‘Hello, sir,’ said the Ukrainian Beauty, with a perfect porcelain smile. ‘You are expected. I wonder if you would follow me. Your party has reserved a private room.’ She placed Buslenko’s beer on a tray and turned from the bar with a glance over her shoulder to ensure that he followed her. Before he did, Buslenko scanned the bar around him as if to satisfy himself that he was not being watched.
The Ukrainian Beauty led him through a double doorway into a dark tunnel of a hallway, walled with black glass and illuminated by strips of tiny, bright spotlights that repeated themselves infinitely on the reflective obsidian. She knocked at a door before holding it wide for Buslenko to enter the large, plush private entertaining room. Four men were seated around the low table on an expensive L-shaped sofa. There were vodka glasses and a bottle on the table, along with a blue-covered file. The men stood up as Buslenko entered. Like the doorman, they had special forces written all over them and they all looked to be in their forties, which meant that they probably had real combat experience. Buslenko registered the dark glass wall behind them, which obviously divided this from the next entertainment suite. The room beyond was in darkness and the connecting door was closed, but some vague, deep instinct told Buslenko that it was not empty.
The man who had been sitting at the centre had prematurely white hair that had been trimmed to a coarse stubble on his scalp. A scar reached down out of the bristle, across his broad brow and down to the outside corner of his right eyebrow. Buslenko had done his usual split-second survey of the room and had already guessed the seniority of the scarred man from the body language of the others. But it wasn’t Buslenko’s instinct or training that told him that he was looking at a mean, dangerous son of a bitch. He had recognised the Russian as soon as he had entered the room and his chest had tightened. Kotkin. What was Dmitry Kotkin doing here? He was too senior in the organisation to be a recruiting sergeant. Buslenko also didn’t need to turn around to know that there was now a fifth man behind him, at the door. But he sensed there was someone else. Someone who lay beyond the reach of Buslenko’s skills; someone who waited, silent and unseen, behind the dark glass wall in the room beyond.
The Ukrainian Beauty put Buslenko’s beer down on the table and left the room. He did not turn as he heard the door click shut behind him. The presence of the fifth man was academic: Buslenko was good and was perfectly capable of taking on four or five men in the right situation. But this was not the right situation and these were not the right men: they all had a similar background to Buslenko and, he guessed, had all killed before, more than once. At best Buslenko could take one or two with him. But he knew that if death were to come, it would come from behind and the man at the door.
‘You’re Rudenko?’ Kotkin spoke in Russian. Buslenko nodded.
‘Sit down,’ Kotkin said and sat down himself. The other three stayed on their feet. The scarred Russian opened the file. ‘You have a very impressive record. Exactly what we are looking for. Or so it would seem. But what I want to know is why you came looking for us?’
‘I didn’t. You contacted me.’ Buslenko answered in Russian. He thought about taking a nonchalant slug from his beer bottle, but was afraid that his hand would shake. Not fear. Adrenalin.
Kotkin raised his eyebrows and wrinkled the scar unpleasantly. ‘You went around asking questions. More than that, you knew the right questions to ask in the right places. That means only one of two things: you were advertising yourself or…’
Buslenko laughed and shook his head. ‘I’m not a cop, if that’s what you were going to say. Listen, it’s as simple as this. Money. I want to make money. A lot of it. And I want to work abroad. You do want people to work abroad, don’t you?’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’ The scar-headed Russian nodded to the others, two of whom approached Buslenko and gestured for him to stand up and raise his arms. One frisked him manually while the other scanned him for a wire with a hand-held electronic wand. Buslenko smiled. When they had satisfied themselves that Buslenko was clean, they sat down again.
‘We know what we’re looking for. You need to convince us that you’re it.’
‘I’m guessing it’s already all in there,’ Buslenko nodded towards the file. ‘Twelve years’ experience. As a paratrooper, then with an Interior Ministry Spetsnaz. I can handle myself and I can handle any job you give me.’
‘I know the Spetsnaz unit you served with. Do you know Yuri Protcheva? He would have served about the same time.’
Buslenko made a show of trying to remember. He had been through the files, through all the team lists, a dozen times. He knew right away that there had been no Yuri Protcheva: it was an obvious trick. Too obvious. Kotkin didn’t want him to admit to knowing someone who didn’t exist. He wanted him to deny it too quickly, revealing he had been rehearsed.
‘No… I can’t say I did,’ Buslenko said eventually. ‘I knew everyone, just about. But no Yuri Protcheva. There was a Yuri Kadnikov – could that have been him?’
‘You say you got into trouble?’ Kotkin ignored Buslenko’s reply.
‘Some. Not much. We had to bust up a prisoners’ revolt in SIZO13 prison. I killed an inmate… Not a big deal, given the situation, but a prison official took one in the neck because he didn’t do what he was told and stay out of the way. Not my fault. His. But his brother was a big shot in the Interior Ministry. You know how it is…’
‘We’re not looking for misfits or drop-outs. We’re looking for soldiers. Good soldiers who can take and carry out orders.’
‘That’s what I am.’ Buslenko straightened himself up in the leather chair. ‘But I thought you were looking for people to… well, break the law.’
‘The only law we follow is the soldier’s code. If you join us, you will be a member of an elite. Everything we do is regulated by the highest military standards. It’s no different from normal service with a Spetsnaz unit. The only difference is that it pays a hell of a lot better. But you’re not in yet. I need you to answer a few questions.’
‘Go ahead…’ Buslenko shrugged nonchalantly, but his mouth felt dry and he had to resist the temptation to look over the Russian’s shoulder to the black glass wall behind. His instinct now jabbed at him incessantly. There was someone in there. Watching. Listening. He was there. Sasha’s intelligence had been right.
‘Do you know what it is that holds a military unit together?’
‘I dunno… obedience, I suppose. The ability to carry out an order as efficiently as possible.’
Kotkin shook his scarred head. ‘No, that’s not it. I’ll tell you what it is. It’s trust. The trust of true comradeship. Loyalty to one another and to your commander.’
‘I guess so.’ Buslenko detected something changing, like a sudden shift in air pressure just before a storm. He sensed the other three men on the long sofa tensing almost imperceptibly. But there was no change in the Russian’s demeanour. Too professional. The files on Kotkin showed that he had been an interrogator, or torturer, in Chechnya or elsewhere on the fringes of Russia’s crumbling empire. Maybe that was why he was there. Not as Buslenko’s recruiter, but as his torturer and executioner. And still Buslenko’s instinct nagged at him that there was someone watching and listening behind the glass wall.
‘Loyalty. That’s what holds a unit together. Brothers under arms.’ The Russian paused, as if waiting for Buslenko to say something. The other three men stood up. Buslenko strained to hear the hint of any sound behind him.
‘What’s the problem?’ Buslenko asked, trying to keep his tone even. It will come from behind, he thought again.
‘We all share a common experience.’ Kotkin continued as if he had not heard Buslenko’s question. ‘We are men of war whose lives depend on each other. What we fight for is secondary. What really matters is that we fight together. There is an unspoken, unbreakable bond of loyalty between us. There is no greater bond. And there is no greater treachery than when that bond is betrayed.’