Well, for a start – shit – not great news to give. Had lost their son, not mislaid, not like a fucking wristwatch or a pair of spectacles put down, but lost like he and Mikki were mugged and had ‘lost’ their wallets. Called him ‘sir’ and his voice would have been hard to hear and his jaw trembled. Lost like it was a kidnap. An intake of breath. Where? At the front door of the block where he lived. Where was the car, where were they? Round the corner, just – very briefly – out of sight, which was a lie but necessary. What had they done so far? They had interrogated an eyewitness to the abduction… They had a siren going and had a slap-on blue light on the roof… What possible reason was there for his being taken? Boris could not answer, but would have to – knew it. Was his son not a middle-ranking officer, principally involved in desk work? He was, Boris was able to reply. Was a fucking nobody, was fucking useless, was a time-server – agreed? No reply from Boris, and the voice ranted on and detailed Lavrenti Volkov’s failings, and culminated.
“It could not have been a foreign agency.”
A big breath from Boris. It was owed to the man who had saved his life, who’d had the guts, courage, balls, to call down the air strike on to their position as they fought hand to hand and with ammunition low or finished. He blurted.
“It could be about Syria…”
“What about Syria? What about that fucking hornets’ nest?”
There was a village, there was a day the Iranian militia came to that village. There was that day when the major accompanied an Iranian commander to the village. The village was destroyed on that day. People died. Men, women, children died… Boris said it.
“But that was Iranians. My son was liaison. He had no authority, no command.”
Mikki was approaching that sector of the Prospekt where the headquarters building was sited. He nodded, encouraged Boris.
“He took part in it, Brigadier. He was at the front of it. Maybe a hundred people died, maybe more. He was active. We thought everyone had been killed so that no witnesses were left to testify. He was – forgive me, Brigadier – like a mad dog there. I know of no other reason for a foreigner to come and seize your son off the street.”
He thought he had crushed a man whom he had always respected beyond all others. Had broken the spirit of a man he would have followed anywhere, into the teeth of any battle. He thought the brigadier a man of discipline and of integrity. Who would have been wounded to learn that his boy, disliked and treated with near contempt, but his own blood, had been involved in a matter of such squalid violence. The silence hung on the line.
“We will do all we can, I promise you, to find him and recover him. We do that for you and your wife. We have a start but need a few hours before a general alarm is raised. That way scandal is suppressed. I am confident.”
He cut the call. They pulled up at the gate and flashed a card. A camera watched them.
“You said, ‘I am confident’ – what are you confident of?”
“Confident of fuck-all. I thought he was about to weep. I did not want to hear him weep. What the fuck else should I have said?”
They loosed his ankles, then took him down the inner stairs.
Just before they left the apartment, the boy found his father’s phone and chucked it from a window and it would have fallen in the scrub above the conning tower memorial. He had locked the door after him.
The girl led, and the boy held the officer’s arm and Gaz was behind them and kept the pistol within an inch of the back of the officer’s neck, but touched it with the barrel and foresight often enough to remind him it was there. They went down at scrambling speed. Brushed out of the way was a woman who worked part-time in the Fleet museum, the kids told him, and who would have been on her way to work. Next to be pitched back against a wall was the man who did translation work and was also a tour guide when the cruise liners, rarely, came to Murmansk. In the lower hallway, two young teenagers smoked and scuttled away as if lives were at risk. All of them would have known Timofey and Natacha, and would not rush to a phone. Seen nothing, heard nothing, known nothing, all survivors.
Outside, a little fresh sunshine came with the breeze and fell on Gaz’s cheeks. Their prisoner would have assumed this was the start of his last journey. When his feet hit the smoothed dirt beyond the slab in front of the step, he stiffened and tried to drop his weight. But Gaz shoved him from the back and Timofey propelled him from the side. It was only half a dozen paces and the officer was docile. He’d have believed this was the journey that led to a killing site, where there was waste ground and where a body might lie for days, weeks, or months. They had not gagged him again and the blindfold was further down than before. He could have shouted but did not, and he was manhandled along the path, then down to the pavement, then up the hill to where the car was parked.
No further attempt to slow them down, and no yell for help. They used to watch the videos of the killings by the ISIS people in Syria. After, they would go to their bunk rooms and lie in the darkness and wonder how they would be if it were them wearing the jumpsuits, being led out on to the sand, forced to kneel, hair pulled back and their throats exposed, the blade coming closer and laughter circling them. Wondered if they would go to their deaths with bravery – whatever that meant – and defiance. Struggling to make it difficult for the butchers, or just dumbly docile. They had no trouble with the officer. He did not threaten, went with them, and would have believed the man behind him, with the firearm, was the killer who would end his life. Cars went past, and a bus dawdled at a pedestrian crossing, and people on the pavement seemed not to see them.
They wriggled their way into the car. Timofey and Natacha in front, Gaz and the officer in the back. They headed for the bridge and the start of the long route into the tundra, the E105 highway, and he reckoned the Russian prayed silently though his lips moved. Gaz could not say whether he would succeed, or what would be the cost if he failed.
Chapter 14
“Why have you stopped?”
The Fiat had pulled off the main road and parked outside a hardware store. The trade for the day had started and the front area was filled with piles of plastic buckets, lightweight ladders, and forests of broom handles. They were on the outskirts of Murmansk, well past the aircraft carrier and ahead of them was the misted outline of the bridge.
Timofey said, “I need money.”
“For what?”
“Because I need it.”
Gaz had his knees up by his ears in the cramped area in the back of the Fiat and his legs were hard against the back of Timofey’s seat. Beside him, trussed, was the Russian. There had been no talk between them. Gaz held the pistol, still with the safety on, still armed. They braked close to the display of plastic buckets, and the Russian’s weight cannoned into Gaz.
“We don’t have time to lose.”
“Then give me some money.”
“How much?” The sum was named. Gaz had to squirm to get his free hand into his hip pocket and heave clear a wad of notes. Natacha reached back, took the money, flicked off several notes then handed the rest back, and her eyes danced in fun. She was out of the car, walked past the buckets and went inside the hardware store. Gaz fidgeted and his legs hurt and his mind was messed, wondering how he would manage what he intended: and he expected – all the time – to hear sirens and see lights. Other customers at the hardware store walked past the little Fiat. Timofey smoked and the car filled with the nicotine cloud and then the Russian started to cough, like he was choking, and a window was wound down. A buggy was pushed past and a small kid pointed at the back seat and would have seen a man with a plastic bag wrapped around his head and knotted at the back. It was a bad place to wait. Timofey dragged on the cigarette then chucked it from the window, let it gutter on the road. She came out. On her shoulder was a heavy garden spade. Sunlight caught the metal.