that Charlie was happy. It would be nice to imagine, as she often did imagine, that Charlie sometimes thought of her, too.
At that moment Charlie Muffin was not thinking of her.
Alexei Berenkov was, though.
Chapter Thirty-two
Vasili Zenin continued to set his planning around traffic congestion, actually using the early morning rush hour into Geneva in which to lose himself, just one of a thousand cars and a thousand men arriving for a day’s work. He utilized the car park at the railway terminal again, for the same reason, but on this occasion it had the additional advantage of being a place where people were expected to be seen with luggage.
He took the guncase from the boot but did not set out at once for the Colombettes apartment: the rush hour had served its purpose but he did not want to arrive at the block with the crush of workers on their way to the lower floor offices. Instead he went into the terminal, to arrange his escape train for the following day. There was still some last minute timing to co-ordinate – timing which was impossible until today’s tests – but there was a local departure for Carouge at twelve forty-five which he thought was possible. As a fail-safe, there was a train for Thonon at one. Zenin purchased separate tickets from separate windows and decided it was still too early to quit the station. He bought a coffee and croissant in the cafeteria, carrying out a personal test when he lifted the cup to his lips. This near to the final moment and there was still not the slightest shake in his hand, he decided, satisfied.
It was nine-thirty when he left the station, choosing the already reconnoitred route that connected with the Avenue Guiseppe Motta, transferring the case from hand to hand every so often to balance the weight, instinctively alert to everything around him but confident he was unobserved.
He slowed when he cut off the Colombettes road, wanting his entry to be precisely right. It meant hesitating further, to let a group of people enter the block, and allowing a full minute to pass before entering himself. There were only two girls in the foyer, talking animatedly as they waited for the elevator. Zenin passed them, sure he remained unobserved, and climbed the stairs to the second floor before summoning a lift himself. It arrived empty and he managed to reach the top floor without it being stopped by any other passengers on the way up. He emerged cautiously on to the residential corridor: there were sounds from behind apartment doors but the walkway was deserted.
Zenin hurried now, practically running, pushing into his own apartment and closing the door quickly behind him. Directly inside he remained for a moment with his back to it, releasing the pent-up breath. A completely successful entry he told himself, in further congratulation. He held his hand up. Still no shake, and that despite having carried the heavy bag so far.
He bent to it, taking out first the three rubber wedges he had bought in Bern, together with the workman’s overalls. Still stooped he jammed them firmly between the bottom of the door edge and the floor, totally securing the place against any sudden, unexpected entry, actually testing the door to ensure they worked. He then carried the bag over to the chosen window but did not immediately take anything further from it. Instead – standing back so that he would not be visible with the net curtaining pulled aside – the Russian went again through the sightline to the spot where the commemorative photograph was to be taken, wanting to be sure he had chosen the right window. He had.
The already assembled rifle was the first thing Zenin took from the bag but without any specific attention at this stage, wanting to get to what lay beneath. He took out the tripod, extending its legs and fitting the securing hinges to the bottom of each, but he did not try to screw the hinges to the floor. He manoeuvred the rest into a trial position and took up the rifle from the chair upon which he had laid it. The grooved bolt three inches beyond the trigger guard slid smoothly into the swivelled receiving disc on the tripod head and experimentally Zenin swung the rifle around a wide arc, covering not just the window through which he intended shooting but one to the left. Fitted with the sound suppressor the barrel was too long, needing to extend through the window. All right on the day, but not now, Zenin decided, removing it and laying it alongside. He crouched over the rifle, reaching forward to make a minute adjustment to bring the stadia into line, and was at last able with the sight magnifier accurately to calculate precisely at four hundred and twenty metres the distance from the window to where the photograph was to be taken. An easy shot, he thought: several easy shots, he corrected.
Zenin checked his watch and then squinted up. There was hardly any sun now but there could be the following day and at the time scheduled for the photograph it would be shafting in dangerously across his vision. Deciding a protective shift was necessary, he eased the tripod closer to where the wall jutted out into the room. It put him close to the buttress but not to the degree of it interfering with his ability to swing the rifle and the sightline was in no way impaired.
Zenin made several more tests before marking the position of the tripod feet and then lifting the entire assembly away from the window, to jab into the floor the initial entry points for the screws. To make the fixing easier, he took the rifle off its base, arranged the three feet into position and screwed the bolts through the hinges with hard, positive twists of the screwdriver. Finished, Zenin squatted back, shaking the tripod with both hands. It was absolutely rigid.
For a few moments he rested, contentedly, enjoying at last some definite activity. He replaced the rifle on the tripod, sighting once more to be sure, and then took the leather harness from the case. It was an elaborate fitment, a buckled and belted vest and one with which he was not altogether happy. Certainly it succeeded in its purpose, literally attaching him to the weapon, so that he became part of it, but so complete was the attachment that it was not easy to extricate himself: at Balashikha his best time had been four minutes and Zenin considered that too long. It would be necessary to rehearse and practise again today because it formed part of the schedule necessary for the escape train.
Zenin took off his jacket, put it across the back of the chair on which he had earlier rested the rifle and slipped into the harness. It had been tailored to fit him and did so perfectly. It was without sleeves but complete, front and back, to provide the base for the necessary straps which connected with the rifle. The front zipped up, from waist to neck, and there were two cross-straps to prevent it sliding around his body. Zenin closed both, shrugging as he had earlier with the rifle to make himself completely comfortable before taking up the straps to connect him to the rifle and tripod. There were four, three at different lengths to link with specific rings on the rifle – one near the tip of the muzzle, one where the barrel met the butt and the last on the butt itself – and the fourth, the longest of all, to connect him to the tripod. He attached all of them, tugging and testing each one as he did so, needing only slightly to adjust that to the tripod. The vest welded him to the weapon, so that they were one entity, and Zenin gazed through the sight yet again, swinging it along an imaginary line of people as he would the following day, knowing that it was impossible for him to miss. Indulgently he pressed the trigger of the unloaded weapon, one, twice, three times, hearing the greased click of the hammer hitting home, pulling back himself every time as the M21 would kick when the bullets were fired. Dead, he told himself; all dead. But not just three: five was the instruction for the maximum chaos. He wondered if he would maintain his one minute ten second average. He supposed the woman would get at least one, so the score could go as high as six.
Reminded of timings, Zenin twisted, awkwardly restricted, and took from his wrist the heavily calibrated watch, placing it on the convenient chair where it would always be in view. As he did so he depressed the button to start the second sweep, bending over the rifle again. He aimed, fired and edged the weapon slightly at each shot, as he would have to the following day, on the fifth occasion snatching a look at the watch to fix exactly the position of the moving hand.
And then started his release. He unbuckled himself from the tripod first, then the rifle, moving from butt to muzzle, as the last strap fell away jerking up to free himself from the leather vest. Zenin continued the zipping down movement as the fitment came off, snapping off the timing. Four minutes thirty seconds, he saw, disappointed. It had to be a month since he’d last practised. On the second attempt he only clipped ten seconds off the first test and just a further five on the third run through. For several moments he paused, panting and wet with the on-off effort, gazing down at the discarded vest. Should he discard it, literally? Zenin was confident he could hit
