De Payns and Shrek heard the MiT radio system click on their Turkish walkie-talkies: Captain Marak was on the net.
‘A VIP guest has just been announced,’ said Marak. ‘President Zelenskyy—confirm President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.’
‘Copy that,’ said de Payns, and turned to Shrek. They were standing on the marble floor of the mezzanine, watching the guests and delegates arriving from the car parks downstairs and being herded through the security stations before being channelled into the auditorium.
‘I guess it was a badly guarded secret,’ said Shrek. ‘Let’s go to work.’
They were dressed in suits with ballistic vests under their jackets and Glock 9mm handguns, supplied by the Turks, in shoulder holsters.
De Payns clicked the Y confidential frequency. ‘Aguilar to all, looks like we have Zelenskyy coming in as the VIP.’
‘Jéjé copy, all clear up the top.’
De Payns and Shrek let themselves into the service stairwell and climbed it to the backstage area of the auditorium. There they split up, Shrek going to the left-hand side of the stage and de Payns to the right. From his position in the wing, de Payns could see Jéjé on one side of the hall and Danny on the other. The noise was intense, the conference a rowdy convergence of capital and politics, an unholy alliance in some people’s eyes but also the lifeblood of the oil and gas industry. De Payns looked out at the spread of tables, hosting perhaps a thousand people, with waiters milling between them serving food and alcohol. The table in the middle of the front row had a few empty chairs, though Igor Kolomoisky was already seated, along with his entourage. Sharking around Kolomoisky were two obviously military security people, wearing dark grey ripstop hiking gear, with black bum bags at the front serving as holsters. De Payns thought they were soldiers by the way they held themselves, and he assumed they were from Kolomoisky’s private unit of the Azov Battalion, the Black Corps.
The thwomp of helicopter rotors was faintly audible as an MC readied herself in the backstage area, a man with a walkie-talkie giving her instructions in Turkish which sounded like a request to hold off on beginning the proceedings.
‘From Marak,’ came the call over the Turkish walkie-talkie. ‘VIP has his own security team. They’re coming down from the helicopter pad, everyone hold their stations.’
The room buzzed as the Zelenskyy group came in the side entrance to the auditorium. The Ukraine president was dressed in his usual active-wear and his grooming was immaculate, totally in keeping with his acting background. As he was escorted to the centre-front table, well-wishers reached out for handshakes as he passed. De Payns counted four presidential bodyguards, all looking heavy and efficient.
The man with the walkie-talkie handed the MC a slip of paper. She read it, made a face, then walked out onto the stage with her microphone and greeted the room in English. ‘Good evening, delegates. We have some very special guests in the house tonight.’
De Payns clicked his radio. ‘Aguilar to Jéjé—what’s it like on the floor?’
‘Jéjé to Aguilar,’ said the former navy diver. ‘There’s a lot of booze making the rounds, and the show hasn’t even started yet.’
‘Aguilar copy,’ said de Payns. ‘Keep visual on Zelenskyy.’
■
According to the Eastern Gas Conference program, the main course would be served and then the keynote speaker—which the crowd now knew was Igor Kolomoisky—would address the room for twenty minutes, after which a Bedouin drumming troupe would be giving a brief performance. De Payns looked up from the program and peered through the gap in the stage curtain at the conference floor. The centre-front table was becoming a train switching yard, with grandees of all sorts coming over to kiss the ring and make themselves known to Kolomoisky and Zelenskyy, who were both seated facing the stage. Concentric circles of security folded around the table, the closest being the bodyguard who had a chair placed directly behind Zelenskyy, and various people fanning out around them. The security was intense, with no attempt to blend in.
The delegates ate their meals and drank their booze, and de Payns felt a rising sense of irritation at the spectacle. Too many people, too many guns, too much at stake. Istanbul was a crossroads of east and west, and also Europe and Asia Minor, and every banker, engineering executive and drilling consultant from both continents seemed to be in attendance.
The MC announced that Igor Kolomoisky was going to address the conference, and de Payns locked eyes with Kolomoisky’s senior security person as he walked his boss to the stage. The man’s paranoid gaze reflected de Payns’ own feelings.
Kolomoisky spoke in fairly good English about the cooperation required to get the EastMed pipeline working and the importance of the four main seabed gas fields between Cyprus and Israel for Europe’s future energy security. Then he paused and smiled. Behind him, a huge screen played video footage of a gas rig on the ocean; de Payns could see it from the feedback monitors in the backstage area. The footage featured a helicopter panning shot of the rig, which had the name PONTUS on the sides. ‘We’ve been drilling in an area off the coast of Israel, between Leviathan and Tamar, in what is known as the Pantheon Field. We expect to extract ten billion cubic metres of natural gas each year from Pantheon, which—along with the other gas field on this seabed—will supply Israel, Jordan and Europe with affordable gas for decades to come.’
The applause began, but Kolomoisky wasn’t done. ‘We heard the disappointing news several weeks ago that the Biden administration had withdrawn its support for the EastMed Pipeline’—there were scattered boos, and Kolomoisky held up his hand—‘but the European Commission still supports it, and so do I!’
The crowd cheered.
‘Tonight I can say that we are very close to announcing that the EastMed pipeline through Cyprus, Greece and Italy will soon be in a position to confirm a consortium of investors and bankers. When we do that, I look forward to telling you that we are starting construction—stay tuned, folks.’
The cheers grew, and Kolomoisky smiled and again held up his hand, the consummate showman.
‘But before we can connect directly into Europe, next week we will be moving our first consignments of Pantheon gas onto a floating processing and storage ship.’
Even without the threat of an assassination, Kolomoisky’s words made de Payns stiffen: the Kremlin was unlikely to let EastMed progress without Russian involvement.
Kolomoisky finished by praising the Israelis, the Cypriots, the Egyptians, Italians, Greeks and French, to rapturous applause. As the noise of the crowd rose, a small army of security assembled on the stage, surrounding Kolomoisky, with no one bothering to conceal their firearms.
When the Ukrainian oligarch finally returned to his table, acknowledging the plaudits like a Roman emperor, the backstage area came alive with the venue managers telling the drummers they had a one-minute call. Technicians readied lights and clipped microphones to the drummers’ robes. As the musicians were about to go on, de Payns asked Jéjé and Danny to keep an eye on things, while he motioned to Shrek in the other wing.
‘Let’s have a look around,’ said de Payns when his colleague joined him. He wanted a better look at the rabbit warren of rooms and corridors behind the auditorium.
‘Everyone in here was searched,’ Shrek reminded him.
‘I know,’ said de Payns. ‘I can see everyone out the front, but I can’t see anything twenty metres that way.’ He pointed to the backstage area.
They walked the main backstage corridor with all the changing rooms opening off it. There was a lot of people in the confined area, more so when the drummers filed out of a doorway in their flowing white robes and Bedouin headwear. As they walked past the Frenchmen in the direction of the stage, de Payns noted that their toothy leader seemed intense, and there was some lingering eye contact from him. A younger man—perhaps eighteen years old—walked beside his leader, and as the troupe passed, de Payns wondered if he’d seen the leader’s left hand clasped around the younger man’s bicep, as if pulling him along.
Pausing, de Payns made to alert Shrek, but his colleague was already focused on the leader.
‘Outside the hotel this morning?’ murmured Shrek. ‘That’s them.’
De Payns turned and followed Shrek, and as they did the leader of the troupe looked over his shoulder, eyes focusing on Shrek, and released the young man he’d been shepherding. The leader’s right hand gripped at something beneath his billowing robe and he raised it towards Shrek, revealing a rifle shape as it came horizontal. Shrek pushed aside the barrel with a soft left hand and threw a hard straight right into the leader’s right shoulder joint, popping it. In a single movement Shrek’s left hand gripped the rifle and yanked backwards, pulling the leader’s right arm out of its socket. The leader started to scream but was stopped short by a punch in the throat, and then a stamp-kick to the left patella that hyperextended the leg, leaving him in a crumpled state of agony at Shrek’s feet.
The backstage people started yelling, technicians clambering over one another at the sight of a machine pistol, and the crowd stampeded.
The youngster who’d been manhandled turned and ran down the hall past de Payns as the troupe stepped back from the fray amid yells of panic. De Payns turned to follow the youngster but came face to face with a larger, stronger man who had his own rifle now horizontal under the Bedouin robes and pointing. The gun fired as de Payns crouched into it to his right and drove up with his legs, throwing a left hand onto the rifle barrel and driving the heel of his right hand into the point of the shooter’s nose. The shooter’s head jerked backwards in a spray of blood and de Payns kicked the man in the solar plexus, getting both hands on the rifle as his assailant sagged to the ground. In a fast, trained action he twisted the barrel backwards and smashed the rifle stock into the man’s teeth, tore the rifle free and drove the stock downwards into the man’s nose, hard. Beside him, Shrek had taken possession of the leader’s weapon; it looked like a chopped-down MP5, weapon of choice for the terror cells of North Africa.
The gunfire drew more panic, and from the stage area Captain Marak appeared, handgun levelled and MiT agents tucked in behind him.
‘You go,’ said Shrek, nodding at the fleeing young drummer. ‘I’ll deal with Marak.’
Standing, de Payns dropped the submachine gun and drew his handgun. He turned and saw the young drummer at the end of the hall, going through the service door that led down to the mezzanine. De Payns sprinted after him, keying the radio as he ran. ‘Aguilar pursuing Tango to the mezzanine.’
He reached the spring-loaded door and paused, wondering if the terrorist was waiting on the other side. De Payns could hear his footfalls receding down the stairs and burst through the service door. At the bottom of the stairs the terrorist’s robes billowed as he reached out and pushed through the door. De Payns pursued, staying rhythmic on the steps rather than rushing. He reached the service door before the lock fully clicked and he shoved through with his shoulder, pistol raised and sweeping the room in a two-handed weaver stance. A middle-aged couple with name badges recoiled in horror and a group of women tried to hide behind one another. One of them pointed to the escalators that led down to the parking levels.
De Payns reached the escalator in five strides across the marble and saw the runner at the bottom of the moving stairs, throwing off his Bedouin robe and revealing a shortened MP5 slung under his right armpit in the style made famous by Yasser Arafat’s bodyguards. De Payns skipped down the escalator three steps at a time and could see the youngster—now dressed in jeans and an FC Barcelona shirt—running for the second escalator. Hurried shouts and the footfalls of security followed de Payns as he reached the top of the next escalator, which would take them to the lowest level of the complex. He was closing on the kid and had to make the decision: shoot him in the back or take him alive and let Captain Marak extract the truth. He had to balance that against his safety. The machine pistol the kid carried could shred de Payns to ribbons.
The Tango reached the bottom of the escalator when de Payns was halfway down. He raised his handgun, but the runner sprinted into the car park.
De Payns reached the lowest level of the parking building and looked out, saw the kid’s head bobbing fifteen cars away, his eyes wide and scared. A security guard emerged from an office beside one set of elevator doors, armed with a 9mm pistol, and quickly assessed that the panting Frenchman was not the threat. De Payns pointed at the kid and they split, the guard running for the western side of the parking building, where a green exit sign glowed, while de Payns continued down the middle, keeping his eye on the runner, who showed no signs of slowing. De Payns wondered how much longer he could maintain his own speed. He’d worn a pair of black Salomon hiking boots with his chinos and sports jacket, rather than the office shoes he’d worn for the walk-through of the congress centre earlier in the day, but his fitness was not good and his lungs were starting to burn.
The runner jagged to his right suddenly, cutting across de Payns’ trajectory at a right angle and making for the eastern exit sign. De Payns put in an extra effort, realising that the would-be assassin was just seven cars away now, having given up his advantage in order to avoid the Turkish guard. The exit sign loomed over an apron that was free of cars and the runner got to the fire door beside another set of elevators. But instead of pushing through the door, the terrorist stopped and turned to face de Payns who also came to a halt, his Glock raised. De Payns panted, his throat rasping, and the kid slowly brought up his MP5 level with de Payns’ stomach, looking him in the eye.
‘Take it easy,’ said de Payns, gasping for breath but not shooting. ‘Don’t touch the trigger.’
Behind him de Payns could hear the shouting of the MiT agents and security coming closer, but the kid and the Frenchman kept their eyes on each other. Sweat dripped between de Payns’ shoulder blades and he held steady, no sudden movements.
‘Put it down, kid,’ said the Frenchman, gulping for breath. ‘Let me help you.’
The kid seemed to take forever, his eyes darting towards the stampede of Turkish security officers. But slowly he clasped the gun by its barrel, unhooked it from his shoulder and threw it onto the concrete, where it clattered and bounced. De Payns moved forward, handgun trained on the kid’s face, wondering if there was a bomb vest. As he got a foot to the MP5 and kicked it away, a cacophony of threats and orders blasted from the MiT officers who’d just come around the corner behind him.
He gave the terrorist one last chance. ‘Please.’
The kid’s hands went up in the air.
‘Asylum,’ said the kid, eyes wide but somehow trusting. ‘Asylum.’