The Becket Approval by Falconer Duncan (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

head-shots and details, all Arabs. The last page froze him. It was Saleem. The name was different but it was him without doubt.

Krilov was bringing in more than drugs.

Gunnymede took photographs of everything and searched through the rest of the papers in case there was anything else. The door to the building suddenly flew open and Gunnymede saw a big man wearing thick goggles holding what looked like a large flashlight. It emitted an incredibly intense strobe light. Gunnymede immediately began to lose control of his body. He struggled to turn away but the light came at him from every angle. He closed his eyes. Bumped into a shelf. Opened them and was hit again by the strobing light. He started to suffer an epileptic fit as his knees gave way and his body convulsed violently. The man with the strobe walked over, struck Gunnymede’s head with a cosh and he dropped to the floor near unconscious.

The man switched off the powerful strobe, leaned over him and removed the heavy goggles. It was Krilov. ‘You like that? It’s British. We stole it in the seventies. Works even better underwater.’

A couple of thugs came in and dragged Gunnymede along the floor to the far end where there was a small workshop and a single metal bed without a mattress which they unceremoniously dumped him onto.

Krilov inspected him. ‘Now we have some fun.’

 

 

Chapter 21

Bethan walked through the underground car park to her car, climbed in behind the wheel and sat in thought. She brought up Gunnymede’s number on her phone and hit the call button. It went straight to an electronic voice.

She took another moment to consider things then keyed in another number. This one picked up.

‘Bethan,’ a man answered.

‘Hi, Jordan.’

Jordan was pure geek, a junk-food specialist, sunshine averse and in dire need of professional wardrobe advice from any nation. He was sitting in a swivel chair inside his usual and most preferred habitat which was a windowless, air-conditioned room filled with ultra-modern technology that only the most advanced of nations could afford. He didn’t use a phone, he was way beyond them. Bethan’s voice, which filled the room, brought a smile to his pasty face.

‘You’re finally calling to ask me to dinner. How nice.’

‘I’m still considering your marriage proposal. Please don’t think I’ve forgotten.’

‘Don’t take too long or someone else is going to snap me up. What do you need?’

‘A track.’

He glanced at a spreadsheet on a monitor. ‘When did you put in the request?’

‘I didn’t. There’s no paperwork with this one.’

‘I didn’t know you did naughty.’

‘It’s a friend. I’m worried about him.’

‘Competition?’

‘Hardly.’

‘Send me the number.’

Bethan messaged it to him and he copied it to a tracking system.

‘You want history or current?’ he asked.

‘Current.’

‘History’s interesting.’

‘What’s interesting?’

‘The SIM began life a few weeks ago in London. A visit to Russia. Starts in the middle of nowhere before departing Volgograd airport. Currently static north west of Winchester for fifty-seven minutes.’

He touched a key and pulled on his headphones. ‘You want to hear the audio? It’s more interesting than the history?’

‘Okay.’

A series of male screams followed by shouting.

‘Sounds Russian,’ Jordan said.

‘Shit! He’s killing him.’

‘Who’s killing who?’

Bethan started the engine and screeched out of her parking spot towards the exit. ‘Can you send me a fix?’

‘On its way.’

Within seconds she was on a main road and heading towards the M3. Gunnymede’s coordinates came up and a tap transferred them to her GPS. The congestion frustrated her. She hit the emergency switch and the emergency lights came to life.

Gunnymede screamed as his body went rigid on the springs of the metal bed, his hands and feet secured by plasticuffs, his shirt removed and trousers pulled up to his knees. One of Krilov’s thugs, Ashio, a large fellow wearing a gas-mask and thick rubber gloves, stood over Gunnymede holding a sophisticated, modified liquid dispenser, a fine green florescent fluid not unlike anti-freeze dripping from a nozzle.

Krilov watched from the comfort of a tattered armchair a few feet away while he played with Gunnymede’s phone. ‘Choba,’ he said, ordering Ashio to repeat the treatment.

Ashio sprayed Gunnymede’s shins with the liquid that seemed to glow momentarily on contact with air. It immediately bubbled and Gunnymede screamed uncontrollably once again as his entire body tensed, his veins bulging under his skin. As the bubbling reduced, so did the pain and Gunnymede’s body gradually relaxed leaving him panting for air.

‘Explain to me something,’ Krilov said. ‘You have no identification and your credit card is assigned to anonymous.’

Gunnymede could do little else but breathe hard, his body drenched in sweat.

‘That doesn’t look like the credit card of a cop or anyone normal in fact. Open your phone for me.’

Gunnymede ignored him.

‘Please. Open it.’ Krilov sighed and gave his man a nod who responded by generously spraying Gunnymede’s legs again.

Gunnymede screamed, even louder than the previous time, the veins on his throat close to bursting.

‘We can do this all night if you want,’ Krilov said. ‘Open the phone and I’ll give you a break.’

Gunnymede held up a shaking forth finger on his right hand. Krilov leaned forward and let the finger touch the phone, activating it and then sat back to explored the various apps.

‘The only time I’ve seen a phone as sanitised as this was in the GRU. Nice software. Very practical for someone who works for military intelligence. Is that what you do?’

Gunnymede blinked heavily as the sweat ran into his eyes.

Krilov nodded to Ashio who sprayed Gunnymede again. Gunnymede screamed in utter agony as soon as the liquid touched his skin. His body arched on the bedsprings, his mouth wide open. The green substance bubbled, dripping onto the floor where a whiff of mist floated