The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  She meant every word and more. Se felt shame and a deep sense of inadequacy at not having been judged up to the mark. Nothing she had done had helped get Anya back so far. And she hated knowing that David Rice would find out she had failed, Henning also.

  She put her glass down and forced herself to look at Anya’s father. ‘Is there nothing left for me to do?’

  But Kozkov fixed his eyes on the fire and said nothing.

  Stevie went to her room to pack. She didn’t feel like sitting around the fire with Anya’s mother and brother, drinking the Kozkovs’ whisky, returning nothing but disappointment. She preferred to stay hidden in her room.

  Sometime later—it was hard to keep track of time . . . it seemed always to be twilight—Saskia came in, followed by Vadim. He sat at the foot of her bed like a ghost, cradling the dog. He looked thinner than ever.

  ‘It’s my fault my father said those things to you.’ He didn’t look at Stevie. ‘I upset him with the things I accused him of. What I said was true, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe now I’ve pushed him to do something he shouldn’t. I just don’t know . . . I don’t know what he is going to do.’

  ‘I can’t help.’ Stevie pulled at the coverlet. ‘I thought I could but really . . . I’m sorry if I gave you all false hope.’

  ‘You found out about Petra, and Gregori Maraschenko, and Felix Dragoman . . .’ Vadim trailed off.

  Stevie shook her head. ‘I’ll be leaving Moscow as soon as I get back to the city. I’m going back to the assignment I’m supposed to be on.’

  ‘I wish you would stay.’

  Stevie felt a rush of gratitude for Vadim’s kindness but she knew in her heart that Kozkov was right and that she had no place any longer in this business.

  ‘Your father seems confident he knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘I think you’re lying, Stevie.’ Vadim was looking at her now with those pale-fire eyes of his. ‘You think he’s doing the wrong thing. I can see it in your face.’

  She did think that. ‘It’s dangerous—but I have no right to stop him, or even advise him otherwise. What I think doesn’t matter—and I could very well be wrong. Your father is Anya’s best hope. I truly believe that.’

  Vadim said nothing for a moment then said suddenly, ‘There is someone that maybe you should see. Anya’s godfather, Kirril. He lives in Zurich. We can’t mention his name in front of Papa—we’re not allowed to speak to him—but I think he calls Anya sometimes in secret.’

  ‘Why aren’t you allowed to talk to him?’ Hadn’t both Galina and Irina mentioned a godfather . . . ?

  ‘He and my father were very close. Something happened—they had a huge fight years ago and Papa said he didn’t want the influence of a traitor and a coward in his children’s lives. I don’t know what Kirril did. But he might know something.’

  10

  Stevie arranged to be on a flight out of Shermetyevo airport to Kloten, Zurich, as soon as possible. She had been in contact with David who was to meet her for lunch when she landed in Switzerland. He was in town for a meeting with his bank manager and would brief her on the details of the next stage of the Hammer-Belle assignment.

  She knew she should look in on Henning when she got to Moscow. He was still recuperating in his hospital bed, healthy and healing, but under ‘observation’ on account of the injury being a blow to the head. She hadn’t spoken to him since arriving at the dacha but certainly by now Kozkov would have phoned him and he would know she had been fired.

  Stevie felt too mortified to see him. So she organised for a large food hamper of caviar and melba toast to be sent to his room. She had thought about adding a bunch of white cymbidium orchids, but she then she remembered their secret language of flowers conversation. Did white orchids have a special hidden meaning? All she could recall was that mushrooms meant suspicion and she somehow didn’t feel that would be entirely appropriate, given the circumstances. It was too risky to let anything bloom accidentally, with an unintended message. Too risky, in fact, to let anything bloom at all . . . Stevie was trained to avoid dangers that may lie ahead; she would do so now. Leaving Moscow, and Henning, was the only possible course of action. She thought better of it and simply included a bottle of very fine whisky instead. The note on the hamper simply said ‘Stevie’.

  At the airport, Stevie found herself scanning the face of every teenage girl she saw, almost as if she might spot Anya.

  It’s over, Stevie. Let it go.

  But it was hard to not think about Anya Kozkov, still captive, no doubt terrified, who knew where. She just hoped Kozkov’s plan was not as rash as it seemed.

  By two o’clock, Stevie was sitting at one of the few small tables at the Kropf Bierhalle, one of the oldest Bürgher houses in the Alt Stadt, the ancient part of town. It was furnished with the traditional dark wood tables and leadlight windows, but the ceiling was double height and painted with extraordinary bacchanalian scenes involving cupids, wheat sheaves and huge bunches of grapes.

  Stevie had always taken it as evidence of just how much the old Zürcher Bürgher had loved their beer. The white veal sausages particular to Zurich were exceptionally good at the Kropf, especially with a dollop of hot mustard and a side of the flattened potato Rösti.

  Stevie was starving. She had had two helpings of the Swissair breakfast on the flight out from Moscow but she was ready for lunch. It was something that always surprised her—just how good airline food tasted after Russia.

  She hoped David wouldn’t be late. The Bahnhof Strasse was just around the corner. In fact the biggest gold deposit in Switzerland was right under the Paradeplatz tram station. All those commuting feet and tram wheels and cars passing so casually over the billions of bullion. Switzerland was like that, all efficiency and discretion. The casual visitor would remain oblivious to most of the country’s most important structures. Why advertise them? There was safety in stealth. That was something Stevie was always trying to impress upon her clients. A few of them listened; many didn’t.

  Stevie caught sight of David’s broad silhouette as he walked in and went to hang his navy blue cashmere overcoat. He made his way over, limping slightly, a hand on his ebony cane.

  David Rice was no longer a very dangerous man but the sense of possibility hung about him still. The cane seemed to be there as a precaution, the way a lion might be made to wear a chain for the safety of passers-by. It highlighted his strength rather than his vulnerability.

  ‘Thinner than usual, a patchy tan, and a fat lip . . .’ He raised a thick grey eyebrow as Stevie stood to greet him. ‘You look like hell. Not that I’m surprised. A week in the mountains will do you good.’

  ‘Ski holiday, is it?’

  Rice smiled but his eyes looked concerned as he ran them over Stevie’s face. ‘Alexander Yudorov is throwing a party in St Moritz. He plans to play in the polo-on-ice tournament this year and he wants everyone there to watch.’

  ‘Yudorov . . .’ Stevie searched her mental data base of Russian oligarchs. He had the aluminium mines of Siberia and most of Russia’s media. He was big.

  ‘Is he that good?’ she asked, surprised. ‘The Cartier Cup is played by high-goal teams.’

  ‘From what I hear, he’s afraid of horses—no, he’s pretty much bought Urs Schwarzenbach’s old polo team and he plans to cheer them to victory from the comfort of one of the tents.’

  The waitress arrived and they ordered veal sausages and a carafe of red wine. Rice waited until she had left the table then continued. ‘The Hammer-Belles have been invited to stay at his chalet and watch the match. From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going to be quite a lavish affair.’

  ‘More Russians.’ Stevie wanted to groan but was luckily distracted by the arrival of the wine.

  ‘Have a good glass of this, Stevie—put some fire back into your blood.’

  Stevie obediently took the glass, hoping the subject of her bungled escapade would magically elude David.

  ‘Constantine told me what happened, Stevie.�
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  She swallowed a mouthful of wine. ‘Kozkov sent me home with my tail between my legs, his daughter still in the hands of the kidnappers.’ She fought back a most humiliating tear and stared defiantly at Rice, almost daring him to pour his heaviest scorn on her.

  David fixed her with his grey eyes for a moment. ‘Well for God’s sake, don’t lose your appetite over it.’

  Stevie hadn’t touched the sausage.

  ‘Look, Stevie,’ his voice was rough with the concern that didn’t show on his face. ‘You can’t win them all. You’re well out of that one. You were a little fool to get involved in the first place.’

  Stevie looked down at her hands, her eyes pricking again. Tears certainly wouldn’t do. She bit her lip to concentrate herself and forced herself to look Rice in the eye.

  He held her gaze gently. ‘Maybe the girl will be found safely without you—Kozkov’s plan might work . . . the thing is, you can do no more. Hundreds of girls disappear this way in Russia every year. My advice—maybe you’d call it harsh but I am a realistic man—is concentrate on the ones you can do something about.’

  Stevie picked up her knife and cut rather viciously into the sausage. ‘Did you find out anything about the Ukrainian?’

  Rice gave a sharp glance at the table nearest to them—an elderly couple eating Zürcher Geschnetzeltes mit Rösti. They were too far away to hear anything. He sat back in his chair. ‘Felix Dragoman, born in Chernobyl, Ukraine, nineteen years before the accident. The bio’s pretty grim. His father worked at the reactor as an engineer, his mother cleaned it at night. Our man left school and got a job driving dangerous goods trucks in and out of the reactor grounds.’

  Rice paused to refill their glasses.

  ‘Dragoman’s father was one of the thirty-five people who died instantly when the core of the reactor melted in April, 1986. He was inside the plant. Dragoman’s brother was one of the firemen sent in to put out the fire.’

  ‘Didn’t they get sent in wearing paper masks and Wellington boots?’ Stevie remembered seeing terrifying pictures of the clean-up crews at ground zero.

  Rice reached for his glass but didn’t drink just yet. ‘The Soviets just threw the rescue workers on the fire like buckets of sand—and don’t tell me they didn’t know they were sending the men to their deaths!’

  Rice had cast his warrior soul during the Cold War and it showed every now and then. Stevie liked it when it did. Why? Maybe it revealed a passion that appeared to be absent in the everyday David Rice. It made her feel closer to him.

  ‘Anyway,’ Rice took a swallow of wine and continued, ‘the brother died shortly afterwards. Dragoman was watching a victory parade that was staged through Chernobyl only a few hours after the accident. Classic Soviet stuff—they couldn’t tell anyone that there had been a terrible accident. They had orders to hide everything. And so the victory parade had to go on, as scheduled.’

  The waitress cleared their plates—Stevie had relaxed during Rice’s story and managed to eat everything. They ordered espresso.

  When the coffee arrived, Rice stirred far too much sugar into the tiny cup and lit a thin cigar. ‘The people of the USSR were all a huge experiment. How would their bodies react to massive radiation? Could the men in charge get away with mass poisoning, as they had got away with mass killings only the generation before? Anyhow,’ Rice got back to business, ‘the Soviets built a special town for all the displaced people of Chernobyl. It’s called Slavutich. Dragoman and his mother were moved there. No one was allowed to take anything with them. They had to start their lives from scratch. That’s when he started trading on the black market, making secret trips into the Dead Zone and taking what he knew he could sell on.’

  Stevie sipped her coffee; she was feeling a lot better—the effect David Rice always seemed to have on her. ‘Is there anything you didn’t find out? What did you do, take his best friend for tea?’

  Rice sent an eyebrow skyward and almost smiled. ‘Something like that. You know what London’s like—you can’t throw a teaspoon without hitting a disgruntled Russian exile.’ Then he grew serious again. ‘Dragoman’s mother developed tumours and died ten years later. Dragoman was left with a large bald patch on the side of his head in the shape of a perfect crescent moon. Apparently the hair has never grown back.’

  ‘That should make him quite easy to spot in a crowd.’

  ‘From the pictures I’ve seen, it wouldn’t take a bald crescent.’

  ‘The Man from Chernobyl.’ Stevie frowned. ‘Do you think he calls himself that?’

  ‘From what I hear, he’s quite proud of the moniker. His operations grew from smuggling radioactive salvage from Chernobyl, to selling rocket-propelled grenade launchers to the Afghans during the war, then, when the Soviet Union collapsed, he moved on to stripping reactors and old army bases of weaponry and materials he could sell around the world.’

  ‘So, how does he do it?’

  ‘Dragoman began by buying up small transport companies and now has the largest fleet of Soviet-era planes in the world. They operate pretty much with impunity in developing-world airspace because it is so poorly monitored. Ownership and operations are obscured by complex corporate structures. Dragoman promises the reliability that you would expect from a multinational company, in a black economy: he delivers the right goods, on time, at the agreed price, to absolutely anywhere in the world. This makes him invaluable to interests more powerful than Afghan warlords or gem smugglers.’

  ‘Kozkov’s son Vadim knew about Dragoman from his military service,’ Stevie broke in. ‘He says Dragoman does a roaring trade in pharmaceuticals.’

  ‘Wouldn’t surprise me. Pharma—especially fake pharma—is huge right now, especially given the emergence of Chinese markets, both as end users and as manufacturers. It’s easy money—sell cement dust as expensive, life-saving medication—you can’t lose, economically. And if you’re clever enough to do it indirectly, it’s very hard to get caught.’

  Stevie was silent. Her mind was whirling with thoughts. When she finally looked up, Rice was staring at her. He looked away. ‘I relayed all that because I promised you I would ask around. Now that Dragoman and the Kozkovs can no longer be of interest to you, I hope you can keep your mind on the job at hand.’

  ‘Of course, David.’ She forced her mind back to the present. ‘What do the Hammer-Belles need?’

  ‘They want you with them in St Moritz. Yudorov has discouraged his guests from bringing more than one bodyguard per person but he has promised the couple top-notch security and his best men during their stay. They have one of their own men and I suggested Owen Dovetail as well. They agreed, provided you went along too—just to make sure things were taken care of properly.’ He cast an amused glance at her.

  ‘You made quite an impression on them, it seems.’

  ‘I can’t think why!’

  ‘It’ll keep you out of mischief. And I need you to go. The Hammer-Belles are turning out to be very good clients and I’d like to keep them safe and happy.’

  ‘Has anything come up with the Romanians?’

  Rice shook his handsome, grizzled head. ‘So far we’ve found little evidence of anything. We’ve tracked a few dubious characters to Gstaad and we’re watching them closely but so far, nothing concrete.’

  Rice ordered two Armagnacs and handed one to Stevie. ‘Trouble is, news of the Yudorov shindig has been splashed all over the place, which means we could get amateurs as well as pros tempted to have a crack at them. I haven’t mentioned the possible plot to the Hammer-Belles— they know Nadia Swarovski personally and she seems to have them scared stiff with her stories about the Romanian kidnapping gang making off with her boyfriend in Megève last year. I don’t want them alarmed unnecessarily.’

  ‘I understand,’ Stevie nodded slowly. ‘I’ll be discreet in what I say to them. I’ve got a friend up in St Moritz who always has his ear to the ground. It might be worth popping up a day or so early so I can see what’s going on.’

&nbs
p; ‘Best leave tomorrow morning then.’ Rice seemed pleased. He paid the bill with a thousand-franc note. The waitress didn’t blink.

  ‘In London the cabbies baulk at a twenty-pound note,’ he grunted, shrugging on his overcoat. ‘Here, even the newsagents have change for a thousand. Much more civilised really. And it means you only have to carry around one or two notes.’

  Stevie saw he had at least twenty of the pale grey bills in his money clip today. She knew he would have a lot more stashed away somewhere.

  David Rice believed in cash, and in Swiss banks. He helped Stevie with her coat. ‘Call London for anything else you need. Josie’s expecting you.’

  He handed her two thousand-franc notes. ‘By the way, you’re going to need to look the part up there, to blend in a little more. Get those furry boots they all wear, the ones that look like you have a foot up a Pomeranian’s backside.’

  He chuckled at Stevie’s horrified expression. ‘You’ll live. You might even have some fun.’

  Then he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and was gone.

  The small gesture of affection did more for Stevie’s spirits than the wine, the food or the francs. When David was safely out of sight, she put her hand to her cheek and smiled.

  It had not been difficult to find Kirril. He turned out to be the rather famous conductor of the Zurich Opera House Orchestra, performing that night at the Opernhaus, a beautiful edifice on the shores of the Zürichsee.

  Stevie bought her ticket over the telephone then set off wearing all her pearls and her astrakhan pillbox hat. She had also painted her lips scarlet, which she rarely did, but she knew artists liked colour. It was too early to go to the opera house, but she had decided to take a walk around the Old Town, to re-calibrate her compass and to try to slip back into her life.

  The night was icy and still, the cobblestones on the narrow streets shone an oily midnight blue. People hurried about their business, the collars of their overcoats turned up, their breath puffing back in white streams. Looking down from the laneways above the Grossmünster cathedral, Stevie caught glimpses of the Limmat, flowing black and gold through the Old Town. She loved Zurich on a winter evening.