Then it subsided. He shook his head.
‘What he sees in Kaffarov — and with that WMD. .’
‘Kaffarov’s dead.’
Paliov’s face brightened.
‘Don’t get too happy. Want to take a guess who’s got his bombs?’
He told him. Paliov hung his head. Solomon had been Paliov’s project as well, the ultimate agent, gifted, ruthless, no past, no allegiances.
There was a long silence as he absorbed the information. ‘Everything I’ve worked for and now this. .’
‘We had a deal, remember. I’m going to Paris.’
‘Ah Paris. Your old haunt.’ An inane smile spread across his face. His eyelids started to close again.
‘The photographs, remember?’
He frowned. Dima felt an almost uncontrollable urge to throttle him. He settled for another hard smack on the cheek.
‘My son, remember? In the pictures. You were going to get me a name and an address.’
Paliov’s eyes focused, the muscles in his sagging cheeks tensed. Some of the life came back into him. But the impression was not so much alert as panicked.
‘Your son?’
Dima leapt forward, grabbed the old man’s shoulders.
‘The fucking pictures. You showed them to me. It’s why I agreed to go on that fucked-up mission.’
Paliov’s hand went up to his mouth.
‘It’s happening again.’ His eyes unfocused.
Dima saw the photographs in his head clear down to every pixel. Camille’s features, some of his own. Good looking kid. My son.
‘I’m sorry, it’s. .’ Then a glimmer of recognition came into his watery eyes. ‘Timofayev had them. His people found him. He didn’t allow me the details.’
He stared at Paliov with a mixture of fury and despair. This man, once a formidable spymaster, keeper of all secrets, scourge of the West, the focus of all his respect and admiration. He cursed Paliov’s decrepitude, cursed himself for not prising the information out of either of them when he had the chance. For a moment he felt the energy that had kept him going these last days evaporating.
He had to keep moving. He had to get to Paris, with or without the information he craved.
‘Goodbye Paliov.’
‘Dima.’ Paliov’s voice was suddenly much stronger. ‘One last favour.’
‘I’m fresh out of favours.’
He pointed at the guard’s XP-9 that was still in his hand. ‘Would you mind if I borrowed that? I think the time has come. I’d ask you to but I’ve put you through too much.’
Dima froze. Love him or hate him, he had been in his life longer than any other person he had known.
He offered his right hand. Paliov clasped it. Then Dima handed over the pistol, turned and walked to the door.
‘Dima.’
He looked over his shoulder. A glimmer of light in Paliov’s eyes.
‘Your boy. He works at the Bourse.’
69
He heard the shot when he got outside the door. To Dima it meant more than the death of one man: it signalled the end of an era. Paliov had personified a set of values and principles that they had both given their lives to. Love them or hate them — and Dima had done both — they were in his DNA. For all the trouble Paliov had caused him, the lies, the mess and the waste, most of all the lost lives in Kaffarov’s compound — despite it all, Dima felt a twinge of regret.
But there was no time to process all that now. As the lift took him down, Paliov’s final words reverberated round his head.
Kroll was waiting for him in the Merc.
‘We have a problem.’
‘Just for a change.’
‘I just got a call from Omorova. Timofayev has demanded to see your corpse. He won’t take anyone’s word, despite the phone footage. If he doesn’t see a body he’s going to put the whole city on lockdown and tell the world you’re still out there. Armed and dangerous and to be shot on sight.’
Dima looked distracted.
‘Omorova doesn’t know what to do. She’s already taken a big fat risk organising your “shooting”.’
70
Renskaya Morgue, Moscow
Friday night is rush hour at Moscow’s police morgues. But the Renskaya, one of the oldest in the city, was suspiciously quiet — to anyone familiar with the place, which Andrei Timofayev was not.
A nervous-looking orderly in a white coat, apron and rubber boots led the way down to the basement. The place smelled not of death, but of something unidentifiable and chemical, impersonal. The green paint on the brick walls of the corridors was scored by decades of gurneys, badly steered by drunken or careless porters. There had been no time to prepare the viewing chamber in advance of the Secretary’s visit. The tattered curtain across the window through which the corpses could be viewed for identification hung like a string of washing. Timofayev shook his head, as he did whenever he found evidence of Moscow’s resemblance to a city in the Third World.
‘If you would take a seat, Sir,’ said the orderly.
‘What for? Do I look like a grieving relative?’ Timofayev fluttered a hand at the curtain. ‘Get on with it.’
The curtain was drawn back. On a trolley behind the viewing window lay a pale corpse. Just the head and shoulders were showing: the rest was under a sheet — just visible was a corner of the plaster used by pathologists to close up, after they have finished their investigations.
All the colour had drained from the face. The eyes were closed, the head angled slightly towards the window to facilitate identification.
Timofayev glared at the corpse, narrowing his eyes.
‘I need a closer look.’
The attendant stepped forward, moving uncomfortably in his large boots.
‘I’m sorry, Sir, it’s not permitted.’
Timofayev pushed him aside and seized the handle of the door that separated the viewing gallery from the body display area. It was locked.
‘Open it. Now!’
The orderly did as he was told and stood back. He had done what he had been bribed to do. Now all he wanted to do was flee. Timofayev strode up to the corpse and peered at it, his face devoid of emotion.
Dima had only stopped shivering when he heard Timofayev’s voice. He had conquered the urge to shudder by putting himself in the same state as when he was thrown into the ice-covered lake in his Spetsnaz training, or when he had to fight one of his fellow recruits naked in the snow for the amusement of their instructor, a definite psychopath. He ordered his nerve endings not to respond to the cold, commanded his muscles to obey. Even so, he could still feel the goosebumps on his arms tingling. Bit of a giveaway that. Timofayev’s breath was warm and smelled of coffee and something alcoholic. His aftershave blended with the disinfectant that hung in the mortuary air, in a particularly nausea-inducing way. His breaths came in short rapid puffs that sounded like repeated snorts of disdain. He lifted the sheet back to expose the plaster.
And Dima opened his eyes.
Timofayev jumped backwards, crashing into the instrument trolley parked to one side, fumbling for his weapon. Dima sprang up and grabbed his wrist as his hand reached the Beretta.
‘You didn’t expect me back in Moscow, did you?’
‘I don’t expect anything of you. You’re way past your sell-by date, Mayakovsky. Same as your pathetic old
