‘What about them?’

  ‘Do you think you could recognise them if we ran some photographs by you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Good man. Laura, can you put a pause on the video and put the usual suspects on one of the video monitors for us?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Laura, and she pecks at her keyboard. The video of the interview disappears and two photographs appear on adjacent monitors. One is a surveillance picture of a heavy-set man in a black leather jacket, climbing out of a Mercedes SUV. The other is a head and shoulders shot that looked as if it had been taken from a driving licence. you shake your head. ‘No,’ you say.

  The next man is a bit bigger with a deformed right ear. Again there are two photographs, one clearly taken during a surveillance operation, one from what looks like a passport. ‘No,’ you say.

  Laura shows you a dozen more sets of photographs and none of them rings a bell. But then she puts up two pictures of a man you recognised immediately. It was the man who’d almost beaten Peter to death with a baseball bat. Bald with a thick neck around which coiled a black and red snake.

  ‘Him,’ you say.

  ‘You’re sure?’ say Waller.

  ‘I was face to face with him when I pulled the trigger,’ you say.

  ‘Nikolay Lazovsky,’ says Waller. ‘And he was one of the men you killed?’

  You nod. ‘Definitely. He was the first. He’d beaten the crap out of Peter and was about to start on me.’

  ‘He’s a nasty piece of work,’ says Waller. ‘He was a member of Roman Abramovich’s security team back in the days when he owned Chelsea Football Club. When Abramovich left the UK, Lazovsky set up his own security company, possibly funded by Abramovich. Most of the people he employs are former agents with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, their equivalent of MI6. No one is quite sure of Lazovsky’s background, his CV looks squeaky clean but then it would be if he had the backing of an oligarch like Abramovich.’ He looks over at Laura. ‘Let’s start looking at colleagues of Mr Lazovsky.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ says Laura and her fingers play across the keyboard.

  Photographs of three men flash up but you don’t recognise them. The fourth is the man who had wielded the knife. Tall and thin with a hooked nose and thin lips, a mouth full of yellow teeth. ‘Him,’ you say. ‘He was the second guy I shot.’

  Waller nods over at Laura and she reads from the screen. ‘Sergey Zakirov,’ she says. ‘Served time with Lazovsky in Penal Colony No. 6 of the Federal Penitentiary Service AKA Black Dolphin Prison. It’s one of the oldest prisons in Russia, sited in Orenburg Oblast, close to the border with Kazakhstan. They were both serving life sentences but were released early, we believe for doing a service for an oligarch with close ties to Putin.’

  ‘A service?’ says Waller.

  ‘Two corrupt police officers were killed in the prison showers. The men were trying to get their sentences reduced in exchange for information about the oligarch. Their deaths put an end to the investigation and six months later Lazovsky and Zakirov walked free.’

  ‘But how can two low-lives like that get to live in the UK?’

  ‘They are - or I should say they were - employed by a security company based in London. Lazovsky is the managing director and major shareholder and Zakirov is an employee. Their visas are in order and they never broke any laws in the UK, never even acquired a speeding or parking ticket.’

  ‘But they were in prison for murder in Russia, how does that not show up when they apply for a UK visa? I would have thought a clean criminal record would be up at the top of the list of requirements.’

  Waller shrugs. ‘This is a government that issues hundreds of thousands of working visas every year, with a civil service staff that’s mainly working from home. We’ve raised objections in the past but they fall on deaf ears.’ He looks over at Laura. ‘Who else do you have for us?’ he asks.

  Laura puts more photographs on the screen. Most of them big men with scars and hard eyes, many of them with tattoos. You look at dozens of photographs but none of them ring a bell. ‘Seriously, these are all Russian gangsters active in the UK?’ you ask.

  ‘Most. Some we think are in Europe but they’d have no problem getting into the UK.’

  A new photograph flashes up. You stare at it and hold up your hand. ‘Wait.’ You get up and walk over to the screen. It’s a head and shoulder shot of a bald man with a scar running through his right eyebrow. You don’t recognise the scar because the guy never got too close to you but the face is definitely familiar. You look over at Laura. ‘Do you have any full length pictures of him?’ you ask.

  ‘I think so,’ she says.

  She taps on her keyboard and two photographs appear on separate monitors. They are surveillance photographs, in one he is standing outside a Russian restaurant smoking cigarettes with three other heavies. In the other he is climbing out of a Mercedes SUV.

  ‘That’s the guy who got away,’ you say. ‘I fired at him but he managed to get out of the door.’

  Waller looks over at Laura and raises his eyebrows expectantly. She moves her head closer to her screen. ‘Oleg Prokhorov,’ she says. ‘No relation to the oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, or at least no close relation that we know about. He has been employed by Lazovsky for the last twelve months. Prior to that, Prokhorov served with the Spetsnaz GRU, AKA the Special Forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. He was in one of several units that were sent into Ukraine in 2022 at the start of the Russian invasion, tasked with assassinating President Zelenskyy and other high-ranking officials and army officers. We have intel that for some time he was with the GRU’s Unit 29155, a black ops unit used in foreign assassinations, aimed at destabilising European countries including the United Kingdom.’

  ‘Again, I have to ask how a Russian assassin can so easily get into the UK,’ you say. ‘Wouldn’t you have red-flagged him?’

  ‘The Unit 29155 intel is hearsay,’ says Laura. ‘Something we picked up in a phone tap that we’d rather keep under wraps. The fact that he was Russian special forces isn’t reason enough to deny him a visa. He doesn’t show up on any Interpol or Europol databases and he’s never put a foot wrong in the UK.’

  ‘Until now,’ you say.

  ‘Exactly,’ says Waller. ‘Obviously what has happened has changed everything and we will prioritise finding and apprehending him.’

  Over the next half an hour, you view more than forty photographs but aren’t able to identify anyone else.

  Eventually Laura nods over at Waller. ‘That’s the lot with connections to Lazovsky,’ she says. ‘We could widen the net, if you wanted.’

  ‘I think we should give Rob a rest,’ says Waller.

  ‘This might sound a bit weird, but would you mind calling me Phil from now on,’ you say. ‘Rob just doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘But Phil does?’ says Waller.

  ‘I know it doesn’t make any sense but I just feel more comfortable hearing Phil.’

  ‘Well that is your real name, after all,’ says Waller. ‘So it actually makes perfect sense. Nothing in Rob Johnston’s life is real, you had to commit it all to short-term memory. When you got hit with amnesia, it’s more likely that short-term memories would be the first to go. But your Phil Dodds life was real - is real - so those memories are long term and more likely to be recovered.’

  You frown. ‘You’re starting to sound like a memory expert,’ you say.

  ‘Far from it,’ says Waller. ‘But after hearing what happened to you I did some research and spoke to a few people. The consensus seems to be that your memory will return eventually, it’s very, very rare for amnesia to be total and permanent. This feeling you have that Phil is your name might be a sign that it’s starting to return. Can you remember anything else?’

  You shake your head. ‘Not memories. But I get feelings, something like déjà vu. I felt it in the house. Did the experts have any bright ideas?’

  ‘One suggestion was that I play you the recordings of the interviews we did but that doesn’t appear to have worked, so far at least. One very nice lady suggested we try electroconvulsive therapy, ECT.’

  ‘Shock therapy? Are you serious?’

  ‘It sounds worse than it is. It basically involves passing a carefully controlled electrical stimulation through the brain while the patient is under general anaesthetic. The charge induces seizure which can cause changes in brain chemistry that can alleviate severe symptoms of things like depression and bipolar disorder. The woman I spoke to suggested it might kickstart your memory.’

  ‘Has it been done before?’

  ‘No. It was a hypothetical. There aren’t many cases like yours. I mean, there are people with dementia or Alzheimer’s who lose their memory, but that’s because of physiological changes in the brain and generally there’s nothing that can be done to recover the lost memories. There have been cases where severe head trauma has resulted in catastrophic brain damage and in those cases any memory loss is permanent. You had a bad knock but the scans suggest no serious damage so in theory your memories should all come back. The suggestion was that ECT might get things moving, like when you jumpstart a car.’ He shrugs. ‘It was just a suggestion.’

  ‘It seems a bit drastic. But yeah, if I’m not back to normal within a few days, maybe we should consider it.’

  ‘Well, sooner rather than later,’ says Waller. ‘We’ve put a lot of time and resources into this, I’d hate to see it all go to waste.’

  You frown. ‘Sounds to me as if you’re keen to zap me.’

  Waller grins and holds up his hands. ‘Perish the thought,’ he says. ‘I just meant that I do hope your memory returns as soon as possible. The fact that Oleg Prokhorov got away means that the oligarchs will probably already know what has happened. They’ll know that their money is missing and that the only person who knows where the money is - you - has lost his memory.’

  ‘Who does the money belong to?’ you ask.

  ‘All the Russians that you were investing money for are on what’s known as Navalny 35, a group who were involved in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Most of the oligarchs on the list have been hit by sanctions around the world so guys with your skills and knowledge are much in demand. You were moving funds for five of the oligarchs on the list. Between them they have assets totalling more than thirty billion dollars. I think at the time of the attempted robbery you were looking after funds totalling somewhere in the region of three billion dollars, so about ten per cent of their net worth.’

  Your jaw drops. ‘Maggie told me it was a hundred million pounds.’

  ‘Well I think we already know that she isn’t necessarily married to the truth.’

  ‘And Peter used that figure, too. Is it possible they didn’t know how much money was involved?’

  Waller shrugs. ‘I suppose so. But it’s equally possible they were both lying to you.’

  ‘But why would they do that?’

  ‘They need your co-operation to get the money. If you realised just how much was at stake, you might have gotten cold feet.’

  ‘You mean I’d be okay handing over a hundred million quid, but that I’d baulk at three billion?’ You wrinkle your nose. ‘I suppose we could always ask Peter. Is he awake?’

  ‘Still unconscious, I’m told,’ says Waller. ‘But yes, we have a lot of questions for him when he does wake up.’ He grimaces. ‘I just hope he hasn’t lost his memory, too.’

  ‘These five oligarchs, do they know that MI5 is on their case?’

  ‘I think everyone on the sanctions list knows that their assets are under the microscope, which is why they have been using people like Rob Johnston. They won’t be putting all their eggs in one basket, obviously, so there will be dozens of guys like Rob Johnston in play. They’ll definitely know that we are after them, but until recently we are sure they had no idea that you were involved in an MI5 operation.’

  ‘So I met with these guys? These oligarchs?’

  Waller shakes his head. ‘They tend not to travel to the UK any more, but we have photographs of their representatives visiting you at your house on several occasions.’ He sits back in his chair. ‘The problem is, now they obviously know about the robbery. That’s why they had Lazovsky and his men watching the house. And from what you’ve told me about what happened in the warehouse, they now know that you have lost your memory. They knew who you were, right?’

  ‘They didn’t use my name, but yes, they were asking me where the money was so they knew who I was. I just assumed they thought I was one of the thieves but looking back, Lazovsky knew that I was the money man. He didn’t believe me when I said I’d lost my memory and seemed to think that if he tortured Peter I’d tell him.’

  ‘But you couldn’t.’

  ‘Right. But then I told him I’d put the money into cryptocurrency and that I needed a phone to show him. That’s when I grabbed his gun.’ You frown. ‘Have I had any firearms training?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I didn’t seem to have any trouble firing the gun. It was as if I’d done it before.’

  Waller smiles. ‘You have. There were obvious dangers in the mission you were being tasked with, so we had you on a two-day training course with counter terrorism firearms officers. You were a natural, apparently. And quite good at hand to hand combat.’ His smile vanishes as quickly as it had appeared. ‘The question is, how do we move forward?’

  ‘Move forward?’

  ‘Operations such as this one are like sharks, if they don’t keep moving forward, they die.’

  ‘Don’t you have enough information on file to charge them?’

  ‘Well, we won’t be charging anyone,’ he says. ‘That would be down to the police and the CPS. We’re intelligence gatherers. And even with what we have, all five oligarchs kept themselves one step removed so we have no direct evidence. What we need is proof that they have been hiding their assets and that they used you to do it. As things stand we don’t have the money and we don’t have any direct link between the oligarchs and yourself.’

  You sit back in your chair. You don’t like the way this conversation is heading. ‘So we have no choice other than to wait until my memory comes back.’

  ‘There is the option of going more pro-active, of course.’

  You’re not sure that ‘of course’ applies because going more pro-active suggests putting yourself in danger. You don’t say anything, you just sit looking at him and wait for him to explain himself.

  ‘The thing is, Rob...’ He smiles and corrects himself. ‘The thing is, Phil, the clock is very much ticking on this. You’ve killed four of their men, if they suspect that you are part of a police or security service operation, they’ll just pull in their horns and lie low. Probably sail their megayachts to somewhere safe and sunny and out of our reach. We only have days if not hours in which to act. If we don’t, we’ll have lost them for good.’

  ‘But you’ll still have their money.’ You force yourself to smile. ‘Once my memory comes back.’

  ‘And as I said, they will presumably know that by now,’ he says. ‘Which puts you very much in the firing line, doesn’t it? They have every incentive to grab you and do whatever they can to make you remember.’

  ‘But they don’t know who I am, do they? They know me as Robert Johnston and Robert Johnston isn’t real. I go back to being Phil Dodds and restart my old life.’

  Waller flashes me a cold smile. ‘We find people all the time, Phil. People who go to a lot of trouble to hide. Do you know what the total yearly budget is for MI5? It’s four billion dollars, pretty much. The men you’ve stolen from are worth many times that. Assuming money is no object, how difficult do you think it would be for them to find you?’

  A shiver runs down your spine. You really don’t like the way this conversation is going. ‘What about witness protection? I could disappear.’

  ‘You could. Of course. That’s an option. We have a swap arrangement with the FBI in the US, they take ours and we take theirs. We put Chicago mob informers into Cornwall, they hide away our informers in Florida. New names, new passports, the full Monty. But witness protection isn’t the secure option that it used to be, facial recognition has seen to that. We could give you a whole new life in Miami but one day you’ll be sitting in a beach bar soaking up the sun and someone will take a selfie with you in the background in a Hawaiian shirt sipping a cocktail with fruit in it. The selfie goes up on Facebook and an AI search program scoops it up and facial recognition gets a hit and twenty-four hours later a Russian hit team turns up at the bar.’ He shrugs. ‘CCTV and facial recognition will be the death of us all.’

  ‘So I live off grid, until the problem goes away.’

  ‘The problem, as you call it, is three billion dollars. It’s never going to go away. And is that what you want, Phil? To live in some Unabomber-type cabin in the woods? And they found him eventually, remember? Witness protection works well enough if you’re hiding from a common or garden Organised Crime Group but when the men who want you found are richer than God, the game changes.’

  ‘But you will protect me, right?’

  Waller waves an arm around the room. ‘So long as you’re here in Thames House, of course you’re safe. But you can’t stay here for ever, can you? We could move you to a safe house and surround you with armed police, but would you want to live like that? And they got to Salman Rushdie eventually after being protected for going on 35 years. There’s no time limit on Muslims with a grudge or oligarchs who have had three billion dollars stolen from them.’

  You slump back in your chair and fold your arms. You know that your body language makes you look defensive, but that’s what happens when you’re under attack. ‘So I’m screwed, whichever way we look at it.’

  Waller leans forward. ‘Not necessarily,’ he says. ‘There is the pro-active option.’