She shook her head. 'We don't have that information, but it will be more than last time. This is their most important asset, which is why it's in Estonia the geography is the best defense system there is.'
Something else needed answering. 'How will you know I've been successful?'
'You're worried that Valentin will not pay without proof? Don't. He will know within hours how isnoconcernof yours. You will get your money, Nick.'
I leaned closer. 'How do you know Tom?'
'I don't, Valentin does. When Tom was caught at Menwith Hill it was Valentin he was working for. You British never discovered that, however, because your threats to him could never compare with the one Valentin was capable of delivering.'
'Which was?'
Her expression invited me to use my imagination.
In my mind's eye I saw Tom, curled up in the back of the car after he'd had the facts of life explained to him by the interrogation team.
'Was Tom trying to access Echelon for Valentin at Menwith Hill?'
She nodded. 'When he was caught, he told British Intelligence only what they thought they needed to know, then told the courts what they told him to say. It was all very simple, really. Well, for everyone except Tom.'
'And how did you know of my connection with Tom?'
'Valentin has access to many secrets. After your encounter in Helsinki, he wanted to know a little more about you. It was easy enough to order that information from the Maliskia, thanks to Moonlight Maze. Even more incentive to get in there and destroy that capability, don't you think?'
Fucking right. I didn't like the sound of any of it.
Liv patted the magazine with her hand. 'Read it. Then all we know, you will know. I must go now. There are so many other things to do.'
I bet one of them was to report back to Val's go-between and tell him that I was on my way to Narva.
Liv and I smiled at each other like parting friends, kissed on the cheek, and did the farewell routine as she replaced her bag on her shoulder. 'I'll check the station every day, Nick, starting Sunday.'
I touched her sleeve. 'One last question.'
She turned to face me.
'You don't seem too concerned about Tom. I mean, I thought you two were, you know, close.'
She sat down again slowly. For a second or two she toyed with her coffee cup, and then she looked up. 'Meaning I had sex with him?' She smiled. 'Tom is not someone I'd seek a relationship with. I had sex with him because he was weakening and very unsure about what was expected of him. Sleeping with him was? was' she searched for a good expression, then shrugged 'insurance. I had to keep him committed to the task. He's the only one who could do this sort of thing. He is a genius with this technology. He had to go with you. That is also why you must carry out your new task as quickly as you can. His capabilities must not be available to the Maliskia.'
She stood and turned with a small wave of the hand, and I slouched down in my chair, wishing I'd had that information a few days ago. My eyes followed her as she headed for the escalator and slowly disappeared.
I took a small white envelope from inside the magazine Liv had left behind. It looked as if it was made for a small greeting card; it certainly didn't look as if there was much inside.
I stayed put for a while, not bothering to touch it, and drank her lukewarm coffee. After about ten minutes I piled the cups, saucers, and plates onto the tray.
Walking away from the escalators, I made my way through the warm clothing department and into the rest rooms. Safely in a stall, I opened the envelope. Inside were three scraps of paper of various sizes and quality. The first was a Post-it, on which was an address in Narva by the look of it I was after a guy called Konstantin plus a long and lat fix. The Post-it was stuck to half a ripped sheet of cheap and very thin Xerox paper, with about ten lines of Cyrillic script written in pen. This had to be the Chechen insurance policy, because the third item was a sheet of wax paper on which was a penciled cross and, toward the bottom left-hand corner of the sheet, a little circle. All I had to do was line up the longs and the lats on the right map and bingo, the circle would be around the location where Tom and the Maliskia were supposed to be.
I listened to the shuffle of feet outside, water splashing into sinks, hand-driers humming, and the odd grunt or fart, and started to laugh to myself as I folded up the bits and pieces of paper and tucked them into my socks, out of the way. I felt like Harry Palmer in one of those Michael Caine films from the sixties. It was ridiculous. I had more stuff around my feet than in my pockets.
I flushed the toilet and opened the door. An overweight Japanese tourist was waiting patiently, his sides bulging with video and camera bags. Leaving him to fight his way into the stall, I headed to the condom machine by the urinals. It was decision time.
Dropping in some coins, I considered the banana- or strawberry flavored ones and those shaped like medieval maces, but in the end went for the old-standard clear ones. All very missionary. Then, with the packet of three in my pocket, I was out of Stockmann with any luck forever.
Checking for surveillance by doing a complete circuit of the store and taking a few turns that meant I'd doubled back on myself, I felt confident I wasn't being followed and headed for the same bookstore where I'd bought my guidebook to Estonia. I soon found the map that Liv had specified.
Back at the hotel, it was time to study it in detail. Tallinn, the capital, was in the west, on the Baltic coast. It faced Finland, which was fifty miles across the sea. Narva was miles away, in the northeastern corner, right next to Russia and just ten miles inland.
There was one main road that went from Tallinn to Narva, linking together other, smaller towns on the 130 miles between the two. I could also see the black line of the railway that Liv had told me to take, roughly paralleling the main road, sometimes near the road but mostly a few miles south of it.
Narva was bisected by a river, and the border with Russia was an imaginary line running down the middle of it. There were two crossing points, a rail bridge and a road bridge. On the Russian side, the main road and train line kept going east, with a sign on the edge of the map saying, 'Peterburi 138km.' In other words, Narva was closer to St.
Petersburg than it was to Tallinn.
I took out the sheet of wax paper and placed the cross over the corresponding longs and lats, then looked at the circle. It ringed a small cluster of buildings a couple of miles south of a small town called Tudu, which was about twenty-two miles southwestish of Narva.
Basically, the target was in the middle of nowhere, the perfect place for the Maliskia to run their operations. That was where those Finns should have gone to do the job; maybe they didn't because there weren't any to-go pizzas to be had.
There were still a few hours before the five-thirty ferry, so I got out the guidebook and read about this northeastern corner of Estonia. It sounded a nightmare. During Iron Curtain days Narva had been one of the most polluted towns in Europe. Two huge power stations produced enough kilowatts to keep the massive wheels of the USSR. industrial base turning, while pumping out uncountable tons of sulfur dioxide, magnesium this and aluminum that into the atmosphere. There was a huge lake nearby, and I made a mental note not to eat any fish when I got there.
According to the guidebook, 90 percent of the population in the area were Russian speaking, and, in the eyes of the Estonian government, Russian citizens. They took the line that if you couldn't speak Estonian, you couldn't get Estonian citizenship. The upshot was a big gang of Russians right on the border with Russia, holding old Russian passports, who had to stay in Estonia, a country that didn't acknowledge them.
Five trains a day left Tallinn heading east. Some went straight on to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and some just stopped at Narva, about a five-hour journey. No problem at all; I'd get the ferry tonight, check into a hotel, sort my shit out and get the train in the morning. That would be the easy bit.
I had the Narva contact name and address in my head; an hour of repeating it while reading had sorted that out. I ripped the cross off the wax paper, rolled it in the Post-it and ate it. Everything else on this job was like some spy film, so why not go whole hog? I kept the guidebook and map because I was going to be a tourist. If asked, I was exploring the region's immensely rich culture. Well, that was what it said in the guidebook. I couldn't wait.
As the final preparation for the journey, I went into the bathroom and ran a sink of warm water. Then, unwrapping the complimentary sliver of soap, I proceeded with a little task I never looked forward to.
