Moscow USA

‘Yeah, well …’ Dwyer hesitated.

‘Think you’d better cancel lunch, Phil.’ Kincaid walked past Dwyer and back into the office, held the door while Dwyer then Sherenko came in, and closed it. ‘You want to sit down, Phil?’

Dwyer sat at his desk, the desk itself no longer a barrier between them, no protection for him. ‘Okay.’ He pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. ‘I scored at Nite Flite.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘Look guys, I really got to make this lunch.’

‘No problems, Phil,’ Sherenko told him. ‘Do lunch and speak to us after.’ He rose and opened the door for Dwyer. ‘Hell, Phil. Look on the positive side. At least you did wear some protection.’

The relief flooded over Dwyer. ‘Yeah, at least I did.’

They watched him leave, made sure he didn’t speak with Maddox, told Maddox’s secretary they needed ten minutes with the boss, and waited till they were shown in again.

‘Got a problem, Arnie.’ Kincaid looked straight at Maddox. No preamble. ‘You said that you and Phil left Night Flite together, that your driver picked you both up and drove you both home.’ We got it on tape, Arnie – it was in Kincaid’s stare; so time to come clean, time to drop the bullshit. ‘Phil tells us he scored that night. Phil says he picked up someone at Nite Flite.’

Okay, guys – Maddox was always bullish when he was on the defensive. Phil pulled someone. Good-looking chick, but they all were. He’d made sure Phil was covered, though, because although Phil was a man of the world, Moscow was something else. So he’d called his driver, made sure he was waiting outside Nite Flite with strict orders to take Phil and Phil’s piece of ass to Phil’s hotel and nowhere else. Then he had made his own way home. Except Phil was married – hell, they all were. So when Phil had asked him to cover it, he’d agreed.

Bastards – the anger boiled inside Kincaid. You set me up, laughed at me all the way to the bank. No problems, he told Maddox; they’d have to run a couple of things past Phil, but it was Phil who’d suggested he’d scored that night in the first place, so Arnie was covered. And no sweat anyway, because we all like a bit of spare occasionally, especially when we’re away from home.

‘Nite Flite …’ Kincaid picked up with Dwyer when he returned. ‘No problems, and everything’s confidential. The chick you picked up, though. Did you pick her up, or did she pick you up? Good idea taking her to your own hotel, of course, because you have to be careful.’

‘Lucky it wasn’t the Intourist.’ Sherenko’s voice was like winter.

‘Why?’ Dwyer looked at him.

‘Because there you have to buy in-house.’ Kincaid came at him like a wind out of Siberia. ‘Try to take your own in and they beat the shit out of you both.’

Dwyer was theirs, Dwyer would do anything for them. Dwyer would tell them nothing but the purest, most absolute truth.

‘Okay, Phil,’ Kincaid told him. ‘Take us through that evening.’

At four-thirty they left ConTex and the technical team moved in to sweep the premises. Freelance team, by which Sherenko meant FSB boys on a moonlight. Good at their job – installing or detecting – and American gear they’d bought personally from the shop at Frankfurt airport.

By the time Sherenko and Kincaid reached the Omega office Grere Jameson had arrived from Washington via an overnight in London. Kincaid did the introductions, then updated the case log and Sherenko phoned the morgue.

‘No Whyte.’ He put the phone down.

‘You don’t think we should check for ourselves?’

‘You want to?’

‘No point if we’ve left a photo.’

Riley came in, Gerasimov and Jameson behind him. They went through to the conference room, Jameson looking slightly tired and allowing Gerasimov to lead. Gerasimov checked his watch, brought the session to order and asked Sherenko for an update.

‘Looks leaky,’ Sherenko told him.

‘Explain.’

‘The organizational front at ConTex to begin with. The internal security is bad. Knowledge of a money shipment is not restricted. The chain of command and communication is such that too many people know when and how much is coming in, and we haven’t even started on the Russian staff or the office in Kazakhstan.’

Gerasimov turned to Kincaid.

‘There are also potential security problems on the personal front,’ Kincaid told them. ‘Five million of the missing money was requested by a ConTex vice president, Dwyer, who is doing some deal in Moscow. Probably getting ahead of the game in oil or gas leases. Unless it’s a scam, which is not our business at the moment, though I guess it might be sometime. On the night the money was ordered he and Maddox went to Nite Flite. Although they tried to brush it over, Dwyer picked someone up and spent the night with her.’

Gerasimov nodded. ‘Next?’

‘The motor the security pick-up used,’ Sherenko told him. ‘We should get the fingerprint people to take a look at it.’

‘Why?’

‘If it was involved in an accident, and the accident was one reason they didn’t make the airport for the pick-up, there’s an outside chance someone might have left a print.’

‘I’ll get someone in tomorrow.’

‘What about the courier who fell sick in London?’ Jameson spoke for the first time.

‘Tomorrow Nik does the security pick-up team and starts on the ConTex staff, and Jack flies to London to interview the courier. You carrying, Jack?’

‘No.’

‘Might be an idea. Fix him up, Nik.’ Gerasimov looked around the table. ‘What else?’

‘Might be good to know who runs the mafia at the airport.’ It was Sherenko again.

‘Why?’

‘Because if we don’t get anywhere within ConTex, whoever runs the airport mafia might not be too happy that someone else is doing something on his patch. Assuming he had nothing to do with it, of course.’

‘I’ll check it out,’ Gerasimov told him.

They left the conference room and returned to their offices. Gerasimov checked that his driver was waiting, then he and Jameson left.

‘Where are they going?’ Kincaid asked Riley.

‘Get changed, I guess.’

‘What for?’

‘Some sort of party.’

Kincaid waited for an explanation.

Riley sat forward slightly in his chair. ‘You remember what happened five years ago this week?’

‘Yeah. I remember what happened five years ago.’ Kincaid picked up his coat. ‘So why are Gerasimov and Jameson going to a party?’

‘Five years ago today it was Gerasimov’s men who were sent to assassinate Yeltsin in the White House. Five years ago tomorrow Gerasimov’s men protected Yeltsin instead of assassinating him, and probably changed the course of history.’ And that’s why he and Jameson are going to a party. ‘Drink?’ he asked.

‘Thanks anyway, but not tonight.’ Kincaid dusted his jacket. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he told Sherenko.

‘Yeah, see you in the morning.’

Kincaid left the office, walked down Gertsena Ulica and crossed to the Tverskaya. The evening was warm, there were strands of thin cloud across the sky, and the pavements were busy, cars parked along them and vehicles passing. So what’s this about, Jack my friend? What are you doing and why are you doing it? He stepped between the parked cars and held his hand in the air. The first Lada passed him and the second pulled in.

‘Leningradski vokzal.’ The Russian was too much like the language school rather than the pavements of Moscow.

‘Twenty thousand roubles.’

‘Too much.’

‘It’s out of my way.’

Kincaid stood back, watched the Lada jerk away, and held his hand in the air again. Another Lada swerved in.

‘Leningradski voksal.’ Better, he told himself.

‘Eighteen thousand roubles.’

‘Ten thousand.’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Okay.’

He opened the door and slipped into the rear seat. The windscreen was cracked, a fresh air filter was stuck to the dashboard and the back of the driver’s seat was ripped. ‘What time is it?’ he asked. The driver pulled out into the line of traffic without bothering to look and glanced at his watch. ‘Five to eight.’

‘Nice watch, what sort is it?’

‘Tag Heuer.’

‘Christ, you must earn a fortune.’

‘Counterfeit. Twenty dollars.’

They talked about prices in Moscow, where you could get what. You heard the joke about the new Russian, he told the driver. Goes to London and buys a watch for twenty thousand dollars. That evening he shows it to a friend. You’ve been done, the friend tells him: I know where I can get the same watch for thirty thousand.

The driver laughed and swerved, either to avoid a pothole or another cab, possibly both. New Russian wipes out his Merc, he told Kincaid. Why the hell you crying, a friend says; the car’s nothing; look, you’ve lost an arm. The man looks down. Christ, he says, my Cartier.

So what are you playing at, Jack, what are you up to?

The driver pulled in to the station. The building was brown and single-storey, steps going up to its three doors and people packed around it. Kincaid paid the driver and went inside. The hall was small and dark, connecting stairs and passages running off it, a kiosk selling drinks and a man who hadn’t shaved selling pirozhki, small pastries, from a wooden tray. People pushing past and the evening sun breaking through the dust on the windows at the far end. He felt in his pocket and pulled out a handful of notes. Counted them carefully and handed them over, moved to a corner and ate the pirozhki and drank the Coke, and sidled on. Passengers were already gathering for the mid-evening trains, a policewoman clearing a drunk from amongst them. Kincaid left the main station and crossed to the metro.

So what’s tonight all about, Jack old friend? What game are you playing and why?

Not Jack – he corrected himself. Jack Mikhailovich Kincaid, because in Russian everyone used the first name of their father as their own middle name.

Okay, Jack Mikhailovich, so what’s running?

He stepped on to the escalator, the descent reminding him of the metro stations at Dupont Circle or Bethesda, except in Washington the walls and ceilings were grey and concrete. He came to the bottom and stepped into a different world. Walked through the hallway connecting the various platforms and could have been walking through the Louvre or the Smithsonian or the Hermitage. The floor and walls and ceilings were marbled, marbled busts on plinths and marbled garlands in alcoves.

At the end of the platform a digital clock indicated how long ago the previous train had left and therefore, by deduction, how long the next would be. Even in mid-evening the platform was crowded. The train pulled in and the doors opened. Those waiting on the platform stood to each side, and those arriving poured off. The moment the last left the train those waiting streamed on. He found a seat and looked up and down the carriage at his fellow travellers.

So what’s this about, Jack Mikhailovich? Why take a cab, then the metro, and end up less than a thousand metres from where you started?

His observations over the next hour were footnotes to what had gone before. When he returned to the flat shortly before eleven the message from Riley was on a notepad.

Nik will pick you up at six. Session at range for six-thirty. You’re on the nine o’clock flight to London.

Gerasimov’s driver collected Jameson from his hotel at eight. Gerasimov was in the rear seat. He wore a dark blue suit and matching tie. In his left lapel he wore an Alpha pin. The driver cut across the inner ring road, skirted Red Square, and eased down the narrow tree-lined street three hundred yards from the Kremlin.

‘Brief me on who’ll be there tonight,’ Jameson requested.

Gerasimov briefed him.

‘Who’s important?’ Jameson asked.

‘They’re all important, but the man for the future is Malenkov. He was First Chief Directorate, now he’s a major-general in the SVR.’

The Omega driver eased to a halt on the right side of the street. They left the car and crossed to the building on the left. The house was three-storey, grey and anonymous, black door and no obvious security. As Gerasimov and Jameson crossed the road another car pulled in behind theirs.

The doorbell was on the left; before they had pressed it the black door opened and they stepped inside. The reception area was marbled, marbled stairs on the right leading to the floors above and a desk on the left, the monitors of the security cameras above it, one man at the console and another standing. They were escorted up the stairs, past the next floor, to the next. The double doors were wood and highly varnished, another set of stairs leading to the floor above. They went through the doors and into the flat.

The hallway was long, the walls a pleasant pastel, and the lounge was on the left. It was large, windows on to the street, and the furniture and decoration were art nouveau. The library was through a door in the far corner, the dining-room was on the other side of the hall – exquisite oval table, finest tableware, elegant chandelier above it and priceless Lalique glassware behind it. The first bedroom – as Jameson would be shown later – was on the same side as the dining-room: again art nouveau and twin beds. The bathroom, large and luxurious, was next to it, and the double bedroom – king-size art nouveau bed – was opposite the bathroom, on the same side as the lounge.

Half a dozen men were already in the room. Most were in their forties or early fifties, though two were older, all were wearing suits, and all were former or present generals in the KGB or its successors, the FSB, the internal security service, and the SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service.

Jameson looked around. ‘Nice place.’

‘Marcus Wolfe used to use it when he was in town,’ Gerasimov told him.

Marcus Wolfe was the legendary East German spymaster.

‘What I would have given to have been here ten years ago,’ Jameson joked.

‘What we would have given to have had you here,’ Gerasimov joked back.

They accepted a Lagavulin and caviar and Gerasimov began the introductions, the conversations switching easily between English and Russian, and the handshakes and welcomes as if Jameson was a new friend rather than an old enemy.

There was a movement at the door from the corridor and Malenkov came in. He was six feet tall, late forties and slim; hair beginning to turn silver and hand-cut suit that made him look like a high-flyer in an American or European bank or blue-chip investment house. His eyes were sharp and blue, the antithesis of the West’s image of a KGB general.

‘General Sergei Malenkov, Grere Jameson …’ Gerasimov did the introductions.

‘Recognize you from your file,’ Jameson joked in perfect Russian.

‘And I recognize you from yours.’ Malenkov’s face was locked in a smile and his reply was in flawless English.

3

Sherenko rose at six.

The apartment was almost too big for him now. It had been small when Natasha and the girls had been there; the girls had had the bedroom, and he and his wife (when he was at home) a pull-down in the sitting-room. Their photos were still on the sideboard and the documents which chronicled their lives together lay in a folder in a drawer.

He made coffee, ate a small breakfast, then cleared the table, washed up, slipped on the shoulder holster and Sig Sauer, locked the flat and collected the BMW, checking underneath it before he opened it. Fifteen minutes later he turned into the street where the company apartment was situated. The street was almost empty: half a dozen slightly battered cars were parked along the sides, the pavements were dusty, and a dog was relieving itself against a tree. The only man in the street, leaning with his back against the wall as if he was waiting for a tram or trolleybus, was as grey and inconspicuous as the street itself. Sherenko stopped and Kincaid got in.

‘Nu, chto vchera delal?’ So what did you do last night?

‘Nichevo osolennovo.’ Nothing in particular.

The building, when they reached it, was faded red brick and looked like a factory. Sherenko turned through an unlit archway, showed an ID at the security barrier, then drove into the courtyard beyond. Despite the hour there were other cars already there, plus two transits. The morning was quiet, as if the walls around them deadened any noise. Sherenko locked the BMW and led Kincaid through a door in the wall opposite the archway, then down a set of stone stairs to the range.

There were ten plywood targets, paper facing on them; seven were Figure 11s, half-body and head, and three Figure 12s, head and shoulders. Six of them were being used: the men shooting at them were dressed in battle fatigues, no insignia or identification, and all were in their early twenties. Their instructor nodded at Sherenko, his students glancing across.

‘What did you train on?’ Sherenko seemed at ease in the place.

‘Normal stuff,’ Kincaid told him. ‘Walther, Beretta, Uzi.’

‘What do you feel comfortable with?’

‘They’re mostly the same, I guess.’

Sherenko took the automatic from his shoulder holster and gave it to Kincaid. ‘Sig Sauer P226. Swiss manufacture. The British SAS put it through two years of testing before they decided to adopt it in preference to the Browning. Fifteen-round mag, which is why the SAS also likes it.’

Kincaid checked that the safety was on, settled in front of one of the targets, dropped into a combat crouch and brought the Sig Sauer up. Felt for the safety with his right and fired six rounds. Sherenko wound back the target. One round had hit the right shoulder, three the chest and abdomen area, and two more were slightly to the left.

‘When did you last use a gun?’

The residue of antagonism flashed in Kincaid’s brain. ‘A few years back.’

‘You were a desk or a field man?’

Kincaid hesitated. ‘Field man.’ He hesitated again. ‘But we had gorillas to take care of the dirty stuff.’

Sherenko looked at him. ‘In Moscow you don’t have time to call the gorillas.’

Kincaid fired six more rounds.

‘I suggest you come in each morning.’ Sherenko took the gun, slid in a fresh magazine, put the automatic back in his shoulder holster and turned away from the target.

Screw you, you arrogant bastard, Kincaid thought as he had thought the previous evening.

Sherenko turned, hand taking the Sig Sauer as he did so, body dropping fluidly into a combat crouch, the automatic on target as if it was an extension of himself and the right thumb flicking off the safety smoothly and naturally. Three rounds, change position, second three rounds. Drop and roll to left, always present a moving target. Three more rounds.

Flash bastard – the other men on the range glanced across. Except he’s an old flash bastard. They themselves had been firing much quicker, getting off more rounds than Sherenko and were still on target, their rounds, like his, in a tight cluster.

Sherenko suddenly looks his age, Kincaid thought; Sherenko suddenly looks like me. The real flash bastards, the ones who really were on the ball, were the guys twenty metres away.

Sherenko stood, slipped on the safety, handed Kincaid the Sig Sauer, and wound back the target. The rounds were positioned in a tight cluster round the centre of the chest, none outside. ‘So that was my job and yours was running people. But this is Moscow, and in Moscow, if a street trader doesn’t pay up his pittance of roubles for protection, or a banker calls in a loan, he ends up in a place like C’urupy Ulica.’

‘And …’ Kincaid asked.

‘And we’re working together. If they come for you I might be there. So I’m looking after my ass as well as yours.’

‘Fuck you, Nik,’ Kincaid said.

‘Fuck you too, my friend.’

They left forty minutes later. In the last quarter-hour Kincaid’s groupings had begun to improve, and in the final five minutes the rate of improvement had accelerated.

‘What time’s the flight?’ Sherenko cut past a line of cars. The traffic was heavy now, but most of it was coming the other way, into Moscow.

‘Nine.’

‘I thought the first BA flight is this afternoon.’

‘I’m flying Aeroflot.’

So lucky you, Sherenko’s eyes said. ‘What time you seeing Pearce?’

‘As soon as I get in.’

‘What about the flight back?’

‘The first one as soon as I’ve wrapped up with Pearce. I’ll let the office know.’

Sherenko slowed for a set of lights. ‘Don’t get a cab into town. Most of the drivers are cowboys and the road is bad. Cross to the Novotel, there’s a shuttle for hotel guests every fifteen minutes.’ He turned into Sheremetyevo. ‘Riley told you about the party tonight?’

‘Yeah, he gave me the name of the restaurant. I’ll make it if I can.’

Sherenko pulled up the slope and stopped in front of the departures area on the upper level of the airport building. Kincaid hurried inside, checked on the monitors that his flight was on time, then stood in line for the currency, customs, ticket and passport formalities. Most of those checking in were businessmen, some of them Russian, the expats wearing the standard suits and the Russians wearing Versaces and looking as if they were going to a nightclub. Kincaid bought a black coffee in the Irish Bar and waited for the flight to be called.

So what was that about last night? Why the hell had he gone walkabout?

Because Sherenko and Riley had been right, even though they hadn’t told him directly. Because he, Jack Kincaid, God knows how many years in the game, had come into Moscow like all the other expats. Believing that he owned the world. Believing that because Moscow had lost the Cold War the Russians had everything to learn from him, and he had nothing to learn from them. And gently – actually not so gently – but in their different ways, Sherenko and Riley had let him know.

Riley to start with, when Kincaid had shown his reaction to the Omega offices on Gertsena Ulica, even though Riley had done it indirectly through Brady. Then Sherenko at the Santa Fe, indirectly again, via Brady; and Riley in the company apartment that night. You got a problem with Moscow, Riley had asked. And Riley after he had failed to show Gerasimov the proper respect at their first meeting. Good to meet you, Mikhail, Kincaid had said. Mikhail Sergeyevich – Riley had referred to Gerasimov in the conversation he had had with Kincaid the evening after. Had thrown in Gerasimov’s patronymic, his second name, because in Russian that was a sign of respect. Especially formally, or at a first meeting.

And Sherenko had pulled him out of the proverbial at the ConTex meeting. Kincaid had assumed that because the guys at ConTex, by whom he meant Maddox and Dwyer, were American like himself, they were telling him the truth. And all the time the bastards had been lying.

So screw Jack Kincaid, not Riley and Sherenko. Which was what last night had been about.

He looked up at the monitor, saw that flight SU247 was delayed an hour, and bought another coffee.

By the time he landed at Heathrow the delay had extended to an hour and a half. He cleared immigration and took the walkway from Terminal 4 to the Hilton.

So you went into Moscow like the proverbial virgin, Jack old friend. But why? Why did you screw up even though you knew what you were doing? Because you did know, right from the beginning.

Because five years ago this week I was supposed to hold Joshua’s hand and I didn’t, and therefore, and however indirectly it might have been, I betrayed him as surely as if it had been me who pulled the trigger on him. And all I could do instead was apologize to him and say goodbye to him in the morgue at Belle Vue before the hoods came to take him back to Moscow. And ever since then, Joshua has been sitting on my shoulder like a ghost. So that was what last night was about. Laying Joshua’s ghost. Getting him off my back. And last night I did it.

He checked with reception and telephoned the suite ISS had rented for the day.