Nothing.
“Who with?”
Nothing.
“Where did you get the rifle?”
The smile remained but he didn’t reply.
“Did you fire as quickly on Wednesday as you did when you trained every day in the army? And since?”
“I’m good.”
“Two shots, over eight seconds? That’s not fast, not for a trained marksman.”
“Less than eight seconds.”
Got it with the wrong correction! snatched Olga, triumphantly. She actually looked at the slowly revolving tape spool. “There were five shots, Georgi. Not two. The other man really did do better than you. Hit our president twice. And the American First Lady. You were rubbish.”
“No one else,” He wasn’t blinking anymore; the eyes were positively drooping now.
“We know there was. You know it, too.”
There was fresh outburst from the corridor outside and Olga saw the doctor and the psychiatrist both arguing with the guards outside. She distinctly heard “enough” and “protest” over the barricading heads and shoulders of Bendall’s protectors and this time Zenin stood up and gestured the two men through. Badim flustered into the room, still protesting, and Olga snapped off the recording just before he got to “outrage.”
Zenin blocked the man just inside the door. “Shut up! We’ve stopped. He’s OK.”
“Stalin’s not in the Kremlin anymore, this isn’t a police state.”
“You want to prove that enlightened opinion, doctor, you just go on shouting and yelling and making too much noise. I’ll even give you your own choice of camp at Kolyma.”
The professional anger seeped from Badim like air from a punctured balloon. “This man is still officially in intensive care!”
Olga saw George Bendall’s eyes were shut, not twitching with feigned sleep. The man’s chest rose and fell, evenly.
“Which is precisely where I want him kept,” said Zenin, looking between the two hospital officials. “If anything goes wrong-if he dies under your intensive care-then neither of you will even get a choice of Kolyma camp. You hear me loud and clear?”
The small, stained-coated surgeon-administrator momentarily remained in eyeball to eyeball confrontation, his mouth and throat working with unspoken words. Finally, pitifully, he said, “You proud of what you do?”
“Hardly ever,” said the militia commander. “It’s something that has to be done.”
Zenin led the hurried pace to get out of the hospital, trailing Olga with him. Short-breathed she said, “I was almost there! I could have broken him!”
“‘The only person we’ve got to keep alive is George Bendall,’” Zenin quoted back at her. “You did brilliantly. But we pushed him. Keep him the right side of sanity, we’ll get the others. Push him over, we’ve got what you said he was, a chosen idiot. George Bendall isn’t important. I want the people who manipulated him. The conspirators.”
Minutes, thought Olga, infuriated, in just minutes Bendall wouldhave given them the lead. “The British are invoking their access agreement tomorrow. I want to see him again, before they do.”
“Good idea,” agreed Zenin. They were nearing the exit on to Gospital’naya Ulitza. “I am going back to the Kremlin. They’re waiting.”
“Yes?” she said, curiously.
“We need to talk more. Please wait for me, at headquarters.”
“Of course.”
“I meant what I said, Olga Ivanova. You did brilliantly.”
“I told the militia everything,” said Vladimir Sakov. “I told the Yanks to go to hell. Now I’m telling you. You want to be helped out, I’ll help you.”
A bravado-and vodka-fuelled bully, thought Charlie. But definitely able to fight, from the evidence of the television struggle with George Bendall that the world had watched. The NTV camera room was cluttered with equipment, discarded cups and food containers, cigarette debris and protective outdoor clothing.
Charlie said, “I’ve read what you told the militia.” It had occupied less than one page. The man had been jolted by Bendall, knocking the camera off focus, turned to yell at him and seen the rifle. He’d thought Bendall was going to shoot him and fought him for the gun. No one liked Bendall and Bendall didn’t like anyone in return. He tried not to work with the man.
“So fuck off!” Sakov was lounged in an ancient armchair leaking its stuffing into the rest of the mess, glass in hand, wearing only a sweat-stained singlet hanging over even dirtier jeans. There was a lot more of the crude tattooing along each arm than Charlie had seen on film and Charlie was sure he was right, although he didn’t put the Russian older than thirty-five, despite the near baldness.
He was probably gambling with his front teeth. But Charlie was in no mood to be told to fuck off. He’d ascended floor by floor the former Comecon skyscraper and two smaller towers blocks from which the second gunman could have got an elevated firing position before abandoning the chore to the recognized FBI group outside the fourth possible location. The pain from his feet had reached his knees and was climbing. “You’re not old enough.”
“What?” frowned the man.
“You’re not old enough to have been in a gulag. And those are gulag tattooes, aren’t they?” identified Charlie. “And if you had been you wouldn’t have got this job. Your workbook would have been marked.”
“Smart fucker.” The man lifted a clear, unlabeled bottle Charlie hadn’t seen from beside the chair and added to his glass.
It was the yellow of street-distilled potato vodka, harsher-and stronger-than that sold in shops. All part of the macho image. But the remark was less belligerent. And his teeth were still intact. Charlie said, “Father? Grandfather?”
The man shrugged. “Father.”
“Pretty dramatic testimonial,” said Charlie, in apparent admiration.
“He wasn’t guilty of anything. None of them were.”
Family suffering explained a hostility to authority or officialdom. Continuing the flattery Charlie said, “Still a brave-unusual-thing to do.”
Sakov shrugged, not speaking.
Having eased past the barrier Charlie didn’t want to lose the momentum. “Quite a difference from Georgi. He hated his father.”
“Bastard hated everyone.”
“Can’t imagine that worrying you.”
“It didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you like working with him then?”
“Morose fucker.”
“He drank.”
“Not properly with the rest of us.”
“Not with anyone?”
“Maybe.”
“He did have friends here, didn’t he?” chanced Charlie.
“Vasili Gregorevich, I suppose.” The man made a vague gesture, crossing himself.
A religious gesture? “Vasili Gregorevich who?”
“Isakov,” completed the Russian. “He was a good guy, never understood what it was with him and Gugin. No one did.”
Was, picked out Charlie. “What happened to Vasili Gregorevich?”
Sakov looked surprised at the question. “Dead.”
Charlie felt a stir of satisfaction. “Dead how?”
“An accident. His car got hit by a train on the level crossing near Timiryazev Park. That’s where he lived, near
