Hisami never managed more than a few hours’ sleep at a time in the detention centre, and on the night before his hearing he did not sleep at all but instead lay thinking about the events of the last few weeks, not sparing himself in the process. The guards had removed the fraudster from the cell and he was left alone with Nelson, a fifty-five-year-old father of four who had been snatched on the street by officers of ICE who were convinced he was in fact an individual named Aldane Coombes, an illegal immigrant from Jamaica. Nelson had never lived anywhere but Queens, New York, but it seemed he bore a striking resemblance to Coombes and he was, at the moment, unable to prove his real identity.
Nelson’s plight struck Hisami and listening to the man’s tale not only convinced him of the raw injustices that occurred in America without anyone ever hearing about them but gave him distance from his own problems. In the small hours, Nelson sat up on his bunk, leaned over and touched Hisami on the shoulder. ‘You’re not sleeping Denis. I know you’re just lying there beating up on yourself. I got no idea why, but you just gotta straighten yourself out. You have a powerful rage inside of you, sir, and it don’t do no good in a situation like this.’
Hisami crooked an arm under his head and turned to him. ‘You’re right. Thank you. My wife calls it my white-hot silence: she mistakes concentration for anger.’
‘Which is it now, friend?’
‘Some of both: I’m thinking through a problem. I have a few urgent issues that can’t be addressed until I get out of here, plus, I’ve got an enemy and I don’t know who it is.’
‘Tell me about your foe, brother?’
Hisami didn’t go into any detail, but he sketched the characters of Micky Gehrig, Martin Reid, Gil Leppo and Larry Valentine. He saw each one in Castell’s conference room as he described them, and that process made him think more deeply about their characters.
Reid was not someone he had ever warmed to. Too definite for Hisami’s tastes, and he never showed the slightest sign of self-doubt, or empathy for that matter. A hard, obsessive man was the gravel-washer, but he had his own code of honour and, no matter what the pressure, he would not sit in front of Hisami and look him in the eye, knowing that he was orchestrating the abduction of his wife. The same applied to Larry Valentine, who was simply too rich to reach into this particular gutter. Rocket-boy Gehrig was basically a ruthless attention-seeker. His trip into space would ensure that he could talk about himself for the rest of his life, but Gehrig – unlike Martin Reid and Larry Valentine – was a Democrat and had been a big donor to the Clinton campaign in 2016. Going by what Daniel Misak had told him, the money was leaving TangKi to finance right-wing groups in Europe. So, this wasn’t Gehrig. That left his friend, Gil Leppo. It was inconceivable that Gil, who had brought them a gift of a puppy at Thanksgiving, would do anything to harm Anastasia. They had become so close that Hisami suspected Gil came over more to talk to Anastasia than to him. He almost seemed dependent on her.
‘You’ve got a lot of rich friends,’ said Nelson when Hisami paused. ‘How come you’re in here?’
‘I miscalculated.’
‘I miscalculated my first wife. And she miscalculated me, too.’
‘How so?’
‘I knew maybe something was going on behind my back so I get myself one of them tiny little cameras from RadioShack and I rig it in the bedroom right there, then I have the pleasure of seeing my wife’s huge fat ass being screwed by a man from across the street. And that’s how I lose my wife, who is also my soulmate.’
‘I’m sorry. Do you regret it?’
‘I regret it – yeah. I regret it. All I’m saying is that your best friend is the person who can trick you most easy. Think about that, Denis. If you’re close to someone, that treachery thing is always a possibility, and some people, they really can’t help it.’
Hisami did think about that.
When Samson arrived at the Immigration Court on Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, it was crowded with media. Hisami was evidently now a big story and the absence of his wife from these proceedings the subject of much speculation. But Hisami had hired the best publicist in New York City, who had spun the line that while the billionaire was defending himself against a politically motivated attack on his reputation, Anastasia had travelled abroad to view the Aysel centres and had been unavoidably detained, which was certainly true.
He had read versions of this statement, going through news sites in the cab from JFK. When he switched on his phone he’d hoped to pick up a message or email from Naji, but there was nothing from him. He sent another email, saying it was vital they speak before the end of the day.
He went straight to Federal Plaza, took the lift to the twelfth floor and found the noticeboard he had been directed to by a guard. Hisami’s hearing was listed at the bottom, under several other cases, and by the time he had worked out which courtroom it was in and had threaded his way through the supporters of those whose cases were being heard, the judge – a crow-like woman in her mid-fifties with a sharp, impatient manner – was already speaking to the lawyers representing Hisami and ICE and Homeland Security. Tulliver caught sight of him and did a kind of salute then sat down in the front bench. The last time they had seen each other was when Samson was being deported from Macedonia and Tulliver had swapped places with him at Skopje airport, so leaving Samson to pursue young Naji in the mountains of northern Macedonia.
Journalists were already writing stories on their devices; they could insert detail and quotes as the hearing progressed. Samson watched the young woman next to him type, ‘Billionaire Denis Hisami, who faces allegations that he lied on his immigration application, did not notify the authorities of his change of name and concealed a past that included war crimes and terror-related offences, was returned to prison after Judge Jean Simon concluded that he was a risk to the public. Judge Simon said …’
Hisami was brought in wearing civilian clothes, not the prison uniform Tulliver had warned Samson about on the phone. He looked exhausted but also oddly removed from his surroundings. Samson knew Hisami had spotted him but there was no acknowledgement and he simply turned his back to the public and sat down while the two guards who had brought him from the prison moved to the side of the courtroom and watched him as though he represented a major threat to national security.
The judge tapped the microphone then looked down at some papers. ‘The purpose of a Reasonable Cause hearing is to decide just one thing – whether Mr Hisami’s continued detention is justified. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the only thing we are here for. We are not here to determine the merits of the case against Mr Hisami, or order a removal or any other action. And in this narrow context ICE and the Homeland Security – and I quote – “has the burden of proving clear and convincing evidence that the alien should remain in custody because the alien’s release would pose a special danger to the public”.’ She removed her glasses and looked at the government lawyers. ‘The evidence you have produced so far is unimpressive. You will need to up your game, sirs, if you are to continue to hold Mr Hisami.’
A rather sinister lawyer with a shaven head, button-down collar, club tie and a drab suit rose and assured her that he was in possession of a very considerable amount of evidence.
‘Then let’s hear it, Mr Balstad.’
But before he could begin, Hisami’s lawyer got to his feet. He was in his sixties, wore a bow-tie and had the woebegone expression of someone who had just heard the words ‘Brace! Brace!’ over an aeroplane’s intercom. His mouth hung open, his eyes darted about the court and he had a nervous tic that made him pinch the edge of his lapel. Samson assumed his appearance belied his expertise as an immigration lawyer and that he had been chosen by the two tanned lawyers next to him because he knew what he was doing. ‘Judge,’ he started, ‘I hope we can dispense with the term “alien”. Mr Hisami is a legitimate American citizen and has no other citizenship. He has contributed more than most people to the well-being and prosperity of the nation and it seems inappropriate, not to say inaccurate, to refer to him as an alien. My client is as American as you or I, Judge.’
‘Does this matter, Mr Weber?’ asked the judge.
‘It is important that the court acknowledges that Mr Hisami has done absolutely nothing wrong. He appears here as an innocent man.’
She nodded. ‘Mr Balstad, proceed, if you will, and avoid the word “alien” in recognition of Mr Weber’s sensitivities.’
Balstad stood and contemplated Hisami, as though he were looking at the embodiment of evil. ‘It is the department’s case that Mr Hisami is a man with a secret past that includes multiple acts of terrorism and at least one war crime. In order to facilitate his entry into the United States in January 1996, and his eventual application for citizenship, Mr Hisami constructed an elaborate backstory, changing his name and covering up his role as a violent terrorist who led attacks on the Turkish state. Mr Hisami was born a Kurdish national and from an early age was an active member of several different Kurdish nationalist groups, all of them dedicated to the creation of a Kurdish state. My colleague will distribute evidence that will leave the court in little doubt about the true nature of the man who passes himself off as a law-abiding American citizen.’
A woman got up and handed a sheaf of photographs to the judge and to Hisami’s lawyers, then Balstad produced enlarged photographs printed on boards and marched over to an easel. ‘It may help, Your Honour, if I go through them here. These items are marked A through P – there are sixteen in all. The first four are copies of Turkish intelligence reports from 1993 to 1995 which feature a terrorist commander named Karim Qasim, who the Turkish government have connected to several attacks committed on Turkish soil. You can examine the intelligence reports at your leisure. This fifth establishes that Karim Qasim is in fact Denis Hisami.’ He lifted the photograph of an ID card showing the young Hisami with a short, unruly beard and a mop of black hair brushed forward. ‘This is a driver’s licence from the period issued to Karim Qasim by the Iraqi government.’ He let the court absorb the image of the tough young man. ‘And now we’ll go through some of the attacks which the Turkish government – a NATO ally and friend of America – believes that Mr Hisami was responsible for.
‘In the spring of 1994 the PKK attacked a convoy of unarmed military in eastern Turkey. Thirty-five young men were killed, together with four civilians.’ There were four photographs of a burnt-out bus and an SUV with bodies cremated in the wreckage of both. They were shocking images, and the last, which showed the charred body of the SUV’s driver slumped across the open door of the vehicle, drew a gasp from the courtroom.
‘I think you’ve made your point,’ said the judge.
‘But there are two other incidents I wish to draw to your attention,’ said the lawyer, who had not missed the journalists leaning forward or rising from their seats to get a better view of the easel. ‘This is what remained of the Golden Anatolia Hotel after it was firebombed by Mr Hisami’s terrorist group.’
There were more charred bodies, this time lying in the lobby of the burnt-out building. In the foreground was a child’s doll part melted by the flames. Samson looked over to see Hisami raise his head slowly and regard the photograph with indifference. Weber was peering at the bundle of images before him with glasses held out away from his face, like a very old man studying a rare manuscript. The two lawyers beside him, who Samson guessed were from California, exchanged glances with Tulliver then nodded to another man, who had slipped into the court and now joined them at the table.
‘Finally,’ said Balstad, with a melodramatic tone, ‘we have conclusive proof of Mr Hisami’s involvement in one of the most disturbing war crimes of that period. I apologise for bringing this material into court, Your Honour, but the DHS believes it is relevant to our view that Mr Hisami should remain in detention while his case is being processed, and that this material graphically demonstrates the government’s concerns about the man before you.’
He propped up several images at the foot of the easel, some of which were intentionally the wrong way round so the court couldn’t see them. He revealed the first – the scene of a mass grave with the bodies of young soldiers piled high in a shallow ditch. They had been executed at the side of the ditch and fallen forward, but at the moment of death some had turned, and their faces, many of which had been blown apart from the bullets, could be seen. It made a truly horrifying tableau. At the other side of the ditch, where the soil had been piled, stood a group of soldiers, appearing altogether too relaxed in the face of such horror. Three, cigarettes in their mouths, were bent over a lighter held out by a companion. The others stood about, showing no visible signs of emotion, wiping their faces in the heat, checking their guns, chatting. ‘This shows the summary execution site of thirty-four Iraqi army recruits in Northern Iraq in 1995. International investigators have declared this atrocity to be a war crime. The men were all in their early twenties and were shot after they surrendered and had been disarmed by the men you see standing at the side of the grave.’
There followed a shot of the same scene from another angle. Samson saw immediately what Balstad was building up to. At the centre of the group – though partly concealed – was the young Hisami, in a leather flying jacket with an AK 47 slung over one shoulder and a heavy field radio handset hanging from the other, a pistol in his hand. The beard and the cigar raised to his lips were reminiscent of Fidel Castro. His commanding presence was obvious.
The close-up of Hisami came next. ‘You will recognise the commander of the execution squad as Karim Qasim, the man Denis Hisami, who sits before Your Honour and pretends to be an innocent American citizen, just like the Nazi war criminals who came to our country to escape prosecution for crimes against humanity after the Second World War. Denis Hisami is not only a terrorist but also a war criminal, and he should remain in detention until an order for deportation is made, which undoubtedly will be the outcome of this case.’ He paused and gave the courtroom a satisfied look. ‘That concludes our evidence, Your Honour.’
The judge nodded and turned to Hisami’s lawyer. ‘Mr Weber, what do you have to say on behalf of your client? You’ve insisted that the government had nothing to back up its argument for continued detention, but now it seems they do. We are all ears, Mr Weber.’
Weber rose and looked around, as though he were not quite sure where he was. ‘We are familiar with these photographs,’ he said slowly, ‘because, as you know, there have been attempts by the other side to circulate them. These attempts have been unsuccessful, because these photographs, as presented, are obviously libellous of Mr Hisami’s reputation. If the court allows, I will address the last allegation first, because it is the most serious levelled in this vexatious case against my client. We have our own photograph,’ and he reached down to a board handed up to him by an assistant from the front bench. Weber seemed to stagger slightly then set off unsteadily towards the easel, where he placed the board.
‘Here you see almost the same photograph, but the shot is wider and allows a full view of the men immediately surrounding Mr Hisami. Oh, by the way, we do not deny Mr Hisami’s presence at this dreadful scene.’ He paused, placed a finger on the photograph and looked around the court. ‘Here you will notice a man of fair complexion who is not in uniform and who carries only a sidearm. It is clear that he has taken off his aviator sunglasses to talk to my client.’ He nodded to himself and then turned to face the judge. ‘We are lucky, Your Honour, to have this gentleman in court with us today and he will give the context of this photograph as well as furnish details regarding the other allegations.’
‘Who is this man?’ demanded Judge Simon.
‘It is I,’ replied the tall man who had joined the table of lawyers a few minutes before. He rose and smiled obligingly.
‘And who are you, sir?’
‘Bob Baker, Your Honour.’
‘I said who are you, not what’s your name.’
‘I am the former director of field operations in Northern Iraq for the Central Intelligence Agency. I am the one in the photograph standing next to Mr Hisami. Subsequent to this event, I became director of all operations in the Middle East for the Agency and have just retired from a desk job at Langley, overseeing another aspect of the Agency’s work overseas.’
‘Mr Baker is too modest to tell the court that he received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal on his retirement for, and I quote here, “achievements of an exceptional nature that contributed to the Agency’s mission”,’ said Weber.
‘What do you have to say?’ snapped the judge.
‘Well, I have a lot to say about this incident. At the time, Mr Hisami and I were working together, and I should, at the outset, stress that Mr Hisami was one of our most important friends in Kurdistan at that time.’
‘You are saying he worked for the Agency?’
‘Indeed he did, and he saved my life at least once – probably twice, if you count an ambush when I was unarmed.’
‘You mean Mr Hisami worked for the CIA?’
‘We don’t normally confirm these details, but, absolutely, yes he did. He was a very important part of our efforts in the Kurdistan theatre.’ Baker glanced down at Hisami. ‘He is one of the bravest and most resilient individuals I have ever had the privilege to know.’ Hisami showed no more interest in this testimony than in Balstad’s evidence, although he did acknowledge the compliment with a slight nod.
‘Can you explain these photographs?’ asked the judge.
‘Sure. These men were renegade Iraqi army soldiers, part of a force led by General Mahmood Al-Samarra, who was part of a plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 1995. The unit was compromised before they reached the rendezvous with my team and PUK forces led by Denis. They were taken from their vehicles and murdered on the spot by Saddam’s security forces. We were just too late to save them.’ He stopped to compose himself. ‘This was an appalling tragedy, and the greatest regret of my time in the field, without doubt.’
Balstad shot up. ‘How do we know you’re telling the truth?’
‘I’ll take an oath, if you like, but I am telling the truth,’ said Baker amenably, and in a way that no one could doubt what he was saying. ‘This episode is part of my book, which comes out next spring and has been passed by the Agency as suitable for publication. The Agency fully recognises the service Mr Hisami has given to our country.’
The judge looked at the photographs. ‘It seems strange that such a scene of horror provokes so little reaction in the men around you in the photograph,’ she observed.
‘These men are battle-hardened troops, Your Honour. They’d seen many terrible things and the best way of dealing with an atrocity on this scale is to distance yourself from it, and the way you do that is by acting normally and not absorbing the horror. I know this from my own experience, I regret to say.’ He stopped and held the judge’s gaze. ‘I look at myself in that photograph today and wonder how I was able to behave like that. Was I any less of a human being then than I am now? I don’t think so – it’s just what you have to do.’
‘You’re saying Hisami had nothing to do with this?’
‘No more than I did.’
‘And these other terrorist atrocities – what was Mr Hisami’s involvement? The government would lead us to believe that Mr Hisami is the author of this barbarity. Do you have any information on the murder of the Turkish army recruits and the arson at the hotel in Anatolia?’
‘They are well-known incidents, all of them carried out by the Kurdish Workers’ Party – the PKK. That is quite distinct from the PUK – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan – of which Mr Hisami was an important member. The PUK was an insurgency, but you could not describe it as a terrorist group. It was founded by intellectuals in the seventies and, to this day, that tradition is alive.’
‘So why is it that Mr Hisami is named as Karim Qasim on the intelligence reports?’
‘I believe Mr Weber is in a better position to answer that, Your Honour.’
Baker sat down and the judge swivelled to Weber, who was standing at the easel with a rather vacant look on his face.
‘Mr Weber, what do you have to say?’
‘Um, this is not my field and, of course, I bow to almost anyone when it comes to the technology, but it seems that the disks whence these documents came have some issues.’
‘Issues, what issues? Are you suggesting they aren’t real?’
‘I must object,’ said Balstad.
‘This is not a trial, Mr Balstad. I don’t want objections,’ said the judge, ‘I want to hear what Mr Weber has to say. Mr Weber, please proceed.’
‘On Mr Baker’s advice, we took the disks for forensic examination, just to make certain my client was not being unfairly maligned. The documents are said to come from 1996 to 1997 – so, more or less, contemporary with Mr Hisami’s activities as a PUK commander.’ He paused and consulted some notes in his hand. ‘What the analysis found was that these documents were not all that they should be if they were generated in the mid-nineties. The metadata – that is, the data that summarises other data, I understand – was certainly dated to that period. But then, when they used a particular piece of equipment known as a Hex editor, which displays all the binary information in a file, they found that the metadata had been tampered with.’ He looked up. ‘I hope I am not losing you?’
‘Go on, Mr Weber,’ said the judge.
‘It seems the file contains a very modern version of a font called Calibri, which was introduced by Microsoft in 2006 and is the default font of Office 2007.’ He looked around the court to see if the penny had dropped. Among the young press corps, it most certainly had. ‘All these documents had apparently been saved at a much earlier date, but of course they couldn’t have been, because the font did not exist in the nineties. It came into use much later. That means that all or part of the documents is a fabrication.’
He clicked his fingers at the assistant, who rushed forward with another board. ‘And here is the proof,’ he said, revealing a large-scale copy of the code which, among other fonts, spelled out c.a.l.i.b.r.i. ‘These documents are recent forgeries,’ he said, and began to make his way back to the table.
‘You’re certain of this?’ asked the judge.
‘We will submit all the evidence now to the court,’ said Weber, hovering uncertainly by his chair. ‘And it will form part of our case in the defence of Mr Hisami.’
Samson saw that Hisami had barely moved throughout this. He didn’t look up or acknowledge Weber when he at last sat down.
The judge took off her spectacles. ‘If Mr Hisami is the hero that your side makes him out to be, Mr Weber, why did he need to change his name from Karim Qasim?’
Balstad rose angrily. ‘Are you hearing the case now?’
She turned towards him. ‘No, as I explained, we are deciding whether the ICE – that is, the DHS – is right to continue to detain Mr Hisami on the basis that he is a threat to American citizens.’
Weber leaned across Hisami to consult Baker then drew back and looked at Hisami, who gave a barely perceptible shake of the head. ‘That concludes our argument,’ he said.
‘Well, we no doubt will hear why Mr Hisami changed his name in due course. It is not a crime to change your name, unless it has been done as part of an attempt to conceal information from the immigration authorities.’
Weber bobbed up again. ‘I can say that Mr Hisami changed his name for reasons of personal security, which he would rather not speak about for the moment.’
The judge nodded and turned to Balstad. ‘If you are to continue to hold Mr Hisami, you must bring more convincing evidence to this court. I am going to order Mr Hisami’s release, but with an ankle monitor, which will be fitted by the New York Police Department before he leaves this building.’
Weber rose more quickly than he had done during the hearing. ‘But this is nonsensical, Your Honour. Mr Hisami is not a flight risk and the government has never argued that he was. They said he was a danger to society.’
‘This is the way it’s going to be. The DHS will know where your client is without the necessity of locking him up.’ She turned to Balstad. ‘I want a complete report on the disks and photographs you have brought into this court as evidence. And the next time I see you, I will expect an explanation. The evidence that you bring then will be incontrovertible, or the case will be dismissed immediately. Do you understand?’ She paused and glowered at him. ‘Next case!’
The man was right. It was just a few hours before the truck reached its destination, but it felt like days to her because of the intense cold. When the truck came to a halt and the doors were flung open on a misty and frosted forest clearing, they had to pick her up bodily and carry her out of the truck. From watching people who had been rescued in the Aegean, she dimly recognised what was wrong with her – she was shivering and her teeth were chattering, her speech was slurred and she couldn’t order her thoughts to tell the men about the pain in her shoulder. A few more hours of that and she knew she’d be dead of hypothermia.
But now she was out in the morning light and the sun was shining above the autumn mist and she saw Kirill standing in the glade, now sporting a tweed hunting jacket with leather shoulder pads, pockets with large flaps and a dark green Tyrolean hat which had an orange feather stuck in the hat band. She thought she was hallucinating until he bent over to examine her and she smelled the tweed jacket and the acrid aroma of a Turkish cigarette.
He spoke rapidly in Russian to the three men who held her and they carried her across the clearing to a compound surrounded by a high mesh fence and inside which was a large log cabin and several smaller outhouses. The porch of the main building was decorated with boars’ tusks and antlers. One of the men caught his jacket on a set of tusks as they negotiated the door and had to be unhooked before they finally got her inside, laid her on a hard bench and covered her in a rug made from crochet squares.
Kirill barked out more instructions. A kettle was boiled and a hot-water bottle smelling of rubber was placed on her chest. Kirill cut the wrist tie, and she was able to hug the warmth from the hot-water bottle, but her teeth didn’t stop chattering and violent shivers still ran through her shoulders and arms. A few minutes later, he was at her side with a cup of soup, which evidently came from a packet because there were dried bits floating in the foam on the surface. He held it to her lips. ‘Best room service here.’ It was too hot and burned her lips. He blew on it. She noticed that his face glistened and his lips were moist. ‘Take some,’ he said. ‘Make you feel warm inside.’
Gradually, she was able to drink the soup and it did make her feel better. She nodded when he asked how she was feeling, but she could not yet speak.
‘I put vodka in soup,’ said Kirill, as though he were the host at a social event. ‘Bison-grass vodka. Maybe taste not great in soup, but will do trick, eh?’
He pulled up a chair and sat back, hands across the front of the tweed suit, fingers toying with the jacket belt. He took off his hat and twirled it on his index finger. ‘What do you think of hat? Good, no? Austrian hat. It will bring luck. I will kill many – I forget name of animal in English – dikiy kaban.’ He searched round and pointed to a massive black boar’s head over the fireplace. ‘So, this place is where you will stay until we have agreement from Mr Hisami.’
‘What do you want from him?’ she murmured.
‘It does not matter. But you must pray he agrees to what we want. Otherwise, it will not be good for you, Anastasia. Your Russian name will not protect you if he does not give us what we want.’
‘It isn’t Russian, it’s a Greek name,’ she said groggily. ‘It comes from St Anastasia. She was a Greek saint and the name means resurrection.’
‘A good name for position you are in.’ Kirill liked to have the last word.
‘How can Denis do anything when he’s in prison? Did you have him put in prison?’
‘His lies put him there.’
‘But how can he do what you want?’
‘He can make instructions – that is all it will require.’
‘Have you told him—’ She coughed and waited to regain her breath. ‘Have you told him what you want?’
He shook his head. ‘He knows why you were taken; he knows why his business across America is in trouble. He knew before you were seized. You suffer because of him. He took something that was not his. It is now in his hands.’
She finished the soup but kept her hands locked around the heat of the mug. ‘Have you contacted him? You’ve got his phone number, right? Email?’
Kirill considered this then smiled to himself. ‘He has one opportunity. We do not propose to extend the negotiation. He has one chance to say yes or no. One chance to save your life. But maybe I talk to Samson first because we know his number from the phone call you made.’
She peered through his glasses at his eyes. They were bland and without emotion. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You asked me. I always tell truth, Anastasia. May I call you by your first name? What did Mr Samson call you? Maybe I call you by name he used.’
She ignored this. ‘Why are you treating me so badly?’
‘To bring you to dacha is not treating you badly, Anastasia. You have comfort here. Hot shower. Food. Nature. Conversation.’ He stopped. ‘Is my conversation boring to you?’
‘If all you talk about is killing me, yes, it does get boring. Can I have some more food? I’m still hungry.’
Without turning, he shouted to the two men who were standing around watching the third lug boxes into the cabin. This man set down the box he was carrying, began to search for something then retrieved a bag of crisps and some prepacked cheese. He brought them over and handed them to her with a lopsided, sheepish grin. She was sure this was the same man who, in the truck, had whispered in her ear that it wouldn’t be long to the end of the journey.
‘I can’t open the packet – my hands,’ she said, passing the crisps to Kirill. He shook his head and gave them to the man, who tore the bag open and cut the packaging on the cheese with a penknife.
‘Good Russian cheese,’ observed Kirill. ‘President has brought cheese industry to life after sanctions. We destroy European shit that comes into Russia and now we have fine Russian cheese.’ He called for an ashtray and lit a cigarette then studied her through a veil of smoke. ‘You are strong. You already recover. We have maybe one week in this place. You will be confined except when you are in my presence. You will not speak to guards and you will not try to escape.’
She nodded her compliance.
‘We spend much time together. Do you like to read?’
‘Do I like reading?’ she said incredulously. ‘Yes, when I have the time.’
‘You have time now. We make – how do you say? – we make book club in forest. And talk about a book every day. I am fast reader.’
‘You want to talk about books out here!’
‘Why not? It is good way to pass time while we wait for your husband to respond.’
He rose. ‘Can you walk? Get up!’
‘I don’t know – do you have painkillers? I have a bad shoulder.’
‘That won’t affect legs. I show you something.’
She dragged herself to her feet but knew she couldn’t stand long without help. Kirill beckoned to two of the men, who took her arms and guided her forward.
He replaced his hat, led them out of the building and turned towards the opening in the fence where four armed men waited. Kirill nodded to them as he passed and they fell in behind Anastasia and her two supporters. They all set off across the clearing behind Kirill, who had acquired a twisted walking stick from a stand inside the porch and moved with a quick, officious gait that implied ownership of everything around him. He pulled aside the bough of a larch to reveal a path then moved off again, needlessly slashing at the dead undergrowth with the stick.
At any other time, Anastasia would have noticed the delicately frosted vegetation, the mist hanging in the trees and the extraordinary quiet of the forest, where no birds sang and nothing moved. But she was aware only of the feeling restored to her legs and feet and a strange, prickly sensation in her toes.
They went about three hundred metres and she caught a glimpse of an orange object between the trees. Soon they emerged into a much smaller clearing, where there was a mini digger and a trench that had evidently just been excavated, for the earth was damp and had not been touched by the frost. Kirill ordered her to be brought to the side of the trench, whereupon he put his stick to the back of her head. ‘If you try to escape, I will end your life here. Then this machine will cover your body with that pile of earth and no one will ever know what has happened to you. So, no tricks! Do what I say and do not speak to my men.’ He moved from behind her so he could look into her eyes. ‘We have an understanding, I believe. Yes? Now let us go and view accommodation.’
He moved away from her and she turned from the trench, knowing that in this ugly, pompous man she was confronting the same evil as she had in the Macedonian mountains with Samson and Naji. Kirill maintained a plausible veneer of civilisation and humanity but, ultimately, he was the same entity as the terrorist Almunjil.
The men turned and began to lead her back to the dacha, but she was now capable of walking without help and shook herself free of them. Kirill shouted over his shoulder to her. ‘We will study Russian literature, but first you tell me about American fiction.’
‘I know nothing about American books,’ she said to his back. ‘I am Greek.’
‘Then we will learn together. We read Huckleberry Finn. You have read this author – Mark Twain?’
‘No,’ she replied.
‘You will enjoy book and we will discuss later.’