Kings of Many Castles

“It’s my call, anyway.”

“And there’s no jurisdiction.”

“Now you’re trying to talk me out of it!”

“Just getting the rules of engagement clear between us,” insisted Charlie. “Like you said, we only get one hit. So where?”

“The station says he’s off sick. I called without saying who I was.”

“Let’s hope he’s not too sick.”

Vladimir Petrovich Sakov didn’t sound too sick but there wasn’t the belligerence there had been in the mess room of the NTV studios. The muffled demand to identify themselves was shouted through the chipped door of the apartment in a crumbling block on Kazakova Ulitza gradually being shaken off its sand-ballasted foundations by the perpetual shuddering traffic of the inner peripherique behind and the reverberating railway line in front. When they said who they were the voice came back stronger. “Fuck off!”

“Relieved it’s us?” Kayley shouted back.

There was no reply.

“We know, Vladimir Petrovich,” said Charlie. “We’ve got all the proof we need, too. We even know about the tattoos.”

Kayley gently pushed Charlie out of the direct firing line through the door, pulling himself to the opposite side. The American said loudly, “You worried? I’d be, if I were you. I’d be shit scared.”

There was still no response from inside.

“I just realized something,” said Charlie. “This railway line is the one on which Vasili Isakov was murdered, further up at Timiryazev, isn’t it? You think they might try that again?”

“Why not?” said Kayley, responding to Charlie’s nodded invitation. “You got away with it well enough last time, didn’t you Vladimir?”

“What’s it like, knowing you’re going to die and that there’s nothing you can do about it?” asked Charlie. “You really must be shit scared.”

“You want your life saved, you open the door, Vlad old buddy,” advised the American. “We’re your only chance, so stop being an asshole.”

The shuffling was audible on the other side.

“We’re waiting,” said Charlie.

“But not for much longer,” added Kayley.

There was the grating of more than one lock being released aheadof a longer clattering sound. Vladimir Sakov put himself to one side, for a warning view of several meters along the outside corridor, head-nodding them into the room. The long sleeves of the wellpressed blue woollen shirt were buttoned, hiding the body markings, and the jeans were much cleaner than those at his meeting with Charlie at the TV station. The apartment was surprisingly neat and well furnished, in contrast to the outside neglect and there were photographs-one of instant interest was of a much slimmer, younger Sakov in army uniform-but Charlie didn’t get the impression of permanence. The impression he did get was of a very different man from the gut-rot swigging slob of the TV mess room.

Charlie turned at the repeated clattering and saw there was a cat’s cradle of chains criss-crossing the inside of the door. The dead lock and mortise looked new. A Makarov lay on a table which was totally hidden from the outside when the door was open.

Kayley gestured to the handgun and said, “You’re going to need more than that to keep you alive, once everybody knows what we know.”

“So it’s only the two of you who do, at the moment?”

This man’s training had involved more than being taught how to use a camera, Charlie thought. Pushing the pained condescension into his voice he said, “Vladimir Petrovich! Do we look as if we just drove in from the steppes in a hay cart? We said we know! And one of the things we know is that your job was to kill George Bendall, not save him. Do you think we’d come here and confront a willing killer without insurance? Come on!” Charlie hoped Sakov hadn’t seen the tension twitch through the bulged American. They’d all three been standing but now Charlie walked casually, as if he had the right, to a chair closest to the photographs. Beyond the one showing Sakov in army uniform was another of the man in swimming shorts. None showed Sakov with either male or female companions. Kayley found himself a chair and finally Sakov sat down.

Very slowly, enabling the Russian to see what he was doing, Kayley extracted the lip moving transcripts from the manila envelope he carried. “Let me read something to you. ‘You’re dead, Georgi. Done what you’re here for … down you go, like Vasili Gregorovich … no use anymore …’ Recognize those words: yourwords? And what Bendall said back? ‘No, you fucker. You’re coming with me, everyone’s coming with me.’ If you’d pushed him properly, not let him see you coming, it would have worked and he would have been over the top, head first, before that CNN lensman heard the commotion and turned his camera on you … saw everything. That was real bad luck, wasn’t it?”

“How?” said Sakov. There wasn’t the slightest belligerence in his voice any more.

“That favorite phrase of politicians,” said Charlie. “Read my lips!”

“Now you’ve got to read ours,” said Kayley. He went into the envelope again, taking out Isakov’s picture and the CNN freeze frame. “Just so you know what there is. By tonight we’ll have the match from the mortuary with Bendall and Davidov.”

So far Kayley hadn’t put a foot-or rather a word-wrong but Charlie hoped the American properly realized they were dealing with a professional. Could he risk a wrong word, taking things on as he wanted? “How’d you feel, after Bendall survived? After ‘you’re coming with me, everyone’s coming with me?’ I know he’s clever-that’s why he was moved in at once-but you were putting a hell of a lot of trust in just one very clever man to keep Bendall from talking, weren’t you? What a pity you didn’t have someone on the theater staff at the hospital. Bendall could have died under surgery and the problem would have been over, wouldn’t it? You’d have got him the second time.”

“Guerguen Semonovich could do anything he wanted with the idiot!” said the Russian, his uncertainty deepening. “He had Bendall trained like Pavlov’s dogs, responding without question to any instruction, any guidance. Isakov too, to an extent. Isakov trusted him, believed he was curing Bendall of his demons.”

Got it! thought Charlie, triumphantly. All they needed was that little extra nudge: one wrong word, he thought again. He was about to speak when Kayley began, “Even though …” but Charlie urgently talked over the American. “But Guerguen Semonovich Agayan didn’t train you: the KGB did. And you were the link between the idiots and the real planners. That’s why I don’t understand why they’ve let you live.”

“The court was the end: that closed it down.”

“But it didn’t, did it?” pressed Charlie.

Kayley came back on track, again indicating the Makarov and the chained door. “And you didn’t believe that it did yourself, did you, Vlad old buddy.”

“For fuck’s sake stop calling me Vlad old buddy!” erupted Sakov.

“You’d better believe it,” said the American. “We’re your way-your only way-to stay alive now.”

“You said that before.”

Both Charlie and Kayley recognized the half question as the beginning of the capitulation. Kayley said, “Here’s how it is, the toss of a coin. Only in your case, Vlad old buddy, heads you lose-the moment we make public what we know, with all the photographs and the lip read transcripts-and tails you lose again, because they can’t afford to let you go on living, telling all you know. So here’s what you do. You run. To me. To America. I get you out of here, on an American flight on a phony passport, like we’ve got a lot of Russian defectors out before. You testify before a Grand Jury, telling us all about the conspiracy, so that we can issue legal indictments against everyone who’s part of it, to enable Moscow to make all the arrests. Then we put you into the Witnesses’ Protection Program. New identity, new citizenship and a U.S. government pension. And you live happily ever after.”

“What guarantee have I got you’ll do all that?”

“A better guarantee than you’ve got staying alive here when we go public,” said Kayley. “But think about it. You think the president of the United States of America isn’t going to be grateful for you telling everyone who tried to kill him and so badly hurt his wife!”

“I get full amnesty?”

“That’s the deal.”

“When?” asked Sakov, his voice almost inaudible.