The Lost Relic

‘Keep talking,’ she said.

Lister talked fast as he drove. The Laguna was in thick traffic circling the Place de la Concorde, with the Champs Elysees to their right. ‘OK. Tassoni’s public face is pretty well documented. Born into a wealthy, influential family in 1956. Successful, handsome, charismatic, destined from the start to be a major player, one way or another. What the public don’t know is that Tassoni was connected to organised crime, going back years. Italian mafia, Russian mob, you name it, but none of it ever proved. As far as we can tell, he first ran into Grigori Shikov in Moscow back in the late seventies, as a young guy heavily involved in the Italian Marxist movement. Those ideologies didn’t last long. He and Shikov have been photographed together on numerous occasions since then and are reckoned to be doing a lot of business together. Intelligence services have had surveillance on him for as long as anyone can remember, but he’s never put a foot wrong. Not until earlier this year, when he made one mistake that gave our people the opening we wanted.’ Lister glanced sideways at Darcey. ‘Tassoni liked them young, seemingly.’

Buitoni swore from the back seat. Darcey said nothing.

Lister continued. ‘So they didn’t waste any time approaching him and offering him the deal. The terms were pretty simple. Sell out Shikov to us and walk free, or else be buried forever by an underage sex scandal. Tassoni was quick to agree. The problem was, not even he could offer anything to nail Shikov down solid. Then, just a few days ago, Tassoni contacted our agents. It looked like the perfect opportunity had finally come up. He said Shikov was planning a heist on an Italian art gallery, and he was giving the job to his son, Anatoly. Real piece of work, that one. He and his gang were going to kidnap the three gallery owners from their homes in the night and force them to give up the security codes. In the end, it didn’t happen that way.’

Darcey frowned, working hard to keep up with the welter of details. ‘Hold on. You’re saying British Intelligence had advance knowledge of the robbery?’

Lister swallowed and nodded. ‘It’s all there in the Operation Jericho file. The proper file, that is, not the censored version you’ve seen. My department heads decided to let it play out. The Italian police were never told.’

‘This is really fucked up.’

‘Keep listening. I don’t have a lot of time. It was Tassoni who recruited the Italian team for the job, including his own bodyguard, Rocco Massi. What Rocco didn’t know was that he was a stooge. If he’d been arrested and tried to plea-bargain his way out by giving them his boss’s name, it would’ve been buried. As it happened, he got away clean. But what Tassoni didn’t know was that one of the guys he brought in, Bruno Bellomo, was a deep-cover intelligence agent whose real name is Mario Belli. Are you following this?’

‘Go on.’

‘If things had worked out, either of two things could have happened. One, Anatoly could have led us straight back to his father, in which case Junior and Senior could be arrested together. Jackpot. Alternatively, if the Shikovs were more careful and there was no direct contact, with Belli’s help we were going to pick up Anatoly on his own and lean hard on him. He was a sadistic little bastard, but deep down he was a spoilt weakling who’d have quickly broken down and agreed to give up his father rather than spend the rest of his life in prison.’

Darcey gave a bitter chuckle. ‘I just love the way you people operate.’

‘Let me continue. That’s how it was meant to go down. Everything changed when Anatoly Shikov altered the robbery plan at the last minute. Belli could still have led us to him, no problem. But by turning the robbery from a low-key night raid into the full-on daytime heist it became, it allowed a new and completely unforeseen factor to enter the equation.’

‘And that factor’s name was Ben Hope,’ Darcey said.

‘Neither side could have predicted a guy like that would become involved. A normal person would have been taken hostage with the rest, or killed.’

‘Which was an acceptable risk, as far as your guys were concerned. Collateral damage.’

Lister shot her another sideways glance as he drove. ‘Don’t look at me like that, OK? I’m just a junior. I don’t make these fucking plans.’

‘So Ben Hope helped to save as many hostages as he could. I know the story. Or he just made it look that way.’

Lister shook his head vigorously. ‘You only know what they want you to know, the stuff that’s been allowed into the police report. You don’t know that Hope killed Anatoly Shikov with a poker to save one of the female hostages from being raped. And killed, most probably.’

Darcey didn’t reply. That definitely hadn’t been divulged to her.

‘As if that didn’t screw up the Shikov operation badly enough,’ Lister went on, ‘he also apprehended our guy Belli and hung him out of a window. Which completely put paid to the whole plan.’

‘So now it’s all about containment.’

Lister nodded. ‘Simple as that. Tassoni knew too much. Rocco Massi too. They took them both out together, and covered their tracks by making it look sloppy. The initial idea was to blame it on a tin-pot radical environmentalist outfit, ELF.’

‘But meanwhile, Ben Hope was figuring out the Tassoni connection, and decided to go and pay him a visit.’

‘Which again was completely unforeseen,’ Lister said. ‘I don’t even know how he worked it out.’

‘I’ll be sure to ask him when I catch up with him,’ Darcey said.

‘Only this time, instead of messing up the plans, when he turned up out of the blue it offered a way forward.’

‘How’s that?’ Buitoni asked, frowning.

‘By framing him for the killing and sending someone like you after him, they regain control. Hope turns from being a liability into a valuable asset.’ Lister pointed at Darcey. ‘And once you deliver him to them, they’re going to use him.’

Darcey blinked. ‘Use him?’

‘Tigers and lambs,’ Lister said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Something my boss said. When you want to catch the tiger, you whack a stake in the middle of a jungle clearing. Tether a lamb to the stake. Then all you have to do is wait up a tree with your rifle. Sooner or later, the tiger will come.’

‘I don’t think Ben Hope’s going to be that easy to catch.’

‘You’re missing the point. Ben Hope isn’t the tiger. He’s the lamb.’

Darcey understood. ‘They want to use him as bait.’

Lister nodded. ‘Shikov is the tiger. They know he’ll stop at nothing to avenge his son. They want him to kill Hope, and they want to catch him doing it.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Buitoni groaned from the back seat.

Lister whacked his palm against the steering wheel. ‘The whole thing is full of shit. It’s not what I joined the service for. I can’t stand being part of a manhunt against an innocent man. Not just innocent – Hope risked his life to save those people. Just like he risked his life for his country, and now the bastards are happy to screw him for it.’

‘But you’re part of it, Lister.’

‘Not any more. Not after this. I quit. Well, not exactly.’

‘You just went AWOL?’

‘I can’t let this happen. Someone’s got to stop them.’

‘Aren’t you taking a risk, talking to me?’

‘Bigger than you can even imagine. But I don’t know who else to turn to.’

‘And you’re forgetting one thing. Shikov’s deal with the terrorists. If the sources are right—’

‘Then the Taliban will be in possession of two Black Shark attack helicopters. I know.’

‘Our Apache crews won’t know what hit them. Hundreds of British soldiers will be at risk. All to save one innocent man?’

Lister turned to glower at her. ‘My father was a Royal Marines captain. He died in Iraq for his country. You think I want to endanger our troops out there? Shikov’s deal can’t be allowed to go through. I’m just saying I can’t stand by and let things happen this way. I won’t.’