Allan sighed deeply. ‘I don’t want him alone with you.’
‘Where’s he going to go, Allan? You and Martin will be on the other side of the door. It’d be suicide, and we know the killer doesn’t have a death-wish.’
Allan thought about it for several seconds. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But keep close to him, watch him when he opens the case and if he makes any threatening moves. .’
‘Get my defence in first. Yeah, I know.’
Allan held Cramer’s look, then turned and open the door. ‘Let him through,’ Allan said to Martin.
Martin held his machine pistol down at his side as he stepped away from Tarlanov. The Russian picked up the metal case and carried it through to the inner office. Su-ming closed the door and stood with her back to it. Tarlanov nodded and smiled at Cramer as he put the case onto the desk.
‘I didn’t expect you to be able to speak English,’ Cramer said.
Tarlanov frowned and looked at Su-ming. She translated and he shrugged. ‘A little,’ he said.
‘Where in Russia are you from?’
Again Tarlanov immediately looked at Su-ming and Cramer realised that the Russian spoke hardly any English at all.
Su-ming looked at Cramer. ‘I don’t think we should be asking him questions,’ she said, speaking quickly so that the Russian would be even less likely to understand.
Cramer raised an eyebrow. ‘Ask him where he’s from, please,’ he said. Su-ming’s eyes hardened. ‘Let’s not have a scene,’ added Cramer, smiling pleasantly.
Su-ming looked for a moment as if she might argue, then she spoke to Tarlanov. ‘St Petersburg,’ she said.
Cramer nodded. ‘Okay, let’s see what’s in the case.’ He pointed at the metal case and mimed opening it. The Russian nodded. He reached into his raincoat pocket and Cramer tensed, even though he knew that Allan’s search had been thorough. Tarlanov’s hand reappeared with a set of keys. He sorted through them and used one to open the locks.
Cramer moved towards the desk so that he was standing just behind the Russian. He peered over the man’s shoulder as he lifted the lid. Cramer held his breath, his right hand straying towards his hidden gun.
The lid opened and Cramer saw a sheaf of papers. Tarlanov picked them up and handed them to Cramer. He spoke in Russian and Su-ming translated. ‘This is the documentation about the process and details of the consignments available,’ she said.
Cramer flicked through the sheets. They were all in Russian, and scattered through the text were chemical symbols and equations. He gave them to Su-ming. ‘Can you make sense of these?’ he asked.
As she read through the paperwork, Tarlanov stood to the side and waved his hand over the open case. The bulk of the case was filled with grey foam rubber, but in the centre, nestled into a snug cut-out hollow, was a metal canister shaped like an artillery shell, grey at the top, red for most of its length and with a brass fitting at the bottom. The object was about nine inches long with Russian writing on the red section, mainly numbers.
Cramer bent over the case and stared at it, scratching his chin thoughtfully. It wasn’t a shell, he was sure of that. In fact, it didn’t look like any weapon he’d ever seen. ‘Ask him if it’s okay to touch it,’ he told Su-ming.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ she said.
‘Just do it,’ said Cramer, keeping his voice as pleasant as possible. He didn’t want Tarlanov to guess from his tone that there was anything wrong.
Su-ming spoke to Tarlanov in Russian, listened to his answer, and then replied. ‘It’s not dangerous.’ Cramer picked it up gingerly. It weighed several pounds. ‘But he says be careful not to drop it,’ Su-ming added.
Cramer turned the object around in his hands. It was smooth with no rivets or screws, and the brass fitting appeared to be screwed into the red metal part. It reminded him of a Christmas tree light only much, much bigger. ‘Where does it come from?’ Cramer asked. It wasn’t a shell, he realised. It was a flask. A metal flask.
When Su-ming didn’t translate, Cramer turned and looked at her. She was glaring at him, her arms folded across her chest. ‘That’s not what we’re supposed to do,’ she said.
‘Keep smiling, kid,’ said Cramer. ‘And do as you’re told.’
The Russian looked at Su-ming expectantly. She forced a smile and spoke to him in Russian. His reply was a single word. ‘Ekaterinburg,’ said Su-ming. ‘It’s a city in the Urals, about 600 kilometres to the east of Moscow.’
Cramer nodded. Tarlanov spoke again and Su-ming listened intently. ‘But it was manufactured in Krasnoyarsk-26, that’s a military city in Zhelenogorsk,’ she translated.
Cramer could get no information from the writing on the flask so he put it back in its cut-out in the case. He really wanted to ask the Russian what was inside the flask, but that was out of the question: Vander Mayer would obviously know what the Russian was bringing him. ‘How much does it cost?’ he asked.
Su-ming translated and the Russian replied with a careless shrug. ‘It depends on how much you want,’ she said. ‘The base price is four hundred thousand dollars for a kilogram.’
The Russian closed the case. ‘Ask him how much he can get hold of,’ Cramer asked.
Su-ming spoke to Tarlanov in Russian. He nodded, then turned and headed towards the door. Cramer realised that Su-ming had told him the meeting was over. She dashed ahead of the Russian and opened the door, ushering him out before Cramer could protest.
As soon as the Russian stepped out of the inner office, Su-ming closed the door and stood with her back to it, her eyes flashing. ‘You weren’t supposed to ask him anything,’ she said. ‘Mr Vander Mayer said you were only to take delivery of the consignment. You didn’t do as you were told.’
‘He’s your boss, not mine.’
‘You could have ruined everything.’
Cramer shrugged dismissively. ‘That’s not my problem.’ He pointed at the case. ‘Now, what the hell is that? What’s so important that it’s made in a Russian military city and it costs four hundred thousand dollars a kilogram?’
‘It doesn’t concern you.’
‘You’re wrong, Su-ming. You’re dead wrong. I’m looking after whatever it is that’s in that case, it’s my responsibility, and if it’s some sort of germ warfare weapon then I have a right to know.’
‘It’s not germ warfare,’ she said, pouting like a little girl who wasn’t getting her own way.
‘So you say. What if I drop it, what if the car gets involved in an accident? Suppose whatever it is in the flask escapes? We could all die.’
Su-ming shook her head. ‘It’s safe.’
‘How do you know?’
She waved the typed sheets in front of his face. ‘Because it says so, here, that’s how I know. Until it’s activated, it’s virtually inert.’
‘Activated? What the hell do you mean, activated? What is it, Su-ming?’
She tapped the papers against the palm of her hand as she looked at him. ‘Red mercury,’ she said. ‘It’s only a sample for Mr Vander Mayer to test.’
‘Red mercury?’ Cramer repeated. ‘What is it, some sort of explosive?’
‘I shouldn’t even have told you that much,’ she said.
Cramer walked over to her. She looked so small when he stood next to her. She barely came up to his shoulder and she had to tilt her head back to keep looking into his eyes. ‘What’s it used for?’ he pressed.
She frowned. ‘Fuses, mainly.’
‘For bombs?’
She nodded. ‘It’s got civil applications, too, though. Mining companies can use it to help extract gold from ore.’
Cramer kept looking at her. He was sure she wasn’t telling him everything.
Marie looked at her wristwatch. ‘Do you think I should put more money in the meter?’ she asked.
Lynch stretched his arms out in front of him and opened and closed his hands. He sighed. ‘Aye, I suppose so.’ He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he stared across the crowded street at the block containing Vander Mayer’s office. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ he whispered.