The Bug river swelled and its level rose. That week, the rainfall over the Volhynian-Podolian hills in the central regions of the Ukraine was at record levels, and the sluice gates of the canal that linked the Bug to the Dnieper river were opened in the hope that the huge volume of surplus water could be taken up the Bug’s flow. With an angry, mud-laden power, the Bug spewed out of the heartlands of the Ukraine, then took its course along the frontier with south-east Poland, and its route swung north.
The river, rising by the hour, formed a new, more formidable frontier where it separated Poland from Ukraine and from Belarus. Other great European rivers had done that work before, but politics and alliances had changed. The Elbe was no longer the boundary between East and West as it had been for forty years. Briefly, the Odra river that divided the recent greater Germany from western Poland had acted as a fault across the northern area of the continent. The most recent realignment of cultures and regimes gave that role to the Bug.
At a United-Nations-sponsored conference to draw up a framework for the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses, a scientist said to a colleague, ‘To swim in the Bug is pretty near to suicide. Personally, I’d eat nothing grown within several kilometres of it. That foul water spills out over the agricultural plains.’
Where it meets the Polish border, the Bug is a filthy drain. Too high now for a fisherman going with a pole rod after carp for food. But in late summer when the Bug is at normal height, a fisherman would be insane, or near starvation, to eat his catch. The river carries extreme levels of pesticides and herbicides from agriculture, toxic chemicals that include heavy metals and phosphorus from industrial wastelands, and the untreated sewage from many of the three million people living within its basin. The Bug’s strength, as it approached the moment when the banks would break, was awesome — a power without mercy.
The scientist finished his coffee. ‘I don’t know whether you’ve heard the forecasts — no? Particularly severe rain over Ukraine. Floods by the end of the week.’
The Bug marked barriers that were clear to the eye and obvious to the mind: the Catholic faith of Poland divided from the Orthodox of Ukraine and Belarus; the democracy of western Europe and the Russian-dominated society of the neighbours. Old enemies squared up on that river, and old enmities were kept alive by it, but apart. As the waters rose, lapping at defence walls, the river Bug — had it a living soul — seemed to have taken on a brooding, resentful anger, as if it dared men to challenge its thrust.
The colleague finished a last cake. ‘And the floods distribute more of the filth. Don’t quote me, I never want to see that place again. To me, it’s damned and dangerous.’
Reuven Weissberg asked, ‘Who is it? Who’s he bringing?’
Mikhail answered, ‘A minder. An English minder.’
‘Is Viktor not with him?’
‘He is, and an English minder — a new man.’
‘Why?’
‘There was an incident yesterday. He was impressed by the reaction of the new man.’
She moved, like a wraith, into and out of the room. His grandmother listened but did not contribute.
Reuven asked, ‘What did Viktor say?’
Mikhail answered, ‘I haven’t spoken to him.’
‘I’m perplexed as to why Josef would bring a new man with him, at this time. Where is the sense of it?’
‘There was not the opportunity for explanations.’
His grandmother was at the door, watched him. Her head was cocked forward to hear better and a wisp of hair, pure white, lay across the lobe of her right ear. She would not comment unless her opinion was asked. He did not ask: it had been dinned into Reuven Weissberg since he was a child at her knee that trust should rarely be given and then only with great caution. Her mind was moulded, he knew, by a place where trust had not existed.
‘Josef lives in London, the life of the fat pig. Has his mind softened? Could he be mistaken?’
‘Perhaps, but it would surprise me if Viktor was. It’s what Viktor is for — to prevent mistakes.’
Reuven Weissberg exploited the mistakes of others. When he was still a teenager, an avoritet had agreed to share the pickings from a part of Perm’s taxi trade, and before his nineteenth birthday he had pushed aside that avoritet and had answered the man’s protests by beating him unconscious. Back from the military, he had sensed the weakness of an avoritet who was losing control against rivals for the meat stalls of the open market. He had put in his own boys — Mikhail and Viktor among them — seen off the rivals at gunpoint, and put that avoritet in the Kama river. Mistakes had made openings for him in Moscow, and more mistakes in Berlin had given advantage. Mistakes stripped men of their status, left them on a pavement in a blood pool, or in an oil drum, with hardening concrete, bouncing on the bed of a great river.
‘Did you say to Josef that he shouldn’t bring a stranger?’
‘He said he was coming, and that it was not for discussion.’
It did not have to be said — his grandmother eyed him from the door, suspicion in her eyes — but a mistake brought every avoritet down. And concern had settled on Mikhail’s face: no avoritet chose a time to walk away from the power, influence, status, wealth. It all lasted until a mistake was made. So much to plan for in the days ahead, and the talk among them — time wasted — was of a minder his launderer brought with him.
‘When the stranger comes, before business is done,’ Reuven had the smile of a stalking cat, ‘we will look at him, and if we like him it will be good for him, and if we do not …’
The increments and the policewoman were in a Transit ahead of them.
A pecking order of seniority was clear to Luke Davies. He and Lawson were chauffeured by a driver from the Service’s pool. About fifty questions had rampaged in his mind, but his silence was governed by the need to choose where to start. They were on the motorway, going west, and had passed the first sign for the airport turn-off. He had wondered how it would be in the Transit, had imagined a quiet murmur of voices as the team bonded to the necessary level of effective co-operation. He reckoned bonding would have low priority for Lawson, but those questions jarred in his head. He had, finally, determined where to start.
I suppose this is all down to Clipper, his legacy, the director general had said.
Lawson had said, I think Clipper, from what I recall, was clear on such a situation … You use what’s available. As I said, he’s what we have …
‘Do you take questions, Mr Lawson?’
A word puzzle on the back page of a newspaper was interrupted. ‘I do, yes, if they’re relevant.’
He could have asked about the lack of liaison with friendly agencies, the lack of provenance in the Haystack operation, the lack of planning and the rush to action. Instead he asked, ‘Who is he? I believe I’ve the right to know. Seems he’s a bit of an oracle, put on a pedestal by you and the DG. Who’s Clipper?’
Looking into those clear eyes, he saw what he imagined were minute cogs turning as if an apparatus was at work; what should he be told, how much need a junior know? Then, remarkable, there seemed to be a softening in Lawson’s face — as if he’d forgotten himself. He let his jaw sag from the normal aggressive jut — and a limp smile spread.