White Hot Silence

by Henry Porter

  Kirill barked out more instructions. A kettle was boiled and a hot-water bottle smelling of rubber was placed on her chest. Kirill cut the wrist tie, and she was able to hug the warmth from the hot-water bottle, but her teeth didn’t stop chattering and violent shivers still ran through her shoulders and arms. A few minutes later, he was at her side with a cup of soup, which evidently came from a packet because there were dried bits floating in the foam on the surface. He held it to her lips. ‘Best room service here.’ It was too hot and burned her lips. He blew on it. She noticed that his face glistened and his lips were moist. ‘Take some,’ he said. ‘Make you feel warm inside.’

  Gradually, she was able to drink the soup and it did make her feel better. She nodded when he asked how she was feeling, but she could not yet speak.

  ‘I put vodka in soup,’ said Kirill, as though he were the host at a social event. ‘Bison-grass vodka. Maybe taste not great in soup, but will do trick, eh?’

  He pulled up a chair and sat back, hands across the front of the tweed suit, fingers toying with the jacket belt. He took off his hat and twirled it on his index finger. ‘What do you think of hat? Good, no? Austrian hat. It will bring luck. I will kill many – I forget name of animal in English – dikiy kaban.’ He searched round and pointed to a massive black boar’s head over the fireplace. ‘So, this place is where you will stay until we have agreement from Mr Hisami.’

  ‘What do you want from him?’ she murmured.

  ‘It does not matter. But you must pray he agrees to what we want. Otherwise, it will not be good for you, Anastasia. Your Russian name will not protect you if he does not give us what we want.’

  ‘It isn’t Russian, it’s a Greek name,’ she said groggily. ‘It comes from St Anastasia. She was a Greek saint and the name means resurrection.’

  ‘A good name for position you are in.’ Kirill liked to have the last word.

  ‘How can Denis do anything when he’s in prison? Did you have him put in prison?’

  ‘His lies put him there.’

  ‘But how can he do what you want?’

  ‘He can make instructions – that is all it will require.’

  ‘Have you told him—’ She coughed and waited to regain her breath. ‘Have you told him what you want?’

  He shook his head. ‘He knows why you were taken; he knows why his business across America is in trouble. He knew before you were seized. You suffer because of him. He took something that was not his. It is now in his hands.’

  She finished the soup but kept her hands locked around the heat of the mug. ‘Have you contacted him? You’ve got his phone number, right? Email?’

  Kirill considered this then smiled to himself. ‘He has one opportunity. We do not propose to extend the negotiation. He has one chance to say yes or no. One chance to save your life. But maybe I talk to Samson first because we know his number from the phone call you made.’

  She peered through his glasses at his eyes. They were bland and without emotion. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘You asked me. I always tell truth, Anastasia. May I call you by your first name? What did Mr Samson call you? Maybe I call you by name he used.’

  She ignored this. ‘Why are you treating me so badly?’

  ‘To bring you to dacha is not treating you badly, Anastasia. You have comfort here. Hot shower. Food. Nature. Conversation.’ He stopped. ‘Is my conversation boring to you?’

  ‘If all you talk about is killing me, yes, it does get boring. Can I have some more food? I’m still hungry.’

  Without turning, he shouted to the two men who were standing around watching the third lug boxes into the cabin. This man set down the box he was carrying, began to search for something then retrieved a bag of crisps and some prepacked cheese. He brought them over and handed them to her with a lopsided, sheepish grin. She was sure this was the same man who, in the truck, had whispered in her ear that it wouldn’t be long to the end of the journey.

  ‘I can’t open the packet – my hands,’ she said, passing the crisps to Kirill. He shook his head and gave them to the man, who tore the bag open and cut the packaging on the cheese with a penknife.

  ‘Good Russian cheese,’ observed Kirill. ‘President has brought cheese industry to life after sanctions. We destroy European shit that comes into Russia and now we have fine Russian cheese.’ He called for an ashtray and lit a cigarette then studied her through a veil of smoke. ‘You are strong. You already recover. We have maybe one week in this place. You will be confined except when you are in my presence. You will not speak to guards and you will not try to escape.’

  She nodded her compliance.

  ‘We spend much time together. Do you like to read?’

  ‘Do I like reading?’ she said incredulously. ‘Yes, when I have the time.’

  ‘You have time now. We make – how do you say? – we make book club in forest. And talk about a book every day. I am fast reader.’

  ‘You want to talk about books out here!’

  ‘Why not? It is good way to pass time while we wait for your husband to respond.’

  He rose. ‘Can you walk? Get up!’

  ‘I don’t know – do you have painkillers? I have a bad shoulder.’

  ‘That won’t affect legs. I show you something.’

  She dragged herself to her feet but knew she couldn’t stand long without help. Kirill beckoned to two of the men, who took her arms and guided her forward.

  He replaced his hat, led them out of the building and turned towards the opening in the fence where four armed men waited. Kirill nodded to them as he passed and they fell in behind Anastasia and her two supporters. They all set off across the clearing behind Kirill, who had acquired a twisted walking stick from a stand inside the porch and moved with a quick, officious gait that implied ownership of everything around him. He pulled aside the bough of a larch to reveal a path then moved off again, needlessly slashing at the dead undergrowth with the stick.

  At any other time, Anastasia would have noticed the delicately frosted vegetation, the mist hanging in the trees and the extraordinary quiet of the forest, where no birds sang and nothing moved. But she was aware only of the feeling restored to her legs and feet and a strange, prickly sensation in her toes.

  They went about three hundred metres and she caught a glimpse of an orange object between the trees. Soon they emerged into a much smaller clearing, where there was a mini digger and a trench that had evidently just been excavated, for the earth was damp and had not been touched by the frost. Kirill ordered her to be brought to the side of the trench, whereupon he put his stick to the back of her head. ‘If you try to escape, I will end your life here. Then this machine will cover your body with that pile of earth and no one will ever know what has happened to you. So, no tricks! Do what I say and do not speak to my men.’ He moved from behind her so he could look into her eyes. ‘We have an understanding, I believe. Yes? Now let us go and view accommodation.’

  He moved away from her and she turned from the trench, knowing that in this ugly, pompous man she was confronting the same evil as she had in the Macedonian mountains with Samson and Naji. Kirill maintained a plausible veneer of civilisation and humanity but, ultimately, he was the same entity as the terrorist Almunjil.

  The men turned and began to lead her back to the dacha, but she was now capable of walking without help and shook herself free of them. Kirill shouted over his shoulder to her. ‘We will study Russian literature, but first you tell me about American fiction.’

  ‘I know nothing about American books,’ she said to his back. ‘I am Greek.’

  ‘Then we will learn together. We read Huckleberry Finn. You have read this author – Mark Twain?’

  ‘No,’ she replied.

  ‘You will enjoy book and we will discuss later.’

  CHAPTER 18

  A failure of communications between the NYPD and ICE meant there was a delay in fitting the ankle monitor and Hisami was forced to spend several more ho
urs in custody. Tulliver and Samson met in a coffee bar a block away from the Metropolitan Correctional Center, once Samson had checked into a downtown hotel near Hisami’s apartment in Tribeca.

  He had slept on the plane so he felt fresh. The same couldn’t be said of Tulliver, who was fighting several fires at once. The media were all over Hisami, who, up until a few weeks before, had managed to maintain a low profile that bordered on the secretive. In the past, he had consented to do interviews only when publicising his sister’s work with children suffering from cancer or, more recently, the Aysel centres. Though many remarked on his pleasant manner, they also noted that Hisami was reticent, elliptical. ‘Delphic’ was a word used a few times. Now he had even reached the pages of the New York Times, which had published a long profile that asked questions about his past relationship with the CIA and referred to the rumours about his part in a raid on a terrorist cell in Macedonia three years before. Hisami’s publicist regarded this as helpful coverage that portrayed him as America’s friend and as an action hero, but Tulliver said that none of it was good for business. The doubts about Hisami’s past and the credible rumours about his involvement in the Macedonian incident were causing the banks to review their relationship with Hisami. The elaborate structure of Hisami’s holdings and investments, particularly in media and biotech start-ups, already stressed by shorting the pharma stock, was beginning to rock. He was very rich, but it could all go overnight. ‘His wealth relies on a perpetual forward momentum and his constant focus,’ said Tulliver. ‘The most important part of his life is his daily conversations with bankers, which cannot be conducted from the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He’s got a long way back to rebuild those relationships and the confidence people had in him.’ He looked Samson in the eye. ‘He may not make it.’

  Samson rubbed his neck and looked out of the window. ‘What the hell is this about, Jim? I mean, what the fuck are we all dealing with? Tell me what it is, because for the life of me, I don’t get it. A massive sum has gone missing and Adam Crane is responsible. Is TangKi merely the channel, or has Crane raided its reserves? Five people have been murdered and Anastasia kidnapped and held hostage in Russia without any kind of ransom demand. And now we know that Denis was working with the CIA in the 1990s and whoever is punishing him has access t0 detailed information about that time. Are we dealing with a vendetta? What’s it all add up to?’

  ‘I know as much as you do.’

  ‘Crap – you know much more.’

  ‘I have intimations.’

  ‘What the hell are they?’

  ‘I knew nothing of what he was doing with TangKi, but with Denis there is always a very good reason for his actions and that usually involves a principle. This is at the core of his psychology. He thinks very hard about an issue, a business opportunity or an idea, then he develops this principle which absolutely governs everything he does from then on.’

  Samson shook his head. ‘I don’t give a damn about his fucking principles.’ He picked up his cup, swirled the remains of the black coffee and knocked it back. ‘Russia – it’s all about Russia. Anastasia is held in Russia, Crane has Russian family and, I’m making a guess here, but I believe that the money originates in Russia.’ He stopped again. ‘And the provenance of those photographs from Iraq and the changes to those documents have the smell of a smear campaign that would never stand up to any kind of forensic examination. This was an intelligence operation and ICE and Homeland Security fell for it.’

  ‘A lot of assumptions there.’

  ‘How did Denis get involved with Crane?’

  ‘He met him on the San Francisco charity circuit and he guessed he was suckering all those people into something or other at TangKi. Once Crane had bought the company from the founders and was bringing in all that five-star money, Denis became interested and he let Crane approach him.’

  ‘What’s the company actually do?’

  ‘It offers a few services. Using a crypto currency, it allows people to buy real estate anywhere in the world without the usual complications of lawyers, realtors and currency exchange. It’s also designed a blockchain service for owners of large developments so everything is transparent and investors can go into the records of a building and see exactly what has been done to the structure, when and who paid for it. And finally, it provides a way for people to invest in a portfolio of buildings and developments. That’s the original business and where the name TangKi comes from – it’s Malay for a ‘tank’ or ‘pool’. It was set up by two realtors – one of them Malaysian – who made a lot of money when they sold it to Crane.’

  ‘And Crane spotted it was a great way of laundering money, or his Russian masters did.’

  Tulliver shook his head and looked down at his phone, which vibrated with a text message. ‘That’s Zillah. I’ll tell her to come here.’

  They sat in silence for a minute or two. At length, Samson said, ‘If there’s anything you think I should know, you tell me, Jim. Pick up the phone, whether Denis gives you permission or not. It may just save Anastasia’s life.’

  Tulliver looked at him hard.

  ‘I mean it. He’s not levelling with us about something.’

  Tulliver nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s see what happens.’

  Zillah arrived at their table with a laptop in a tote bag and a Japanese umbrella that collapsed so that it stood on the tips of its ribs. She muttered hello, hooked her hair back and opened the laptop. ‘Okay, so we tracked the vehicle four hundred miles north of the Crimea. It was hard. They had outriders and we lost it. But we have the plate and we know which company arranged the truck. It’s an outfit called Arcady-Ax Logistics, which likely has Mafia connections, and it operates out of Rybatskoye industrial zone, south-east of St Petersburg. The driver must have delivered Mrs Hisami with the kidnappers at some point between the place where we lost the truck and St Petersburg, so that’s, like, nine hundred miles.’ She raised a finger. ‘But if the truck came from the city – it has a St Petersburg plate with the number 178 – it seems possible that she’s being held at the top end of that nine-hundred-mile route.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Samson.

  ‘Satellite imagery was our first thought, but the majority of the journey was undertaken at night and, besides, there was heavy cloud cover – the Russian winter is coming. So we figure our best line of inquiry is with the trucking company, and we aim to locate that truck and the man or men who drove it all the way from Crimea. I now have four people working on this, including one female Russian national who usually does work for us outside Russia. She has agreed to make an exception this one time. If we identify the driver, we’ll launch her and she’ll find out where the truck stopped, I promise you that. So we are putting all our resources into that area of the investigation.’

  ‘And what happens if you find the place?’ asked Tulliver. ‘Do you go in?’

  ‘That will be for Mr Hisami to decide. Going into a situation like that is fraught with danger for the rescuers and the kidnap victim.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Have we received any kind of demand?’

  ‘No,’ said Tulliver, ‘but we haven’t had access to Denis’s phone since he’s been in jail.’

  ‘If this is coordinated,’ said Samson, ‘the people holding Anastasia will know that Hisami is being released.’

  Tulliver didn’t reply to this but got up and pocketed his phone. ‘I’m going to go down to the jail. Denis is bound to be out soon. I’ll call you about the meeting later.’

  ‘It has to happen tonight,’ said Samson.

  ‘He’s got a lot of calls to make.’

  Samson rose so he wouldn’t be overheard. ‘Tell Denis we’re not going to free Anastasia sitting in New York. If he wants his wife back, he needs to see me as soon as he can and he has to be completely open.’ He sat down as Tulliver turned without a word and left the café.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ said Zillah, without looking up. ‘They’re using the restaurant’s wifi to hack us. You should turn of
f your phone.’ She shut down and closed her computer and swiped the top of her phone screen.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Two men behind you, four tables back. They’re using a laptop. They probably picked you up in the court.’

  ‘In earshot?’

  ‘No, but maybe we should move.’

  Samson paid and followed Zillah to the door. As she passed the two men, who appeared to be engrossed in what they were doing, she darted over to lean on their table.

  ‘Hi, guys. Do you have the broadband password for this place? I’m in here all the time and can’t make it work.’

  One of them, a man in his thirties, looked up sheepishly and said he thought the waitress could help.

  ‘Right, so you don’t have it.’ She straightened and her hand knocked the glass of water standing on the table into the laptop keyboard. They both jumped up, shouting. She stepped away and announced to the restaurant. ‘These two guys here, they’re hacking your devices.’ It took a few seconds for the café to erupt, by which time Zillah and Samson were on the way to the door.

  ‘We’ll walk, if you don’t mind,’ she said, beckoning to the silver SUV at the kerb to follow them.

  ‘What made you so certain about them?’ asked Samson.

  ‘The dongle with an aerial that picks up the signals of the devices in the room and tricks them to connect with it.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Could be anyone – the government, Crane’s people. God knows. ICE and Homeland Security are pissed about what happened in the court today.’

  She stopped when they had crossed the street. ‘I have news. We think Crane is in Estonia.’

  Samson stopped. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘One of the numbers you got from your friends in Naples was a bank account accessed from Tallinn two days ago. My people have a way of monitoring access to the account, though we cannot tell what’s in it, or what transactions take place. But we can tell where the source is.’