She clinked his glass.
Victor said, ‘Is that Prudnikov?’
Francesca’s head turned to follow his gaze. ‘Where?’
‘Over by the mirror.’
He pointed with his champagne flute. ‘That one. Near the woman in the black dress.’
Francesca craned her neck. ‘Every woman is wearing a black dress.’
‘At your one o’clock. By the flowers and the woman with the big hair.’
She looked for a moment and then said, ‘No, that’s not him.’ She turned back to face Victor. ‘Too tall.’
Victor took a single sip of his drink.
Francesca did the same. ‘I do love champagne.’ She took a second sip and frowned a little. ‘But trust Russians to go for the cheap stuff. It’s probably not even real champagne but some second-rate national equivalent.’ She said, in a bad accent, ‘Champagnovski.’
‘Shampanskoye,’ Victor corrected.
‘You’re so very knowledgeable, Felix,’ she said, half mocking. ‘I bet you have lots of hidden talents I couldn’t possibly imagine.’
‘All sorts. I can do magic tricks.’
She chuckled and sipped her drink. ‘How charming.’
‘I’ll show you one later if you like.’
‘I think I’d really rather like that, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be possible.’ She sighed, sympathetic and almost sad. ‘Oh, Felix, there isn’t going to be a later for you, is there?’
Coughlin used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from above his eyebrows and his top lip. His jaw ached from clenching his teeth. His nostrils flared with each heavy breath. Next to him, Hart was focused, but relaxed and calm. Coughlin didn’t like him. Coughlin was scared of him. They stood near the north-facing windows of the top-floor apartment. All the furniture had been pushed away from the windows to give them the best view. The only light came from streetlamps outside and the room was dark. Coughlin was glad of that. Hart wouldn’t be able to see how much he was sweating. He might be able to smell it, however.
Hart’s phone chimed. He checked the screen then thumbed a reply before calling Leeson. ‘Francesca’s sent the second code. Everything’s on schedule.’ He waited a moment as Leeson said something in return, then hung up. Coughlin said, ‘Couldn’t Kooi just force her tell him the code?’
Hart shook his head, somewhat contemptuously. ‘He’s at an embassy reception surrounded by security personnel. How is he going to get the opportunity to
force
her?’
‘I don’t know. But that’s only because I’m not the one who has to blow myself up. And if I was, I’d find a way to get that code, regardless of the consequences.’
‘What a fine father you’ll make someday. Kooi cares about his family too much to back out. But if he was as selfish as you, it would do him no good. Every fifteen minutes Francesca will send a different code that only she and I know. Don’t let appearances deceive you: there’s nothing Kooi could do to her in there to make her reveal the code and he won’t be as stupid as you would be in his place. Which is why you’re here and he’s in there. Amusing isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
‘How by virtue of your idiocy you will not only survive while Kooi dies, but you will profit from the demise of a more intelligent man. Natural selection in reverse.’
Coughlin frowned.
Through the window they could see over the crossroads to the Russian embassy. Much of the building was screened by the trees in the grounds, but from their elevation they could see above those on the south side to where the terrace stood. A couple of dozen guests were visible there, drinking and chatting. Coughlin couldn’t see them all because the trees to the west of the terrace partially blocked line of sight.
‘It’s not a problem,’ Hart said, reading Coughlin’s thoughts with unnerving accuracy. ‘The ambassador likes to make his speeches from the south side.’
‘How do you know that?’
Hart didn’t answer.
Coughlin asked, ‘What if the target is watching from the northern end, where we can’t see?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘But if we can’t see him, how do we guide Kooi into position?’
‘That doesn’t matter either.’
Coughlin sighed. ‘I could do my job a lot more effectively if you didn’t withhold intel.’
Hart faced him. ‘Your job at this time is to be a second pair of eyes for me. You just have to keep watching. Nothing more. That is within your capabilities, is it not?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then be quiet and trust and know that all factors have been considered.’
‘Look, I just want the job to work so I can get paid and I’m not going to stand here in silence if there’s something I think has been overlooked. If it hasn’t, great, but if you won’t tell me anything how can I know that?’
‘Fine.’ Hart stared at him. ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace.’
‘Okay,’ Coughlin began, happy to have got Hart to back down, albeit temporarily. ‘If Prudnikov watches the speech from the north side and Kooi ends up over there and out of sight, how do we know he’s going to stay in kill range if we can’t see and Francesca has gone?’
‘The moment Kooi steps outside he will be in range. The blast radius will kill anyone within fifteen metres, not five. He’ll wipe out each and every man and woman on the terrace. We’re not going to guide him into range, just like we’re not going to rely on him to detonate the bomb. As soon as he joins the crowd for the ambassador’s speech I’m going to call the phone and do it for him. Kooi didn’t need to know that.’
Coughlin nodded, understanding the logic and feeling better about his prospects of getting paid. Then he thought of something. ‘But Francesca is going to be there with him. When you say you’ll blow the bomb as soon as Kooi joins the crowd, you’re going to wait for Francesca to go back inside out of range, right?’
Hart looked at him like he was an idiot. ‘How is it going to appear if Francesca is the only survivor of the blast?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Suspicious.’
‘Correct,’ Hart said. It sounded vaguely insulting. ‘We don’t want anyone asking her difficult questions, now do we?’
Coughlin nodded his agreement, but when Hart looked away, he frowned in the dark and thought about what had happened to Jaeger.
The crowd in the music room expanded as more guests funnelled through the doorway. Victor watched every new arrival. Men entered adjusting bow ties and cummerbunds. Women checked themselves in the tall mirrors. Lots of hands were shaken and air kisses dispensed. Conversations in Italian and Russian and English provided a disharmonious clatter in Victor’s ears. He was fluent in all three, and snippets of small talk and serious discussion competed with each other and drowned the beautiful music of the string quartet. They had reached the last movement of
Rosamunde
, Victor’s favourite, and he wanted to make the most of it before it was time to go into action. Some things couldn’t be rushed.
Francesca signalled to a waiter for another flute of champagne. ‘I’m starting to get a taste for this,’ she said, sipping from her new glass. She checked her watch. It was thin and silver. ‘Not long now until the speech. How are you feeling?’
He didn’t answer.
‘You are going to go through with this, aren’t you?’ she whispered, quietly enough that no one nearby would hear.
‘Are you concerned I won’t?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m concerned by what Dietrich will do to your wife and child if you’re too scared to go through with it.’
‘Do I look scared?’
‘No, that’s the problem. You don’t look like a man who is going to blow himself up.’
‘That’s the point of the sedative, surely.’
‘Even so, I didn’t think it would be this effective.’
‘I’ve said already that you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll do what I have to do.’
‘If you’re thinking of trying something you must realise it won’t work. I’m not going to leave your side until you’re out on that terrace with Prudnikov. Then Hart and Coughlin will be watching your every move. If you try to slip away they’ll know. If that bomb around your waist doesn’t go off and if Prudnikov is not in the blast radius then they’re going to know about it. All it takes is one call to Leeson and Dietrich is going to start carving chunks from Lucille and Peter.’
‘Do you honestly think I don’t know all that?’
‘And,’ she continued as if he had said nothing, ‘if you leave my sight for just a second before the speech begins then I’ll be calling it in before you can be out of the building. Even if you had a helicopter waiting for you outside, you couldn’t get to the mill in time.’
‘Again, I know. You’ve done a very good job of orchestrating this.’
‘I think you’ll find we’ve done an exceptional job. The plan, even if I do say so myself, is perfect.’
‘It’s interesting you say that, because in my experience no plan is perfect. Everything goes wrong as soon as the bullets start flying.’
‘Quite the pessimist, aren’t you?’ She looked at her glass. ‘They certainly know how to make it strong in Russia. Let’s go for a little wander, shall we?’ She offered him her hand. He didn’t take it.
The other two rooms designated for the reception were obvious from their open doors and the guests inside. More ropes and signs made those rooms which were off limits just as obvious. Across the hallway was a study and library. One half of the room contained an antique bureau and swivel chair. On the wall behind the desk hung framed photographs of previous Russian ambassadors, all serious-faced men with grey hair. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with Russian and Italian texts occupied the other wall. Biographies of important Russians were turned face out on eye-level shelves. Guests perused the titles.
Francesca picked a random book from a shelf. ‘Are you a big reader?’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘I’m trying to get to know you.’
‘What’s the point?’
She shrugged. ‘I want to remember you accurately.’
He didn’t respond and she flicked through the book, frowning at pages of indecipherable Cyrillic script. ‘I’ve never seen the point in books.’
‘They say you get out of reading what you put in.’
She nodded as if in agreement, but also absently. She struggled to slide the book back into the gap it had left.
‘Let’s take a look at the terrace,’ Victor said. ‘I want to see where it’s going to happen.’
The last room holding the reception was bathed in a soft glow from gilded brass fixtures on the walls and ceiling that coloured the marble columns and arches in warm hues of yellow and pink. A conference table and chairs dominated one half of the room. The table and chairs were neoclassical antiques, as were the rest of the room’s furnishings. A fireplace stood on the wall behind the head of the table, with a neat pile of logs in the hearth, but only for appearances. The chimney would have been blocked up long ago. Above the fireplace hung a snowy cityscape by Boris Kustodiev. Victor recognised the style and signature from the many hours he’d spent in Moscow galleries, performing counter-surveillance while he enjoyed the artwork. He also recognised a painting by Ivan Aivazovsky on the opposite wall, that depicted naval battleships duelling during the Battle of Navarino. Beneath it stood a Mockba grand piano, white, polished to a mirror sheen. Victor felt the urge to play.
Guests stood in small groups around the table and piano. Three sets of French doors spaced along the opposite west wall were open. Cool night air seeped in from the terrace outside, where more guests drank and laughed and where the ambassador would make his speech in less than an hour’s time.
Francesca put her glass down on the conference table. The glass was about forty per cent full.
‘Had enough?’ Victor asked, a certain tone to his voice.
‘Oh, you’d like me drunk and pliable, wouldn’t you?’
‘You’re looking a little the worse for wear.’
‘After one and a half glasses of fake champagne? Keep dreaming, Felix. I know my limits.’
‘Then why are you holding onto that chair?’
She followed his gaze and snapped her hand away from where it had been gripping the chair’s back.
‘Let’s get you some air,’ Victor said.
He guided her outside onto the terrace, pausing before the closest set of French doors to let her pass through first. The terrace ran the width of the building’s west wall and overlooked the embassy’s small but perfectly maintained garden. Lights mounted in the ground illuminated the rows of plants and flowers. A waist-high stone wall surrounded the terrace. Guests leaned against it and rested their glasses on top. Francesca found a spot at the south wall and leaned against it herself. Victor stood in front of her.
The foliage of tall trees shielded the terrace from the buildings across the street, but Victor looked to the southwest, to where Hart and Coughlin watched from the five-storey apartment building. They had a good view of the terrace from across the four-way junction, high enough to provide line of sight over the trees to the south of the terrace, which were not as tall as those to the west. There were no lights on the terrace itself, but those from the conference room provided the space with subtle illumination. Victor’s eyes followed the width of darkness that lay between the glow spilling through the French doors and that of the lights in the garden.
Francesca’s phone chimed and she checked the screen. ‘Hart has a visual on us.’
Victor nodded in Hart’s direction in way of reply. Hart could see him from the apartment window. He had a good view. But not a great one, because the broad foliage of the taller trees to the west blocked line of sight from the apartment to the northwest corner of the terrace and reduced visibility to the terrace’s entire northern segment. A man standing inside the area of darkness between the two light sources would be almost invisible.
All Hart had to do was dial a number and the explosives strapped to Victor’s torso would obliterate him from existence. All that would be left of him would be his severed head, blown clear of his body but left intact, eyes still open.
He looked back to Francesca to avoid Hart or Coughlin noticing where he was looking and perhaps deducing what he was thinking. She had the small of her back against the wall and her elbows resting on top of it. From the apartment across the street she would look relaxed, but Hart and Coughlin couldn’t see her open mouth and her eyebrows raised with the effort of keeping her eyelids from drooping.
‘Shampanskoye,’ Victor said. ‘It’s stronger than you would think.’
‘I’m fine,’ Francesca said after swallowing a couple of times.
‘Let’s have a look at the gardens,’ he suggested and took her hands.
He stepped away and pulled with his arms to bring her away from the wall, and walked with her across the terrace to its northern half.
‘I thought we were going to look at the garden,’ Francesca said, voice quiet, as Victor steered her away from the wall and towards the northernmost set of French doors.
‘We need to get you some water, don’t you think?’
‘Yes. My throat is dry.’ She touched her neck.
‘You said it would be.’
‘When… When did I?’
Victor didn’t answer. He took her hand away from her neck and led her back into the conference room. They walked by the grand piano, Francesca trailing the fingers of her free hand across its surface, taking a circuitous route across the room. He kept one arm around her waist to help her walk and gave a knowing look to a tall man with white hair who noticed Francesca’s half-closed eyes and vacant expression as they neared.