Chameleon. Mark Burnell
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officials in the eye, giving silent answers to their silent questions. They never noticed the jab. Discreet but firm, he never flinched.
Stephanie shook her head. ‘Without a care in the world.’
‘Or maybe with every care in the world.’
‘But to be so casual about it?’
‘Perhaps suggesting that he was under the impression that he was injecting himself with something else. Something that would provoke a reaction but which wouldn’t kill him. In any event, it’s unlikely we’ll ever find out what he thought he was doing.’
Stephanie continued to look at Klepper. ‘Still, no great loss, I suppose …’
‘We now know that he was the first of five couriers, two of whom were UK-bound. We don’t know about the other three. We do know that the action was abandoned after his death but SIS was unable to discover the target or the identity of the end users. As for the suppliers of the Plutonium-239, the intelligence community looked no further than the former Soviet Union. One name emerged. Or rather, an alias. Koba. But that was the end of the line. Until March. Then, out of the blue, SIS were contacted by Oleg Rogachev, head of the Tsentralnaya crime syndicate, an organization that has been strongly linked to nuclear smuggling in the past.’
‘How was the contact made?’
‘Through a Kazak investment company. Almatinvest. They have an office here in London but the contact was made through their Moscow office. An Almatinvest representative got in touch with the British Embassy on Rogachev’s behalf. The request was for a secure face-to-face with a senior SIS official. The job of evaluating that request fell to Roger Stansfield, a man I know personally. He concluded that the approach was bona fide. The representative said that Rogachev wanted to give SIS Koba’s real name.’
‘What did Rogachev want in return?’
‘Nothing.’ Alexander saw her expression change. ‘I know what you’re thinking. But maybe fingering Koba was some reward in itself.’
‘Or maybe Rogachev saw SIS coming and figured that he could get them to eliminate a rival on his behalf, at no risk to himself. Koba probably doesn’t even exist.’
‘That thought did occur to Stansfield. Which was why he didn’t want anyone from SIS involved. Not directly.’
‘So he asked you.’
‘Exactly. The plan was simple enough. Masquerading as a senior SIS officer, Marshall met Rogachev in Paris. At the meeting, Rogachev was supposed to hand over a disk containing information on the terrorists, the end users and the couriers. The two men met at a brasserie on the rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré. As far as we know, the meeting went to plan. However, as they stepped out of the café …’
Alexander changed the picture. There were two bodies lying face-down, one splayed across the pavement, the other crumpled in the gutter. The blood looked black. Although Stephanie was looking at the screens, she could tell that Alexander was staring at her.
‘No disk was recovered from either body. Nobody recalls the assassin frisking either man. It’s possible the disk was removed later. It’s also possible that the disk had already been lifted – perhaps in the brasserie. The only thing we know for sure is that it’s now in the possession of George Salibi.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘A Lebanese banker. Lives in New York. Founder of First Intercontinental.’
‘How does he fit into this?’
‘The way he fits into everything else. Money. God knows how he got hold of the disk but you can be sure he’ll use it.’
‘How?’
‘He’ll auction it or use it as leverage. Either way, the disk is now currency. And that’s not a situation we can tolerate.’
‘Salibi’s a target?’
‘The disk is a target. If Salibi gets in the way … well, that’s his problem.’
‘So that’s the job, then? The disk.’
Alexander’s glance was scathing. ‘James Marshall’s murder cannot go unpunished.’
‘Sounds a bit Old Testament to me.’
‘It’s not purely a question of revenge. It also sends out a message. Then there’s Koba. We don’t know whether Klepper’s consignment of Plutonium-239 was destined for Britain or whether it was merely in transit. And because we don’t know, we have to assume the worst. That being so, we need to find out who Koba is, who he’s supplying and what their target is.’
‘And then?’
‘As long as Koba’s alive, he’s a threat. The problem is, if we simply wanted to find a Koba, that would be easy. There are plenty to choose from. But we need to find the Koba.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘There’s a tradition of Russian criminals adopting aliases. The original Koba was a Georgian robber who protected the poor from their oppressors. A sort of Caucasian Robin Hood, if you like. The legend has lasting appeal. Criminals today are still calling themselves Koba. Even Stalin fell for it, adopting the name while he was robbing banks in Georgia at the beginning of the twentieth century.’
‘So you have no idea who you’re looking for.’
‘On the contrary. We’ve narrowed our Koba down to two. By the time you’re ready, we’ll know which one he is.’
‘And what if you don’t?’
‘There’s always the fail-safe option.’
‘Both men?’
‘There would be no other way to be sure.’
‘Cute.’
‘Believe me, the world wouldn’t miss either of them.’
‘Which makes it okay?’
‘If you spared yourself the pretence of a conscience, you’d see that it makes it better.’
Stephanie couldn’t be bothered to argue the point. ‘Could Koba have killed Marshall and Rogachev?’
Alexander shot her a withering look. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
He looked back at the images of the dead men on the screen. ‘There was one assassin, two shots per victim. Neither had time to react. In the panic that followed, the assassin escaped easily. There were witnesses but their accounts varied wildly. It was raining hard at the time. It was a dark afternoon. The killer was dressed in black or blue or grey, and wearing some kind of dark jacket with a hood to obscure the face. An anorak, maybe. There might have been an umbrella for extra cover. Physically, we have almost nothing to go on. A slim build, between five foot six and six foot tall – let’s say five foot nine, for the sake of argument. In other words, about your height.’
With the conference room lights dimmed, part of his face was hidden in shadow. She could see the flickering screens reflected on his eyeballs.
‘Might have been a man.’ He held her gaze completely. ‘Could have been a woman.’ Alexander leaned into a cone of pale light. ‘Is any of this starting to sound familiar?’
Stephanie was incredulous. ‘You think I had something to do with this?’
‘There’s a rumour going around …’
‘You’re out of your mind.’
‘Really?’
‘If you provided me with the date, I could probably tell you.’
‘Let me guess. Masson would vouch for you. I was with her the night before and the night after. But from where you live, Paris is a day trip.’