‘You bloody well do, Stevie.’
Stevie flushed with anger. Rice didn’t believe she could handle it. While a small part of her was touched that he cared enough, most of her was furious that he doubted her judgement. What she wanted to do was shout ‘Call off your dogs!’ Instead she said quietly, ‘I think I know who’s got her.’
She had Rice’s attention.
‘Have you heard of Felix Dragoman, or the
siloviki
?’
‘Stevie, this is getting worse and worse.’
‘Maxim says the
siloviki
exist, and that Dragoman has ties to them. I think Anya will be used to pressure Kozkov in some way over the banking reforms. Maxim implied the
siloviki
could benefit from this, too. I need to know more about them, and Dragoman.’
‘I’m surprised they bothered with something so subtle. Usually it’s a bullet to the head.’
Stevie continued quickly. ‘Maxim was suggesting that Anya had been snatched by a thug who saw an opportunity. He’s holding an auction of sorts, selling his catch off to the person who wants her most.
Anyway, it wouldn’t be easy to replace Kozkov—and an assassination would look pretty bad to the rest of the world.’
‘Never stopped anyone before.’ Rice cleared his throat, reluctant. ‘I’ll see what I can find out. But you, in turn, have to extricate yourself from this mess. Take on the Hammer-Belle job. I’ll send Kozkov some more men if he wants them, but I want you out.’
Rice rang off without waiting for a reply.
Stevie put her phone down on the table and sat back. She was angry that Rice treated her like a child, ordering her around like that. But she had to admit, she was also grateful she had him as an ally. She would think about the Hammer-Belles and David’s orders later. Right now, she had Maraschenko to deal with: did he still have Anya, or had he sold her on already? Stevie was tempted to order a private assault team. If Anya was passed on, it could be a lot more difficult to get her back.
Her phone rang, making her jump slightly.
It was Valery Kozkov. The kidnappers had made contact.
The black Mercedes crawled through
the city, hunting for a way out.
Irina had found a hand-delivered package in their mailbox that morning. She had known at once.
Inside the package was a satellite phone and a polaroid of Anya.
In it, Irina’s daughter was holding up the front page of the day’s newspaper— disputes over oil exploration rights in the Caspian—Irina had skimmed it only minutes before as she drank her early morning tea. Her legs had given way.
Valery Kozkov had called Stevie moments later and she’d rushed over.
The polaroid was intended as proof, Stevie had told the family, that Anya was alive and well and that whoever was holding her was willing to begin negotiations. It was, Stevie had stressed several times, a good sign.
‘And the newspaper tells us she’s most likely still in the country,’ she added, trying to offer comfort where there was very little.
In the photo, Anya had her eyes half closed. She was wearing a gold bomber jacket.
‘It’s not hers,’ Irina had pointed to the jacket. ‘Anya doesn’t own a jacket like that!’ She repeated it several times, as if somehow the strange jacket negated everything.
There was also a typed note inside. It ordered the family to their dacha—their summer house—and to wait for the satellite phone to ring.
Constantine Dinov had arrived at their Moscow home ten minutes after Stevie’s call. The Kozkovs were driving through the outskirts of Moscow now. Constellations of massive tower blocks loomed on either side of the road, overlooking a frozen river.
Valery sat in the front passenger seat; Constantine drove, wearing a chauffeur’s hat to avoid suspicion. Stevie had filled Constantine in on as much as there had been time for. Irina and Vadim sat in the back with her, Saskia the Borshoi at their feet, but they were silent. She was grateful for the chance to sit still and think. The action would come later.
Once out of Moscow, they sped through a white landscape, mostly flat, interfered with here and there by a dilapidated fence, a concrete farmhouse, a smoking factory, a black copse of pines.
They drove for hours until they were in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but shades of white and grey taking on different shapes outside the tinted windows. Once they came across a huge red tractor trundling on the road, its vivid colour almost obscene in the absence of all others. It could have been the end of the world.
Their destination looked like a large snowdrift surrounded by the silvery stalks of Russian birches, tall and naked and as fine as legs. Stevie shivered at the thought of having to get out of the car, into—was Koz-kov sure there was a dacha under there? But there was indeed a wooden house, a cupola on the roof, buried under all that white.
Stevie stepped out into the pale blue light of the early afternoon. The scent of birch and brittle ice was crisp and unfamiliar, not the pine-scented air she knew from the alps. It was more than silent. It was stillness distilled: the heavy snow, the viscous rays of dying daylight, no birds or bells or distant engines.
Then Saskia bounded out of the back seat, warm and full of life, brushing past Stevie, out to sniff the snow. She ran about, her long fur standing and thickening in the cold. This winter world was the one she had been created for and she was a happy dog.
Along the front of the dacha ran a wooden verandah overhung with snow; three steps up, there was a heavy door. The generator was out of oil and Vadim was sent to investigate; there were only candles but many of them, on every sill and table and even the floor. Irina floated around the house in the semi-darkness lighting them. The place smelt of pale wood and tea leaves.
Stevie was shown to a small room—the smaller rooms, Irina explained, would be warmer—with wooden floors, walls and ceiling; a wrought-iron bed in one corner, a chest of drawers against the far wall. It was a room that had been furnished for the summer months.
Stevie threw down her crocodile bag and peered out from the small window. It was black outside; darkness had fallen quickly. Checking her phone, she saw there was no reception. The house had no landline.
She went in search of Constantine. The Greek was in his room, staring out at the white fields. He was a lean man with longish curling hair and a sharp nose. He came from a family of traders in the Balkans and spoke just about every language under the sun. Stevie had often wanted to ask how he had come into this line of work, but Constantine was not a man of superfluous words, if he spoke at all. The words he did use, he made count. He was, like David Rice, a man you wanted on your side in battle.
‘Does your mobile have reception, Constantine?’
He shook his head.
‘Hence the satellite phone . . .’ Stevie added.
Constantine nodded. ‘They have isolated us very nicely. Anyone coming or going will be easily noticed by surveillance. There is no way to communicate with the outside world. The satellite phone has no doubt been programmed to receive calls only.’
Stevie took one of Constantine’s offered cigarettes even though they were much too strong for her.
‘The family?’ he asked.
Stevie told him what she knew about the Kozkovs, about Anya, about what had happened to her and why, and who they suspected was responsible.
Constantine did not interrupt, just nodded from time to time.
When she had finished he said simply, ‘Best we stay close to them.’
In the sitting room, a
huge fire was spreading heat through the chilly air. Irina had laid a white cloth on the table and placed several bottles, clean glasses and an unopened tin of olives. Silently she poured five glasses of vodka, her face paler than ever, her mouth drawn tight. The tin of olives was covered in dust and no one had thought to bring a tin opener.
‘This is usually such a happy place.’ Kozkov was staring into the fire. ‘We’ve had so many wonderful summers together. The place is quite different then, full of sunlight and laughter and wild flowers.’
He addressed Stevie. ‘You must come again in the summer, when all this . . .’ He waved his hand, lost for the right words to describe what was happening.
‘There is a lake not far from the house—you can see it from here when it’s not all covered in snow,’ Irina said, her face suddenly animated. ‘Anya and Vadim used to float about in a little dinghy. It only had one oar and they used to just go in circles.’ To Stevie’s surprise, she laughed. ‘It was magical.’
Irina handed round the rather large glasses of vodka and sat down. ‘I feel we should have more hope than this,’ she said quietly, her face losing its flash of joy. ‘We are all sitting here wondering if we will ever have another summer like those past, with everyone together. We are admitting a defeat before we have even begun. I believe we will get Anya back and everything will be alright.’ Her eyes sought Kozkov. ‘I need to believe that.’
‘Irina, there is every reason to hope.’ Stevie moved to stand beside her. ‘The kidnappers have made contact and will contact us again tomorrow. They will make their demands and from then, it becomes a matter of negotiation.’ Stevie looked to Constantine for support.
‘There exists, somewhere between you and them, a point where you are able to meet the demands, and at which the kidnappers will be satisfied.’ Constantine’s voice was steady and calm. It could make anyone trust him. ‘We simply find that point.’
‘And then they will return her?’ Vadim was staring straight at Constantine. The Greek said nothing; Stevie jumped in. ‘Yes, then they will return her.’ And she believed it. There was no reason, at that point, not to.
They tried to talk about other things but there was mostly silence. The vodka and the fire had driven out the cold but they hadn’t brought any food. Stevie went through the kitchen cupboards, disturbing a few dried spiders, noting the tin of Italian coffee with relief. She found a bag of white rice, and a tin of tuna, some capers and spices. With these she cobbled together a kedgeree of sorts.
Constantine and the family sat around the table. The kedgeree was unspectacular but it was filling and hot, and they would need the energy tomorrow. In any case, food and the table nourished more than stomachs in Stevie’s experience. Constantine ran through the battle plan.
Details were a good way to focus the tension.
‘Initially, we do exactly as they ask. We want to win their trust. When the phone rings, you, Valery, will answer. If they will not agree to speak to me, then you must speak. Try to write down words that will let me know what is going on. We need to know if this Maraschenko is still holding Anya, or if she has been moved. Anything you can learn through your ears can help.’ Valery nodded, his face drawn and tight.
Vadim stood and filled everyone’s glass with vodka. Kozkov downed his quickly. After a time, he began to speak, leaning back in his chair, his voice low.
‘My banking reforms were supposed to make a real difference. I spent my first years in the job quietly pulling everything apart and putting it back together to find the rot. I decided not to make waves unless it was absolutely necessary. I am not,’ he shrugged with a wry smile, ‘suicidal. My intervention was going to be surgical. What I found was a banking legislation so full of loopholes that it was hard to believe it was not intentional. I began to believe that people in the treasury and legislators were operating together to draft deliberately flawed legislation. When I began to freeze bank assets, I began to get death threats. It was, of course, expected. Anya—that was not.’
No sane man would envy his job, thought Stevie. ‘Your reputation as an incorruptible figure may have worked against you, Valery. Money, political favours, a villa in St Tropez might have swayed many men in positions of power.’
Kozkov nodded. ‘It has made me many enemies.’
‘Surely it has made you friends, too,’ she asked.
‘Outside Russia . . . perhaps.’ He shrugged again. ‘But perhaps no one outside Russia cares what happens here.’
‘You still have nuclear weapons and energy,’ Stevie replied. ‘The world will always care.’
‘Not for the fate of the Russian people, only for the geo-political entity.’
Vadim pushed his plate away and lit a cigarette, glowering at his father. Kozkov appeared not to notice. He continued talking. ‘Not even the Russian people care about the fate of the Russian people.’
‘Surely that’s not true,’ Stevie began to protest, thinking of Galina, of Masha.
‘Let me give you an example of what I mean.’ Kozkov turned his tired eyes to her. ‘When Anya went missing, I kept up appearances. I kept going in to the office, every morning at eight, same clothes, same hat, everything. All my colleagues at the bank knew something was terribly wrong but no one said a word to me. This wasn’t for discretion, or fear of saying the wrong thing, like it might be in your country. The long reign of violence and fear in the old Russia, and now the corruption of the new, has so brutalised their sensibilities that not one dared to speak a compassionate word.’
Vadim pushed his chair away from the table and went to help his mother wash the few plates in the sink.
‘It is exactly
this
—this paralysing mistrust—that I am trying to crush. Trust is the foundation of a proper market economy. Anything else is a shambles.’
Kozkov’s eyes glinted, his cheeks grew a little redder. Here was a man passionate about changing the social fabric of his country. There was no doubt: head of the Russian Central Bank was not just a position for him, it was a vocation. He didn’t know whom he could turn to. The system itself was suspect—corrupt elements, the wheels of politics were all hidden behind the metal doors and tinted windows of life in the new Russia.
‘Valery, what do you know about the
siloviki
?’ Stevie said the name warily, as if to say it out loud would somehow evoke them. ‘Do they really exist?’
There was a pause as Valery leaned back in his chair and stared at Stevie. He reached for his packet of cigarettes and shook one loose, tapped it twice on the tabletop and put it in his mouth.