Dulong seized on this.
‘I may as well tell you that Jockand I came here directly from a meeting at the Cross. Seeing as you’ve brought it up, the consensus is that Libra should remain untouched. Thomas Macklin cannot be prosecuted.’
‘Here we go,’ Quinn muttered under his breath. ‘Here we go.’
‘In these unfortunate circumstances, Macklin must be allowed to remain in Grand Cayman.’ Dulong continued as if he had not spoken. ‘We wouldn’t ask the authorities there to make an arrest. Equally, if and when he returns to the UK, the Crown cannot prosecute for money laundering. Sebastian’s role would inevitably emerge.’
‘Fucking bullshit,’ Quinn shouted, flinging a fist out into the room. Everyone turned to face him. ‘That is an absolute load of fucking bullshit and you…’
‘It is not…’
But he could shout louder than Dulong.
‘… you know as well as I do that the only reason you’re prepared to protect Macklin is to conceal the fact that a former KGB agent slipped out of Moscow and murdered two Western intelligence officers before anybody knew what was going on.’
McCreery stood in a bid for control. Quinn’s idealism needed to be snuffed out quickly or the plan would unravel.
‘We cannot deny that we are anxious to keep Kostov’s movements under wraps,’ he conceded. ‘That much is true.’ Slowly he limped towards the door. ‘But this has an impact on the Security Service just as much as it affects our side. Imagine how difficult it will become to recruit agents if potential targets think British Intelligence cannot protect them. Would you fancy going back to Ireland, to Paris, to Frankfurt, with the Kostov scandal hanging in the air? Would you?’
‘I’ve never been to Frankfurt,’ Quinn said flatly, because he could not resist the joke. ‘I’m a lawyer, mate. I’m paid to work in London. I’m employed by the Home Office to help track down and prosecute the kind of people you’re talking about setting free.’
‘So we’re just going to let Macklin go?’ Taploe asked, as if the revelation were still dawning on him and did not yet seem scandalous. ‘What about Tamarov?’
‘I’m afraid we would also condone Tamarov’s release.’ Dulong did not dare look at Quinn. ‘He would not be permitted to return to the United Kingdom, although any established organized crime networks would of course be dismantled. But prosecution is out of the question. Ditto Juris Duchev. Now nobody’s saying that’s the ideal solution but…’
‘Too fucking right it’s not the ideal solution.’ Quinn pressed himself up from the table and walked towards McCreery. He knew that his appearance worked against him — his weight, his sweat — but he still held out the faint hope that his arguments would carry the day. ‘Tamarov has a UK right of residency. How are you going to take that away from him?’
‘Look,’ Dulong countered, ‘this has come from very high up…’
‘What, God doesn’t want Tamarov arrested? Did He tell you that in person, or just send a courier?’
Nobody laughed.
‘It’s not all bad news,’ Dulong said stiffly. ‘Macklin won’t be coming home. He’ll think the Russians know about the double dip and assume he’s a marked man in London. At our earlier meeting my colleagues also discussed the possibility of asking the Cayman authorities to implement a Mareva injunction on Macklin’s accounts.’
‘What’s a Mareva injunction?’ Taploe asked, as a phone rang in an office across the hall.
‘It means they’re going to try and freeze Macklin’s assets,’ Quinn explained quietly.
‘That is correct.’ Dulong straightened her skirt. ‘So you can see that it’s not as if he’s got away scot free.’
‘Well, that’s assuming the Cayman courts agree,’ Quinn said, swallowing a glass of water in three loud gulps. He sat down. ‘Any foreign authority would need conclusive evidence linking Macklin to the Pentagon accounts and to the criminal activity in London.’
‘But we have evidence, Paul,’ Taploe said. ‘More than enough, in fact.’
‘Course we do,’ Quinn tried. ‘But will Elizabeth and her merry men be sharing it with their new pals down in the Caribbean? Somehow I doubt it.’
Dulong caught McCreery’s eye and he dug her out of a tight spot.
‘You needn’t have any concerns about that, Paul,’ he said, collecting his stick from the wall. ‘The boys in Cayman are pretty keen nowadays to be seen to be cleaning up their act. They’ll comply, believe me.’
‘And then wonder why we haven’t asked to have Macklin extradited.’
‘Well, let’s worry about that one later, shall we?’
Quinn collapsed into a slouch. This was self evidently a fait accompli. He wished, not for the first time in his career, that he were ten or fifteen years older, not just the bright, straight-talking Cockney whose views were eventually expendable.
‘Macklin would also be disbarred from practising law in the UK,’ Dulong said, almost as if she were trying to cheer him up. ‘He won’t be able to gain registration with any foreign law society or enjoy rights of audience in a foreign court.’
Wearily, Quinn contested even that assertion.
‘Not true,’ he said. ‘Macklin was dual-qualified. He’s a member of the Florida Bar. Did a degree in Miami nine years ago.’
This was a revelation too far for McCreery and Dulong, both of whom looked stumped.
‘Then we’ll just have to have a word with our American friends, try and sort something out,’ McCreery offered. He kept a straight face while saying it.
‘And what happens to Libra Moscow?’ Taploe asked, as if it was pointless to dwell on the frank impossibility of Macklin’s or Tamarov’s arrest. Better just to wrap things up and try to salvage his career.
‘Well, that was one of the things Sebastian and I talked about this morning,’ Dulong said gratefully.
‘Roth’s in London?’ Taploe asked.
‘That’s correct.’ She took a plastic clip out of her bag and used it to pin up her hair. ‘At this stage he thinks the club will most probably be franchised to a local entrepreneur in Moscow. Gradually Libra will sever ties. He’s going to stay in London for the foreseeable future and take hands-on control of the London operation. There may even be a stock-market float.’
‘I see, I see.’ Taploe smiled, sickening Quinn with the speed of his compliance. A queasy mood of settled business had suddenly pervaded the room.
‘And Kostov?’ he said. Quinn had noticed they had left the Russian out.
McCreery cleared his throat.
‘Well, there at last there’s some good news. While we’ve been sitting here our colleagues should have finalized plans for Kostov’s extradition.’
Quinn stirred.
‘How does that work?’
‘Very simply.’ McCreery clasped his hands together and produced a punchy smile. ‘Kostov has been tracked to one of Kukushkin’s properties. He’s been under surveillance for several days.’
Taploe was confused.
‘He was working for Viktor Kukushkin?’
‘Not exactly. Dimitri does some very occasional work for the organization, but only as a favour to keep him in rubles. Kukushkin and Kostov are old friends, you see, from school and university. Grew up in the same Moscow suburb. Twenty years ago, Kukushkin was a big player in the Party machine so, like a lot of ex-KGB, Kostov was able to maintain some very strong links with organized crime. He was farmed out to Byelorussia after the Mischa fiasco, but Kukushkin kept an eye on him. And when he started to benefit from Gorbachev’s reforms, he brought him back into the fold, found him somewhere to live, that sort of thing.’
Taploe stretched. ‘What sort of work does Kostov do for him?’
He might have been enquiring after the time.
‘As I said, very little. We don’t really know much beyond the fact that Kukushkin has always looked after him. Some instruction, perhaps. The odd tip-off. A lot of Kostov’s breed worked euphemistically as “consultants” of one kind or another, though it’s unlikely he would have been all that effective. Kukushkin was heavily involved in strong-arming government ministers into transferring state money to privatized brokerage houses in the early days of Yeltsin. We’re fairly sure Kostov helped out on that. He was always best when operating as a bit of a thug…’