Rogue Elements Read online

  It was alive with activity. The great French windows that gave onto a terrace overlooking the Caribbean had been blacked out with thick fabric. In front of them, the furniture had been cleared aside to make way for a temporary television studio, with a plain white backdrop and three chrome and black leather armchairs. Along the back wall was a chaos of cameras, lights, screens and wires. Dozens of production assistants, electricians, sound engineers and runners generated a terrific hum of chatter and motion. Most were dressed like him in jeans or cargo pants and loose, cool shirts. Although a couple of junior assistants eyed him with vague curiosity, he was largely ignored by the rest.

  From the double doors, the tourist walked a line that was perfectly parallel with the back wall. His steps, seemingly casual, were precisely uniform. When a harried camera operator charged across his path, he paused to let the man pass rather than deviate from his course. When he had taken fourteen steps, he stopped.

  He was directly alongside a large camera rig. No good.

  Three more steps brought him level with a thicket of LED panels on stands. Better. Behind the lights, much of the back wall was taken up by a vast oil painting, a leaping blue marlin, framed in teak. Inconvenient, but not an insuperable problem. Once the lights were switched on, no one would see anything back there.

  With his attention focused on the clipboard, the tourist slipped between the light stands. Leaning briefly against the back wall, he glanced behind the painting. Electric wires. He noted the height of the alarm, eighteen centimetres above his head, and of the heavy duty hooks on which the painting was suspended, eight centimetres above that.

  Then he left the room.

  There was still more than half an hour till transmission. None of the principals had yet emerged from make-up.

  03

  ‘Welcome to a broadcast that could change the world. For many years now, a debate has been quietly raging. It speaks to social policy, to morality, to law and order, to public health. And it is deeply controversial. Today we will turn up the volume on that debate.’

  The host addressed the camera in the composed, solemn tone on which he had built his reputation as one of Britain’s foremost political interviewers. Behind him were the three empty chrome and leather armchairs.

  ‘Three like-minded, progressive leaders will shortly propose a brave new approach to one of society’s greatest challenges. Is it a viable solution? That is for you to decide. Our speakers seek to initiate a global debate and build a better public understanding of an issue that has for too long been obscured by stale political posturing. You can have your say on the Think Again website or using the hashtag displayed on your screen. Please take part. Your opinion matters. Your voice needs to be heard.

  ‘And now it is my privilege to introduce three remarkable individuals: President Murilo Hernandez Andrade of Brazil, Prime Minister Anneke van der Velde of the Netherlands and Prime Minister Terence Mayhew of Canada. The floor is yours. The world is listening.’

  It was forgivable hyperbole. The transmission was being relayed via satellite to fifty-eight different broadcasters around the globe. The schedules of CNN and France 2, of Al Jazeera, Rai Uno, BBC1 and ABC1, had been cleared to accommodate twenty-five uninterrupted minutes of live feed. Think Again’s liberal-minded benefactors had hired dozens of PR agencies to build a massive multinational audience. And yet, to the many viewers across multiple time zones, there was a sense of anti-climax in the appearance of the three politicians. It was the absence of applause. There was no studio audience to provide the usual comfortable blanket of approval. These three stood alone.

  The Dutch prime minister spoke first. ‘Friends, politics is sometimes about choosing the lesser of two evils. None of us stood for election because we wanted to raise taxes. None of us dedicated our lives to public service in order to deny patients expensive treatments.’ She paused to share a look with the men on either side of her, a moment of solidarity. ‘And not one of us went into politics to put drugs more easily into the hands of our children.

  ‘And yet when a greater evil proves itself through long years of bitter experience, it is our duty to consider the alternative, however unpalatable.

  ‘Friends, the problem of the illegal drugs trade has become so embedded in our culture that many of us barely see it any more. We drink coffee, watch football, play with our kids, gossip with friends, all the time ignoring the rivers of adulterated, uncontrolled, potentially lethal substances flowing all around us. We close our eyes to the mass murder and anarchy inflicted on developing countries, to the billions of dollars falling like rain into the pockets of criminals. We close our eyes and tell ourselves we have the situation under control. Friends, where drugs are concerned, we lost control a long time ago.’

  Drug use is illegal in Trinidad and Tobago, as it is in most countries. Consequently, the Think Again conference was among the most closely guarded secrets ever held by its leaders. One of many small nations caught at the sharp end of the War on Drugs, its Cabinet had been immediately sympathetic to the reformist charity’s appeal for an anonymous space from which to broadcast to the world – even if it brought stiff disapproval from all-seeing Washington.

  Another reason for the secrecy was, of course, security: far easier to protect the high-profile participants in a controversial event if no one knows where it is.

  The secrecy was a heroic achievement on an island more used to relaxed gossip and a free-for-all attitude to other people’s business. The retired Italian owner of the Belvedere estate had been invited to take a vacation in Europe at the government’s expense, in return for making his home available for a symposium on banana pest management. The film crew and security teams had been flown in at 3 a.m., when the airport at Crown Point was closed down and no staff were on hand to observe the studio equipment, generators and satellite transmitter being offloaded. The three premiers had been conveyed to Belvedere House in a customized windowless vehicle disguised as a builder’s truck. Two cars filled with plain-clothes Trinidadian Special Forces officers formed a discreet escort. The local police, along with the caterers, were told only that a reclusive Venezuelan oil man, the subject of frequent kidnap attempts, was on holiday with a few dozen close personal friends.

  It should have been watertight.

  ‘The dismal truth is this: we will never be able to suppress the illegal trade in substances that have such widespread and enduring popularity.’ Prime Minister Mayhew was silver-haired and straight-backed, with a patrician profile but an earthy, guttural voice. ‘In 1998, the UN General Assembly set an objective of eliminating or significantly reducing narcotics cultivation and trafficking by 2008. Opium and cannabis production doubled in that time. The US government alone spends $15 billion and makes two million arrests every year in its War on Drugs. An American citizen is arrested for possession or sale of cannabis every thirty-eight seconds.

  ‘Think about that a moment. Cannabis is a mildly psychoactive substance, in most cases less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. It is legal in two US states. Forty-two per cent of Americans have used cannabis. That’s around 127 million men, women and children. Are these people criminals? Technically, most of them are. As a law-maker and a former law-enforcer, I have to ask myself: how can it make sense to criminalize so many millions of ordinary people?’

  Behind the back wall of the great reception room now serving as TV studio lay Belvedere House’s master bedroom suite. It was possible that one of the less indispensable members of the crew might feel the need to lie down or relieve themselves at some point. But sandwiched between bedroom and bathroom on the architect’s plans was a third, windowless room containing nothing more than a whirlpool bath and a very expensive sound system. It seemed unlikely anyone would want to use either during a live television transmission.

  The tourist had reclaimed his toolbox, and now he jammed the door of the whirlpool room shut behind him with a thick rubber wedge. He paced out four steps and set a chair from the bedroom against the wall. Wi
th a pencil, he marked on the wall the position of the blue marlin painting’s alarm and of the picture hooks. Stepping up on the chair, he cut a neat plug of plaster from the wall above the marks with the surprisingly sharp edge of his framing square. Then he began drilling.

  The power drill was not, despite appearances, standard carpenter’s issue. For one thing it was slow. The wide masonry drill bit would take over ten minutes to cut through the Victorian brick. But it was powerful. And it was very, very quiet.

  Murilo Andrade strode animatedly about the set. A passionate, dark-eyed giant, he kept his arms in constant motion as he spoke. ‘Let me make a public confession that will surprise no one. For many years, as a young man, I smoked marijuana. In Brazil, this is normal. Over my lifetime, I have, who knows, spent ten thousand dollars on weed. Not one cent of that money went to anything useful. None of it went to the government to pay for drug treatment programmes. None of it fed directly into the mainstream economy to strengthen my country.

  ‘Instead, it went to organized crime. It bought guns. It bought the cooperation of police officers, prosecutors and judges. It bought mansions for drug lords. The world spends more or less four hundred billion dollars on illegal drugs each year. As long as Prohibition remains, most of that money will go – untaxed – into the wallets of the worst scum on the planet.’

  A change in vibration warned the tourist that the drill bit had reached plaster. He lowered the speed still further, raising the torque and scraping away the last millimetres. Removing the drill, he put his ear to the hole and listened. Andrade was still speaking.

  With a damp cloth, he cleaned the traces of masonry dust from the wall and floor, and erased the pencil marks. Next he took the largest of the screwdrivers from his toolbox and eased off the tip to reveal a scalpel blade. The shaft was extendible, and he pulled it out to its full length of 1.2 metres. Slowly he inserted it into the drilled hole, careful not to catch the blade on the rough brick, until its razor-sharp point was resting against the back of the Blue Marlin canvas.

  Squinting along the shaft of the screwdriver, he carved a small circle of canvas out of the great fish’s flank.

  The Dutch prime minister leaned forward in her chair. She had long ago mastered the knack of ignoring the crowds of technicians and the blinding studio lights to focus entirely on the camera. ‘Is it possible to legalize drugs? No one argues that the tax revenues and cost savings would be welcome in this Age of Austerity.’ A rueful smile. Anneke van der Velde was a politician who had reached the top through inclusiveness and informality. ‘More importantly, many of us feel instinctively uncomfortable prohibiting adults from activities that hurt no one but themselves. But still . . . is it truly possible to make these dangerous substances legal? Because they are dangerous. No one is disputing that. Just as alcohol and skiing and chainsaws are dangerous. Can we responsibly allow our supermarkets to sell MDMA that might induce a psychotic episode? Or ketamine that might rot your bladder? Or heroin that might kill you?’

  The handle of the toolbox was ergonomically shaped, it was true, but that was not the reason for its generous proportions. It split open at the touch of a concealed pin to reveal an even more exquisitely crafted device. The dart gun had been designed for one very particular application: firing through restricted apertures. In such situations, a normal scope is impractical; instead, a tiny camera had been set into the muzzle of the gun, wirelessly connected to the tourist’s smartphone.

  He inserted the barrel into the drilled hole and switched on his muted phone. The image was crisp, clear, magnified: the dart gun was presently pointed at the back of an LED panel. A slight shift and the lines of the reticle found his target’s shoulder. Another minute adjustment, and they crossed just above her left breast.

  Anneke van der Velde felt the tiny dart penetrate her flesh, but she did not understand what it was. She had been bitten several times by mosquitoes during her short stay in Tobago, and with her mind so entirely on the broadcast she dismissed this sharp little pain as yet another vexatious tropical bug. It did not interrupt the flow of her speech for one moment.

  ‘Drugs are dangerous. But the bigger danger lies in the way addicts are forced to obtain their fix. Heroin and cocaine may be cut with brick dust, drain cleaner, even rat poison. Some supplies are too concentrated and the user overdoses. Syringes may be contaminated: the primary route of transmission for HIV in Western Europe and North America is through shared needles. The criminalization of drug use means that people who need support from health professionals risk imprisonment if they approach the authorities. So they hide underground, mugging and stealing and selling their bodies to fund their habit. Over half of all acquisitive crime in Western Europe is committed by drug addicts desperate to buy heroin or crack cocaine. The solution is a safe, regulated, taxable system of narcotics supply accompanied by well-funded health education. Allow us . . . Allow us to explain . . .’ She grimaced suddenly, put her hand to her side. For a long, uncomfortable moment, she was silent.

  ‘Perhaps, President Andrade,’ she said finally, in a voice that was stripped of its usual dynamism and vigour, ‘you would explain how it could work.’

  The Dutch prime minister was still alive when the tourist left Belvedere House.

  ‘Boss changed his mind,’ he grimaced to the Canadian security officers on the door. Walking out into the damp Tobago heat, he surveyed the seventeen vehicles crammed into the sloping driveway. Most were local hire cars, anonymous white saloons and silver Suzuki SUVs. He chose a Nissan for its open windows. Once in the driving seat with his toolbox, it took him just sixteen seconds to start the engine.

  Both security checkpoints – at the gate and on the dirt track beyond – waved him straight through. No one had any great interest in vehicles leaving the Belvedere estate.

  At Emerald Sea Resort, cocktails were still being mixed. Families played contentedly in the pool. A small TV at the back of the terrace bar showed frantic debate between far-off political commentators, but the volume was too low for anyone to notice.

  They checked out, with only a slight quibble over the bill, and drove the short distance to the airport. Monitors at A. N. R. Robinson International showed CNN clips of the Think Again transmission, but none of the passengers watching were aware of their proximity to the event. The tourist and his companion boarded the 19:05 British Airways flight to London Gatwick amidst a murmur of commentary about the shocking death. She seemed so young for a prime minister, they all agreed. So nice. Such a shame.

  The distraught guardians of Anneke van der Velde’s body were unwilling to entrust it to the Trinidad and Tobago Forensic Science Centre, and so it was not until nine hours after the tourist – or Gavriel Yadin, as he could now once more think of himself – touched down in southern England that deliberate poisoning was established as the cause of death by toxicologists in The Hague. Even then, it took a sharp-eyed pathologist over an hour to locate the tiny puncture wound where the soluble polymer dart had buried itself in the prime minister’s pectoral muscle. Up to that point, no one had noticed the plaster plug that had been carefully reinserted in the wall of the whirlpool room. The damage to the Blue Marlin painting had been blamed on careless lighting engineers.

  Finally, three days after Gavriel Yadin left Tobago, an officer in the Canadian Prime Minister Protection Detail recalled, during what was effectively an interrogation, the carpenter who had departed shortly before Anneke van der Velde collapsed. By then, the stolen Nissan hire car had been found on a forest track, although no one had thought to connect it to the death of the Dutch prime minister. Consequently, no DNA or fingerprint analysis was conducted before its ignition was repaired and it was valeted and hired out to a family from Scotland.

  The assassin’s trail, always tenuous, had become the coldest thing in the Caribbean.

  PART I: THE SPY

  04

  MILAN, ITALY – 7 June

  The rendezvous was an underpass on the outskirts of the city. Madeleine Wraye k
new it wasn’t going to be the meeting point. If it was, she’d got the wrong man.

  No CCTV units. The grimy pavement was wide enough for them to pull over without obstructing the traffic. Edward Joyce activated the hazard lights and raised the bonnet in accordance with their instructions.

  ‘See that?’ he said, pointing to a heap of abandoned crates, a vagrant’s shelter, fifty metres off. He marched purposefully to the dilapidated encampment, peered inside. Wraye watched him with amusement. ‘What?’ he said, aggrieved, when he returned to the car.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have checked?’

  ‘Yes, he probably would have.’

  Joyce leaned against the BMW, feigning nonchalance as he studied the water stains on the decaying concrete overhead. ‘He could have chosen somewhere less grim.’

  ‘He wants the cover. In case we have drone or satellite surveillance.’

  ‘Jesus. The man really is paranoid.’

  ‘He has reason to be, unfortunately.’

  A car had come to a halt on the opposite carriageway. White, a Fiat. Comfortably anonymous. In it, the lone figure of a young woman. Moments later a similar model in silver pulled up behind the BMW.

  ‘Steady,’ murmured Wraye. ‘Hands in the open. We don’t want any misunderstandings.’

  The driver of the silver Fiat stepped out. ‘Good evening,’ he said in accented English. ‘My name is Carlo. Thank you for your punctuality.’ He was short and skinny, Mediterranean, with a thin moustache and two delicate gold chains around his neck. Addressing Wraye, the man added, ‘Our friend asks that you travel a little further. Your colleague must remain here. Is this acceptable?’