The Abigail Affair (20 page)

“That’s Chef. Bernadetto. He does a wicked-looking tiramisu. I never got to try it, though.”

“If I may continue?—and two passengers, namely Krigov and Spiegl.” Smithers took his hands off the paper, which immediately curled itself up into a tube. “You apparently weren’t aboard when the ship sailed. So how did you end up in that fishing boat? And how did you murder the white blonde on the island? And why does talking to you always make my brain hurt?”

Toby’s brain reeled too. “They’ve cooked up all the papers. I personally saw Scott bribe a security officer that night when I tried to escape. They must have bribed the Immigration authorities to alter the manifests.”

“Anything is possible in this part of the world. But that seems far-fetched. On the other hand, to imagine you getting yourself off St Helen’s and on to an uninhabited island some hundreds of miles away all by yourself is also stretching my credulity.”

“So what are you going to do with me?” Toby put his head in his hands. “Nobody believes a word I say.”

“Not surprising, when you’re a liar by your own admission. If only you’d told me the truth at the outset.”

“That was a misjudgement. I apologise. I was just trying not to muddy the waters.”

Smithers unrolled his paperwork again and leafed through the pages. “I should clap you in the brig and take you to Antilla as the main suspect in the girl’s murder. Assuming that she was murdered, of course.”

“She was, but not by me.”

“There is, however, one item of evidence that corroborates your version of this crazy reality.”

“Hallelujah! I knew it! What is it?” Toby leaned forward, hope rising again in him.

Smithers rubbed the side of his nose with a well-manicured forefinger. “No reason not to tell you. We received a text message on that mobile phone that you were carrying last night.”

“Who from? Saying what?”

“
Robinson innocent murderer still on board
. Just that. No name or ID. And the message definitely came from the
Amelia
. They have a cell phone translator linked into their Inmarsat and that is where the call originated. We ran a trace. No doubt.”

“Julia! It must be her!” Toby thumped the table. “Yes! I knew that little beauty would come good! I told you, she gave me the phone, so she knew its number, and probably guessed you would find and confiscate it.”

“Yep. But my problem is, I can’t act on that one piece of evidence. The official paperwork outweighs that, at least as far as my people up above are concerned. I don’t doubt that your friend Julia sent the message and thinks you are innocent. If she was with you at sea, she knows the others are lying about the women, and you. But the paperwork and your passport are a real problem. My duty is to put you ashore and let the Antillan police take ...”

Toby interrupted, “Hell, man, you know that would be wrong! I’ll be banged up for life! I can’t believe you would cast me loose to save your own backside.”

“That’s enough,” Smithers said sharply. “I’ve no intention of doing that. Just let me finish, will you?”

Toby sat back expectantly.

“It wouldn’t be pleasant for you to be swallowed up in the judicial system of a Third World country. And as you say, justice would not necessarily be done. Where there’s a body, these little countries want a culprit to lock up or even hang. And we wouldn’t be able to give evidence to assist your case. So here is my proposal. It’s not very attractive, I’m afraid.”

“You don’t mean to put me back in the fishing boat and cast me off as if you never found me?”

“Of course not. I want to put you back on the
Amelia
with a task. With your willing permission, of course.”

“To do what?”

Smithers rose from his chair and flexed his shoulders. He circled them backwards and then forwards. He walked behind his chair, leaned on it and looked Toby in the eye. “Krigov is a bad man. Very bad. I want you to find out how he and his cartel transport cocaine, arms, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and forged currency worth nearly forty billion dollars a year around the world with apparent impunity. We’re now thinking it could be on the mega yacht. Give me a reason to arrest the ship, bring it to a friendly naval dockyard, and dismantle it. Anything will do.”

“No pressure, then.”

“I don’t want you to risk your life. I just want you to look and listen. If you find anything, you keep it to yourself and brief me when you reach shore. The great thing is, we’ve already boarded Krigov’s vessel, searched it, and found it to be clean. He’ll be even more confident now—and might get careless.”

“What makes you think he has all this kind of stuff on the yacht? And where is it?”

Smithers pursed his lips and tapped his pen on the desk a few times. “Intelligence received. I can’t say more. If we knew where, we would go find it. But there are political considerations with Tsazakhstan. They were great allies of the West in the War on Terror days. Again I can’t say more.”

Toby persisted. “Cocaine, arms, pharmaceuticals, currency. That sounds like a lot of cargo. The yacht isn’t designed for that. The
Amelia
is a gin palace. There’s no heavy lifting equipment. And it’s not exactly a low-profile vessel. Wouldn’t they use something more ... conventional? A cargo ship or fishing vessel? The risks are huge.”

Smithers paused a moment before replying, as if weighing up now much to say. “You’re brighter than you look, Toby,” he said eventually.

“Cheers,” Toby said. Was this a compliment? If so, it was a backhanded one.

“The fact is, we don’t really know what Krigov’s main business is. The FBI have been following him around for years now. He started as a plain vanilla oligarch. There are literally hundreds of these. They were party people working in the USSR at the end of Communism who seized hold of whatever assets they could. For example, Krigov was the general manager of a tractor-building plant in Tscheboksary. When the state privatised it, they gave a share certificate to every worker in the plant. Krigov simply bought these up for a few roubles each and secured control of the entire plant in three weeks. How simple was that? Of course, others had similar plans, but a little intimidation discouraged them.”

“So—how do you know his money is dirty? Perhaps he just earned it honestly, like Roman Abramovich.”

“No, Krigov at his height was only a B-list billionaire. Then under Putin, the state fought back. They nearly bankrupted Krigov by setting up a dummy deal involving bauxite rights. Then they pinned some tax evasion charges on him, slapped him in jail for a spell, and generally did their best to ruin him.”

“You seem quite an expert on these matters, for a naval officer.”

Smithers nodded. “Obviously, it’s my speciality. It’s why I’m here. You asked me to explain, so may I continue?”

Toby nodded. His head was starting to spin a little. This man was an intelligence officer. He had virtually admitted it. They had obviously been shadowing the
Amelia
for some time before they rescued Toby. Had they known all along that he was in danger? Another thought occurred to Toby with a jolt. Had someone at the Sea School planted him on the
Amelia
as a mole—albeit a dumb one?

He realised he was not concentrating and forced himself to listen.

“... So Krigov’s legitimate business interests cannot account for his current wealth, the yacht, the planes and so on.”

Realisation hit Toby like a thunderbolt. He leant forward in his chair. “You really haven’t got a clue what Krigov is up to, have you? If anything. You want to put me back aboard on a simple fishing trip. And when we went over just now, you already knew that Krigov and the
Amelia
were dodgy, but you told me nothing. ”

Smithers would not meet his gaze this time. Toby had hit the mark. He knew where he stood now. “Do you think they’ll willingly take me back on board?”

“Of course. They’ll take you back to St Helen’s at the end of their little cruise. They’ll want to know why we brought you back here. You say it was to check out their story about the passports, and we found out it was true.”

“How will you protect me once I’m back on the
Amelia
?”

“If we deliver you back, they will know we won’t be far away. And I have another way to protect you. I’ll explain. But first, we must establish a parole.”

“A what?”

“An exchange of passwords so you can call me and know it’s me, and vice versa. Give me a name that means something to you—not obvious to anyone else.”

Toby pondered. “My first girlfriend—I mean, real girlfriend—was Abigail. Not many people know that, and no one out here does.”

“OK,
Abigail
is your call sign. And I will respond with
Noodles
.”

“Your first girlfriend was called Noodles?”

Smithers sighed. “No, Noodles is my cat.”

Chapter 19

“
When I was a boy, I was bullied at school,” said Ivan Krigov. “I complained to my father and he told me to be a man. But I wasn’t a man. I was a boy of eight. So, what do you think I did?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Toby said. He continued to polish a glass.

Krigov squirmed on his bar stool. Toby noticed that his ample behind was too big for the seat, so, wherever he sat, part of it hung off the side of the padded crimson cushion.

Krigov continued, “I did nothing. When they came up behind me and kicked me, I ran away. When they took my school notebooks and tore the pages out, I wrote them again. Then they taunted me with names like
Dickoff—
to
give it the nearest translation which is suitable for a nice English boy like you.”

“So, how did you get to be so rich?” Toby asked innocently.

Krigov laughed. He drank from the shot glass in front of him. He and Toby were the only occupants of the massive stateroom.

The Russian man raised his eyebrows. “You are very direct,” he said. “I like you, Toby Grant. I’m so glad you came back to us.”

You wouldn’t be if you knew why I’m here,
thought Toby.
But at least you got half my name right.

“I found that trading a commodity gave me protection. In my case, it was Topps football trading cards from England.”

“Topps cards? You’re kidding?”

“Not at all. Remember, Roman Abramovich started out selling plastic toys—ducks and sailors. You have to start somewhere. Topps cards were the currency in my school. My uncle had a big supply that he had acquired in London. He gave them to me. I took out the most valuable cards, then distributed the rest. So if someone barged me in the corridor, I would have a single card in my pocket and say, ‘Hey Arkady, have a card on me. Just don’t barge me again, man.’ I took care not to carry more than one card or they would have taken them from me, of course. Then once the cards were in circulation, I encouraged the boys to trade them. They were such mutts, they had no idea what trading was until I showed them.”

“So that made you popular?”

“It gave me a measure of protection. I had something they wanted, and I had started a popular craze. And my strategy was to keep the most valuable cards at home. The richer boys with fathers in the Party got desperate to complete their collection. At the right moment, I would say, ‘I have Alan Hudson, or whoever, at home. Give me twenty US dollars and I’ll bring it tomorrow.’”

“I didn’t know you had US dollars in Russia,” Toby said.

Krigov leaned back precariously and laughed. “You don’t think I paid for this in roubles, do you?” He waved his hands.

“So you became a trader?” Toby said. It was amazing how forthcoming Krigov had become. Men like to brag to their bartender, and it always amazed him how indiscreet they could be. In his time at the Goose, he had heard eye-popping revelations and admissions from businessmen with a few too many measures inside them.

“Clever boy,” Krigov said. He drank again, drained his glass and thumped it down in front of Toby. “Gods, I wish we had some women on board. This is torment.”

Toby refilled the glass with the ice-cold brew from the dark blue bottle. That was the fifth, sixth, or seventh shot. No wonder Krigov was getting talkative. At some point, Toby knew, he would get irritable ... then aggressive ... then abusive. That was when the crew, and Toby in particular, were most at risk of the shoving, pushing, pinching and slapping behaviour that was Krigov’s trademark.

To keep his hands busy, Toby took down four wine glasses from an overhead hanging rack and started to polish them slowly and thoroughly.

Since rejoining the ship, they’d treated Toby as if he had never left. Of the remaining girl, there was no sign. Scott had given Toby the most menial of cleaning tasks, with Ski-Pants never far away. Toby had not managed to get Julia alone.

Without the two Russian girls, the atmosphere on board the
Amelia
remained tense. For much of the day, Krigov holed up in his own stateroom, which incorporated an office corner and computer equipment. He emerged to take meals with Walther Spiegl, who remained as enigmatic as ever.

Toby’s final briefing from Smithers was simple.
Try to find out how Krigov transports his merchandise. Get evidence.

Toby inspected the first glass by holding it up towards the spotlights which shone down from the roof of his bar area.

“Our American friends think something is going on with the yacht,” Smithers had said. “The vessel is so large that it’s impossible to search. And if we don’t have some sort of evidence, we risk diplomatic incidents. Try to get around the yacht and see if there are any sensitive places out of bounds to all the crew. That would be an indication.”