Red Notice

53

Having parked the two recently orphaned children outside the cabin, Laszlo turned his back on them and sank into the driver’s seat almost directly above where Tom lay. He reached for the radio mic.

‘Time’s up. Who is there to talk to me?’

Laszlo was well aware of the sequence of events that would have followed his discovery on the train. He knew, even if Eurostar didn’t, that the chief constable of whichever constabulary covered the location of the incident would be first to take command. But how had he been flagged? He was more intrigued than angry. The man helping the pretty French girl to the toilet? Very possibly. He hadn’t seen him since…

‘This is Chief Constable Michael Alderson of Kent Constabulary. Who am I speaking to?’

Alderson had decided to keep his tone uncompromising but courteous. He’d come by all he knew about Laszlo from the five minutes he’d spent reading the file sent to his BlackBerry while juggling a flurry of calls to and from his commanders.

He’d had to secure the area, co-ordinate the emergency services and keep a grip on proceedings from the back of a speeding, London-bound BMW. But now he was static on the hard shoulder of the A2 — he’d asked the driver to pull in as soon as he’d got a full signal.

Alderson stuck a digit into his free ear to cut out the traffic noise and the clicking of the four-ways. The driver sat motionless, not even moving his head to check the fast-approaching traffic in the wing mirror.

Laszlo smiled to himself. ‘You know very well who I am. Laszlo Antonov.’ He paused, giving the policeman time for his name, and what it meant, to sink in. Maybe this Alderson would take the trouble to look more closely at the briefing notes he no doubt had in front of him.

‘I want to begin by congratulating you, Chief Constable. You’ve just saved some lives. One moment, please…’

He covered the microphone with his hand and turned to Sambor, then wrinkled his nose in disgust. The children were now huddled on the floor behind him. The sight of their mother’s murderer was enough to start them both shaking and whimpering all over again. And the brown patch spreading across the boy’s new holiday trousers was painfully obvious.

‘He’s shat himself…’

Sambor gave a crooked smile. ‘You seem to have that effect on people, my brother.’

‘It’s one of the secrets of my success.’ Laszlo’s smile faded. ‘Get them out of here.’

‘You want me to get rid of them?’

‘Clean him up or kill them, I don’t care which. Their lives are ruined now anyway.’

Sambor hustled the children out, and Laszlo turned back to the radio mic. ‘Chief Constable Alderson, my apologies. How kind of you to take my call.’

‘Mr Antonov, what is it you want?’

‘To live a nice quiet life in Hampstead. As indeed I was — until the SAS came knocking on my door.’ Laszlo leaned back in the chair, resting his feet on the head of the terrified train driver, who still lay face down on the floor with his hands and feet zip-tied. ‘However, as you know, I’ve taken up a new, but purely temporary, residence near Folkestone.

‘It’s a little cramped for my taste, and there are far too many noisy neighbours but, as you may know, there are fewer of them than there were a little while ago.’ He paused again, to let the message sink in. ‘And there will be fewer still a few minutes from now, if our discussions do not prove fruitful.

‘First, do not even think about putting power back online. It does not serve me at all, only you. The back-up system will suffice for now. Second, I should imagine the gentlemen from Hereford will be attempting to pay me a call — in about… let’s see…’ He checked his watch. ‘Say three hours from now — that is, if you hand over control. Which you have to, of course, because the situation is already well beyond your very limited control. No doubt the home secretary will be ordering you to do so very soon, once COBRA is in session and the gravity of the situation is clear to all.

‘So I’d obviously like us to have completed arrangements for the release of these poor people, in exchange for a safe passage for myself and my associates. Do you think you might be able to manage that, Chief Constable?’

‘Mr Antonov, you ask a lot that I alone am in no position to guarantee. A demonstration of your good intentions might improve your situation, though. Perhaps the traditional release of the old, the infirm, the women and the children?’

‘Demonstration of good intentions?’ Laszlo kept his voice dangerously even. ‘You seem to be under the illusion that this is a negotiation, Chief Constable. Let me assure you that it is not.’

‘Quite so.’ Alderson knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with that ploy. ‘After all, it is the stated policy of Her Majesty’s government never to negotiate with terrorists.’

‘But I am not a terrorist. The ICC have decided that I am a war criminal. There is a difference, which I would ask you to respect. Some call me a freedom fighter, but the truth is, Chief Constable, I’m just a soldier, who carried out his duty, fighting for his country. If necessary, however, I’m quite prepared to kill every man, woman and child on this train.’

‘Mr Antonov… My name is Michael. May I call you Laszlo?’

‘Of course you may, Michael.’

Laszlo liked the tone of this man. He knew that their time together would be short, however. Even before control was handed over, the chief constable would be out of the picture. The Security Service would install their own case officer; someone who did not need any notes or files. That was a shame — but it might mean he got to encounter the man who’d been tracking him for so long.

‘Perhaps so. Perhaps you are a soldier. But that is for others to decide. What concerns me are the hundreds of lives you are putting at risk. I want to make sure that you get what you need so they stay alive.’

Laszlo was pleased with what Alderson had said. ‘Thank you, Michael. And I, of course, will help you — if you provide me with the safe passage I require to a country with no extradition treaties in place with Great Britain.’

‘No doubt you already have somewhere in mind.’

‘Indeed I do,’ Laszlo said. ‘I’ve spent a pleasant few years in London, but now I think somewhere warmer, with less stringent banking regulations, would be much more suitable. I’ll need to be sure of that before I deposit the hundred and fifty kilograms of gold that you’re going to pay me.’

‘Gold?’

‘Correct. And I will require a Chinook helicopter. Both main fuel tanks full, and a full cabin fuel bladder to feed the main tanks.’

The chief constable couldn’t square what he had read about this man with what he was saying. It was as if Laszlo had taken his plan of action from a 1970s B movie.

‘More details will follow, Michael. Now you have thirty minutes to—’

The line went dead.

‘Hello… Hello?’ He jiggled the switch a few times, then swore and banged down the radio mic.

Alderson checked the signal on his mobile. ‘Hello? Laszlo?’

He checked the screen again before throwing it onto the seat.

The driver cut the four-ways and started to check for a break in the traffic. He had been with the chief constable long enough to know it was time to get his foot down even before his employer did.

‘Right, fuck it, get moving.’

Laszlo kicked the driver. ‘Where is the radio control? Where do we check?’

‘Under us.’ He didn’t even give Laszlo time to take a breath. He just wanted to do what he was told, when he was told, and live to tell the tale. ‘The control box is marked “TTR”.’