‘My guess is she chose you because she knows you’re capable and she trusts you. The operation went wrong. Have you got back to her?’
Rake showed him the message: On it. Where you? There had been no reply.
‘Leave it like that for a few minutes while we track the phone.’ Lucas jerked his thumb toward the door of the room. ‘There may be a connection between what went down in Moscow and the attempt on your life. I’m going to ask you questions about what happened in Norway which you are authorized to answer.’ Lucas handed Rake a note on the letterhead of the brigadier-general of the Alaska National Guard, instructing him to work with Congressman Lucas and brief him on the Norway operation. Whyte had failed to produce a similar note.
‘You and Detective Wekstatt have flown in from Kirkenes in Norway. Is that correct?’ said Lucas.
‘It is.’
‘Did you cross into Russia with the Norwegian police to retrieve a reindeer carcass?’
‘Correct.’
‘And you were with police inspector Nilla Carsten?’
‘Correct.’
‘The same day you were summoned to Washington for the panel?’
‘Correct.’
‘How long had your visit to Kirkenes been scheduled?’
‘Not long. I was redeploying from Afghanistan. You never know exactly when you’re going to get out.’
‘With Detective Wekstatt?’
‘Correct. He was already there on secondment to the Norwegian Police Service.’
‘Were you on a mission?’
‘It was vague. Someone was due to be coming across the border. We were to be involved only if called upon. That was it.’
‘When you were in Russia, was any attempt made on your life in any way?’
Lines deepened between Lucas’ brows, as if he knew and Rake’s confirmation would clarify the mess. Rake didn’t read Lucas as a manipulative man. In the Bagram canteen, Lucas had been alone, no entourage, no pomp. Rake told Lucas about the border trip from the crossing to the intervention by the navy helicopter.
‘What’s your take, Major?’
‘A rogue op, sir, which the navy put a stop to. The reindeer had been dumped there.’ He opened his phone again. ‘Then, once the carcass was across the border, we found this.’
Lucas examined the pictures of the severed ear with the unidentified insignia cut inside. ‘Who have you showed this to?’
‘Norwegian intelligence was at the border. Nilla handed over to them. They saw it.’
‘Keep it like that.’
‘Who is the victim?’
‘I don’t know, but someone on our side does. When we step into that room, my authority will be questioned. Everyone will have their own view on the attack here, but they know nothing about Carrie in Moscow or Norway. I need you to have my back.’ He signaled to the military police that they were ready.
‘Then you need to tell me what happened,’ said Rake firmly.
Lucas drew in his lips, lowered his gaze toward the floor, and stayed quiet. The military police saw and didn’t move. Rake helped him out. ‘Not everything, sir, but what we are dealing with.’
‘Carrie is in Moscow because her uncle offered us something,’ said Lucas. ‘He was losing his nerve. She went to help him deliver it. He was shot dead. Carrie is on the run. From what she sent you, it seems she has whatever her uncle was offering. We need to get it. If there is a connection between the attempt on your life here and what happened on the Norway border and in Moscow, we are up against a powerful and dangerous enemy. It might be rogue, might be the Russian state. And that, Major, is why, when we step inside that inter-agency fight-pit of a zoo in there, I need to know you’re with me. You’re the hero of the day. Your voice will carry weight. Even if you have no idea what I am doing, ride with me.’
Moscow
Ruslan Yumatov opened the message on his tablet, and a picture appeared of Josip Milotic’s disfigured body sprawled in snow, streaked with dirt and blood. The fragmented skull was unrecognizable. The message came with an attachment containing the contents of the drive recovered from Semenov’s body. There was only one file, the harmless one that the Americans already knew.
He messaged: ‘How many drives?’
‘One,’ came the reply.
‘On Josip?’
‘Only on the vice-admiral. None on Josip.’
Semenov must have given the drive to Carrie Walker before he died. She would have run.
‘Where is the woman?’
‘We’re searching.’
‘Find her,’ snapped Yumatov. ‘Find her now.’
TWENTY-ONE
Carrie edged through throngs outside St Basil’s Cathedral at the south-east end of Red Square. Tourists stretched in front of her, camera flashes leaping from their phones, capturing sleet, darkness, shapes of Russia’s symbolic buildings, some lit, some shadowed. She maneuvered around tour groups, overhearing snatches of history, yelling or recited through a megaphone, tour guide like politicians on a soap box.
‘If you think the name Red Square comes from Red Communism, you would be wrong,’ shouted a woman, hat off, short gray hair, a Canadian flag held as if a baton. ‘The word is krasnyi, meaning both beautiful and red. It refers to St Basil’s Cathedral here with its nine colorful cupolas.’ She pointed skywards. The dozen heads in her charge followed. ‘See, small bright domes at the top. It is from these and not Lenin’s tomb that we have the name in English of Red Square.’
Carrie broke her step to listen. It was safe. A few minutes. Even if she was being followed, they wouldn’t snatch her here.
‘Excuse me—’ A hand on her elbow. ‘Do you speak English?’ Adrenalin shot through her like a tidal wave. A guy, twenties, straggly brown hair under a woolen hat. American accent. Dark-blue down jacket.
Carrie stopped. Yes, I speak English along with a thousand other people around. Why me?
‘This is Red Square, right?’ He had a map, one in every hotel foyer. He took a step toward her. ‘Is Lenin’s Mausoleum around here anywhere?’ He unfolded more of the map, spreading it in the air as if Carrie should hold a corner.
She didn’t. She thumbed behind her. ‘Lenin is down on the left, straight across from that big shopping arcade. It’ll be on your map.’
‘I’m dyslexic. I have trouble with maps.’ He smiled, cheeky, immature, on the road, strange place, fired up, hitting on her a bit. Alan Scott was friendly, relaxed, murderous, killed her uncle a few hours ago. She pointed toward a huddle of German tourists. ‘Find one of these groups with English. Tag along and you’ll hear all about Lenin and his tomb.’
As if on cue, an Irish-sounding guide strode past with a group. ‘Immerse yourself in the wonders of Russia’s vibrant Red Square—’
‘There you go,’ said Carrie. ‘Enjoy,’ she shouted, loud enough to turn heads, eyes on him for her protection. She walked quickly away, her stomach rippling, her tongue dried with fear, weaving through. She glanced back to check he wasn’t following. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anyone dangerous. But how would she know?
She spotted familiar dark green canopies at the northern end of a McDonald’s store and headed there, realizing how much she craved familiarity. A PTSD therapist once told Carrie she had a fear of things collapsing because of what happened to the Soviet Union when she was child. That was why she was drawn to unstable places, but within that she sought out familiarity, like right now, a McDonald’s.
She bought a coffee and took an inside gray plastic seat far from the door. She wanted to be warm, to see who was coming in, and she needed Wi-Fi. Her best cover, until she thought of something better, would be her people, doctors, nurses, medics. Overhearing trauma talk would give her a sense of safety and, if she found the right place, there might be someone she knew, whom she had worked with in a shithole, who could help her get out of Russia.
The Sklifosovsky Clinical and Research Institute for Emergency Medicine was the best in Russia. It was a couple of miles north and
she could walk. Carrie sipped her coffee, clicking through the forums and social media pages until she found the cafe where trauma staff hung out after shifts, a penthouse roof top, flaming torches, long bar, young clientele, her kind of people.
She stood up and glanced up at a television screen showing flashing ambulance lights and gurneys from a shooting in Washington, DC. She hadn’t looked at the news since she arrived. A group of Americans began to speak loudly about gun control. She hooked her bag over her shoulder, took a step away from her seat, then turned back as if she had left something behind to check that no one had got up to leave with her. All seemed normal. She moved aside at the door for a gaggle of Chinese tourists, stepped out, and let the door close.
She walked quickly, breathing deep and focusing. She was a fucking doctor. She needed to stay calm. She reached the Bolshoi Theater, grand columns lit up yellow and white, like a palace, limousines pulling up, exhausts clouding the air.
She kept up the fast pace. Afternoon shift at the Sklifosovsky Institute ended at six thirty. Time to change and head out would be half an hour, maybe less. She would get there around seven. She checked her phone. Nothing more from Rake. Who else to call? Her mother would flip. Her father would blame Russia. Her sister would try to help, but by the book, which could be lethal. Angie’s street wisdom wasn’t great. She spotted the bar with the flashing yellow sign Врачи-кафе, Doctors’ Cafe, in a shabby, paint-peeled building a block from the hospital on Prospekt Mira. A red and green laser logo danced on the frozen sidewalk. Two torch flames flanked the doorway. A hat-check girl offered to take her coat. Carrie kept it, refused the lift, climbed five flights of chipped concrete stairs to the roof where arcs of warmth from gas heaters mixed with icy night air.
Just inside a door alcove, she eyed trauma bags in the corner, left like briefcases in a cloakroom, heavy duty kit, that would contain blood-clotters, intravenous drips, tourniquets with buckles, and powerful drugs. She had called it right, a place for serious medics. There was a bar, glasses and bottles reflected in its polished stainless steel, with stools and small tables. She saw no barman. White muslin curtains hung from the ceiling to separate the bar area from a dining room. No one there, either. Another space by a white brick fireplace with comfortable white chairs, chess and backgammon tables. Empty, too. Further in there was low lounge jazz music and conversation buzz, more commentary and argument, far from the relaxed unwinding bar-room medic conversation she had expected. About forty people, some in paramedic tunics, mostly jeans and leather or denim jackets, clustered around a television screen on the wall.
‘We need to nail him,’ said a woman at the back, pausing from drawing a cocktail through a straw. ‘Whatever it takes.’
‘Yeah, but not like this,’ answered a young guy next to her.
‘Crazy,’ came a remark from somewhere in the middle.
‘Mad fucking world.’
Carrie edged in far enough to see a news network with slowed footage, images enlarged, music and commentary embedded. Then what she came face to face with made her breath tighten. Muscles clenched around her jaw. She made sure she was seeing it right as she watched a close-up shot of Rake Ozenna kill a man by plunging a knife into his eye. The network played and replayed the same footage. It moved to widescreen. A few seconds earlier, Rake’s victim jumping onto a stage in what looked like a conference hall. An elderly man, spectacles perched on his nose, gray hair wisped across his head, sitting at a long table collapsed. The footage slowed to show a gunshot wound to his head. It ringed someone in the audience with a cane or a rifle.
‘What do you think?’ A barman wiped the surface with a cloth. Strength draining, Carrie perched on a stool.
‘I’ve just walked in. What’s happened?’
‘That shootout in Washington. They say it was a Russian TV crew. Some conference. But the American soldier on the stage, he’s the one who murdered our people on the Alaskan border. Remember?’
‘Kind of. Do you have a Coke?’ She needed to keep her sugar levels up.
He took a bottle from the cooler, snapped off its top, and poured into a glass for Carrie. ‘Three dead. Two from the TV crew and a professor.’
Carrie bought out money. He waved his hand; on the house, bad day for everyone. The screen now showed footage of Diomede. A still shot of Rake, eyes almost invisible under folded lids making him look cruel. Then. Fuck! One of her. The fiancée. Turning as she climbed into a helicopter. Another in a business suit on a panel in Moscow. Dr Carrie Walker. Father and mother Soviet citizens. She lifted her scarf to cover more of her face. Relax, Carrie. She wouldn’t be recognized. There were young blondes everywhere in Russia. What now? The day her uncle gets murdered, someone takes aim at Rake. In medicine, coincidences were present in everything that could go wrong. The news show switched to a live a shot on a Moscow street, the suave figure of the Foreign Minister, Sergey Grizlov.
‘Many senior figures are calling for us to act on Major Ozenna,’ said the anchor. ‘Your view, Foreign Minister.’
‘Terrible, terrible situation. My thoughts are with all the families of those who lost their lives.’ Grizlov flattened the lapels of his overcoat, stern-faced for a stern occasion, a big man in Russia. Some wanted him dead, some wanted him President, like the two graffiti guys with the green spray paint outside the Intercontinental. ‘I must be clear, however, that nothing justifies an attack like this.’
‘Ozenna murdered our people with impunity. How can Russia allow him to be free? If we had acted earlier, they would have been no reason to—’
‘Russia operates under the rule of law—’
‘Screw you, Grizlov,’ said the barman. He held two glasses, dripping with water, a dishcloth over his wrist, eyes burning onto the screen. There was real anger in the room, the type that led to no good place.
A woman in a paramedic jacket pushed back from the group towards the bar. ‘The Americans kill people all the time. If we had dealt with him back then, this would never have happened.’
‘But Grizlov’s right. You can’t just send a hit squad to—’
‘Why not?’ snapped the barman.
A bar stool next to Carrie scraped back and a gloved hand fell on her shoulder.
TWENTY-TWO
Carrie didn’t move. The glove was new. Carrie smelt leather. It stayed on her shoulder. She had no idea what to do. You thought you were hardened. You keep your heart rate steady and your nerves in line. Others sweat and tremble. But you are the doctor. You have seen it all, the unexpected, the violent, the hopeless. In the past hours Carrie had become like a nut in a clamp, sides moving in on her until the shell held no more and it cracked.
She steadied herself. At the edge of her line of sight lay medics arguing around the television screen. On the other side was the doorway, but too far, too much time to get there. In front of her was the barman, alert, seeing a new customer. Carrie raised her hand to bring him over faster.
The scarf came down, hazel-green eyes, a curl of short dark hair, a thin looped silver earing, squat nose, a sharp, jutting chin, all of which she might have not recognized without the down-to-earth confidence that enveloped all of that. ‘Steph?’
‘It’s me.’
‘What—’ She signaled the barman to hold back. ‘I mean how—’
‘I’ve a car downstairs.’
A binary decision. Go with Stephanie Lucas who had a lethal leak in her network or stay in a place where half the room seemed to want to kill her ex-fiancé and her own face was being paraded on news networks.
A black Mercedes SUV was parked outside, engine on, driver waiting. A bodyguard opened the back door for them. Carrie got in behind Stephanie. ‘I need your phone, ma’am.’ He had dark closely shorn hair, a square narrow head. Carrie shot Stephanie a glance.
‘Carrie, meet Craig Slaughden, my principal protection officer,’ said Stephanie. ‘Do what he says.’
Carrie’s hand was deep in her coat pocket, fingers curled around the phone which carrie
d the screenshots she had sent to Rake. She shook her head. ‘No, Steph. You have a problem with security—’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’ Stephanie took off her gloves. Her tone was low and cool. Slaughden remained on the sidewalk, door open, left hand on the top rim, right hand ready to take the phone, eyes watching around him.
‘Once we’re safe.’ She sounded defensive.
Stephanie replied softly, confident of her control. ‘The thing about burner phones is that you use them and dump them. You used a Russian burner phone to send an email to Rake Ozenna, but you didn’t dump it and that is how we found you and that is how your enemies will find you.’
Carrie knew her argument had been weak, and Stephanie’s was strong and right. She handed the phone to Slaughden, who stripped it, flipped out the battery, dropped it on the sidewalk, stamped on it with the heel of his boot, and kicked it into the gutter. He got in and closed the door.
‘Sorry,’ said Carrie. ‘I was stupid.’
Stephanie pulled down an armrest for them to share. ‘Being stupid might have saved your life. It’s the only way we found you.’
Carrie buckled the seat belt. They were separated from the front by a transparent screen, like in a New York taxi. There was a click as the doors locked internally. Carrie held back saying anything. She didn’t like being locked into a car. They pulled out. Headlights from a vehicle behind swept across the back window. A second chase car followed.
‘We’re going to the residence. It’ll take about half an hour.’ Stephanie wore a world’s gone to shit look. She pulled off her hat, shook loose her hair, and ran her hand back through it. She patted the fur hat on her lap and shrugged. ‘I can tell you what I know. Except I’m not sure what I know.’
‘Try me,’ said Carrie. ‘Who was Alan Scott? Where are Harry’s watchers who were meant to be looking out for me?’
Man on Edge Page 11
