They looked at him in disgust. Dima took off down the alley and crossed several more streets, dodging the puddles and dog shit, before disappearing into a Metro station.
72
Bulganov’s goons took some persuading. It’s not every day an oligarch gets an unannounced visitor who is spattered with blood, wearing nothing but a piss-stained overcoat. They looked him up and down again, as his feet continued to bleed on to the pale mushroom carpet.
‘Where are your shoes then?’ said the larger of the two.
‘He’s expecting me.’ Dima spelled his name again. ‘I just spoke to him. I saved his daughter’s life, for fuck’s sake.’
Big goon and small goon conferred again and got on the phone, which prompted the arrival of a third. All bulk and no agility, the three of them were about as much use as paperweights. Dima could have floored them in seconds, but having just called in a big favour from their master he thought it might not go over well.
Eventually the private lift pinged behind them.
‘You can go up,’ said the third paperweight. ‘Leave the weapon.’
‘Whatever.’
Dima threw it to him: he caught it, but only just.
On the 45th floor Dima got out and Bulganov appeared, barrelling towards him, a large scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other. The apartment smelled of Chanel No. 19 and money.
‘Dima! My God, what have they done to you—?’
He got a whiff of the coat and stopped short.
‘Christ! Get in the shower, will you? You’re not getting on my plane smelling like that.’
The money was Bulganov, but the Chanel. .
Omorova was sitting on a white sofa below a small Picasso, her face a mixture of amusement and annoyance. He came forward but she batted him away.
When he emerged from the shower he found a dressing gown bearing the livery of the British soccer team Bulganov had recently acquired, and put it on. He updated Omorova, who glanced at her watch.
‘You’ve been back in Moscow — what? Seven hours. You’re a one-man crime wave.’
He raised his hands in submission.
‘I know: it’s been hectic.’
‘Thanks for my help? Don’t even mention it.’
‘Of course none of it would have been possible without you. Can I have that kiss now?’
‘My career is so over.’
‘You’re not bailing out?’
‘Dima, they probably won’t even let me back in the building.’
A butler appeared with a large bourbon for her and a Diet Coke for Dima. One minute you’re running naked through the streets, the next you’re on the 45th floor standing on silk carpet. A strange life. But then Dima had never had anything he could call normal. He raised his glass to them both, and the Picasso.
She took a big swig and crossed her legs.
‘Do that again,’ said Dima.
‘Piss off. Here’s your stuff.’
She opened her bag and produced the contents of his safety deposit box.
‘You think of everything.’
‘Someone has to.’
He did a quick inventory of the currencies and picked up the passports.
‘Ah, hello, old friends.’
‘I caught up with your man Rossin in Paris. He’s looked at all the staff at the Bourse: domestic and security, all clean.’
‘He should check all the maintenance people — heating, plumbing. That size of building, at that age — it probably needs a whole army to keep it going. And what about the computers? Capitalism never sleeps. They must have a round-the-clock team of IT geeks as well.’
Omorova opened a laptop. ‘We need to know about any sightings of Solomon on recent trips to Paris. Chances are he’s been there to recce as well as to set up some kind of team. He won’t be starting from scratch. He’s very meticulous. If he’s there he’s only been there a few days, so he’s bound to choose somewhere he knows to operate from. My guess is he won’t be staying somewhere unfamiliar that he has to check out, or that means he’s having to look over his shoulder.’
Dima nodded. ‘Yeah, but we can’t assume that. We can’t assume anything. He could come through the front door posing as a fund manager, an oil trader, someone in derivatives. He’s extremely plausible whether he’s playing Lebanese, American, Israeli. .’
Omorova smiled. ‘Better than you?’
Suddenly he wished she was coming with him. But equally, there was an aspect of this mission he didn’t want to have to explain. He was travelling back in time to a place in his life he thought he had put behind him. Also, in part of his mind he had already written off the quest as hopeless. Trying to find one man and a bomb in a major capital city with just four people to help. . Possibly, now, only three.
She sighed, as if reading his mind.
‘And you’re still not officially off the wanted list. Timofayev wouldn’t sanction it until. .’ Her voice trailed away. ‘There’s still a covert shoot to kill directive against you with all the European security agencies.’ She read from a printout. ‘“The CIS will not, repeat not, protest in the event that the target does not survive arrest.” Nicely put, eh?’
Dima shrugged. He hadn’t expected anything less.
‘What are the Americans saying?’
‘Ah. Want the rest of the bad news?’
‘Bring it on.’
‘Langley are putting it out that a US Marine is under arrest for the murder of his commanding officer — in Iran. .’
Dima winced.
‘Go on.’
‘They don’t want it known at all that a Russian was there at the time. It just makes it more complicated for them. But our back channel communications with them are saying that the prisoner has corroborated claims by the Russian security services that one Dima Mayakovsky is at large and is a potential threat in the European mainland.’
He shook his head.
‘The poor guy probably didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘How come he’s not claiming you shot his CO?’ said Bulganov.
‘He had a terrible choice — either deny me and forget what I’d told him about Solomon, or come clean and try to get his message across. He could have saved himself.’
‘Such honesty, such selflessness. .’ His voice trailed away. Bulganov was baffled.
Omorova frowned, thinking. ‘You were only with him for what, an hour?’
‘You can learn a lot about someone in that time. It would be good if he knew I was still out there. Is there anything you could do?’
He looked out of the window. Below, he could see the lights of the new Moscow glittering all the way to the horizon.
‘He saved my life so I could get this done. I cannot fail.’
73
Fort Donaldson, USA
Blackburn wasn’t sure what he felt about being back in America. All he had seen of it so far was at Andrews Air Force base, when they transferred him from the windowless plane to the windowless truck. From the stairs he saw a vast expanse of tarmac, those strange-shaped vehicles that only inhabit airfields and an American flag hanging limp in the humid air. Not realising who he was, a woman, one of the ground crew, looked up as a pretty young woman might at a handsome young man, and gave him the sort of winning smile that brought an instant lump to his throat. Would any woman ever look at him like that again?
He travelled the seven hours to Fort Donaldson in a cubicle inside a prison truck. There was a toilet under the seat so he didn’t have to be let out. A letterbox in the door opened once or twice and a hand offered him a Hershey bar and a bottle of water. There was a window but it had been painted out. Already he felt desperate for the sight of just a bit of sky or a single tree.
Once at Donaldson he was escorted straight to the MP’s facility and into an interview room. A small man with a moustache and big black-rimmed glasses sat at a metal desk, head down, peering at a thick file. He whipped off the glasses and stood up.