‘Right.’
The voice sounded like it was choking. Bartos shouted, ‘What?’
He thought he caught something about Mary Poppins before he cut the call. He stood, T-shirted in the cold, the Kodiak, and wished he had something nearby to assault.
Nobody laughed at him. Nobody.
When this is over, you’ll pay. God, how you will.
*
Calvary had crossed back over the river and was somewhere south of the Old Town, in a modern shopping district. He kept moving, not with any particular destination in mind but not aimlessly either. Physical motion kept his thoughts flowing; at the same time he wanted to stay close to the scene of the attack without getting too close and possibly being recognised.
He stepped through the glass doors of a department store and felt the warmth and familiarity draw him in. Escalators soared past layers of shops, many of them with recognisable names.
His holdall was back at the hotel. It contained nothing of value, and nothing incriminating. He’d registered there using a credit card which bore an alias. The receptionist hadn’t asked for his passport, which was in his own name and which he kept in his pocket. He felt fairly confident that nobody would trace him to the hotel or pin a name on him.
Besides, the police would be more interested in finding the hijackers and kidnappers, not the have-a-go hero who’d confronted them.
Calvary wandered into an electrical appliance shop. Deep at the back were the televisions. He browsed among the plasma screens, some the size of cars. Several were tuned to a local news channel. A lone reporter stood at the scene of the hijacking, the tram almost concealed behind her in a cocoon of police officers and emergency vehicles. He watched, not understanding the words. No photographs came up on the screen, no identikit pictures.
Calvary smiled and waved away a hovering shop assistant, then stepped into a quiet corner where there were radios on display. Nobody bought radios any more. He drew out his phone, connected to the internet, and looked up hospitals in Prague.
He didn’t know if any of the masked men he’d encountered had been injured seriously enough to warrant hospital attention, or if they’d even seek it in the circumstances. But it was possible – just – that the man he’d skewered through the throat had made it to an emergency department. A long shot, and it might mean doing the rounds of several of the city’s hospitals.
It wasn’t as though he had a lot of options.
His search came up with five hospitals within a few miles of the attack, three of which had emergency departments.
*
Krupina stood, hunched, behind Yevgenia, gazing at the monitor. Faces flicked across the display so quickly she wanted to ask the girl to slow the program down. She didn’t, because she knew the software was analysing each face in a fraction of a second, comparing it to the identikit picture, and would stop as soon as there was even a vague match.
Tamarkin nudged her elbow with something and Krupina looked down, hoping for cigarettes. Instead he proffered a paper plate with a prepackaged sandwich.
‘Never got you your order earlier.’
She ate standing up, watching the monitor, while Tamarkin ran the office, moving from desk to desk, co-ordinating the search for Oleg’s body, listening for any Embassy mutterings. A little after three p.m., twenty minutes into the search, Yevgenia said, ‘Something, boss.’
Krupia’s attention had been wandering. She leaned on the back of the girl’s chair, peered at the monitor.
The identikit image was on the left. On the right was the latest in a series of photos of known British, French and German intelligence agents. Known to SVR and FSB.
Almost by definition the pictures the Russian services obtained of their enemies were less than optimal. They were seldom mug shots, unless the agent had been arrested. More often they were grainy, poorly lit snapshots taken on street corners, in airport queues, at the scenes of crimes. This one was no different. The man in the database photo was of indeterminate age, no younger than thirty. It was a three-quarter view from an angle above the horizontal. The face was looking up and away from the camera. Fair hair, undistinguished features. He was on a street somewhere, on the move.
Yevgenia tapped keys and another picture replaced the first. This one was clearer. It was a profile view, seemingly close up but probably taken with a zoom lens, of a man leaning on the rail of a boat in bright sunshine. He appeared lost in thought. Hair brown and short, mouth set, eyes hard.
Yevgenia began to summarise the legend out loud. ‘Martin Calvary. British. First picture taken in September 2009 in Copenhagen, near scene of murder of Gerhardt Kreutzmann. The old Stasi colonel. Second picture a chance sighting on a ferry from Malta to Sicily in March last year. Calvary strongly suspected to have links with British SIS and possibly to be an active agent.’
‘Show it to Arkady,’ Krupina murmured. Yevgenia moved the mouse, clicked.
She touched her phone, connecting her with Arkady. ‘Got it?’
Krupina waited. The phone had its speaker function switched on so she would hear the reply.
Arkady said, ‘Yeah. That’s him.’
EIGHT
Bartos shovelled carbonara into his face, an early supper on a heated outdoor restaurant terrace where his status guaranteed him a degree of privacy. Across the table was his brother, Miklos. Thinner than him, with more hair. But not the boss.
‘Want me to take over?’ Miklos fingered the stem of his wineglass, the fidgeting betraying his craving for a cigarette. Bartos didn’t allow smoking within ten feet of him and certainly not at the table.
Bartos sucked up a tube of penne. ‘Not yet. Let’s give the kid a chance to prove himself.’
‘So what’s he doing?’
‘Checking the hospitals with his guys, to see if this umbrella asshole’s turned up in any of them. He got hit by a tram according to them.’
‘Long shot.’
Miklos was next in line for the top job in the family, unless Bartos hung on in there long enough for his own firstborn, Janos, to become a contender. Then there’d be a battle, and it would be something to behold. Bartos liked Miklos, knew the family and the business would be in safe hands with him in charge. But not yet. Still, he spoke more freely with his brother – about business as well as personal matters – than with anybody else, even Magda.
‘So when are you going to approach the Russians?’ Miklos signalled to an invisible waiter behind Bartos: it’s on me.
Bartos finished chewing and swallowing before he answered. ‘Haven’t decided yet. I’d like to find out what’s so important about this Gaines guy, this Brit. Why they want him so badly.’
‘The Worm has no idea?’
‘Says he’s working on it. Meantime, I want to do my own investigating. I’ve got a feeling this umbrella guy has something to do with it, is involved somehow. If you believe Janos and his boys, this wasn’t just some wannabe hero who jumped a bunch of hijackers. He was a pro, armed with a shiv, who put down one of Janos’s men, injured another and almost stopped them getting away.’
‘The Russians will be looking for us, too.’
‘Fuck the Rusáks.’ He glowered at his empty plate. It was true, though. He didn’t care much that a civilian had been shot in the crossfire on the tram. Shit happened. But the Worm said the man had been SVR. Russian intelligence. They didn’t drop it, when you’d killed one of theirs. Now his bargaining power would be limited. He’d demand a high price for Gaines. But he’d also have to insist on the Russians staying off his back in future.
His phone went off. Bartos listened.