company left.”
Assuming they’ll actually let us do that, Caroline thought. “Well, I’d better be off now,” she smiled, and rose.
“Take care,” said Hennig. “Although I don’t suppose anything will happen with our wonderful police looking after you.”
After she had gone he helped himself to a whisky from his drinks cabinet. Thinking he needed it.
Once she’d finished at the office Caroline went home in a police car with two of the team who had been assigned to look after her and fed Jack. Then they drove to her parents’ house on the outskirts of Dorking. She’d rather not tell them but in the nature of the situation it wouldn’t prove possible to conceal it for very long.
Her father Edward, a big square-faced man in his fifties, yellow hair now whitening somewhat at the edges, opened the door to her. “Hello, love,” he said, pleasantly surprised. “How’s tricks? Come on in and I’ll make us all some tea.” His slightly guttural voice still held a trace of a Yorkshire accent, a relic from the days when his construction company had been based in Sheffield.
“I think that’d be a good idea,” she said. Edward glanced at her briefly, sensing some significance in the comment. He hadn’t noticed the police car parked a few yards down the road from the gate.
Her mother had been trying some DIY, repairing a broken chair on the table in the kitchen. She was an older version of Caroline except for her hair, as raven black as her daughter’s was golden blonde. She was slightly younger than her husband, and still strikingly attractive, though if you looked closer you could see wrinkles that hadn’t been there before an explosive device had gone off in the luggage compartment of a Jumbo Jet and Douglas had died. She busied herself with what she could to help get over her loss.
“Hello, dear,” said Margaret Kent, and went to kiss her. Like Caroline she spoke in the clear, precisely modulated tones of the Home Counties. “Just a social call? You should have let us know, we might have been out.”
“Well, not really a social call. Shall we go into the front room?”
Caroline sensed her mother stiffen. “Is anything wrong, darling?”
“I’ll explain in a moment.”
Margaret made the tea while Caroline and Edward sat down to chat somewhat uneasily about the usual mundane matters. She poured out three cups and went to join them.
She and Edward looked expectantly at Caroline, who could feel the tension building up in Margaret, charging the air with electricity. Edward sat leaning forward with his hands on his knees, in what was more a character trait than a sign of nerves. “All right, lass, what’s the trouble?”
“Well,” Caroline sighed, “it’s like this…”
As the essence of the situation became apparent Margaret drew in her breath sharply. She clapped a hand to her mouth, which had gone O-shaped. Edward frowned, the wrinkling of his brow making him seem a few years older than he was. “Are you quite sure it was them?”
“Coming after what happened in the States and in Russia one ...incident might possibly be coincidence, but two…” By now Margaret resembled the figure in Munch’s The Scream while Edward was gaping at her in sheer disbelief, which gradually changed to something like annoyance, mingled with a very real concern. “I hope you’re not going to make a habit of this,” he grunted. “Christ, first that drug baron fellow and now the bloody Mafia.”
With a certain business you don’t know about in the middle, Caroline thought. But she thought it best not to mention that just now, for her mother’s peace of mind.
“I knew they weren’t the sort you got into the habit of offending, but…” He closed his eyes. “Well bugger me backwards.”
“But you’re going to be safe now, dear?” Margaret said. “The police are looking after you?”
“They’re outside right now. Yes, I should think I’ll be OK.”
“But this man…this horrible man…are you sure it’s going to be all right, dear? I’ve heard some of these, these vendettas can last for years.”
“They’ll go on guarding me as long as it’s thought there’s any danger.”
“They didn’t do the witnesses in that Hickman case any good,” growled Edward.
“But all I did was insult Scarlione,” Caroline reminded him. “I guess that’s less of a concern to them than if I was a threat to some scam they were planning - the business in Russia is in the hands of the authorities there, now - or I “knew too much” as they say. They’ll give up eventually, you can bet. Scarlione’ll see it’s not worth going to so much trouble just because I put his nose out of joint.”
“You could identify the people they got to carry out the hit,” Edward pointed out.
“Oh, yes,” said Margaret fearfully.
“They’re probably on the wanted list already, and passed the point of no return long ago,” Caroline said, hoping this was true. Then again, it probably was. “I bet they’ve carried out so many other crimes that one more witness who can tell her tale in court won’t make much difference, even if they’ve never actually been convicted for anything before.”
“All the same it’s a little frightening, that you should have to do something like this,” Margaret said.
“I suppose it is,” said Caroline, aware that some people had had to be protected for years. “But I expect I’ll get used to it after a while.”
“If you hadn’t said what you did to him, lass, there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place,” her father pointed out gently.
“I said it because he was being unfair to the poor girl,” Caroline replied, annoyed because she knew there were some people at IPL who thought she was a cold-hearted bitch who didn’t care about other people’s feelings at all.
“I’m sure you did, dear,” agreed Margaret. “You’re a kind, good-natured person and we’re very proud to have you as our daughter. But it was still a little…unwise.”
“Maybe it was,” said Caroline with ill grace. “But what’s done is done.”
“Yes, it’s done,” said Edward philosophically. “So we’re just going to have to sit it out. Meanwhile, why not ask your police friends out there if they’d like some tea, and then we’ll talk some more.”

Offices of the National Pioneer, Washington DC
Dan Felgate drained the last few dregs of coffee from the Styrofoam cup and hurled it across the room into the bin. “It’s a bum rap. I mean, there’s nothing much happening in the world at the moment…I’m reduced to writing articles about contaminated dog food.” For someone with an impressive record of scoops and exposures, which had seriously embarrassed officialdom if not got them to actually admit to malpractice, it was bit of a come-down.
Matt Helpmann, the colleague with whom he shared the office, looked up from his computer. “It can be like that sometimes. Every reporter knows that.”
Felgate seemed to have been thinking, trying to make up his mind about something. “I mean, there’s nothing much happening in the world except…”
“Except what?”
“Well, you think about it. The Mob acquittals and all that.”
“We know there’s something dodgy going on there,” said Helpmann. “We’ve already covered it in depth. I don’t see what – “
“It’s not just the Mob. People still don’t know the full extent of the problem, or why it’s come about in the first place. I’m gonna make sure they do know. If Josh is willing I’m gonna splash it all over the front page, make it really big.
“Rulings that don’t make sense…notorious criminals released or acquitted…police investigations suddenly suspended…a general increase in Mob and other criminal activity…people vanishing after unearthing discrepancies in the accounts of various companies, and the investigations into their disappearances blocked…Congresspeople suddenly changing sides on an issue…evidence that the street gangs are doing the Mafia’s bidding…”
“How do we know they are?”
“From what gets back to the criminologists when they start doing their research. The vibes being sent off. Look, Matt, you put two and two together. Not only Mob people are being acquitted. But most of the acquittals, when this thing first started, were of Mafiosi, and the companies which were getting all these contracts were suspected of being Mob fronts. It started with the Mafia, and then spread. The Mob are controlling everything, every business concern and centre of political influence in the country – overseas too by the look of it. They’re using something very special to make sure people dance to their tune and can’t do anything about them. There’s a rumour that top secret surveillance equipment has gone missing…and something else, something the Department of Defense was developing…”
“If the Mob control everything, they wouldn’t need to fix contracts. If every firm was - ”
“That’s just what I’m saying. Looks like they’re not doing that anymore, they don’t need to. They simply take a share of the cash for themselves. From every company, every concern that nets enough of a profit – though they can take over an ailing business and revive it as their thing - and a lot of the smaller ones too, if the street gangs are on their payroll.
“And for the last few months there’s been nothing. No cases bought against Mafiosi, no police raids. Why? because everyone knows there wouldn’t be much point.”
“If the FBI or CIA know how bad it is they’re not telling anyone. Because they don’t want to cause public unrest, don’t want to be forced by public opinion into a war with the Mob; and there’s something else, too, some other reason they’re not coming clean with us, probably to do with whatever the Mob are using to do all this.”
“If the Mob really are as powerful as you think, you’d better be careful what you do.”
“Listen, I’ve had threats from all sorts of people since I started in this business. We’d never have done half the good we have if I’d we’d let them scare us off. Now are you with me in this?”
Helpmann looked uneasy. “I…” Finally he shrugged and went back to his computer. “Sorry, Dan. It’s too hot. This isn’t like the old days. I’ve got a family to think about.”
Felgate stared at him for a while, then went off to see the paper’s editor. It took some persuasion but finally Josh Rutter was persuaded to publish the article. Felgate would start work on it the following morning.
But he never had time to file his story. That night two men broke into his house and shot him dead in front of his wife and children. They then wiped all the data from his computer and when they left took with them any written notes and tape recordings he had made in the course of his investigations. The stuff was duplicated at the Pioneer’s offices but soon disappeared from there too.
They left the family alone this time. They’d already done enough to make sure everyone got the point; and besides, you could have too much of a good thing.















Twelve
Caroline was in her study, banging away at the keyboard of her computer. She had decided it was time to set down in writing, or rather word processing, her own account of the South American business while the details were still fresh in her mind. It would have to be an edited version of course, with no reference to the more incredible, if nonetheless real, things which had happened during that episode.
But she found she couldn’t concentrate on the task. There was too much on her mind right now. Deciding to wait until she could make a better job of it, she saved what she had written so far, closed down the computer and sat back to think.
She’d told the superintendent at Kingston that the tip-off was most likely to have come from within the police themselves, and of course he’d promised to “look into it.” She had also sought to impress upon him that if Mafia vendettas could extend to a country like Britain, and the target be someone who had merely put the big cheese’s nose out of joint – the oil scam wasn’t a factor now that she was no longer involved in the investigation – it was a symptom of something new and very dangerous. As a result he had also promised to draw the matter to the attention of the government. She had let him know she expected to see some results soon.
So far the press hadn’t managed to get wind of it, which of course was preferable since the thought of all the publicity made her nervous right now, police protection or not.
Police protection. She really was safe now, wasn’t she? Had to be. With two officers constantly in the house with her and their car parked very visibly outside it?
But the nagging fear which had begun once the delayed shock that prevented her from realising the full implications of the second attack on her was past had grown within the past few hours, grown and sprouted legs until it seemed like some huge spidery monster crawling over her flesh. If they could leak information to Scarlione’s agents then they could also…
Almost from when they’d got home from her parents’ the previous day the behaviour of the two police officers on this shift, PCs Helen Ronson and Gavin Simons, had been strange. Their conversation, whether with her or each other, had been subdued and consisted mainly of banalities. It, along with their expressions and body language, was flat, dull, lifeless. They just seemed to sit in the living room watching TV or just staring into space, occasionally getting up to go to the toilet or picking up a paperback book and flicking idly through it. Meals were taken in silence. To be honest, they hardly ever spoke to or acknowledged her presence at all, other than when absolutely necessary.
Something was very badly wrong but she couldn’t put her finger on what it might be.
And yet what could she do? Without the protection, Scarlione would certainly fall upon her and devour her like a hungry wolf. Various ideas chased themselves around the inside of her head but she wasn’t particularly enamoured by any of them.
She glanced out of the window, at the sunlight forming patterns on the leaves of the trees in her garden, and on the freshly mown grass. Though they were now into August the weather in the UK was better than it had been for much of June and July; unfortunately, she was unable to appreciate it. She was glad to have had a few weeks in the south of France with Julie before this business with Scarlione started. For once she hadn’t got on the wrong side of any bad guys; it had just been a good holiday. They’d lain in the sun and swum during the day and gone to discos in the evening; had water-skied around the bay, been over to Monte Carlo and had a little flutter at the casino…There would, she hoped, be other such times in her life. Certainly she didn’t want to spend it constantly under police guard, which as she knew from her time in Camaragua would soon become irksome and oppressive.
In the lounge PC Simons glanced briefly at his colleague, took out his mobile and dialled a number. When he had finished dialling he waited for a moment then turned the phone off. There was no need for him to actually speak to them because the mere fact of making the call would act as the signal.
“No, everything’s fine,” Caroline heard him say. “No suspicious characters prowling around. No, we’re well stocked up here, we don’t need anything.” She presumed he was speaking to his colleagues at the station. “Yeah, bye for now. We’ll call again tomorrow evening.”
Simons nodded to Ronson and slowly the two of them got up and left the room, their faces like stone.
In the study Caroline was still deep in thought, trying to come to a decision. Because right now she couldn’t, her mind started to wander.
She frowned. At once the whole house seemed to have gone deathly quiet. It was as if all of a sudden, the other people in it had vanished into thin air. Not that Ronson and Simons had been much company anyway but when someone else was present, in close proximity, you were usually aware of it and now there was nothing. Nothing at all. The sensation was like what you had when you were talking to someone over the phone and they suddenly fell silent.
She went into the lounge; no sign of them there. “Hello?” she called out. Jack appeared, wandering around mewing unhappily, but there was no answer from the two police.
She could sense they weren’t in the house. She heard an engine start up and from the direction of the sound realised it must be the police car. She turned so cold with horror that for a moment she actually thought she would freeze to death.
Think, Caroline.
For a moment she was going to run out and try to plead with them, shouting at them to explain what the hell they thought they were doing. But the reason they were doing it at all meant she’d be wasting her time and if her enemies were watching, it might be fatal. Something told her Salvatore Scarlione would be quite prepared to gun her down in a suburban street in Britain in broad daylight. Because it seemed everything was different now.
Her first thought was to try to escape through the garden; but the fence was too high for her to climb over and she’d probably be trapped. She ran to the window, pulled back the lace curtains and glanced out. As the police car turned into the main road from the drive and roared away, two men got out of a car parked on the far side of the road and started to cross it, moving purposefully towards the house.
Glancing through the doorway into the hall, she saw that the front door had been left wide open. On catching sight of her they might shoot through it. Fortunately they weren’t directly opposite the house, as they hadn’t been able to park in that position, another car being in the way. But in a moment they would be. She ran to the door, moving so fast they had no time to react to the blur of motion before she had slammed it shut.
She listened for a moment, and heard one of the men shout to the other. “Get round the back!” They didn’t know the fence was too high to jump over but she might have tried to sneak out the back door and then run round the side of the house to the drive, where her car was parked.
The first man seemed to be heading back towards the hoods’ own car, probably to fetch something with which to break in. If she ran out the front and jumped into her car, then drove away as fast as she could…but out there she’d be too exposed. He’d hear her, turn and shoot.
The alternative was a bit of a gamble and she felt sick at the thought of it failing to work, and sealing her fate. But there was no time to dither so she ran to the stairs, then up them to the bathroom.
She slammed the door shut, turning the key she kept in the lock on the inside for reasons of privacy in case she needed to use the loo and there was someone else in the house. It’d give her long enough to psych herself up at least.
If this doesn’t work…
Her mobile was downstairs in the living room. Not that calling the police would be of much help, it seemed.
God, she could still hardly believe it.
She considered climbing out the window and onto the roof. It might be possible, but she’d have to step up onto the flimsy plastic guttering that ran around the eaves and wasn’t sure it’d bear her weight. And she’d only be trapped up there, a sitting duck, perilously vulnerable to a shot fired from the ground. She could wave, call out, try to attract the attention of her neighbours.
And get them to do what? Call the police?
From the cupboard on the wall above the toilet she took a plastic bottle of bleach. Unscrewing the cap, she stood a few feet back and slightly to the side of the door, and waited.
From downstairs she heard a splintering crack as the front door was forced. Then the hitman running around in search of her, bounding up the stairs and searching each of the upper floor rooms until he finally realised what she’d done.
The door handle turned, met resistance. She heard the intruder move away from the door and then, muffled, a voice speaking into a mobile.
“I think she’s locked herself in the bathroom,” Gary Boaler told his colleague Jez McCulloch. “I’m gonna force the door. Go and stand underneath the window in case she tries to get out through there. We know which one it is.”
A moment later there was a crunching sound as the wood around the lock cracked and split, before starting to disintegrate. He must be using a jemmy or something. She stood with her legs apart, teeth gritted and the bottle of lavatory cleaner raised.
The lock gave way and fell out. The door flew open and Boaler stepped forward into the room, just as Caroline squeezed the plastic bottle with all her strength, squirting a jet of the stinging fluid right into his face; his eyes.
He screamed and dropped the gun he had been carrying. Immediately she snatched it up, levelled it at him and backed away. But he stumbled away from her, screaming and swearing, frantically pawing at his burning eyes in a bid to rub the bleach from them. She forced her way past him and ran down the stairs.
Waiting at the side of the house, his colleague heard a scream from the bathroom - a male scream – followed by sounds of rapid movement, running feet. Maybe she’d got the better of Boaler somehow and was now making a run for it. Whatever had happened, it seemed he needed help. McCulloch made for the front of the house, the sound of his own feet masking that of Caroline’s as she hurtled down the stairs.
Caroline knew that he’d have heard the scream and would go to assist his buddy, entering the house by the forced front door rather than lose time trying to break in through the back. In a moment or two if she didn’t move fast enough the two of them would be face to face. She presumed he had a gun as well, but guessed he’d rather not stand and fight unless he could be sure of shooting first. For her part she’d rather not take the risk.
She needed her car keys, which were on the table in the living room. She ran in, snatched them up, then ran to the wall and pressed herself against it, close enough to the door to make a quick exit but not close enough for McCulloch to see her when he came in through the front.
She heard him burst in and pound up the stairs to the bathroom. She waited a moment or two and then ran from the lounge, into the hall and out of the house through the shattered front door. At her car she pocketed the gun, whipped out the keys, opened the door and jumped into the driver’s seat.
There was no time to belt up. She inserted the keys in the fascia, twisted them, and the engine rumbled into life. Simultaneously her other hand pressed the button that wound down the window.
A brief glance was enough to establish that there was nothing coming down the road in her direction. Crouching down low over the wheel, she trod hard on the accelerator. “Out the way!” she shouted to anyone who might be walking along the pavement, the sound carrying through the open window.
The car shot forward, swung to the left and accelerated down the lane towards the main road, breaking the speed limit. She heard a bullet spang off the car’s bodywork, then another. Then she was out of range.
McCulloch put away his gun and looked round for Boaler to see him emerging from the house, the bleach now washed out. “Come on!” he shouted, and ran for their car. Eyes still smarting, Boaler hurried after him.
Caroline braked sharply as she came to the end of the lane. There were a couple of cars coming down the main road in her direction. She strapped herself and wound up the window while waiting for them to pass.
She heard a car coming down the lane behind her, going very fast, and guessed it was the hitmen. Panic almost overwhelmed her. Once they were close enough they could shoot at the tyres.
The road now clear, she turned to the right, heading west towards the outskirts of the London conurbation. McCulloch, driving the pursuing car, saw the lime green Peugeot disappear from sight.
At the junction with the main road they stopped. McCulloch had no intention of breaking his neck in an RTA. Glancing to the right he could see the Peugeot, not far away. But there were several cars going along the road at that moment, one a short distance behind the other, and right now they were too close; he and Boaler were stuck where they were for the moment.
The two cars went past and McCulloch turned into the main road. Because of the two vehicles now between them and it, which had been going in the same direction as the Peugeot, he couldn’t see the latter any more; not visually, anyway. He glanced at the constantly changing graphics on the screen built into the island where the gearstick was located, just below the dashboard. On it the Peugeot appeared as a moving point of light. He spoke into a mobile phone which doubled as a portable radio, since simply pressing a button was quicker than dialling a number. “Target proceeding west along London Road into centre of Kingston. You got her?”
The voice which crackled back was thickly accented. “Yes, we have her. We’re alerting all other operatives within the United Kingdom.”
“You do that. But I want this one if at all possible.” McCulloch ached to be among those who had the privilege of screwing Caroline before Scarlione got his hands on her.
She’d probably keep to the main roads for the moment, because it wouldn’t be possible to go so fast down suburban side streets. Where, McCulloch wondered, would she be heading for? What would he do in her situation?
She was travelling pretty fast but within the safety limit, though only just. She didn’t want to attract the attention of the police, which would do her no good at all.

Caroline glanced behind her and saw the other two cars between her and the Skoda which was carrying the hitmen. Good; if she had to stop at some traffic lights with her pursuers immediately behind her, she was finished. If she abandoned the car and tried to escape on foot they’d cut her down instantly. She could use the gun to warn them off, but if they decided to try and shoot first, before she could aim the weapon, or simply fired in panic…
She had to lose them.
All the time her mind was racing, trying to absorb the implications of her fears being confirmed. She had had police protection. Until someone arranged for it to be suddenly withdrawn while she wasn’t looking.
If they could do that…
Oh God. Oh God. It meant nowhere was safe, nowhere. These people could do whatever they liked.
What the hell was going on?
She was seized by a cold, giddy fear as the full extent of her danger hit her like a tidal wave, as she realised how sickeningly vulnerable she was. A light sweat broke out on her creeping flesh. It wasn’t possible. She must be dreaming it all. This couldn’t, just couldn’t, be happening in England. Her whole world had turned queasily upside-down. Wake up, Caroline, she thought. Please, someone, let this just be a bad dream.
Keep calm, she told herself. Keep calm and think.
She obviously couldn’t go back home. She’d have to hide. But where? Where? Where could she go to be safe from these characters?
If the police couldn’t protect her, who would? Who was to be trusted?
There were all kinds of possibilities. Chris, her family, the Major if he could be got hold of. But the awful thought occurred to her that if they knew where she lived they might also know where to find her friends, her family and anyone else she had regular contact with. They’d have researched her movements thoroughly. And if they didn’t know, she might be leading them to whoever she chose to seek protection from. That person or persons could get hurt, if not killed.
No way.
She wanted to drive until she had managed to work out some solution. Drive forever, running from the problem. But she knew that wasn’t possible.
She needed to be somewhere where she could think. And something told her she would be safer out in the country, where there weren’t so many people. Because some of those people could be out to kill her. Did that make sense? Was it that communications were better in a city, making it easier to find someone?
There could be a killer lurking round every street corner. Anyone out of the hundreds, thousands of people on the pavements could be watching her, following her, plotting her death. Or would she be easier to spot out in the wide open spaces? Did the city with all its millions of inhabitants and its mazes of streets and side-streets make a better place to bury yourself?
The countryside seemed calm, peaceful, relaxing, safe. And there were places there you could lose yourself, alright. But sometime she would need the resources of the city if she was to fight back against the enemy seeking to hunt her down.
Making up her mind, she decided to try and reach the M4. She could turn off it somewhere and head north, into the heart of the country. South of the Thames seemed too restricted an area, bordered on all sides by sea, and she couldn’t shake off the feeling they’d find her somehow before very long. She could try to get out of Britain but she’d left her passport at home; then there was the issue of how she was going to live until things finally settled down.
If they ever did.
There was the M1, but anywhere close to it seemed too built-up. She’d also have to get there via the M25, unless she wanted to go through London, and she didn’t fancy having to negotiate it with a pair of ruthless gangland hitmen on her tail, all the time trying to get close enough to take a pot shot at her. If they got snarled up in a traffic jam, would the two killers get out of their car, walk along to hers and open fire?
It occurred to her uneasily that she could get caught in a traffic jam anywhere, if the road was busy enough. Another reason why it was best to make for the country, where there would be less people.
She certainly wasn’t going to lead them to her parents’ house. When it didn’t look like she’d be safe anywhere, there was little point. At best she would be gunned down, or dragged off to some ghastly fate before their eyes, and at worst they’d be blown away too for good measure.
There was a crossroads a mile or so ahead, wasn’t there? Where you turned off to the right to go to Richmond, which was where she wanted to be. Richmond, then Kew, Brentford and the motorway. She looked back through her rearview mirror and saw the two cars still between her and Hickman’s men. A Nissan and a BMW.
She decided to chance it. She stopped at the traffic lights, and when they changed took the Richmond Road.
After a while she glanced behind her again, and saw that the Nissan and BMW had gone, turned off somewhere. There was nothing now between her and the hitmen, and although it might have been her fevered imagination she thought they were gaining on her.
Then a car turned into the road between the two vehicles; it was just far enough from the hitmen’s car to do this safely. She breathed a sigh of relief, while at the wheel of the pursuit car McCulloch scowled.
Another crossroads, another set of traffic lights, loomed up ahead. The red light was flashing and Caroline trod on the brakes, the other two cars stopping in succession.
McCulloch found himself torn by indecision. Should he get out, run to the target’s car, perhaps threaten to fire through the window before she could reach for her gun? Or knock out the tyres and see what happened then? Immobilising the car would make things difficult for her, mindful as he was that she had Boaler’s gun. He sat there trying to make his mind up.
The same thoughts had obviously occurred to his colleague. “Should we…” Boaler began, disturbing his concentration. McCulloch waved him curtly to silence.
Then the red light changed to orange, and McCulloch knew they’d lost their chance.
Orange turned to green and Caroline trod on the accelerator, at the same time swinging the wheel to the left. She drove on towards Richmond, still keeping just under the speed limit.
McCulloch and Boaler were still trying to decide their next move. They had orders not to kill Caroline if possible, but neither fancied a protracted chase all over the country. Shooting out just one tyre, should they get close enough, would force the car to stop without killing her. But then there was Boaler’s gun.
If she did get away on foot they could still track her. But how long before they were in a position to overpower the girl? It all depended where she went, and whether they got the chance to sneak up behind her and surprise her.
Caroline meanwhile continued to be terrified that she’d have to stop somewhere with only them behind her, and get shot or taken prisoner. She wanted to lose them before the next traffic lights.
Another glance through her rearview showed there were now several more cars between her and the hitmen, who she reckoned were about a hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred, yards away. To her right, between this main road and another, was a suburban district of Victorian terraced houses where the streets formed a tight, maze-like grid pattern.
Yes…there was a chance. She switched on her indicator lights and slowed down, forcing the cars behind to do the same. Then she turned off down the nearest of the side streets.
She took the next turning, and the next, and the next. All the time she had to drive slowly, and frequently stop, to avoid other cars whether moving or stationary. A couple of streets away Boaler and McCulloch were doing the same. They knew where she was, but were hamnpered like her by the need to drive carefully.
Glancing down a street to her left, Caroline saw that it was empty of moving vehicles, giving her a clear run back to the main road, to which it led directly. She stopped, executed a half-circle, then shot off down it. At the junction with the main road she looked around and behind but could see no sign of the hitmen’s Skoda. She’d gained herself a head start.
She felt a warm, invigorating surge of courage. Because whatever happened, she was going to give them a run for their money.
Once the main road was clear she trod on the gas and raced away.
A minute later the Skoda turned into the main road and set off in the direction she’d gone. McCulloch glanced at the screen. The blob of light was there all right, travelling steadily towards Richmond, but she was now some way ahead and there were too many vehicles in between. “Ah, fuck,” he spat.
“This is pissing me off,” Boaler said.
“Yeah, well you and me both. Still at least we know where she is. So let’s get after her. But I tell you, I’m really going to make the fucking bitch pay for this.”
Boaler’s mobile rang; it was Hickman. “How’s it going, boys?”
Boaler told him what had happened. “But she’s bound to stop eventually, I mean she’s gonna run out of petrol isn’t she? That might give us time to catch up.”
“There’s no point in stretching this out unnecessarily,” Hickman told him. “I’m gonna bring in Jay and Benny. They’re pretty close to where she is now and if they can slip in just behind her…”
“Aw no, Boss. It’s gotta be us. After all the hassle we’ve gone to…I want a share in all the fun once we’ve got her.”
“You can have it. We’ll make it a gang bang, shall we? As long as it doesn’t kill her; we don’t want to deny Mr Scarlione his pleasure, now do we?”
“The thing is, boss, we’ll have to be careful. She’s got Gaz’s gun.”
In his study Hickman frowned. This was a complication. “Just as long as she knows we’re not gonna ease the pressure,” he said. “I mean, this isn’t gonna go on for ever. Let’s see if we can get her holed up somewhere, then we’ll take it as it comes.” He decided it might be advisable to send reinforcements. Calling Jay and Benny, he outlined the situation and what he expected of them. “Pick up Jez and Darren first. But be quick about it.” He knew Scarlione would get impatient if things weren’t brought to a head pretty soon. And much as he disliked having to admit it, even to himself, Hickman couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of him.
*
At Junction 2 Caroline joined the M4. Presumably she was not now in immediate danger. There still remained the problem of what to do in the long run; a decision couldn’t be postponed forever. She had needed to lose them before she could concentrate properly on the matter. But she also needed to find somewhere remote, a lonely spot where she could feel really safe.
She’d book a guest house, preferably in some isolated village, and there stay the night. While in bed, she would hopefully be able to think up some solution to her predicament. As long as she didn’t lose too much sleep doing so, because she had an idea she’d need it.
She continued to glance behind her every few minutes, but there was no sign of the Skoda.
She suddenly thought of Jack. Oh God, yes…..presumably he was safe, but someone would need to feed him and spend some time in the house so he wouldn’t feel neglected. Though she didn’t like using her mobile phone while driving, she called her next door neighbour, Julie, and asked her to do the honours, explaining she had been called away suddenly. When Julie asked if there was a problem Caroline just said it was an urgent conference in the North to which she had only just discovered she was supposed to be going. Julie readily accepted this, aware that the world of business could be a hectic one and wanting to do her best for a friend. Caroline guessed that Scarlione’s agents would not be returning to the house just yet, figuring that she wouldn’t. She hoped she was correct in that assumption, as otherwise she might be putting Julie in danger.
And she’d have to get that bloody door repaired again…
Once past Reading she turned off the motorway along a main road and soon was passing through the pleasant, gently rolling landscape of the Chilterns, in the approximate direction of Oxford. After a while she would start looking out for guest houses.
She still looked back through her rearview from time to time, more from what had become a kind of habit. Not long after she’d left the motorway, she became aware of a white Porsche some distance behind her.
And her mouth went dry, a cold dizziness almost making her lose control of the car. The Porsche had been there most of the time she was on the motorway, since shortly after she’d joined it, but she had thought nothing of the matter, assuming it was going to Reading, or Bristol, or Cardiff.
But now…
It could just be coincidence, of course.
What it was was a risk. One she didn’t want to take.
Up ahead a minor road led off to the right. She slowed, turned into it. She thought she heard a bullet ricochet off the bodywork again, though it could equally have been a stone or a loose chipping; then she was accelerating forward at top speed, making up for any time she might have lost by slowing down.
They couldn’t have tried anything on the motorway, for fear of causing a massive pile-up in which they might have been involved. Here they could more easily make her stop by shooting out one of her tyres, at reduced risk to themselves.
As soon as she felt safe to do so she reduced speed a little. She guessed the other car wouldn’t increase its own because you had to take care on these narrow country lanes; her pursuers would remain for a time at the same distance behind her.
For the next few minutes she kept to the network of minor roads that dissected the area, following the winding, twisting course of each. Slowing down whenever she had to get past another car or a tractor, or saw them coming towards her, and feeling comforted by the thought that the Porsche would be doing the same. She had a nasty moment when she took a turning and saw it coming down the road in front of her; with a screech of brakes she stopped, reversed and went back the way she’d come. But after that she didn’t see it for a while, and wondered if she’d shaken them off.
At the wheel of the Porsche Jamie Everett, at sixteen the youngest of Joe Hickman’s team of enforcers but already a seasoned gangster with one or two murders to his credit, scowled impatiently. “It’s like fucking Hampton Court maze,” he commented. Even the map on the screen of the device in front of him was no help. They knew where she was alright, but actually catching her was another matter entirely.
Eventually Caroline decided she’d had enough of negotiating this tortuous tangle of lanes. As soon as she came to a main road she turned into it, choosing at random to go right. She hadn’t the slightest idea where she was. It might help if she could consult her road atlas but she was afraid of what might happen if she stopped to do that. All she could do was keep going.

Thousands of miles away in a vast, gleaming, ultra-modern control room, a screen showed an image of a car hurtling along a country road in England.
A man sat hunched over the screen. He picked up the device on the console next to him, which looked rather like a radio telephone, and spoke into it. "Target heading north along B3457 in direction of town of Banbury.”
“Yeah, we see,” replied Jamie Everett. They’d be unlikely to lose her. But they still had to extricate themselves from this spaghetti junction of unclassified roads and he had half a mind to give it up. Only of course Salvatore Scarlione would never let them.
Caroline still had no idea where she was, but it was real countryside; open fields separated by hedgerows, little woods and dense thickets, tumbledown drystone walls, scattered cottages and farmhouses built from grey Cotswold stone. In other circumstances she might have appreciated it all a bit better.
How had they managed to find her again? That was what frightened her more than anything else.
They must have something, some fantastic gadget that enabled them to do it. They hadn’t just been persistent. She’d lost the Skoda, hadn’t she? There had been a noticeable - but short - interval between her shaking it off and the appearance of the Porsche, which might be significant.
Was it possible she could still be mistaken?
If they could pick up her trail whatever she did, there was no question of stopping at a guest house or hotel for the night. Or a layby, for that matter. Would it make any difference if she abandoned the car? Shouldn’t she do that now, when she seemed for the moment to have thrown them off again?
But they’d know what she’d done, and the countryside around her seemed too open right now. If they should reappear they’d spot her easily, go after her on foot and…
She remembered the gun, the thought giving her courage. Even so, she couldn’t run from them forever. They’d find a way of getting at her, somehow, sometime.
She decided that if the Porsche should reappear, it would prove her fears to be grounded. If she lost it again, she’d ditch the car at the first opportunity and hope that would throw them.
It occurred to her she ought to check the fuel gauge. It was almost empty. Was that a prompt from above; ditch the car? She’d have to anyway, before long, as soon as she could find a suitable spot.
But a little later a filling station came into view, and she decided on an impulse to stop and tank up. There was a queue before her; she pulled onto the forecourt of the serving station and took her place in it. Impatiently she waited for the two drivers before her to complete their business, nervous in case her pursuers should come along at any moment.
After what seemed an eternity the driver in front of her finished filling up and it was her turn. She opened the safety cap, inserted the nozzle of the hose in the tank and squeezed the trigger to start the petrol flowing.
The process seemed to take a long time.
She glanced down the road in the direction she’d come from.
Nothing there.
How many seconds, how many minutes was she losing? Five…ten…fifteen…
Come on, she muttered beneath her breath. Come on…
The indicator was a quarter full.
Half full.
She glanced down the road again.
And again.
And again.
A flash of white in the distance.
Oh God. Please, God…oh NO.
Was it the Porsche?
It came closer. Closer.
They sometimes drove past while you were filling up and pumped you full of bullets. It had happened, hadn’t it, in America and other places, in the past. Drive-by shootings.
But this wasn’t America. It was England. England.
She would wait until the car was almost level with her and then dive for cover beneath the Peugueot. Briefly she wondered what her fellow customers would make of her action, and giggled a little hysterically.
Closer…
Three-quarters full.
Closer…
Closer…
It was white but not a Porsche. It was an Alfa Romeo. She relaxed, closing her eyes and breathing out slowly.
If it had been them, they could have blasted away and cut her down where she stood, leaving her lying dead in a slowly widening pool of her own blood.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped, giving a little shriek of fright.
“It’s full, love,” the man said. She looked at the indicator. “Oh, sorry,” she said nervously, and withdrew the hose. She closed the safety cap, went to pay the attendant, got into the car and drove off.
The signposts indicated she wasn’t far from Abingdon – that was to the south-west of Oxford, wasn’t it? Wherever she was, she’d been driving for much longer than she’d realised. Before too long she’d get tired, and lose the energy she might need later for running. And when it got dark she’d be unable to tell the colour or make of the car behind her. Another hour, she decided. Then if no Porsche, she’d start looking for a place to spend the night.
It was then that the Porsche reappeared. Her spirits plunged.
In her mind there could be no doubt about it now.
God, she would never be safe from these people, ever. She sobbed despairingly.
She couldn't go on running from them. Like a hunted, frightened animal.
And all this, she thought, because of one man's vicious, implacable hatred.
She felt herself start to panic.
What if she stopped somewhere only to be told they didn’t have any rooms free, and in the meantime her pursuers caught up with her? Could she say, “Look I’m sorry but it’s really urgent, the Mafia are after me you see. I’ll be happy to sleep in the garden shed if I have to.” They’d think she was crazy.
Because they didn’t yet know. Didn’t know what had happened, that a criminal organisation had suddenly acquired an omniscience that must give it total power over everything. Again she remembered that her pursuers would probably be able to find her anyway.
This gadget they must have, this magic whatever-it-was. It surely couldn’t see through walls, could it? If it could, then there was nowhere in the whole wide world she could hide. Nowhere. She had to assume the fear was misplaced, for the sake of her sanity.
She found her whole life flashing before her.
Again she took the next turning off she came to, spending as much time as possible driving around the spider’s web of lanes.

In the pursuing car Jamie Everett scowled. ”She’s giving us a run for our fucking money.” He felt both admiration and irritation.
“Look, there she is,” shouted Benny Mantell, spotting the Peugeot across the fields.
They changed direction.

Caroline noticed the light was starting to fade. If she turned off her lights they couldn’t…
But then she’d have an accident and maybe kill herself, wouldn’t she?
And if they couldn’t see her – though for all she knew, the darkness would make no difference to their apparent ability to find her wherever she was - she couldn’t see them.
She rejoined the main road, glancing to left and right as she came to the junction. No sign of the Porsche. Turning right, she remembered what she’d decided to do a while before and started looking for a place to stop.
On her left the drystone wall running along beside the road came to an end and was succeeded by a wood and wire fence that didn’t look too steady. Beyond the fence was a large field, overgrown, and ending on its northern side in a patch of dense woodland.
Seeing the road ahead was clear she swerved sharply, heading straight for a collapsed section of the fence.
As she had supposed the construction was too flimsy for the impact to do any serious damage. The Peugeot ploughed straight through it, knocking aside broken planks and strands of wire, and she drove on at top speed across the field towards the wood.
Peugeots were designed for roads, not fields. The uneven, slightly sloping ground slowed the car a little. It bumped and juddered along, Caroline shaking both from fear and from the vehicle’s violent shuddering.
She stopped the vehicle at the edge of the wood and jumped out.

“She’s gone into that wood,” Everett observed. He called his boss and asked for instructions.
“Then get after her,” Hickman said practically.
Everett frowned. “The thing is, boss, that gun…”
“There’s four of you isn’t there?”
“Well, yeah, but…” Everett had never been in a situation like this before. Nor, in fact, had any of his more experienced colleagues. He was suddenly very frightened; it was an emotion he wasn’t accustomed to feel.
“But what?” demanded Hickman.
“Well if she panics and starts shooting; OK, she’s outnumbered. But any of us could be the one to cop it.” With all the benefits to them from Scarlione’s thing, they were on top of the world. Everett didn’t want to throw that all away in his case by being on the receiving end of a bullet.
“Listen, Scarlione will have our arses if we don’t deliver her to him like a fucking Christmas present, and soon. You fucking well do it, Jay, or I’ll kill you. That goes for anyone else who’s thinking of bottling out. And you won’t be able to run from me, will you? Remember what happened to Ronnie Bowker. So just do as you’re told.” Hickman cut him off.
Everett realised he was sweating.
The arsehole, he thought. He wouldn’t put himself in that kind of danger. But there wasn’t much Everett could do about it. He told the others where they stood, and to be careful if they wanted to maximise their chances of coming out of this without getting hurt. It might mean shooting Caroline before she shot one of them, perhaps abandoning the goal of taking her alive. If either Hickman or Scarlione felt cut up about that, too bad. He’d just have to risk their wrath.
He found his hatred and aggression transferring itself to Caroline; it had to go somewhere. She was the reason they were in this mess in the first place. Well she’d fucking well pay for it.
The hole in the fence came in sight and they slowed, pulling onto the grass verge. The four of them scrambled out and ran across the field in the direction of the abandoned Peugeot.
In the wood Caroline paused to listen. She heard the sound of a car engine, changing in pitch and then dying as the vehicle stopped. She ran on a little more, trying to bury herself as deep as possible in the heart of the wood.
“We gotta surround the place,” Everett shouted to his companions as they neared the edge of the wood. “Else she could double back to the car.”
“If we do that we spread ourselves out,” replied Jez. “She could slip past us and still double back to the car.”
And, thought Everett, it meant each of then would have to tackle Caroline on their own, in the first instance. They might get a chance to shoot her in the back, rather than challenge her and risk getting killed or wounded. But if anything went wrong…
This thing of Scarlione’s wasn’t so fantastic after all.
In the end he decided they’d go in after her, and stay together. If they did lose her again, and had to give up through sheer exhaustion, then at least they’d still be alive. Stuff Scarlione and his vendetta. But for the sake of their own skins they had to make the effort.
“As soon as you see her, any of you, start shooting like fuck,” Everett instructed his colleagues. “We’ll all do the same.” It was the only way he could think of of insuring himself against being shot by the target.
And bugger the consequences.

Sweating and cold herself, Caroline paused in the shadow of an immense oak tree and took stock of things. On past evidence, they must know where she was, mustn’t they?
Would they surround the wood or enter it in search of her? One thing was certain, she didn’t want to have to spend the night here if she could help it. At best she would be cold and uncomfortable, and probably get little sleep. She might even freeze to death, even though it was summer.
It would be dark before long. Would they give up then, wait until morning? And what could she do in the meantime?
What was there beyond the wood? She walked on, knowing it couldn’t go on forever and that she must come to the other end of it sooner or later.
She realised she couldn’t hear any birdsong, as if the violent activities of Man had frightened the animals away.
Eventually the trees started to thin out. She emerged from the wood into another scrubby field; in the distance were clustered a group of farm buildings, eighteenth-century stone cottages contrasting sharply with a row of modern metal grain silos. She looked all around her, and nestling at the edge of the wood about a hundred yards away her eye fell on the shape of a large barn, of corrugated iron sheeting presumably laid over a wood or steel frame, and standing on a base of concrete blocks. That would be a better place to spend the night. Unfortunately, they would know she’d gone there and she’d be trapped. They might not go in if they knew she had the gun, because she could stand to one side and shoot at anyone who entered, but she had to come out sometime.
She looked around desperately for anything which might provide a solution to her predicament.
Deciding she had nothing to lose, Caroline approached the barn. A heavy wooden door in the side of the structure stood ajar, the rusty iron padlock which hung from it creaking as it swung gently in the evening breeze. She slipped through the gap, pulled the door to and stood looking around the dim interior of the barn, squinting a little. There was just enough light coming through the windows for her to see properly.
She didn’t get the impression the building had been used much in recent years. Masses of farm machinery sat rusting in a corner under a tarpaulin, forming odd shapes in the gathering gloom. There was a worn-out David Brown tractor, a few cans of petrol. Hay was strewn about the floor or stacked in bales against one wall. Various odds and ends littered the place; some empty crates, a few lengths of grey-coloured sheeting, a couple of chairs, some tools, several boxes full of rubbish. Bricks had been stacked in four columns to support a slab of wood, forming a makeshift table on which lay a box of matches and a paraffin lamp. She guessed the barn must have been used at one time as a den by local youths, but it now seemed totally abandoned. It stank of decay and stale urine.
There was a second, larger door at the front of the building, allowing farm vehicles to enter or leave, but it was locked and the lock appeared to have rusted solid. In the centre of the floor was what looked like a trapdoor, and presumably led down to some kind of cellar.
They’d be bound to search the barn. How effectively could she hide, and for how long?
She surveyed the array of bric-a-brac before her, and the rudiments of a plan began to form in her mind.
Those piles of sheeting. That was asbestos, surely.
She tried the hatch in the floor and found it locked, but loose. The hinges shifted, creaking, as she jiggled it about.
Among the tools were a monkey wrench and a hammer. With a bit of heaving and straining she succeeded in wrenching the lock off so she could get the hatch open. She realised the cover would get in the way of what she wanted to do if it were in the raised position, and yet it would have to be. But the wood of the floor, though just sound enough to bear her weight, was old and rotten; she might as well take the cover off entirely. She worked at the hinges, and the hasps securing them down, with the claw of the hammer until the wood around them had been ripped away and she could lift the whole lot out. She looked down and saw the rungs of a rickety-looking wooden ladder, descending into what appeared to be cavernous blackness.
Best to make sure that the sheets of asbestos weren’t caught in anything and were easy to move. She tugged at the top one and it came free.
Next she shovelled the loose hay on the floor with her feet until it was piled against the door by which she’d entered the barn. For good measure she threw a couple of the bales on top of the pile. It wouldn’t be much of a barrier, she guessed, but that wasn’t its primary purpose.
She studied the cans of petrol – manufactured by her own company, she noted with pride – and hefted each container experimentally. She heard the liquid inside slosh about; yes, there seemed enough of it for her needs. She struggled to get the tops off.
What she planned to do was sickeningly dangerous – if it went wrong – but Scarlione probably planned to do something equally nasty to her if he caught her, so she didn’t have much to lose.
People were moving about outside; it sounded like a number of them, or she might not have heard the sounds.
So they did know.
Hurry, Caroline, she thought dizzily.
She had to assume for the sake of her peace of mind that whatever they were using to locate her couldn’t see through walls.
They were definitely making towards the barn.

Everett stopped them for a moment. “Right, we kick down the door and go in with all guns blazing. That’s the only way.”
Fear lent him aggression. A single ferocious fusillade offered the best chance of killing their victim, and of not being killed themselves.

Caroline wrestled with the top of the first can until she finally managed to twist it off. She sprinkled some of the petrol on the floor at the base of the far wall, on the wall itself – of wood beneath its metal sheathing – and on various nearby objects. She was about to turn her attention to the second can, then decided to leave it. From the noises outside it sounded as if the enemy were almost at the door.
She ran to the box of matches and struck one, then tossed it into the pile of hay blocking the door. The hay began to smoulder, but didn’t immediately catch fire. She threw another match, then another.
Everett and his companions stopped on seeing the smoke issuing from beneath the door, and retreated a few paces, exchanging uncertain glances.
The hay was old and rotten, which was why it didn’t