Kasakov looked surprised, buying the lie perfectly, and then even smiled a little. ‘Then you’re forgiven, my friend.’ He looked at Eltsina. ‘I thought you were in charge of my security, Yuliya. Maybe I should give your pay cheques to Tomasz from now on.’ Eltsina smirked but she didn’t respond. Kasakov smiled and reached for his wine. He took a large swallow. ‘Oh, and on this matter, if either of you would be so gracious as to discover who is so keen to have me killed, I would rather appreciate it.’
Across the table, the North Koreans were still conferring.
‘I heard something about a mass killing at a hotel in Minsk,’ Eltsina said to Burliuk. ‘Is this the incident you are referring too?’
Burliuk sipped his mineral water and avoided looking at her. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t yet got all the details.’
‘When you have,’ Eltsina said, her tone gentle and understanding, ‘I would very much like to hear them.’
Burliuk nodded.
‘More importantly,’ Kasakov said, ‘what is happening regarding the bastard who killed my nephew? Have you found out where he is hiding yet, and commissioned someone to extinguish his miserable existence?’
Eltsina said, ‘We’re following leads, but Ariff never stays in one place for more than a year or two and takes many precautions to avoid being found. Therefore it’s taking some time. But I promise we will locate him. An American team looks to be the best option to send once we know where Ariff is. They come very highly recommended by my associates in the SVR. The team’s track record is excellent. The only problem is, they are asking for a lot of money.’
Controlled anger passed over Kasakov’s face. ‘When I said money is no object, what did you not understand?’
Eltsina frowned. ‘I do not sign the cheques. It was Tomasz’s idea to negotiate their price down.’
Kasakov looked at Burliuk. This time the anger was not controlled.
‘They’re asking for a ridiculously huge fee, Vladimir,’ Burliuk countered quickly, feeling his lungs tighten. ‘You expect me to manage your finances, and that is what I am doing. For the money they are asking we could employ an army. I’m not exaggerating.’
Kasakov leaned closer to Burliuk. ‘If they are as good as Yuliya says they are then cease negotiations immediately, and pay them whatever — and I mean whatever — they want. Each second Ariff breathes and Illarion does not is unacceptable. If they bring me the Egyptian’s intact head so I can mount it on my wall, I shall pay them triple. Is that clear enough?’ Burliuk nodded. ‘Just make sure that worthless dog and his family are dead. Quickly.’
The North Koreans stopped talking and looked back across the table.
‘So, gentlemen,’ Kasakov began, anger gone, back to business. ‘Have you made up your minds?’
The thin North Korean interlaced his fingers. ‘What about armaments? Tell us what you intend to deliver with the planes.’
Burliuk used his inhaler a second time and fought not to smile. Everyone, governments included, wanted something for nothing.
‘A hound without teeth is no good to any man,’ Kasakov said, ‘but sharp fangs cost money. You’ll be pleased to know I have near enough unlimited access to air-to-air missiles such as the R-33 and the newer R-77, as well as air-to-surface, including the X-55 anti-ship missile. Please, my dear friends, check your catalogue for a full list of prices. However, as a sign of our enduring friendship, if you would be so very kind as to buy all twenty jets then I will supply each with a full armament of your choice of missiles. No extra charge.’ He paused. ‘So, do we have a deal?’
The thin North Korean nodded. ‘But we want assurances of quality.’
‘Of course,’ Kasakov said with another smile. ‘You can have a money-back guarantee.’
CHAPTER 36
Washington, DC, USA
Procter met Clarke in the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. He was waiting next to the Great Cats enclosure, watching a couple of Sumatran tigers lying on the ground, doing nothing. It was a warm day, which meant it was hot for a guy of Procter’s size. He stood next to Clarke and watched the tigers. They continued to do nothing.
‘They look bored,’ Procter said after a moment.
Clarke didn’t turn his way. ‘What animal built so perfectly to kill merely wants to be fed?’
Procter nodded. Few other visitors were near but Procter spoke quietly regardless. ‘I know what you are going to say, so don’t, all right? Things didn’t go exactly as planned last week in Minsk.’
Clarke didn’t say anything. One of the tigers yawned.
‘Yamout made it out of the country alive, true, but Yamout is just the bishop, we’re going after the king here. The important thing is that we struck Ariff’s network right where he’s going to really feel it. Forget the fact that Yamout survived, what matters is that Ariff is going to be furious his best pal almost ended up a corpse. He’s still going to do the two things we wanted: he’s going to be on guard against further attacks and he’s going to want to deliver a nice big fat dollop of payback to the culprit. And courtesy of Callo, both Ariff and Yamout are going to believe that Kasakov was behind it. So that’s score number one.
‘As for number two, Kasakov now knows the RDX that killed Farkas came out of the batch stolen from him when his nephew was killed. If he hasn’t already begun moving against Ariff, he will very soon. But now Ariff knows Kasakov is gunning for him he’s going to be that much harder to hit, so Vlad won’t just be able to wipe him off the face of the Earth like he might have if Ariff didn’t take steps to protect himself. Kasakov is already hard to hit.’ Procter paused for a second. ‘The result is exactly what we want: the world’s two most prolific arms dealers thirsting for each other’s blood and entrenched in a war for hopefully years to come. The flow of illicit arms will be damaged so badly it might never recover. We’ll save countless lives.’
Clarke huffed. ‘I’m well aware of the strategy, Roland.’
‘I know you are,’ Procter agreed, ‘but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it when things become a little less clean than we would have liked.’
Clarke was still watching the tigers, one of which was now sleeping.
‘Roland,’ he began, still without looking Procter’s way. ‘I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it couldn’t have been much dirtier. Your boy managed to gun down, what was it, twelve people? And if the initial reports are correct, four people who had been staying in the next suite along are among the dead.’
‘And I’m deeply unhappy about those civilian deaths,’ Procter assured. ‘But Tesseract didn’t have a lot of choice with the strike point. It would have been great if Yamout and Petrenko had met in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but they didn’t. Civilian casualties are always a possibility with these things, and we need to wait to hear from Tesseract before passing judgement.’
Clarke scoffed. ‘Your MVP failed to kill Yamout and took out four civilians in the process and you want to hear from him before passing judgement? Roland, please. You need to accept the facts: Tesseract is not as good as you hoped he would be, and he’s an even greater liability than I feared. He managed to kill one civilian casualty for every two bad guys. We might as well have shelled the building. At least then we would have taken out Yamout as well.’
‘Being from the military,’ Procter commented, ‘you should be more accepting of collateral damage.’
Clarke’s eyes narrowed.
‘Speaking of collateral damage,’ Procter said, ‘there’s something you need to know. Regarding Saul Callo. Those Brit contractors we used contacted me after making the call to Yamout’s people. Callo tried to escape. Abbott and Blout had no choice but to neutralise him before they were compromised. I’m pissed off about it, but I’m not going to lose any sleep, and neither should you. Callo was a disgusting excuse for a human being. You know that as well as I do.’