Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov did, indeed, have another suspect who might be better, but could well be overlooked. Sometimes, he thought, a person who looked and talked like a murderer was actually a murderer.
“What time do you want to go into the mine?”
“After dinner would be fine,” said Porfiry Petrovich.
“Maybe we will encounter the ghost girl,” Fyodor said, shaking his head.
“That would be very satisfying.”
Fyodor reached over to take the orange peel from Porfiry Petrovich, who nodded his thanks. Rostnikov’s peel was torn into eight pieces. Fyodor had managed to do it with only two curled pieces.
This, Porfiry Petrovich thought, says something about each of us, but what it is that is being said is uncertain.
“Shall we go see Stepan Orlov’s laboratory?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov, starting to rise, his feet almost slipping on the crushed rocks.
Chapter Fourteen
Gerald St. James threw darts at the target across the room. The target was backed by a corkboard that covered almost half the wall to protect the paneling from the always-sharpened steel points. An open wooden box on his desk contained several dozen finely balanced darts, all neatly lined up.
Ellen Sten sat quietly in a firm red leather armchair near the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond which St. James could see the rooftop of DeBeers of London. She had flown in only hours before on St. James’s private Astra/Gulfstram SPX. Ellen had not slept in more than fifty hours but, thanks to an intentionally slight overdose of Provigil, she was now awake and attentive.
St. James calmly balanced a dart over his shoulder and, with a snap of the wrist, sent it noiselessly across the room and into the target. The target was his own design.
He was not interested in keeping score or hitting anything but the coin-sized black dot within a red circle the size of a baby’s face. One should not get points for coming close. One did not get points in life for coming close. Gerald St. James’s accuracy was uncanny.
Once, many years ago in Estonia, he had sat in a very damp cellar, wheezing and hiding from people who called themselves police. He had nothing to do but eat what was smuggled down to him by an old woman to whom he eventually had paid everything he owned.
In that cellar he had his knife. He kept it sharp against the jutting edges of the stone wall. For forty-one days he had thrown his knife, the knife with which he had killed the opium dealer who had tried to kill him.
That was long before he became Gerald St. James.
He had used the knife to kill the old woman. He took back the money he had given her and the bit more he found hidden in an empty grain jar in her kitchen.
Neither the boy he had been nor the man he had become ever showed anger or emotion of any kind, not that he did not feel them.
“So?” he asked, picking up another dart.
When he had exhausted his supply in the box, he would get up and retrieve the darts. He considered this the exercise his physician had prescribed for him.
“The Moscow policeman Rostnikov,” Ellen Sten said, “will discover our man in Devochka. He is capable. Our man has been careless.”
“He will not talk,” said St. James, hurling a fresh dart.
“You wish to take that chance?”
The chance was that their man would reveal how the diamonds were smuggled out of Devochka and turned over to the Botswanans in Moscow. There was no doubt now that the man who had contacted him, the Russian policeman named Yaklovev, knew about the operation, but he had no proof, no culprits to arrest and parade in court or use as chips to deal himself into a fortune. But the man had not indicated that he was interested in money. He wanted power. Others would not have believed the Russian, but St. James did. He understood. The Russian was a kindred seeker of power and approval. St. James did not intend to give him either.
Gerald St. James had carefully worked out the plan for the demise of his own network. It had outlived its usefulness and had become far too vulnerable. Devochka was only a small part of the St. James empire, a very vulnerable part. Devochka had become too elaborate. If and when it was re-established, he would see to it that it was far more simple. As it stood now, the diamonds were smuggled out of Devochka by the regularly scheduled plane to Moscow. In Moscow, the diamonds were turned over to the Botswanans, who verified their authenticity and made arrangements to safeguard their transfer to a courier who would take them to the contact in Kiev, who, in turn, would get them to Paris, where they would be transported to London. It had evolved thus. It was much too awkward. It had all been set up by a member of the Russian parliament for a steep price. It had been early in Gerald St. James’s expansion. He would never do something so full of unnecessary intrigue again. A simple transfer of diamonds to Ellen in Moscow and a quick flight on St. James’s jet, and that would be that. The present system had to end, and so too did the contacts in Devochka, Moscow, and Kiev.
“No,” said St. James. “Have him killed, but first have him eliminate any trace of what we have done in the mine.”
“Cut off our access to the pipe?” she said calmly.
“The trickle is not worth the risk. We’ll use our source to find another way to the pipe, but we’ll wait a few years. Patience. Moscow?”
“The situation is a bit messy I’m afraid,” Sten said. “Another of our Botswanans has been killed. This time by the police. That leaves two, plus the one the alcoholic Russian is holding.”
St. James shook his head before throwing the dart in his hand.
“Situations involving the kind of people we deal with will often get messy.”
“The Botswanans who are left do not know how to reach us. The one who is a hostage of the Russian. .”
“Kolokov,” she supplied.
“The Botswanan he has is our contact, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And this Kolokov is proving himself an idiot.”
“Yes,” she said. “The two remaining Botswanans seem to be planning a rescue or an exchange. It seems the police know about the planned rescue. Shall we warn Kolokov?”
He looked at her and sighed.
“No,” he said. “Let us not lose sight of our goal, which is. .”
“To end our operation in Devochka, Moscow, and Kiev and eliminate anyone with whom we have had direct business contact so that it looks as if we were not involved.”
“So that it looks as if we have been hurt by the murder and violence,” he amended. “Messy. I wonder if they ever have problems like this at DeBeers?”
“I’m confident they do,” she said.
He had at least fifteen darts left before he had to get up from his chair.
“Eliminate the enterprise,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“How difficult will it be to replace the Botswanans?”
“Not difficult. Expensive.”
“You will have two years from the time the current enterprise is terminated till we have a new presence in Moscow. That leaves Kiev.”
“Balta is behaving rather strangely,” she said.
“Strangely? The man is mad,” said St. James, deftly letting a dart fly and missing the red circle by at least a foot. “You know what he is doing?”
“I think so,” she said. “With a man like that. .”
“A man like that,” St. James repeated, remembering a time when circumstances had briefly made him a man like Balta, with a knife as sharp.
“He plans to find the diamonds and keep the money for himself,” she said. “He has no intention I’m sure of turning over anything to the Botswanans.”
“Who will not exist in any case. Talk to Balta.”
“I doubt if it will do any good.”
“I don’t intend to reason with him. I intend to lull him into a sense of complacency.”
“And then?”
“You will arrange to get the diamonds and the money and kill Balta. That will be the last step in our temporary closure of the Russian chain. The checkmate of Yaklovev and his Office of Special Investigations.”