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  Yuri completed his move, his hand reappearing holding a small oblong of clear plastic, a standard case containing a coloured object that Richter recognised immediately as an SD card. The Russian stood up, took a couple of steps forward and placed it on the end of the bed.

  ‘Anything we should know about that?’ Richter asked.

  ‘I’m not aware of what’s on it,’ Yuri said, ‘but I’m told it’s self-explanatory and obviously encrypted. You’ll receive the unlock code through a different channel. I was also told that when they view the contents your masters will know what to do with the data. And now I need to get going. It’s been a long time since I was here in De Wallen with money in my pocket and time on my hands. There are a couple of girls at the other end of this street that I’d like to spend an hour or so with. Unless you really are on the market,’ he added hopefully, looking at Tash.

  ‘In your dreams,’ she replied, still aiming the Smith in his general direction.

  Seconds later, the door closed behind him.

  Richter watched from the window, pulling back the curtain about half an inch, as the Russian walked away. Then he picked up the case containing the SD card, looked at it for a few seconds and then zipped it into one of his own jacket pockets.

  ‘Is that it?’ Tash demanded, putting the revolver down on the bedside table. ‘Just one bloody SD card?’

  Richter shook his head.

  ‘Just like you, I had no idea what the information was going to be,’ he said. ‘All we were told was that it was of vital importance to Britain to understand something, and that the messenger would provide the proof of whatever that something was. I presume it was too sensitive to just send it by mail, and there’s no way your people or mine would allow the Russians to download something onto one of our servers.’

  ‘Yuri mentioned The Aquarium. Presumably that means he’s GRU, or GU as it’s now known, and he’s based at Khodinka?’

  ‘I don’t know him,’ Richter said, ‘but that’s my guess, yes. And I do have a contact at a fairly high level in the GU, so I’m guessing that whatever data is on the SD card is kosher, and important.’

  Tash still looked irritated.

  ‘So whose brilliant idea was it that I should spend a week pretending to be a hooker at the bottom end of the market here in Amsterdam?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ Richter said immediately. ‘But I suppose arranging a meeting in a whore’s bedroom – no offence, Tash – at least meant that nobody would be able to see or hear what was done or said, so that does make sense. And you could say no to all the greasy little vermin who popped up outside the door wanting a good time for fifty euros. It wasn’t like you were actually trying to earn a living here. As a working girl, I mean.’

  ‘I know, and I did say no, most of the time.’

  ‘“Most of the time”?’ Richter echoed.

  Tash nodded.

  ‘I get bored easily and sitting on that bloody stool all afternoon and evening reading a book isn’t actually my idea of a good time. So I did say yes to a couple of more-or-less fit guys, just to kind of break the monotony. And I figured I’d need to accommodate the odd punter just to blend in. All the girls here watch each other, you know, and if you don’t get any clients, you don’t make any money, and there was no way I could pass for a hooker unless I acted like one. So I kind of hooked, if that’s the right word.’

  ‘Well, at least you can pack your bags and get out of here now,’ Richter said. ‘I’ve got the SD card and that means the op is over.’

  ‘When are you flying back?’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon, I suppose. I’ve got to return the weapon to the consulate here, and I guess you’ve got to do the same with that revolver.’

  Tash nodded.

  ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ she said. ‘I’ve been existing on sandwiches and takeaways since I got here, so as we’re both free tonight, why don’t we treat ourselves to a decent meal? Or to be exact, why don’t you treat me to a decent meal? After all, I was watching your back while Yuri was here.’

  ‘No problem,’ Richter said. ‘Is that the deal?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Tash replied. ‘I’ve been living here in this sodding basic knocking shop for over a week. When I walk out of here I don’t want to come back. I presume you’ve got a hotel booked somewhere, so once we’ve eaten you’ll have to squeeze me into your room for the night. If that’s okay? Maybe there’s a sofa or something in the room? Or a spare bed?’

  Richter shook his head.

  ‘My expenses are cut to the bone, thanks to my boss, so all I’ve got is a double bed, one chair and a TV set bolted to the wall, plus a really small en suite shower room. But,’ he added after a moment, ‘I’m sure we can work something out.’

  ‘Works for me,’ Tash said.

  She grinned at him and dragged a small suitcase out from under the bed. Then she dropped her knickers, pulled the nightie over her head, stood there stark naked for a few seconds, then clicked open the suitcase and began putting on fresh clothes.

  Richter watched her carefully, taking mental notes and recording images in his mind.

  ‘Works for me, too,’ he muttered.

  Chapter 2

  Khasab, Oman

  Saturday

  To a casual visitor or a tourist, the port of Khasab at the northern end of the Musandam Peninsula – an exclave of Oman bordered to the south by the United Arab Emirates that had remained largely cut off from Oman and everywhere else until the recent construction of a new coast road – probably looked like almost any other port in the country, or in fact in the region. There were a few hotels and restaurants and cafes and a fairly limited range of shops to cater for visitors to the town, though it was not a major tourist destination like Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Muscat. The harbour was bustling and busy, open boats zipping back-and-forth carrying bags and boxes and bales filled with unidentified products, while other larger vessels, most of them traditional dhows, brown hulled and opulently decorated, their open decks covered with canvas awnings to provide a measure of shade to the people on board, proceeded in a slower and more stately manner.

  These were the tourist boats, their cargoes pale-skinned and sweating Europeans on the rare occasions when a cruise ship visited Khasab, but more often chattering families of Arabs, from both Oman and the UAE located further south on the peninsula, all taking a trip to see the Musandam Fjords. Although the resemblance to the dramatic fjordland on Norway’s Atlantic coast is somewhat tenuous, the inlets in the white limestone cliffs, backed by the majestic Hajar Mountains and lapped by the calm turquoise waters of the Strait of Hormuz, are a sufficiently unusual sight to have earned the region the nickname the ‘Norway of Arabia’.

  As well as the fjords, the boats also convey tourists to look at the ruined buildings on Telegraph Island, where British engineers built a telegraph repeater station in the 1860s as part of the cable that ran from India to Basra in Iraq. And where it was so hot and so unpleasant to work that folklore claims the expression ‘to go round the bend’ was first coined. This was at first a spoken wish to sail around the top of the peninsula, to go ‘round the bend’ and into the Gulf of Oman to head somewhere cooler and more civilised, but over time the expression morphed into meaning to be driven mad, the insanity being produced by the incessant heat from which there was no escape. There are other explanations for the expression, but that was the one favoured by the local tour guides.

  As always, first impressions are only rarely accurate. A visitor to Khasab who did anything more than look at the activity in the harbour and perhaps snap a few pictures with a camera or more likely use his or her mobile phone to capture some colourful images, a person who took the time to see what was actually happening rather than just looking at what was in front of them, would quickly notice something rather odd. Not about the dhows, because they were doing exactly what they appeared to be doing, just taking tourists around the local sights, but about the open boats carrying different cargoes.

&nbs
p; What they were doing would depend, strangely, not upon whether or not they were loaded or empty, but upon the time of day, because the activities of the crews of these vessels were almost entirely governed by external factors over which they had no control.

  An observer watching the harbour for an entire day would first see the boats arriving, usually in the early morning but always after sunrise, approaching Khasab from the north and carrying a cargo that would probably be unexpected: mainly live sheep and live goats. These animals would be unloaded in the harbour where there were three jetties used exclusively by the crews of these boats, backed by a parking area under an awning that protected the vehicles left there from the worst of the heat of the sun. The animals would be transferred into lorries and driven away, the vehicles eventually travelling along the coast road that leads to the United Arab Emirates.

  During the day other trucks would arrive in the harbour and park behind the jetties. They would be loaded with boxes and cartons and packages, most of them unmarked, but some whose contents could perhaps be guessed from the shape of the box or covering, and from the way that the lorry drivers and boatman handled them. Many of these anonymous boxes contained cartons of cigarettes, bulky but lightweight and valuable goods, while the heavier boxes held various types of expensive electronic equipment, principally computers and tablets, mobile phones and cameras, but occasionally a large oblong box hinted at the size of the flat-screen television it contained.

  The other obvious peculiarity about the harbour scene at Khasab was that even when the open boats – almost all of them rugged fibreglass hulls about twenty feet or so in length and powered by one or more powerful outboard engines – were loaded and ready to depart, none of them did once the sun had set. Instead, the crews – usually only two or three men – would remain on board their vessels relaxing and trying to get some sleep.

  And the reason for all this inactivity was that the trade being followed by the primarily Iranian crews of these vessels was smuggling between Oman and Iran, and they were taking advantage of a convenient loophole in Omani law. The sheep and goats were exported from Iran and legally imported into Oman, the animals destined for the tables of restaurants and the meat markets in the United Arab Emirates or even in Saudi Arabia. The cigarettes and electronic goods were legal exports from Oman, purchased from retailers or wholesalers but destined to be sold on the Iranian black market.

  None of which was illegal under Omani legislation, subject only to two conditions: the boats were required to arrive in Khasab after sunrise, and to leave the port before sunset, night-time arrivals or departures not being permitted. But the trade being followed by the smugglers, who were known locally as ‘shooties,’ was completely illegal under Iranian law. And it wasn’t just the law of their country that was a problem.

  The Strait of Hormuz is one of the busiest stretches of water in the world because of the large numbers of oil tankers that pass through it on a daily basis, heading into and out of the oil-rich Gulf states, all of which the smugglers had to avoid while they navigated across almost seventy miles of sea without lights or radar or even much in the way of navigational instruments or charts towards Bandar Abbas, their principal destination port in Iran. And waiting for them off the Iranian coast every night would be at least one and probably several armed coastguard and other official vessels operated by the Iranian government, which would be quite likely to open fire on them without warning.

  And if that wasn’t enough, because of the hazardous profession being followed by the shooties, and the likelihood of them either smashing into the side of a laden oil tanker because they’d seen it too late to avoid it or getting blown out of the water by gunfire from an Iranian patrol boat, they tended to load as much cargo onto their vessels as they possibly could, so that each successful run across the Strait of Hormuz would bring in the maximum possible profit. But the downside was that the overloading of the boats made them much less manoeuvrable and more vulnerable than they should be and made it more likely that they would not complete their voyages successfully.

  There was no sign of the trade disappearing because demand for their smuggled goods in Iran was not just constant but increasing significantly, entirely due to the imposition of additional sanctions against the country by the United States and other nations. This had, somewhat bizarrely, led to a slight relaxation in the anti-smuggling activities of the Iranian authorities, because people in positions of power in Iran wanted the newest phones and the newest cameras and the newest tablets and the newest computers just as much as the ordinary citizens of that economically isolated country.

  As a result, many of the officers and men on board the Coast Guard cutters and other vessels had become quite adept at using their radar and their eyes to look out for the shooties heading back towards the secluded beaches and coves around the port of Bandar Abbas, and even more adept at somehow not quite being able to see them in time to stop the vessels. It was situation that seemed to suit all the parties involved fairly well.

  Chapter 3

  Salisbury, Wiltshire

  Saturday

  A little after nine forty in the morning, a mid-grey, mid-range, and almost middle-aged Ford saloon nosed its way somewhat uncertainly into a newish housing estate on the western outskirts of Salisbury.

  Almost as soon as the vehicle had left the main road, the driver, who in many ways resembled the vehicle he was in charge of, being both greyish and middle-aged, drew the car to a halt and looked closely at the screen of the satnav attached by a sucker mount to the windscreen to the right of the steering wheel, the power lead running untidily across the dashboard and terminating in the cigarette lighter socket. At the top of the small screen were a couple of virtual buttons labelled with plus and minus signs, and the driver tapped the minus sign twice, expanding the screen display to show more of the tangled network of roads in front of him.

  The problem he had was that the satnav was old and he had ignored the messages the unit generated on an irritatingly frequent basis telling him that the map badly needed to be updated. For an occasional and, more than occasionally, incompetent, driver the unit had worked well enough, providing accurate directions to most of the destinations the man had selected. But the housing estate was so new that, even if the latest available map update had been installed, the street the driver was looking for would probably still not have been included.

  So he already knew that the road he was looking for would not be shown but the good news was that Google maps did possess enough detail. Google had inexorably become the font of all knowledge and wisdom for most of the population of the world, and the newly-minted verb ‘to Google’ was passing easily into everyday conversation.

  The driver switched on the Ford’s hazard flashers so that the driver of any other vehicle approaching him would realise the car was stationary and pulled a sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket. He unfolded it to reveal a printed map that his laser printer at home had spat out the previous night and held it up beside the satnav display. Every street displayed on the satnav’s screen was also printed on the sheet of A4 paper, along with about a dozen that were not. One of these had been indicated by yellow highlighter, and it only took a minute or so for the driver to identify the streets he would need to drive down in order to reach his destination.

  ‘Easy enough,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Along this road to the end. At the T-junction I turn right, take the second left, then the first right and then the first right again. Right, second left, first right, first right.’

  He dropped the paper on the seat beside him, angling it so that he could glance at it while he was driving, then put the car into gear and lifted his foot off the clutch. The sudden blare of a horn from close behind him caused him to stamp on the brake as a small Vauxhall, painted a notably hideous shade of yellow and with flared arches covering unnaturally wide wheels and tyres, swept past him, far too close and far too fast. He caught a brief glimpse of the driver, a clearly young male with particularly
prominent ears, their appearance emphasised by the ‘fashionable’ haircut the youth affected, the lower part of his head shaved almost bald to leave what amounted to a prominent and rounded bird’s nest arrangement on the top of his skull. From behind, the combined effect looked something like a giant erect circumcised penis, which made the driver’s verbal response to the young man not only predictable but also visually accurate.

  ‘Dickhead,’ he muttered.

  This time, he checked the rear-view mirror before he pulled away from the kerb, making sure that the road behind him was clear. As he shifted up into second gear, he became aware of a ticking sound coming from the dashboard. He realised that the hazard flashers were still working and switched them off.

  Charles Vernon was not a natural driver and never felt comfortable behind the wheel, a sensation almost invariably shared by all of his infrequent passengers.

  He saw no other vehicles driving around the estate as he worked his way towards his destination, though there were cars and the occasional van and motorcycle parked in the short driveways or, just as commonly, on the street in front of the houses, sometimes partly on the pavement. Vernon wondered briefly, as he weaved his way through the greatly reduced width of the road between two cars parked against opposite pavements, why their owners didn’t park their vehicles in the garages of the houses, but the simple reason was that in most cases they couldn’t.

  The estate had been built down to a price rather than up to a specification, and wherever the builders had identified the merest hint of a corner, they had immediately done their best to cut it. The garages appeared to be the normal size but could in fact accommodate only the very smallest vehicles on the road. It looked as if the architects had assumed that all the property owners were still driving original Austin Sevens or the like.