“Who waits to see you?” she said, after a moment. “This is dangerous for you also.”
Hammer smiled and took a slug of chacha.
“A housekeeper. A bunch of people who work for me. The police.”
“No wife?”
“No. No wife.”
“Is she dead?”
“No. I’ve never had a wife.”
“You are not gay because you like me. I can see. What is wrong, you are scared?” She was frowning, as if genuinely interested in the answer.
Hammer laughed. “Maybe.”
“But you break in my apartment. You attack that man.”
“I didn’t break into your apartment.”
She waved his objection away. “You are not quiet man. You are not Luka.”
Hammer blew out smoke, nodding, and tapped his cigarette against the plate, watching the ash drop.
“I had some disappointments on that score.”
“What does this mean? Disappointments.”
To his surprise he found it easy to look at her as he told her.
“I loved someone, and she died.”
“When she die?”
Hammer laughed again.
“You’re meant to say, Jesus, I’m sorry. My God. How terrible.”
“You know is terrible. When?”
“I was twenty-eight.”
“OK. OK to be scared up to forty. Are you forty?”
“I’m fifty-eight.”
“Too long to be scared.”
Now she looked at him with a new intensity, as if she wanted to heal him right there. Hammer looked back, and wished she could.
“You’ve never been scared?” he said.
“Not like you. To me Karlo died slowly, since many years.”
“Not for your children?”
“Ah, OK. Children is different. Always I am scared for them. Is my work. But they are big, grown.” She reached up to show him. “Gone.”
“You see them?”
“Of course. One in Moscow, one in Kutaisi. They are good.” She smiled. “Now they are scared for me.”
“Maybe they should be.”
“Bullshit.”
“We need to get you out of here. Out of Tbilisi. Out of Georgia, just a few days.”
“This people do not make me run.”
Hammer felt a strange surge of something like pride in his chest. Nothing would make this woman run. She was immovable, and it thrilled him just as it troubled him.
“When I’m done I’ll come back. We’ll figure it out.”
She gave him a look of forbearance, as if she’d consider tolerating his odd foreign ways.
His cigarette was finished and it was time to go. With great reluctance he stubbed it out and looked again at his watch, calculating to the last second how long he might leave it. It really was time.
“You stay here,” he said, standing. “Don’t make any calls, don’t go out. Don’t let Luka tell anyone you’re here.”
“He never speaks to anyone.”
“OK. Take this.” He took one of the spare phones from his pocket and handed it to her. “You need to call me, there are two numbers in the contacts. The first one is better but both are OK. You still have the number I gave you in the restaurant?”
She nodded.
“Don’t use that unless the other two don’t work. OK?”
Natela took the phone, turned it over in her hand as if it was some strange device she’d never come across before, and put it on the table.
“I’ll be an hour, maybe two. What’s the address here? Case I can’t find it later with your crazy writing.”
Without answering, Natela went out into the hall and came back with a pen and a piece of paper, which she wrote on and handed to Hammer.
“So you want me to come back.”
“Is better.” She smiled. It was the first time he’d seen her smile.
From the back of the chair he picked up his own jacket and put it on. It was damp, and blood had dyed the navy black along the arm.
“These people, they know where is your friend?”
“I wish. No. These people are just a distraction.”
“You know where he is?” said Natela.
“I know where he isn’t.”
“What you mean?”
“All I know is this. He’s not by the seaside, but someone wants me to think he is. He’s not in Tbilisi, because he rented a car and filled it up with enough gas to get him to Moscow.”
“The mountains.”
“I guess.”
“No. He asked me, about the mountains.”
“Asked you what?”
“He wanted to know did Georgians speak Russian there.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes. Before he left.”
“Did he say why?”
“That was all he said.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said where—which mountains. He said Tusheti.”
“What’s Tusheti?”
“It’s a place. Chechnya here.” She pointed at intervals on the table. “Dagestan here. This is Tusheti.” She drew a circle. “Very quiet. Quiet in middle of much war. I said yes, people speak Russian a little because always there was buying and selling.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. Thank you. He left.”
“How far is it?”
“A day.”
“They have gas stations in Tusheti?”
“I do not know. Is nothing there.”
Hammer bent down and kissed her, an emphatic one on the cheek. She looked back at him perplexed.
“Thank you. That’s what we call a lead.”
TWENTY-THREE
Koba knew Freedom Park, of course he did, and he knew the statue, too, the biggest you could imagine. Bigger than ten men. It was a good place for them, at the top of a hill, trees and bushes everywhere, good for hiding and tracking. He had tracked boar and wolves—two motherfuckers would be no problem.
“There might be more than two.”
“OK, Isaac.”
He and Hammer arrived at the park an hour before five and made their way to the statue, two hundred yards away and even in this rain dominating the hillside. It was immense, black, perhaps a hundred feet tall, and held both its arms aloft at the top of a grand flight of steps.
“Lady of Victory.”
“You had a victory? I thought the Georgians always lost.”
“Russian victory. Soviet,” said Koba, with no further explanation, and headed for the long set of broad steps that led up to her.
“Is there a back route?” said Hammer. “Through the woods?”
Koba touched his nose conspiratorially. “Of course,” he said, and led the way into the trees that lined the avenue.
They passed only half a dozen people who had defied the weather to walk, and on the climb up the hill no one at all. The rain had softened a little and it was dry under the thick trees.
Nearing the top, at Hammer’s raised hand they slowed, and before coming out into the open completed a circuit of the crown of the hill. When he was sure they were alone Hammer left the cover of the trees and walked around the statue, gazing up at the vastness of it. The figure of a woman, who looked down on the city with an olive branch in one hand and a book in the other.
“Glory of Georgia. Peace,” said Koba.
“What’s the book?”
Koba shrugged.
Hammer surveyed the ground. “OK. We wait. Probably they’ll come up the way we did, so you should be in the trees on the other side, over there. Keep your ears open and if you hear someone coming toward you move quietly away. It’s important they don’t know you’re here.”
Koba tilted his head and
gave Hammer an insulted look.
“It needs to be right. Usually I’d have six men on this.”
“I do not think you should give them money.”
“It’s the price I pay for finding out who they are. That’s all.”
Hammer took a deep breath and had a final look around. The steps stretching out beneath him were broken and overgrown with weeds, the lamps lining them, despite the growing darkness, still unlit.
“So. I talk to them, give them the money. What next?”
“I follow. Not close.”
“And what do we want?”
“Car license or house number.”
Koba’s expression was somehow impatient but resigned, like a child who has heard the same admonition dozens of times.
“I should be more close. They might hurt you.”
“They won’t hurt me. They’ll want more of my money.”
Koba raised an eyebrow and stumped off into the trees.
Hammer sat on the top step of the hundred or more running down the hill and took in the gray, wet sweep of the city, the red roofs and the coned towers and the dull green river threaded through it all. Apart from the patter of raindrops on his coat all was quiet; apart from the odd figure coming through the gates in the distance nothing moved in the scene. Once, he thought he heard a voice in the woods but when he listened closely there was nothing above the sound of the rain.
His mind, besides, was not on this tedious distraction but on what would happen next: find somewhere to stay that night, get some rest, and head for the mountains, to follow the first real trace of Ben’s footsteps. Take Natela with him. It was the obvious course. Provided they weren’t followed out of the city, she would be safe there. And the alternatives were too complicated: how could she cross a border, if she was being tracked? Anticipating her reluctance, he began to prepare his arguments.
Four days left. Four days to find Ben and get back to London. The deadline seemed increasingly unreal, irrelevant. What would he do on that last day if he hadn’t found him? Give up and go back to Sander? Leave Natela unprotected? The idea was absurd. This quest had its own shape, and now he was committed to it. It was genuine; everything else was paste.
At least now there was a destination. He felt it like a release. There was only one road to Tusheti, and Koba was happy to drive it. Insistent, in fact: of course his wife would not mind, and there was no way Isaac should attempt it himself. It was a motherfucker road. He had driven people up it before and would of course go again. That was his job.
Was it cold? Hammer had asked. Now, not bad, but getting colder. He would need some mountain things. At night, yes, it was cold. Very high. Who lived there? In the winter, which was nine months long, fifty crazy idiots to stop the sheep from freezing. In the summer their families joined them, but they would soon be leaving. Some hikers. The rangers in the national park. Otherwise it is big empty place, and if your friend has gone there, Isaac, he must be crazy, too.
He didn’t hear it but some instinct told him there was movement behind him, and he turned to see the two men from the riot, the one who had held him and the one who had taken his passport. His reaction was curious. He had been expecting to feel fear, or nerves, but in their place there was only a slightly weary resentment that these idiots should be wasting his time, and a fresh irritation at the thought of their excitement. Probably they were more nervous than he was, giddy with the opportunity and the boldness of their scheme.
He stood, shook out his coat, and let them come to him at the top of the steps. From here Koba would have a clear view, no matter which way they went.
The younger and slighter of the two, cap and scrappy mustache still in place, stopped with his hands in his pockets, cocked his head, and stared into Hammer’s eyes with the willed assurance of someone keen to make an impression. He wore a black leather bomber jacket, zipped up to the neck. His friend, in a neon blue tracksuit, chains hanging from his neck, stood a pace back, holding Hammer’s briefcase at his side and in his other hand a compact silver gun. A pistol, an automatic. Hammer felt the weariness leave him. Almost certainly they had never done anything like this before. It would be remarkable if they made no mistakes.
“You have money?” said the leader.
“That’s a good opening. I’ve heard it before but it’s strong.” The man looked baffled. “Yes, I have money.”
“Please.” He nodded, to indicate that he wanted to see it.
Hammer took the money half out of the pocket of his coat, thumbed the edge of the wad, and then put it back.
“Give money.”
“We have other things to discuss.”
The leader stepped forward and handed Hammer a piece of paper. On it, printed in a standard font, were the details of a Western Union office in Tbilisi. That’s not bad, thought Hammer. They’re not such schmucks. But they still had to pick up the money, and it would be easy enough to have someone waiting for them.
“Fifty thousand dollars. In one week.”
“You see, this is what we need to discuss. First of all, fifty thousand dollars is too high. I made a mistake, probably I deserve to pay for it, but it’s a ten-thousand-dollar mistake, not fifty. So in one week you get ten thousand dollars, which is more money than you idiots know what to do with in any case. That’ll keep you in girls and chacha for a good while, impress your friends. Wait. I haven’t finished. Second, I need you to understand something. It’s important, so tell me if you don’t.”
He had him now.
“I’m an investigator. I investigate things. Like a private policeman, yes? Like I say, I made a mistake, but ten is all you get. Forever. You ever try to get more from me and I will find you, and I will make your life very, very difficult. You get it? Same goes if you try to use any of the information you’ve found. Understand that I am much, much better than you at this, and you won’t win. Tell me if this isn’t clear.”
The leader’s cocksure stare had slipped into a frown.
“Fifty thousand,” he said. “One time.”
Hammer smiled.
“I thought you had it. Let’s go through it again. Here’s how it works. I give you this thousand bucks. You give me my things and get ten thousand next week. Ten. And I come after you the first time you try to get more out of me or anyone else. That’s as good as it’s going to get.”
The man turned to his friend and talked to him in a hushed voice. Hammer could imagine what was being said: we take the cash now, take the ten thousand next week, figure out a way to get more later. There’ll be a way. But the friend bristled, looked away, started shaking his head, and then, dropping the case, walked abruptly toward Hammer with his right hand out and his arm crooked and the gun pointing at Hammer’s head. Hammer backed away with his hands out, trying to pacify him, but the big man grabbed him by the lapel and pushed the stubby barrel of the gun against his temple. Hammer could feel the skin moving under the cold metal.
The big man said something in Georgian, and Hammer could imagine roughly what it meant.
“It’s OK. It’s OK. You’re going to get what you want. Let’s just take our time.” As he spoke, hardly conscious of his words, Hammer imagined the bullet at the top of the magazine, saw it waiting there, stable and ready, the powder waiting for the blow of the pin.
Reason suggested he would be fine. He couldn’t pay them if he was dead. But he didn’t want to rely on this man’s sense of logic. As Hammer talked, the gun screwed harder into the thin flesh over the bone and the man’s eyes grew wider and crazier. Where was Koba? Probably it was better that he stay away. The situation was volatile enough.
Hammer looked to the leader, if he was the leader. “Tell your friend that we can negotiate. He needn’t worry. You’ll get what you want.”
The sound of twigs breaking came from somewhere to his left, and he wondered at Koba’s clumsiness. The two men looked to the
source of it and each took a step backward, scanning the area behind them, as a policeman in black, a helmet on his head and a machine gun slung across his chest, came out of the trees behind Hammer. The leader turned to run, but stopped when he met another policeman walking steadily from the other side. His friend, behind Hammer now, still pressing the gun to his head, twisted round and began to back away from the police.
Hammer heard movement behind him, and a short flat roar that seemed to pitch him forward with great force, and then he was on the ground, his face pressed into the wet stone by the heavy arm of the big man, who had fallen at the same time and now lay half across him. He was conscious of a fiery, metallic smell, and pain in his neck, and a strange warmth in the rain on his cheek. Without knowing why, he wanted it gone. Using his legs against the weight, he pushed the man’s arm aside to wipe away the water, and stared for a moment at the red wash on his palm.
In panic, his body wild with revulsion, he scrabbled at the stone, crawled out from under the body, and rolled away. The big man was sprawled on his front beside him, his eye and cheekbone smashed and black with thick blood.
The rest of his face was pale and wet and bright in the growing dark. He made no sound. His remaining eye had lost focus on the stone, and the light had gone from it.
The fiery smell came through the rain. From the trees two more policemen emerged, the stocks of their guns braced against their shoulders, still training their sights on the dead man and ignoring Hammer and the leader, who had his hands raised in front of him and a look of bewilderment in his eyes. No one said anything; but for the burst of the gun, the scene played out in silence. Hammer, a shrill tone in his ears and nothing but noise in his head, turned away to look elsewhere, to make sense of what he had seen. Another man was now in front of him, the detective from the police station who had interviewed him on the first night. He held the briefcase in one hand. What are you doing here? Hammer wanted to ask, but simply watched as the detective closed a pair of handcuffs over his wrists.
TWENTY-FOUR
The sight of Vekua in the doorway made no sense to him. His mind was still in the park, reeling from the noise of the gun, collapsing under the weight of the corpse. All the questions he would have coolly addressed on another’s behalf had barely been framed: how the police had found him, why they had fired the shot, for whose benefit the whole thing had taken place. How his simple task had come to be so deadly, and so crazed.
The Searcher Page 21
