Fire Hawk (49 page)

‘And if the Iraqi anthrax attack does take place, then you and your lunatic boss are going to be nailed to the wall. Understand?'

Rybkin blew smoke at him.

‘Even if you've got half the Ukrainian government in your pocket, they won't be able to save you. The pressure from the rest of the world will be so goddamned great, nothing will prevent you from being taken out.'

‘You don't know what you're talking about,' Rybkin snapped.

‘No? Your only chance of getting out of this crazy affair still able to walk is to make sure the attack never happens. You understand me?'

Rybkin's jaw had set solid.

‘As a
friend,
' Sam added sarcastically. ‘I'm telling you this as a friend, Viktor.'

Slowly, Rybkin leaned back in the chair and folded his arms. His eyes narrowed, as if trying to work out how much Sam really knew.

‘Hamdan?' mouthed Rybkin, frowning. ‘I don't know anybody of that name.'

Sam's heart flipped. The man was so convincing with his lies that for a second he believed him. Just like he'd believed him in Cyprus when he'd said he still worked for the SBU. And that he didn't know how Chrissie had died.

‘They also know what a liar you are,' Sam added.

There was a sharp rap at the door and the young man in the oversized jacket entered. He leaned past Sam and
handed Rybkin a wad of papers. Oksana's ID documents, Sam guessed. Rybkin perused them then gave them back, snapping out an order in Russian.

‘I tell him to be nice to your friend Oksana Ivanovna Koslova,' Rybkin explained after the younger man had gone. ‘To be
respect
ful.' He smiled like a cat that had eaten a sparrow. ‘Where is
Mister
Koslova, by the way? You up to your old tricks with married women?'

‘He's dead. Chernobyl.'

‘Ah. That is sad for her, of course.' His eyes flashed with malice. ‘So you and she have both lost people that you loved. I guess that should give you plenty to talk about.'

Sam didn't react. ‘Where's the attack to be, Viktor?'

Rybkin feigned mystification. ‘What attack?'

‘The anthrax attack with the VR-6 drone.' The brown eyes blinked back at him. ‘With luck you can still stop it. It'll save your skin.'

The Ukrainian fingered the scar on his cheek, as if considering the offer. Then he leaned forward and pointed his finger at him, the thumb cocked like a gun.

‘Go home, Sam. Go home while you're still breathing.'

Sam glared icily at Rybkin. He'd been wrong. There
was
no conscience here. The rogue with a soul that Chrissie had liked a year ago had sold out to the devil.

And yet . . . The man was fidgety. Something, some doubt might have taken root inside that lopsided skull.

Rybkin stood up suddenly. He smoothed his trousers.

‘Now, we will say goodbye for the very last time,' he growled. ‘And I mean the last time.'

‘Not saying goodbye yet, Viktor.' Sam remained seated. ‘I haven't finished with you.' There was
one
answer he was not going to leave without.

‘
You!
Finished with
me
. . .'

‘Why the tattoo, Viktor?'

Rybkin froze on his way towards the door.

‘Why was Chrissie marked with that goddamned Voroninskaya tattoo?'

‘You don't know?'

Rybkin didn't move. Then, slowly, he turned back to face Sam, mouth half open as if with the intention of enlightening him. But he changed his mind, opened the door, and beckoned Sam out onto the landing.

‘Why,
Viktor?' Sam snapped.

The thugs in track-suits grabbed hold of him.

‘Why?'

Rybkin turned on him with a supercilious leer.

‘You know something? They taught us poems when I learned English in Moscow,' he said. ‘One of them I can remember. It ends with the words “Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.” Stay ignorant, dummy.'

Sam bunched his fists.

‘Bye bye Sam. My men are going to make sure you leave Odessa today. Both you and your lady friend. Next time I see you, if there
is
a next time, you'll be in a box with a lid on it.'

He spun on his heel and walked away along the landing.

Five minutes later Sam and Oksana were being raced through Odessa in a black-windowed Mercedes, wedged between the two men in track-suits. They'd not spoken since being pushed into the car, but he could feel Oksana trembling. The side of her face nearest him glowed from the slaps she'd been given.

The machine wove through the traffic like a police car, eventually pulling up at the station. One of the heavies nudged them to get out, grunting an instruction in Russian.

‘He say we must be on Kiev train which leave in five minute,' Oksana croaked.

They were pushed towards the ticket hall, then through
the swing doors to the platforms. The departure music was playing, but they scrambled on board the train. The
gangstery
scowled into the carriage from the platform, prompting two other passengers to pick up their bags and move to another compartment.

Sam seethed. He'd achieved nothing in Odessa except to frighten the wits out of Oksana. She was sobbing now, a handkerchief pressed to her face.

The train began to move. He looked at his watch. It was two-fifteen. He waved two fingers at the thug outside. Rybkin was not going to get away with this.

Oksana blew her nose loudly.

‘You all right, Ksucha?' Her cheek was still glowing.

‘I thought they will kill me,' she whispered, sniffing.

‘I'm sorry, Ksucha. I should never have—'

‘But you
learn
something?' she interrupted, her eyes brightening. ‘It was worthwhile for you?'

What should he tell her? The truth.

‘No. I learned nothing, Ksucha. Except something about myself. Namely that one can still be a trifle naive, even at the ripe old age of thirty-six!'

‘
I
learned something.' She gave a little smile of triumph.

‘Yes?'

‘Yes. I learn that I don't want to die!'

‘Ah. Now
that's
something.'

The smile widened and stayed on her lips as the train gathered speed through the bleak concrete landscape of Odessa's outskirts.

As the town disappeared behind them and the view became steppe, Sam put his mind back to work. If Viktor Rybkin couldn't be reasoned with, then he must be
forced
into talking.

‘Oh! Our luggage!' Oksana gasped. ‘We leave it at Taras house.'

Exactly, thought Sam. And there was something in it that he needed.

‘I have idea. When we arrive Kiev, I telephone my cousin and ask him to bring it to us tomorrow. You will pay his ticket?'

‘To
Kiev
?' Sam frowned.

He would be on his own from now on, he decided. It was between him and Rybkin. One on one.

‘Yes of course, Kiev.'

She was puzzled by his tone. Then she saw the stubborn jaw and dogged eyes. He was going back. Back to Odessa. Back to the nightmare they'd just escaped from. Her insides somersaulted. How could he be so foolish – or so brave?

‘Oksana . . .'

‘I know,' she said. ‘And I am coming with you.'

DARKNESS WAS FALLING
by the time they returned to Moldovanka, both of them dead with exhaustion, both driven by compulsions they couldn't control.

He'd tried to persuade Oksana to continue on the train to Kiev but she'd told him that if he had the courage to go back then so did she. They'd got off at the first halt, a fifty-minute ride north of Odessa, and sat in a smelly shelter for two and a half hours until a train stopped on its journey south to take them back to the Black Sea. The weather had changed for the worse, with clouds scudding in from the north, bringing a drop in temperature. Still in their light clothes, she'd huddled against him for warmth and with a little gentle prompting had told him the story of her life with Sergeyi – a contented partnership cut short by the biggest man-made disaster the world had ever seen. She'd cried a little at the end of her story and he'd held her, happy to let their closeness give her whatever strength she could draw from him.

They stood outside the gate to the stable yard where Taras lived. The street was dark except for the lights of passing cars. Oksana had a key that her cousin had lent her. She opened the gate. There was no light coming from the old stables and they had to feel their way to the door.

For Oksana, telling Sam about Sergeyi in that railway station shelter had been an essential unburdening. It was, she'd decided, important that he knew how she'd loved her husband. Only if he understood what she'd felt for
Sergeyi could she desire him without guilt. She'd built a bridge now between her past and her future, whatever it might be. She'd not expected Sam to respond to her outpourings by revealing things about himself. She'd understood by now that the fence surrounding his private life was of the thickest barbed wire. To cut through it would take time, more time probably than she would have with him. But there was something about the way he'd listened that had convinced her that he too had suffered loss. Sensed too that whereas her loss was history now, his own grief was still continuing.

She opened the door.

‘Taras?'

No reply, and the place was in darkness. She fumbled for a light switch, but it didn't work. She turned to look back over the top of the wall that surrounded the yard. Darkness everywhere.

‘Power cut,' she sighed. ‘In Odessa it happen most day. Maybe Taras have candle.'

She groped her way to the kitchen while Sam aimed for where he remembered the sofa to be. His suitcase should be on it, and inside that a torch.

They both produced light at the same instant.

‘See? We make good team,' said Oksana with a brittle laugh.

Nervously Sam illuminated Taras's bed, fearing irrationally that Rybkin's men had been here and murdered the man. But the bed was empty, its soiled sheet and blanket rolled into a ball.

‘I think he go find friend who make
samogon
,' Oksana ventured, setting down the candleholder next to the television. She hugged herself for warmth. ‘You hungry?'

Sam was so tired he had to think about it. He sank down onto the sofa.

‘Yes, Ksucha. I do believe I am.'

‘I see if Taras leave any of food which I buy this
morning,' she said, returning to the kitchen. Then after a few seconds she called out, ‘Oh yes. We soon have dinner.'

Sam rested his head on the sofa back and let his eyelids droop. He
had
to sleep if he was going to be able to function tonight, yet his keyed-up nerves weren't going to let him. The plan he'd worked out was shaky at best, and more dangerous than ever. Oksana could not under any circumstances be a part of it. Yet her determination to share his every risk seemed absolute. Somehow he would have to extract himself from her grip.

To corner Rybkin he would need luck more than anything else. He had no clue where the man lived nor whether he ever moved about without a phalanx of bodyguards. Sam had one lead and one lead only: the name of the restaurant given him by Major Pushkin, the nocturnal operating base of the Voroninskaya gang. He checked his watch. It was seven-thirty. In about three hours' time he would need to be back in the centre of Odessa, alone.

Oksana busied herself laying out food on a tray, forcing herself not to look at the filth of her surroundings and more importantly to resist the feeling of dread that had overcome her since returning to this flat. It was a feeling much greater than fear and yet lesser too, because she was powerless to do anything about it. She could be here in Odessa, could be with this Englishman that she adored, but there was nothing she could do to prevent him walking into the jaws of his fate.

She returned to the main room with bread, sliced sausage and cheese, and a dish of tomatoes and pickled cucumbers.

‘Sorry not more exciting,' she told him. ‘But this kitchen is not place which make me want to cook. Soon I make some tea for us – when water boiling.'

Sam smiled as she sat beside him. There was a body
smell about her now, her rose petal scent tainted by the tensions of the day. A woman's smell, an animal odour that triggered him like a switch.

As she balanced the tray on her knees, she looked at him with a watchful steadiness. To Sam it was the look of someone who'd seen the future and was waiting for it to come to pass. A look with the fateful knowledge of a tarot card. It startled him. He glanced away.

‘Thanks for the food, Ksucha,' he whispered. ‘I always seem to be saying that.'

He loaded a plate from the tray and began to eat. Oksana continued to watch him.

‘Aren't you going to eat?' he asked.

‘Not now.'

He'd decided what he would do to get away from her. She might hate him for it later, but not, he hoped, at the time.

‘What you going to do, Sam?'

Her huskiness drew him like a velvet vortex. In the dull light of the candle her eyes were almost grey-green.

‘I'm going to try again.'

‘But how?'

‘I'll think of something. I'll wait until the morning,' he lied.

He put the plate down on the floor. She was still looking at him, her gaze unwavering, cutting through, trying to see the truth he was hiding. He took hold of her hands. They were small and had a smooth softness that surprised him.

‘You have beautiful eyes,' he told her.

They didn't move from his, but her lips parted into a smile.

‘That what you told me a year ago, only you don't remember,' she teased.

He pulled her to him and kissed her. She held her
breath, one hand against his chest as if uncertain whether to allow this. Then the hand went to the back of his neck.