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PROLOGUE

Moscow

Max Ward knew something was up. Things often weren’t as they seemed at the British Embassy on Smolenskaya Naberezhnaya, but that particular afternoon Max’s antennae were twitching more than usual.

For a moment his attention switched from his immediate superior, Colin Corbett, to Pallesson, who was crossing the main atrium. Max watched through the heavy glass partition as Pallesson, the department’s golden boy, gave some unfortunate underling a sharp dressing-down, then continued on his way with a quick glance at his watch. Max was now so far beneath Pallesson’s sphere of operation that he didn’t even warrant a greeting when they passed one another in the corridor. Their relationship had been poisoned long ago. It was unfortunate that they were now posted in the same city, but Max hadn’t let Pallesson faze him in the past and he refused to let the bastard do so now.

Max pulled his focus back to Colin Corbett, the source of his current unease. Corbett was an efficient section chief and a pretty good communicator. A team player and as straightforward as they came, but something was radiating off him now that was arousing Max’s instincts.

Considering he was the wrong side of forty, Corbett was in good shape. Mainly due to his obsession with tennis. Which was why no one ever questioned his exit from the office in his tennis gear every other afternoon. But something was different about him this Thursday and it had Max puzzled.

Max feigned interest in his terminal as he watched Corbett shuffle his papers. He had on his usual dark-blue tracksuit and the usual dark-blue bag lay on the floor with three racket handles sticking out of it. Corbett got up to go to the water machine. It was then that the first tangible evidence supporting Max’s unease struck him. Corbett was wearing hiking boots, not tennis shoes.

When Corbett finally left the office, it was a full half-hour later than normal. Max decided to follow him. This was a man of regular habits behaving out of character. Of course, Max had nothing to go on. It was just a hunch. Besides, it would make a refreshing change from yet another afternoon spent trawling through endless chatter, looking for patterns that 12.5 million euros’ worth of software couldn’t see.

In a nondescript office car-pool Skoda, Max pulled out on to the Smolenskaya Naberezhnaya, which ran alongside the Moskva River. In the thick traffic, it was relatively easy for Max to follow him without being spotted. As they approached Park Pobedy it was at an absolute standstill. Corbett’s car was a couple of hundred metres ahead of his, but neither of them were going anywhere.

Max believed Corbett to be a good man and an honest one. But something was most definitely up.

Max allowed his mind to drift back to the day’s seemingly intractable problem. Seven offshore accounts. Numerous holding and shell companies. Millions flowing through and then suddenly disappearing around the same time every year. Always the second two weeks of March.

Then it hit him. Time zones. Specifically, that small window every year when London and New York are only four hours apart. A disconnect that invariably led to missed conference calls with Langley and red faces at Vauxhall. An anomaly that allowed the final issuing bank to hide its annual transfer outside its creaking accounting software. In his line of work it was so often about what happened in the gaps.

The traffic was moving again. Corbett continued out of the city, heading west by southwest, taking first Mozhayskoye Shosse, then Minskoye Shosse.

Corbett checked his tracking device. He was ten kilometres behind his target, which was about right, total gridlock notwithstanding.

After 120 kilometres the tracker finally left the major artery and turned off on to a smaller road. Corbett followed ten minutes later, unaware that Max was shadowing him. Five kilometres further on, Corbett’s target quit the main road and went into the forest down a dirt track. After a couple of kilometres the track split into two. His target had come to a halt a further 500 metres along the left-hand fork. He went off to the right, drove for a couple of hundred metres, then pulled over into the trees.

Max had eased back, giving Corbett a little more space now that he was more exposed, but he could see the dust cloud thrown up by Corbett’s car floating above the right-hand track. Max decided he’d driven as far as he dared. He reversed his car off the track into a clump of low-hanging trees and set off on foot.

After five minutes he found Corbett’s car badly hidden in the trees. Careless, he thought. He tried the door handle. It opened obligingly. Very careless. Can’t be too much to worry about. Perhaps Max was making a complete fool of himself ? Maybe Corbett never played tennis. Maybe his was a different game. Naughty old Corbett. It’s always the quiet ones. Not that he wanted to expose him in any way. After all, it had been Corbett who’d stuck his neck out for Max after Saudi Arabia.

Max noticed the passenger glove compartment was hanging open. A large telescopic sight lay within. The kind that could find a target half a mile away. Well, if you’re having a bit of fun, I might as well do the same, Max smirked. He’d get an access-all-areas view of Corbett on the job. Max grabbed the scope and headed up the hill to his left through the trees. Wherever Corbett had ended up, Max was more likely to be able to watch him from the high ground.

As Max approached the top of the hill, he heard a plane coming in low towards him from his right-hand side. It was either landing or crashing … but on what? Max scrambled to the brow of the hill, cursed that he was dressed for his desk, not for shimmying around rocks and scrub. He peered over. What he saw dispelled his flippant mindset.

A sea plane had landed on a narrow lake and was now taxiing across the water to a small dacha on the far bank. There was nothing pretty or enchanting about it. It was just a rectangular concrete box by the side of a lake with a stone terrace and a wooden jetty.

Max lay on his stomach and increased the scope’s magnification as far as it would go. Then he centred on the three individuals standing on the terrace. Max gave a start as Pallesson’s face came into focus. That was clearly who Corbett was tailing.

Max shifted his body in a vain attempt to get comfortable. He focused on the other two figures. Unmistakably Russian. One appeared to be almost disabled as he moved across the terrace. The other was shaven-headed. But there was something strange about his scalp.

Why was Pallesson with them? And where had Corbett got to?

Max trained the scope back on to Pallesson, who pulled out a cigarette case and offered one of the Russians a smoke. That told Max all he needed to know about Pallesson’s relationship with them.

Max squinted as the sun emerged from behind a cloud, and instinctively covered the scope’s lens with his hand. Corbett clearly hadn’t been quite as fast. As Max squashed his body even lower to the ground he could see the shaven-headed Russian pointing towards a spot directly beneath his position while speaking into a radio set. Max quickly scanned his side of the lake.

Corbett had secreted himself into a duck-shooting hide. Crafty, but not lucky. Max looked back towards the dacha.

Before he could think of a way to warn Corbett, Max saw two men converging on the hide. Where the hell had they come from? What could he do about it? He didn’t even have a gun and there was absolutely nothing to be gained from giving away his own position.

Max watched helplessly as Corbett was dragged out of the hide. A launch roared up to the shore. With two machine pistols now trained on him, Corbett was bundled into the craft, which then set off back across the lake.

Pallesson took a long draw on his cigarette. The granite-faced Russian mafia chief Sergei Kroshtov limped towards him. His hip had been shattered years ago by a truck trying to run him over. Pallesson tried to look unruffled.

‘I thought you said this place was secure?’ he said disdainfully.

‘It is,’ replied Kroshtov coldly. ‘Whoever that is won’t be leaving here.’

Kroshtov looked over towards Oleg and inclined his head in the direction of the dacha.

‘Get my hunting rifle.’

Pallesson’s eyes followed Oleg into the dacha. The proud, circular scar around his scalp gave the impression that someone had once tried to remove the top of his head. The lumpy scar looked like two pieces of leather, crudely sewn together.

Barry Nuttall unclipped his seat belt and pushed open the passenger door of the sea plane. He did a bit of piloting himself, but when he was on a drugs run he liked to have someone else ‘at the wheel’.

He had his own airstrip on the Essex coast. They’d stayed low until they were away from the coastline to keep off English radar screens. It was a long way to come to pick up a hundred kilos of heroin, but a few routes had been shut down recently and supplies were tight.

He’d been going over the maths again during the flight. By the time the gear hit the streets, his investors would turn the two million euros he’d brought with him into twenty million. And he would take the cream off the top.

The Essex boy told his pilot to open the hold, straightened his Burberry cap and jumped down into the launch.

A few seconds later, the pilot passed down two black cases to the heavies in the craft. ‘Don’t drop those, for Christ’s sake,’ Barry joked. ‘It really would have to go to the laundry then!’

Barry sat down on the centre bench and the launch sped towards the dacha.

‘This is all very sociable,’ Barry said drily to Pallesson as he placed the two cases on a folding wooden table. He nodded his head towards Kroshtov.

‘How’s it going, mate?’ Barry asked Kroshtov with an air of casual indifference.

Kroshtov nodded.

‘Who’s our friend?’ Barry asked Pallesson as he glanced towards the hooded Corbett. Oleg was binding his hands behind his back twenty metres from them.

‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Pallesson assured him.

‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Corbett said in a muffled, but perfectly audible voice. Oleg punched him in the side of the head. Hard enough to knock him over.

‘So, going according to plan?’ Barry queried.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Pallesson confirmed. Kroshtov barked some orders towards the door of the dacha. A bottle of vodka appeared in an ice bucket with three tumblers. Kroshtov filled them half-full and handed one each to Pallesson and Barry Nuttall. He raised his glass to them and took a large swig.

‘Budem zdorovy!’ Kroshtov toasted.

‘Let’s stay healthy,’ Pallesson chimed, translating for this Essex-boy partner.

‘So … who is this?’ Kroshtov asked Pallesson, pointing at Corbett as he banged his vodka glass on the table hard enough to make it quite clear that he expected a straight answer.

Pallesson would have liked to have been able to lie. It didn’t look good, getting followed to a drop by one of his own. But it wouldn’t be hard for the Russian to discover who Corbett was. Dead or alive.

‘He’s one of ours,’ Pallesson admitted. ‘He must have followed me.’

‘Why are you here? Who sent you?’ Kroshtov asked the hooded Corbett, who was still lying sprawled on the terrace.

‘Pallesson asked me to cover his back.’

‘He’s full of shit. Oleg can dispose of him,’ said Pallesson.

Kroshtov took orders from no one. He picked up his hunting rifle, made sure there was a shell in the breach and handed it to Pallesson.

‘Your problem. You solve it. Take him down to the jetty.’

Kroshtov clearly welcomed an opportunity to demonstrate that he was in command. Barry Nuttall knocked back the rest of his vodka as he watched Oleg frogmarch Corbett out on to the jetty. He wondered how Pallesson could be so sure their gatecrasher was working alone. The last thing they needed was MI6 crawling all over them. He admired the man’s balls, though, even if he did dress like a Hampstead queer.

Max laid completely still behind the rocks he was using as cover. He knew there was every chance they’d be scouring the hillside, looking for any sign of movement. If he didn’t attract attention, they’d probably miss him. Unless they had heat-seeking equipment.

Small, sharp stones were sticking into his elbows, and the undergrowth was clawing at him through his thin trousers. He tried to push all discomfort from his mind. The slightest movement would expose him.

This situation really was an utter shambles. That was the problem with instinct. The fact that your instincts had proved right counted for nothing if you didn’t have the ability to deal with the scenario facing you. Max challenged whatever was stabbing his thigh to hurt even more. It focused his mind.

One of the Russians led Corbett halfway along the jetty and left him there. Max could see Pallesson was following closely behind with the rifle. It was pretty clear what was going to happen next.

‘You bastard,’ Max muttered under his breath.

It crossed his mind that he could create a diversion to buy Corbett time. But putting himself at such risk went against his training. His heart was telling him to do one thing; his head another.

He assumed that Corbett would be talking to Pallesson through the hood. Whatever he said made no difference. Without warning, Pallesson raised the rifle to his shoulder.

Max saw Corbett’s head explode before he heard the shot echo off the other side of the lake. The body slumped on to the jetty.

Pallesson walked back up to the dacha and handed the rifle to Kroshtov.

‘Good thinking, getting him on to the jetty. Very messy,’ he said coolly. ‘Now, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?’

Kroshtov issued some more orders. A man emerged from the dacha with a small metal case, followed by another carrying kilo bricks of heroin wrapped in heavy black plastic.

Pallesson had felt fear many times in his life; not least when his father used to come into his bedroom to beat him with his belt for not being asleep. But he had learnt to mask his fear by focusing on a particular spot on the carpet. He’d never let his father see that he was afraid.

As he walked over to the table and opened the metal case his hands were shaking. By placing his body in the way, he made sure Kroshtov couldn’t see his fingers fumbling with the catches. He’d killed before, of course. Not that anyone had ever pointed the finger at him when his brother died. It had been accepted as a tragic accident. Two young boys ragging in a pool. The elder hit his head and drowned. After that the beatings stopped.

He tore himself back to the present and opened the metal case. Inside gleamed the Fabergé egg that he’d lodged with Kroshtov as collateral. A show of good faith that he and Barry Nuttall were good for the two million euros. Once the deal was completed, he would resume ownership of the treasure.

Pallesson was momentarily transfixed by the forbidden treasure. It had been made in 1894 and on the top of the egg was the image of Nicholas II, encircled by rose-cut diamonds. It was covered by translucent, dark-red enamel patterned with diamonds and was lined with off-white velvet. Sadly the ‘surprise’ inside the egg had long gone.

Until recently, it had been stored in a vault under the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. But its presence had now been erased from the records.

Pallesson took the egg out of its box and held it in front of him. He wanted to see it glint in the sunlight.

‘Two million euros?’ Pallesson confirmed with Barry.

Barry Nuttall nodded and opened his cases. He fondly ran his hand over the two million euros, giving them a paternal parting pat. Then he walked over to the bricks of ‘gear’ and picked one of them up.

‘A hundred kilos?’ he checked. Kroshtov nodded.

‘Well, if it’s okay with you, I’ll get this lot loaded up and be on my way back to Blighty. Budem zdorovy, as they say in Essex.’

Pallesson snapped the Fabergé egg’s metal case shut and turned to Kroshtov.

‘Looks like we’re done. Nice doing business with you, Sergei.’

Max lay on his back and focused on the clouds. He’d just witnessed his nemesis blow off the head of his colleague in front of a bunch of Russians of whom he knew nothing. He had no idea what had been going on outside the dacha. He didn’t even know whether either Pallesson or Corbett were on official business. His instincts told him Pallesson was working for himself. And that he’d just murdered a British agent.

Max had known for too long that Pallesson was an evil son of a bitch. It was time to stop him. Time to get revenge. But he also knew that Pallesson was a master of compromise and blackmail. If he reported what he’d witnessed to someone under Pallesson’s spell, it would be he who would be destroyed, not Pallesson.

He wasn’t sure he could even risk confiding in Tryon, the man who’d recruited him into ‘the Office’.