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CHARLIE BROOKS

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About the Author

Charlie Brooks’ education came to a grinding halt when he left Eton to become a stable lad. He has since worked as a racehorse trainer and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and GQ magazine. He lives on a farm in the Cotswolds with his wife and daughter. His autobiography, Crossing the Line, and his first novel, Citizen, were widely acclaimed.

To Rebekah – the best wife in the world – who inspires me with her sense of decency, her clarity of thought and her integrity.

Table of Contents

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Also by Charlie Brooks

Copyright

About the Publisher

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’.

1

Monaco

Max Ward had to get out of bed when room service arrived with their breakfast. Gemma was pretending to be asleep. He slipped a ten-euro note into the waiter’s hand and asked him to park the trolley by the window.

Max wanted to have breakfast with Gemma, so he poured her some coffee, added the exact amount of hot milk that she expected and took it through to the bedroom.

She was lying with her back to him, welded to the sheets in semi-slumber.

‘Coffee?’ he asked, sitting on the bed. She made an appreciative noise and rolled on to her back, keeping her eyes shut. Max slid his clenched hand under the sheet and found her knee. Then he started to stroke the inside of her thigh with the back of his fingers. She pulled the pillow over her face. Max opened his hand and rubbed an ice cube up her thigh.

‘Oh no, you don’t,’ she said as her head jolted up from under the pillow.

‘Breakfast then?’

While Gemma headed for the bathroom, Max sat down at the small table and gazed across the harbour. A wooden water taxi struggled from one side to the other, dwarfed by the super yachts.

Gemma barely bothered to do up her dressing gown as she ambled towards him. Max thought about grabbing her and taking her back to bed, but his boiled eggs were getting cold. And they’d cut his toast soldiers half an inch wide, exactly as he liked them.

As she sat down, Gemma looked out of the window. Two women were power-walking down the Parcours Princesse Grace – followed discreetly by a bored minder. She wondered when they’d last had sex with their husbands.

Max leant over and kissed her. Then he set about his eggs.

‘Why did they do that?’ Max wondered aloud as he returned his attention to the window. ‘Why did they cover this place in higher and higher concrete boxes? Jesus, you’d be pissed off if they’d trashed your view with that monstrosity, wouldn’t you?’ he asked, pointing at a recent erection that had blocked the sea view – any view, in fact – from the equally offensive apartment blocks behind it.

‘Greed,’ suggested Gemma.

‘No one lives in them anyway,’ Max said as he decapitated one of his eggs. ‘They’re tax bolt-holes. As long as you get your cleaner to run the taps every day and turn on the lights, they can’t prove you’re not living here.’

‘Fine, I suppose, as long as you don’t have to live in this ghastly place.’

‘It’s not that bad. And of course you have to pay someone to drive your car around too. But it’s cheap living here, compared to paying tax anywhere else.’

‘Could you live here?’

‘Well, if you came to visit me every weekend, I might think about it.’

‘Really? Where would you put your other girlfriends at the weekend then?’

‘I’d send them back to Saint-Tropez, of course,’ Max replied without missing a beat.

He looked around the room. Everything was so perfect. The orchids proudly erect in their pot, the imposing gilded mirror frame that perfectly matched the candle holders and standard lamps. Even the rails holding the thick, white curtains were coordinated. And yet everything wasn’t perfect. It never was in Gemma’s life.

‘I get frightened sometimes, staying in places like this,’ she said pensively. ‘It reminds me, in a weird way, of what it’s like to have nothing. Look at those little pots of jam. We’re just going to send them back, even though we’ve paid for them. I didn’t have any fucking jam when I was a kid.’

Max stood up, put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. She was haunted. He wished he could do something about that. But she’d chosen someone else.

As they stepped into the lift, Max pressed the first-floor button for the spa and the ground floor for himself. He held the leather document holder loosely in one hand, deliberately keeping his eyes off it.

‘Aren’t you a bit overdressed for a massage?’ he asked flippantly.

‘Very funny. Actually, I’ve ordered a male masseuse who’s going to strip me naked, cover me in chocolate and lick it off. It’s a hotel speciality. Then I’m going shopping. What time will you be back?’

‘Oh, I’d say about three o’clock. Then we can explore together.’

As the lift ground to a halt, Max kissed Gemma’s neck under her long auburn hair.

‘Stop it,’ she said, taking a step away, but giving in to a wide smile. ‘Or I’ll drag you back upstairs. And then you’ll be late for your mysterious meeting. Go on, tell me. What’s in your holder?’

‘You know I can’t. Or I’d have to kill you with my bare hands.’ With that he gave her neck a small bite.

‘Call me to say where you want to meet.’

She waved as she exited down the corridor.