1
Monday, 15 March
10.47 hrs
The International Airport Chisinau is the biggest in the Republic of Moldova. It’s a member of Airports Council International (European region), the massive posters in the revamped terminal proudly proclaimed, as well as the Airport Association of CIS Civil Aviation and the ALFA-ACI (L’Association des Aeroports de Langue Francaise Associes a l’Airports Council International). What was more:
But for all its fancy new associations with the West, old habits died hard. I was held by three Customs guys in a side office ten seconds after they saw a European passport and no mates tagging along. There was a special tax I needed to pay. Since I was only carrying a day sack, they pegged it at thirty dollars.
I’d now been waiting for Anna’s flight from Moscow Domodedovo for close to five hours - the last two because her Air Moldova flight was delayed. This was probably the eighth time I’d gone back to the coffee shop in Arrivals, treated myself to a milky Nescafe instant, and soaked up the propaganda as I sat and sipped it.
I’d even resorted to reading the warnings on the packet of Nurofen I dug into occasionally. Long-term kidney damage wasn’t high on my list of concerns, so I popped another couple out of the blister pack, grabbed some more Smarties and washed them all down with a swig of coffee.
I’d transferred my two-week supply of shiny red pills into a plastic Superdrug case. It was easier to shove into my pocket than a big fuck-off bottle. Also, the label had my name on it and I couldn’t be arsed to scratch it off.
It had taken me seven hours from Heathrow with a Munich connection. Normally that wouldn’t have been much of a problem; I was used to living in airports. You just find some seats, lie down, read posters, drink brews. If you’re lucky, you go to sleep. But that wasn’t going to happen. My head was pounding - but I think it was mostly about seeing Anna again.
Fetch up in Moscow, with the biggest collection of billionaires on the planet, and you can’t move for fancy foreign labels. Moldova’s old split-level Soviet-era airport had had a major refurb, but Starbucks and all the high-end brands had still given it a miss. Jules had told me that its earning potential outside the small capital was the same as Sudan’s, so I guess it was no surprise.
Despite Julian’s briefing, I wasn’t exactly sure where Moldova stood in relation to the rest of the planet. Some guys immersed themselves in demographics and GDPs and could tell you the ten most popular names for girls and boys wherever they fetched up, but I never saw the point. This place was land-locked, and had a population of five million. The industrial strip, whose name I kept forgetting, ran along its eastern border. That was all I knew, and all I needed to know. All I had to do was find the girl, grip her, and hand her over.
I took out my new BlackBerry and checked for messages. The Tefalhead at GCHQ who’d briefed me on the encryption system and then got Mr Lampard to sign for it had been very pleased with his toy. Apparently it contained both a hardware and software-based secure communications solution that protected GSM cellular communications with a unique authentication service and advanced end-to-end encryption software. I hoped it worked better than the one I’d been issued with three years ago.
‘Combined with a secure mobile authentication solution it is capable of ensuring that all mobile voice and SMS communications, as well as data-at-rest within the device, are fully protected. It offers security against any attempt to intercept active communications both from inside a telephone network as well as over-the-air.’
That was all well and good. I just needed to know that, when I switched it on and pressed the security app icon, Jules and I could talk without anyone else listening in.
The security technology was based on encryption algorithms as well as a user/device authentication process, the Tefalhead explained. I could pretty much grasp that. But I got lost when he started talking ciphers and 128-bit block sizes.
‘Your BlackBerry uses these algorithms simultaneously as well as a 4096-bit Diffie-Hellman shared secret exchange to authenticate each call/device/user, in order to provide multiple layers of security and an effective fall- back inside the crypto-system design.’
I’d nodded enthusiastically and his face lit up. ‘So, to recap … I press the app icon if I want secure speech. When a call comes in I wait for the app to give me the go-ahead, and both sides can talk in real time?’ I can’t have been the brightest pupil he’d ever had.
I took another sip and looked around. Moldova might be in shit state but at least they were trying to get out of their hole. Most of the arrivals coming in from other flights were suited. Most of the guys with wheelies and mobiles stuck to their faces gobbed off in Russian, but I picked out a few European and American voices. A couple of the local papers sitting in the newsstands were English editions. They’d binned visas for people like me and I didn’t even have to show a return ticket. Anything to get new money into the country. But for all that, the staff still mooched about like throwbacks to the old order. They’d brightened up the buildings and forgotten to refurbish the employees.
At long last the Moscow flight flagged up as landed. It was show time. I suddenly worried that I should have cleaned myself up a bit in the last five and a half hours.
I got up and walked over to the sliding doors that stood between Customs and the arrivals hall. I knew she’d be one of the first out. Like me, she travelled light. The rest she’d buy when she needed it.
I felt my stomach flutter. At first I tried to blame it on the drugs. But I couldn’t escape the fact that I was excited - for the first time in as long as I could remember.
Then the real world kicked in. She’d agreed to come when I’d finally got round to phoning her, but only after I’d waffled and begged and lied about needing her help with a K and R. Perhaps she was only here to find yet another poor girl ripped out of her world, drugged up, beaten and fucked on the other side of the planet. That was the sort of thing that made Anna get up in the morning. I just happened to be along for the ride.
As the first wave of wheelie bags swept past, I almost had to stand on tiptoe to look beyond them. The doors half closed, then pulled back again to reveal a blonde in a black woollen coat, with a haircut that looked like a German helmet.
I locked on to her eyes but she seemed to look right through me.
2
I tried to read her expression as she came through into the hall. She scanned the faces beyond the barrier, trailing a wheelie behind her. When she finally spotted me, there was no instant smile or greeting.
I blurted out the first thing that came into what was left of my head. ‘You’ve had your hair cut.’
‘I thought I’d ring the changes. More practical for my next job. Well, the one I
She’d been approached by CNN to cover women’s issues following the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in some of the former Soviet republics. She knew the subject matter and this part of the world like the back of her hand. CNN must have liked the hairdo: they’d granted her a two-month deferment.
She let go of her wheelie and it toppled over. She left it where it was, finally treated me to the smile I was hoping for, and ran the last four or five paces towards me. She threw out her arms, wrapped them around me and held me tight. I did the same. I really couldn’t get enough of this girl.
Her hair brushed the side of my face. ‘Mmm … Nice smell.’ I took in another lungful of Bulgari. I’d bought her some in London during her last visit.
She moved her head a little so she could get her mouth closer to my ear. ‘I love it.’ She kissed me on the cheek. ‘You know what, you idiot? I missed you …’
The pain in my head leaked away, along with the tension in my shoulder muscles. Anna’s perfume was more effective than any number of Kleinmann’s Smarties. I hadn’t been able to gauge her mood on the phone. She’d immediately offered to help, but didn’t overcook things on the emotional front. I understood that. I was the same.
