Fire Hawk (45 page)

‘Voroninskaya.'

Sam held his breath.

‘
Anatoly
Voronin,' he added.

This was it. He'd struck gold.

‘And? Some other names,' Sam demanded. ‘Who runs Voronin's businesses in Odessa? Who was it who actually bought the drone?'

Pushkin's eyes filled with a bitter hatred for the former Spetznaz Captain First Rank who'd brought such devastation into his life and into that of one of his closest friends.

‘Grimov,' he hissed. ‘Dima Filipovich Grimov.'

‘
WE'VE GOT TO
get 'em out tonight, Gerald,' Sam insisted, slapping the three passports down on the desk of the SIS station chief. ‘They're in huge danger. Grimov's a man who kills as easily as he farts.'

‘Point taken. We'll do our best.' Figgis gathered up the passports and placed them to one side. He opened his desk diary. ‘When did Pushkin say this all happened?'

‘It was on Friday twenty-seventh September that the spares were delivered to some warehouse or other in Odessa. He doesn't know where exactly. But he thinks there's a yard there owned by a shipping company called Hretzky Transport which is controlled by the Voronin group.'

‘And how easy would it have been to turn these spare parts into a working missile?'

‘Pushkin says the Hawk parts were all subassemblies. Reckoned that with the right skills they could plug the bits together in a matter of hours. It's not a very complex piece of equipment. And there's no shortage of unemployed ex-military men around who'd be ready to deliver those skills if the price was right.'

‘The most likely way out of the country would be in a shipping container,' Figgis concluded, half to himself. ‘So the first thing we need is a list of sailings from the Odessa
region from the twenty-seventh onwards. Shouldn't be hard. Ukrainian Customs must have a record of exports. There won't have been many. Most of the containers go back empty to the place where they came from.'

Sam fretted that Figgis's enquiries might pose a risk to the Pushkins.

‘How will you handle this without revealing to the Ukrainians where we got the tip-off from?'

‘No problem. We'll do it through the drugs team. We've a man in Warsaw who liaises on narcotics issues with all the agencies of the former eastern bloc countries. It's a well-oiled machine. We'll get him to say we're trying to identify a container shipped out of the Odessa region with heroin in it.'

‘How long to get an answer?'

‘Could be a day or two. The customs service is new and small in Ukraine. Depends on how much of a squeeze the SBU can put on them.'

‘Meanwhile the Pushkin family
will
be on their way to London tonight?'

‘On the eight o'clock British Airways. Shouldn't be a problem. Unless, that is, the army's already reported him as AWOL. If they've alerted the border guards, that'll be tough titties. For him and for us, because they'll want to know why
we
gave the family visas.'

Figgis did a quick tot-up in his diary. ‘God! It's eleven days since the VR-6 went to that warehouse! That Hawk could be almost anywhere on the planet by now.'

He scribbled a few notes.

‘Right,' he breathed. ‘Time I talked to London.' He disappeared into the secure communications chamber.

Sam stood by the window with his hands in his pockets. A Land Rover Discovery had just driven into the courtyard at the back of the embassy, pulling up in one of the marked spaces. When the driver got out, he saw that
it was the ambassador. The man didn't know it yet but he was about to walk into a storm.

A day or two, Figgis had said.
Two days
to get to first base on the question of where the VR-6 was shipped to. Official channels were slow channels.
Too
damned slow. Thousands of people might have gone down with the early flu-like symptoms of a pulmonary anthrax infection by then, with death following within days. There
had
to be a quicker way.

Dima Filipovich Grimov had the answers they needed, of course. Engraved in Sam's mind was that heavy, lecherous face in the Mondiale Hotel photo. If the world were a just place, that man's head would be squeezed in a vice until he talked. But not in Ukraine. Here officialdom protected him, because officialdom had been bought.

And Viktor Rybkin? Rybkin too would know the current location of the VR-6. Sam thought back to his first mistrustful acquaintance with the former KGB man here in Kiev a year ago. There
had
been something likeable about him then.
A rogue with a soul,
Chrissie had called him, words she must bitterly have regretted in the moments before she died.

Sam remembered how in Cyprus Rybkin had distanced himself from her death, insisting he wasn't involved in it, as if it were an act he was ashamed of. But did that mean Rybkin had a conscience? Was it just possible that the thought of thousands dying from anthrax was causing him sleepless nights? Speculation ran riot in his head. Rybkin could have killed him in Cyprus, but he hadn't. Could it be that he'd
wanted
Sam alive – to have a fighting chance of preventing the massacre from taking place?

Figgis re-emerged from the communications ‘box'.

‘All squared,' he announced, flopping into one of the leather easy chairs. ‘Visa clearances will be through by
telegram within the hour. And they're booking the flights. Three seats in the name of Pushkin and one for you.'

‘Me?' Sam spluttered.

‘Yes. They want you to nanny the Pushkins back to Blighty. Orders from on high. A three line whip.'

It was after midday by the time Sam met up with Oksana back at the Metro station by the Technical University. She'd been waiting for him on the edge of the park and he noticed a puffiness around her eyes as if she'd been crying. They set off through the trees to deliver the news about the visas to her brother. He told her about the flight that evening. This time she made no attempt to link arms with him.

‘So,' she sighed, ‘your visit to Ukraine will be very short. Even shorter than last.'

‘Yes.' In theory.

‘Pity. I would like so much to talk with you. Last time we had such nice little chats, remember? You even pay me big compliment about how I look – but you don't remember that,' she laughed throatily.

‘Yes I do. And I meant it,' he answered, not remembering at all, but knowing that he would have done. It was hard to understand why a woman like her should have failed to find a partner to replace the husband who'd died.

‘Well, I don't think so. But one question you can answer me.' She looked at him coyly. ‘I very curious. What about Essex?'

‘Essex? Why on earth do you ask about Essex?'

‘Because I hear it very nice place.'

He laughed briefly. ‘Depends on your tastes. Lots of good-time girls. Some fine sailing in the estuaries. And Constable country.'

Why the hell was she interested in Essex?

‘Constable?'

‘English landscape painter. Very famous.'

‘Ah yes. There is picture by him in entrance to embassy. Copy, of course.' She began to wonder which of these aspects of Essex life so appealed to the security man there.

The university campus came in sight through the trees. At the edge of the woods was a children's playground, which Sam hadn't noticed before. Three infants were being pushed on a roundabout by a weary-looking young mother in jeans and an anorak.

Oksana stopped him with a hand on the arm. ‘I think maybe you hungry, yes?'

Food was the last thing on his mind.

‘We stop here. Just few minutes.' She pointed to a bench. ‘This morning six o'clock I make some sandwich for you.' She dug into her black nylon shopping bag and pulled out a package in grease-proof paper.

‘I hardly think there's time . . .'

‘Oh yes. Enough time. Misha can wait few more minutes.'

There was a look on her face that said,
Just do this for me please.
Lonely and vulnerable, he reminded himself. They sat down, briefly attracting the bored attention of the woman minding the children. This is bad, thought Sam. Bad to be sitting here in the open where he could be picked off. For one paranoid moment he wondered if he was being set up.

Oksana handed him two slices of pale brown bread with something white wedged between.

‘Fresh cheese from dacha,' she explained. ‘Neighbour at country house has cow.'

He bit into it. ‘Very nice indeed.' He wasn't going to make the running in conversation. Leave it to her to say whatever it was she wanted to say.

They ate in silence for a few moments, then Oksana asked, ‘You also, you have country house in England?'

‘No. It's not that common with us. Just a small flat in London.'

‘And live alone?'

‘Yes, Ksucha,' he said, swallowing. ‘I live alone.'

She sighed. ‘But, you not sad to be alone? No child even . . . I have daughter at least. Though sometime I think it better not to have,' she snorted.

‘What does Luba plan to do with her life?' he asked, steering the talk away from himself.

Oksana laughed. ‘She want to be New Russian and have money.' She bit hard into her sandwich as if trying to decapitate a nightmare.

Neither of them spoke for a while. Then suddenly she broke the silence.

‘I think maybe she want become prostitute.'

Her words dropped out as if it was nothing unusual.

Sam jerked his head round. ‘She can't
want
to become a prostitute. That's not a career you choose.
It
chooses you.'

‘Here, yes. You choose,' she replied matter-of-factly. ‘Is same for many girls here. To be
putanky
is quick way to earn dollar. And with dollar get nice clothes, learn speak English, maybe work Europe or America. Find rich husband. What else they can do? Study five years at university then get job in office that pay less money than you need for living? How can I say, as mother, that go to university is
right
way and being prostitute is wrong?'

‘But come on, Ksucha . . .'

‘For young people only future is to leave Ukraine,' she insisted sadly. ‘Because our country is . . . is disaster.'

‘Now, yes. But it'll get better,' he said unconvincingly.

‘Huh! Easy for you,' she derided. ‘Easy for you to say, when you go away on plane tonight.'

There was a new bitterness in her voice.

‘Tell you what. Maybe I come with you. You like to have woman who do
anything
for you in England?' Her
low voice and mocking smile said she was joking, but her eyes were half serious. ‘No. Better you don't answer me that.'

He smiled dumbly, trying to think of something he could say that would be kind but would put an end to this distraction.

‘I think we better go to my brother now,' she announced, cutting short his embarrassment. She took from him the paper that his sandwich had been wrapped in and replaced it in the shopping bag so it could be used again.

‘Thank you for lunch,' he mumbled.

It was so unfair. What had she done, what had
any
of them done, to deserve the mess their country had sunk into?

‘And I'm sorry, Ksucha. Sorry that life's so bloody for you.'

Major Mikhail Pushkin was as tense as a caged rat when they returned to the communal flat with the passports. When he examined the visas he smiled with relief. His heart was heavy though. Starting life again in a foreign culture felt like a prison sentence.

‘
Spaseeba
,' he whispered, pocketing the travel documents.

‘The flight is at eight and they'd best be at Boryspil airport two hours before,' Sam explained for Oksana to translate. ‘The tickets have been paid for by the British Foreign Office and can be collected at the airport.'

Pushkin nodded. Then he asked Oksana in Russian how they would get there. She explained she had a trustworthy friend with a car who could drive them.

‘And Misha ask, you will be on same airplane?' she checked, turning to Sam.

Would he? Could he leave this country without doing his damnedest to prise the truth from Rybkin?

‘Well, if I'm not, they mustn't worry. There'll be someone meeting them in London who'll look after them.'

Oksana gaped at his answer.

‘Ksucha, I have one more question for your brother.'

‘Yes? Tell me.'

‘Does he have any idea where in Odessa I would find Dima Grimov?'

Thirty minutes later Sam was striding back through the woods towards the Metro with Oksana struggling to keep up with him. She could see he'd made up his mind, but just before they reached the main road, she grabbed his arm and made him stop.

‘I think you crazy person,' she panted, her face screwed up with anguish. ‘You crazy, crazy man. You get killed.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘All this questions about Mafiya man Dima Filipovich Grimov – what you going to do? You go to Odessa to look for? You mad person.'

‘It doesn't concern you, Ksucha,' he snapped, trying to pull away, but she'd locked onto his arm like an anchor.

‘Yes,
does
concern,' she insisted. ‘Why? Because I like you is why. I like you very much Sam. Don't worry, that is problem for me not for you,' she added quickly, noting his stony reaction. ‘But these Mafiya, I know what they are like. They kill without second thought. Don't go Odessa. Please. I ask you this. Do this one thing for me.'

She was right about the danger of course. He'd be like a mouse walking into a cage of cats, but he'd convinced himself he had to try it. If there was a chance that Viktor Rybkin would reveal where the attack was to take place in order to salve his conscience, then he had to grab it.