Moskva (15 page)

His father shot him a sharp glance.

Vladimir grinned. ‘Look what I’ve found you.’

‘Welcome to my humble holiday home,’ said Minister Vedenin.

His heavy fingers gripped Tom’s hand for just longer than was comfortable, then his arm came round Tom’s shoulders and he began steering him through the crowd and towards a door beyond. ‘Vladimir will look after Svetlana. You come with me. We should talk.’ They went out on to a small wooden terrace with white painted rails. ‘Valentina doesn’t like me smoking indoors.’

‘Your wife?’ asked Tom, watching the man shake a Cohiba Robusto from a branded leather case. The minister lit the cigar and shook his head.

‘My wife’s dead, sadly. Valentina’s a friend.’

He offered Tom a cigar and winced when Tom held up his papirosa. The back door opened behind them. Vedenin scowled, until he saw it was his son.

‘We’re just having a quick word.’

‘I thought our visitor might like a drink.’ Vladimir held up a goblet of mulled wine. ‘He must be cold after the drive.’ Smiling, as if he’d only just noticed Tom was there, he added, ‘It was my mother’s recipe …’

‘My son makes it every winter,’ said Vedenin.

Vladimir smiled again. ‘Every year since she died.’

The wine was hot and sweet and spiced with cloves. There was brandy in there somewhere. Some kind of spirit certainly. The overwhelming taste was of honey though. Tom could feel its stickiness on his lips.

‘You like it?’ Vladimir asked.

‘Very much,’ Tom told the young man.

‘I’m glad.’

The door to the kitchen closed on the noise inside and left Tom and the minister to the creak of firs, the slight whistle
of the wind in the bushes and the sudden hoot of an owl. The minister laughed as Tom froze. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘a cigar is simply a cigar and an owl is simply an owl. You should have called us earlier, you know. When her trail was still warm. We could have acted before this.’

‘It wasn’t my decision.’

‘All the same. You must start thinking of us as friends.’

‘You knew, though? You must have done.’

‘Not officially.’

The man drew deep on his Cuban cigar, held the smoke for a second and let it trickle into the chilly air. ‘Officially I don’t know now. The KGB knows the ambassador’s stepdaughter has run away. The local
militsiya
know delinquents are squatting a deserted house twenty miles from here. The Vnutrenniye Voiska
know they have to clear a house of cultists using minimum force. I alone know these things are linked. I would be delighted if you’d join me. The others will stay here.’

‘The others?’ Tom asked.

‘It’s my son’s birthday,’ Vedenin said. ‘How could I break up his party? We’ll be back soon enough and most of my friends are so drunk on
sbiten
they’ll barely notice we’re gone. How did you find Major Milova?’

‘Impressively professional.’

The minister smiled. ‘Good. She can drive us.’

White trucks parked in the depths of a lay-by, a bank of Scots pine screening them from the road. An empty stall with its back to a ditch showed where someone local sold provisions in the summer to lorry drivers on the road between Moscow and Leningrad. Major Milova pulled in and parked behind the last truck.

The drive from Vedenin’s dacha to the lay-by had been slow to the point of sedate and conducted in absolute silence, on her part at least. Vedenin had talked non-stop, pointing out landmarks, roadkill and types of local tree. She’d opened her window only once, when smoke from her boss’s cigar had made it briefly impossible for her to see the road ahead.

Suddenly Vedenin said, ‘We’re here.’

Major Milova took it as a question instead of a statement of the obvious. ‘Yes, sir. We’re here.’

‘You should know,’ Vedenin told Tom, ‘these men aren’t aware that one of the cultists they’re retrieving is English. Let’s leave it that way.’

A knock on the major’s window made Tom jump.

The ghostlike figure’s uniform was entirely white, down to his facemask and goggles. He held an AKSU-47 wrapped in pale sacking. What little showed of its barrel was wound with white tape.

Tom got the minister’s door.

The ghostlike figure’s report was brief and to the point.

A ruined house stood a quarter of a mile back from the road, hidden by forest. His men, an elite force of Spetsnaz within the VV, had it surrounded on all sides. They’d been in position since mid afternoon without being spotted. There had been no movement since dusk and no lights currently showed. Delinquents or gypsies would have lit lamps or built a fire. Since none were visible, they were obviously dealing with those intent on staying hidden.

The man stared at Tom once. He ignored Svetlana.

‘Very good,’ Vedenin said. ‘Now, what’s your plan?’

The first part seemed to involve asking the comrade minister if, once they neared the ruined house, he’d be prepared to stay back as he and his guests weren’t in camouflage. Tom didn’t hear the second part, because the man took Vedenin to one side. Their conversation was short but intense.

Ice made climbing the path difficult, and the hundred yards through firs and dead brambles had Comrade Vedenin gasping. They followed the glow of the Spetsnaz officer’s torch, which had been taped to leave only the narrowest beam. The minister slipped so often that Tom ended up taking his elbow. The man was trembling by the time he reached the edge of a frozen lake.

‘Where do you want me?’

‘We’ve prepared a hide, sir.’

White netting had been thrown over a frame. Inside, fold-out stools, a huge Thermos flask and heavy night-vision binoculars waited on a tarpaulin that was acting as the floor. The makeshift hut felt like a shooting hide of the kind Tom’s in-laws used. The Spetsnaz officer looked relieved when Vedenin slumped on to the nearest of the stools.

‘As little fuss as possible,’ Vedenin said.

‘We understand, sir.’

‘Go, then.’

The air inside the hide was clean and cold and tinged with smoke trapped in the minister’s jacket. Tom was reminded of Guy Fawkes Night and the last time he’d seen Charlie. Then it had been back to boarding school for the boy and a refresher course in Russian at a country house in Surrey for him. A quick telephone call on Christmas Day, cut short because lunch was beginning, had been their only contact since.

Tom had written, of course. Charlie had asked him to write. But Tom’s own letters were stilted and Charlie’s read as if a housemaster checked them first.

Picking up the binoculars, Vedenin stared across the lake. ‘Hope they’re right,’ he said. ‘That place looks deserted to me.’

He handed the glasses to Tom, who looked in turn. The house was wooden and had three storeys. An octagonal turret rose from one corner. Several windows were smashed. Darkness and the night-vision lenses of the glasses made it impossible to tell what colour the walls had originally been.

The front door was open and slightly off its hinges. The turret had an intricately carved fascia hung below cedar tiles. The fascia had slipped in two places. One bit hung down like a tongue.

It was, even in ruins, an impressive building.

‘I’m surprised it hasn’t been repaired,’ Tom said.

The minister shrugged as if he wasn’t surprised at all.

Sweeping the binoculars along the edge of the ice, Tom saw mounds that might be camouflaged men or simply banks of snow. Except for slowly falling flakes there was no movement out there at all. Everything suggested the house was deserted. To Tom, that probably meant it wasn’t.

‘How will they approach this?’ he asked.

‘Depends,’ Svetlana said.

Five minutes became ten. A lorry on the road below lit the
sky with double headlights as it began cresting a hill. It could be seen several minutes later as a slowly receding glow. An owl hooted from an oak, and a rabbit froze in the moonlight, then bounced away. Reaching for the glasses again, Tom found tight scars in the snow marking its departure.

‘What’s holding them?’ Vedenin muttered.

It was Svetlana who answered. ‘I imagine they’re waiting for the moon to go in, sir. From the position of the clouds, it won’t be long.’

She was right. The moment the moonlight vanished, a snow-mound became a man on the move, white against white, except where his helmet showed against the dark house beyond. He began a slow and steady military crawl towards the half-open front door. He’d have made it too, if the cloud hadn’t suddenly thinned.

Flame flashed from the turret.

The snap of a rifle and the crawling man’s shout filling the same second.

Welling blood stained the man’s uniform, and streaked the snow as he began to retreat. When Tom glanced over, Svetlana’s face was frozen. He passed her the glasses without being asked. She grabbed a look before pushing them at the minister.

‘This is not good,’ Vedenin said.

‘No, sir.’

Watching the man crawl put Tom back in the stony fields of a hill farm beyond Enniskillen. There’d been no snow, just the sodden dirt from a fortnight’s rain. When the wounded Russian dragged himself half-upright and zigzagged for a tree, reaching safety, Tom sighed with relief.

‘Why didn’t they fire again?’ Vedenin demanded.

Tom said, ‘Limited supply of ammunition?’

Svetlana shrugged. ‘Possible.’

Out on the lake, nothing moved. The mounds, some of which might simply be mounds, stayed where they were. The next shot came from a different window and a snow mound quivered and remained simply a mound. No cursing man and no blood to stain the white. A third shot came half a minute later from a window beside the turret. This time a mound rolled over and curled into a ball.

The next shot stilled it.

‘Minimum force,’ Vedenin said. ‘Remind them.’

Svetlana put down the binoculars. When Tom opened his mouth, Vedenin waved him off. ‘Yes, yes. Go …’ He sounded tired and looked tireder. An old man out late in the cold, wishing he was somewhere else.

‘Major,’ Svetlana hissed.

‘On my way,’ Tom said.

They were halfway there, using trees for cover, when three shots rang from the turret and out on the lake someone screamed.

‘Don’t,’ Svetlana said. ‘Just don’t.’

She swore at the sound of a whistle, slapping her head with her hand when a dozen mounds stood simultaneously. Movement in the gardens at the sides of the house showed other Spetsnaz were doing the same. Frantic shots cracked from the turret, and one white ghost fell, rolled once and spasmed.

‘Svetlana …’

‘They’ll take care,’ she promised.

She didn’t believe it any more than he did.

Tom watched helplessly as white ghosts closed on the house in a wave. A stun grenade tumbled through a broken window, its blast blowing glass from the next window along. A man ran to the lopsided door, threw in another stun grenade and followed with tear gas. A crouching ghost slapped
a charge to the side of the building, twisting away as it blew and smoke billowed around him. Their response to the sniper was swift and brutal and in no way sophisticated.

But it was effective.

Ghost after ghost rolled in through blown-out windows or slammed through shattered doors. Three Spetsnaz stood on a balcony, white ropes hanging from grappling irons behind them. They kicked in the window and entered, AK-47s levelled. Tom heard automatic fire.

One burst, then another.

Smoke billowed from a dozen windows.

All the doors were off their hinges. Shouts burst from inside as men moved from room to room reporting them clear. It was frighteningly familiar and eerily strange. These men were police, not soldiers. But they moved and reacted like a trained troop because that’s what they were. Police acting as soldiers. While the British forces in Ulster were soldiers acting as police. Tom shook his head.

‘She’ll be all right,’ Svetlana insisted.

‘She’d better be,’ replied Tom, meaning it.

‘You want to go in?’

‘If the building’s clear.’

‘Wait here …’

When Svetlana returned, it was with a flashlight. ‘There are no fires and the tear gas is clearing. We’re good to go.’

‘Anyone seen Alex?’

‘Not so far. Keep silent if possible.’ She shrugged. ‘They train them hard. They train them well. Let’s keep things simple.’

‘I’m their enemy?’

‘Mine too,’ she said. ‘I’m just a little bit more sophisticated about it. I don’t mind having a drink before killing you.’

Men holding dynamo lights looked up as Svetlana brought
Tom through the front door. Their facemasks hung loose and they had their goggles hooked over their helmets. They watched Tom warily. A man in leather jacket and jeans among men in uniform. A stranger with a uniformed major at his side. The air in the hall was still sharp from tear gas. He could smell cordite and smoke from the flashbangs.

When Tom made for the stairs, Svetlana followed.

The ruined house had been grand once, filled with servants, portraits, good china … the things revolution is supposed to sweep away. Horsehair poked from a leaking sofa behind them, paint flaked from a portrait they passed on the stairs, the landing wallpaper peeling back to bare wood.

‘Problem?’ Svetlana asked, when a man moved to stop them climbing the next flight of stairs.

‘The sniper’s up there, Comrade Major.’

‘Dead?’

‘As a rat.’

‘Was he alone?’ Svetlana asked.

‘Yes, Comrade Major.’

‘Good.’

Tom followed her up a spiral so rotten it sank like turf under his heel.

The sniper was on the floor of a little landing at the top. His rifle had been propped against the wall. It was small bore, bolt action. The kind of thing Caro’s father might buy Charlie for Christmas. One of the ghosts had torn down a curtain and tossed it over his face. A courtesy Tom hadn’t expected.

Svetlana didn’t protest when he lifted back the cloth.

‘Oh Christ,’ said Tom.

Thirteen, fourteen? Tom doubted he was older.

He crossed himself, shut the child’s eyes from instinct and began a prayer. It was short and to the point. He doubted the
dead boy had any sins that really mattered. He refused to accept that the boy should be held responsible for those of his father. He expected God to reserve vengeance for whoever was really responsible.

The boy was dressed in a camouflage uniform better suited to the desert and outmoded enough to have come from an army surplus store. It was at least two sizes too big for him, and an extra hole had been punched through his belt to make it small enough to fit round his waist. His face was perfect, his fair hair long for Russia, his eyes blue and already dimming before Tom’s fingers smoothed his eyelids.

A row of machine-gun bullets had opened his chest.

Blood welled from wounds that looked neat enough from the front but would, Tom knew, be a matted mess from behind. The best you could say was that the child had died quickly, quite possibly in the first moment if one of the bullets had opened his heart.

‘Fuck this,’ Tom said. ‘Really. Fuck this.’

‘You recognize him?’ Svetlana asked.

‘Beziki’s other son.’

‘You’re sure?’

Tom nodded mutely, remembering the photograph the fat man had produced at supper. How would he feel if he lost Charlie as well? How could the fat man possibly cope? Tom wanted cold anger. He wanted his numbness back. All he had was a hot flame for a heart.

‘Why would Beziki’s boy do this?’ he demanded.

And Svetlana’s answer came as easily as if it was obvious.

‘Because he had no choice. Because he was protecting his father or someone else. Because the consequences of not doing it were worse.’

‘Ah,’ said a voice. ‘They said I’d find you here.’

Vedenin’s words made Svetlana stiffen. The minister came
to stand behind her. He barely glanced at the sniper. The old man’s face was drawn, his thoughts turned inwards. ‘We’ve found children.’

‘Children, sir?’ Svetlana said.

‘A dozen or so. In the cellar. Behind locked doors.’

‘Are they all right?’

‘You’d better come with me.’

Trying not to think about what he might find, Tom followed him down the spiral staircase, past a dozen men he barely noticed. If he’d had the adrenaline rush of battle, it might have been different. If you could call killing a child holding a rabbit rifle battle. But all he felt was a growing dread as Vedenin led the way to where steps descended to vaulted cellars below.

At the bottom, five children sprawled on a rug.

Three boys, two girls, all young.

They could have been sleeping, but they weren’t. In the middle stood a two-litre bottle of Coke, the real thing, not some Soviet copy. It was a quarter gone. Paper cups lay nearby. A crime-scene photographer was already shooting the corpses, his flash bleaching out their faces and throwing shadows on the wall.

‘Any more?’ Tom demanded.

‘In the next room.’

‘How many?’

‘Eleven so far.’

‘Is Alex one of them?’