Manhunter by Chris Ryan (the false prince series .TXT) 📗

it looked like a steel container. Six metres long and three wide, with corrugated metal sides. The kind of thing you saw stacked up on transport ships or freight trains. A metal door had been fitted to one of the longer panels, Bowman noted.

‘We call it the Shed,’ Mallet added. ‘It’s fully soundproofed and screened for bugs. That’s where we have our briefings.’

Bowman looked round in amazement. ‘How long has all this stuff been down here?’

‘Nine years. Since we first created the Cell.’

‘How many guys on the team?’

‘Six, including myself,’ said Mallet. ‘You’re the seventh. Two of the lads are on another job right now. Overseas posting.’

Bowman barely heard him. He was buzzing with adrenaline. The tiredness he’d felt earlier that evening was a distant memory now. An hour ago, he had been sitting in his crappy hotel room, watching TV. Now he was being drafted in for an urgent mission with the Cell. Something big was about to go down, Bowman sensed. And he was going to be right in the thick of the action.

That’s exactly where I want to be.

Mallet said, ‘Drop your stuff off at the bunks. Then meet me in the Shed. I want to show you something.’

He started towards the Shed. Bowman beat a path across the room, dumped his holdall on one of the empty beds. Then he hurried over to the soundproofed room and stepped inside.

There was a boardroom table in the middle of the Shed, with eight chairs arranged around it and a conference speakerphone in the centre. Wires snaked through the square cut-out, leading to unseen plug sockets and modems beneath the table. The walls were covered in eggcrate-patterned foam tiles. Soundproofing. Bowman had seen it before, in MI6 safe houses elsewhere in the city.

Mallet was standing in front of a large display board against the back wall. The board was covered in postcard-sized photographs, linked to one another with lengths of red string. Bowman saw a picture of a palatial mansion overlooking a bay, an exterior shot of a gleaming apartment block. A photo of Ken Seguma, along with some other faces he vaguely recognised. Members of the president’s family.

In the middle of the board was a snap of David Lang.

Bowman drew up alongside Mallet and took a closer look at the photo. It appeared to have been taken at some sort of party. A private gathering. Lang sat at a table, between a couple of burly guys in dark suits, a bottle of wine in front of them. The two stocky guys were smiling as they posed for the camera. But not David Lang.

He looked almost identical to his twin brother. He was slimmer than Freddie, lean-hipped and slender, and his hair was sprinkled with grey. But he had the same arched eyebrows as Freddie. The same thin lips and cruel, cold eyes. He was smartly dressed in a linen jacket; the top two buttons on his shirt were popped, revealing a tuft of chest hair and a gold chain as thick as a hanging rope. On his left wrist he wore a chunky watch with a spider on the dial. Bowman had seen that model before. The Russian president owned the same one. He remembered reading about it somewhere. A limited-edition model, costing almost half a million quid.

He turned to Mallet and jabbed a finger at the pinboard. ‘Is that who we’re arresting? David Lang?’

There was a menacing glint in Mallet’s eyes. A smile cut like a machete across his lips. ‘I told you we’d be fighting mobsters, laddie. Lang’s the target, all right. We’ve had eyes on him for a while.’

‘What’s the plan?’

‘We’re going to head to Monte Carlo,’ Mallet said. ‘This morning. A few hours from now. Then we’re going to snatch Lang and make him an offer he can’t refuse.’

Ten

Silence hung heavy in the air for a beat. Bowman scrutinised the faces on the pinboard, his head spinning. His exhausted mind was struggling to process what was going on. He looked round at Mallet.

‘You knew about the meeting in Monaco? With the Russians?’

Mallet dipped a hand into his jacket pocket, took out a packet of nicotine gum. ‘No smoking in the basement,’ he said. ‘Health and safety.’

He pushed out a piece of gum from the foil pack, popped it into his mouth.

‘We knew some of the details,’ he continued. ‘The basic facts of the meeting. But we didn’t know about President Seguma’s involvement, or the trap the Russians have been planning. Now we do. Thanks to you.’

‘What’s Lang doing out there?’

Mallet chewed loudly as he indicated two other photos pinned to the fabric board. The guy on the left was puffy-faced and balding, with heavily lidded eyes and wispy beard. The pale face on the right had a pointed nose, eyes like bullet holes in a paper target.

‘Lang is due to meet two Russian nationals,’ Mallet explained. ‘Today. Eight hours from now. One of the attendees is Alexei Bezuglov, the Russian ambassador to Monaco.’

He tapped a finger against the picture of the bald guy with the wispy beard.

‘The other is this man,’ he added. ‘Sergei Galkin.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘You wouldn’t. Galkin is one of the original oligarchs. Late nineties moneyman. Part of the president’s inner circle, back when he was mayor of St Petersburg. Keeps a low profile. He’s the Kremlin’s Mr Fix-It. When they need to make something happen, Galkin is the guy they bring in.’

‘Any idea what this meeting is about?’

‘Six has got a few ideas. They reckon Lang is fixing to make some sort of deal with the Kremlin behind our backs.’

‘What kind of deal?’ asked Bowman.

‘Pressuring him into changing allegiance, maybe. But we don’t know for sure. That’s why we’re going in. To find out what the bastard is up to.’

‘Lang is playing in the big boys’ league now, isn’t he?’

Mallet laughed. ‘He’s come a long way from breaking legs in dodgy East End boozers. That’s for sure.’

‘Where’s the meeting?’

‘At Galkin’s mansion, down the coast in Antibes. Lang is