The Abigail Affair (29 page)

“Yeah—I mean, my hair isn’t falling out yet.” Toby felt distinctly uncomfortable. He had opened one of those heavy cartons and spent maybe fifteen minutes in the chamber.

Smithers shifted in his chair. “Have I levelled with you as I promised? Remember, it’s the Americans running this operation. And it looks as though they have kept us in the dark, too. I knew nothing about the nuclear angle until you told me. I can’t imagine what they are playing at, assuming they know about this nuclear cargo.”

“You’ve sort of levelled with me,” Toby said. “But you gave me such a hard time when you picked me up, and you were no better yourselves. You didn’t tell the whole truth any more than I did. That was unfair.”

“Toby, you’re sounding petulant. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Tell me more about Krigov, at least. He implied you—we—had his son murdered. True or false?”

Smithers leaned back in his seat. He breathed in and sighed. “No, untrue. What happened is that Krigov’s son, a dandy playboy type, took a model to his father’s mansion in London and cut her throat. Then he scarpered.”

“When was that?”

“Three years ago, in February. The case didn’t get much publicity. Strange, considering how beautiful the victim was.”

Toby said wearily, “Don’t tell me. National security considerations.”

“It was a nasty murder and we knew at once who’d done it. The girl had told everyone where she was going, and her friends had seen her leave a club with David Krigov. He went to ground and no one saw him again. He’s still high on Interpol’s
Most Wanted
list.”

“What about old man Krigov? Where was he?”

“Not in the UK at the time. We tried to get to speak to him, but no luck. Then, stupidly, some other department revoked Krigov Senior’s visa because of some business scam, so he had no further means to return to the UK anyway. He sold the London mansion through an agent and a proxy and that was that.”

Toby propped himself up on one elbow and stared Smithers in the eye. “And Krigov Junior never showed up? Anywhere? Worldwide? How do you know he wasn’t killed himself? Krigov seemed quite genuine about his son’s death.”

Smithers averted Toby’s gaze. “I appreciate that you have a desire to know what’s going on. But I can’t tell you more.”

Toby was suddenly fed up with the whole business. “I’m really not impressed,” he said. He swivelled his body and dangled his feet off the couch. “If that’s all, get my passport back and put me on the next plane home.”

“Already done,” Smithers said, with evident relief that the conversation was over. He fished in his jacket pocket and produced a passport. Toby seized it gratefully and opened the back cover. Yes, it was his original passport. “How did you get this back?”

“Scott handed it in to the Immigration Office in the marina earlier today.”

“So you believe my story now?”

“Of course. Someone in authority here lied when we made the checks earlier. And I apologise for the rigmarole on the
Surrey
and later on the
Amelia
. It was for Krigov’s benefit. We didn’t want to alert him. We wanted to protect Julia Simons at all costs. If Krigov ever found out her cover, she would be dead in a minute.”

“So what happens next?” Toby asked.
Dead in a minute!
The words tumbled around his brain.

“As you said, let’s get you home. I’ve drawn a couple of hundred in US dollars on my own expenses to see you through. Here, take it.” He handed over a wad of bills. “The rest, we can take care of. Just remember not to say a word about any of this to anyone. The Official Secrets Act has a long arm.”

“I’ve been working for the government. I want pay. Don’t think a couple of hundred US is getting you off the hook. You recklessly endangered my life.”

Smithers patted his pristine hairdo. “Of course. I was coming to that. We’ll make a deposit to your UK bank account. It will purport to come from an online poker site. You don’t need to declare it as income and you should stick to the story that you won it.”

“How much?” demanded Toby. “And you’ll need my account details for the transfer.”

“We’ve got your account details. Seems you’re a little overdrawn, and so I will make sure you are looked after, especially considering you won’t be getting any wages from the
Amelia
.”

Toby said, “OK, but I’m still worried about Julia.”

Smithers chuckled gently. “Quite the young Sir Galahad, aren’t we? She’s a little out of your league, Toby, don’t you think? She’s twenty-seven, a fluent Russian speaker and an experienced undercover agent. She’ll look after herself and doesn’t need you. She had you fooled, didn’t she? And yet she managed to protect you.”

Toby felt his head drop a little. “I guess.”

Smithers had stung him with his put-down. Toby’s cheeks felt hot. He jumped to the floor. “Take me to the airport,” he said.

“OK, Toby,” Smithers said. “We couldn’t get you on the Virgin flight from Antilla, so you’ll have to go on to St Lucia and catch the British Airways flight. And a couple more things. I found you a phone and we got your SIM card back for you. And your backpack. Someone handed it in to Reception at the hotel.” For once, the man smiled. He produced a Nokia mobile and handed it over. “And you’ll want your own watch back.”

“Thanks,” Toby said. He took the items and the backpack. But he felt humiliated and used.

He was still fuming when they dropped him off at the airport and hurried him through the formalities, waving badges in the officials’ faces.

His escort left him at the scanners and he was alone.

Chapter 29

Toby Robinson sat in the little terminal waiting for his connecting flights, and cast his mind back over the past few crazy days. He felt his legs start to tremble, and he shivered suddenly, as if he had a fever. It was delayed shock, for sure. And no wonder. He had been lucky to escape with his life.

He got up from the rickety seat in the waiting room and walked to the glass windows that looked out over the little airstrip. The afternoon sun beat down, and a heat haze rose from the concrete runway. After a while, the trembling in his legs stopped.

Something didn’t ring true. He had a strong feeling that they had kept him in the dark in some important way.

Eventually the little turbo-prop island hopper appeared and landed. On the plane, Toby now started to worry about his parents. Could he tell them anything at all? He must say something. Otherwise, how could he appease them?

But he had signed a copy of the Official Secrets Act. That was more important than their concerns.

They would have to deal with it and come to their own conclusions.

But it would be tough. They would know he had come into money. He would never convince them he had won it playing poker online.

The flight to Antilla took little more than fifteen minutes. The flight attendant was a dragon compared to the honey on the inbound flight. She wouldn’t even make eye contact with him. At Antilla, Toby made his way through to the transit lounge and sat down. The room was hot and small, but at least he was the only occupant. It was a different story in the departure lounge for the international flights on the other side of the glass partition wall. Tourist families, most of them British, to judge by their lobster-like complexions, were waiting for the Virgin flight he had not been able to get. They milled about, children scurried, and officials with clipboards barged their way through with mobile phones clamped to their ears.

He had an hour to kill before the next leg of his journey up to St Lucia, on another LIAT island-hopper. He put his SIM card into the Nokia phone, turned it on and thumbed in the code to check his credit. The phone bleeped and the message “Credit available £0.05. Top up now” appeared.

Bloody Smithers could have added some credit. Not enough even to get a quick text away to Rodney or his mum. And he couldn’t top up without access to the Internet—the UK top-up Freefone number didn’t work on roaming. And he couldn’t leave the transit lounge.

Or could he?

The airport was chaotic and security was minimal. Through the glass wall, he saw how he could nip into the international departures lounge by going the wrong way through a door with a big no-entry sign on it, which was supposedly one-way only and guarded, but in fact was unmanned.

Toby knew there was a PC set up there in a little plywood booth offering Internet access, because he had seen it through the glass wall on his way to Arrivals four days earlier. You presumably bought online credit at the bar. He could top up his phone by logging in with his sister’s credit card details, which he had stored under the name of
Sandra
as a contact on his SIM card. It was a reciprocal arrangement they had for emergencies, and provided he kept the amount to £5, she would be OK about it.

It was tempting. However, he decided against it. He wasn’t supposed to leave the transit area, and didn’t want any hitch at this stage. Better to sit tight, get himself to London and return home to some sort of normality.

Also, he was still prone to trembling from the shock of his treatment. And he couldn’t flex his right hand or do much with it because of the sutures. His other injuries were still troublesome too—the cut on his cheek, the bruised ribs from the kicking by Ski-Pants and his stubbed toe. Now that the dangers of the past few days were behind him, he felt these more acutely.

He took his pocket comb out, ran it through his hair, then examined the teeth carefully.

No sign of dropping hairs.

That was something.

He thumbed back to the menu on the mobile. It was a basic Nokia, embarrassingly black and plasticky, without even Internet access, let alone MP3, camera or any of the other delights of his own cherished smartphone. He selected “settings” and adjusted the time and date. 3.05pm on 31st December. New Year’s Eve. He would be airborne at midnight, unless there was a hitch. What did they do on planes about New Year’s Eve? Did the pilot count down to midnight and did they cheer and bring champagne?

He hoped so.

As he finished the settings, the phone buzzed and chirped. Text incoming. Number withheld. He pressed “view.”

His heart seemed to skip a beat.

“NEED HELP ABOARD URGENT JULIA.”

Chapter 30

He scrolled down. Nothing more. Just that.

“NEED HELP ABOARD URGENT JULIA.”

What the hell?
Julia was supposed to be an American DEA agent. Why would she need help from Toby?

Only if her cover had been blown, or was about to be.

He had
told
Smithers she was in danger! And Smithers had pooh-poohed him!

But how had she got his number? And where was she? On board the
Amelia—
but
where? Was the yacht still at the dock in St Helen’s? Most likely, because of the delivery of the new generator. That would have taken all day to install, surely.

Dead within minutes if her cover is blown!

The thought made him feel physically ill.

Hold on.

The message could be a trap.

He sat and sweated for a minute, his mind whirring.

If it were a genuine text, why no number to reply to?

Assume it’s a trap. Sit tight. You’ve done your duty, and more.

It was tempting. What had Smithers said?
She’ll look after herself and doesn’t need you. A bit out of your league...

Surely she would have someone better to phone or text than Toby. Her DEA controllers, for starters.

But maybe there was no time for that. She could have got his mobile number from the smashed phone. She emptied the bins as part of her stewardess duties. The number was taped on the back.

Toby agonised. More than anything, he wanted to be on that plane to London.

But he couldn’t just do nothing. His conscience wouldn’t allow it.

The obvious thing was to alert Smithers and get help to Julia, fast.

Back to Plan A.

Get phone credit
now
, even at the risk of missing his flight. Whatever it took.

He jumped up and moved to the door. It was locked, but the key was in the keyhole, so he just turned it and stepped out into the corridor.

An alarm sounded,
beep, beep, beep
, quite loudly. Toby shut the door. The alarm stopped. He glanced both ways. Nobody seemed to have noticed him in the general hubbub.

He glanced towards International Departures. The door from his corridor was guarded by a seriously large local woman in airport security uniform.

Bummer.

He moved a few paces down the corridor and scanned the crowd inside Departures. There were more passengers than seats now, so newly arrived families had plonked themselves on the floor. He saw a tiny toddler stagger across the floor with a small packet of coloured sweets in its hand. After a few steps it tottered and fell, dropped its sweets, which rolled everywhere, and started to howl. Its mother got up from her seat and went towards it. Toby could now see the face of the man sitting next to her.

With a lurch in his stomach, he recognised Beaky-nose, his tormentor and abductor who had lifted him from the hotel. The man had changed clothes and now wore a short brown leather jacket over a floral, tropical-style local shirt. But there was no mistaking that conk and complexion. It was him all right.

Beaky was waiting for the Virgin flight to London. He would be at Gatwick before Toby.

Toby was certain that Beaky was waiting to nab him again at Gatwick, without any doubt at all. There could be no innocent explanation.

Toby made his mind up. He was going nowhere except back to St Helen’s to make sure Smithers and his team rescued Julia, and see they did it pronto, no messing about, and that he, Toby, was then personally escorted to London, handcuffed to a minder if necessary.