E. Seymour - A Deadly Trade - A gripping espionage thriller

‘Honest, that’s all I know,’ he burbled, distracted. He ran a hand through his hair again. It stuck up in dark tufts. Pale, his face a mass of lines and edges, he looked genuinely stricken. I hadn’t just opened a can of worms. I’d eaten them.

‘I don’t believe you.’

He squirmed in his seat, desperate to escape. There was no escape. He seemed to come to the same conclusion because the fight went out of his body and he leant in close and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Drugs that kill certain types of people.’

My face stiffened. ‘This is a bit of a departure from your usual line of business, isn’t it? I thought the object was to get addicts hooked, not kill them. Who exactly?’

Wes shook his head, his expression contorted. ‘I don’t know,’ he said shooting me another beseeching look. ‘On my mother’s life.’

I looked him hard in the eye. ‘Fuck’s sake, Wes, don’t you care?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘Man, it’s business. It’s money. Just money.’

I swallowed hard. No point in getting into a fight with Wes, snake that he was, about moral distinctions. I had no stomach for it and it would have been supremely hypocritical. ‘So the data for the blueprint was what I was ordered to steal, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who wants it?’ I’d tried before and got nowhere, but I was all for catching Wes unawares.

He recoiled as if I’d thrown boiling oil in his face. ‘I can’t, man. He’ll kill me.’

‘ I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me.’

‘You have no idea what this guy does. His victims suffer agonies.’

‘Then tell me and I’ll kill him before he gets the chance.’

A flame of indecision flickered in his eyes, guttered and blew out. There weren’t many men who could inspire that level of fear. Impressive, I thought.

‘Okay,’ I said, resigned. Something I’ve learned in life: don’t expend energy on people or things you can’t control.

Wes’s relief was plain to see. ‘Can you do it?’ he said. ‘Can you find it?’ His eyes glistened with hope and fear.

‘I don’t know.’ I wasn’t telling the truth. I had to find it but when I did I wasn’t going to hand it over to Wes, or anyone else. ‘Let me get this straight, Wilding wanted to trade but welshed on the deal?’

Wes swallowed. ‘Yeah, I think.’

‘Think?’ I snarled. ‘How much was she paid?’

‘I don’t ask questions, man. I follow orders.’ He swallowed again, looked at me pleading.

‘There’s something not…’

‘Three days,’ Wes said, scrabbling to his feet. ‘Meet me in the usual place, usual time.’

‘Are you insane?’ Our usual hook-up was the Placa de Catalunya, a square in Barcelona.

‘Thursday morning. Be there. Make sure you have the hard drive with you.’

Even if I found the goods, no way was I travelling on a scheduled flight. My description would already be circulated to every customs officer in Europe. I still intended to show up at the appointed hour on the appointed day because my gut told me that if I were smart I’d find the man who’d employed me for the job. If I could pump him for information, it could give me the vital lead I needed to find who was also in the market for the stolen hard drive. It was a risk. Wes might turn up in Barcelona with backup in place.

I decided to call in a favour. A fan of the two birds with one stone scenario, I also wanted to chase down the Russian lead.

One of my main clients, Mikhail Yakovlevich, was currently in London. He had houses in Russia, France and Britain. His British home, in Kensington, was worth a cool ten million. Having made his fortune in the steel trade, he’d specialised in supplying raw materials to factories in short supply. This was the shorthand version. In reality he had clawed his way to the top of his particular grubby pile through the cultivation and maintenance of friendships within the FSB (formerly KGB) and the relentless elimination of his enemies. I knew this because I’d carried out most of the eliminating. His FSB connection was what interested me.

I arrived outside the white stucco porch, gazed up at the four-storey dwelling, and hoped he was in. Eight marble steps to the lacquered front door, and before my foot touched the first, one of the most sophisticated security systems in the world clicked into action. Yakovlevich took his own safety seriously; evidenced by the entourage of former convicts he hired to protect him. Most of them looked as though they’d been conceived in Frankenstein’s laboratory.

I rang the bell, one of those old-fashioned hand-pull affairs. The door swung open. There is a saying that behind each powerful man is a good woman. In this case, behind each discerning butler is a heavy-duty thug. Once the butler established that I was not there to arrange the flowers, Yuri, Yakovlevich’s lieutenant, stepped out of the shadows towards me. I found it difficult to meet Yuri’s eyes. Not because I was afraid of him, but because the tattoos on his face obliterated his features.

I slipped off the spectacles, popped out the contacts. ‘Hex to see Mr Yakovlevich,’ I said.

‘You have an appointment?’ Yuri knew full well I didn’t.

‘No.’

‘Wait.’ His eyes never leaving mine, he took out a mobile phone, pressed a few digits. A quick burst of Russian and I was allowed over the threshold. As usual I removed my shoes and was subjected to a full body search. Unpleasant and humiliating but essential if I was to gain an audience with Yakovlevich.

I followed Yuri upstairs to a first floor drawing room of immense proportions with fabulous views of a walled garden. The room should have been stunning. It was if one’s taste was one of decadence meets burlesque. Thick-pile rugs on oak flooring, gaudy ornaments atop highly decorated French furniture, and a series of floor to ceiling paintings of Yakovlevich’s young mistress in various states of undress, the last verging on pornographic.

Yakovlevich lay half-sprawled on a cream leather sofa. He was wearing one of his signature outfits: dark Italian suit, now crumpled, white shirt and silk tie. Red-faced, he held a glass of Chivas Regal in his hand, the half empty bottle sitting on the marble-topped coffee table in front of him. Chugging on a Cuban cigar, no doubt from Davidoff on St James’s, he welcomed me with a cheery wave.

‘Hex, my friend, come in, take a seat. I hope Yuri did not treat you roughly,’ he boomed, deep-voiced. I smiled as if being treated in such a degrading fashion happened to me every day, and sat down opposite him. He stared at me blearily. ‘Drink?’

‘Thank you.’ Refusal would only invite censure.

Mikhail summoned his butler. More whisky poured, I settled back, glass in hand. I was used to the drunken fool routine. A frustrated actor at heart, Yakovlevich was no more inebriated than his butler. He knew I knew but we all played along.

‘So what brings you here?’ His Russian deep-set eyes fixed on mine like barnacles clinging to the rusted hull of a wreck.