‘I know you’ve never shared Eltsina’s ambition,’ Kasakov stated, ‘so why else, I ask myself, if not to take over my empire, would you want me dead? The answer is obvious. For Izolda, of course. But I would never have believed you could do that to me, until just now. When I told you of Izolda’s affair you could not disguise the depth of your anger. Then I knew.’
Kasakov squeezed harder. The blood vessels in Burliuk’s face stood out beneath his reddening skin. He wheezed, breathless, punching desperately at Kasakov, who didn’t try to slip the blows, accepting each one as the price of forty years of friendship.
‘If only you hit like a heavyweight, Tomasz.’
Burliuk’s lips were turning blue. His eyes bulged. The toes of his shoes scratched at the floorboards.
‘In a way, I don’t blame you,’ Kasakov admitted. ‘You did see her first, all those long years ago, but for all your good looks she chose me, not you. Had that been reversed I would surely have done the same as you to make her mine. Only I, of course, would not have failed.’
Burliuk’s arms flopped to his sides, his legs slackened and his head tilted forward. Kasakov kept his own arms straight, supporting Burliuk’s weight, holding him upright for a long time after his heart stopped.
Kasakov then called his security to dispose of his best friend’s body and went downstairs to look at nursery colour schemes with his wife.
CHAPTER 57
Washington, DC, USA
Procter pulled into the parking lot of a burger joint that had seen better days. The square of cracked asphalt at the rear looked no better. Procter spotted a blue Lincoln Town Car reverse-parked at the far end and headed towards it. No other vehicles were near the car. They were all parked closer to the restaurant itself. Customers never walked further than they had to. Procter stopped his Buick alongside the Lincoln, nose to tail. The night air smelled of exhaust fumes and grease.
Procter already had his window lowered. Clarke buzzed down his own.
‘Evening, Roland.’
Procter’s expression was hard, dejected. ‘Tesseract failed to kill Kasakov.’
Clarke let out some air. He said nothing, but his disappointment was palpable. It seemed as if there was a little fear mixed in as well.
‘The word’s all over the Agency that someone tried to take him out two days ago. Kasakov was on vacation. Multiple bodies have been found near to his Sochi dacha.’
Clarke looked at Procter. ‘Is Tesseract dead?’
‘There are three as yet unidentified corpses. I’ve seen the pictures. He’s not among them.’
Clarke stared across the parking lot. He was the most distressed Procter could ever remember seeing him. It wasn’t the anger Procter had been expecting. Clarke hadn’t raised his voice, hadn’t thrown across any accusations.
‘Looks like you were right about him all along,’ Procter said, as sympathetically as he knew how. ‘That’s twice now he’s failed and created an almighty mess in the process. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you earlier.’
‘Let me assure you I take no pleasure in being proved right. Do you know what went wrong?’
Procter made a face and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not a clue. Tesseract hasn’t reported in. But what does it matter? I’ve got no choice now. I’m pulling the plug. We’ll never get Kasakov. Not after this. Not after two assassination attempts in as many months. He’ll surround himself with nothing short of a small army. If we want him, we’re gonna have to drop a cruise missile on Moscow.’ Procter shook his head. ‘All this heat on us, all these questions being asked, and for what gain? Kasakov is alive and well and we didn’t even get our war, we got a skirmish.’
Clarke said, ‘This should be our last meeting for a while.’
‘Agreed.’
‘What about Tesseract?’
‘We’ll have to get rid of him.’
‘How?’ Clarke asked.
‘The contingency,’ Procter explained. ‘That boy has a lot of enemies, don’t forget. Most notably in the SVR.’
‘Efficient.’
Procter nodded. ‘We don’t have to get our hands dirty. We simply hand over his file, maybe say where he’s going to be. Anonymously, of course. The Russians are a lot better than us when it comes to making problems disappear.’
An hour later, Procter sat slumped in the chair of his study on the second floor of his Georgetown home. He wasn’t a big drinker, usually, but he was rapidly making his way through a bottle of Merlot. Everything he had worked so hard to achieve had fallen apart.
Patricia was watching soaps in bed and Roland Jnr was thankfully asleep, so Procter could stress in peace and quiet. Self-pity wasn’t usually something he wallowed in, but this time he figured he had a right to. What could he have done differently? He replayed the past few weeks in his head, the months and years beforehand. The plan had seemed like a good one. It came with a real risk of failure, sure, but Procter had expected success. After all, he had the right backer in Clarke, the right triggerman in Tesseract. It should have worked.
He drank some more wine. It dribbled down his chin and he wiped it away with the back of his wrist. On the screen of his computer monitor was Tesseract’s file. There wasn’t much information on the guy, but there was enough to enable the right people to track him down. Procter didn’t want to send it; as the man who’d brought Tesseract on to the op, the buck stopped with him, but the assassin had drawn a lot of attention, too much attention to allow him to carry on walking around.
Procter composed an email from an untraceable account and attached Tesseract’s file. He knew just who in the SVR to send the file to.
He drained the last of his glass and wiped his mouth. His finger hovered above the left mouse button. Sorry, my man.
The computer beeped at him before he could click the button. Incoming VoIP call. Procter’s eyebrows rose, and after a second’s deliberation, he accepted it.
‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said.
The voice that came through the computer’s speaker spoke in English but Procter couldn’t place the accent. It was vaguely American at times, British at others, but also neither. He had no idea where Tesseract was from.
‘You have exactly one minute to convince me you had nothing to do with what occurred on Friday.’ Tesseract’s voice was low and chilling. ‘Then I’m hanging up and getting on the next flight to the States. You can guess what happens after that.’
Procter frowned, considered. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Fifty-seven seconds left.’
Procter sat up in his seat. He gathered his thoughts. ‘If something happened, you need to stop playing games and just tell me what it is.’
‘Fifty seconds.’
‘ Jesus, what the hell is this? You can’t be serious. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Forty-six seconds.’
‘Okay,’ Procter said. ‘Someone came after you, right? That’s why you’re pissed. You think it was me. It wasn’t. I swear.’
‘Thirty-seven seconds.’
‘All right, you need more convincing than that. I don’t know what to say if I don’t know what happened.’
‘Thirty-one seconds.’
Procter grabbed hold of the desk with both hands. He leaned forward. ‘Come on, cut me some slack here, I’m trying my best. Someone came after you, we’ve established that. You think it was me. Okay, so, that means they
