Tarasov left, and Kowalski was alone. He stared at the Zurichsee — Lake Zurich — and the mountains that rose gently behind the lake to the south. The sun had already disappeared to the west, behind the city. Across the lake, factories and homes glowed placidly in December twilight. But the view didn’t soothe Kowalski.
In 1980, not long after he joined his father in the firm, Kowalski had struggled to close his first major deal, with a cocky general from Suriname who’d brought his mistress along with him for the trip. The general didn’t want to negotiate, he told his father.
“I’ve put together a package that suits his needs, but he insists it’s too expensive.”
“Yes?”
“The list is thirty-two million, but I’ve told him we’re flexible. We could go as low as twenty-seven and still make a profit. I don’t see why he won’t negotiate. Too busy with his mistress.”
“Pierre, I could have handled this myself. You know why I let you?”
“No, Father.” Kowalski had wondered himself.
“What’s our most powerful weapon?”
The question puzzled Kowalski. “I suppose the APCs with the mounted cannons—”
“Pierre. I see they taught you nothing at Lazard. Our most powerful weapon is information. How big is General Pauline’s budget?”
“The dossier said twenty-one million.”
“Correct. And our source told us that was a strict limit. So why are you offering a package for thirty-two million?”
“The Sikorskys I recommended suit his needs better than—”
“He can’t afford them. And when you press him, you make him feel poor. Now call him, before he leaves Zurich. Get him what he needs at twenty-one million.”
“But the Sikorskys—”
“Don’t pretend you can tell the difference between a Sikorsky and a mosquito. You may know all the specs, but you’re not a soldier. Always remember that.”
Until the end of his life, Kowalski’s father could make him feel like a misbehaving child.
“And even if you could tell the difference, do you think General Pauline could? He’s not fighting the American marines. He’s chasing rebels around the jungle until both sides are too bored to keep fighting. Most of what we sell sits in hangars until it’s rusted out. It’s there to make the generals and the defense ministers and presidents feel better about themselves, to puff up their chests. This man has come all the way to Zurich to make a deal. Not to be embarrassed in front of his woman. Let’s use the knowledge we have to accommodate him.”
“Yes, Father.”
Kowalski had never forgotten that lesson. He spent millions of francs a year to cultivate informers in armies and intelligence services all over the world. But at this most crucial moment, his sources in the United States had proven useless. The Americans had kept any information about their investigation into the attack from leaking, not just to the press but to the ex-CIA agents and retired army officers who were Kowalski’s sources in Washington. Had the agency learned of Markov’s involvement? Publicly, the men had been identified only as “foreign nationals,” not Russians. They had been traced to the hotel where they’d been staying, but no further. But was the United States actually further along? And what about Wells? Had he guessed Kowalski’s role in the attack? Too many questions without answers. Damn Markov and his men for their bungling. For his part, Markov had told Kowalski that he wasn’t worried. Easy for him to say. He was holed up in Moscow, untouchable as long as the Kremlin didn’t turn on him.
Markov had the Kremlin. Kowalski had the Dragon, another overpaid Eastern European eating his food and taking up space under his roof. His own fault. He’d made this mess.
His landline trilled. Therese, his secretary.
“Monsieur,” Therese said. “A call from Andrei Pavlov. Shall I take a message?”
Pavlov was a deputy director at Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency. Two years before, he and Kowalski had sold the Iranian government centrifuges to enrich uranium, a highly profitable deal.
“Put him through.”
The line fell silent. Then: “Pierre, my old comrade.”
“Andrei.”
For fifteen minutes Pavlov blathered about a new Rosatom power plant and the money he’d made trading oil futures. “Of course it would be nothing to you, Pierre, or to the Abramoviches of the world, but for a man like me it’s a real fortune.” Finally, just as Kowalski was about to lose all patience, Pavlov said casually, “So. I don’t suppose you heard about our missing material?”
“Just the rumors,” Kowalski said.
“A minor matter. A kilo or two of low-grade stuff. Maybe three.”
“Yes, of course.” Kowalski stretched his bluff. “But I heard it was HEU.” Highly enriched uranium, suitable for a nuclear weapon, not the less-enriched kind used to generate electricity in power plants.
“No, not HEU. Somewhere in the middle. But whoever has it may be bragging, saying it’s the good stuff, enough for a bomb. And you know, the Americans will make a stink if someone finds it before we do. And sometimes you hear about things.” Pavlov cleared his throat. “Anyhow, if you hear anything, if you could see your way clear to let us know, we wouldn’t forget it.”
Kowalski decided to push for information. “This stuff, when did it get lost? And where?”
“Last seen in Mayak a couple of weeks back.”
“I’ll ask some people,” Kowalski said. “If I hear anything, I’ll call you. And promise you’ll come to Zurich soon. Nadia and I must take you to dinner. She misses her countrymen.”
“Delightful.” Pavlov hung up and Kowalski considered for a minute, remembering a phone call he’d received a few months before, one of the few offers he’d ever turned down flat. He wondered if he could afford to spare Tarasov with Wells on the loose. On the other hand. he had to know if Pavlov’s call meant what he suspected.
He called Tarasov. “Anatoly. Get your passport. You’re going to Moscow.”
10
On the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s legendary nightlife strip, the hookers were having a slow night. They stood in their usual spot, in front of a small public courtyard between kebob stands and novelty shops specializing in fake pistols and dull knives. They shuffled in their boots, a dozen miserable women, each an even ten feet from the next. Even whores couldn’t escape the German passion for order.
Hamburg’s true red-light district was a few blocks south, on Herbertstrasse, a single street sixty yards long where the prostitutes sat in shop windows as they did in Amsterdam. Only adult men were allowed on Herbertstrasse, and high wooden fences on both ends kept out women and children. Despite the ugliness of the trade, the street possessed a certain hard glamour. The prostitutes posed on their stools in lace bras and panties, watching men swirl on the pavement beneath them. Police monitored Herbertstrasse, and the prostitutes there registered with the city and were tested regularly for HIV. But the discount hookers on the Reeperbahn had no glamour at all. They wore puffy down jackets and tight jeans, and their faces were young and unformed, yet already worn. They looked like high school juniors who had fallen asleep in their beds and woken up in hell.
A steady stream of tourists and sailors and locals walked by the courtyard. The women gave them all the same treatment, a whispered invitation, half-coo, half-hiss. Any man foolish enough to stop found himself in a whispered tete-a-tete with a hand on his arm. But it was only 10 p.m. and a drizzle dampened the air, and the men were still mostly sober and mostly saying no. So the women smoked and stamped their feet to stay warm and ran
