Calm and very focused, he pulled off a glove and ran his hand over the surface. All the way down the left side of the landing, each panel ran floor to ceiling, with a narrow three millimetre gap between each one. No handles or apertures. No infrared devices. The door, if there was one at all, had been expertly concealed. He stood back, looked for any signs of wear. Thirty centimetres from the bottom, on the right-hand side of one crack, just discernible, were three red-brown fingerprints. He wiped a thumb across. They made a smear: fresh. How could they have gotten there? Was the panel beside them a hidden doorway? It had to be. He gave the panel a hard kick. Solid. He would have to blow it.
He radioed. ‘Breaching. Stand by.’
Campo came back. ‘Roger that.’
He applied the grenade launcher to his M4, transforming his rifle into a door buster. The shock could bring down more of the chalet but it was a risk he had to take. The blast seemed to shake the whole mountain: a thick cloud of dust filled the corridor. It minced the wood panels, exposing the door frame. He inserted another grenade and repeated the process. The second explosion felt even bigger. A lump from the ceiling came loose and before Blackburn could move it crashed down on him, knocking him to the floor. Then the left-hand wall caved, in bringing more of the ceiling with it. When he came to he was in darkness, cut off from the others.
‘Blackburn — talk to us! Over.’ It was Campo.
Blackburn didn’t reply. He flicked on his helmet light and in the dusty gloom he could just make out the door — opened by about thirty centimetres. He was quickly up and on it, shouldering it with all his weight, adrenalin pulsing through him, as an instinct stronger than anything he had known before drove him forward into the passage that led to the bunker.
The only light was from his torch. He caught the smell of chlorine, remembered a deep rectangle on the plan which could have been a pool. He paused, trying to hear over the sound of his own pumping pulse. Something. A movement. He kept going forward. He passed a room with screens: presumably the nerve centre. Then ahead he caught the glint of water. He couldn’t hear anything but sensed a presence. He was near now, near to what he had come for. He swept the space with the torch beam. A large corpse in the water, same size as the dead guy outside, a second man down on the poolside. And a third, crouching, his drenched clothes glistening in the torchlight, staring back at him.
49
‘US Forces! Freeze!’ said the voice.
Fuck off, said Dima to himself. Americans are always so melodramatic. He couldn’t see the American, but the American could see him loud and clear. Where were Vladimir, Kroll and the others? He had to assume the worst. He didn’t even want to think about Kristen — or Amara, whom he’d promised to deliver back to her father in one piece. He was alone and soaked; the man he had gone through madness to chase down and take alive was lying dead at his feet. And now he had an over-excited American playing cops and robbers with him. This job just gets better by the minute, he thought.
Blackburn examined his quarry through the infra-red torch on his weapon.
‘Do — you — speak — English?’
‘Sure, if you don’t know anything else,’ came the fluent reply.
In the dark Dima could guess roughly where the Uzi had finished up, but he was in no position to reach for it.
‘On your feet, legs: spread ’em. I’m coming forward, going to search you. You got that?’
No point antagonising him, Dima thought. If he’s young and inexperienced he might shoot me by mistake.
‘Yes, loud and clear,’ he replied, getting slowly to his feet, hands held high.
‘Touch the wall, legs apart.’
Judging by the voice, definitely mid-twenties at most, Dima thought. He did what he was told, heard the American approach, felt the hands patting him down, careful, deliberate. Conversation seemed worth a try.
‘What happened outside? Are we cut off?’
‘Don’t talk. Can you identify the deceased?’
‘The one on the poolside is Amir Kaffarov. The guy in the pool and the one you might have encountered under the Matisse are his personal bodyguards, Yin and Yang. They’re twins, from North Korea. Well, they were.’
There was no response from Blackburn, who seemed to be taking his time. Dima felt the passport he had waved at the PLR roadblock slide smoothly out of his pocket. The separate wads of rials and dollars were next, along with his phone. As Blackburn withdrew it from the sheath strapped to Dima’s belt, he bade a sad farewell to the knife that had come in so handy with Yin and Yang.
Dima heard the American’s radio buzz: something urgent and incomprehensible. As Blackburn continued the search Dima turned his head very slightly so he could look in the direction of the Uzi, in case some light from the American’s helmet torch fell on it, but he felt a hand on his neck.
‘Eyes on the wall, please.’
How polite. How many Russians would deploy such pleasantries in this sort of situation? Their idea of courtesy was usually to refrain from kneeing you in the balls. But Blackburn was struggling with his darker side. As his hand closed round the grip of the knife, part of him wanted to exact revenge right now, to plunge the blade into the man’s neck and let him know just how it felt.
But he was determined to do this by the book. What differentiated him from his prisoner, he thought, would be his underlying humanity. That was what distinguished them, the soldier from the executioner. It was important to let the likes of them see why the American way was superior.
‘Okay: turn, keeping your hands up.’
Dima obliged, the helmet torch blasting his face. His wet skin reflected some of the light back on to the American’s. Hard to put an age to, anywhere between twenty and thirty, intelligent.
‘Okay, give me your name now.’
‘Dima Mayakovsky.’
‘Not what this passport says. What’s your status in the PLR?’
‘I’m not with the PLR, I’m from Moscow.’
Dima thought he might as well fill the silence that followed.
‘Here to repatriate weapons obtained under false pretences from the Russian Federation.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Blackburn was leafing through the apparently well used Iranian passport he had found in Dima’s pocket: this was definitely going to work against him.
‘Taghi Hosseini it says here.’
Instead of responding, Dima said,
‘What brings you here? If you don’t mind me asking.’
Blackburn looked at him, not showing his dismay.
‘It might be that we have common interests.’
Blackburn snorted; the hatred for the man he called Solomon was building.
‘I sincerely doubt that.’
‘3–1, you copy over?’
Campo again.
‘3–1, Blackburn. You receiving in there? Structure in danger of further collapse, over.’
Blackburn ignored it. Dima could see the stripes on the American’s arm.
‘Sergeant Blackburn, yes?’
Blackburn didn’t answer. If the man carried on trying to ingratiate himself, he might have to take action to shut him up.
‘You and I are most probably here for the same thing, the suitcase nukes, right?’
Again, Blackburn didn’t respond but it was clear from his face that Dima had touched a nerve. He decided to risk another question.
‘How many — two?’