by Henry Porter
‘Occasionally.’
‘I thought you looked like a smoker.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Mostly good,’ she said.
They went through the conservatory and stepped out into the weak autumn sunlight and smoked in silence. ‘In our line of work,’ she said presently, ‘we experience the extremes of life.’
‘Yes, we do,’ he said, his mind filled with images of Syria. ‘You want to hear the rest of the story?’ He nodded. ‘I was devastated, of course. I went back to Berlin and Bobby helped me find a place and a new identity for the time being. I had my baby boy and I called him Rudi. So there is still a Rudi Rosenharte in the world. He is twenty-five years old now and he lives with his girlfriend in Berlin. He makes films.’
‘And you and Bobby?’
‘Bobby left SIS after the war in Bosnia and went to find those people who shot up the car. They were all Stasi – the leader was named Zank. He was the man responsible for Rudi’s brother’s death in Hohenschönhausen and he put me in that hellhole, then years later he tracked us to Spain and killed Rudi. He was responsible for the deaths of two brilliant men who were never able to fulfil their potential in the free world.’ She stubbed out the cigarette.
‘And?’
‘Bobby settled the account.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He settled the account.’ She shrugged and looked at him hard.
Samson wasn’t going any further.
‘I was a mother by then,’ she continued, ‘and living a very isolated life because there were still Stasi who wanted me dead so I couldn’t be in Leipzig with my mother and friends. Bobby helped out with things – found me a new apartment, paid some bills. We went out, though there was nothing between us. I was still in grief for Rudi.’ She let out a stream of smoke and looked around her garden critically. ‘And then things changed. Bobby found work with the Estonian government, helping them improve their intelligence service and suggesting ways of defending their brand-new democracy. He liked it here. Loved the people. I visited him with my son. Over the next year, we found love. It was slow and neither of us noticed it was happening and then Bobby asked me to move here with him and I realised it was exactly what I wanted, and this is where we brought up young Rudi. We married and we’ve been very happy.’
‘That’s a hell of a story,’ said Samson.
‘Yes, it is.’ She tugged the conservatory door open. ‘And that’s why I believe Bobby will try to help you if he can. That’s what he’s doing now. He just has to be careful not to break the law. You have to understand that.’
CHAPTER 25
A pine had fallen and blocked the track. It was tall and bushy but the trunk was relatively slender. Anastasia assumed it wouldn’t take long to cut it up with a chainsaw and clear the way, but the last vehicles to pass had swerved off the road and ploughed across the grass verge and over the crown of the tree, pressing the uppermost branches into the earth. Igor looked at the tree uncomprehendingly then laughed and followed the tyre tracks around it, but he became unsteady and she took his hand, which made him shriek with pleasure. They continued on their way, she feeling more and more silly with the gun slung over her shoulder. She wanted to toss it away but, just a few minutes on, she heard the noise of a vehicle approaching from behind. It might have been someone she could flag down for a ride, but she couldn’t risk that without seeing the vehicle first. She tried to drag Igor into hiding, pretending it was a game, but he tugged his arm free and kept walking. The vehicle slowed and began to move to the side of the road to pass around the tree. She saw the roofs of what looked like two SUVs. It was now or never. She put her finger to her lips. Igor seemed to understand and nodded, and she dived into the bushes lining the track and ran up a slight mound among the pines, flattened herself against the bare soil and laid a handful of shells in front of her.
She had been here before – on the mountain road in Calabria. But now she had a gun and it was aimed at the dark SUV, which drifted to a stop by Igor, who turned and made wild movements with his hands as though fending off an attack by birds. She had a clean shot of the driver and she could see three men in the second car. There was no doubt who they were when Kirill, apparently unharmed by the fire and still bristling with self-importance, got out in one of his damned hunting hats, grabbed Igor’s shoulder and spun him round. Igor waved his arms in protest and tried to look away. Kirill was saying something. She guessed he was demanding to know if he had seen her, but what he got in response was an even wilder fluttering of hands. He took hold of the boy by both shoulders, shook him and cuffed him across the side of his head. One more blow from Kirill and she would shoot, but then reason kicked in. She might hit the boy, and even if she winged Kirill – the best she could hope for, since she had never fired a gun – there were at least four other men in the cars and they’d all be armed and would soon overwhelm and kill her. So, she waited one more agonising minute while Kirill hit Igor some more and pushed him over. The driver laughed. Kirill climbed back in and both vehicles moved off.
Igor did not get up, but she left it a little while before hurrying down to the road. The boy was all right but shaken and plainly terrified. She put her arms around him and hugged him and kissed him lightly on the forehead. ‘It’s going to be okay,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ She helped him up, brushed the mud and grass from his clothes and looked into his face and smiled. ‘We’ve got to find somewhere to sleep.’
They walked on for another half-hour or so before Igor stopped suddenly and examined the side of the road. His mind seemed to settle on something. He parted two saplings and led her through the gap, one hand gesturing chaotically ahead of them. He was telling her he knew the way.
It began to rain. The forest became dark and it was hard to see, but Igor pressed on and she noticed that stretches of the earth had been beaten into a path. He knew exactly where he was going. Another half-hour passed before they came to a clearing surrounded by very tall trees in the middle of which was a large shack built with horizontally aligned planks of wood at the lower level and vertical planks above, all painted in a green wash. Drainpipes had become detached from both sides of the building and the window shutters hung loose. She saw there had been a flower garden once – a solitary marigold bloomed – but now only the vegetable patch showed signs of care; there were a few cabbages left. She slung the gun around her back so it was less obvious and followed Igor to the door. He pushed it open with the side of his body and flung her a strange look as they entered the dark interior.
The smell of wood burning hit her. The room was warm but there was no electric light or movement in the shack. She saw heaps of paper and clothes and, as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, a figure seated by a wood-burning stove – an old woman asleep. Igor went to her side and dropped something from inside his jacket into her lap. She woke and clawed the air to take hold of him. She murmured something – it sounded like gratitude – and Igor brought a lantern over between the heels of his hands. He set it down unsteadily on the table and stepped back. She pulled the glass flap open, lit the wick then examined the packets in the light – a box of medicine and a pack of batteries. The woman was engrossed in these items but Anastasia thought it was time to introduce herself and moved forward with her hand out. ‘Anastasia,’ she said. The woman looked up, unsurprised, and said something to Igor, who writhed with embarrassment. It seemed she thought Anastasia was his girlfriend. Well, why not for the moment? She nodded, sat down and moved her gun as discreetly as possible to the side. The old woman opened her hands and exclaimed, ‘Pristrastnyy!’ which Anastasia thought might mean girlfriend, or simply friend, so she nodded vigorously.
The old lady must have been in her nineties, but she was still quite nimble and seemed to have all her faculties. Five minutes later Anastasia wondered about this when she got up with the lantern and moved towards a rudimentary kitchen, where there was a basin, a washboard, one gas ring and some large pots and saucepans. She cl
utched at Anastasia’s jacket and tugged her towards an old black-and-white framed photograph of men and women standing in the forest with machine guns, rifles and ammunition belts. ‘Pristrastnyy! Pristrastnyy!’ she said. Anastasia took the photograph from the old women and saw it was dated 1944. ‘Pristrastnyy!’ The old woman tapped her chest with both index fingers and said, ‘Olga,’ then carefully placed a crooked finger on a young girl of seventeen or eighteen in the photo, exclaiming, ‘Olga – pristrastnyy!’ She touched the rifle and made a shooting motion. Anastasia suddenly understood. Olga had been a partisan during the war. Either she thought Anastasia looked like one or that she was one. After all, she was armed and wearing almost exactly the same leather jacket as Olga in the photograph.
She smiled at the old lady, remembering that in his wallet Denis kept a photograph of him and his sister in fatigues in Kurdistan during the 1990s. Then she performed an elaborate mime of dialling and speaking on a phone. The old lady looked at her as though she were utterly mad, shook her head and shooed her from the kitchen.
Outside, there was still some light. She wondered how long the old lady would allow her to stay. She went over to the wood stove and took off some clothes to dry them, then sat cross-legged as close as she could, to warm herself. Igor watched her. At length, he clambered up and brought another lantern to her, this one made of pieces of brown and yellowish glass, lifted the top and lit the candle. Inside there was a tiny mirrored fan which, when heated, made the lights swirl around the room. She smiled, noticing that now he was home and free of stress his movements were less involuntary and his face more composed. He was extraordinary-looking – quite beautiful in his absorption with the coloured lantern.
The old lady gave them all bowls of lumpy onion, beetroot and potato soup. Anastasia ate two bowls while the old lady nagged Igor to finish his first. He sat at her feet and she stroked his hair and talked to him, possibly telling stories; Anastasia had no way of knowing. But she found herself being lulled by the sound of the ancient, cracked voice and, within a few minutes, she’d laid the gun on the floor and her head had fallen back on a pile of papers and she was asleep.
Ulrike passed her phone to Samson. It was Harland. ‘You need to get out of the house.’ His voice was hoarse, his tone urgent. ‘We have an infestation. Ulrike will show you how. What about the boy? Do you need him, or should he go back home?’
‘Not sure,’ said Samson, looking over at Naji, who was monitoring a burst of activity on Hisami’s email account.
‘You need me for this and for the bank accounts,’ said Naji, who had heard what was being said on the mobile phone, though it wasn’t on speaker.
‘To be discussed,’ said Samson.
‘No discussion,’ Naji said truculently, without looking up. ‘My decision.’
‘On the other thing,’ said Harland, ‘you’re going to have to move fast. Crane’s here in the city and making very rapid progress. We may be able to exchange our information for his coordinates. You okay with that?’
‘Of course,’ replied Samson. To swap a dossier with a fast-approaching expiration date for accurate details about Crane’s whereabouts was a deal he didn’t have to think twice about.
‘You’re going to need people, and they can’t be local,’ said Harland. ‘I know.’
‘Now, get out of the house.’
‘What type of pests? Ours? The opposition?’ asked Samson, thumbing through the contacts list on his phone.
‘Not sure, we’ll worry about that later. I need that material fast. Get it to me via Ulrike – she knows what to do.’
Samson hung up and handed the phone to Ulrike. Within a couple of minutes, they had copied the dossier into a file, Ulrike had encrypted it and had dispatched it to her husband’s phone. In the meantime, Samson had found and composed a text to the number that he hadn’t used since Macedonia. He wrote, ‘I have a job for 2/3. Estonia. Now. Good money. Big bonus. Call me. Samson.’ He had little hope of getting a response but saw it had been delivered.
Before they had crossed the garden to the hidden exit a call came on Samson’s phone from Zillah Dee.
‘We’ve got the driver,’ she said. ‘We know where they took her. It’s western Russia – forests north of Pskov.’
He stopped in his tracks. ‘How are you going to play it?’
‘I told Denis, but the truth of the matter is he hasn’t paid us.’
‘But you won’t let that get in the way.’
‘Of course not, and he’s good for the money eventually, but I’m burning through it right now with five people in the field. So we’re going to take a look at the place and report back. If there’s an exfiltration, he needs to find the money. Sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.’
‘I’m sure he will. How does this work? Do you take the driver with you?’
‘No, he’s out cold and in a secure location. We’ll hold him until we confirm the site. Don’t feel sorry for him. He’s a scumbag. He tried to rape my operative. Then he discovered that she has certain skills and he got badly hurt. By the way, the haulage company is Mafia-run.’ Samson started walking towards Ulrike, who was waiting with Naji at the end of the garden. ‘There’s one other matter. The story about Anastasia is about to break. That won’t matter if we get her out, but it could be a big factor if we don’t. The Italian police seem the likely source, however the reporter who contacted Denis’s office didn’t know much and the office issued a flat denial. We probably have a few hours on that.’
‘But it adds to the time pressure.’
‘Look, I have to go. I’ll be in contact as soon as we’ve located and recced the site.’
‘Hold on! Can you see if there’s been any activity around those bank accounts over the last twenty-four hours? I hear things are moving fast.’
‘Sure, I’ll have someone get back to you.’
The call ended. Samson jogged over to Ulrike and Naji at the far end of the garden.
Ulrike drove them to the car-hire place in the port area, where Samson rented an enclosed pick-up truck then followed her for a little over an hour to their seaside cottage. Naji elected to go with Samson, though during the first twenty minutes he said nothing and looked around the car, occasionally glancing at his phone.
‘You’ve seen a bit of Anastasia since she married?’ Samson ventured.
‘Yes.’
‘And Denis?’
‘Not so much.’
Samson glanced over to him and caught a worried look.
‘We’ll get her back, Naji. We three went through a lot together in Macedonia, and we will come through this, too.’
Naji nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘Are you doing okay? I mean, with the work and everything in Riga?’
‘Yes, it’s good.’ A silence followed, then he said, ‘We are happier. In Germany we had many problems. My sister’s hijab was ripped off. It was hard. I was attacked in the street.’
‘Yeah, I’m sorry about all that, Naji.’
‘Anastasia, she helped me … about my father … she talked to me. It was very good for me.’
Samson knew something of this. She had stuck with Naji and helped him come to terms with the death of his father, the appalling fact that he would not acknowledge while fleeing from IS through Macedonia. It struck him that her behaviour mirrored Harland’s care during Ulrike’s darkest hour. He hadn’t let her go, and nor had Anastasia forgotten the Touma family.
‘Well, I’ll do everything I can to get her back, but I don’t want you involved,’ he said. ‘I promised Munira that I wouldn’t place you in any danger.’
Naji again gave him that look that said he was a fool. ‘I killed the man who was going to kill you in Macedonia. It is I who must protect you always, Mr Samson.’ There wasn’t much Samson could say to that, although it was a moot point whether Naji or Denis Hisami had delivered the coup de grâce to Almunjil.
‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘you are the head of the family and they depend on you.’
‘If I am head of family, why do you take orders from Munira?’ He grinned at Samson, who sometimes felt slow-witted in Naji’s presence.
‘I gave my word,’ said Samson, ‘and that’s an end to it.’
‘But I didn’t give my word,’ said Naji, and grinned again.
They arrived at a village on the northern tip of a peninsula jutting into the Gulf of Finland. Ulrike pulled up beside a long white house with a red roof set behind a row of fishing shacks and boathouses. Beyond these, large boulders lay in a calm sea that was dimpled by the rain. The light was fading and the village seemed deserted.
But there were some lights on in the house and Samson was surprised to find Harland already there, sitting with his coat on at a table, waiting for the place to warm up.
‘Any idea who was watching your house?’ said Samson.
‘They aren’t Nyman’s people, and the intelligence service doesn’t believe it was Crane. Some tourists you picked up along the way, no doubt. The answer is, we don’t know.’
Samson told him that the truck driver had been traced.
‘So we may be able to forget the whole damn thing if they rescue her,’ said Harland.
‘Not sure about that – there’s still the dossier to think about.’
‘Oh Christ,’ said Harland. ‘Save me from bloody crusading liberals.’ Ulrike smiled at him. ‘You know the worst thing about our profession, Samson?’ he said.
‘Yes. Waiting.’
‘Spot on. It’s the bloody waiting. My man hasn’t come back to me. I’m not sure we’re going to get a result on Crane.’
‘Let’s hope we don’t need one.’
Just after seven, Harland and Samson’s phones began to ring at the same time. Samson answered first and moved away so he could hear. ‘My name is Kelly,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Zillah Dee asked me to be in touch on the bank accounts. There’s been a lot of activity over the past several days.’
‘In Tallinn?’
‘Yes, sir, maybe forty different connections today, though it is impossible to say what these were. The party could just be checking the balance.’
