by WOOD TOM
*
The only person at the party he had any time for was on the opposite side of the room, hanging on the words of some handsome Russian actor. Izolda wasn’t alone. There had to be a dozen wives similarly enraptured, and a dozen husbands jealously trying not to let it show. The difference between Izolda and the other wives was that the handsome actor was obviously as taken with her as she was with him. It wasn’t surprising. Kasakov’s wife looked simply gorgeous, as always. Tall, slim and graceful, she outshone every woman in the room. Her backless evening gown managed to be both unashamedly sexy yet undeniably elegant. Some of the less classy wives showed off their inflated chests with necklines that almost reached their navels, and could neither frown nor smile thanks to their stretched and frozen faces. Izolda’s black hair was tied up – how Kasakov preferred it – and the style elongated her already enviable neck. The diamond earrings that had been a birthday gift from her husband danced and glittered as she laughed.
The actor made another joke, and by the strength of the mirth it generated from the coven of wives he had to be something of a comedian. Kasakov had watched him in a couple of Russian films and knew the man had to be a better comic than actor. The man leaned close to Izolda and whispered into her ear, at which she smiled, wide and carefree. For once Kasakov could not detect the pain she hid so well from others, if not from him. They had been married for a little over fifteen years, and though Izolda was in her late thirties now, she was still without a child. It killed Kasakov to know her unhappiness was his fault.
Izolda laughed again and her hand moved to the actor’s arm. He was no more than thirty and no doubt as fertile as he was handsome. Kasakov imagined Izolda was fantasising about sleeping with the actor at this very moment. From the way he looked at her, the actor’s own thoughts were certainly no different. If she succumbed to his charms, Kasakov couldn’t blame her. It was his infertility that caused her to cry into her pillow in the middle of the night when she thought he was asleep. He pictured the scene, a month from now, when she came to him to announce the miracle they’d been waiting for. He would hold her, and they would both cry and he would never comment that their child looked nothing like him, else kill her for the betrayal.
Izolda glanced his way and saw him watching. Guilt and fear began stripping the smile from her face, but Kasakov hid his thoughts, smiled and waved back as if he was ignorant of the scene unfolding before him. She was convinced by him, or convinced enough, to regain her own smile. Maybe it wouldn’t be the actor now, but if not it would be someone else eventually. Kasakov could feel it in the pit of his stomach.
‘Have another drink,’ a familiar voice said. ‘You look like you could use it.’
Kasakov turned to see another annoyingly good-looking face. Tomasz Burliuk was holding two champagne flutes. He handed one to Kasakov.
‘I didn’t think you were coming.’
Burliuk sipped some champagne. ‘I thought you could use the company.’
Kasakov gestured. ‘I take it you’ve seen my wife.’
Burliuk stared at Izolda for a long time before saying, ‘It’s hard not to.’
‘Every woman hates her,’ Kasakov remarked. ‘Every man desires her.’
Burliuk took a big swallow of champagne. ‘And yet she’s yours and yours alone.’
Kasakov nodded and pretended he didn’t notice how his best friend gazed upon his wife.
‘So,’ Burliuk said, finally tearing his eyes away. ‘Who is our gracious host tonight?’
‘Some oligarch who bribed and threatened his way into buying up formerly state-owned gas reserves,’ Kasakov explained. ‘He now controls most of the supply piped to Europe. He’s a complete prick.’
‘You say that about everyone.’
‘With this guy, it’s an understatement. He spends money like it’s meaningless. I heard he has fifty cars. Fifty. Can you believe that? And three private jets. He makes me look like a peasant.’
‘We were peasants once.’
‘Which is why we appreciate what we have.’ Kasakov lightly backhanded Burliuk on the chest for emphasis. Then he sighed and said, ‘And tell me, my oldest friend, what is the point of any of it?’
Burliuk looked confused. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m tired, Tomasz. I’m tired of living like this, only sneaking out of the country for business, not able to risk going back to my homeland. I’m tired of carrying the weight of an empire on my shoulders. Some days I honestly do think that—’ Kasakov’s phone vibrated and interrupted him. He checked it. ‘Eltsina,’ he explained. ‘She’s outside. She says it’s important, so I’d better go and find out what the bitch wants.’
‘Shall I come too?’
Kasakov shook his head. ‘Stay here and keep an eye on Izolda.’
Burliuk looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know … just keep an eye on her.’
Kasakov found Eltsina standing on the oligarch’s driveway. The petite Russian was not on the guest list and so security hadn’t let her inside the dacha. Kasakov could have got his charmless advisor an invite, but he would sooner give up boxing for embroidery. Eltsina was clearly troubled. The breeze played with the strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail.
‘What?’ Kasakov asked.
It took Eltsina a few seconds to find her words. ‘Vladimir, I’m sorry. We’ve lost the North Korean shipment.’
‘What are you talking about? How could we have lost it?’
‘The plane carrying the first two MiGs never made it out of Afghan airspace. It crashed in the mountains earlier today.’
Kasakov grabbed Eltsina by her blouse. If he wanted, he could lift the tiny woman off the ground with one hand, but instead he pulled her closer.
‘Crashed?’
She swallowed and nodded.
Kasakov released her and let out a cry of exasperation. His huge hands were tight fists, the tendons in his neck pushing out against the skin. He growled through gritted teeth.
Eltsina straightened her blouse and jacket. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
He shoved Eltsina in the shoulder. She winced and stumbled backwards. ‘You can start by telling me just how we lost two hundred million dollars’ worth of assets, and my most experienced crew.’ He shoved Eltsina again, harder. She stumbled further backwards, only just managing to avoid falling. ‘And when you’ve done that, you can tell me how I’m going to tell the North Koreans that they won’t be getting their first two fighters as guaranteed.’
‘I …’
Kasakov glanced back to the dacha. The security guys were watching but knew not to get involved. He pushed his fingers through his hair, thinking. ‘Something is going on here. This is the third time in the space of a week we’ve had a major setback. First we lost that convoy of anti-aircraft guns in Ethiopia to a UN inspector who just happened to check our trucks for the first time in eight years. Yesterday our representatives in Syria missed their handover.’
‘They were found two hours ago in a ditch outside Damascus,’ Eltsina explained. ‘All dead. Throats slit.’
He glared at Eltsina. ‘They say once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. So who the fuck is doing this to us?’
Eltsina shook her head.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Kasakov spat. ‘Don’t you dare tell me you don’t know anything when I’m paying you a fortune to know everything.’
‘There’s no evidence,’ she began. ‘Obviously the UN wouldn’t kill our people or shoot down a plane. But whoever did those things could also tip off the UN to our convoy.’
‘Who?’ Kasakov demanded.
‘Only someone with a considerable knowledge of our business would be able to strike like this.’
‘Who?’ Kasakov demanded again.
‘Baraa Ariff. He would know enough about us to make these attacks possible.’
‘And how would he know?’
‘Warlords who buy our tanks and heavy muni
tions also buy his guns and bullets. We bribe the same officials. Mercenaries who protect our trucks protect his as well. Our people cross paths with his own almost on a daily basis.’
‘I don’t believe it. Ariff is a snivelling, pathetic Egyptian pig. He would never dare start a war with me. You have more balls than he.’ Kasakov undid the buttons of his tuxedo in an effort to cool down. He pointed at Eltsina. ‘Besides, what’s his rationale? Has he learned I want him dead?’
‘All but impossible,’ Eltsina assured. ‘I sought killers only via respected brokers and my contacts in the SVR and FSB.’
‘Then why is he doing this?’
Eltsina said, ‘There can only be one explanation: he seeks your business. He must have sent that sniper to Bucharest, thinking without your leadership he could sell to our clients unopposed. By chance, some enemy of the sniper intervenes. Then Ariff sends another, only for Tomasz to find out and for him to send his men to intercept the assassin in Minsk. So Ariff abandons his ambition to have you dead and instead attacks our network, seeking to leave us crippled and turn our clients against us.’
‘After all these years of coexisting he finally grows a backbone. Had our roles been reversed and it had been me whose business had existed long before he came to prominence, I would not have waited so long to crush my potential competition. I wish it was not about business. I wish he knew I wanted him dead. I wish he was acting in self-preservation. I want him to live in fear. I want him to look at his family and imagine them screaming.’
Eltsina remained silent.
Kasakov said, ‘I’m sure this new revelation will serve as additional motivation to track him down.’
She straightened up. ‘Motivation cannot be higher, Vladimir. He will suffer for the death of your nephew. All my contacts have been petitioned for intelligence. Our most trusted people are gathering information. No effort or expense is being spared. Ariff has remained hidden for years, but he will be found eventually, I promise you.’
‘But how much damage will he have caused us before then?’
Eltsina didn’t answer.
‘What is the situation with the American team?’
‘Burliuk has agreed to their demands and we have them on a retainer so we won’t lose them to some other job. But until we locate Ariff, they are just waiting.’
‘If what you say is correct, and Ariff knows how to hit us because our businesses frequently overlap …’ Eltsina nodded. ‘Then we must know as much about his organisation as he does ours. So let’s return the favour. Have anyone with even the slightest connection to Ariff killed. And triple my security. Ensure everyone who works for me knows what’s going on. Everyone needs to be on guard. That piece of shit could hit us again at any time.’
‘You need to be aware that a war with Ariff will make our people fearful and damage morale, which has already suffered with the decrease in business these past few years.’
‘I DON’T CARE,’ Kasakov roared, saliva striking Eltsina’s face. ‘Let them be scared. I’ve made them rich. A little fear will remind them to be grateful.’
She nodded, not daring to wipe the spittle from her cheek and lip.
‘I want Ariff dead,’ Kasakov whispered coldly. ‘And while I wait, I’ll watch his empire burn to the ground around him.’
CHAPTER 40
Bologna, Italy
It was always a pleasure visiting Bologna. It was a city of beauty and history in a country steeped in both. The city’s centre fascinated Victor with its architecture, monuments, porticos and eight-hundred-year-old fortifications. He gazed out from the top of the leaning, three hundred and thirty feet tall Torre degli Asinelli. It was the taller of Bologna’s famous Two Towers, and the expansive cityscape below him was all red rooftops and ochre walls except where grey medieval towers jutted above the rest of Bologna’s low-rise skyline.
Nearby Florence drew the tourists, keeping Bologna more authentic and unspoiled, and Victor hoped it would always remain that way. The comparatively few visitors meant there were less foreigners for Victor to hide among, but the city was all the more pleasant to walk around for the lack of camera-equipped sightseers.
The weather was hot and dry. Victor wore a white linen shirt and loose cotton chinos and kept cool walking through the shaded maze of the city’s famous portico arcades. In all there were twenty-five miles of covered walkways: perfect for drawing out and losing any surveillance. He saw none and continued his walk to the Via Rizzoli, where he perused the many quaint book and antique stores in between using the plate-glass storefronts of fashion boutiques to further check for shadows. No one registered on his threat radar, but he remained cautious while eating lunch and he continued to perform counter surveillance while seeking out the city’s Renaissance palaces when the majority of stores closed between one and three p.m.
Victor had no enemies in Italy, which was one of the reasons he liked to visit when he could, but after the run-in with the surveillance team in Minsk he had to be especially careful. Whoever they worked for could be tracking him down right now, which was why it was so imperative to find out who they were.
When he was content he had done all he could to avoid being shadowed, Victor walked into a low-ceilinged osteria and surveyed the crowd of strange faces that turned in his direction. He was still within the city centre but the neighbourhood was poorer, shabbier and less welcoming. He made eye contact with those who looked his way to show he wasn’t an easy target, but didn’t stare long enough to invite a challenge. Conversations began again and he ordered a Coke from the skinny barmaid and sat down on a stool, shifting his weight a few times to get comfortable on the hard seat. An old man two stools along asked if he had a light. Victor shook his head.
He sipped his drink and waited. He had his back to the rest of the bar, but the corner tables were all occupied and a huge mirror behind the bar let him keep an eye on his flanks.
It took a few minutes before someone took a stool next to him. The man was short, slightly overweight, with thick arms and a dark, unkempt beard. He was somewhere in his fourth decade and judging by the deep yellow nicotine stains on his hands and teeth Victor didn’t give him more than a couple more.
‘I hear you’re looking for Giordano,’ the man said, without looking at Victor.
‘He’s a hard man to track down. Do you know where I can find him?’
‘I know so many things I fear my brain is not large enough to hold them all.’
‘Where might I find him?’
‘It pains me to say that you cannot. But I am a helpful soul and will fetch him for you. He is terribly shy of strangers, you understand.’
Victor didn’t believe what he was being told for a second. If the bearded man told Victor where to find Giordano, his own usefulness would have been cut short. By keeping Victor in the dark he kept himself as middleman and maintained his profit margins.
Victor opened his wallet and thumbed through the hundred-euro notes inside. He took out one and laid it on the bar, but kept a finger on it.
‘Tell me where I can find Giordano.’
The man reached for the money, but Victor slid it away from his eager fingers.
‘Where?’ Victor asked.
The man grunted. ‘That’s not how these things progress. Let me unburden you of that ugly piece of paper and I can introduce you to him.’
‘Very well.’ Victor slid the note from the bar and placed it back inside his wallet. ‘When can you arrange such an introduction?’
‘How does tomorrow sound to you?’
‘Too late,’ Victor said, understanding the game.
‘Alas, these arrangements take time,’ the man said.
‘And money?’ Victor placed two hundred-euro notes on the bar. ‘How about you take me to him now?’
The bearded man said, ‘That sounds perfectly amicable.’
They walked through the Piazza Maggiore. Locals and tourists sat around the grand square, enjoying the sun and Bologna’s friendly atmosphere while pig
eons jostled for crumbs and flapped out of the path of charging children. The piazza was fronted on all sides by buildings dating back to the Middle Ages. To the south, Victor could see the Basilica di San Petronio dominating the square. Its huge façade was composed of elegantly constructed blocks of white and red stone with elaborate carvings and archways at the bottom. Above, however, it was merely topped by crude bare bricks. The result was bizarre to most, horrible to some, but Victor found it strangely appealing – the mix of the beautiful and the ugly.
The bearded man maintained a slow walking pace and smoked cigarettes the whole way, lighting a fresh one while the dying embers of the previous still glowed in the gutter. Victor tried to stay away from the smoke as much as he could because it was the sweetest aroma he’d smelled in a long time and one that tested his resolve. The city streets were narrow and notably absent of trees – the one mark he gave against Bologna’s beauty. The bearded man led him through several of the meandering porticos and Victor realised the route they were taking was just as meandering. He was happy to play along and enjoy viewing the array of old terracotta buildings they passed. Modern architecture was rare in Bologna and the city felt as though time had stood still within its walls while the world changed around it.
Eventually they passed beyond what remained of the medieval walls surrounding the historic centre and out of the time sink. The streets became more crowded, the traffic louder, the lights brighter. The bearded man led Victor for another fifteen minutes before they veered off into an alleyway that ran along the back of a row of restaurants.
‘This is where we part ways,’ the bearded man said, taking the cigarette from his lips. ‘It’s been a pleasure. Now, just walk up there and round the corner.’
He pointed and held out his hand.
‘Giordano?’
‘That would be far too easy, would it not? You’ll find a newspaper under a wooden box. Find the puzzle page. In the crossword is a time and a place. Farewell.’
The air was warm. Music from a nearby bar drifted over him. Victor walked slowly, gaze sweeping over the area, but there was nothing to concern him. He found the box and the paper and folded the puzzle page into his pocket.
