Her pulse finally slowed down to a normal beat. She couldn’t remember the nightmare, only the fear it had evoked. Maybe the stress between her and Vladimir was doing more damage than she thought. Or perhaps it was the new guilt she carried. Either way she was unlikely to get back to sleep just yet.
Izolda slipped on her dressing gown and ventured out on to the landing. She loved Sochi, which was fortunate as it was one of the few vacation destinations that Vladimir was able to travel to without risk. The mansion was a large, lavish building, but nothing compared to the home she shared with Vladimir outside of Moscow. That house was huge beyond need or luxury. They had an entire wing that housed the full-time maid, chef, butler, driver, groundskeeper and bodyguards. The rest of the Moscow dacha was shared by just herself and Vladimir. She didn’t know how many rooms there were and sometimes weeks could go by without her using some of them. Those bedrooms she and Vladimir had once designated as nurseries, she hadn’t ventured into for years.
Izolda switched on lights as she went. She may have been a grown woman but she was on edge from the nightmare and being in an isolated dacha didn’t help keep her imagination in check. Her slippers muffled her footsteps on the red oak flooring.
Faint light emanating from the study told her where she would find Vladimir. He looked up when she entered. He was sitting behind his desk, dressed in silk pyjamas, and facing the open door. Some men looked better as they aged; though Vladimir was perhaps not one of them, the grey in his hair did lend him a certain dignified presence, and the lines in his face added character to his somewhat blunt features. But he was still as strong and powerful as he had ever been.
It was the computer monitor that provided the light. Vladimir clicked the mouse and removed his earbuds.
‘Izzy,’ he said. ‘I thought you were fast asleep.’
She leaned against the doorframe. ‘I had a nightmare.’
‘My poor baby.’ He looked so concerned. ‘What was it about?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Isn’t that the best way?’
She shrugged. ‘What are you doing up at this time of night?’
An expression passed over Vladimir’s face that was both happy and sad at the same time. ‘Just work, my love. Just work.’
‘Can’t that wait until morning? We’re on vacation, aren’t we?’
‘It’s not urgent,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t get to sleep and thought I might as well make use of my insomnia. I hope I didn’t wake you when I got out of bed.’
Izolda shook her head. ‘No, no. I didn’t realise you weren’t there until the nightmare woke me. How long have you been up?’
‘Not long.’
‘Oh, I thought-’
Vladimir smiled and said, ‘You looked so cute when I left. You were snoring.’
‘ I was not.’
‘You were.’
‘I don’t snore.’ She smiled, shyly. ‘I’m a lady.’
‘A very beautiful lady.’
She couldn’t help but smile wider. ‘I can’t sleep if you’re not there. Come back to bed, please.’
‘Give me five minutes to finish up and I’ll be in. How does that sound, my love?’
Kasakov watched Izolda turn and leave. He didn’t like lying to his wife, but sometimes it was unavoidable. He was not working. Burliuk and Eltsina were running the business in his absence and he’d left instructions he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Burliuk had been opposed to Kasakov taking a vacation when they were in the middle of trying to repair the damage done by the many attacks the network had suffered in the past few weeks, but Kasakov had gone regardless. He didn’t have the patience to deal with scared employees and North Koreans who were furious their order had been delayed, and even angrier to learn they would only receive eighteen fighter jets instead of the promised twenty. That mark to Kasakov’s reputation would take a lot of work to repair.
He hadn’t lied about his inability to sleep. However, it wasn’t his business that kept him awake, nor was it his nephew’s death; with Illarion avenged, he was finally at peace on that score. No, it was his wife who occupied Kasakov’s thoughts. Her reluctance to concede to his advances had not gone unnoticed, nor had the increased frequency of shopping trips and salon visits and lunches with friends.
Her footsteps were too quiet for Kasakov to hear, so he waited a couple of minutes to make sure she wasn’t going to suddenly reappear before reinserting his earbuds. He settled into his chair and clicked the mouse to continue the video. The recording had been made using a sophisticated camera, as Kasakov had requested, and both the picture quality and sound were excellent, even if the camerawork could have been better. Had it occurred to him beforehand he would have hired a professional cinematographer to handle the shoot. However, given the video’s content, such an individual would probably have been impossible to find.
Kasakov had watched an hour of footage already and there was another two hours to go. He would check on Izolda shortly to make sure she was asleep. If she wasn’t, he would climb into bed with her and wait until she was snoring again before returning to the video. This was the second time Kasakov had viewed it, and like any good movie he was able to appreciate it even more on a repeat viewing.
He blinked away tears and closed his eyes to picture Illarion’s face while through the earbuds flowed the exquisite screams of Ariff and his family.
CHAPTER 50
It had rained all week. Victor lay in the undergrowth that covered the outcrop. With the limited viewpoint over the back of the dacha, he hadn’t seen the arms dealer arrive, but had become aware of Kasakov’s guards patrolling the property. Soon afterwards, Victor glimpsed the Ukrainian as he passed one of the visible window on the second floor, but he didn’t loiter long enough for Victor to put the binoculars down and shoot accurately. Victor hadn’t expected to complete the contract with such a shot, but that was why he’d trimmed the trees that screened the house.
A very beautiful woman accompanied Kasakov, who from the dossier Victor knew to be his wife, Izolda. She was tall and slim, carrying herself with the confidence of a runway model. There were no other guests. Victor counted five bodyguards in total, just as he’d been told there would be. They slept in the guesthouse in shifts, so there were always at least three awake and ready. As in Minsk, they weren’t particularly big, but spec ops and intelligence guys usually weren’t. Each had the gait and manner of a serious operator, and the dossier stated that Kasakov had a penchant for hiring ex-Spetsnaz soldiers. Victor’s last run-in with the Spetsnaz was not something he was eager to repeat.
He lay in a shallow between two trees on the highpoint. With binoculars, he continuously watched the rear of the dacha. The branches he’d cleared provided a small corridor of space through the otherwise overlapping foliage of the three trees. The line of sight was far from ideal, but he could see the back entrance and a thin sliver of ground outside of it. A limited view, but enough to put a bullet into Kasakov should he use the door.
Victor had prepared the ground by removing stones and branches from where he would be lying and landscaping the soil flat. He knew he could be in the same spot for several days and every annoying lump and bump on the first day would be agony by the fifth. Any distraction had the potential to throw a shot and he wanted to squeeze the trigger just once and be gone.
Birds chirped above his head. They were used to his presence now, not scaring even when he was forced to move. A waterproof sheet stretched across the two trees formed a makeshift shelter. It only partially covered him, due to where he needed to lie, but it kept some of the rain off and allowed him to keep his weapons and equipment dry.