‘That I hadn’t seen you for years.’
‘They believed you?’
‘Who knows? The investigating officer didn’t like me, I can tell you that for nothing. Aniskovach his name was. I made a point of remembering that one. A rising star I think. He had that look about him, arrogant but clever. He reminded me of you, actually.’ Norimov smiled briefly. ‘He brought with him a list of corpses as long as my dick, wanted to know who out of them you could’ve killed.’
‘And you said?’
‘That you could’ve killed them all for all I knew, but I told him I’d heard you were dead, so even for you it would be a tall order. That’s when he showed me a photo of you, said it was recent.’
‘Taken where?’
‘I couldn’t tell. Don’t worry, it was your good side.’ He flashed a grin. ‘Aniskovach wanted you for Banarov though; the others didn’t matter. He was just trying to track you down through one of your other jobs.’
‘He told you that?’
‘He didn’t have to.’
Victor nodded.
‘So,’ Norimov began, ‘was it you who killed Banarov?’
Victor’s expression remained blank. ‘I don’t remember.’
Norimov’s face was serious. ‘But they do, Vasily.’
‘Then I’ll be careful to do nothing to jog their memories.’
‘And have you thought about me in all this? They don’t like me as it is. What do you think they’ll do if they find out I helped you?’
‘When have I ever asked you for a favour?’
‘Never.’ Norimov paused. He looked at Victor for a long time before speaking. ‘You’ve changed.’
‘I’m thinner.’
‘No, not that.’
‘I’m older.’ He didn’t like saying it.
The Russian shook his head. ‘It’s something else.’
Victor stopped himself shifting in his seat.
‘One thing I know,’ Norimov said, ‘is that people like us don’t change. We adapt.’
‘Necessity.’
‘Remember when I told you about what makes you special?’ He didn’t wait for Victor to respond. ‘People like you, like me, we either take that thing inside ourselves that others don’t have and make it work for us, or we stand by and let it destroy us.’
‘I still believe that.’
‘If I do this for you, then we are even for Chechnya.’
‘Naturally,’ Victor agreed without hesitation.
Norimov nodded slowly. ‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘You’ll need a copy of the drive.’
Norimov smiled. ‘Why, don’t you trust me?’
‘No.’
Norimov’s smile disappeared, and he stared hard at Victor.
Victor stared back.
Norimov looked away first and plugged the flash drive into his computer. ‘Will it allow me to copy the contents?’
‘The information on the drive is encrypted, not the flash drive itself.’
It took seconds for Norimov to copy the data onto his computer. When the transfer had finished, he pulled the original out of the laptop and handed it back to Victor.
‘All done. I’ll copy it onto a disk and give it to my contacts. I’ll delete it from my laptop afterwards, don’t worry.’
‘I don’t worry,’ Victor said. ‘And it’ll be safer if we don’t meet here. Somewhere busy instead, somewhere public.’
There was a glow in Norimov’s face. ‘Like the old days?’
‘Exactly like the old days.’
‘How do you want to do it?’
‘I’ll call your bar, give them a time and place for you to meet me. How long will it take?’
Norimov stroked his beard for a long moment. He looked away. ‘If the people I know can do it, it won’t take them long.’ He looked back. There was something in his eyes Victor couldn’t read. ‘Forty-eight hours at the most.’
Victor downed his drink and stood.
‘Then I’ll see you on Monday.’
CHAPTER 39
Central Intelligence Agency, Virginia, USA
Sunday
06:05 EST
Chambers’s expression was dour. She was perched elegantly on her chair, leaning slightly forward, elbows on the table. ‘I know it’s Sunday and I know it’s early, but I’m sure everyone appreciates the gravity of what we’re doing. Somebody we very much don’t want to see better armed could be recovering those missiles as we speak. This goes beyond arms superiority; this is about global safety. If this technology gets into the wrong hands, our ability to protect our interests as well as our capacity for peacekeeping will be critically diminished. I don’t think anyone around this table wants that to happen.’
Procter nodded his agreement. Ferguson and Sykes gave their own solemn nods.
‘I know none of you need motivational speeches to pull out all the stops,’ Chambers continued. ‘We all know the clock is ticking. It’s been almost a week since Ozols was killed and the information stolen. If we’re going to crack this, it has to be soon.’ She paused and looked at Procter. ‘Are we any closer to finding Ozols’s killer?’
Procter shook his head. ‘Alvarez is following a lead on who hired Stevenson and his crew, but we’re completely stalled on locating the assassin, I’m afraid to say. With what little we have to go on we can’t even establish whether he’s government or private sector. We have some witness statements that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, some CCTV footage of a man but no face, no solid physical evidence. We missed him by a day in Germany. He probably went to the Czech Republic, but we haven’t heard from him since.
‘All departments have been involved in this. Every station has been briefed. We have people on the lookout all over Europe. We can’t find him.’
Chambers’s brow wrinkled. ‘So he’s just vanished?’
‘He could be right under our noses and we wouldn’t necessarily see him. We don’t know who we’re looking for.’
‘We must have suspects though,’ Chambers said. ‘Which known assassins can’t be accounted for? What intelligence services are making suspicious movements?’
‘Even if we assume he’s not a direct operative for a foreign-intelligence service and that he was hired for this job, of which we have no proof, we’re not starting from a good position. There are hundreds of these guys operating in Europe, maybe even thousands. We know about a tiny percentage of them, and of those we can only rule out another small percentile. That leaves a huge number of suspects, most of whom we have absolutely no information on. And this guy is good, let’s not forget. He’s a needle in a hitman haystack.’
Chambers removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘Best guess on him?’
‘We have a receptionist who says he spoke French like a native, and in Munich the neighbour said he sounded
