A Darker Place (25 page)

“Oh, I do, and it’s almost funny. Josef Limov, the chauffeur, had been Basayev’s hit man for years, and he had a Walther, drawn, but not discharged. Basayev also had a Walther, only his was still in his pocket. The postmortems have not been completed, but rounds already recovered from the bodies indicate the weapon used to kill them was also a Walther.”

“It isn’t almost funny, it
is
funny.” Kurbsky went to his bag, opened the secret compartment, and produced the Walther he’d been issued. “So this one makes four. A very popular weapon, thanks to James Bond, easy to use and a hell of a stopping power. The preferred weapon of many hit men in Moscow. . . . So you think it was a professional hit?”

“Hard to say. Here you have a thoroughly nasty bit of work full of himself on London television, rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams, and amongst the two or three million Londoners watching the program, there are bound to have been refugees and asylum-seekers who suffered at Basayev’s hands.”

“In other words, who would have loved the chance to bump him off? You could say his appearance at the church was an open invitation. There’s only one thing wrong with that. From what you say, both men were armed and Josef got as far as drawing his weapon, and yet the killer got both of them. That’s the mark of a professional.”

“So that means the Kremlin, either directly or through a contract killer. Since the fall of Communism and the advent of capitalism, the battle for that money has led to an incredible rise in contract killings in Moscow. Journalists, politicians, businessmen. In this case, I’d say the only questions are who paid and whether the killer was imported or local.”

Roper poured another scotch. “And if it’s local, there are plenty of possibilities. The criminal scene has changed a lot since the old days of the East End gangsters. The Moscow Mafia has made its mark, and powerful Albanian and Romanian groups have moved into London.”

“Not to mention the Irish Troubles,” said Kurbsky. “Wars in Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo, the first Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. That adds up to thousands of men not only trained, but used to war. I’m sure many of them would be perfectly capable of doing something like the Basayev killing, especially for money. There used to be a man in Moscow, known as Superkiller, who charged fifty thousand dollars for a hit and was seldom unemployed.”

Roper nodded. “What you’re really saying here is that we might never get anyone for these killings, because there are just too many possible suspects? The general public sees a perfectly vile man sitting on his money and laughing at the world, and when he unexpectedly gets what’s coming to him, the truth is, they’re rather pleased. I guess that’s why I can’t get particularly worked up about the bastard myself. Anyway, there’s something else I want to discuss—Ferguson asked me to raise it with you.”

“And what’s that?”

“We’ve always had a close working relationship with President Cazalet, who has an outfit very similar to ours operating in Washington. It’s called the Basement, and it’s run by a very good friend of ours named Blake Johnson. He’s coming to London tomorrow for a NATO conference with the Ministry of Defence.”

“And?” Kurbsky asked.

“And we do a great many things in tandem with them. Ferguson wonders if you’d agree to him passing on your story to Blake, and through him to the President. It’d be under the strictest of secrecy.”

“No way. I made it plain that I would embark on this venture only if I was guaranteed anonymity. General Charles Ferguson gave me his word on the matter. He has a moral obligation to keep it.”

“He totally accepts that.”

“Then let that be the end of the matter.”

“I’ll see that it is.”

 

 

KURBSKY LEFT AT ten o’clock, refused a lift by Sergeant Doyle, and walked slowly down through Holland Park toward the main road. He paused at the end of one lonely street and phoned Bounine.

“Have you heard anything else regarding this Blake Johnson business?”

“A certain amount. He invited me to have a drink and was very excited. Apparently, we’ve just reached a deal with a private airfield at Berkley Down that specializes in jets for millionaires. The place is about twenty miles out of London in Kent. Luzhkov talked about being able to book a Falcon wherever he wanted.”

“And the point of this is?”

“I’m getting there. He got quite worked up about all this. Told me more about the previous attempt on Johnson’s life the other year. The mistake, he said, was to trust a low-life gangster and pay him well for the contract. Luzhkov got quite drunk when he was telling me this. Apparently, the gangster farmed the work out on the cheap to two second-rate specimens who were foiled by this man Dillon, an ex-IRA enforcer who now works for Ferguson, and someone called Salter, who also works for Ferguson.”

“Did this business involve anyone being killed?”

“I understand there was some damage done to those concerned. He said Dillon had a bad habit of shooting ears.”

“I wonder if Oleg and Petrovich are aware of the opposition they are up against.”

“I suppose if the affair proceeded in the right way, they wouldn’t expect any opposition. We live in a world where anything is possible. You don’t need to hunt for a public telephone, you have a mobile phone in your pocket that can handle a call to the other side of the world. And you can bang a man on the head in a London street and bundle him off in a car twenty miles into the Kent countryside, where a Falcon jet will have him in Moscow in five hours, instead of eating breakfast in the American Embassy guesthouse in Peel Mews.”

“I get it now. And this is your idea of fun, Yuri, for this poor bastard?”

“The American version is called extraordinary rendition. You fly some unlucky bastard from one country too civilized to harm him, to another where you can get someone to torture him for you.”

“No honor in that.”

“No honor, either, in refueling the Falcon in Moscow for an onward flight to Siberia and Station Gorky, the last place God made.”

Kurbsky said, “Okay, you’ve made your point. If I ever need a defense lawyer, it will be you, Yuri.”

Yuri said, “Are you okay, Alex? You sound tense.”

“What would I have to be tense about? I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Look for me round about noon.”

 

 

HE THOUGHT ABOUT it as he walked to the main road and flagged a black cab, and instead of asking for Holland Park, he told the driver to take him to Grosvenor Square, because he knew that’s where the American Embassy was. In the back of the black cab he put the light on and examined his
London AZ
guide, found Peel Mews off of South Audley Street running down from Grosvenor Square.

He put the guide away, turned off the light, and sat there thinking. Boris Luzhkov, feeling his oats, was considering this mad idea of kidnapping the personal security adviser for President Jack Cazalet. It was a crazy escapade, yet, as Bounine had said, in this modern world of today, when hours meant so little, it was eminently possible.

But it was a nasty business. In the shadowy world of spies and assassins, that sort of thing was to be expected, and the interrogations that went with it. A man like Johnson, so close to the President, would be subject to the most horrendous torture to extract the incredible amount of information he must have. But what would be the consequences?

He told the cabdriver to drop him on the other side of the square by the statue of General Eisenhower. As the cab drove away, he turned, aware of the great ugly slabs of concrete designed to protect the building against a terrorist attack, and walked back across the square and entered South Audley Street. Peel Mews was to the left some little way along. He paused for a quick moment.

It started to rain lightly, and he looked around him, taking everything in. Fine buildings, Georgian, Victorian, some superb shops. Mayfair night in the rain, cars swishing by, not too many people walking. It was dreamlike in a way, or was that just him? He continued steadily to the end, where he turned toward Park Lane and discovered the Dorchester Hotel, which was reasonably busy, night porters on duty, umbrellas at the ready, cars in and out, and on the other side, the darkness of Hyde Park, the traffic cutting between in long streams.

What a great city this was, still the wonderland to which he had come when he was seventeen, all the way from Communist Moscow. It was still probably the best city in the world, and he knew quite suddenly, standing there, that he didn’t like what Boris Luzhkov wanted to happen to Blake Johnson, and he knew why. It was Bounine mentioning an onward flight to Station Gorky that stuck in his craw. Yes, there was the cursed business with his sister and all the years she had rotted there. Sure, he would have to continue to follow the path he was on in the hope of earning her freedom. But to consign someone else to the degradation and despair of such a place was something he was not prepared to do. In a way, it was his own private declaration of war and that was all that mattered, and he turned and walked to the cab rank in the side street.

 

 

JUST BEFORE HE went to bed at eleven, Ferguson called in to Roper. “How did you get on with Kurbsky about the Blake Johnson matter?”

“He was absolutely firm. He said you’d promised him anonymity, given him your word, and that was the end of the matter.”

“All right, I give in.”

“Something interesting happened, though. When I asked Kurbsky earlier if he’d known Basayev, he said everyone in the Russian Army did. But when he came round tonight, he told me there was a bit more to it than that.”

“Did he indeed?”

“Mind you, I already suspected there was, because of my research online.”

“Go on, tell me.”

So Roper did.

When he was finished, Ferguson said, “A hell of a story. God, if that swine Basayev had done that to any unit I commanded, I’d have hounded him in every way possible, shot him like the dog he was.”

Roper said, “When you think of it, Kurbsky had an incredible motive to kill Basayev himself.”

“Himself? With his history? For God’s sake, Giles, this anonymity Kurbsky so prizes would be right out the window if he got involved with something like that.”

“All right, I take your point.”

“Try and get a good night’s sleep for a change.”

He was gone, and Roper, aching with pain, poured a large whiskey and drank it. “Sleep?” he said. “Who needs that?”

 

 

AT CHAMBER COURT, Kurbsky spoke into the voice box and let himself in with the control, walking through the garden. The lights were on in the conservatory, Katya standing at the open door and Svetlana on her wicker throne inside.

“So there you are,” Katya said. “Come and join us for a dish of tea.”

Which he did, taking off his coat and shaking rain from it. He kissed Svetlana’s forehead and took Katya’s hand for a moment.

“How are you, my dear?” Svetlana asked. “You look so ill.”

He laughed and said to Katya, “Can’t you persuade her that I’m supposed to look ill?”

He was handed a glass of tea, and Katya said, “What have you been up to, then? Did you visit the safe house? How was Roper?”

“Oh, the world of spooks is very worked up about the shooting of the Chechen general, Shadid Basayev, and his driver.”

“It’s become a staple diet on all the news programs today.”

“A dreadful man,” Svetlana commented. “Some of his deeds were unspeakable.”

“Did you know him?” Katya asked.

“He was one of the best-known Chechen generals and universally reviled. Yes, I knew him,” Kurbsky said. “A vile man who escaped retribution for many years, and as far as I’m concerned, he’s finally met a just end.” He got up. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed. God bless you both.”

After he had gone, Svetlana said, “I worry about him. Something weighs heavily on his spirit—I know these things.”

“He has a lot on his mind, a lot to contend with,” Katya told her, and kissed her on both cheeks. “Go to bed now and sleep well.”

“The things in his past, the years of war. Such terrible things must hang heavily on him. Some of the old film they showed today of the war in Chechnya, that dreadful man Basayev. Alexander was part of that.” She picked up her stick and got up. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

She went out, and Katya sat there, thinking about it, then went and found her laptop, sat with it on her knees, and tapped in “Alexander Kurbsky.” There was nothing secret there, just the career of a great writer, including an account of his military career and his medals and decorations. There were so many, and she felt a certain pride, aware that she was slightly in love with him. She started to read the citations, and the details leapt out at her of the officer who had jumped with his men over the Kuba Plateau in February 1995, a failed mission with only two survivors. The target had been Shadid Basayev.

She switched off, her heart beating, went to the sideboard, and poured a vodka and almost choked on it, her every instinct confirming what she did not wish to hear.

 

 

HER NIGHT WAS restless, but she finally fell asleep and awoke suddenly at seven-thirty to the sound of a motor outside. She got up, went to the window, opened it and looked out, and saw Kurbsky seated on the mower, cutting the grass in long swaths.

“Hello,” she called, and he stopped and looked up.

“Did I wake you? If so, I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine. So you’re getting in the swing of things?”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Have you had any breakfast?”

“An apple and a glass of milk.” He laughed. “It’s fine. I want to get this side lawn finished. I’ll have a sandwich later.”

Svetlana often spent the morning in bed, soothing her arthritis and reading. Katya took her a tray of muesli, assorted fruit, toast, and black Russian tea.