Posie wore a blouse, a short full skirt and sandals. Her hair was tied back with an elastic band and her jewellery was ear-studs and a chain with a small crucifix. They took each item off her, then loosed her hair. She was left with the studs and the chain. She should have hidden herself and run, but she was rooted to the spot. Eventually they turned away. One slapped Jonno’s back, the other clutched his hand. The one who had the pistol at his waist said – heavy accent – that he should leave the engine running, then drive a long way. They took the Mercedes and closed the gates. Jonno was beaming.
‘I was right,’ she said.
‘What do you mean? Hey, get ready, we’re going out.’
‘I was right yesterday.’
‘About what.’
‘When I said we were watched. It was them.’
He shook his head, bemused. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘They spied on us. They know what I look like, all of me. Just then, it was like they undressed me. Jonno, I hate this place.’
The envelope was hand-delivered. It was put on the table in front of the man and Dottie said, again, that it was personal, from Winnie Monks, and the man nodded as if to say, again, that he had heard her the first time. Dottie assumed he would open it, read it and make some sort of comment. It was rare for her to be outside the loop, but she had no idea what Winnie had written. It had been given to her the previous evening, and the address was scrawled in the Boss’s unruly handwriting. She had travelled north by train, from London to Leamington Spa, in the South Midlands, and had been driven in a taxi to a factory. She was on a trading estate and the building was identified by a number attached to a board wired on to the security fence. The taxi waited outside the gate and she’d been admitted by a pantomime security man – heavy, shaven-headed, scowling. Dottie, who was small and slim, would have reckoned to throw him first go – she’d done the unarmed-combat stuff at Lippitts Hill. She didn’t see the factory floor, and the room she was escorted to had a calendar on one wall with a picture of Scottish moorland, no other decoration.
Two jobs, one completed. The letter lay unopened in front of the man.
She had been told what question to ask, but the contents of the letter had not been confided. Army, and pretty bloody obvious, an officer, with blond hair, one of those checked shirts, cord trousers and a sports jacket hooked on the back of his chair.
She read her question, as Winnie had dictated it.
‘There was a Russian officer, probably KGB, in Afghanistan in the mid-eighties, Petar Alexander Borsonov. He’s missing the right-hand index finger. What do you know?’
‘Is he with two others?’
‘Two others who have the same injury or had the same surgery.’
‘He’s a legend.’
‘Facts, please – it’s not a talent show.’
The man she guaranteed had once been an officer said, ‘A little less sarcasm, Miss, or you’ll be going back to big Winnie with your notebook empty. If I say he’s a legend, then that is what he is. My opinion is relevant. I’ll do you a favour – and Winnie will back me. Speak when you’re spoken to. Do you know about anti-tank weapons?’
‘Not much.’ A confession.
‘Less than “not much” about Soviet era anti-tank weapons?’
‘Less than “not much”. I have a taxi out there with the clock ticking.’
‘It’s called SPG-9. The Russian word for it is kopje, and our translation is Spear. It’s a recoilless anti-tank gun.’
‘Does that answer my question?’ Dottie made a virtue of confrontation.
‘In a fashion. It was a recoilless weapon that recoiled and took his finger off.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Which was the start of the legend.’
‘I’m hearing you.’
He said, ‘It’s a fighting man’s story, one that makes a legend of a man. A Ukrainian brigadier told me, some NATO conference. We were talking about Afghanistan and men fighting to their last breath to avoid capture.’
‘Keep going.’
‘He was KGB, a major, and he worked with two juniors. His job was to get to forward units and evaluate the reliability of the front-line troops. That’s not a desk job. They’d been brought in by helicopter to a platoon-sized position. It was crap, the wire was poor, the trenches hadn’t been dug deep enough, and the sandbags weren’t filled. They were due to be there overnight and picked up the following afternoon. The attack came with the dawn. The platoon’s lieutenant was killed straight off. If the Major hadn’t been there the whole lot would have gone. They’d have been overwhelmed. The only weapon that would keep the bastards back was the one recoilless rifle they’d been issued. It’s a thirty-calibre job, fired off a tripod, and chucks a three-pound projectile. It’s an anti-tank weapon, so it would be devastating against machine-gunners or a mortar team. One of his NCOs fired it first, finger inside a trigger guard, top joint doing the pressure. It kicked and the top of his finger was gone. The next guy did it with the same result. The major took over. He knew what was coming, just did it, and by that time the bastards were swarming forward. First shot took his index finger at the top joint, and the second shot took the stump off at the lower joint. He kept firing and could just get leverage on what was left of his index. The kick came each time. There would have been a way to fire with the trigger and not use a finger – string or a stick – but this was near hand-to-hand fighting and only that weapon kept the mujahideen off them. He saved most of the platoon. How you doing, Miss?’
‘Fine.’
‘The choppers came in. They had gunships to suppress more attacks and the garrison was bolstered with reinforcements. The major and his guys were flown out and brought the thing with them. There was a colonel at the base where they landed who made the usual platitudes about “heroic defence” and was cut off in full flow. He had the mutilated finger waved in his face and was told that the batch of those weapons was “shit”. He suggested the colonel might care to fire it himself if he didn’t believe it. The story went round the whole of the army stationed out there.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yes. I’ll tell you something else, Miss. That’s the story of a fighting man and a leader. Could be Russian or American or Vietnamese or British, but a man who’ll be followed. If I was nineteen and a conscript, I’d give my right ball to be close to a man like that when the killing started. What’s the interest in him? Where is he now?’
Dottie said, heading for the door, ‘I’ve no idea.’
He was home. The mayor was at the airport, with his wife and three principals from the Pskov city council. He was given flowers. His hand – the one with the amputated finger – was shaken vigorously and he was kissed on each cheek. His wife stood back with his two daughters. The Major did the perfunctory handshakes, hugs and cheek brushing, then strode to his family and held them close.
He had been away from Pskov for only thirteen days, but it was usual for a welcoming committee to gather with Irina and the children. He had scrubbed well that morning before boarding the aircraft for the last leg of the journey back to the dank north-west of Russia and snow was in the air. He had stood under a shower and lathered his body with soap so that the smell of the woman left in Constanta had sluiced away down the drain. His wife was the daughter of a KGB general. The Major had learned over the years that a general, however long retired, never relinquished intense networking skills. He would screw his wife that night with enthusiasm. He would give her the earrings and she would thank him for them – she rarely wore jewellery and would pass them on to her daughters. If they went to the smarter soirées of the Pskov élite they would take turns to wear them.
His men hovered behind him.
There were, of course, no Customs formalities.
The plane was unloaded by ground staff and their bags taken from the hatch. The two pilots now had forty-eight hours to themselves. The Major doubted they would choose to spend their time in Pskov, but was indifferent to what they and the Gecko
did before they left again.
He beamed, smiled, thanked all who had come to meet him. He was a big man here.
His gallantry in a forward fire base had been rewarded with the Medal for Valour; the same had been presented to Grigoriy and Ruslan. It was hardly a unique award: more than four and a half million had been given out in the last seventy years. The Gecko had found that statistic and told him it equated to more than six thousand five hundred a year, or one hundred and thirty a week. Once he had worn it with a pride, but now it was in a drawer at home, abandoned. The Gecko had told him that a German or American dealer would likely pay $59 US for it. The medal had not saved him, or the others, from the cull in 1992.
Leaving the barracks, one girl already born, Irina seven months pregnant, and a dog abandoned behind them, had seemed the worst day of his life – harsher than anything Afghanistan had thrown at him – but it had been the making of him. Wherever they were, he, Grigoriy and Ruslan now drank champagne on the day the Committee of State Security had put them on the street. He was vastly wealthy, but wary.
That evening he would be fed kolbasa. She would have made it yesterday, worked hard in the kitchen to prepare it. Irina always produced that meal on his return: slices of beef and pork with cognac, pepper and garlic, with the beasts’ minced stomachs to line the sausage; it was cooked for five or six hours. The next evening he would have smetana, soured thick cream, on his borshch. He would say that no one made the soup as well as his wife, and she would glow with pleasure. He acknowledged the connections of his marriage and always had. He was careful. His great fear was that he would lose the patronage that protected him, gave him the roof over his head. A change of government in Moscow, of influence in St Petersburg, the march of time, the death of a prominent figure in the siloviki, who were from the ranks of the old KGB and the new FSB – any such event could strip him of safety. He dreaded power slipping away.
He did not challenge the state. He did what was asked him by the siloviki. He killed for them, trafficked for them and paid dues. He smuggled for the profits that filled their bank accounts in Liechtenstein, Grand Cayman, Belize, Gibraltar and Vanuatu in the Pacific. He aided the laundering. If he lost protection, had no roof and the skies were open to him, he might get as far as South Africa and find a haven, or the Israelis might take him if large deposits went to the Bank of Israel. More likely he would end his life in a ditch or gutter. The men who had armed guards with them did not know how the guards would react if the moment came, or if the guards themselves would pose the threat. He knew the stories of prominent people killed by their guards, but never talked of them with Grigoriy or Ruslan. It was said that the tsars of Imperial Russia had feared their sons, but he had only daughters.
He heard a hacking cough behind him.
He allowed his hand to fall from his wife’s arm.
He called to the Gecko, ‘Take care of that chest. Keep warm. Swallow some medicine.’
The boy had coughed badly on the flight . . .
The mayor told him that lunch was prepared in the tax-collection unit offices. It was the basis of his local power: he had the franchise to collect taxation on property, goods and income in the Pskov region. It paid well.
He walked to the cars. He had come home and felt secure.
A room was kept for Natan across a footbridge from the Kremlin of Pskov. It was his own, so his computers were there and his workbench. There were times when he was brought back to the city and did not venture out for three or four days. He’d have food in his fridge, the blinds would be down at the windows and he would hack at fire-walls, probe defences.
There, in his room, he was supreme.
Later, when darkness came and the dull lights gleamed off the city’s rivers and the puddles on the damaged streets, he would go down to the Internet café on Ulitsa Pushkina, close to the church of St Nicholas of Usokha. There he would be greeted as a deity, a figure of awe to the kids who smoked dope, sometimes injected themselves, had no work and had run from the round-up for conscription. His back arched as he coughed.
His throat hurt and he was sweating. The temperature outside would be a degree below freezing. He had never been ill since the Major had picked him up in Kaliningrad. He would go, however he felt, to the Internet café, to talk, smoke, eat a little, and be heard with respect. It was not the state of his chest that had bred the uncertainty, but the Major’s reaction to it.
The Gecko had been spoken to kindly. The Major had shown concern and sympathy. He had been almost like a parent, certainly like an uncle; he had seemed to care.
He had betrayed the Major and become a traitor to him. Natan could picture the girl, see her crystal clear. He could hear the crisp, college-taught Russian she had used and the intonation of her English. He had thought her a bully. She had bled him. The proof of her existence was in the rucksack he had carried off the plane, the mobile phone – one of seven – on which he had made a scratch with his fingernail for recognition. Hidden beneath the password key was the directory and the single entry, Echo Zulu. There had, of course, been the other girl. He had caught her name – had heard it spoken softly by her escort. She had been Liz . . . kinder, softer, not like the stone-faced bitch in the Constanta café. Liz had been prettier and— He convulsed with the coughing. Each time he retched he was reminded of the Major’s concern for him, the warmth.
But it was done. He didn’t know how it could be undone.
‘They won’t show an iota of interest. Sorry and all that.’
She stood her ground, staring back at him. It must have amused him because a lukewarm smile spread across his face. He had said, when they met, that his name was Dawson.
‘They have little respect for us and – most definitely – don’t want us highlighting their problems with organised crime. You see, Winnie – may I call you that? – they don’t enjoy being bad-mouthed round Europe as the prime entry point for drugs, girls, guns, whatever. Would you get co-operation? I doubt it. I’m sorry you’ve come a long way when a five-minute telephone conversation would have yielded the same result.’
So, her appearance was rubbish. She had wasted her time and his. A message fired from the hip. ‘Do the magistrates and the National Police, that is the UDyCO unit and the Civil Guard, want our help in clearing out their criminal gangs on the Costa? Winnie, that coastline, with all the jerry-built empty apartment blocks, is about the only part of Spain that still has money flushing through the economy. It hardly matters that it’s black money. There’s vulgar wealth down there and that’s how they want to keep it.’
She thought Dawson was about forty. He was sleek, athletic, and close-shaven, with short fair hair. He wore a good suit, a camel coat, and a soft cashmere scarf. He was the station chief, sent by the superior bastards across the bridge from Thames House. She doubted he ever needed to hurry. He was seldom flustered and was good at whatever he attempted. He had probably labelled her a ‘dreary little trollop’. They were in a park, and it was cold. There was an ugly monument to Alfonso XII, and a boating lake in front of it, with one family bravely rowing its length. Kenny and Xavier had found a café and were out of the wind. She had expected to be at the embassy in a warm room, looked after.
‘They do some window dressing – the occasional arrest of a corrupt little mayor, a policeman on the take or a celebrity trying to buy planning permission by a beach – and they come to the organised-crime conferences throughout Europe and make good presentations. It’s vaudeville. They don’t see that coastline as having been destroyed by the building projects. They’re just thankful that some money is still there. Where it comes from is immaterial.’
He had nice hands and a good voice. She imagined an elegant wife would be shut away in an apartment somewhere in the city, preparing a seating plan and a dinner-party menu. She was buggered if she’d take it lying down. She curled a lip.
She said quietly, so that he had to listen carefully, ‘I’m not going to brawl with you over the importance to us of this. He was our
man and he died in the field. I will not have it from you that we’re interfering in your sovereign territory and should go home with our tails between our legs for using up your valuable time. Fuck you, Dawson. I want to hear about non-co-operation from a local and I expect you to fix it. Get on your phone, please.’
Dawson laughed. ‘Of course. There’s a lesson I’ve learned here, Winnie. To find a solution to a problem you don’t sit on your hands and wait for it to come to you . . .’
‘. . . you chase after it.’
His fingers went into an inner pocket. He did not bring out his mobile but produced a single sheet of folded paper and passed it her. Then he walked away. Winnie read. The bloody man had played with her. His guy had been on the coast, had done the leg work, had reported in. Dawson had kept it back until the end.
She folded the paper, shoved it into her bag. She called Caro at Thames House and told her what she wanted done.
Dawson came back to her as a jogger lurched past clutching a water-bottle. He said they could meet a man the next morning. She’d manage that, but would be out by the afternoon.
How would she kill the time till then? He didn’t offer to show her the sights or take her to a restaurant.
Winnie said she’d start by tramping the Gran Via, and spoke of a boy called Emrys, from a mining town up a valley, born ninety-five years ago. She had his interest. There would have been something in her face that exuded the confidence, the leadership, that Kenny and Xavier, Caro Watson, Dottie, the camp followers, ‘occasionals’ and ‘associates’ treasured.
‘We all knew about him at school. He was Emrys the Brigade. He was almost nineteen when he left the town – he’d been down the pit for four years then. He left his home in the Merthyr road and half the town were at the station to wave to him and wish him well. He went to Spain, joined up with the British part of the International Brigade as a soldier against Fascism. He would have received fuck-all training but plenty of lecturing in Marxist-Leninism. It was when the Madrid front was under pressure. The first troops of the International Brigade were the only reserve left. They were a rag-tag army, not all of them had rifles, and this boy was with them. They went up the Gran Via and people lined that street to cheer them. They went straight into the line at the Caso del Campo and pushed the Fascists back. The city was saved. We learned that at primary school. I knew it before I was six. Emrys the Brigade died that night. I’ll walk up the Gran Via for a start, and hope to get the rest in tomorrow, around the meeting.’
The Outsiders Page 12
