The Will Of The People (Conspiracy Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

Jessica leaned
forward, eyes holding Anderson. “I’m not very good with all these
secrets and I’m not sure what I really want to believe. Is it
better to live with the thought that your husband has been
murdered, or that he simply slipped and fell to his death? George
was always a careful man but deep down I know his death has to be
accidental...”

She paused,
shaking her head as if afraid to voice what she wanted to say, “But
then, sometimes what you believe to be true turns out to be just a
naïve hope. If I can help, Michael, in any way, please just
ask.”

The flat
landscape of open fields and few hedges made it easy for Anderson
to see far into the distance, encouraging him to drive at speed
along the narrow country lane. It was fast becoming a glorious
spring morning and two cars plus one van had been the sum total of
Anderson’s fellow travellers. Eventually a combination of sharp
bends and bumpy ride forced him to slow down, his eyes drawn to a
beautiful tall tree standing like a lone sentry beside the road,
the base of the sycamore hidden by a covering of floral tributes.
For some reason the scene brought home the immediacy of Darren
Westrope’s death, more so than reading about it or even talking to
his parents.

A pensive
Anderson kept his speed below forty, the lane now paralleling a
high grassy bank some fifty yards to his right and so blocking his
view to the east. If there was a sign announcing Graythorp, then
Anderson was distracted enough to miss it, and he had driven well
past before the car’s map display revealed his mistake. Ahead was
finally a sign, not Graythorp but Erdenheim, indicating the right
turn into the Management Development Centre.

Anderson
slowed to a halt a few yards past the Erdenheim turn-off, before
reversing into the access road, his gaze following the road back as
it sliced through the bank. The latter was well above his head and
proved a very effective barrier: all he could see was a pair of
metal gates and a brick building beyond, maybe a hundred yards
distant.

Keen not to
seem too inquisitive, Anderson paused only briefly before driving
slowly back the six hundred yards into Graythorp proper. The hamlet
was even smaller than Anderson had expected, and he counted just
seven houses, plus a stone farmhouse standing by itself at the
southern edge. To the west it was all farmland, while the high bank
blocked his view to the east – a view which, according to
Anderson’s reading of the map, should be of a muddy wilderness
leading to the foam-speckled waves of a blue-grey sea.

He parked the
Renault on the grass verge opposite the farmhouse, then with trusty
camera in hand, followed on foot a narrow track as it climbed
gently up onto the grassy bank. It was only when he reached the top
that Anderson realised he was actually standing on what must have
once been the sea wall, the seaward side angling its way leisurely
down until it met the ground some twelve feet below Anderson. Four
yards wide at its apex, clothed in coarse grass and stumpy bushes,
it snaked north-south as far as the eye could see, the occasional
grey shape of a concrete pillbox lining its lonely route. At
right-angles to the old sea-wall was a narrower embankment; this
one ran straight and true, heading east for some four hundred yards
before merging with a second north-south sea wall.

To the south,
sandwiched between the two sea walls, the reclaimed land was
bursting with crops; to the north lay more farmland, broken only by
the brown brick and black tarmac that was Erdenheim.

Despite the
polite notice formally warning of the dangers of proceeding further
while advising that due reference be made to the tide tables,
Anderson chose to follow the narrow embankment east and out towards
the sea. It took him barely five minutes to reach the end of the
linking embankment to where it joined the outer sea wall. Beyond
were small ditches and wider gullies, meandering out to become an
endless expanse of dark-grey with a rare splash of muddy-green. The
air still lacked the characteristic salty taste, but the sea had to
be out there somewhere, and in the far distance was the
unmistakable outline of a ship moving ever so slowly south.

Anderson slid
down the opposite side of the bank and tested out the ground. Firm
to begin with, after some fifty yards water began to appear in his
footprints. An ominous squelch now sounded at each new step, black
evil-smelling mud sticking to his shoes like blackcurrant chewing
gum. He stopped beside one of the gullies: some three yards wide,
the sides oozed sharply down for several feet to meet a surface of
glossy-black liquid mud.

Curiosity
satisfied, Anderson retraced his steps before following the seaward
base of the outer wall as it headed north. Unable to get a reliable
signal for his mobile, he had to abandon the convenience of a map,
instead using guesswork to gauge the correct distance to bring him
level with Erdenheim. Feeling confident, he clambered his way back
up to the top of the sea wall. Erdenheim’s buildings sat away to
his right, roughly a hundred yards distant. Just below Anderson was
a wide ditch which virtually acted as a moat, various offshoots
helping protect Erdenheim on three sides; a second line of security
was provided by a six-foot high chain-link fence.

The centre’s
three buildings were roughly midway between the two sea walls,
forming a line some seventy to eighty yards long running
north-south. They weren’t in fact separate buildings at all, more a
single structure but with three distinct components, the two outer
ones single-storey twins of each other whilst the central structure
was shorter and two storeys high. With their brown brick and
darker-brown tiled roofs, the buildings seemed unlikely to win any
prizes for inspirational design, but they did appear to blend in
well with their surroundings.

Anderson sat
down on the edge of the sea wall, trying to get a feel for the
overall layout. South of the entrance road lay the tarmac car park,
half-full with some twenty vehicles including two small vans; to
the north was the large white H of the helipad. At the rear,
between the buildings and the fence, was a wide belt of grass,
interspersed with newly-planted trees and bushes.

For some
reason Anderson felt a little cheated: no guards, no frenzied
activity, nothing to make him overly suspicious. And the fence was
one an enthusiastic ten year-old could easily scale. There was some
attempt to deter intruders, primarily an alarm system, plus several
security lights and cameras; but then such precautions were hardly
out of the ordinary.

By the time he returned to the
Farriers
, Anderson was almost too
late for lunch, having followed the sea bank south to the RSPB
Reserve at Freiston Shore. He had stayed there for a good hour,
finally able to make better use of Pentax camera and zoom. He might
not have had a clue what type of bird he was photographing but
Anderson could definitely see a future for himself as a
photo-twitcher, or whatever the phrase might be, and it was
infinitely more rewarding than a one-man witch-hunt against
Erdenheim.

Stomach satisfied, Anderson sat in the lounge bar, coffee at
hand, reading through the
Daily
Telegraph’
s report on Monday’s outrage at
Domodedovo.
August 14
had quickly accepted responsibility,
their hypocrisy all-too clearly revealed as they expressed
regret for the British and American lives lost in the fight against
Russian imperialism. The total number of victims was still rising,
with 262 killed aboard the Boeing Dreamliner, almost half of them
British, some forty American. For Russia the total loss was far
greater, the list of missing and dead now well over two hundred.
The Russian authorities had also confirmed reports that a policeman
had been critically injured in a shoot-out west of the airport, one
terrorist killed, two more arrested.

Russian terrorism seemed to be a common theme of late and
Anderson returned to the enigma of Charles Zhilin’s book, needing
to understand why the Commander had thought
Red Terror
a worthwhile next
step.
Terrorism – Russia – August 14 –
Erdenheim
: Anderson thrust the thought
aside, his Walter Mitty daydreams were just getting a bit too
outrageous.

Zhilin himself had been Head of the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism
Section and a member of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism
Implementation Task Force, just the three books to his name.
The Tactics of Terror
and
The Failures of
Counter-Terrorism
had been followed in
2016 by
Red Terror, Truth and
Fiction
, it supposedly the first of two
books on Soviet-sponsored terrorism, the second one contrarily due
to cover the period 1918 to 1945.

Sadly,
Red
Terror’
s contents weren’t quite as
exciting as the garish cover had suggested, each chapter focussing
on a particular incident or country, from sabotaging power supplies
in the United Sates to the kidnapping and murder of Russia’s own
citizens. Too dry and factual for Anderson’s taste, he forced
himself to keep reading – and more importantly, keep
learning.

After an hour,
and just fifty-two pages, he finally gave up. Hope and the odd
prayer seemed to be getting Anderson absolutely nowhere.

The small
conference room always seemed particularly bland to Grebeshkov,
especially when compared with the rest of Government House, there
not even a single picture to break up the monotony of its
steel-blue painted walls. The furniture was minimal, with just one
long table and eight high-backed chairs on either side. No
wall-mounted displays with sophisticated computer graphics, no
complex map overlays, no touch screen data updates – such
technological aids were just not the Prime Minister’s way. Hence, a
sombre setting for a sombre meeting of Russia’s Counter-Terrorist
Security Committee.

Including
Grebeshkov there were seven generals seated around the table, none
of them presently in uniform. The other two committee members were
both politicians, namely the Prime Minister and the National
Security Advisor. Chaired by the Prime Minister, it was a group
with much influence but no real power, as any major decisions had
first to be ratified by the President. That said, it still meant
responsibility for all subsequent actions – or more accurately,
those actions that either failed or were deemed to have been a
mistake – would lie entirely at the door of the Prime Minister and
his eight colleagues. And, to ensure there would be no dispute as
to who said exactly what and when, their every word was recorded
both digitally and by hand via an aide.

The Prime
Minister sat directly opposite Grebeshkov: not yet fifty, he was
another of the relatively young breed of Russian politicians, it
taking him just ten years to progress from his first political
appointment as Presidential adviser to then become PM. To his left
sat the only woman on the Committee, Irina Golubeva, Russia’s
newly-promoted National Security Advisor. Tall and thin, with short
grey hair, Golubeva’s appearance belied a sharp and intelligent
mind, someone whom it would be wise to take very seriously, her
long fingers seemingly reaching out into every dark corner of
government. Entirely the President’s appointment, she reputedly was
no friend of the Prime Minister, her presence on the Committee seen
by many as the President’s way of appraising the chairman rather
than supporting him. The President and Prime Minister had once been
close, perhaps even good friends, but political necessity had
loosened that relationship, and now the Prime Minister’s future was
irrevocably tied to that of the Committee and its ability to defeat
the terrorists.

Grebeshkov had
spoken little, silently urging the Prime Minister to speed the
meeting forward. The PM was fastidious to a fault and every new
scheme or suggestion had to be thought through and discussed in
boring detail. A thick file rested on the table in front of each
committee member, its contents a compilation of reports prepared by
individual members in consultation with other relevant section
chiefs, and as usual the PM seemed determined to check every single
page. The only agenda was the one chosen by the Prime Minister as
he went along, and already over half an hour had been spent
reviewing the effectiveness of police road blocks; twenty-five
minutes wasted to Grebeshkov’s way of thinking.

Finally, the
Prime Minister moved on, turning his attention back to the
terrorists. “The date August 14 – does it in fact relate to 2008
and Georgia or is it something more obscure?”

There was a
brief silence before Grebeshkov took the initiative, the notes in
front of him already open at the relevant page. “Section 9-121
contains a summary of what has been learnt from the two terrorists
arrested after Domodedovo; overall, they are both proving to be
helpful.”

The emphasis
on the last word was subtle but hinted at how such information had
been extracted; no-one needed to ask more. Grebeshkov, as the PM’s
Special Adviser, had received a personal update on each
interrogation from a stony-faced colonel, and it was thus
Grebeshkov’s initials which appeared at the end of the relevant
report – a fact he wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

“Baranovskiy,” Grebeshkov continued, “is still wavering in
and out of consciousness but Nazarenko is relatively unhurt, just a
minor concussion from when their vehicle crashed. He claims that
the name
August 14
is merely a convenience, rather than being of any great
significance. In fact it relates to the workers’ seizure of the
Lenin shipyard in Gdansk on August 14th 1980 and the subsequent
birth of
Solidarity
, which – according to Nazarenko – ultimately led to the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
August
14
hopes to achieve the same with the
Russian Federation – just a little quicker…”