They travelled in a grubby Citroen Xantia Rossin had procured for them. A car with three men in it at three a.m. was a potential magnet for police curiosity, even without a trunk load of weaponry. Kroll did his best to observe the speed limit until he realised that at this hour, no one else on the road was paying any attention to it either.
Close to the Clichy tower block they had to hang back while firemen dealt with a burning car. A squad of police were loading a van with protesting young men. Friday night in the small hours was not the best time to be visiting this neighbourhood.
‘Too bad we can’t do the apartment and Solomon’s hotel simultaneously.’
‘It’s the bomb I want first. Check the scanner.’
It was pulsing clearly. Dima should have been more elated, but something was troubling him, something he couldn’t put his finger on.
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t slip away from us again.’
The entrance to the block was wide open, any outer doors it had once had being long gone. So was the lift.
‘Nine stories. Fuck,’ said Vladimir.
‘Do you good. Come on.’
Three floors up they stepped over a couple zoned out on substances. Syringes crunched underfoot. Several apartments were doorless and burned out. Some that did have doors sounded like they wouldn’t have them much longer, judging by the arguments underway inside. On floor eight they were confronted by a posse of young men, their faces covered, each with a pistol.
‘Turn round if you don’t want to die.’
‘We’re busy: fuck off out the way,’ said Dima and, without even raising his Glock, shot the gun out of the leader’s hand.
The man folded into a ball and the others melted into an empty doorway.
Floor nine. Apartment six. They checked the scanner one more time. A bright green pulsing light. Dima put his night vision lenses on. The other two followed. They examined the door carefully. Then Dima and Vladimir stood either side ready to rush in when Kroll shot out the lock.
Dima fired a few rounds as he burst in — high in case he caught the bomb. There wasn’t much to the flat: bedroom, living room, kitchen and bathroom. Every wall was sprayed with graffiti swirls. It stank of urine. There was nobody home.
‘Fuck. We’ve got the wrong one,’ said Kroll.
‘No we haven’t,’ said Vladimir. He was in the bathroom, pointing at a small pulsing green light. It was coming from the bomb’s signaller all right. But it wasn’t attached to any suitcase nuke.
80
Fort Donaldson, USA
The next time he heard the footsteps Blackburn was on his feet. The slot his food came through had a small gap down one side that let a sliver of light in from the corridor. He wanted to press his face up close to it, to see if he could catch a glimpse of the singer. But then there was the camera in the ceiling watching him twenty- four/seven. Schwab told him he was on suicide watch. He was pretty sure he had dreamed the song. How could Dima be sending him a message? How could he know where he was?
But what if the person
No response. Just the scraping of the ladder, then the steps.
He whistled again.
Nothing.
George went to his truck. He often went back to it during the day to pick up a fresh pack of Winstons. But he didn’t want a cigarette. He took out the emergency use, once only Pay As You Go cell phone and called Hal.
Thirty minutes passed. Or something like that. Blackburn had no means of knowing. The steps again. And the ladder. And then the song.
81
Paris
Dima tried to contain his surging rage. Tried and failed. Anger leads to mistakes, he had always told his recruits. And mistakes can cost you your life.
Had he not been so exhausted, had it not been so long since his head had touched a pillow, had he not been so consumed with anticipation about the nameless young man in the photograph, he would perhaps have had the good sense to leave the signaller right where it was. You’ve seen what you’ve seen. Stop, look and leave.
But he didn’t. He reached down, clasped it in his gloved hand and picked it up.
Only once it was in his hand did he see the wires. And then the flash blotted everything out.
82
Fort Donaldson, USA
The MedCenter team on Donaldson were short-staffed on the weekend. Jackie Douglis, a locum at Saint Elizabeth’s, had been drafted in to cover. Boy was she bored. ER was Jackie’s thing. That had been her plan since Sixth Grade and she was almost there. But sitting around in a half-deserted Marine base on a warm weekend wasn’t her idea of how to further her career. Besides, her friend Stacey was having a yard party and she was missing it.
The alarm made her jump. Wayne, the big sleepy-looking orderly waddled in.
‘We got a meltdown in the Brig.’
She didn’t know what a meltdown meant or what the Brig was for that matter. But it sounded interesting and she sure was in need of some distraction. So she followed along out of the MedCenter across the tarmac. There was a scrum of men in uniform crammed into the corridor. The bars on the doors told her what the Brig was. Some of them were kneeling down. Had someone collapsed, needed CPR? She began the timing rhythm in her head.
But the young man on the floor wasn’t in need of CPR. He was being knelt on by two guards as a third wrestled him into a set of leg irons.
One of them turned and saw Wayne.
‘Got a shot?’
Jackie saw Wayne fumbling with a syringe.
‘Hey, lemme through! I’m a doctor!’ she yelled for the first time in her life. All her life she’d been waiting to say those words for real.
83
Paris
The smell of urine brought Dima round. He remembered the apartment stank of it. It caught in his throat and along with the dust made him choke. But he couldn’t see the apartment, he couldn’t see anything. Nor could he move. There was another smell as well. Something burning. Then he remembered what had happened. And that brought him back to full consciousness. Rage at his own mistake. Okay, this time get it right. One thing at a time. He flexed his toes, check. Fingers, check. His nose was bleeding: he could feel the sticky warmth over his face and he could taste the blood. But he was trapped, buried.
‘I have to get out of here,’ he said out loud.
He called out, using the little strength he had, but there was nowhere for the sound to go. He tried straightening his legs and found that his head moved forward a little when he did. He discovered new areas of pain though, in his thigh and his left arm. His gun arm. Well he wasn’t too bad with his right. Think positively. That’s the
