A Damned Serious Business Read online




  A Damned Serious Business

  Gerald Seymour

  www.hodder.co.uk

  About the Author

  Gerald Seymour spent fifteen years as an international television news reporter with ITN, covering Vietnam and the Middle East, and specialising in the subject of terrorism across the world. Seymour was on the streets of Londonderry on the afternoon of Bloody Sunday, and was a witness to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

  Gerald Seymour exploded onto the literary scene with the massive bestseller Harry’s Game. He has been a full-time writer since 1975, and six of his novels have been filmed for television in the UK and US. A Damned Serious Business is his thirty-fourth novel.

  Also by Gerald Seymour

  Harry’s Game

  The Glory Boys

  Kingfisher

  Red Fox

  The Contract

  Archangel

  In Honour Bound

  Field of Blood

  A Song in the Morning

  At Close Quarters

  Home Run

  Condition Black

  The Journeyman Tailor

  The Fighting Man

  The Heart of Danger

  Killing Ground

  The Waiting Time

  A Line in the Sand

  Holding the Zero

  The Untouchable

  Traitor’s Kiss

  The Unknown Soldier

  Rat Run

  The Walking Dead

  Timebomb

  The Collaborator

  The Dealer and the Dead

  A Deniable Death

  The Outsiders

  The Corporal’s Wife

  Vagabond

  No Mortal Thing

  Jericho’s War

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Gerald Seymour 2018

  The right of Gerald Seymour to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 473 66350 3

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Gillian

  Contents

  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

  Prologue

  He waited for his target to emerge.

  Not a problem for Boot. He was blessed, the few who knew him well told him, with near limitless patience. He had no tic movements, did not lick his lips to moisten them, scratch at an imagined mole on his cheek, ruffle his hair. He was sitting in the back of a saloon car that had comfortable upholstery, and he shared the seat with an officer of the Swedish sister service. They, and the escort provided for them, had been enjoying coffee on a street leading into the square, Kornhamnstorg. Boot had been listening to the officer telling him of a son who had graduated to the ceremonial guard at the Royal Palace on the far side of the Old City, and he had been showing polite interest, when the message had come through. They’d bolted, the story unfinished.

  Parking spaces for their car, and the escort vehicle, had been blocked off with plastic bollards. The driver had slid them into place. Boot had no complaint about the preparations, and they had an adequate view of the front entrance to the bank. A derelict was sitting on the pavement beside the entrance, cross-legged and clutching a plastic cup. He was well wrapped against a sharp wind coming off the water and gusting across the square wall. He wore two grubby anoraks and a pair of thick gloves and had a blanket over his knees. A few minutes earlier he had eased his wrist across his mouth, whispering into the microphone concealed in his watch to alert them to the target’s arrival.

  Boot showed no sign of tension or stress, nor of excitement or anticipation. But the blood coursed in his veins and his breathing was marginally quicker. He had studied the surveillance photographs provided by the Swedes, so had a picture in his head of his target. But there was always a frisson of emotion when the picture came to life.

  The bank was situated on an attractive square. The autumn wind had scoured the pavements, and the central statue gleamed. The Swedish officer told him that the life-size bronze of a man crouching with a crossbow was Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson who had led a peasants’ uprising six centuries before. Boot’s lip curled. He had no time or sympathy for political agitators.

  Sipping from a water bottle, Boot reflected that the unexpected always provided the tastiest dishes. He had learned that in a lifetime in espionage. Had he spoken, he might have said, ‘The best are those you don’t plan for, they just come lolloping round the corner and drop into your lap.’ ?This one, codenamed Hatpin, had materialised without warning. Boot could not have said, sitting in the car and holding his peace, where he would be led, and how much advantage could be extracted from the Russian boy. The Swede beside him chewed on his unlit pipe. The driver, small and gamine, lit a Gauloise and coughed smoke from between coral-coloured lips, enough of it to obscure the No Smoking sign on the dash. The man beside her and in front of Boot, clinked the manacles he had extracted from his pocket. Boot had been told that on the two previous occasions Hatpin had gone to the bank he had emerged within twenty minutes. The engine idled.

  The tramp raised his head, alert to the need to attract more donors, have more krona coins dropped into his beaker. They were ready. A woman with a loaded buggy entered the bank. The Swedish officer nudged Boot’s elbow. They were satisfied that there was no tail on Hatpin. The lift would be fast and without drama. The driver’s smoke played around Boot’s nose, and a bead of sweat might have gathered at the top of his spine, below his collar. Boot had flown to Stockholm the previous evening, had booked into an Old City hotel, with a tariff above the normal Service allowance, but the Maid, who ran his affairs at VBX, had stated – ‘cross my heart and hope to die’ – that nothing cheaper had available rooms: a good woman, the Maid, and part of a loyal team that supported Boot. But until he had the target beside him, and had put forward the proposition, he would not know whether the optimism was justified.

  It was a debt repaid. The Swedish service had owed a favour to Vauxhall Bridge Cross, and might also have wanted their British colleagues to take ownership of a matter that could hurt their Russian neighbour. The list of complaints had multiplied – military threats through incursions by submarines into territorial waters; fighter bombers encroaching on air space, increased spy activities; a plethora of state-sponsored hacking into Swedish utility sites; and money laundering of organised crime gangs, based in St Petersburg, via Swedish banks. As the
officer had said when meeting Boot at the airport, ‘We think we’re giving you the chance to hurt them. God willing, it will be a well-directed kick in the testicles.’ The washing and rinsing of money had been the trigger for their action. Hatpin had an account recently opened at this branch of a prominent Stockholm bank. Monies were transferred electronically but he seemed drawn there to talk with an investment consultant each month. He had been picked up, the signal had been sent to London. The auguries were good. Had to be good, or Boot – with the seniority he carried as a Cold War officer, and relevant again as relations had chilled and he had assumed new, weightier, responsibilities – wouldn’t have been allocated this chance.

  The Swede grinned, said quietly into Boot’s ear, ‘Friend, I want to ask you something very personal. You excuse me. I hope it is not impertinence. What is “Boot”, what name is that? We look it up, we cannot find anything of such a name. Even, I went to one of our star interpreters, the response was a shrug but no answer. Why are you called after what is a heavy shoe? Forgive me. Is it Mister Boot, or is it Boot and something, and . . .’

  Boot did not have to explain. The tramp had reacted, a torn and dirty sleeve passed close to his stubbled face, his wrist close to his mouth. Boot saw the target.

  Two steps out. A pause. A scan that took in the pavement from the Italian trattoria to his left, across the statue of the agitator, and up to the alleyway to his right, over the parked cars and across the bridge. Wide eyes displaying all the guilt of a cat that had been at the cooking, nervous, and seeing nothing.

  Boot did not travel on a whim, or an off-chance. That the matter of Hatpin had landed on his desk, filtered by the Maid, indicated the prospect of a return for the investment of his time. He had behind him a career that was decent rather than exceptional. There had not been a moment when others on his floor of VBX would have said, ‘No doubt about it, this was Boot’s finest hour.’ But Hatpin might be, just might be, the catch of his lifetime.

  The target seemed satisfied, turned left, stepped over the tramp’s trailing blanket and started to walk away. The car was on the move, the fag was stubbed out, the manacles clanked, and the Swede’s breath hissed on the pipe stem. Boot sat tall, the space between them was empty and ready.

  Boot would not be involved in violence, might sanction it, but would not soil his own hands. But the fact remained – loud, clear – he had access to big resources and the danger confronting him was also ‘loud, clear’. Results were expected, and he was the man in whom the Big Boss placed his confidence.

  The target was identified in the Swedish reports as Nikki.

  Insignificant, hardly cutting the impressive figure on which Boot’s reputation as an agent handler flourished. No colour in his face, the pallor of a young man who worked behind curtains or blinds or in basements. A thin fluff of hair across his cheeks. The only brightness on his skin from the acne rash plaguing it. A concave chest and narrow, rounded shoulders on which his clothing hung loosely. The anorak was cheap, the jeans faded, and the trainers loosely laced. He headed away from the statue of the martyred freedom fighter towards the quaysides where the ferries to the islands sailed from. It was difficult to reconcile this pathetic figure with someone reponsible for stealing currency valued at £412,000, give or take a few pence, from a bank in the depths of some wretched Stalinist-built outpost east of the Urals. Someone who had hacked into and leached from supposedly protected accounts, removing the loot to the imagined safe haven of an account with a prominent Swedish bank on the square of Kornhamnstorg. A youth of that description, that clothing, that wealth, could only be a success at a chosen occupation: hacker in a criminal gang – and vulnerable. A considerable talent in Boot’s armoury was the ability to exploit ‘a vulnerable’.

  The target walked at a brisk speed and did not look back. The back-up car overtook them, and passed the boy. Doors opened and two men and a woman seemed to block the pavement. Boot’s car was almost level with him. The boy was held, too shocked to struggle or shout. The Swedish officer was out, had hold of the boy’s collar. The crown of his head was shielded and he was pitched inside. For a moment the boy’s head was across Boot’s lap, then it jerked upright, and the officer was inside again. Manacles were fastened on the boy’s thin wrists, and they accelerated away.

  The boy started to talk, babbling in his own language. Would have thought the brutal suddenness of his capture to be the work of the Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti and considered himself beyond their reach in safe, sophisticated Stockholm. As the words, cringing, came in a torrent he began to shiver. Boot slapped his face. Lightly but sufficient to silence him. From his years of experience, Boot believed that the first words were the only ones that counted. He spoke quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. The driver coughed as she lit another cigarette. The reports said that the boy spoke English when dealing in the bank, and he was fluent.

  ‘Very good to meet you, Nikki. We think this is going to be the start of a most fruitful relationship. You’ve a flight to catch, back to St Petersburg, and the aircraft won’t wait. Look upon us as friends. Let’s be clear where we all stand, Nikki. No misunderstandings. You chose to hack and steal from a bank in your own jurisdiction. I would call that greedy, Nikki, and I would also call that stupid, and I would say that greed and stupidity add up to a considerable mistake. Nikki, the consequences of such a “mistake” should not be ignored. The consequences might be a call to FSB, right into the big block on Liteyny Square – and I would do the call myself – and you would be facing a very difficult interrogation, a very difficult few years – correction, many years – in a hard-régime labour colony. They’d beat you to pulp, then send you to the camps. You understand all that, Nikki. Fine to hack overseas banks, credit unions, all that sort of stuff, and they’re all cheering you on, but hack one of your own and people will get powerfully angry. All right, so far?’

  The Swede had hold of the boy and his chest convulsed and his eyes watered and Boot wondered if he were about to wet his trousers. He smiled. He had once heard the Maid tell Daff, in the outer office, that Boot’s smile was one that the hangman would have reserved for a client when asking him to behave reasonably on the walk from the cell to the gallows. A thin-lipped smile, gimlet-eyed. The amount filched from the bank had been in the Russian media, and matched the size of the account here. A pretty fair limit.

  ‘Or we can do business together. Be friends, colleagues. You will find that we are always truly grateful to friends, to colleagues who cooperate to their best ability. We might even – as a reward for good behaviour – invite you to London. Us being friends, colleagues, Nikki, comes at a price . . . you tell us all we want to know, everything of the world in which you live. Your choice, Nikki. Or do I make the call to Liteyny Square? I have the number. You might not get as far as the camps, Nikki. They might have killed you before that. Your choice.’

  And afterwards? A few ground rules laid down, dates for future meetings, details of what was required of Hatpin: names, addresses, where the hackers were going for new trapdoors and assaults, and relationships in the area of state-sponsored work.

  A nod to the Swede, a flick of his fingers and the driver slowed, easing towards the kerb. Boot did not shake Hatpin’s hand, did not offer any gesture of trust, and the smile this time only flickered. The car stopped. The manacles were removed. The Swede was out on to the pavement. He reached inside and caught Nikki’s anorak, dragged him sideways and pitched him clear of the door. A stumble, a stagger, a regaining of balance, and a woman nearly tipped over as she carried shopping bags past him, and he was gone. A short striding run. What any feral creature would have done if cornered, facing capture, and then knowing release. Boot watched him disappear into an alleyway that led into the Old City and away from the wide street where the ferry terminals were. He had done carrot and stick and, as was always the case, the threat of pain would achieve his aim.

  The Swede had his lighter fired up and over the pipe’s bowl. ‘Did it go well?’<
br />
  Boot shrugged. ‘Time will tell, always does. I think he’s quite a catch, that’s my opinion, for what it’s worth. We’ll milk him, drain him dry. He’ll take us towards “attribution”. I have a good feeling. I believe we’ll get value from him. If it should be towards “strike back” then I’m happy as a pig in shite . . . But we won’t run before we’ve learned to walk . . . we’ll know soon enough.’

  ‘I felt almost sorry for him.’

  Boot grimaced. ‘Never wise in my experience to cough up sympathy. Treat him at arm’s length, little Nikki, owe him nothing.’

  Chapter 1

  The first wave had been a probing attack, looking for weakness. They had seen that off, pushed them back.

  The early force of the sun was now behind them and full into the faces of the second wave – the serious assault. Surrounding Merc was his small army: ten boys and two girls crouched or kneeling in the shelter of the sandbagged walls, blasting through the firing slits. The repetitive thud of the machine-gun hammered in his ears.

  The start line of the ‘bad boys’ was around 150 yards to the west of their hill. Some came at a sprint and were tall; some were bent low and almost crawled. Amongst the noise of the shots and the explosions from grenades and shoulder-launched missiles were the clear cries of the boys moving towards them. One dropped, and on they came; another fell and they pressed closer. There might have been fifty of them. At least three or four would be wearing vests padded with explosives. The aim of the others would be to provide enough covering fire to allow them to get up to the sandbags, then roll off them down into the main bunker or the communication trenches to detonate the dynamite sticks. If one of them achieved that and went on his way, express service, to Paradise, then Merc and his army would be stunned, wounded. If they were lucky, they’d have their throats slit then and there, and if they were not, then they’d be captured and face a fate not worth considering. They were in among the wire and twice anti-personnel mines were triggered and body parts spewed up, but they kept on and the gap closed and sometimes he could see the faces and screaming open mouths, and a few times he was able to make out dead and lustreless eyes.