by Henry Porter
They dined on Irina’s stew and drank her family’s wine. Luka decided to remain in Pudnik, so it was the five of them, each one of whom must, in some way, be remembering when they were all together before. But no one brought it up, and Naji and she were certainly not anxious to discuss the other drama in their shared history – Narva Bridge.
She watched Naji closely, remembering his ability as a boy to lie and deceive. He’d look you in the face and say he wouldn’t dream of breaking out of the camp and straight away go and do precisely that. From his time being driven round in the back of a pickup by some of the most depraved individuals in ISIS, he had learned to shut down, suspend all scruples and judgement. He survived by denial and by internalising the most dreadful things any human, let alone a young boy, could witness. If Naji didn’t want to tell you something, there was never a way of getting it out of him. But she had to make him talk. Their survival depended on it.
After dinner they went to sit on the narrow sheltered walkway outside, and Anastasia accepted one of Darko’s cigarettes, much to Naji’s disgust. Darko hobbled off to get slivovitz and Ifkar went down to feed the puppies.
She smoked and looked at him without saying anything. He shifted uncomfortably, but she kept silent. She finished the cigarette and took her time stubbing it out, all the while looking at him. Then she smiled. ‘Berlin Blue Pitch Black, Pearl Grey Saffron . . . do you want me to go on?’
He said nothing.
‘Oh, come on, Naj! Samson found these names on a whiteboard in London. They were in Denis’s briefcase, too. Samson saw you in the building, for fuck’s sake!’
This surprised him, but he didn’t react. ‘Naji, I was there when they tried to kill Denis and murdered his lawyer. Denis was probably about to tell the committee something, and you know what it is. Come on, spit it out.’
‘I cannot speak about it now.’
She was angry and let him see it. ‘This is no game. I need to know what you’ve been doing. Do you want me killed? Samson, too?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I have to know. Will you come with me to Estonia tomorrow?’
He gave her one of his withering looks. ‘I am going for Mr Harland’s funeral – yes. I have a ticket.’
‘To Tallinn from Skopje via Belgrade tomorrow?’
‘Of course – this is only way.’
‘Good, then we will travel together.’ Naji gave her a look that suggested he had been asked to escort an elderly maiden aunt. She ignored his reaction, because something had just occurred to her. ‘Was Denis giving you money?’
‘Of course, I have to pay for my family.’ Naji was an entrepreneur. He had started several businesses – mending telephones and selling vegetables and second-hand trainers from a cart in Syria – all to help his family. He would have driven a hard bargain for his services, and Denis would have approved of that and the way he’d kept everything going for the Toumas after his father had been effectively disabled by the Syrian-government torturers. ‘Did you meet my husband?’ she said suddenly.
A sly little look entered his eyes. ‘Yes, down there,’ he said, pointing to where the old barn had stood.
‘Stop it! Stop thinking you can play me, Naj. Did you meet Denis when he visited Robert Harland in Tallinn? Were you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you three made the plans together, but you were the one who was finding the evidence for them. You were their main investigator. What were you doing, hacking someone’s system?’ It was as if she wasn’t even talking. ‘You know, you can be pretty rude, Naji. You have quite an attitude there.’
‘I do not mean to offend,’ he said, more as a matter of fact than an apology. His attention had gone to the yard, where the puppies were being exercised before being shut up for the night. ‘You lead such different lives now, you at the university and Ifkar here on the farm with all the animals.’
He turned to face her. ‘Our lives are not so different. He lives under the stars. I live amongst them.’
‘It’s corny, but I like it,’ she said. His gaze returned to Ifkar, who had run into the centre of the yard and stood with his hands on his hips, looking north towards the distant glow of Pudnik. On one of the tracks that led to the farm, the lights from a single vehicle were moving slowly and gingerly, as if the driver didn’t know the way, or was worried about the ruts. It wasn’t Luka, because he’d phoned earlier to say he would eat in town and see Anastasia at seven the next morning. Ifkar backed towards the steps and came up to where they were sitting, never losing sight of the lights. He spoke rapidly to Naji, who said, ‘Ifkar thinks you’ve been followed here. He knows you are in danger. I told him.’
‘Maybe you, too, Naji.’
‘Not possible. They do not know about Naji Touma.’
Ifkar brushed past them and seconds later returned with a new hunting rifle that was fitted with a telescopic sight and a small magazine. He raised it to watch the vehicle through the scope and muttered to himself. Now Darko was on the walkway, brandishing an older rifle and a handgun. Irina emerged with a fierce look on her face and, although she was the worse for wear after dinner, he handed her the pistol. They waited for Ifkar to speak, which, presently, he did. He thought there were other people than the driver in the car but couldn’t be sure. He consulted Darko and it was agreed that he would go and take a closer look. He moved down the steps, pocketing a second magazine, told Moon to stay and crossed the yard to vanish into the darkness behind the stables. Darko began turning off lights while Irina descended to the yard and also disappeared. Anastasia wondered if they had worked out a drill; they all seem to know what they were doing. A few minutes passed, then three shots rang out in the distance. Darko murmured that they came from Ifkar’s rifle. That was the way he always fired: bang, bang – pause – bang. He had killed three wild boar last autumn, always the same pattern to his shooting. An incredible shot, an absolute natural, said Darko, and relit the cigarette that rested on the railing in front of him. They waited: more shots and the car’s lights went out. Then there was some wild shooting, with as many as thirty rounds loosed off, but not from Ifkar’s rifle, Darko stated. He would conserve his ammunition.
They waited for a further twenty minutes, then there was shouting and a single shot. Irina appeared in the yard, still illuminated by one light on the end of the new barn. She was in a state of considerable excitement. ‘Ifkar has prisoners!’ she shouted up to her husband. Then Ifkar appeared, his face and hands blackened with mud, prodding two burly men at the end of his rifle.
‘Srbijci,’ he told them. Serbians. He dropped two handguns, one equipped with a silencer, on to the broken stone of the yard, and Irena picked them up and waved them in the faces of the two men with a bloodthirsty yell. At that moment there was a distant crump as their vehicle blew up. Ifkar had stuffed the petrol tank with a piece of cloth and lit it, Darko deduced with enormous pride. Naji caught the drift of what he was saying and applauded his friend.
‘We need to find out who they are and why they’re here,’ Anastasia said. The two men reminded her of the pair that had kidnapped her on a country road in southern Italy – street thugs who would turn their hand to anything for not much money. They were nothing like a professional hit team. They had announced their arrival, botched the approach to the farm, and then the driver, who must also have been armed, had fled when Ifkar shot out his tyres. And yet there was no doubt in Anastasia’s mind that they would have killed everyone at the farm without the slightest hesitation.
The men were pushed into the barn. Anastasia was concerned that the old lady, now moving the pistol casually from one hand to the other, could be enjoying herself rather too much and might get carried away with the two Serbs. She went down with Naji. As they crossed the yard, she said, ‘Maybe you should hold back. I don’t want them to see you.’
She went into the barn, followed by Irina, to find Ifkar holding
the gun to the belly of one of the men and cuffing him about the head. She and Ifkar had no common language, but she said in Greek to Irina, ‘Are we going to do this? Here, on the very spot where Ifkar himself was tortured? Really! Is that what we do now?’ Ifkar understood and stepped back. ‘Let’s ask these gentlemen in their own language why they are here,’ she said to Darko, who spoke Serbian.
He tried a few questions, but nothing was forthcoming, until Moon, who had pursued her master into the darkness after Ifkar had left, bounded into the barn and started barking at the men. The dog’s docile nature made you forget what a big, powerful animal she was, and both men concluded that she was about to be set on them. The smaller of the two, who had ear studs and wore a training jacket with stripes up the arms, said he would tell them all he knew, which wasn’t very much, as long as the dog was removed.
Moon was locked up with her puppies by Irina, but before Darko recommenced with his questions Anastasia asked him to wait a few moments while she went outside. On the incline at the top end of the yard, where there was good reception, she dialled a number. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Samson when he answered. ‘I know it’s late, but I need your advice. I have two Serb gunmen here who were on the way to the farm – yes, that farm – to kill me, or Naji, or both of us. Ifkar, who turns out to be quite the dab hand with a rifle, captured them, but one escaped. Before we hand them over to the police in Pudnik, are there any questions I should ask them?’
‘You’re with Naji at the farm! How the hell did you wind up there? Frankly, I’d rather you ask Naji what his involvement is.’
‘I have – he won’t say. I’ll get it out of him, though. What do we want to know from these men?’
‘You’ve got limited time, because their partner will raise the alarm.’ Samson was coming to and focusing. ‘Mention a man named Oret. He’s dead, but it will surprise them that you know about him. Then drop the name Stepurin into the conversation. Ask them if they were hired by Anatoly Stepurin.’ He told her what he knew of Stepurin then said, ‘Of course, the million-dollar question, which you rightly put your finger on, is are they there to kill you or Naji?’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah. The CIA would really like to talk to them before you hand them over to the local police. I’ll fix that for you and give them the coordinates of the farm. But you need to get out of there long before Toombs arrives. I don’t think they know about Naji. Let’s keep it that way, even if the other side does know about him.’
‘Toombs – so that’s the name of the man who came to see me in the hospital.’
‘Grey hair, dark moustache, rude manner?’
‘The same.’
‘How’s Denis?’
‘No change,’ she said, dissembling. She hadn’t called in a day.
‘Sorry to hear that. I can’t stress too much that you are both in danger. You need to leave the farm now. Send me a text if you get anything interesting and call if you need to.’
She heard him drop his phone and curse before the line went dead.
The smaller man spoke. Darko translated. They had been hired thirty-six hours before in Belgrade and told to find out if a young Arab man was staying at the farm. If he was there, they were to phone a number for further instructions. They didn’t know his name or what he looked like. They were paid well – €4,000 each. Did this include a fee for a murder? Was this a wet job? Both of them shook their heads vigorously. They were scouting things out – that was all.
Both men were now looking at her; they had judged, correctly, that their fate lay in her hands. ‘We know about Mr Oret because he employed your friends Drasko and Rajavic,’ said Anastasia.
This really surprised them, and they exchanged looks. ‘And we know that Mr Oret was killed, probably by the man who hired you.’ She waited for Darko to translate this and moved a few paces towards them. ‘Anatoly Stepurin,’ she said to the barn, ‘the big man from Cyprus, the Russian who paid you to come here and kill everyone.’
The taller of the two, whose eyebrows met in the middle, shook his head and said in English, ‘No killing, just looking.’ He pointed to his eyes with two fingers.
‘Then why bring guns?’
‘For protection.’
‘You don’t need a silencer for protection. A silencer is for killing.’
They had no answer to this. ‘Thank you for confirming that Mr Stepurin hired you. By the way, do you know who I am?’
They looked blank and shook their heads.
‘I’m the person who just saved you arses. These good people wanted to kill you and bury your bodies in the woods, where they’ll never be found.’ Darko translated and signalled his enthusiastic endorsement. ‘But, instead, some Americans are coming to talk to you. If you answer their questions, they may let you live.’
She nodded to Darko and went to the top of the yard and texted Samson. ‘You scored a bull’s eye with Anatoly,’ she wrote.
He replied, ‘Will tell US friends now. They will come by chopper within 1 hr. Make yourself scarce.’
She wrote, ‘They were going to kill N!’
‘GO NOW!’
She turned to Naji. ‘Samson says we need to leave now. I’ll get Luka up here.’
By the time the helicopter’s lights appeared from the north, they were making their way down to Pudnik, where they would take the road to the Bulgarian border.
Chapter 20
The Peacock
Sometime in the early hours, Harland’s widow, Ulrike, left an envelope containing the key to their cabin on Karu Saar – Bear Island – and a map reference at Samson’s hotel in Tallinn. She’d said nothing on the phone but simply asked where he was staying. He told her, ‘the usual place’, which was a discreet little establishment near the Maritime Museum in the old town, and under the usual name, Norbert Soltesz, a name belonging to a deceased Hungarian national. This was one of Samson’s least developed identities, but consistency was necessary and, recognising the name and face from his visits over the last two and a half years, the manager awarded him an upgrade.
At 8 a.m. he picked up the envelope and walked through the back streets, thinking about Harland. It was odd to be in Tallinn without him. He was immediately drawn to the old spy, though he was remote and as dry as dust and didn’t give a damn whether you liked him or not; he was never interested in saying what he felt, or hearing what others felt. He cherished facts and rigour, not opinion. Only later, as Harland began to trust him, did Samson see the wisdom and humour, but they were never on show, his most pronounced quality being reserve.
At the car-hire outlet in the modern suburbs Samson used the Malek identity and gave the name of another hotel – they’d never check – to acquire a fast little hatchback. He drove west for three hours through forests, huge fields sown with cereal crops and marshlands drained for agriculture that nature was reclaiming. Realising he hadn’t eaten a solid hot meal for a while, he stopped at the only roadside café he saw and ordered sausage with an onion, cabbage and potato mash that had been lightly fried. It was a dish of the cook’s own devising, she told him, and it was the paprika that made the difference. She recommended he wash it down with a particular brand of beer, which he did. He began to feel much better – Samson wasn’t good without food – and found himself in the mood for a cigarette. The cook provided one from a pack of Prima, a Russian brand, left by a couple of gentlemen two days before. He handed the red packet back and asked if there were many Russians still living in the west of Estonia. No, she said, it was just five to ten per cent now, and even less on the islands. These gentlemen were on a fishing expedition; she assumed they were from the east of the country. She told him to keep the pack, but after a moment’s hesitation he declined, paid and bade her goodbye.
The spring weather was glorious and he enjoyed being on the road. He thought about Ulrike and her manner in the short phone call of the previous evening.
It hadn’t even been necessary for him to ask about the cabin. She had immediately understood what he wanted. That could only mean she believed there was something there that might help him, something that she was unable to retrieve for herself, or, more likely in his view, something she wasn’t entirely sure existed. He’d wanted to see her before he left, but she said she was busy with the funeral and arrangements for the exhibition of Bobby’s work that would open that same day, at a private reception for all those who could not make the service in the tiny church.
He reached Bear Island, not an island but a long peninsula that may once have been an island, and was struck by the emptiness. The coordinates entered into his phone guided him to a spot beyond a ribbon of silver birch trees just coming into leaf. He stopped the car, got out and was immediately aware of the vastness of the sky and a chilly north wind. There was a path about the width of a wheelbarrow, and there was one, upended and chained with a combination lock to an iron post. He assumed it was used to transfer bags and supplies to the cabin from the Harlands’ car. He swept the rocky grassland with his binoculars for any sign of the cabin, but saw nothing. He continued along the path for fifteen minutes before he caught sight of a silver chimney pipe rising behind an area of exposed rock. Circling round, he saw the whole cabin, as well as the remarkable views east and west. The cabin seemed run-down at first glance – a shack – but on closer inspection he saw that everything was in order and what he’d thought was driftwood had been ingeniously used to make outside benches and tables. The bleached wood of an old tree root provided pegs, from which hung fishing nets, a pair of barbecue tongs, a small anchor and coils of rope, presumably picked up on the shore. A weathervane fidgeted and squeaked on a pole fixed to the side of the cabin and, apart from the wind in the grass, there was no other sound.
