by Mark Burnell
He wears the orange and white uniform of a Deutsche Bahn employee. He goes to the luggage lockers, opens one, sticks a token in the slot, places something inside, shuts the door; withdraws the key and walks away.
I glance at the woman reading the paperback. She hasn't moved. The man by the food counter continues not to read his magazine.
Alexander lights his cigarette and checks his own watch.
Ninety seconds later; my phone rings.
'Yes?'
Asim Maliqi says, 'Are you ready?'
'Yes.'
'It's locker 343. The key is an envelope in the men's toilets. Third cubicle along, taped to the rear of the bowl.'
'Fine. You're happy with the rest?'
'Yes.'
'Good luck.'
'And to you,' Maliqi says. 'And thank you.'
'No need.'
'Not true. Hamdu's family will be grateful. As I am.'
I press the red button.
Alexander shifts awkwardly on his stool. 'So?'
Ten fifty-three.
Over his right shoulder I see something that throws me into confusion. It's the tall woman in the grey coat and sun glasses. I've got a full view of her.
Dragica Maric.
Alexander senses my confusion and looks round. Maric might be looking right at us. It's impossible to tell because of the glasses. The woman reading the paperback on the other side of the restaurant is reaching for a bookmark. The man in the dark brown coat is putting coins on the table.
Ten fifty-four. I feel as though I'm back in the lobby of the Hotel Inter-Continental in Belgrade on 15 January 2000.
'Time for the list,' Alexander says.
'How many are there?'
'What?'
'How many people have you got here?'
'None.'
'You're lying. I've made two already.'
He looks truly surprised. Or cross. It's hard to tell which. 'I don't know what you're talking about. They're not Magenta House.'
Dragica Maric has vanished. 'The locker number is 343. The key is in the toilets. Third cubicle along, taped to the back of the bowl.'
'You're coming with me.'
'The men's toilets.'
'So?' Alexander's demeanour hardens. 'I don't trust you, Stephanie. You're going to get the key, then open the locker and hand me the list. If you don't you can kiss goodbye to our deal, to Komarov and to Hamilton. Do you understand?'
I want to punch him.
We leave our table. I glance at the woman on the other side of the restaurant. She's slipping her paperback into her khaki canvas satchel. Deep within me, the first hint of panic makes its presence felt.
We go down into the main hall and head for the toilets. Through the Jebenstrasse entrance, a familiar figure materializes, almost in silhouette against the steel daylight behind him.
Milan Savic. I check my watch. Ten fifty-six. He's four minutes early. I don't think Alexander has noticed him but I can't be sure.
Savic is wearing a black leather coat as usual. In his right hand there's a navy hold-all. There should be a million euros in it. He turns left and heads down the corridor towards the luggage lockers. At this end of the corridor is the entrance to McClean, the washroom. When Alexander and I reach it I look down the passage and have a clear view of Savic. He's searching for locker 885.
Suddenly, he spins round and he's looking straight at me. Or not. It's hard to tell; the distance, the light, the lattice of passers-by between us. Alexander and I head down the steps to the station basement.
McClean is a privately run washroom. It's spotless; a cleaner runs a sopping mop over pale blue tiles that are already gleaming. Two tough looking women in white are behind a desk stacked with towels for the shower stalls. There are turnstiles for the toilets. Alexander presses €1.10 into the slot and enters the male section. Ignoring a bemused look from the cleaner, I do the same.
There's an aisle of urinals to the left and an aisle of cubicles in front of us with two stone basins at the far end.
'Go ahead,' Alexander says.
I push open the door to the third cubicle. Alexander stays by the basins opposite. I drop to a crouch, reach round the back of the toilet bowl until my fingers find paper. I tear the envelope away from the porcelain and hold it up for him.
'Show me.'
I stand up and take out the key.
'Okay. Let's go.'
Which is when the door opens. Milan Savic bursts in, his hand already inside his jacket. Before I can pull out the Walther P88, he's pointing a Beretta at me. I freeze, then slowly raise my hands.
One of the attendants shrieks. Savic yells at her to be quiet, then orders both of them to lock themselves into a female toilet cubicle, before swinging the gun at the cleaner. He orders the man to join them. Too terrified to move, he does nothing.
'Now!' Savic shouts. In Serb.
And the cleaner understands.
Of course he does. I don't know if Savic has recognized the face itself, or just the type. But he knows exactly who the cleaner is. A foot soldier in the invisible immigrant army. Perhaps even a veteran of one of Savic's trans-European smuggling routes. He joins the two women on the female side and they lock themselves into a single cubicle.
Then Savic looks at Alexander and asks, in German, 'Who are you?'
Alexander does nothing. He looks back at him, utterly blank.
Savic says to me, 'Who's the old man?'
'I don't know.'
'Lying whore.'
'He followed me in here.'
'What are you doing in here anyway? This is the men's toilet.'
'Don't judge a book by its cover.'
'I don't have to. I've read you from the first page to the last.' Which, coming from him, would be laughable under different circumstances. Then he sees the key in my hand. 'What's that?'
'Does it matter? You've got your list.'
Alexander chooses this moment to speak. In flawless German. 'He's got the list?'
It takes me a moment to realize that's he's speaking to me. I had no idea he knew German.
Savic frowns. 'What's going on? Who are you?'
'Have you got the list?' Alexander asks him.
Savic turns back to me, visibly losing control. 'Petra, what the fuck is he talking about?'
Alexander looks just as ragged. 'Where's the bloody list, Stephanie?'
Savic's voice rises to a shout. 'Stephanie? Who's Stephanie?'
Disintegration: there's nothing I can do about it.
The door opens.
And everything speeds up. Into slow-motion. That's how it always feels. A blur of breathless action that moves like a glacier. It's amazing how much can pass through a mind in a millisecond.
I recognize the face coming through the door. He's Magenta House but it's neither the man with the magazine nor the girl with the paperback. It's the man who was waiting for me in the bed-sit on Cromwell Road. Alan Carter, an S7 assassin.
Carter goes by the book. He scopes the room and picks the preferred target, shooting the man with the gun first. Two shots into Savic, one in the chest, one in the head. Savic crashes against the change dispenser bolted to the wall. Carter then turns to me. By now I've yanked the Walther P88 from my coat pocket. I fire just before he does. The bullet rips through his throat. He flies back and his gun goes off, the round shattering a mirror. He pirouettes then collapses against the turnstile, his head smacking against a metal prong with a sickening thud.
Alexander is pulling his hand out of his overcoat pocket. But he's nowhere near as quick as the woman he created. We both know it. He hesitates, then I fire, a fraction of a second between the two.
The door opens again. Alexander is falling, his right hand springing free from his overcoat pocket, a snub pistol spiralling onto the tiles. I swing my gun onto the entering figure. It's Dragica Maric, a Heckler & Koch by her side in her left hand.
She doesn't even try to raise it. She knows she'll never make it. My finger tightens on
the trigger.
First Belgrade, then New York, now Berlin.
Dragica says, 'Whatever you're going to do, you better do it quick.'
'Why are you here?'
'For the list.'
'And for Milan?'
'Milan was dead anyway.'
It's now or never. We're back in Manhattan. Except this time I have the gun. I'm the one holding the power of life or death. We are also back in Belgrade in the lobby of the Hotel Inter-Continental. Gunfire, bodies dropping, the wildfire panic. Arkan and Ceca. Milan and Petra.
I put the safety back on and lower the gun. If I'm wrong about Dragica, she'll shoot me but I know I'm not. She couldn't then, she won't now. She'd sooner kiss me.
She crouches beside Savic and takes the Gemini list out of his coat pocket. When she stands, her smile broadens as she surveys the three bleeding bodies on the floor.
'It looks like the geneticists are right,' she says. 'Men are becoming redundant.'
They used public chaos as cover. Outside Zoo station they headed left along Budapester Strasse. Five minutes later, they were on Kurfüstenstrasse and completely clear. Behind them, the first of the sirens cut through the rumble of the city. They crossed the road so that they were walking beside the traffic heading away from Zoo Station, not towards it.
Maric buttoned her grey coat to the throat. 'Where will you go?'
'I haven't decided yet.'
Maric lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and exhaled slowly. Coming down after the high. The sensation was etched into Stephanie's memory. The adrenaline rush. There was no feeling like it. In that respect, at least, Alexander had been right.
Stephanie said, 'Milan was marked?'
'He was in love with you. As much as a man like Milan can be in love with anyone other than himself.'
'So?'
'That made him even more of a liability. It was obvious he would have to go.'
'What about Gilbert Lai?'
'We have mutual acquaintances.'
'In Vladivostok?'
'Naturally.'
'And the list?'
'I'll destroy it.'
'Why?'
'It's worthless. I don't need any of them. Not any more.' She hailed a taxi. 'I'm going to miss you, Petra.'
They were at the junction with An der Urania. Dragica Maric climbed into the back. Before closing the door, she leaned out and said, 'By the way, I never slept with Kostya.'
'I know.'
'I'll see you around.'
'I doubt it.'
Stephanie watched the traffic swallow the taxi.
Between Kielganstrasse and Genthiner Strasse a familiar voice called out to her. 'Steph. Over here.' Rosie Chaudhuri was in the back of a black Mercedes parked at the kerb, the tinted window wound down. Stephanie stopped short, a little confused. Rosie said, 'Look behind you. And across the road.'
Thirty yards in her wake was the man from the restaurant. On the other side of Kurfüstenstrasse, another twenty yards behind, was the woman with the paperback.
Rosie opened the car door. 'Jump in.'
Stephanie remained on the pavement. 'Alexander's dead.'
'I know.'
'Did you know about Alan Carter?'
Rosie nodded. 'Alexander's been using him for special tasks.'
'What does that mean?'
'Work beyond the remit.'
'What remit?'
'Get in.'
'What remit. Rosie?'
'You're in the clear, Steph.'
'I want to believe that.'
'I promise you.'
'I'm sorry but my sense of trust has been badly eroded.'
'The two behind you – they were there to protect you.'
'They weren't anywhere to be seen when it went wrong.'
'I know. I had to pull them. It was too public.'
'Leaving me to sink or swim?'
'It wasn't that much of a gamble. It never is with you.'
'They're Ether Division?'
'Come on, Steph. Get in the car.'
'Not yet.'
'He was going to kill you. Then Komarov. Then Mark.'
'Why?'
'To be thorough. That was his justification. Sever all ties, erase everything. You know how it is. Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
'I don't understand.'
'He overestimated himself. Alexander regarded Magenta House as his personal fiefdom. But it wasn't his creation. It was never his to own. It was set up by others.'
'Who?'
'Trustees. They appointed him. They gave him control. His power was a gift. In time, he forgot that. And for most of that time, it didn't matter because he ran the organization beautifully. Magenta House has always been brutally efficient.'
'Who are the trustees?'
'Forget about them. You're on the outside now, Steph.'
'Unlike you.'
'That's right.'
Stephanie got into the Mercedes and pulled the door shut. They didn't move.
'Tell me about Alexander.'
'I went to the trustees. I told them what he had in mind and they agreed it was time for a change. To be honest, it's been coming.'
Small moments suddenly came into context: Rosie contradicting Alexander in front of her; Alexander struggling with doubt; Alexander tired; Alexander resigned.
'What about the Gemini list?'
Rosie shook her head. 'The list doesn't matter. Alexander was never going to work his way through it. He wanted it for leverage.'
'Leverage?'
'He didn't give a toss about Balkan war criminals. They're yesterday's news. And tomorrow's. His view – and he was probably right about this – is that they'll be at each other's throats again in ten or twenty years. Or in ten minutes. Who knows? Who cares? What he wanted was the list of those who'd assisted in the Gemini project.'
'The bankers, the politicians …'
'Exactly. The trustees weren't happy with that. It's not what we do. They didn't want to see Magenta House expanding into other areas.'
'I thought you said an expansion was being considered.'
'Only in our volume of work. Not in the variety. We only offer one service.'
'Elimination.'
'Bespoke elimination.'
Rosie was smiling. Despite herself, Stephanie smiled too. 'God, you sound even more sinister than he did.'
'Believe me, Stephanie, I'm under no illusions about the nature of our work. But at least now it'll be strictly controlled and as professionally administered as possible.'
'Because you're in charge?'
Rosie nodded. And Stephanie found that she couldn't disagree. She took the Walther P88 out of her coat pocket and laid it on the seat between them. Beside it she put the key.
'Locker 343 if you're still interested.'
'What are you going to do, Steph?'
'I don't know.'
'If you're ever short of work, give me a call.'
'If I call you again, it won't be for work. It'll be for wine and gossip.'
'Even better.'
Stephanie opened the car door. 'Tread lightly, Rosie.'
'I will. By the way, what happened to the money Savic put in the locker?'
'It was collected by a Deutsche Bahn employee.'
'Who?'
'You don't need a name.'
'Can I ask what it was for?'
Stephanie got out of the Mercedes. 'War reparations.'
The following morning, Svetlana Asanova caught a EuroCity train from Lichtenberg station bound for Vienna. After collecting documents held for her in the strong-room at a firm of lawyers on Rotenturmstrasse, she intended to spend the night in Vienna before flying to Zurich the next day for a meeting with Albert Eichner at Guderian Maier bank in Zurich.
On the empty seat beside her were two newspapers, the Berliner Zeitung and the Berliner Morgenpost. Both covered the Zoo station outrage to the point of exhaustion. Although the police were still collating their evidence there seemed to be
a measure of consensus among the speculation: the violence was the work of Balkan criminals, two of whom had died. The third man to be killed was thought to be a British businessman although his identity had yet to be established. One thing was certain though: he was an innocent victim.
Stephanie had smiled when she read that. Alexander the innocent victim. It was hard to imagine a less suitable epitaph.
An hour and a half south of Berlin, her phone rang. Where are you?'
'On a train to Vienna. You?'
'Back in Moscow. What are you going to do in Vienna?'
'Pass through.'
'Are we safe?'
'Yes.'
'No need to relocate to Sakhalin, then.'
'No.'
'What are you going to do after Vienna?'
'Nothing.'
'Sounds good. Where?'
'Somewhere warm.'
'Even better.'
'I'll call you when I get there.'
