Petrova walked on through charmless streets made drab in the morning light, his destination Butyrka. Conditions there were brutal, a perfect breeding ground for the specific type of man he was looking for: someone who wouldn’t wince at putting a bag over a youth’s head, or choking and beating him to death, or think twice about cutting a man’s throat. Slicing through a windpipe was not as easy as it seemed. There was skill attached. Men could be surprisingly resistant to dying.
A chill wind lifted the hair on his head and Petrova instinctively rolled the collar of his jacket up. He enjoyed this part of the day when people were stirring, pottering about their business but without the shake and clatter.
Taking a short cut through an alley, he paused to extract a packet of cigarettes, and felt the comforting weight of fresh money in his wallet. So pleased with the world he didn’t notice the silent tread of an assassin behind him. So surprised he didn’t react as his head was wrenched backwards.
‘What the…?’
A flash like quicksilver cut off his speech. Collapsing to the ground, blood pumping from a severed jugular vein, Petrova had no time to consider the level of expertise required for his own murder, or that his death was just another in a series of politically motivated killings.
After a few hours’ sleep, Tallis attempted to return to the area around the prison. It was a risk, foolhardy even, but Lena’s advice to search the ghettoes for her son was like a nagging refrain in his ears. Tallis was also aware that time was running out. He was concerned that the assassin responsible for the Moscow murders might strike again, and further destabilise the political situation in Chechnya. Tallis knew that he needed to get out there quickly. It was essential to find Darke. Hard though it was, Tallis had one opportunity to find Lena’s son Ruslan, and if he failed he’d simply cut his losses and move on.
On his way, he swore he was being followed, the dying echo of someone else’s footsteps a constant in his ears, but however often he turned to look for a tail, the alleys yielded nothing.
A few streets away from his destination, his passage was stopped by a crowd of angry protesters, their rage contained by a phalanx of stone-faced riot police with shields held close to their torsos, batons in their hands. In among the crowd, people with give-away faces were trying to escape. Tallis noted the dark looks, women with hawk-like features and gold hoops in their ears. He asked the nearest person to him, an elderly Russian guy in a tattered coat, what had happened there.
‘An FSB officer had his throat cut early this morning. Every day, another murder,’ the old man complained, balling his fist and shaking it at the sky. ‘Filthy Chechens,’ he added, spitting into the gutter.
Tallis decided to retreat. After buying a bottle of Stoli, a cheap brand of vodka, he returned to the underpass near Komsomolskaya. A busker was playing an accordion and singing a heartfelt Russian ballad, the kind of music to slit your wrists to, Tallis thought. Vladimir and Viktor, the lads he’d encountered the previous day, were in the same spot, sharing smokes, looking belligerent. Neither appeared alarmed nor surprised by his arrival. Wordlessly, Tallis handed the bottle to Vladimir. Vladimir’s hand shot out. ‘Killed any dukh, Englishman?’
‘Not today.’
‘Pity,’ Viktor said, his eyes red-rimmed already from drinking. He was wearing clothes that looked too big for him. With his helmet of golden hair he looked half street urchin, half angel.
Tallis squatted down. Vladimir unscrewed the cap and offered the bottle to Tallis, urging him to drink.
‘Thanks,’ Tallis said, taking a swig, feeling the heat and sweetness on his tongue. Christ, any longer in Moscow and he’d turn into an alcoholic.
‘You said dukh—that’s a military phrase, isn’t it?’ Tallis said, handing the bottle back.
‘I was a soldier,’ Vladimir said.
Tallis expressed surprise. Vladimir didn’t look old enough. He told him so.
‘That’s what war does.’ Vladimir laughed without mirth. ‘Either it makes you old or arrests your development. I was nineteen when I was sent to the front line in 2000.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘Novye Aldy. Shit place. Shit people. And I’m not just talking about the dukh. You know what a Russian soldier’s life is worth? Nothing. And the military for all their fucking badges and medals are nothing more than a bunch of drunken sadists. To be honest, I was more scared of my commanding officer than the Chechens.’
‘That bad?’
‘That bad,’ Vladimir said, sullen. He took another snatch of vodka, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and passed the bottle to Viktor. ‘They call it dedovschina.’
Punishment, Tallis remembered.
‘It’s meted out for the most minor violations, lack of respect mainly. There was one guy, a real hard-faced bastard. He liked nothing more than to beat us with spades. He’d fuck you if he had the chance. Some of the guys couldn’t take it. They’d wind up hanging themselves. You’d see the bodies carried out night after night.’
Christ, made the tit-for-tat shootings in London suburbs seem like child’s play, Tallis thought.
‘Tell him about the zindan,’ Viktor said, eyes glittering and strangely alive.
‘Zindan?’ Tallis said, not understanding the phrase.
‘A hollow torture pit faced with brick,’ Vladimir explained. ‘It had an earthen floor. You could be kept there for days. No food, no water, nowhere to piss or shit. That kind of stuff does weird things to you,’ he said, his voice momentarily trailing away. ‘And most of us were ill, dysentery, TB, foot-rot from the rubber boots we were forced to wear. As for food, there wasn’t any. Hunger is as much a soldier’s enemy as brutality if you’re Russian,’ he said, taking another swig of vodka. ‘That and the fact nobody actually trained us to shoot, let alone protect ourselves from machine-gun fire. In the summer, the temperature could soar to fifty degrees centigrade. In the winter, you’d be freezing your nuts off. Could even drop to minus ten. As for the dukh, they’d often leave little goodbye presents.’ Vladimir smiled thinly. ‘Mines and boobytraps in abandoned apartments, the type that blow your balls off. Oh, yes, Englishman, if you kill a Chechen, think of me.’
‘And you, Viktor?’ Tallis said quietly. ‘Were you a soldier, too?’
Viktor froze. Vladimir looked at him, searched for and met his gaze, seeking some sort of permission, it seemed. After a few seconds, Viktor nodded, a quick flick of his head, and took a snatch of vodka.
‘Viktor was taken hostage when he was twelve,’ Vladimir began. ‘His parents were quite rich, you see. They owned a house near Grozny.’
‘They were Chechens?’
‘Russians,’ Vladimir said with emphasis. ‘It was there, during a holiday, that he was taken.’
‘By whom?’
‘Chechen gangsters. He was tortured,’ Vladimir swallowed, glancing away. ‘His parents were desperate and went to everyone they could think of for help. They offered everything they had in an effort to get him back. Lots of promises were made. Time passed. Nothing happened.’
‘And these gangsters were kidnappers? They kept in touch?’
Vladimir nodded. ‘They used intermediaries to demand eight hundred thousand dollars.’
Tallis glanced at Viktor, who was sitting motionless, tuned out, still as statuary.
‘They sold everything they had and gave it to anyone who said they’d help, including the police, a gangster said to have close ties with the kidnappers and the republic’s branch of the FSB. They lost everything to find their son.
‘What they didn’t know was that the very people said to be looking for him were in conspiracy with the kidnappers. You see, it’s hard to tell who is working for whom in Chechnya. Fortunately for Viktor, having been bought and sold several times by certain Chechen faces, he managed to escape one night when his captors had more to drink than was good for them.’
But Viktor’s torment had only begun, Tallis thought, looking at the boy, feeling hollow.
‘
Last month, he was briefly detained for punching a young Chechen’s lights out.’ Vladmir smiled, putting an arm around Viktor’s shoulders, giving him a hug, Viktor’s response to reach for the vodka.
‘Where was that?’ Tallis said, casual.
‘Ryazan Prospekt.’
‘Slums,’ Viktor muttered.
Tallis stayed another half an hour with the boys. When he left he gave them money, told them not to spend it all on booze.
Viktor was right, Tallis thought, looking about him. After taking an age to travel across the city, even on the Metro, he was standing on a street in the middle of an industrial zone populated by crumbling five-storey dwellings and derelict workshops. The entire area looked as if it had been subject to looting, the grinding atmosphere one of depression punctuated by paranoia. You could see it in the faces, in the body language. Here, it seemed people lived a vagrant-style existence, constantly suspicious, always looking over their shoulders.
And there was something else, Tallis thought. Where were all the young men? It seemed to him then that Chechens had become the new Jews. They had effectively been ghettoised. As such, they got the blame for everything.
He walked on down a raddled-looking street where great lumps of masonry had fallen off the buildings. A woman dressed in a long coat and scarf, her face parallel with the ground, scurried past. Tallis took out the photograph of Lena’s son from his jacket and, speaking to the hurrying woman in Chechen, explained that it was an old photograph but did she know of a Ruslan Maisakov? At first the woman shrugged without looking.
‘Please,’ Tallis said, pushing the photograph into her hand. He watched her face, the pinched, tired features that were so similar to Lena’s, the hollows in her cheeks, saw the light of recognition in her eyes. Then the woman’s expression turned to one of suspicion. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend. His mother sent me.’
She stared at him for several moments.
Come on, Tallis thought, sparking. He knew that she knew, but would she talk? Could she be persuaded somehow? He returned her stare, intense.
‘I know of Ruslan,’ she said at last. ‘He was taken this morning.’
‘Taken where?’
‘Vykhino police station on Sormovskaya Street.’
‘Why?’
The woman briefly smiled. ‘Don’t you know that all Chechens have been redefined as criminals?’ And then she went away.
A wad of cash to a police officer at Vykhino police station confirmed that Ruslan Maisakov, along with two others, had been taken, following interrogation, to Moscow State Prison. Tallis’s heart sank. There was no way he was about to knock on doors and draw further attention to himself. Defeated, he headed back to the apartment block. He was standing outside when his phone rang. It was Orlov. ‘That matter we discussed,’ he said elliptically. ‘I know someone who may be able to help.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Tallis said, glancing at his watch: one o’clock.
‘I will get one of my men to pick you up. Be ready in half an hour.’
Orlov was as good as his word. Fyodor collected him in silence and drove in silence. Tallis couldn’t have cared less. He had nothing to say to him.
It soon became clear from the direction in which they were travelling that they were heading for the estate. As soon as they arrived, Fyodor dropped Tallis off at the helipad where Orlov was already waiting.
‘What sort of space do you need to land one of these things?’ Orlov said, pointing at the 109 and brandishing a map.
‘A clear one,’ Tallis said. ‘No power lines, not too many trees, about the size of a tennis court.’ He’d landed in tighter areas but he wasn’t going to admit that to Orlov. Knowing him, he’d have him land on a roof somewhere.
‘Good,’ he said, showing Tallis where they were heading, a dacha between Kaluga and Tula and on the river Oka. Tallis knew better than to ask Orlov whether he’d filed a flight plan. In reality, Russia was quite different from the UK. As long as you’d initially filed a large enough plan covering a big enough radius, stating the reason as training in the area, you were pretty clear to fly when you wanted.
This time it was Tallis’s turn to show off, flying low, tracking the river at about six hundred feet. Orlov was in his element. ‘We travel fast, no?’
‘It’s only perceptual,’ Tallis said. ‘The lower you fly, the quicker it seems.’
Orlov’s enthusiasm was undiminished. ‘This is like in the film, Apocalypse Now,’ he cried excitedly.
Wagner’s ‘Flight of the Valkyries’ immediately flashed through Tallis’s brain. ‘This contact we’re going to meet,’ Tallis said. ‘Who is he?’
‘Yuri Chaikova, a former soldier and good friend of mine. Yuri will get you anything you need. During the Chechen conflict, he was charged several times for selling arms.’
‘What, to the other side?’
‘A man has to make a living.’ Orlov gave a lugubrious sigh. ‘He has many, many contacts.’
Tallis smiled. That’s exactly what he’d hoped for. It wasn’t the weapons he was interested in but the fixer supplying them.
After a minor hiccough on landing—bracken was not ideal for a tail rotor—Tallis climbed out and was greeted by the extraordinary sight of beautifully landscaped gardens with flowering fruit trees and vegetable patches, all carefully cultivated and nurtured, unlike the actual house, which, although big, wasn’t particularly attractive. It reminded him of a broken-down German schloss.
A bloke with a shaved head and massive features resembling a banned breed of dog sauntered towards them. Tallis imagined this was Chaikova’s heavy. He bet underneath the clothes the guy was covered in tattoos.
‘Grigori,’ the man said, clapping Orlov on the back.
‘Yuri,’ Orlov exclaimed in return. Tallis stood back, feeling faintly embarrassed. When they were done, he was introduced. Up close, Tallis saw that Chaikova’s face bore a number of scars.
‘Look forward to doing business with you,’ Chaikova said in a nasal voice, his cool blue eyes fastening onto Tallis. ‘Grigori tells me you were a firearms officer in the UK.’
Grigori would, Tallis thought. ‘A long time ago,’ he said, thinking on the next occasion he’d keep his mouth shut.
‘But one never forgets,’ Chaikova said shrewdly. ‘Tell me, when you went in for the kill, did you do it the Russian way?’
Tallis hiked an eyebrow. ‘Going in for the kill’ sounded more akin to illegal fox hunting.
‘The kontrolnyi vystrel. It means several shots followed up by the control shot,’ Chaikova said, eyes gleaming.
‘You mean a double tap,’ Tallis said.
‘Ah, that is what you call it,’ Chaikova said, making apistol shape with his hand. ‘Bang, bang!’ He laughed. ‘I think you will appreciate what I have to offer you,’ he continued, as if he were about to host a wine tasting.
Tallis was shown to the house, an impression of large rooms and doors off, modestly furnished. The arms were kept in a wood-panelled room off a main living area. ‘This is my study,’ Chaikova said with a laugh. Except there were no books on show, only guns. Tallis stared at racks and racks of them. The shelves included Bren guns, Minimis—250 rounds, fired in bursts of twenty—Magnums and Armalites. Orlov, meanwhile, had made himself comfortable in the only easy chair in the room.
‘What was it you were after?’ Chaikova said, taking out a bunch of keys, presumably to open one of the glass-fronted cabinets that housed pistols and revolvers. Tallis spotted a couple of hefty Desert Eagles. The only time he’d seen this much gear had been in the armoury at the National Firearms School. Not even Johnny Kennedy, the former Mr Big he’d come across in Birmingham on his last mission, had had weaponry on this scale. Tallis reckoned half the Russian haul was stolen; the other half spoils of war. ‘How about a Makarov for starters?’
Chaikova nodded, went to one of the cabinets, opened it, took out the gun and handed it to Tallis. ‘Modelled on the Walther PP,’ Chaikova said. ‘Perfe
ct for a hit.’
Tallis felt the weight of it in his hand. ‘Anywhere I can test it?’
‘Later,’ Chaikova said. ‘You choose what you want then we take the firearms to the range.’
Tallis put the gun down and walked towards the rack nearest him, reached out and touched a Heckler and Koch SA80. ‘This takes me back,’ he said affably.
‘You were a soldier in the British army?’ Chaikova said.
‘Before joining the police.’
‘See any action?’
‘First Gulf War.’
Chaikova grinned, seemingly impressed.
‘Tallis here is interested in our own little war,’ Orlov said, stretching his legs out expansively. ‘Chaikova could tell you a few tales.’
‘Yeah?’ Tallis said, indicating to Chaikova that he’d like to check out the H&K MP5K.
‘I used to run a business taking people to places they were not supposed to be,’ Chaikova said.
‘What sort of people?’
‘Journalists, mostly, the ones who could not get the necessary permissions from the Kremlin to travel. At the time, flights were temporarily suspended to Grozny so there was plenty of work for people like myself.’
‘Sounds interesting.’
‘Sounds stupid and dangerous,’ Orlov said bluntly, his voice reverberating from the bowels of the soft leather armchair.
Chaikova inclined his head towards Orlov and, looking at Tallis, laughed. ‘As if he would know.’
Land of Ghosts Page 14
