He was running, sprinting full tilt down a wet street, grasping something tightly in his hand. Someone was chasing him, maybe more than one. He was looking for someone ahead but he couldn’t remember who or why. He had to give her whatever it was in his hand. Yes, he knew it was a ‘her’ now, but he hadn’t much time. In fact, no time at all.
His arm was freezing cold; a hand reached out and touched him. Startled, he opened his eyes. A nurse stood over him, syringing a crystal-clear liquid into the catheter. He looked back at the TV. He was sure it was important. He knew where he had seen him now. The nurse smiled down at him.
‘You are awake,’ she said in an unsurprised voice, as though he had woken from an afternoon nap and it was entirely expected.
He tried to say something but his tongue felt as though it was glued to the top of his mouth. The nurse reached for a glass of water, told him to sip and held it gently to his mouth. Misha grabbed her arm as a drowning man might a piece of flotsam. Sleep was pulling him under again. He had to get the words out. She bent an ear to his mouth, the words ‘Safe… Vika… Yuri’ escaped. Misha, exhausted, surrendered to the beckoning deep.
Chapter 57
Viktoriya stared at the heart monitor and watched it describe a regular green ark across a black screen.
‘How long did he wake for?’
‘Only a few minutes. Going back to sleep like this is normal. It’s the body’s way of coping. He’ll be in and out.’
The nurse gently tugged off the tape with tweezers and re-dressed the livid head wound.
‘How did he seem, mentally?’
‘Confused, but that is to be expected. He looked at me and his eyes focussed.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘It was very indistinct… a few words. The doctor will give you a more professional prognosis… but this is all good news.’
Viktoriya looked at the TV set that had been pumping out propaganda all day long. The secretary general was still supposedly ill and unavailable for interview in his Moscow dacha. She wondered how many people were taken in by the new so-called Emergency Committee.
‘Please try to remember what he said – it might be important.’
The nurse shrugged. ‘As I said, it was difficult to hear, hardly a whisper… maybe your short name, Vika, safe… Dimitri…’
‘Grigory?’
‘No, not Grigory…’
‘Vika, safe, Dimitri?’
‘Yes, I think that was it.’ She could see the nurse trying to remember, unsure she had repeated what he had said correctly.
Viktoriya told the nurse to contact her the moment Misha showed any sign of waking again and went back to her office.
‘Alina, please can you find Ivan and Grigory for me.’
She stood by the long window she so often stood at, talking with Misha, and looked down into the yard. Two heavy machine guns, mounted on tripods, pointed at the gate. Around the internal balconies, men in thick winter gear, sporting Kalashnikovs, covered the machine gunners.
A cough behind her made her turn around.
Grigory stood next to Ivan in the doorway.
‘We were in the vault,’ said Ivan.
She waved them in and told them what had happened.
‘That’s great, wonderful,’ said Ivan, and she could see him struggling with his emotions; he’d been an absolute rock since the attack. ‘He’ll be back in no time.’ Grigory placed a supportive hand on his friend’s back.
‘Any news on the oil shipments?’ said Grigory.
‘I spoke to Maxim this morning. There is nothing he can do either. I’m going to have to go to Moscow and see Federov, try and straighten this out. When do reinforcements arrive from Roslavi?’
‘Tonight, fifty men,’ said Ivan.
There was a pause while they waited for her to say something.
‘I’ve been thinking Kostya is not going to let this sit, whatever his motive might be. Knowing him as we both do,’ and she looked at Ivan, ‘he’ll already have some alternative plan underway and he is unlikely to take prisoners… maybe you, Grigory.’ She smiled. ‘Where is he now?’
‘At the airport,’ answered Ivan. Vladek had been tracking him all day.
‘Well, tell me when he is back in his office.’
‘Why do you think Konstantin wants Misha dead,’ asked Grigory, ‘… why now?’
Viktoriya had been asking herself the same question. Kostya did things for a reason: to secure his power base, further his business interests and punish transgressors. He did not perform random acts of violence or revenge. He was far too intelligent for that.
‘What if it’s all connected,’ said Viktoriya. ‘Yuri’s arrest warrant and disappearance, the general secretary’s illness, the Emergency Committee, Kostya’s attack and the military stopping our tankers. Maybe Kostya is not the initiating factor, but somebody higher up the chain.’
‘But then who?’ said Ivan. ‘Why would Misha present a threat?’
Viktoriya sat back down in the chair and closed her eyes. Why? Why? An image of Misha showing her the vault and the mysterious small safe swam into consciousness. What was so important that only the two of them had the code… although hadn’t he walked off before properly telling her. Safe… Vika, safe, Dimitri…? Maybe it wasn’t Dimitri, it was Yuri. She jumped to her feet. Maybe that was what Misha was trying to tell her.
With Ivan and Grigory in close pursuit, Viktoriya virtually flew down the stairs to the basement. Two armed guards stepped back from the vault door.
‘Open it,’ ordered Viktoriya.
Wordlessly, Ivan ad Grigory punched in the dual access codes. Whirring and a loud clunk signalled success. Ivan rotated the large wheel lock and heaved open the door.
‘I may be wrong but there is something important in here,’ she said, facing the small wall safe – perhaps something worth killing for, she thought.
‘Do you have the code number?’ asked Grigory.
Viktoriya shook her head. ‘Misha said I would know it. I suppose he didn’t want to burden me… If questioned I genuinely wouldn’t. Except I do… somehow. Just give me some space. I need to think.’
The two of them withdrew to the vault’s entrance as she stared at the ten-digit keypad. It had to be a number they both knew, something special. She punched in his birthday, her birthday, long and short year date… that would be too obvious… her mother’s, his mother’s… nothing… Ivan’s… Kostya’s. There was a click and the door sprang a millimetre ajar. Misha’s little joke, she thought, and smiled.
She waved over Ivan and Grigory and reached into the safe. Inside was a large sealed envelope. She picked it up and weighed it in her hands. Both of them looked at her expectantly. She shrugged. She had no idea what it could be. Grigory walked to the counting table and passed her a letter opener. She slid it carefully under the sealed edge and upended the envelope. Six large black-and-white photographs slid out onto the table. She picked one up and studied it. Two men stood on the embankment on that wet morning twelve years ago… how could she forget that day? She had kept the roll of film hidden for all those years… until Misha’s first visit to Milan. She went back to the safe and felt for the negatives… nothing.
‘Misha took these years ago, when we were teenagers, for some cloak and dagger guy who never reappeared… Do you recognise either of the two men in the photos?’
They stood staring down at the photographs she had neatly rearranged on the table.
‘The man with the glasses looks sort of familiar, but this is years ago, people change,’ said Grigory.