He went back down the bank to the water.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket, dipped it and felt the chill water flowing against his arm.
Carrick climbed the bank and walked back to them. The dispute cascaded around him. The old men couldn’t win it. Each would be broken, as a matchstick was snapped after use. He pushed past the one who blocked Reuven Weissberg, bent in front of the canister, wiped hard and saw the letters and numbers. He couldn’t read Cyrillic. He cleared the dirt off the canvas. It was obvious to him that the letters and numbers represented a batch number, or a serial number, or designated a weapon type. Two old men had gone through hell, many shades of it, to bring the thing to the Bug. Reuven Weissberg had come from Berlin and Josef Goldmann had travelled from the soft comfort of London to collect it but Goldmann, Mikhail and Viktor had copped out, as if the thing were too big, too dangerous … He saw them. They were crowded into the long cabin of the narrowboat. They had lassoed and corralled him, then bloody exploited him. Wouldn’t have done it for a sack of grenades, wouldn’t have hazarded him for a drum of Kalashnikovs, RPGs or even Stinger ground-to-air jobs. Carrick looked up.
He was near to the one without the shoe. He saw the face, its weariness and despair. He broke into the argument. ‘How much do they get?’
Surprise at the boldness of his demand for an answer. ‘What? Not your business.’
‘How much?’
‘They get a million American when it is verified. It is a good price — but not your business.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He knew what was that size, what was worth two old men carting a canister to the Bug river, what a weapon worth a million American could do to a city. Carrick hung his head and the argument resumed.
‘We were never told. I was not, Igor was not.’
‘If Oleg had known, and I, we would never have come.’
‘You’re a cheat.’
‘It’s trickery, deceit. We were told we would be paid.’
Molenkov led. He had no fear, which surprised him. ‘We did everything as we had said we would. We’ve come, we’ve brought it. We were promised we would be paid when we delivered. We have delivered. Do you have no honour? Does your word mean nothing?’
Old sensitivities ran through him. In front of him was the squat little bastard in the old leather jacket, a mafiya tsar. He thought of how it would have been for this pig if he had worn his uniform and been in his office, had owned the power and influence that sustained a ranking political officer. He tried to ape who he once was, who he had once been. The bastard, the pig, did not react. The torchbeam shone into the man’s face. Alongside him Yashkin babbled in near-incoherence. Lightly, but with malice, he kicked Yashkin’s ankle. There was more chatter about a ‘new life’, about ‘sunshine’ and about a ‘future’, so Molenkov kicked Yashkin again, harder, and it was sufficient to silence him. He had no fear, not after what they had endured — the trauma of the frontier, the beating by the thieves, the exhaustion of dragging the canister through the forest — but he had a view of reality. So many of the scientists, chief technicians and prominent engineers at Arzamas-16 had been Jews, and at other secret cities where there were fewer of them the complex was called — had the sneered name — ‘Egypt’. He had never been able to read them; they were separate, apart and aloof.
The mafiya Jew heard him out, then snapped his fingers. ‘It will go for verification. If it is what you say, it will be paid for. You will be told the address of a bank and an account number. It will be in Cyprus. My word is as strong as my arm.’
Finish. What could he do? End. Could he and Yashkin fight for possession of it and take it back? It was the moment that a dream ended. The torchbeam showed the strength of the Jew, the muscle power of his shoulders and the great size of his hands. Another man hovered behind him, but had not intervened and watched, observed, but when the light fell on his face, it was impassive.
Molenkov made the gesture. He took out his wallet, shone the torch on to it, showed it was empty and replaced it. Then he put his hands into his trouser pockets and pulled out the insides to show what they held: a sodden handkerchief, a ring with keys, a few coins that were almost worthless. He had tried to fight and failed. He pleaded. They had been robbed. They had no money. They had no fuel in the vehicle. He had imagined they would be big men, each with a half-share of a million American dollars, each able to purchase a view of the sea. They had nothing.
From his hip pocket, the Jew took a wad of notes, peeled some off and gave them as though it were a charity thing. Molenkov took what he was offered and hid the anger. The Jew waved for the man behind him to come forward. Each took a holding strap, and they turned their backs. They went past the point where the hook was lodged secure among a mass of birches, went under the rope that stretched away over the water and down to their boat.
He felt, almost, an affection for the fucking thing. They carried it easily as if the weight were a trifle. He had the torch on it. It was lifted into the boat. There had been no handshake, no hug, no kiss. They were gone and with them was the dream. It was hoisted into the boat.
‘Can you do without a shoe, Yashkin?’
‘I can,’ Yashkin said. His voice was a murmur under the roar of the flooded Bug. ‘Perhaps, in a week, they will tell us that the money is lodged.’
‘I want to go home,’ Molenkov said. ‘Perhaps they will tell us.’
Neither looked back as they took their first steps into the darkness of the forest.
A few feet from the bank, Lawson stood erect, tall and proud. Beside him was Deadeye who had his rifle up to his shoulder and whose right eye was lodged against the aperture of his image-intensifier sight. Deadeye gave him the whispered commentary. Lawson had no need of it now. All he had required to know was that an object, near to waist height and with the thickness of a stout torso, had been manhandled aboard. The boat and the two figures were a dark blur against the silver of the water. There were soft voices behind him. He could imagine the triumph awaiting him. Might just, and he’d fight damn hard to achieve it, get the covering off the thing — after the boffins had cleared it for contamination — and walk it back along the corridors of VBX and show it to them in Non-Proliferation, then take it up in the lift, dump it on the floor of Pettigrew’s office and have a drink with him. Yes, he allowed himself the luxury of imagination.
Rather them. The black shape of his agent, his target, their boat and its cargo inched out towards the river’s main flow. The rope that was tied to the tree root was near to him and shivered with the strain it took. He fell back on more immediate imagination. Two men stood upright in that small battered craft and dragged themselves across, hand over hand, on the rope. He could see, now, the white water swept back from the shape and it poisoned the cleanliness of the silver. He thought that every muscle in their bodies was strained with the effort of holding the rope and bringing the boat across.
‘How are they doing?’
‘So far so good, Mr Lawson, is how they’re doing.’
‘No misunderstandings, Deadeye. The target comes ashore, is bumped and taken.’
‘Of course, Mr Lawson.’
‘If he fights, he’s dead.’
‘Yes, Mr Lawson.’
Always a regret, never a life without a regret to harbour. He wished Clipper had been there. Clipper Reade might have enjoyed this rather substantially. He thought they were close to halfway across and the wind sang on the rope’s tightness. When it bucked, Lawson saw that one or other of them was changing hands and pulling harder to make progress against the flow. It would be a triumph, his vindication.