The Secret of Excalibur (7 page)

5

C
hase flung the Focus out of the car park into a sharp right turn. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked Nina.

‘I don’t know,’ Nina said tersely.

‘That helps!’

‘The woman shot Bernd, and the big guy stole my laptop. I think he’s Russian.’

Ahead, the Jaguar slewed the wrong way through a roundabout. Another car swerved to avoid a collision and crashed on to the pavement. ‘Why’d he steal your laptop?’

‘That disc Bernd gave me - whatever’s on it, they want it!’

Chase braked hard and skidded round the roundabout. The shopping bags in the back seat spilled their contents over Nina. ‘So what’s on the disc?’

‘I don’t know! Something to do with finding Excalibur.’

The Jaguar was pulling away up a hill. Chase wished he’d hired something more powerful than a family hatchback. ‘What, King Arthur’s sword?’

‘No, the John Boorman movie!’ she snapped sarcastically. ‘
Yes
, King Arthur’s sword!’

‘All right, Jesus Christ!’ His grandmother gave him a stern look. ‘Sorry, Nan. Where does this road go?’

‘The top end of town,’ Nan told him - but Chase was no longer listening, his attention caught by a skirl of tyres and a flash of movement in the mirror. A black Jeep Grand Cherokee swept in behind them from a side road.

Someone was leaning out of the passenger-side window—

‘
Get down!
’ Chase screamed, left arm snapping across to shove his grandmother’s head down. The rear window burst apart, glittering fragments of safety glass showering over Nina as she ducked.

Another bullet plunked through the Focus’s hatchback door, cracking against the hard plastic of the seat back. Hunching low, Chase caught a glimpse of the shaven-headed gunman in the wing mirror. He was only armed with a pistol, but at such close range it was enough.

‘Who the hell are
these
guys?’ yelled Nina.

‘More Russians!’ Chase guessed. One group to carry out the hit and get the disc - and a second team to make sure nobody stopped them from escaping with their prize.

‘Oh, great! I don’t suppose you picked up a gun from the supermarket?’

‘This is England! The only people with guns are farmers and hoodies!’

Traffic waited at a set of lights ahead, an approaching truck filling the other lane. The Jaguar braked hard and made a sharp right turn, going the wrong way down a one-way street. Chase followed suit, slamming down through the gears into a screaming, barely controlled drift after it. Nina was thrown bodily against the left-hand door, loose bottles and boxes battering her. The Focus juddered as its tyres struggled for grip, Chase battling with the wheel to hold it on the road.

He looked ahead - and saw a bus rounding another tight corner. The Jaguar’s brake lights flared as the orange-haired woman swerved and slammed it up on to the pavement to guide it into a narrow gap between the shopfronts and a line of bollards. People screamed and dived aside as the XK raced down the hill.

‘Hold on!’ Chase shouted as he aimed the Focus after it.

‘It’s too narrow!’ Nina protested.

‘If they can fit, so can—’

The passenger-side wing mirror clipped a signpost and flew off in a shower of glass and plastic. Nan gasped in fright.

‘Okay, I should’ve gone a bit further over,’ Chase admitted as he guided the car through the line of bollards and on to the pedestrianised area beyond. He recognised where they were - at the top of the street where he’d bought Holly her phone. Behind him, the Grand Cherokee slowed to squeeze through the gap, its bodywork scraping against the shopfronts.

Nina looked ahead in horror as Chase accelerated again and blasted a frenzied tattoo on the horn. The street was still busy, shoppers reacting in panic as the cars raced at them. ‘Eddie, stop before we kill someone!’

‘If we stop,
we’ll
get killed!’ he countered. The black SUV had cleared the bollards, the shaven-headed man raising his gun again.

The Jaguar weaved down the road, horn blaring - less out of concern for the lives of pedestrians than because hitting them would slow it down. Past the XK, Chase saw the clock tower overlooking the Square almost straight ahead, another road curving away to the left - but more bollards blocked the way, and the end of the pedestrian zone was blocked by a large metal gate—

With nowhere else to go, the orange-haired woman aimed the Jaguar to the right of the gate and speeded up. People jumped aside, but one man was too slow and bounced off the bonnet to crash through the window of a Burger King. Chase grimaced, both his passengers reacting in shock.

They cleared the gate. Chase glanced in the mirror. The Grand Cherokee was gaining, but the gap was tight even for a car, never mind an SUV - maybe too tight . . .

The Jeep suddenly fell back, braking hard. But again the gap was just wide enough for it to fit through - it would be back in the chase very quickly.

The Jaguar roared into the Square, smashing several chairs outside the café before ploughing into a cart and sending brightly coloured pashminas spinning into the air like butterflies. The market stalls formed a channel through the plaza, limiting options for escape. Somewhere in the distance, Chase heard a siren - the police.

The woman heard it too, and started hunting for an exit route. All were clogged with people trying to flee the cars. Chase increased speed, intending to swipe the Jag’s rear end and force it into a lamppost. ‘Hang on!’

She saw him coming and floored the accelerator, swinging right - and sending the Jaguar headlong through a fruit stall, an explosion of colour erupting in its wake. ‘Oh, fff . . . ruit!’ Chase gasped as he pursued it through the demolished stall, more varieties than he could name bouncing and splattering on the windscreen. Through the mush he saw the XK turn again, clipping a bus shelter and blowing out a pane of glass before flying off the kerb on to a road.

He sent the Focus after it, the suspension bottoming out with a horrible crunch. Finding the wiper controls, Chase managed to clear his view and saw he was on the road running round the park. The Jaguar was already racing away.

The siren suddenly became much louder. A police car, a Volvo V70 emblazoned with squares of Day-Glo yellow and blue, tore round the corner ahead of them, headlights flashing. The orange-haired woman changed direction, slamming over the kerb to drive the Jaguar into the park. Chase followed, another bone-jarring impact crashing through the tortured Focus.

‘The police are here!’ Nina protested. ‘Let them handle it!’

‘You know who they’ll arrest first?
Us!
’ Chase shot back. The police car fell in behind them, strobe lights pulsing - and the Grand Cherokee swept through the park entrance right behind it.

The narrow path forked. The left route headed through the trees along the park’s eastern side, but the Jaguar went right, towards a bridge over the river. It was barely wide enough for a car, the XK losing one of its wing mirrors to the metal railings. A man jogging across in the other direction stared in disbelief as the Jag roared at him, coming to his senses just in time to fling himself into the water.

Sparks flew up from the Focus’s flank as it scraped against the bridge, the remaining wing mirror going the same way as the Jag’s. The XK reached a crossroads, the path directly ahead blocked by an ice-cream van, to the right only the balloon and the way back to the crowds of the Square. It went left, towards the seafront—

Shots!

Three, four, five cracks from behind. But the shaven-headed man in the SUV wasn’t aiming at Chase, but at the police, trying to get them out of his way.

Blood splattered the Volvo’s windscreen as the driver was hit. The V70 veered sharply, hitting the bridge railings sidelong so hard that it folded around them, all the windows exploding. The Grand Cherokee’s driver saw that his path was blocked and slammed on the brakes, but not fast enough to stop the SUV from T-boning the police car and crushing it even harder against the metal posts.

The Jeep wasn’t out of the pursuit, though. Tyres smoking, broken chunks of grille and bumper trailing beneath it, it shrieked in reverse back up the hill before reaching the fork and lunging along the tree-lined path.

Chase performed a powerslide through the crossroads to follow the Jaguar. More people hurled themselves away from the cars, tumbling on to the neatly mowed grass. A crazy golf course whipped past, trees and another fork in the path ahead—

‘Go right!’ Nan ordered.

‘What?’ The Jaguar went left.

‘Right, it’s shorter!’

Hoping his grandmother’s local knowledge was up to scratch, Chase swerved the Focus on to the right-hand path, one hand pounding on the horn. He glanced left, seeing glints of black through the bushes and trees.

And further back, the Grand Cherokee powering down a hill to a second bridge, about to rejoin the hunt.

Nan had been right - this route
was
shorter. They were gaining on the Jaguar. Ahead, Chase saw the elevated road over the pierfront esplanade, their hotel to the right. ‘We’re going round in bloody circles!’

Both cars raced under the raised roadway, the pier entrance directly ahead. Stalls channelled them towards the beach, but these were semi-permanent structures backed by brick and concrete, no way to simply smash through. The Jaguar’s driver frantically looked for an exit as more sirens approached.

Chase’s mirror suddenly filled with broken chrome teeth, the Jeep’s mangled grille snarling at him. The more powerful Grand Cherokee had caught up.

A shot punched through the roof directly above his head and blew a hole in the windscreen. Nan screamed. ‘Eddie!’ Nina cried as he swung the car over to the driver’s side of the Jeep to deny the gunman a clear shot. Cans and bottles clattered against her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah!’ was all he had time to say. The Jaguar reached the end of the stalls, skidding round them to head up an access road beside the Imax. The Jeep’s engine roared right behind the Focus. If Chase turned to follow the XK, he would put everyone in the car in the gunman’s line of fire, at almost point-blank range . . .

Some mad inspiration struck Nina, and she hurled a tin out of the shattered rear window. It hit the Jeep’s windscreen, crazing it. Startled, the driver instinctively swerved away.

Chase saw his chance and hauled on the wheel to bring the Focus round the stalls after the Jaguar. The Grand Cherokee went wide, tilting heavily on its suspension before coming after them again.

Nina grabbed the heaviest item she could see, a bottle of Pimm’s. The amber liquid sloshing as the car juddered round to pursue the Jaguar up the hill, she prepared to throw it—

A man directly ahead jumped away - revealing a woman with a baby in a pushchair right behind him. Chase braked, desperately swinging the Focus . . . back into the gunman’s sights.

Caught unawares by the sudden braking, Nina threw the bottle. It fell short, smashing on the paving.

The gunman aimed—

The Jeep’s front wheel ran over the jagged shards.

The tyre exploded. The driver lost control, sawing at the wheel as he tried to bring the two-ton-plus SUV to a stop, but it was too late.

The Grand Cherokee flipped over and barrel-rolled through the glass façade of the Imax building. It slammed into a wall - and exploded.

The raging fireball roiled through the foyer, every pane of glass shattering and raining down on to the esplanade. ‘Bloody hell!’ said Chase, looking back at the smoking structure.

‘It’s an improvement,’ his grandmother said quietly.

The Jaguar made another turn, into the exit road from a small car park. On the far side, Chase realised, was the road where he’d been caught by a speed camera less than five minutes - though it felt like five hours - earlier. From there, the dual carriageway out of town was only a couple of roundabouts away.

He threw the Focus round the corner after the Jag, knowing that once the convertible was free of the twisting urban roads he would never catch it. The orange-haired woman turned right to head uphill, out of the town centre. He followed, a car coming down the hill barely missing him.

More police sirens, growing louder . . .

A roundabout ahead. The Jaguar went left - but racing straight for Chase were two more police cars, the lead one swerving the wrong way round the roundabout to block his path as the second went the other way, boxing him in—

‘Fuck a duck!’ Nan shrieked.

‘
Nan!
’ yelped Chase shocked, as he yanked the handbrake—

The skidding Ford smashed headlong into the side of the first police car. The airbags deployed with a bang, cushioning the occupants of the front seats. Nina threw herself flat just before impact and was flung into the rear footwell, groceries ricocheting around her.

It had been a relatively low-speed collision, but Chase was still shaken. He sat up as the airbags deflated, and saw his grandmother bent over beside him. ‘Nan! Are you okay?’

She slowly raised her head. ‘I think . . .’

‘What?’

‘I think I just wee’d a little bit.’

Chase almost laughed, before remembering Nina. He looked round for her . . . and found himself staring down the barrel of an MP-5 sub-machine gun.

Not just one. Four policemen in flak jackets surrounded the car, weapons raised, fingers on triggers. An Armed Response Unit.

‘Armed police!’ one of them screamed. ‘Put your hands up!
Now!
’

Chase carefully raised his hands, nodding for his grandmother to do the same. ‘Nice one, lads. You stopped the wrong car. We’re the
good
guys.’

‘Shut up!’ The policeman looked into the rear of the car. ‘You in the back! Show me your hands, slowly! Get up!’

Nina obeyed, shaking glass out of her hair as she spoke to Chase. ‘And you said Bournemouth was boring . . .’

6

‘
W
ell, well,’ said a familiar voice. ‘If it isn’t Eddie Chase. Or should that be Mad Max?’

Chase looked up as the cell door opened. ‘You took your time,’ he said with a tired grin. Jim ‘Mac’ McCrimmon, Chase’s former commanding officer in the SAS, had been the person he’d contacted with his phone call after being arrested.

‘I ended up burning a lot of midnight oil at MI6.’ The grey-haired Scotsman entered the cell, and Chase stood to shake his hand. Mac was dressed in a dark tailored suit, which gave away no clue that one of his legs was artificial below the knee, and carried several folded newspapers under one arm. ‘You seem to have stirred up something rather large - the Yanks are very interested in it.’

‘How come?’

‘No idea, but Peter Alderley’s giving me an update soon.’

‘Alderley?’ Chase groaned at the mention of the MI6 agent. ‘Oh, God, you got that twat involved? He must be laughing his arse off at the thought of me spending the night in a police cell.’

‘There was some amusement, yes. But he also wants to know when he’s going to get his wedding invitation.’

‘Why would he even want to come? He can’t stand us.’

A smirk crinkled Mac’s craggy face. ‘Oh, he likes Nina just fine. It’s
you
he can’t stand. He wants to give Nina his commiserations.’

‘The cheeky bastard! And after he got promoted because of us . . . Where is Nina, anyway? Is she okay?’

‘She’s fine.’ Mac gestured at the door. ‘She’s waiting in reception. Along with your grandmother.’

‘What, I call you and then I’m the last one you get out?’

‘Ladies first, Eddie. Where are your manners?’

A policeman led them to the police station’s reception area. ‘Eddie!’ said Nina as he entered, jumping up to embrace him. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Just got worked over with a rubber hose, but apart from that I’m fine,’ he joked. He looked past her to see his grandmother sitting on a bench nearby. ‘Nan! Are you all right?’

She nodded. ‘I’m fine, Edward, thank you. I’ve never been arrested before, it was all very strange! Everyone was very nice, though, and they even brought me tea in my cell. It’ll be quite a story to tell the other girls next time we play bridge.’

‘Thank God. If anyone’d been nasty to my nan, there really
would
have been trouble.’ He became aware of activity outside the glass front doors. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Press,’ Mac replied disdainfully. He handed Chase and Nina the newspapers. ‘You’ve become big news, unfortunately. Don’t worry about that lot outside, we can slap a category five DA notice on them to shut them up now the security services are involved, but it happened too late to stop this morning’s papers.’

‘Aah!’ Nina cried in dismay, seeing her official IHA publicity photo smiling witlessly back at her from the front page of the
Guardian
under the headline ‘Chaos in Bournemouth: discoverer of Atlantis arrested following murder’. ‘I wasn’t arrested
for
it, I
witnessed
it!’

‘You think that’s bad . . .’ said Chase. He held up the
Sun
, the tabloid bearing the banner headline ‘THE BOURNE-MOUTH IDENTITY’. Some tourist with a quick shutter finger - and a canny commercial sense - had caught the Focus as it smashed through the remains of the fruit stall, and the picture now dominated the page. Chase was just a shadow in the driving seat, and most of his grandmother’s face was obscured by the windscreen pillar, but Nina was clearly visible in the back. The paper had even helpfully included an inset of her shaking hands with President Dalton.

Chase read out the opening paragraph. ‘“One day, she was at the White House to accept the highest honour in America from the President. The next, she was in a high-speed car chase and gun battle through a quiet seaside town. Famed archaeologist Nina Wilde, discoverer of the lost city of Atlantis, was arrested yesterday after a trail of destruction through Bournemouth left three dead and dozens injured . . .” Yeah, this isn’t good.’

‘Oh,
ya think
?’ Nina wailed. ‘And Atlantis isn’t a city, it’s the whole damn island! Why does everyone get that wrong?’

Chase hugged her. ‘Priorities, love.’

‘I know, I know. But
aaargh
!’

A fusillade of camera flashes from outside caught everyone’s attention. Elizabeth Chase stormed up the steps and threw open the door, furious eyes locked on to her brother. ‘
You!
’ she yelled. Holly scurried in behind her, worried.

‘Hi, Lizzie,’ said Chase with false breeziness. ‘You saw today’s papers, then?’

She shoved past him and crouched before her grandmother. ‘Nan, are you okay?’

‘I’m all right, love,’ Nan assured her. ‘A bit shaken up, that’s all.’

‘Oh, thank God.’ She bowed her head in relief, then whirled to confront Chase. ‘What the
hell
were you thinking? You stupid bastard! You could have
killed
her!’

‘Yeah, I’m fine too, thanks,’ Chase replied with chilly sarcasm.

‘Actually, Elizabeth, I’m afraid this is all my fault,’ said Nina.

Elizabeth snatched the newspaper from Chase’s hand, jabbing a finger at the picture. ‘Oh, so you were driving the car from the back seat?’ She crumpled the paper into a roll and batted it angrily against Chase, prompting the policeman to politely but firmly pull her away. ‘I thought you couldn’t
possibly
do anything more selfish and irresponsible than you already have, but this, this . . .’ She stood silently for a moment. ‘God! I have never been more . . .
disgusted
with you in my entire life.’

‘Elizabeth!’ Nan snapped, standing up with an obvious effort. Holly hurried to help her. ‘I’m all right, and so are Edward and Nina. That’s all that matters.’

‘No, it’s
not
all that matters, Nan!’ Elizabeth said. ‘People were
killed
! And it’s all his fault! You think he’s going to explain why to their families?’

‘Actually,’ said Mac, raising his voice with authority, ‘the two men who died while trying to kill Eddie and Nina - and your grandmother, I might add - are the reason my colleagues are so interested in what happened.’

‘And who the
hell
are you?’ Elizabeth demanded.

‘Ma’am,’ said Mac, bowing slightly. The gesture somewhat disarmed Elizabeth. ‘Jim McCrimmon, at your service. I used to be in the SAS, but I’m now . . . well, let’s say
associated
with Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. Or MI6, if you prefer.’

‘MI6?’ said Holly, eyes widening. ‘You’re a spy?’

‘Mac,’ said Chase, ‘this is Holly, my niece . . . and you just met my sister, Lizzie.’

‘
Elizabeth!
’

Mac turned to address Holly. ‘No, I’m not a spy - your uncle would probably think a lot less of me if I were. I’m more of a consultant.’

‘Who saves people’s lives occasionally,’ Nina added.

‘And my house still isn’t fully repaired because of it . . . But these two raised quite a stir at Vauxhall Cross once their identities were discovered. Not so much from us, but we share intelligence with the Americans, and they got very excited about it.’ He looked through the glass doors at the reporters outside. ‘But I think we should discuss this somewhere more private.’

‘We can just leave?’ Nina asked in surprise.

Mac smiled. ‘You’re free to go, for the moment. The Home Office has arranged for all charges to be dropped. It seems the American government is quite keen to talk to you about these men - and about your friend, Herr Rust.’ He lowered his gaze. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you. But why do they want to know about Bernd?’

‘I have absolutely no idea - but I’ll hopefully find out soon. Is there somewhere we can go?’

‘We can go to my house,’ Holly suggested. Elizabeth seemed about to object, but a look from Nan silenced her.

Mac nodded. ‘That sounds ideal.’

Chase gazed out of the front window of Elizabeth’s house, taking in what Mac had just relayed to Nina and himself after a phone conversation. ‘So this guy Yosarin and his mate the Jeep driver, if they’re working as security goons for some Russian billionaire, why are they in Bournemouth shooting at my nan?’ He turned to face Mac. ‘Alderley doesn’t know a fucking thing, does he?’

‘Mac, I know this is kind of classified,’ said Nina, ‘but is there any chance Catherine or Holly could sit in? Eddie’s so much more polite when they’re around.’

‘Afraid not, but I share your sentiments,’ Mac replied. ‘No, I get the impression that Alderley’s been shoved aside by the Americans, and he’s not happy about it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Chase, toying with Nina’s ponytail. ‘I know how annoying it is taking orders from Yanks.’

‘Hey!’ Nina said.

Mac smiled, then sat up, seeing something outside the window. ‘But I think these people might be able to provide some more illumination.’

A car had stopped outside, a large black Lincoln limousine. Chase could see its number plate, the unusual format classifying it as a diplomatic vehicle. ‘Oh, ’ello, here come the Feds.’ Nina got up to join him, watching as two men emerged from the car and marched up the drive. The doorbell rang; after a brief exchange, the living-room door opened and Elizabeth peered cautiously inside.

‘There’s some people here to see you,’ she said. ‘They said they’re from the US embassy.’

Mac stood. ‘Please, show them in, Ms Chase.’

Elizabeth led two suited men into the room. The first was in his fifties, with a thatch of thinning brown hair and a harried air. He extended a hand to Nina. ‘Dr Wilde,’ he said, before looking uncertainly between Chase and Mac. ‘Mr . . . Chase?’ Chase pointed at himself. ‘Thanks.’ Shaking hands with Chase, he introduced himself, his accent Bostonian. ‘I’m Clarence Peach, from the Department of Security Cooperation at the US embassy in London.’

‘Peachy,’ said Chase, suppressing a smirk. From Peach’s weary expression, he’d endured endless jokes about his name.

The second man was younger, in his mid-thirties, and to Nina far more impressive to look at. He was a well-built six foot plus, square-jawed and handsome with intense green eyes and jet-black hair. ‘Dr Wilde?’ he asked, deep voice betraying a distinctive New Orleans drawl. ‘I’m Jack Mitchell, from DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,’ he clarified, seeing her puzzled look, before his voice changed to a pitch-perfect imitation of Troy McClure, the washed-up actor from
The Simpsons
. ‘You may remember us from such inventions as the Internet - not just for pornography any more!’

Nina laughed. ‘Hi! Good to meet you.’

‘And you must be Eddie Chase.’

‘Guess I must,’ said Chase, not nearly as impressed as Nina by the newcomer. ‘So why’s DARPA interested in finding Excalibur? Thought you were just into building killbots and microwave pain beams these days.’

‘There’s a lot more to Bernd Rust’s research than ancient relics, and I’ll explain why in a moment. But unfortunately, that information is need-to-know classified.’ He turned to Mac. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room while I discuss it. Sorry, sir.’

Mac was surprised. ‘I have a level five security classification.’

‘I know, sir.’

Shooting Nina and Chase a look, Mac left the room. Mitchell gestured for Nina and Chase to sit down, then opened his slim metal briefcase and removed a folder. ‘Do you recognise any of these people?’ he asked, handing several photographs to them.

Nina immediately spotted the bearded man whom she had chased through the hotel. ‘That’s the guy who stole my laptop!’

Mitchell nodded. ‘Oleg Maximov, AKA “the Bulldozer”. Former Russian Spetsnaz special forces trooper, noted for extreme physical strength and also extremely limited intelligence - even before he got shot in the head in Chechnya.’ He indicated the expansive scar on the man’s forehead. ‘Nobody quite knows how he survived it, but he did, and he’s now got a metal plate holding half his skull together . . . and a seriously screwed-up nervous system.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He suffered some sort of brain damage that affected his pleasure-pain response,’ Mitchell explained. ‘Basically, when he experiences pain he feels it as
pleasure
.’

‘Ew!’ Nina said, wincing. ‘That explains why me hitting him in the face with a fire extinguisher turned him on so much, I guess.’

Chase gave her an admiring look. ‘You smacked a Spetsnaz bloke with a fire extinguisher?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good for you!’ He pointed at one of the other photos. ‘Hey, she was the getaway driver.’

Nina examined the picture. ‘She was the one who shot Bernd as well - only she had orange hair.’ The sullen woman in the picture, who looked about thirty, had hair that was mostly purple, with long green-dyed strands hanging down over her face.

‘Her name’s Dominika Romanova,’ said Mitchell. ‘She used to be a sniper for the FSB - the successor to the KGB - until she decided she could get more money in the private sector.’ He took the photos back, shuffling through them. ‘She and Maximov worked with Yosarin and Belenkov, these two charmers -’ he held up two more photos, both showing unattractive and menacing-looking men - ‘who got blown up in the Bournemouth Imax theatre yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, their IDs were more fireproof than they were.’

‘So why did they kill Bernd?’ Nina demanded. ‘What was in his files that they wanted so bad?’

Mitchell took another pair of pictures from his case. ‘All four of them work for this man, Aleksey Kruglov.’ The picture revealed another unappealing man, older than the others, with a wide mouth and cold eyes. ‘Kruglov’s old-school KGB, but he now works as a “security specialist”, by which I mean head thug, for
this
guy.’ He gave them the last photo.

Nina frowned. The man in the picture appeared to be in his late forties, with a trim brown goatee beard and narrow rectangular wire-framed glasses. He also seemed vaguely familiar. ‘I’ve seen him somewhere . . .’