Rules of Vengeance Read online

  “Why, yes. Who did you think?” When Jonathan didn’t answer, the man continued. “I do hope the accommodations are to your liking. Some of the members think it’s a bit grand, but I believe we need to sequester ourselves in a discreet environment. We’re physicians, not plumbers. Can’t expect us to meet at Earls Court. But enough about that. How was your flight in? Everything go all right?”

  But Jonathan didn’t answer. He was no longer hearing the man’s words. He’d finally gotten sight of his host’s name tag.

  It read “Dr. Colin Blackburn.”

  10

  “I can’t comment on Robert Russell’s work for our firm,” said the self-assured, arrogant man sitting across the desk from Kate Ford. “All of our contractors are employed on the basis of absolute confidentiality. It’s not that we don’t care to help with your investigation, it’s that we can’t. Rules are rules.”

  Sixty with a crown of thinning hair, bifocals perched at the tip of a hawkish nose, Ian Cairncross, director of Oxford Analytica, fixed Kate with a bored gaze. The two were seated in his office at 5 Alfred Street. From next door at the Coach and Arms pub, the din of the evening crowd climbed the walls of the cobblestone alley and into the open windows. For ten minutes Kate had listened to a lengthy history of Oxford Analytica.

  The firm had been founded thirty years earlier by an American lawyer who had worked as Henry Kissinger’s assistant in the Nixon White House. While completing his doctoral work at Oxford, he’d stumbled on the idea. To his eye, the pool of dons and scholars at Oxford represented an incredible confluence of world-class experts on everything from economics to political science to geography. If he could harness this expertise, he could put it to work answering questions of utmost import to governments and multinational corporations around the world. He wanted the dons to analyze problems ranging from forecasting the future price of oil to guessing who would succeed the next Soviet premier. For all intents and purposes, Oxford Analytica was the world’s first “overt intelligence agency.” And that expertise was available to all comers, provided they agreed to OA’s not insubstantial fees.

  “The Met has rules, too,” said Kate. “We’re also forbidden to reveal details concerning cases we are presently investigating. For example, I’d be remiss in telling you that Lord Russell was keeping a loaded pistol in his desk at the time of his murder and that he was unable to make an effort to use it against his assailant. I’d also be remiss in telling you that Russell suffered a very nasty bump on his head before falling off the balcony which might or might not have fractured his skull. And I have no right whatsoever to reveal that whoever was waiting for him when he returned home last night at two-forty in the morning not only managed to get past three doormen and a security guard monitoring cameras that covered every square inch of the building’s public spaces, but also defeated a state-of-the-art alarm system tied in to the best private security firm in London. And the worst part is this: we have no bloody idea how the assailant got out, because Russell’s alarm was still hot when we arrived. I can, however, freely offer my opinions,” said Kate. “Would you care to hear them?”

  Ian Cairncross nodded, his eyes a fraction too wide.

  Kate went on. “Whoever did kill Mr. Russell was a professional. And I don’t mean a thug from Brixton who’d done this a time or two before, but someone who’d been trained by the very best in the game. And I am not referring to an overt intelligence agency. I’d also posit that if for any reason that person believes that someone else—someone like you, for example—knew anything about what Russell was looking into, he wouldn’t give a fiddler’s fart before killing him, too.”

  Kate let her words sink in, noting the sudden funereal pallor of Cairncross’s complexion.

  “One more thing,” she added. “In case you do decide to break any of your rules, I am authorized to offer you round-the-clock protection to make sure that you don’t take a wee header off the balcony of your home—provided, that is, that you have one. A balcony, that is. I’m sure the address of your home is well known to everyone concerned.” She cocked her head and smiled. “So if you don’t mind, sir, I will ask one last and final time, what was Robert Russell working on?”

  The answer was a whisper. “GSPM.”

  Kate sat back in her chair and took out her notebook. “Go ahead.”

  “Global Stress Points Matrix,” said Cairncross, with a bit more force. “It’s part of the early warning system we offer to our clients. GSPM is designed to forecast future risks. We’ve assembled a list of twenty core indicators that allow us to predict with a high degree of accuracy the course of events in the focus area.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Who’s going to be the next Japanese prime minister. The long-term rate of inflation in the U.S.A. The number of oil rigs coming online in Saudi Arabia and their effect on the price of oil.”

  “I don’t think Lord Russell was killed over incorrectly guessing the price of a barrel of oil,” said Kate.

  “No,” said Cairncross. “I dare say he wasn’t. Robert took our GSPM program a step further. Are you familiar with open-source intelligence-gathering?”

  Kate vaguely recalled seeing something with a similar title on Russell’s desk, but she had no idea what it was all about. She said as much.

  “It’s where everyone’s heading these days,” said Cairncross.

  “Who’s everyone?”

  Cairncross shot her a look from beneath his brow. “Suffice it to say that corporations aren’t our only clients. There are some in this government, and others, who have shown an interest in our work. It used to be that for information to be deemed valuable, it had to be graded ‘classified’ or higher. If something was commonly known, then it was thought to be worth …” Cairncross paused to search for the right word. “As you so eloquently put it before, ‘a fiddler’s fart.’ But that was all wrong. It turns out that all the information you need to ascertain what your friends and enemies are up to is already out there. The world is drowning in information. It’s a question not of too little, but of too much. The problem is finding it. The Internet has brought us down from six degrees of separation to three at most. Look at the celebrity world. You may not know David Beckham personally, but you know who his best friends are, where he ate dinner last night, how much of a tip he left, and where he’s going to travel the day after tomorrow. In another domain, that would be called actionable intelligence. Can you imagine if we’d known as much about Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, or even Saddam Hussein? Who needs a Minox spy camera when your cell phone will do just fine? Everyone’s a spy these days. People just don’t know it. And the information is real time. It’s happening now. That’s what Robert was doing. He was setting up a trusted information network, a TIN, of individuals to gather that information.”

  “Are you saying that Lord Russell was a spy?”

  “I’m saying no such thing. Oxford Analytica is not an intelligence shop per se. Robert was simply creating a methodology to collect accurate, timely information about a variety of subjects of interest to our clients. His forte was establishing these networks of highly placed sources who would speak to him off the record, as it were.”

  “TINs?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And who were these sources?”

  “Could be anyone. The deputy defense minister of Brazil. The chief financial officer of a gold-mining conglomerate in South Africa. A Russian general in charge of motor transport in Chechnya. Anyone who might possess real-time information of strategic importance. The point is that with technology the way it is, anyone with access to private information can report it anonymously and immediately.”

  “Sensitive subjects especially.”

  “Normally.”

  “Sold to the highest bidder.”

  “If you’re insinuating any type of treasonous activities, you’re off the mark,” Cairncross shot back. “The world has changed. Borders are a thing of the past. Information doesn’t carry a passport.
It belongs to everyone.”

  “And yet Lord Russell kept a pistol in case there was someone with a less democratic view.”

  For once Cairncross had no response.

  Kate went on. “I take it, then, that in the course of all this open-source intelligence-gathering he wasn’t doing on behalf of the British, he found something he shouldn’t have.”

  Cairncross plucked the bifocals off his nose and polished them with his handkerchief. “The events of this morning would seem to bear out your thesis,” he said with equanimity, though he refused to meet her eyes.

  “Didn’t Russell give you any indication about what he was currently studying?”

  “Only tangentially.”

  “Tangentially?”

  “Yes … peripherally, so to speak.”

  Kate exhaled loudly. “Mr. Cairncross, I’m not interested in tangentially or peripherally or global space matrixes. I am interested in facts. Did Lord Russell share his discovery with you? Yes or no?”

  Cairncross continued to polish his spectacles. “Robert did mention that he’d come across something that was keeping him up at night. He said that the problem was time-sensitive and that he was digging into matters where his interest wouldn’t be appreciated. But that’s all. I’m afraid it’s not much to go on.”

  “Did he mention any kind of threat? An attack on British soil? Anything to do with the possibility of loss of life?”

  “Good Lord, no,” said Cairncross, and he appeared to be genuinely surprised. “Nothing like that. A few years back he put us on to the attempt on the Lebanese prime minister. I can assure you we passed that information on to the appropriate authorities in record time.”

  “If I recall, the Lebanese prime minister was blown sky high by a bomb in Beirut,” said Kate.

  “Alas, yes,” admitted Cairncross. “We were too late to save the poor man. Otherwise, Robert’s work has been strictly academic.”

  “Did he mention someone named Mischa? I’m told that the name is a derivative of Mikhail. Both are Russian names.”

  “I don’t know of any Mischa. I’m sorry.”

  “What about Victoria Bear?”

  Cairncross shook his head. “May I ask where you obtained this information?”

  Kate sat back in her chair and folded her hands. “I’m afraid I can’t reveal that. I do have one last question: did Russell mention anything about a meeting tomorrow morning—something rather important?”

  Cairncross pursed his lips, consulting some inner bank of information. “No, I can’t say that he did. He was rather worried, though, about another matter. It was something he’d been studying for a while, really devoting all his resources to—”

  Just then there came a firm knock and the door to the office opened a few inches. Kate caught a glimpse of a blond head, a square jaw, waiting in the hall. “Ian, a word …”

  Cairncross looked at Kate, then away, but not before she caught the flash of panic in his eyes. “If you’ll excuse me.” He stood, and as he joined the man in the hall, Kate saw a hand fall on his shoulder and guide him out of sight.

  Cairncross returned a few minutes later. “Sorry,” he said. “Something’s come up suddenly. I’m afraid our meeting must come to an end.”

  “You were saying that Russell was worried about something.”

  “Oil. A price shock. The only reason for that would be an attack on a major oil-producing facility somewhere, say Nigeria or Saudi Arabia. But I can promise you he never mentioned a Mischa. Perhaps Robert’s death had nothing to do with his work. Who knows where his private tastes ran?”

  “Perhaps,” said Kate. If she wasn’t mistaken, Cairncross had just tried to besmirch Russell’s reputation. She slid her notebook into her jacket and stood. “The offer of protection stands.”

  “No, no,” said Cairncross, stammering in his eagerness to escort her from the room. “That won’t be necessary. I think we’re all a bit unnerved by Robert’s death. That’s all.”

  Kate did not allow herself to be rushed. “Are you sure there’s nothing else?” she asked, lingering in the doorway, wondering who it was that had interrupted their meeting and put a violent stop to the proceedings.

  “Nothing at all.”

  She handed him her card. “If you think of anything else, tangential or otherwise, call me.”

  Kate stood outside the building, feeling deceived and cheated. She was sure that Cairncross had more to tell her, and her instinct told her it was something that might have proven helpful in finding Russell’s killer. Moreover, the late-inning attempt to insinuate that Russell’s sexual proclivities might have led to his murder angered her. Russell’s death was no crime of passion. It was far too calculated for that. Swallowing her anger, she headed back to her car.

  Her phone rang. It was Cleak’s ringtone. “Yes, Reg.”

  “I’m at Russell’s flat. You’ll want to get down here as quickly as possible. We found it.”

  Kate stopped walking, putting a finger to her ear to hear better over the street noise. “Found what?”

  “How the murderer got into Russell’s flat.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You’ll have to see it to believe it.”

  “On my way.”

  Kate hung up. And as she set off up the alley, she ventured a last look behind her. Her eyes rose to Cairncross’s second-floor office. The window had been closed, and though the sun reflected off it, she was able to make out the outline of a blond head with a very square jaw watching her intently.

  And who the hell are you? she asked the silent figure.

  11

  The components sat on the floor of the garage, stacked neatly against the rear wall.

  Twenty sticks of plastic explosive, bundled into packets of four, each packet weighing five kilos and thermowrapped in orange plasticene.

  Two 15-kilo bags of four-inch carpenter’s nails.

  Two 10-kilo bags of three-inch steel bolts.

  Five 5-kilo bags of 00 buckshot.

  Four 25-kilo sacks of Portland cement.

  One reel of copper electrical wire.

  One length of det cord manufactured by Bofors of Sweden measuring one meter.

  One box of blasting caps. Ten count.

  A can of stalignite gel, better known as napalm.

  One cell phone (still in its factory packaging) and a SIM card carrying a stored value of twenty pounds.

  Last but not least, the delivery device, recently detailed and sparkling beneath a raft of fluorescent lights, occupied the center of the garage.

  A BMW had been chosen for the job. Expensive automobiles attracted less attention than cheap ones, and this one carried a sticker price of one hundred twenty thousand pounds, nearly two hundred thousand U.S. dollars when you included VAT. It was a brand-new 7-series, stratus gray with black leather interior, an elongated wheelbase, and conservative nineteen-inch rims. It was a car a diplomat might drive. A car that would look very much at home parked on the streets of Whitehall, the London district that was the site of many government offices.

  One man stood in the garage, studying the automobile. He was wan and thin, dressed in a blue coverall. Except for his hands, he was unremarkable in every way. The left hand had only three fingers, the pinkie and ring finger lost to a faulty detonator. The right hand, though intact, was webbed with scar tissue and grotesque. When ignited, white phosphorus fuses with human flesh and cannot be extinguished with water. They were a bombmaker’s hands.

  He, too, had been smuggled into the country, though the route was less circuitous than that of the stolen BMW. He had come from Calais, France, spirited across the English Channel in a high-speed Cigarette motorboat and landed on a beach in Dover twenty-four hours earlier. After constructing the bomb, he would return to the same beach for the outward leg of his journey, but whether he would go back to Calais or elsewhere was unknown. Men like him did not publish their itineraries.

  He had no name. He was known simply by his trade. The Mechanic.


  The Mechanic circled the car, running a hand over the hood, the roof, and the trunk. Every explosive device was different and had to be constructed according to its specific purpose. To bring down a building required five hundred kilos or more of high explosives and the ability to gain close proximity to the target. For that, a truck or van was best, as was the willingness to sacrifice one’s life. To maximize human casualties, fewer explosives were required, but more materiel, or shrapnel. Proximity was essential. Military-issue plastic explosives detonated at the rate of 8000 meters per second. The blast wave alone was capable of crushing a nearby automobile. At that velocity, a carpenter’s nail would travel a long and deadly distance.

  The job he was entrusted with this evening fell somewhere between the two. It took him six hours to complete.

  When he was finished, he surveyed the BMW with a former policeman’s eye. The vehicle appeared no different from before, which meant it neither listed to one side nor drooped on its suspension. The explosives were evenly distributed throughout the left-hand, or passenger, side of the automobile and concealed in the trunk, the rocker panels, the roof, and the engine.

  The Mechanic designed his charges according to a three-tiered model. First he coated the chassis with napalm gel. Next he layered in the materiel (nails, bolts, buckshot). And last he shaped and affixed the plastic explosives.

  The cement was used as a tamping agent. He placed one bag of cement on the right-hand side of the trunk. The other bag he divided into smaller packages and spread throughout the engine cavity. The cement would thus deflect the force of the blast in the desired direction.

  A standard cell phone attached to a blasting cap served to detonate the device. When the cell phone received a call, it passed along an electrical charge that ignited the blasting cap. The cap in turn ignited the det cord, instantaneously setting off the plastic explosives. The entire detonation sequence would last one one-hundredth of a second.

  There was one last thing he needed to do. Crawling beneath the steering wheel, he installed an antijamming device. Targets had grown as sophisticated in protecting themselves as the assailants who wanted to kill them. It was not uncommon for vehicles to carry a wireless jamming device that blocked out all incoming phone signals as a defense against roadside bombs. The black box he wired to the car’s internal battery would jam the jammer. It was a question of who was one step ahead of the other.