Eternal Empire (12 page)

“I
tried to stop him,” Asthana said calmly, with only the hint of a tremor. “I glanced away for a second, and by the time I saw what he was doing, it was too late. His hand was in his mouth. I tore the amulet away, but by then, he had collapsed. I called for help, then went back to try to revive him.”

Wolfe turned to Cornwall. “The facts speak for themselves. There's nothing more she could have done.”

“I agree,” Cornwall said. “But I'm afraid that isn't the real question here.”

They were seated together in Cornwall's office. In an hour, Asthana was scheduled to give a preliminary deposition in the inquest into Rogozin's death. For the last twenty minutes, they had been reviewing the events of the day before, which had happened with such unexpected, almost ludicrous finality that Wolfe still had trouble believing that they had taken place at all.

Cornwall, too, seemed to have a hard time accepting this, returning more than once to the same few points. “I still don't understand why you brought the amulet. The coroner will wonder about this as well.”

“I've already told you,” Asthana said, a note of weariness entering her voice for the first time. “Rogozin had mentioned it earlier to Wolfe, and I knew he'd been sketching it in his cell. I thought if I brought it, it might tempt him to talk. It was clearly important to him.”

“Well, now we know why,” Cornwall said. “And he said nothing before his death?”

Asthana shook her head. “I told him we'd discovered Garber's body and that we knew he had an informant inside the agency. But he refused to answer any of my questions. The only time he opened up was when I showed him the amulet. He said it was a way of warding off evil. Now I know what he meant.”

Taking a deep breath, Asthana began to speak more slowly, choosing her words with evident care. “I'm willing to take full responsibility. I broke procedure by visiting him alone and without recording the interview. It was my mistake. And I'm prepared to accept the consequences.”

Cornwall fell silent for a moment. Wolfe could see her working through the situation in her head. Finally, she said, “Well, there's one silver lining. We've removed all doubt about Rogozin's guilt. And we've been lucky in another way. As of now, the press simply doesn't care.”

Wolfe knew what she meant. At the moment, no one could think of anything but the riots that had raged throughout the city in response to Mark Duggan's death. The national consciousness had been seared by images of mobs of looters, of police with shields and dogs, of smashed windows and burning shops. More than thirty officers had been injured and two hundred arrests had been made, and it seemed that they were nowhere near the end.

She had sensed the difference as soon as she awoke that morning. Even through her own shock over what had happened to Rogozin, she could tell that the city was on edge. Police had been deployed to Tottenham and other potential trouble zones, with Islington and Stoke Newington on lockdown. Rogozin was yesterday's news. As far as she knew, his death, which a week before might have been the lead story, had been reported only on the inside pages.

Cornwall spoke again, breaking into her thoughts. She was looking at Asthana with mingled coldness and pity. “All the same, I have no choice but to suspend you from the investigation, pending the outcome of the inquest. In any case, I know you have a holiday coming up soon. Where are you going again?”

Asthana smiled weakly. “We're supposed to spend two weeks in Marmaris.”

“Well, then. You'll have a chance to get away from all this. And I want you to go home after the deposition. We can discuss the rest tomorrow.” Cornwall's tone softened. “Maya, we all wish this had happened at some other time. But we'll get through it in the end.”

Asthana only gave a short nod. As the two officers rose to leave, Cornwall spoke up again. “Wolfe, please stay for a moment.”

Wolfe had a good idea what the deputy director wanted, but she said nothing. Walking her partner to the door, she gave Asthana's hand a quick squeeze, then whispered, “You know, I've decided to ask Lewis to the wedding. I hope you still have a place at the table—”

Asthana managed to smile at this, although her eyes retained a sheen of sadness. “Of course. I'll let them know.”

She left. Wolfe shut the door gently. “Asthana didn't deserve any of this.”

“None of us do,” Cornwall said. “In her case, it will turn out well enough. The coroner isn't known for moving quickly, but it's clearly a category two suicide. But this isn't what I wanted to talk about. I'm told that you went to see Ilya Severin without permission.”

As Wolfe sat down, she saw that there was no point in explaining her reasons. “Yes. But I was turned away by Owen Dancy. I still don't know why Ilya would agree to be represented by Vasylenko's solicitor.”

“I wondered about this as well,” Cornwall said. “So did the Crown prosecutor. I just got off the phone with the sector director. It appears that Ilya is attending a hearing this morning. The rumor is that he's going to change his plea to guilty and offer to cooperate with the authorities.”

Wolfe couldn't believe her ears. “That's ridiculous. He's refused to talk for months. And Dancy has no incentive to help him work with the police. His testimony could only implicate Vasylenko.”

“I know. Dancy is playing a longer game. And that's what concerns me. Vasylenko's appeal is being held today as well. It's hard to think of a strategy that could benefit both men.”

Wolfe heard the implied question in her words. “But even if Dancy is using Ilya for something else, Ilya wouldn't work with them without a good reason. If you want, I can pay him another visit—”

“No,” Cornwall said at once. “That will only complicate things. If the rumors are true, you'll need to clear everything through the Met in the future. Ilya is their witness now. Are we clear?”

“Clear enough,” Wolfe said. After being dismissed, she rose and left the office. Outside, the floor was nearly full. Everyone had come in early, waiting, like the rest of the city, for whatever the morning would bring.

When she returned to her cubicle, Asthana was nowhere in sight. Wolfe sat down, trying to put her thoughts into some kind of order. She couldn't understand it. Ilya had refused for so long to say anything about his past, and now, suddenly, he had decided to cooperate with the Met. And although she didn't want to admit it, part of her felt hurt by his decision, as if he had owed her something more.

As she brooded over this, something else occurred to her. Turning to her computer, she called up the day's case listings, confirming that Ilya was scheduled to appear at a mention hearing at the Central Criminal Court.

Meanwhile, at the Royal Courts of Justice, Vasylenko was slated for his own appeal this morning as well.

Something about this second appeal had troubled her for some time. Dancy had waited well over a year to file an appeal that had almost no chance of being granted. Ilya's court appearance, by contrast, had been strangely rushed. And it seemed especially odd to schedule two crucial hearings for the same day—

Wolfe began to feel uneasy. Before she knew what she was doing, she had taken out her phone to dial the main line at Belmarsh. After getting through, she asked for the receiving officer, who answered immediately. “Yes?”

She briefly explained who she was, sensing that the officer was not particularly interested, then asked, “Are today's transports gone?”

“Right on schedule,” the officer said. “The van left about twenty minutes ago.”

“Just one van?” Her uneasiness, which had begun as a tingle at the nape of her neck, was spreading outward. “There aren't any others?”

“Not these days. One van for two courts. Saves an extra trip. Cutbacks, you know—”

Wolfe broke in. “Listen, can you do me a favor? I need to know if two prisoners were on the transport van that left this morning. Their names are Ilya Severin and Grigory Vasylenko.”

“Hold on,” the officer said irritably. There was a pause before he spoke again. “Yes, they're on the list.”

Wolfe thanked him and hung up. She sat at her desk for another moment, thinking. Both Ilya and Vasylenko had left the prison at the same time that morning, on the same van, on a day when the police were already stretched dangerously thin. She thought back to Cornwall's words from a moment ago. Dancy, she had said, had to be playing another game—

A terrible possibility began to gather in her mind. Before she could give it a name, Wolfe found herself rising from her desk, sending her chair rolling backward. She picked up her coat and keys, then headed for the elevator, already dialing the prison again. Halfway across the floor, she broke into a run.

T
he man behind the wheel of the prison van was an officer named Andrew Ferris, who had worked for the security company for close to eight years. He had risen that morning in Plumstead feeling wary, given the events of the night before. After seeing the images on the news, he had been tempted to call in sick, but when he finally left home, the city had seemed fairly quiet.

All the same, he had been glad for the two additional guards, especially when he saw the burning bus lying across the highway. The sight had sent a pang of apprehension through his ample body, but in the end, it had turned out to be a minor inconvenience, forcing him only to take a detour along Little Heath.

At the moment, he was driving alongside the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich. To his left ran a green fence topped with barbed wire, and beyond that, a row of trees. A brick housing block stood to the other side. Ferris was seated in the cab of the van, a partition separating him from the inmates in the rear, the prisoner escort stationed in the passenger seat beside him.

For most of the drive, inevitably, the two men had talked about the riots. “Police are just standing by,” the prisoner escort was saying. “Can't bloody blame them, though, with the budget slashed all to hell. I wouldn't get my head broken over a few boxes of trainers.”

Ferris only gave a noncommittal nod. Beyond the intersection, the road narrowed. They went past a wooded training ground, set off from the street by a brick wall, and as they drove by a vacant lot, neither man noticed the three vans, two white, one blue, that pulled into the road to follow.

“Of course, nobody gives a toss for the dead man,” the escort continued after a moment. “They're just glad for the excuse to steal. Animals with cell phones. Posting pictures online for all to see—”

He broke off as the blue van, which had been tailing them, accelerated to pass and abruptly cut ahead. A second later, it halted without warning. Ferris slammed on the brakes, narrowly avoiding a crash, as he and the escort were caught by their seat belts, swearing in unison.

To his right, a white panel van pulled up alongside the prison transport, screeching to a standstill. In his rearview mirror, Ferris saw an identical vehicle come up close behind, then saw the blue van reverse to within a few feet of their front bumper, pinning them in place.

Ferris looked to either side, panicked. Vehicles were blocking his way on three sides. On the fourth, a brick boundary wall lay between him and the woods. He was stuck. And it was only now, as he began to grasp the situation, that he really understood the predicament he was in.

The dented rear doors of the blue van flew open and two men holding shotguns slid out, their faces covered by white surgical masks. The one in front spoke loudly enough to be heard through the window: “Hands in the air, please.”

While the other figure kept his shotgun trained at the windshield, the first man came around to the driver's side. Ferris, hands raised, risked a glance down at the radio console on the dashboard, then thought of the guards in the back of the transport van. He wanted to turn his head, but he didn't dare.

The man at the driver's door pointed his gun at Ferris's head. Above his mask, his eyes were narrow but startlingly blue. “Roll the window down, turn the engine off, and take out the keys.”

Ferris obliged, his hands trembling. Once the keys were out, the gunman asked for their radios and cell phones, taking them one at a time and lobbing them over the wall of the training ground. “How many guards?”

“Two,” Ferris managed to say, his mouth dry. “They don't have any guns.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three more masked figures come running around to the front of the prison van. One of them dropped out of sight, an industrial cutter in his hands. Ferris heard him get to work underneath the vehicle and realized that he was slashing the brake and power cables.

He heard a metallic clang. Turning, he saw that two of the men who had just appeared were attaching a series of objects to the hood and driver's door with magnets. They were green, round, and about ten inches across, and with a watery rush of fear, Ferris recognized them as limpet mines.

Slinging the shotgun over his shoulder, the man on the driver's side pulled a radio remote from his back pocket and raised the aerial. “You know how this works. We'll blow up the van if you don't do exactly what we say. First, I want the keys for the sweatboxes.”

The prisoner escort, who had remained silent throughout all that had happened, found his voice at last. “Go to hell.”

Instead of responding, the man glanced over at someone who was standing just out of sight, as if to confirm that all was in place, and nodded. Then he pressed the button of the detonator.

Later, residents in the area would say that they had heard the explosion but assumed it was part of an exercise, since they were used to the sound of ordnance from drills at the barracks nearby. In fact, the remote set off a limpet mine that had been attached to the back door of the van a few seconds earlier, blowing the door off its hinges and rocking the vehicle on its frame.

Inside the rear of the van, the inmates were shouting. Ilya, who had undone his shackles and handcuffs long before, had been counting the seconds since the van halted. From outside, he heard more shouts as the guards inside the van were ordered out. He saw them file past his cubicle, their hands raised. A few seconds passed. And then the chain of his door was drawn back.

A moment later, the door swung open, revealing a figure in a surgical mask. Ilya came out at once and followed the man without a word to another cubicle. The masked figure, who was holding a shotgun and a bunch of keys, unfastened the chain and unlocked this door as well.

Vasylenko was seated inside, his eyes bright. Without being told, Ilya lowered himself to one knee and began examining the shackles around the
vor
's legs. The man in the mask whispered tensely, “Come on, hurry up—”

Ilya ignored him, getting to work on the cuff around Vasylenko's right ankle. It was easier this time, since he knew the insides of these locks by now, and the shackle snapped open almost at once.

“Never mind the other,” the man in the mask said. “Save it for Mare Street.”

Vasylenko shot him a look but said nothing as Ilya undid his handcuffs. Then the
vor
rose and went with Ilya toward the rear doors of the van, the loose chain of his leg irons trailing behind him. The man in the mask handed him a mobile phone, then went to open the remaining cubicles.

Ilya and Vasylenko climbed down from the van. Outside, the driver and guards were kneeling in the street, hands bound behind them with plastic cuffs, a man with a shotgun keeping watch. Up ahead, another man in a yellow traffic vest, his face cheerful, was handling crowd control, facing the line of honking cars in the lane behind them, the vans blocking the scene from view.

Hearing movement, Ilya turned to see the remaining prisoners climbing out of the van one by one, their mouths hanging open at the sight. Vasylenko spoke quietly. “This is your lucky day. If you like, you can turn yourselves in at the Woolwich police station. You'll find it ten minutes back the way we came. Or you can run. The police, it seems, have other things on their minds.”

The prisoners appeared to get the message. Scattering in all directions, they shuffled away, their shackles ringing against the pavement as they ran. Vasylenko turned to study the officers kneeling on the ground. Finally, he gave a signal to the man standing watch, who yanked Andrew Ferris to his feet. The gunman hauled Ferris around to the blue van and shoved him inside, followed by Vasylenko and the others, a driver already behind the wheel.

Ilya was the last to climb in. He found himself seated across from Vasylenko, eye to eye with the
vor
, as the doors of the van swung shut. Faintly, in the distance, he heard sirens.

As they pulled into the road, the man holding the detonator slid its range switch to a new setting and pressed the button again. Through the rear window, Ilya saw the prison van and the other vehicles explode into orange blossoms of flame. Then he turned back to Vasylenko as they roared off into the waiting city.