Better, thought Charlie. He wanted Raina defiant. That way he’d drop further and more quickly when the trapdoor was sprung. ‘No,’ he said, positively. ‘It’s because none of you are part of Dolgoprudnaya in Moscow. You’re the group here, arranging all the deals. One of the most important links in the nuclear trade: the most important, as the Dolgroprudnaya are the biggest Russian Family. But which you didn’t want to come out because that’ll greatly influence the trial judges here, won’t it? And you and Mitrov aren’t shown to have killed anyone on the satellite film, are you?’
The putty look had gone and Raina had recovered from the shock of the murder photographs, the defiance growing. ‘You’re talking crap and you know it. I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve – I hardly understand a word you’re saying – but I can’t help you any more than I have.’
Charlie sniggered a self-deprecatory laugh. ‘There are so many wrong turns and outright mistakes in an investigation, until finally things slot into place. Like us spending all the first morning of his questioning playing the interrogation of you and the other three back to Mitrov, imagining it would bring an early confession – and then imagining that it did! – when what we were really doing was rehearsing him for what he had to say…’ Charlie poured himself some water at last, staging the interruption now. ‘And he was good: bloody good. But he made just one mistake and it’s turned out worse than ours. But then it wasn’t his fault entirely because he’d heard you name Marzahn as a district where the Dolgoprudnaya lived, so all he really did was pick up your bluff by naming KulmseeStrasse and the number and jeering that there wouldn’t be anyone there, which he knew like you knew that there wouldn’t be…’ Charlie extended his hand towards the Russian, his forefinger narrowed against his thumb. ‘And you came that close to getting away with it. The Germans took the place apart, did every forensic test there is, and collected enough fingerprints to fill a book. But no one thought of comparing them to yours or the others they already had in custody.’ He shook his head. ‘Like I said, there are so many mistakes that get made. We’ve corrected it, of course. Today. We’ve matched so many prints, of each of you to KulmseeStrasse – which Mitrov’s on record as identifying as the Dolgoprudnaya house – that the forensic technicians are complaining of overwork!’
‘Can I have some water, please,’ said Raina.
Once it started the confession flowed freely, like confessions usually do, and Charlie sat back for Schumann to take over, needing the respite and because it was a very necessary part of what would now become an even more extended and sensational trial and it would be necessary for the court evidence to be presented by a German investigator. He listened and dissected every word, though. Raina confirmed that he headed the Berlin cell and that he had been the link between the purchasers and the Dolgoprudnaya supply, not just on this failed occasion but five times before. Pizhma had been by far the greatest – he doubted the total amount of all the five previous shipments came anywhere close to two hundred and fifty kilos – and had been by far the most complicated. He didn’t know the details or the identities – a strict division was always maintained between Stanislav Silin organizing the supplies and his responsibility for their sale – but there’d been a lot of official help with the understanding of it continuing in the future. The dispute between Silin and Sergei Sobelov for supreme control of the Family had been going on for months, which was why Pizhma had been so important. Silin saw it as the way of proving to the six clans his right to be boss of bosses and fight off Sobelov’s challenge. Raina had thought it would confirm Silin’s position, too, which was why he’d remained loyal. It took a lot of pressure from the German to learn who the previous five purchasers had been, because Raina protested the names would obviously be false, although the government-issued passports would have been genuine because only governments could afford the money involved – a total, for the five earlier transactions, of $45,000,000. Schumann switched his demands and got the countries – two consignments to Iran, two to Iraq and one to Algeria – before eventually getting the names of the men with whom Raina had negotiated. Charlie re-entered the interrogation at that point.
‘So Silin didn’t know who your Pizhma customer was, here?’
‘No. He used to meet them, but only once and then there was never any names.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘They usually want to see what they’re buying. There’s a lot of cheating.’
‘So he didn’t know the identity of who brought the ten canisters that Malin took to Odessa?’
‘No.’
‘Did Malin know?’
The Russian shook his head. ‘He had to deliver them to an Iranian customs boat. I did the deal here, with the same man whose name I’ve already given you. It wasn’t possible this time to go to Moscow because we were shipping direct from Pizhma. This time he dealt with me on trust.’
‘What about payment?’
‘Eight million paid up front. It’s already in an account in Zurich. The remainder was to be paid upon successful delivery.’
‘You have signatory authority on the Zurich account?’ intruded Schumann.
‘Jointly, with Silin. It’s all lost now. And what we made before.’
‘We’ll get it,’ promised the eye-patched Schumann, more to himself than to the other two men in the room.
‘Sobelov should never have sacrificed you, should he?’ lured Charlie.
‘No,’ said Raina, viciously.
‘But then he didn’t know your full role?’
The Russian shook his head again. ‘It was just between Silin and me. We were related: proper family.’
‘Sobelov’s wrecked the Dolgoprudnaya, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Caused it a lot of damage,’ conceded Raina.
‘And put you in jail for the rest of your life?’
Raina did not reply.
‘Wouldn’t you like to bring him down? Destroy him, like he’s destroyed you and Silin and all the others?’
Something approaching a smile came to Raina’s face. ‘How?’
‘Tell me who your buyer was going to be here, for what you brought from Pizhma: who it was Mitrov phoned from Warsaw and who you were going from Cottbus to assure everything was all right, that you’d just been delayed. And tell me how to get to him: a way to introduce myself so he’ll think I’ve come from the Dolgoprudnaya.’
chapter 34
T he name – Ari Turkel – fitted Raina’s belief that his buyer was Turkish, which followed logically from Germany’s huge Turkish population, but everyone agreed with Charlie that Baghdad would not use a foreigner for something so sensitive: the better logic was that the convenience of the Turkish community provided the cover, not the conduit. That argument was backed by the care-taking complexity of the meeting arrangements, which were more convoluted than most Charlie had followed during his previous intelligence career. They were so labyrinthine, in fact, that after a day-long Bundeskriminalamt conference for which he and Schumann were summoned to Wiesbaden it was agreed, despite protracted opposition from German antiterrorist and counter-intelligence divisions, that Charlie had to work without any surveillance, no matter how expert or unlikely to be detected. And that he couldn’t, either, be fitted with any recording or transmitting device. This wasn’t just the opportunity to recover most of the biggest nuclear robbery ever: it was the unprecedented chance to arraign in a German court an Iraqi as proof of Baghdad’s complicity in the nuclear trade. Nothing could be allowed to endanger either.
Dean met with disbelieving silence but no open challenge Charlie’s insistence that his re-examination of Ivan Raina was not upon information he’d withheld from Moscow but because the Marzahn fingerprint had emerged during the evidence review.
‘I’ll not have tricks,’ the Director-General warned.