Gemini

by Mark Burnell

  Dusk descended quickly upon Djemaa el-Fna, the huge square in the medina that was the heart of Marrakech. Kerosene lamps replaced the daylight, strung out along rows of food stalls.

  Petra found the café on the edge of the square. The outdoor tables were mostly taken. Inside, she picked a table with a clear view of the entrance. A slowly rotating fan barely disturbed the hot air. To her right, beneath an emerald green mosaic of the Atlas mountains, two elderly men were in animated discussion over glasses of tea.

  She ordered a bottle of mineral water and drank half of it, checking the entrance as often as she checked her watch. At ten past seven she got up and asked the man behind the bar for the toilet. Past the cramped, steaming kitchen she came to a foul-smelling cubicle, which she ignored pressing on down the dim corridor to the door at the end, which was shut. She tried the handle and it opened, as promised. She found herself in a narrow alley, rubble underfoot. At the end of the alley she saw the lane that she'd identified on the town map. She unbuttoned her shirt, took it off, turned it inside out and put it back on, trading powder blue for plum.

  At twenty-five past seven she emerged from a small street on the opposite side of Djemaa el-Fna to the café. This time she melted into the crowd at the centre of the square, trawling the busy stalls, until she found one with no customers. She sat on a wooden bench beneath three naked bulbs hung from a cord sagging between two poles. The man on the other side of the counter was tending strips of lamb on an iron rack, fat spitting on the coals, smoke spiralling upwards, adding to the heat of the night. Petra passed fifteen dirhams across the counter for a small bowl of harira, a spicy lentil soup.

  The woman appeared within five minutes, a child in tow. Short, dark and squat, she wore a dark brown ankle-length dress and a flimsy cotton shawl around her shoulders. The child had black curls, caramel skin, pale hazel eyes. She was eating dried fruit. They sat on the bench to Petra's right. The woman ordered two slices of melon, which the man retrieved from a crate behind him.

  In French, she said, 'Someone was in your hotel room today. A man.'

  Petra nodded. 'What was he doing?'

  'Looking.'

  'Did he find anything?'

  'It's not possible to say. He spent most of his time with your laptop. I think he might have downloaded something. It wasn't easy to see. The angle was awkward.'

  'From across the courtyard?'

  The woman shook her head. 'That view was too restricted. I had to try something else. A camera concealed in the smoke detector.'

  'I hadn't noticed there was a smoke detector.'

  'Above the door to your bathroom. It's cosmetic. A plastic case to satisfy a safety regulation. Actually, I'm surprised. A bribe is easier and cheaper.'

  'Where was the base unit?'

  'Across the courtyard. In the office.' The woman finished a mouthful of melon. 'He went through your clothes, your personal belongings. He took care to replace everything as he found it. He searched under the bed, behind the drawers, on top of the cupboard. All the usual hiding places. You have a gun?'

  'Not there. Anything else?'

  'A Lear jet arrived at Menara Airport early this morning. A flight plan has been filed for tomorrow afternoon. Stern wants you to know that Mostovoi has a meeting in Zurich tomorrow evening.'

  I lie on my bed, naked and sweating. When I came to Marrakech with Massimo, the lawyer from Milan, we stayed at the Amanjena, a cocoon of luxury on the outskirts of the city. There we indulged ourselves fully. On our last evening we ate at Yacout, a palace restaurant concealed within a warren of tiny streets. We drank wine on the roof terrace while musicians played in the corner. A hot breeze blew through us. Mostly, I remember the view of the city by night, lights sparkling like gemstones against the darkness. Later we ate downstairs in a small courtyard with rose petals on the floor. That was where Massimo took my hand and said, 'Juliette, I think I'm falling in love with you.'

  I gazed into his eyes and said, 'I feel it, too.'

  I think he was telling the truth. At the time, that never occurred to me because everything I said to him was a lie and I assumed we were both playing the same game. When he said we should meet again in Geneva I said that would be lovely, that I couldn't wait. Which was as close to the truth as I ever got with Massimo; I needed unforced access to his company apartment. Later, when he told me he thought I looked beautiful, I just smiled, as I wondered whether I would be the one to kill him. As it turned out, it was somebody else: Dragica Maric.

  When Claesen mentioned her name, the memory of the last time we were together was resurrected: about two years ago, at the derelict Somerset Hotel on West 54th Street in Manhattan. We were in a narrow service corridor down one side of the hotel. It was dark and damp, the sound of the city barely audible over the rain. She was armed with a Glock. She told me to kneel. There was nothing I could do but obey. Then she asked me questions, which I answered honestly. Certain that I was about to die, there had seemed little point in lying. Finally she fired the Glock. Above my head. By the time I realized I was still alive, she was gone.

  Place de Ferblantiers, ten in the morning. Petra’s guide wore the traditional white djellaba with a pointed hood. Inside the Mellah, the Jewish Quarter, they entered a covered market. In the still heat, smells competed for supremacy: fish, body odour, chickens, rubbish and, in particular, a meat counter with oesophagi hanging from hooks. The hum of flies was close. Beyond the market the guide led her through a maze of crooked streets, some so narrow she could press her palms against both walls. There were no signs and no straight lines. They passed doors set into walls, snatching occasional glimpses: a staircase rising into darkness, a moving foot, a sleeping dog. Lanes were pockmarked with tiny retail outlets: a man selling watch straps from a booth the size of a cupboard, a shop trading in solitary bicycle wheels, Sprite and Coke sold from a cool­box in the shallow shade of a doorway.

  They came to an arch. Beneath it a merchant was arranging sacks of spices. Behind the sacks, on a wooden table, were baskets of lemons and limes. Garlands of garlic hung from a wooden beam. They passed through the arch into a courtyard. Beneath a reed canopy two women were weaving baskets.

  They headed for a door on the far side of the courtyard, took the stairs to the upper floor, turned left and arrived at a large, rectangular room. It was carpeted, quite literally: carpets covering the floor and three walls. Other carpets were piled waist high, some exquisitely intricate, with silk thread shimmering beneath the harsh overhead lighting, others a cruder style of kilim, in vivid turquoise, egg-yolk yellow and blood red. The fourth wall contained the only window, which looked out onto the courtyard.

  Maxim Mostovoi was at the far end of the room, sprawled across a tan leather sofa as plushly padded as he was. He wore Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses and a full moustache. His gut stretched a pale green polo-shirt that bore dark sweat stains in the pinch of both armpits. Fat thighs made his chinos fit as snugly as a second skin.

  Jarni, the whippet-faced man from the villa at Palmeraie, stood to Petra's right. Beside him was a taller man, a body-builder perhaps, massive shoulders tapering to a trim waist, black hair oiled to the scalp, his skin the colour and texture of chocolate mousse. He had a gold ring through his right eyebrow.

  'I feel I know you,' Mostovoi murmured.

  'A common mistake.'

  'I'm sure.' He nodded at the body-builder. 'Alexei …'

  Petra said, 'I'm not armed.'

  'Then you won't mind.'

  Petra had been frisked many times. There were two elements to the process that almost never varied, in her experience: the procedure was carried out by men, and they took pleasure in their work. More than once she'd had eager fingers inside her clothes, even inside her underwear and, on one occasion, inside her. The man who'd done that had gorged himself on her discomfort. Later, when she crushed both his hands in a car door, she took some reciprocal pleasure from the act.

  'You should be more careful where you put your fingers,' she'd tol
d him, as he surveyed what remained of them.

  Petra had dressed deliberately. Black cotton trousers, a black T-shirt beneath a turquoise shirt tied at the waist and a pair of lightweight walking boots. Suspended from the leather cord around her neck was a fisherman's cross made of burnished mahogany, the wood so smooth that the fracture line at the base of the loop was almost invisible. She wore her long dark hair in a pony-tail.

  Among friskers she'd known, Alexei the body­builder was about average. In other words, tiresomely predictable. Petra knew that behind his sunglasses Mostovoi wasn't blinking. His face was shiny with sweat. As he took in the show, she took in the room. Apart from his mobile phone, the table was bare. A lamp without a shade stood on an upturned crate at the far end of the sofa. By the door she'd noticed a box containing a wooden paddle for beating the dust from carpets. Next to the box there was a portable black-and-white security monitor on a creaking table, a bin, a ball of used bubble-wrap and an electric fan, unplugged. She'd been in rooms that offered less. And in situations that threatened more. Until now she hadn't known whether Mostovoi would be viable.

  Alexei reached between her legs, but Petra snatched his wrist away. 'Take my word for it, you won't find an Uzi down there.'

  He glanced at Mostovoi, who shook his head, then continued, skipping over her stomach and ribs before slowing as he reached her breasts. His fingers found something solid in the breast pocket of her shirt. Petra took it out before he had the chance to retrieve it himself.

  'What's that?' Mostovoi asked.

  'An inhaler,' Petra said. 'With a Salbutamol cartridge. I'm asthmatic.'

  He was surprised, then amused. 'You?' It was the third version of the inhaler Petra had been given. She'd never used any of them. Mostovoi's amusement began to turn to suspicion. 'Show me.'

  'You put this end in your mouth, squeeze the cartridge and inhale.'

  'I said, show me.'

  So she did, taking care not to break the second seal by pushing the cartridge too vigorously. There was a squirt of Salbutamol from the mouthpiece, which she inhaled, a cold powder against the back of her throat.

  The frisk resumed, until Alexei stepped away from Petra and shook his head. Mostovoi seemed genuinely amazed. 'You don't have a gun?'

  'I didn't think I'd need one. Besides, I didn't want your friend to feel something hard in my trousers and get over-excited.'

  A barefoot boy entered the room, carrying a tray with two tall glasses of mint tea and a silver sugar bowl. Fresh mint leaves had been crushed into the bottom of each glass. He passed one to Petra and the other to Mostovoi, before leaving.

  Petra said, 'That was a neat idea, using Claesen as an intermediary yesterday.'

  'It was a matter of some … reassurance.'

  'I know.' She caught his eye. 'Your reassurance, though. Not mine.'

  Mostovoi inclined his head a little, a bow of concession. 'Your reputation may precede you, but nobody ever knows what follows it. Within our community you're a contradiction: the anonymous celebrity.'

  'Unlike you.'

  'I'm a salesman. Nothing more.'

  'Don't sell yourself short.'

  Mostovoi smiled. 'I never do.' He lit a Marlboro with a gold Dunhill lighter. 'This is a change of career for you, no?'

  'Not so much a change, more of an expansion.'

  'I know you met Klim in Lille last month. And again in Bratislava three weeks ago.'

  'Small world.'

  'The smallest you can imagine. You discussed Sukhoi-25s for five million US an aircraft. For fifty-five million dollars, he said he could get you twelve; buy eleven, get one free.'

  'What can I say? We live in a supermarket culture.'

  'Or for one hundred million, twenty-five. Which is not bad. But you weren't interested.'

  'Because?'

  'Because the Sukhoi-25 isn't good enough. The MiG-29SE is superior in every way. That's what Klim told you. And that they can be purchased direct from Rosboron for about thirty million dollars each. However, good discounts can be negotiated, so …'

  'But not the kind of discounts that you can negotiate. Right?'

  Mostovoi took off his sunglasses and placed them beside his phone. He wiped sweat from his forehead. 'That depends. I understand you're also in the market for transport helicopters. Specifically, the Mi-26.'

  'Actually, the Mi-26 is all I'm in the market for. Klim got over-excited. We discussed the Sukhoi and the MiG, but that's all it was. Talk.'

  Mostovoi looked disappointed.

  The Mi-26 was a monster: 110 feet in length, almost the size of a Boeing 727, it was designed to carry eighty to ninety passengers, although in Russia, where most of them were in service, it was not uncommon for them to transport up to one hundred and twenty.

  'How many?' Mostovoi asked.

  'Two, possibly three.'

  'That's a lot of men.'

  'Or a lot of cargo.'

  'Either way, it's a lot of money.'

  'I'm not interested in running a few AK-47s to ETA or the IRA.'

  Mostovoi pondered this while he smoked. 'Still, a deal this size … normally I would hear about it.'

  'Normally you'd be involved.'

  'True.'

  'Which would leave me on the outside.'

  'Also true.'

  Petra took a sip from her tea, letting Mostovoi do the work. Casually, she wandered over to the window, which was open, and looked out. There was no hint of a cooling breeze to counter the stifling heat. The canopy covering the basket-weavers was directly below. She glanced at Alexei and Jarni. They'd relaxed; Jarni's eyes had glazed over. The wooden grip of a Bernardelli P-018 protruded from the waistband of his trousers. Alexei was wearing a tight white T-shirt that revealed his chiselled physique to maximum effect. And the fact that he was unarmed.

  The immediate future was coming into focus. She returned her attention to Mostovoi, who was talking about the nature of the clients she represented. A rebel faction of some sort, perhaps. Or drug warlords. From Colombia, maybe, or even Afghanistan.

  'What's your point?'

  'Maybe there is no deal.'

  He made it sound as though the idea had only just occurred to him. Petra felt her damp skin prickle with alarm. 'Klim thinks there is.'

  Mostovoi snorted with contempt. 'That's why Klim flies economy while I have a Gulfstream V …'

  Petra spun to her left, sensing the movement behind her: Alexei advancing, swinging at her. The blow caught her on the ribs, not across the back of the neck, as intended. But it was enough to crush the air out of her. She tumbled onto the mustard carpet, her glass of tea shattering beneath her. Alexei came at her again, brandishing the wooden paddle like a baseball bat.

  Jarni yanked the Bernardelli from his waistband. Petra rolled to her right, fragments of glass biting into her. The paddle missed her head, crunching against her shoulder and collar-bone instead. Moving as clumsily as she'd anticipated, his bubbling muscularity a hindrance, not an advantage, Alexei attempted to grasp her, but she slithered beyond his reach.

  Jarni aimed a kick at her. His shoe scuffed her left thigh. She made a counter-kick with her right foot, hooking away his standing leg. He toppled backwards. As his elbow hit the ground the gun discharged accidentally, the bullet ripping into the ceiling, sprinkling them with dusty rubble.

  Before she could get to her feet Alexei's boot found the same patch of ribs as the paddle. Winded and momentarily powerless, she couldn't prevent the body­builder grabbing her pony-tail and dragging her to her knees. Jarni was on his side, stunned, the 9mm a few feet away. Alexei hauled her to her feet and threw several punches, each a hammer-blow, the worst of them to the small of her back, the force of it sending a sickening shudder through the rest of her. Then he attempted to pin her arms together behind her back. Which would leave her exposed to Jarni. Or even Mostovoi. Through the fog, she understood this.

  Petra curled forward as much as she could, then dug her toes into the ground and launched herself up and b
ack with as much power as she could muster. The crown of her head smacked Alexei in the face. She knew they were both cut. His grip slackened and she wriggled free as he staggered to one side, dazed and bloody. Petra grabbed the inhaler from her breast pocket, pressed the cartridge, felt the second seal rupture and fired the CS gas into his eyes.

  Jarni was on his feet now, the gun in his right hand rising towards her. With a stride she was beside him, both hands clamping his right wrist. Unbalanced, he wobbled. She drove his hand down and nudged the trigger finger. The gun fired again, the bullet splitting his left kneecap.

  Gasping, Alexei was on his knees, his face buried in his hands, blood dribbling between his fingers. Jarni started to scream. And Mostovoi was exactly where he'd been a few moments before. On the sofa, not moving, the complacency of the voyeur usurped by the paralysis of fear.

  There were shouts in the courtyard and footsteps on the stairs. She picked up Jarni's Bernardelli and aimed at Mostovoi's eyes.

  Resigned to the bullet, he matched her stare.

  'Why?'

  As good a last word as any, Petra supposed. She pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  Mostovoi blinked, not comprehending. She tried again. Still nothing. The weapon was jammed. And now the footsteps were at the top of the stairs and approaching the door.

  She dropped the gun and took the open window, an action that owed more to reflex than decision. She shattered the fragile wooden shutters and fell. The canopy offered no resistance, folding instantly. Her fall was broken by the bodies and baskets beneath. From above, she heard a door smacking a wall, a rumble of shoes, shouts.

  Instantly she was on her feet, accelerating across the courtyard towards the arch. Behind her, shots rang out. Puffs of pulverized brick danced out of the wall to her right. From another door in the courtyard two armed men emerged in pursuit. Then she was in the gloom of the arch, safe from the guns behind, but not from the threat ahead.