90
Paris
‘Okay, okay, okay. Just give me a minute, gentlemen.’
Bulganov was discovering depths of humility he didn’t know he had.
‘Gentlemen, I apologise. We are Russian. We are an excitable people. When we have our falling out — it can be bad. Thank the Lord God no one was armed — thanks to your rigorous security. If you wish me to get the Interior Minister on the phone I will make a personal apology right now.’
The hint that Bulganov had friends in high places stalled them for a moment. But Officer Giraud, Senior Airport Security Officer at Charles De Gaulle, wasn’t one to have rank pulled on him by some fat cat Russian oligarch.
Giraud ignored Bulganov for the moment. He was giving Dima a close look. The man was a mess. He appeared to have dust in his hair. There was a faint smell of urine. He had examined the Iranian passport, heard Bulganov’s quick-witted account of him being a fugitive from the regime. And he wasn’t convinced. Besides, he thought he had seen this face somewhere. He would have to check.
Dima was silently cursing himself for the futile attack on Solomon. Another mistake. He was unravelling. But crowding out all coherent thought was what Solomon had just told him.
He wouldn’t have given up on the Bourse because of the security. Solomon never gave up on anything. Either he had already placed the bomb before the guard was doubled or he had gone in there as part of the guard.
Bulganov was still trying to negotiate.
‘If you would consider, on this occasion making an exception and releasing my man back into my custody, I will be forever indebted to you. .’
Giraud was taking no notice. He was looking at a mugshot image on his iPhone. His eyes suddenly widened. ‘Dima Mayakovsky. You are coming with us.’
91
New York City
The one in charge of the ring binder was Gordon, from the CIA’s New York office. Smaller and fatter than Whistler, but oozing the natural superiority of Langley’s finest.
‘Gentlemen, if you would stand away from the desk when I open the binder, thank you. These are classified images. I don’t need to remind you this is a highly unusual situation we find ourselves in, showing photos of CIA assets to a felon.’
Whistler heard his boss let out an indignant sigh before complying.
Gordon placed the binder on the table in front of Blackburn. They all watched as he turned the pages. There were fifty mug shots in the binder. Blackburn took his time. Despite the coffee, whatever they had sedated him with was still coursing through his system, weighing down his eyelids. He recalled Harker’s turbanned executioner. He remembered the face on the bank security screen. Solomon, the name Al Bashir had uttered with his dying breath. He turned the pages, examining each face one by one.
One of the Homeland guys sighed and glanced at his watch. He was going to take his time. He was going to get this right if it was the last useful thing he ever did.
92
Paris
Nine-thirty. They cuffed Dima and put him in the back of the Renault, between two airport security officers. A third officer sat up front beside the driver. The sun was up. The downtown expressway was filling with rush hour traffic that grudgingly parted at the sound of the siren. Dima closed his eyes. All the better to concentrate. Less than an hour. Solomon had planted the device — or his people had. It could be anywhere in the building. It would have been smuggled in disguised as — what? Some kind of delivery — a container, a box. Something that no one would be surprised by.
Was there more that Rossin knew? If there was, Kroll would find it. The Cargotrak van — had it been used to deliver the bomb to the Bourse? Bernard, Syco, Ramon. How much did they know?
They were headed into the centre. The Eiffel Tower came into view, they tore round the Arc de Triomphe, weaving through the traffic. The driver was enjoying himself. One of the toughs next to Dima told him to ease up, but he didn’t. Dima kept very still, didn’t complain or protest. Always a challenge to keep your guard up when your quarry goes passive. He was saving himself for the right moment. None of them had seatbelts on. That was useful. He had spotted the driver’s firearm in a holster under his right armpit. He watched the road for a moment, when they were closing in on another vehicle. There needed to be some impact. A truck, laden with building materials. Dima took a deep breath to oxygenate himself before putting all the force he could muster into his legs. Lunging forward, he threw his cuffed wrists over the driver’s head and with his knee against the seat he yanked the cuff chain tight, moving his hands back and forth to grind the chain into the man’s neck as he tensed his neck muscles to resist. The driver’s head snapped back and his hands left the wheel. The two guards each side of Dima clawed at him, but a microsecond later the Peugeot ploughed into the truck.
The noise of the collision was drowned by the explosion of the inflating airbags, which pushed the driver and his front-seat passenger firmly back in their seats. At the same time, the driver’s seat buffered Dima. When the airbags deflated, a second or so later, the driver fell forward, his body limp. The front airbags couldn’t do much for the burly, unbelted passengers. The guard on Dima’s right went over the front passenger’s head and was half out of the windscreen, crushing the man in front as the seat folded beneath him as he went. Dima released the driver from his stranglehold and dived for his pistol, flicking off the safety catch and firing it into his side before it was out of the holster. The guard on his left was still conscious. He already had his gun half out. Nothing else for it. Dima blasted him in the temple, blood splattering the cloth interior, then patted his pockets and found the keys to the cuffs, plus — also handy — his airport security ID. He reached past him to open the door, booted him out of the car, then climbed over him and out. A pedestrian was staring open-mouthed at the scene. Dima waved the gun at him with one hand, and the keys with the other.
‘Open these or you’re dead. Now!’
Bending his head slightly as if to avoid being shot, the young man took the keys with trembling hands and undid the cuffs.
‘And give me your phone.’
A new iPhone.
‘Sorry. Hope it’s insured.’
Dima was off, running now in the direction of the Bourse — but it was more than a mile away. He dialled Kroll as he ran. The street was choked with traffic. He leapt into the road in front of a girl on a scooter.
Kroll picked up.
‘Hang on.’
He showed her the gun.
‘
She dismounted, her hands upturned and her eyes wide.
‘You’ll find it near the Bourse.’
He jumped on and sped off down the pavement, which was less congested than the street, steering one- handed, phone in the other.
‘I just heard from Bulganov,’ said Kroll.
‘Call the Bourse security. There is definitely, repeat definitely, a bomb in there. Persuade them to get everyone out. Something must have been planted in there. Unobtrusive. Grill Rossin. Maybe he knows something.’
Pedestrians flattened themselves against shopfronts as Dima tore down the pavement. Ahead, the Bourse loomed over the surrounding streets, a neoclassical monument to the creation of wealth. Its pale, timeless columns looked invulnerable.
Dima ditched the scooter, almost pulling it with him as he ran. His cell rang again. Kroll.
‘Dima! It’s in a photocopier.’
‘How many offices have they got in there? It’s going to be like looking for a needle in a fucking
