Bomb Grade (32 page)

‘Get his agreement. I want a positive undertaking before I'll say anything.'

‘Don't be stupid,' rejected Natalia. ‘I haven't got anything to go to the prosecutor
with
. You've got to tell me what you're talking about first.'

‘No,' refused Yatisyna.

Unspeaking, Natalia reoffered the charge sheet and the pen.

Yatisyna still didn't take it. ‘I want to think. I won't acknowledge the charges until I've had time to think.'

She'd lost it, conceded Natalia. Not for ever, but certainly today. She did have things to say at the soon-to-start conference but there was a wash of disappointment at their not being as much – or as dramatic – as she'd hoped: as impressive as Charlie insisted she had to be, in front of higher authority. ‘We can proceed without your signature. It's only a formality.'

‘I have the right to a lawyer.'

‘At the discretion of the prosecutor.'

‘See if he's prepared to deal.'

‘Not until I know what I'm talking
about
.'

Yatisyna nodded towards the tape recorder. ‘Without that next time.' There was another head gesture, towards the guards at the door. ‘And them.'

She
was
going to get more, Natalia decided. It would be wrong to abandon her adopted approach. ‘I'm not going to keep coming here for nothing. Make your mind up. When you have, let me know.' She stood, abruptly, collecting up her mostly contrived file.

‘I have a request!'

The bombast was going: he was an early breaker. ‘What?'

‘This prison overall stinks. I have the right to a clean one.'

Natalia remained standing, smirked as she again examined the man from head to toe. ‘You haven't
any
rights that I don't choose to allow you. You're not getting any change of uniform and you're not getting any deal. All you're getting at the moment is a trial that will be little more than a formality and then a firing squad. No one's frightened of you any more, Lev Mikhailovich. You haven't got any power, can't frighten anyone, not any more.'

The attractive wardress laughed again, exactly on cue, and Natalia decided it had been a good early morning's work. And there was a whole day left.

In the hills was definitely best. There were a lot of places in Moscow – he personally owned a linked section of houses and apartments on Ulitza Dvorsovaya, in addition to the two mansions where no one would have dared to see or hear anything – but Silin wanted the death of Sobelov and the two shits who'd supported him to be the most dramatic example possible for everyone. Which meant making it last – for as long as Sobelov could survive the torture – so the country estate was where he'd arranged everything. Even announced, when he'd issued the summons, that it was going to be a special occasion.

Silin smiled to himslf, enjoying the irony that no one else yet knew but soon would: a far more special occasion than any of them had ever known. His people – the few Dolgoprudnaya people he knew he could trust, like Petr Markov – had called from the dacha, confirming they were already there, waiting. Confirming, too, that it was all arranged, in readiness.

The rest of the Commission would be setting out soon, Sergei Petrovich Sobelov one of them. With no idea what he was heading for – the most delicious irony of all – in that ridiculous American car, probably with the head of some girl whose name he didn't even know gurgling in his lap.

Silin rose at the knock on the study door, almost reaching it before it was respectfully opened by Markov.

‘The cars are outside.'

‘Good.' Silin wanted to be there at least an hour before the rest, to enjoy their unsuspecting arrival, miss nothing.

Marina waited beyond, in the corridor, neat as she always was, attentive as she always was. ‘The kitchen want to know if you'll be back tonight.'

‘Not to eat,' said Silin. The dinner at the dacha was going to be the highlight. The boar would probably already be cooking – prepared, certainly – and there was going to be French wine. He'd be at the head of the table and whatever happened he wanted Sobelov to be kept alive to be strapped into a chair to watch them eat what would be for him the last supper. He'd have insisted Bobin and Frolov inflict their torture on Sobelov by then, so they'd be strapped in chairs, too, on either side of the man they'd backed, knowing what was going to happen to them; shitting themselves, crying, begging for mercy, lying. Maybe he should have brought a doctor in, to keep them alive; there were a lot he could have chosen from. Too late now. A minor oversight. Didn't affect the main objective. That no one else in the Commission – no one else
anywhere
– would ever dream of challenging him after today.

‘What time then?' She kept in step with him towards the main entrance.

Silin stopped there, turning towards her, while Markov checked the street outside. He smoothed the greying hair that didn't need smoothing, just wanting to touch her. ‘It'll be very late.'

‘I'll still wait up.' She raised her face, expectantly, for him to kiss her, which he did, softly.

At Markov's gesture Silin hurried to his customized Mercedes directly outside. There were escort Mercedes in front and behind, with four guards in each. Markov settled himself in his customary seat, beside the driver of Silin's car. Without having to be asked, Markov raised the screen between himself and the driver and Silin, in the rear. At the same time Markov took the Uzi from the glove compartment and placed it more conveniently beside him: one of Silin's modernizing insistences was that the Commission never carried personal weapons themselves, like the American Mafia heads never risked moving around armed. Like all the glass in the Mercedes, the screen was bullet-proof.

The Pizhma robbery had been brilliant, Silin thought. And the best part of all was that there would be more, as big or maybe even bigger. It was going to be difficult counting the money! He'd make the announcement at dinner that night, so Sobelov would hear with everyone else. So the man would die knowing it. Give them all another example of how reliant they were upon him.

The motorway crossed the outer ring road intersection and Silin looked expectantly for the Dolgoprudnaya direction signs, smiling at its familiarity. Which was something he'd have to guard against from now on, comfortable familiarity. There wouldn't be any more nonsense again, not after today, but Silin admitted to himself that it had still been a lesson well learned. He wouldn't relax in future, like he had in the immediate past. Today would show them and …

Silin's mind trailed away, the thought never finished, at the blurred sight of a Mytishchi direction sign which shouldn't have been on this road at all because it wasn't the way to his dacha. That realization came with the awareness that this
wasn't
his road at all but one he didn't recognize. He pressed his console button, to bring down the separating screen. Nothing happened. He pressed it harder. When still nothing happened he jabbed at it again and again and then rapped at the glass behind Markov's head. It was the electrics: something had gone wrong with the electrics. The man in front of him didn't turn. Neither did the driver. Silin shouted, although the rear of the car was soundproofed by its protection. They still didn't turn. Silin twisted to see that the escort car was behind, like the one in front remained with him, then hammered and shouted at the screen and tried the button again. It still didn't work. Neither did the controls for the windows. Nothing worked.

The turn into a driveway he didn't recognize was abrupt, throwing him sideways and momentarily full length on the rear seat. When he thrust himself up Silin saw they were approaching a wooden villa he didn't know – like he didn't know anything – an old-fashioned building girdled by a verandah. There were people on it, arranged like an audience: Bobin and Frolov were there with the rest of the Commission, with Sobelov at the head of the steps, a smiling host. Silin snatched out for the console again, to lock all the doors.

Very slowly, prolonging every movement, Sobelov descended the steps and tapped lightly, mockingly, for Silin to open his door. Silin actually shook his head, whimpering back across the car to get away from the other man. And then he whimpered even louder when Sobelov, even more mocking, opened the door anyway from his side, clearly knowing it would not be locked.

‘We're throwing a party for you, Stanislav Georgevich: everyone's coming,' smirked the man. ‘We're all going to enjoy it. You especially. We've got a lot to talk about:
you've
got a lot to talk about. To me.'

chapter 22

E
xpectantly Charlie watched the wired-to-electricity shock go through the assembled Russians at Kestler's announcement that the photographs proved the breaching of the nuclear canisters to be intentional.

There were two additional Russians, one in recognizable Militia officers' uniform, the other a slightly built, anonymously dressed civilian whom Charlie's like-for-like antenna at once recognized. They, like everyone else in the room, gave reactions similar to the ministers and the presidential aide. Natalia managed to look convincingly surprised. She showed no trace of tiredness. She was sitting with the
spetznaz
officers separating her from Popov, who'd abandoned the black tunic for one of his immaculate suits. The man had nodded and relaxed his face into the beginning of a smile at Charlie's entry. Charlie had nodded and smiled back more openly.

Predictably the discussion began with the Russians, led by the
spetznaz
commanders, challenging the American photo interpretation. When that dispute ended with their reluctantly agreeing it was the only possible conclusion, Charlie let the increasingly wilder theories swirl about him but didn't contribute, even when invited, unwilling to lose a strengthening idea among the general here's-what-I-think eagerness to voice an opinion. As the discussion trailed into silence Popov abruptly announced that the weather had favoured them, with no disseminating wind, and that containment experts from Kirs and Kotelnich had capped the smashed housings and sufficiently water-suppressed the contamination not just around the site but throughout the carriages to enable the train to complete its journey with the rest of its untampered cargo. A comparison between the loading manifest and what remained on the train put the loss at nineteen canisters, not the American assessment of twenty-two.

‘And we have located the lorries and the cars used in the robbery,' announced the operational director, triumphantly. With theatrical timing, he added, ‘Here in Moscow.'

Popov deflected the top table attention of Fomin and Badim to the uniformed Militia officer, who coloured although clearly prepared for the introduction, which he completed by naming himself to be Petr Tukhonovich Gusev, colonel-in-charge of the central Moscow region. In a pedantic, police-phrased account, Gusev said that at precisely 4.43 that morning a Militia street patrol had located three lorries and a BMW parked in central Moscow, close to the Arbat. The lorries were empty. The German Ford had been found thirty minutes later, abandoned on the inner Moscow ring road, empty of petrol.

‘In view of the Pizhma contamination, both areas have been sealed pending an examination by nuclear inspectors,' picked up Popov, on cue. ‘No one involved in securing the areas has been told what the lorries contained, of course, to avoid a nuclear theft of this magnitude becoming publicly known. The initial Militia patrol carried out some preliminary general checks on all the vehicles. The engines of the lorries and both cars were discernibly hot, to the touch …' He hesitated, for the implications to be realized. ‘They had clearly arrived in the city within an hour, maybe less, of their being discovered!' Popov nodded to the Militia commander. ‘By six o'clock this morning, all major routes out of Moscow were sealed. In the five hours since, extra Militia and Federal Security Service personnel have been drafted into the city.
Any
vehicle attempting to move beyond the outer Moscow ring road is being stopped and searched …' The man smiled towards the minister. ‘I think we can confidently say that the proceeds of the Pizhma robbery are contained within Moscow and that it will only be a matter of time before they are recovered. Certainly nothing can get through the cordon we now have encircling the city …'

The palpable relief went through the room like a communal sigh. Charlie passingly noted the look on Natalia's face and then saw Fomin, smiling broadly, turn towards Popov. Before the man could speak Charlie said, ‘I don't think we can confidently say anything of the sort!'

Popov's face closed. Fomin turned to Charlie, the intended praise unspoken. ‘You have an observation to make?'

‘Several,' promised Charlie. ‘There's no reason at all to suppose the contents of the lorries were transferred
where
they were found. If an hour elapsed before their discovery – thirty minutes even – the transfer vehicles could have got way beyond the city limits before any checks were in place. So your cordon is useless. Dumping vehicles used in a theft is basic robbery practice. But why abandon the four vehicles where they're bound to be found so quickly? Or leave the Ford on a no-stopping ring road where its being immediately found was even more assured? The thing's got a petrol gauge. Knowing that it was running out of fuel, why wasn't it abandoned in some back alley somewhere? Like the other vehicles could have been split up and left in places where they wouldn't have been found or aroused suspicion for days. Everything was left for exactly the same reason that the canisters were breached. It's all decoys: the breaching to delay the beginning of any proper investigation – which it did – and the vehicles to concentrate everything
within
Moscow. Which it did. Making it that much easier to get the stuff into the West.'