Sobelov made no attempt to hide his astonishment. ‘I thought she’d only be expert in one thing.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘I’d like to be,’ leered the Russian.
‘We here to work or talk dirty?’ demanded Hillary, not needing a translation.
Apart from Sobelov there were six men, two of whom were his normal escorts, and a further three were visible in a raised office area at the head of a metal stairway. The Dubrovskaya extortionists weren’t among them. The warehouse was divided into numerous storage sections beyond the open space directly inside the main door. There was a lorry and four cars neatly parked to one side. At Sobelov’s gesture Charlie and Hillary followed to the first, part-walled sector to the right. The eight green-painted containers were laid out side by side, their markings uppermost, each held in place on either side with wooden wedges. They reminded Charlie of heavy gun shells, 155mm or heavier. The tops tapered slightly and on either side were gauges, their needles still. Also at the top were unusual half-handles which Charlie first imagined to be for lifting but then realized were the fixtures Hillary had already described to him to unscrew the containers.
Low voiced Hillary said, ‘They’re the Kirs consignment markings from the Pizhma train.’ She ran her Geiger counter over each cylinder, double-checking on three, and hunched for several minutes over each of the unmoving gauge dials and their attached valves. The specialized thermometer looked like a stethoscope, although it had more leads, to each of which manually adjustable dials were attached. Hillary carefully adhered the suction pads in several places – particularly around the tops of each canister – and finger twisted the dial controls, before smiling up at Charlie. ‘As clean and as cold as a Polar bear’s ass.’
‘Which they would be if there was nothing in them,’ reminded Charlie. He told her of the four empty cylinders in Germany.
‘The gauges registered but if you want to be sure, we know the unladen weight.’
‘I want to be sure.’
It took less than five minutes from Charlie’s translation for a cumbersome set of industrial scales to be wheeled in by two men whom Charlie told to wait, to lift each cylinder into place. As they gently replaced the eighth canister on to its wooden supports Hillary said, ‘I’d have preferred my own equipment but this is good enough. They’re full.’
Charlie stayed for several minutes imprinting the details of the containers on his mind before finally turning back to Sobelov. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘Come,’ ordered Sobelov, mounting the metal stairway to the mezzanine office. Inside he said, ‘These are the men who will be driving…’ He waved his hands over the balcony to the vehicles parked below. ‘… those cars.’ He looked between Charlie and the three Russians. ‘No names. Learn to recognize each other. There won’t be another chance.’ Directly to Charlie he said, ‘Where do you want them in Germany? And when?’
‘Frankfurt an der Oder,’ said Charlie at once, prepared. ‘On the fifteenth. The hotel Adrian…’ To the three, ignoring Sobelov, he said; ‘If there’s a problem, I’ll be there to stop you. If I am not there by 10 a.m., start driving to Berlin. I’ll be at the Kempinski…’ He handed over a card. ‘That’s the number. Contact me there for final directions…’
‘No!’ stopped Sobelov. ‘Contact me for final directions. That way I’ll control everything until the last minute.’
That’s what you think, thought Charlie. ‘There must be the opportunity to stop them crossing the border, if a problem arises.’ He went back to the couriers. ‘Take a Polish route. It doesn’t matter which, but I want you in Kalisz on the twelfth. Use the Atilia Hotel. I will come there personally to stop you, if I have to. On the thirteenth spend the night at the Kashubska, in Poznan. Again, I’ll know where to stop you.’
The three nodded but Charlie said, ‘Write the names down! I don’t want any mistakes.’
‘All very professional,’ said Sobelov.
‘You want it to be amateur? You must be at the Kempinski by the 15th.’
‘Guaranteed,’ assured Sobelov. ‘You’ll have everything in place by then?’
‘Guaranteed,’ echoed Charlie.
They went back down the stairs and on the ground floor Charlie listed the registration numbers of the BMWs and at Hillary’s suggestion called down the three couriers to whom, with Charlie translating, she gave detailed instructions how the containers should be protectively wedged in the cars.
Hillary waited until they were some way from the warehouse before she said, ‘That really wasn’ t as bad as I thought it was going to be.’
‘That was the easy part,’ warned Charlie.
To maintain the timetable Charlie imposed upon himself they flew to Berlin the following day, Charlie with misgivings because there had been no contact from Natalia and he’d wanted to speak to her, although there was nothing practical to say. Gunther Schumann was waiting dutifully at Tegel with the announcement that the Bundeskri-minalamt had taken over virtually an entire floor at the Kempinski and were installing visual and audio monitors in every room to be allocated to the Russian Mafia group. Schumann himself was occupying a suite on the floor above Charlie as a liaison centre. A conference was scheduled in Wiesbaden the following day of every German agency co-ordinating the operation. The German waited until he got them into the car and had recovered from his initial impression of Hillary before saying to Charlie, ‘The Swiss cooperated over Silin’s Zurich account: they always do when a provable crime is involved.’ The German didn’t attempt to start the car. Instead he handed a single sheet of paper across to Charlie. ‘It wasn’t the only account created by Silin. And this one required very different joint signatures. What do you think about that!’
Charlie didn’t respond for several minutes. Then he said, ‘Too many things to give you an answer you’d understand.’
‘And we don’t have the jurisdiction to do anything about it,’ protested the man.
That bloody word hung like a banner in his mind, Charlie decided. ‘Maybe it could come within your jurisdiction.’
‘I’d like to think it could.’
‘Why don’t we work very closely together?’ suggested Charlie.
‘Delighted,’ agreed Schumann.
chapter 35
H illary Jamieson’s presence initially created the sort of can-this-be-true reaction to which Charlie was by now accustomed, but that instantly changed at the sheer professionalism and obvious ability with which she recounted her Moscow examination of the stolen plutonium containers. There wasn’t the most arcane question from the three German physicists present she was not able immediately to answer and there weren’t many anyway, so comprehensive was her account. The cylinders were of a type she had only read about and seen in illustrations, an old design even by Russian standards, with an inbuilt refrigeration system. All the coolant meters had registered a stable temperature. The Curie reading on the gauges showed the plutonium to be highly enriched but each cylinder was well sealed and the meters and gauge had a secondary cut-off system to prevent leakage if any valve failed. The cylinders had no sign of corrosion or damage and she’d told the intended smugglers how to wedge and pack them: providing they did what she’d said there was no risk of leakage. Despite which it obviously made good sense to have the protectively equipped and suit-stocked removal vehicles available in Berlin.
In addition to their preparations at the Kempinski, the Bundeskri-minalamt antiterrorist division had installed photographic surveillance as well as listening devices on the GertrudeStrasse telephone kiosk and in advance of the Wiesbaden meeting Charlie worked his way through the mountain of prints, insisting he couldn’t recognize the olive-skinned Trabant driver featured upon them as a frequent user. Charlie insisted so again at Wiesbaden and repeated the danger of losing an Iraqi connection by unnecessary observation, which was the objection he made even more strenuously arguing against including the Polish authorities in a tracking operation between Russia and Germany. He’d already established contact points along the route and advised them through Balg before leaving Moscow that Sergei Sobelov intended to use the Kempinski. And because he was the only possible link between the two he would know where the containers and the money were to be exchanged between a Russian Mafia boss and the Iraqi emissary. That, Charlie maintained, was where the surveillance should be massively concentrated, not anywhere else, where a chance discovery or simple mistake could destroy everything.