The sound of heavy breathing lasted for some seconds. Victor waited for the control to say something.
‘Let’s both of us just calm down,’ the voice eventually said. ‘Okay?’
‘I’m always calm.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ the control added. ‘But I’m big enough and ugly enough to admit when I get it wrong. I’ve said I’m sorry already. I should have told you before Bucharest that Kasakov could be a target further down the line.’
Victor said, ‘I’ve done three contracts so far for you: in Bucharest, Berlin and Minsk, and each one has been rushed, or I’ve gone in without the full facts. Now I have Mossad after me, and you’re asking me to kill a man who knows my face. And once this job is out of the way you expect me to fulfil yet another contract for you, one that is in addition to our original agreement.’
‘Are you refusing to do this?’ his control asked. ‘Because for a man who has so many enemies that probably isn’t the smartest move.’
‘I’m not refusing the contract, I’m telling you that once Kasakov is dead our arrangement is over. This is my final job.’
Silence. Victor stared out of the hotel-room window. The rising sun cleared the mountains.
Eventually, the voice said, ‘Fine, you win. Kasakov is your last hit. After that, you’re a free man. You can go sell flower baskets on the streets of Bangkok for all I care. But you don’t go back to being a freelance shooter. No way. You take contracts from me or you retire and stay retired. If there is so much as a hint that you’re involved in a kill then I’ll do everything I can to bring you down. Do we understand each other?’
‘I understand you. I hope you understand me.’
‘So,’ his control said, ‘can we get back to the Kasakov assignment?’
‘That depends,’ Victor answered, ‘on one final condition. If I’m going to kill him, it has to be how I choose.’
‘You can do it any way you like. In a couple of weeks’ time he’s taking a vacation at his dacha on the Black Sea coast. He’ll be guarded, but he should be easier to get to than when he’s at home in Moscow. I’ll have more details on the location soon, but you have enough to be going on with for now. He’ll be there for two weeks, so you’ve got all the lead time you could want.’
‘Good,’ Victor said, and finished his lemonade.
‘And this time,’ the voice assured, ‘I guarantee there won’t be any surprises.’
CHAPTER 46
Heathrow Airport, United Kingdom
The flight from Dulles had been long. Clarke had spent the first four hours working — reading reports, signing documents, compiling his own reports — and the rest of the time sleeping. He woke up to the gentle tones of a stewardess telling him they were approaching Heathrow and he needed to fasten his safety belt. The sky outside the plane’s window was blue and mostly clear. There wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. So much for the stereotype.
As soon as the plane had touched down, Clarke was switching on his phone and checking his messages and emails. He had a couple of dozen — which was about average for the time period — but he paid attention to only one. It told him he wasn’t wasting his time crossing the Atlantic. Which was good because Clarke didn’t much like the English or British or whatever the hell the correct term for the self-righteous population was. The Scots weren’t too bad if they could be understood, and Clarke had never met anyone from Wales, but the rest of the UK he didn’t have a whole lot of time for.
The official reasons for his visit encompassed a trip to the Ministry of Defence, SIS headquarters and GCHQ. He was representing the Pentagon, at his own request, and if anyone ever decided to look particularly closely they might conclude that Clarke never really had to go to Britain himself. Intelligence could be shared through other means and there was no need to put a friendly smile on anything. There was never any need to encourage or coerce cooperation. Whatever his personal dislikes, Clarke respected Britain’s loyalty to her allies.
Heathrow was predictably horribly busy. Clarke walked through the terminal at a relaxed yet focused pace. He had an overnight bag but no other luggage to collect, as he would only be staying the night if absolutely necessary.
Clarke passed a store that sold soft drinks, confectionary, newspapers and books. He made for the books and spent a few minutes perusing the covers of the bestsellers. In the hardcovers were lots of biographies of British celebrities, most of whom looked too young to have a life story worth telling. He sidestepped to the paperbacks, which were mostly fiction. Clarke was an avid reader but he rarely had time for novels. History and politics were his subjects. He saw a few books he recognised from the shelves in the States and selected a paperback with a cover he liked the look of. He noted that novels in the UK tended to have much more arty jackets than their US counterparts. He skimmed the book’s blurb. Something about terrorists and a plot to destroy America.
A woman to the right of Clarke said, ‘I’ve heard that one is very good.’
‘I’m going to take a wild guess and say the good guys manage to stop the terrorists at the end and save the day,’ Clarke replied without looking at her.
The woman chuckled. ‘Not your genre?’
Clarke shook his head and put the book back on the shelf. ‘I prefer fact over fiction.’
‘A cerebral man then.’
‘I have my moments,’ Clarke said.
He turned and faced the speaker, who smiled and inclined her head in a brief nod. She was smartly dressed in a business suit, somewhere in her forties and attractive. She was short and slender but held herself with an obvious inner strength. Her eyes were small and intelligent and cold. She took another book from the shelf and handed it to Clarke.
‘Maybe this would be more to your liking.’
Clarke accepted the book without looking at it. ‘Thanks, I’ll give it a try.’
The woman seemed pleased. ‘I think you will not guess how it ends quite so easily.’
Clarke spent a minute reading the back and flicking through pages without interest, before saying, ‘I’m not sure meeting here was such a good idea.’
‘It is a perfect place to talk,’ the woman replied. ‘This is the busiest airport in the world. Look around you. Do you know how many people pass through it each day? I read nearly two hundred thousand. This is a liquid city. We are all but invisible.’
‘Unless British intelligence knows you’re here.’
‘Impossible. Few outside of Russia know I even exist, even less know how I am employed. To the British, Yuliya Eltsina is but a simple, albeit successful, businesswoman. She is in London to see clients. Besides, I am a very cautious lady. I take many precautions.’ She made a floating gesture. ‘I am but a ghost gliding among the living.’
Clarke thumbed through the book to maintain the act. ‘I’d like an explanation regarding Beirut.’
‘What about Beirut?’ Eltsina asked, infuriatingly calm and composed.
Clarke frowned. ‘Kindly stop the charade. Playing the fool isn’t your forte.’
She said, ‘My astute powers of telepathy inform me you are talking about the attack on Baraa Ariff.’
‘Of course I am. Do you think I’d fly halfway around the world to discuss anything else?’
Eltsina shook her head, but said nothing.
‘I’m waiting.’
‘For what?’
‘An explanation.’
‘And what, dear Peter, would you like me to say?’
‘We had an understanding. We had a deal. Long before I told you where to find Ariff we specifically agreed Kasakov was not to move against him until I gave the all clear. We agreed this war would last months, not weeks.’
Eltsina raised her small hands. ‘You have to understand the position I was in. I had no choice. In the past few weeks Ariff has killed eight of our people. Important people. He also destroyed four major shipments, at a loss of
