NO QUEUES, no waiting with the great unwashed, no sour-faced security, and no touting of airline scratch cards. Marvellous, Tallis thought as the Jet Ranger flew a final circuit before dropping down and coming in at a perfect seventy miles an hour to land.
Single-handedly, he’d flown a friend’s helicopter from a helipad in Belbroughton, a posh West Midlands suburb, to a privately owned airfield at Reinsdorf. En route he’d refuelled with Av-Gas at L’Aeroport de Charleroi in Brussels, principally because the authorities weren’t too anal about checking passports. From there, he’d flown directly to Berlin and was in the process of hovering over a grass airstrip that had formerly belonged to the Russians and now was owned by a laid-back German called Helmut. It was Tallis’s idea to see if he could make the trip without first seeking normal permissions or going through official channels, including filing the all-important flight plan. Christ knew what he’d have done had he been caught but, by flying low and outside the zones, things had worked like Teutonic clockwork. Nobody had ordered him to land, and no jets had come up alongside, strafing and treating him like a terrorist. The entire rogue operation had been a blinding success.
Tallis removed his headset, and carrying out the post-landing checks, turned off some of the electrics, allowing the engine to cool down, then stepped out, feet crunching against the hardened ground. He flexed his tall frame in relief. For the past few hours, he had cruised at just under 140 m.p.h., initially in fairly lousy weather conditions, his surroundings leather-lined and luxurious. But he’d still been confined to what was essentially an oversized goldfish bowl.
He took in a brisk gulp of air and continued to survey the cold German crystalline scenery. In spite of sunlight filtering through a band of distant trees, the ordinariness of the cabins dotted around the airfield and the sight of Helmut striding purposefully towards him, he imagined an image of grey Russian MiGs, barbed wire and watchtowers.
‘Willkommen, Paul,’ Helmut said, slapping him clumsily on the back, his red, weather-beaten features stretched into a broad grin. In his battered leather jacket and open-necked check-shirt, Helmut exuded farmercum-Luftwaffe chic.
Tallis shook his hand warmly. ‘Wie geht’s?’
‘Gut. Viel Arbeit, viel Essen, viel Sex, und beidir?’ Fine. Plenty of work, plenty of food, plenty of sex, and yourself?’
‘Fantastisch,’ Tallis laughed.
‘And how did you find the Jet Ranger?’ Helmut cast an appreciative glance over the helicopter. The dark blue paintwork looked spectacular against the rather grey and muted surroundings.
‘Virtually flew itself.’
‘You were impressed?’
‘Sehr.’ How could he not be? The Jet Ranger was the helicopter of choice for many of the Bond films. ‘Where do you want me?’ Tallis asked.
‘Here’s good.’ Helmut waved a stout arm, indicating a hangar a few metres away from where they’d landed. It was his for the next two nights. ‘Come back to the office when you’ve finished. I want to hear all about it,’ he added over his shoulder, striding off again. Tallis envisaged the next two hours spent drinking tea or something a good deal stronger while trading tales of aerobatics and brushes with the Civil Aviation Authority. Afterwards, he planned to order a cab and head off to his hotel, shower and change, and sample some genuine Berlin hospitality. Tallis had every intention of making the most of his forty-eight-hour stay. He’d never visited the city before and wanted to trawl the former Eastern Bloc, do the whole tourist thing, Brandenburg Gate, old bits of the Berlin Wall, Jewish memorials, the Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie…
His phone rang, rudely interrupting his train of thought.
‘Paul, it’s Asim.’
Tallis had a sudden premonition that his history tour was about to be cancelled.
‘Can you talk?’
‘Give me a moment,’ Tallis said, walking a short distance away, automatically checking his surroundings for potential eavesdroppers of which there were none. He glanced up as a Cessna flattened out, coming into land.
‘Where are you?’ Asim said.
‘Berlin.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long for?’
‘A couple of days.’
‘Whereabouts are you staying?’ Asim said.
‘A hotel in Alexanderplatz.’
‘Is it possible for you to sneak away for a couple of hours?’
‘Yes, I sup—’
‘Meet me outside the Nikolaikirche, off Rathausstrasse tomorrow morning, ten your time.’
Tallis didn’t have the chance to respond—Asim had already cut the call. He stood there for a moment, thinking. A consummate professional, Asim didn’t usually go in for pleasantries, especially on a telephone. In person, he was good company, amusing, mischievous even. None of this had transmitted down the line. Not so surprising, yet for his handler to travel all the way to see him at such short notice was out of the ordinary. As an off-the-books spook for MI5, Tallis was inured to the unconventional, the quick change of plan, the downright unexpected. Even so, it could only mean one thing: this was serious.
Pavel Polyakova was a bitter man. That he, a Russian general, should be reduced to taking his kids to school was a source of profound humiliation to him. Not for the first time he screamed at them to hurry.
‘Coming,’ Leonid yelled back, pulling a face. Eyes fixed on his father, he hissed to his younger brother, who was struggling with a shoelace, to get a move on.
Polyakova surveyed his two young sons. He noticed the way they looked at him, registered the fear and loathing. He’d observed the same insolent expression on the faces of idiot soldiers he’d once had the misfortune to command.
‘We want Mama,’ the youngest whined, his mouth pulled down into an ugly expression, threatening tears.
‘Well, you can’t have her,’ Polyakova growled back. Mama, dressed in skin-tight Diesel jeans and high heels, had left an hour ago to work for a friend who owned a new boutique off Red Square. Although the shop didn’t open until later, Tanya was going in early to sort out the stock, or so she said. Since she’d taken the job, she kept the strangest of hours, often returning late, reeking of vodka. If questioned, she reacted with anger, waving a wad of notes under his nose and demanding to know who was putting food on the table. It was enough to raise a man’s blood pressure to dangerous levels. Tanya might be a shining example of Ivanov’s new vision for Russia, but she had lost all interest in the home, in the kids, and, Mother of God, in him. Mr Ivanov, in his wisdom, had created a generation of cuckolds.
Polyakova glowered at his broken-down surroundings, a rented dump of rust and exposed brickwork not far from the US Embassy. Not for him the gateway to the elite, the poplar-lined boulevards, the dachas, the three-storey affairs with maid service. Christ, he couldn’t even resort to taxi-cabbing because his car was so old.
‘Are you two ready yet?’ he snarled, snatching up his car keys. Rush hour should be renamed death hour, in his opinion. Traffic jams were so intrinsic to Russian life it was quite possible to die in one’s vehicle from boredom.
Leonid cast his father a sullen look from underneath a set of dark lashes. ‘Boris has gone to the lavatory.’
Letting out a stream of expletives worthy of a military man, Polyakova turned on the worn-down heels of his boots and stormed out of the apartment. Outside lay a rabbit warren of concrete panel walls, shabby stairwells and non-existent lighting. Five flights down, he was still raging. As he emerged from the apartment block, fresh snow began to fall. Now God Almighty was against him, he fulminated, pulling up the threadbare collar of his jacket and banging his gloved hands together as he looked out at the vast expanse of streets and avenues. Freed from the old Soviet restrictions, the city felt horribly alive, he thought. Even at that time in the morning, it lay on its back like a whore, trading and bartering, selling itself to the highest bidder. Commerce was the new buzzword and, greased by the State, a new generation of entrepreneurs was stepping up to party in the playground of the rich. But not he: General Pavel Polyakova.
Stamping towards the parking lot, his beat-up Lada became the next recipient of his ire. First, he ripped off the tarpaulin and threw it into the boot then wrenched the driver door open, his large, dishevelled frame scrambling inside.
What was he to do? There were many impoverished military men like him slung onto the scrap heap. Naturally, he’d tried to call in favours. There had been mutterings of a governorship in Siberia but nothing had come of it. He’d offered his expertise in the fight against the latest batch of warlords but, apparently, he was deemed too out of touch—so much for doing his duty in the service of the motherland.
Unhappy men clung to former glory days with the same passion they reserved for slights. Polyakova was no exception. As he drummed his fingers on the dashboard, and with the snow tumbling about him, he found himself willingly transported back to Chechnya. It was 2002, weeks after the infamous Nord-Ost theatre siege. They had flown in from Moscow to Mozdok and then taken a helicopter armed with light-calibre shells. Like many helicopters, it doubled as a carrier for injured troops. Its interior smelt of dried blood, he remembered.
Following the line of the river Terek, they crossed over the Argun Gorge and landed near the village of Vedeno. The official line was that they were searching for Chechen snipers. In reality they were seeking revenge. He had a young lieutenant with him, Ivan, a man after his own heart, as hard working as he was hard drinking. They pitched down late afternoon when the sun was making its escape from the sky. With its grey fields, dirt roads, silent ruins and absent population, Chechnya was a godforsaken place. Always was. Always would be.
‘Another trip to hell,’ Ivan spat, as they pitched out of the helicopter.
As expected the ‘dukh’, or ‘spirit’, and military slang for the Chechens, had gone to ground. Those in evidence were old men with unwashed beards who stared at them with undisguised hatred. One of the conscripts lifted his rifle to a particularly gnarled specimen and threatened to shoot. Polyakova ordered the soldier, a former inmate of a prison in Ukraine, to lower his weapon, not because he was a compassionate man but because it would be a waste of a good bullet.
Underfoot, thick black mud. Up ahead, hills and peaks and mountains. Somewhere in the distance a stray dog barked. After a fifteen-minute trudge along a cratered road, they came to a group of mean little huts, clay-encrusted, that served as dwellings. The first two were deserted. Sticking to normal clean-up procedure, they burst in, checked the place for rebels and boobytraps then smashed the place to pieces before searching for spoils of war, jewellery, money and suchlike. It was a disappointing haul, nothing more than two necklaces, a diamond ring and a total of a thousand roubles. The last hovel, however, was a different matter. The last yielded gold.
They found the three occupants huddled together in one room: a babushka, a mentally disabled boy—by all accounts the old woman’s grandson—and a duskyskinned teenage girl. Polyakova felt himself harden in spite of the bitter temperature in the car.
That was the start of it all.
After turning the place over, Ivan trained a gun on the whimpering cretin.
‘Please, don’t hurt him,’ the girl said. She had black hair, eyes so dark it was impossible to tell whether they were blue or brown. Polyakova noticed that she spoke Russian. He strode towards her, circled like a shark eyeing up his next meal, the leather of his boots making a cracking sound. He paused in front of her, and looked down into those deep, ensnaring eyes.
‘What is your name?’
‘Aimani.’
‘And how old are you, Aimani?’
‘I am fifteen.’
‘At school?’
‘No longer.’
‘But you used to go to school, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that is where you learned to speak the language of the motherland.’
Aimani said nothing. The atmosphere in the room was electric. And that was good in Polyakova’s book.
‘I will not hurt him,’ Polyakova said, inclining his head in the direction of the snivelling boy, ‘as long as you tell me the truth.’ His smile was met with defiance. He transferred his gaze to her body. He could not help but notice the swell of the girl’s breasts, the curve of her hips beneath her clothes, a mishmash of sweaters and cardigans over a long dark skirt. A mental image of her vulnerable and naked flashed before his eyes. ‘Now, tell me, where are the men of the household?’
‘They are out.’
‘Where?’
His eyes were still on the girl. She opened her full lips to respond but instead the babushka answered. In halting Russian, the crone told him they had gone to gather firewood.
Polyakova spun on his heel. He viewed the woman’s shrivelled features, the toothless gums and the hook nose. ‘You lie, old woman.’
Polyakova nodded to Ivan who hit the boy across the head with the rifle butt. Letting out a loud scream, a wound opened up on his over-large head. Blood spurted and trickled down his face, dripping onto the dirt floor.
The old woman’s gnarled hands shot to her face in distress. She began to cry, her sobs mingling with the cretin’s. But the girl was different. She stood rooted, proud, dark eyes flashing, a mutinous look in her eyes.
‘I will ask you again,’ Polyakova said, speaking slowly, weighing each syllable. ‘Where are the men?’
Nobody spoke. In the absence of an answer, the white-faced boy attempted to flee. Not so stupid after all, Polyakova thought as Ivan knocked the youth to the ground and swung back his boot to kick him.
That’s when the girl made her move.
Pulling a knife from nowhere, she launched herself at Ivan, slicing at his arm. One-handed, Ivan caught hold of her, forcing the blade from her hand. ‘We have a vixen here.’ Ivan laughed, throwing her towards Polyakova. As the babushka scurried to the girl’s aid, Polyakova calmly took out his pistol and shot the old woman in the face then turned his gun on the boy.
The girl’s screams echoed in Polyakova’s ears. He could still hear them, even now years on, in the freezing interior of his car. My, she’d been a sturdy one. Fought with the same ferocity as the Spetsnaz.
Where the hell are those kids? he cursed, wiping the steam from the window and peering out through a mirage of sleet and snow.
Naturally, he had taken the girl, taught her what it was to be a true Russian. He smiled to himself. He had kept a lock of her hair as a keepsake so that no matter how many times he washed, he could smell her skin, taste her sweat, hear her cries as she yielded to his demands. Unlike Tanya, he thought blackly, who yielded to nobody.
His eyes drifted to the window again. Leonid and Boris were still nowhere to be seen. My God, would he teach them a lesson, he thought, tooting the car horn angrily.
Afterwards, he’d smothered the girl. No point in leaving loose ends. He believed shepherds found the charred remains of her body several days later.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flurry of activity. At last his sons emerged from the entrance, skittering in a fresh fall of snow, the youngest trailing behind as usual. Infuriated, Polyakova wound the window down. He was about to issue further admonishment, but Boris slipped over, hitting the ground hard with a yell. The child began to wail.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ Polyakova roared, switching on the engine, the last action of a condemned man.
As the car exploded into a fireball, and the young brothers dived for cover, the noise of the blast was heard several streets away.
At the same time as Pavel Polyakova’s head was detaching from its body, Tallis was waking up. He’d slept badly. It wasn’t due to the room’s close proximity to the lift, the sound booming from the shaft suggesting that he was sleeping in the hull of an old trawler. It wasn’t even as a result of the artificial orange light shining in through the bedroom window, casting weird shadows on the ceiling, or the absurd level of heat, or the fact that construction workers outside and cleaners inside had made an early start. Burning curiosity was responsible for his insomnia. He felt like a kid on the night before Christmas.
Tallis took a hot shower, then shaved. He was not a vain man but, through force of habit, he regarded himself in the mirror. The scar over his left eyebrow, inflicted during a childhood punch-up with his older brother, looked less pronounced in spite of his naturally dark colouring. Unlike a more recent scar on his cheek. The woman responsible had been a Romanian murderess who slashed her victims with a lethally sharpened fingernail. His hair was still thick, no grey yet. Eyes might have a couple more lines at the edges but this was a matter of observation rather than interest or concern. Of greater significance, his body was still in good nick. He couldn’t undertake his type of work without a high level of fitness and at thirty-five years of age it was impossible to wing it. Recently, he’d added weight training to his workout. He briefly considered how many years he might have left in the game. Ten years, tops, he reckoned.
After taking a European-style breakfast in the conservatory, Tallis returned to his room, cleaned his teeth, checked his destination on the map and retrieved his leather jacket and gloves. As he stepped out into the corridor, a pretty chambermaid smiled and wished him ‘Guten tag’, a greeting he duly returned. And it was a good morning, Tallis thought as he sauntered towards the lift. In spite of the urgency of the meeting, the danger he would ultimately encounter, he was intrigued by Asim’s phone call. More than anything, after a break of a couple of months he relished the thought of being operational again.
The day was crisp and clear and, at barely four degrees, cold though not unpleasant. Turning right out of the hotel to avoid a group of workmen digging up the pavement, Tallis passed by a ten-storey block of flats, grey and granite, as grim a construct as anything he’d seen in the rougher bits of Birmingham. In front of the building, bins spilt litter onto a tiny scrub of land with a solitary scrawny tree under which two young teenage girls were standing smoking. They both turned, cupping their hands in the chill southeast wind, and looked at him, shuffling a little in their thin jackets.
At the end of the one-way street, Tallis found himself on a wide main road, shops one side and vast open space on the other. He crossed over, negotiating a tramline running between the two opposing carriageways and onto the square where the Marienkirche, or St Mary’s Church, stood proud and alone in the shadow of the Fernsehturm, the television tower and the city’s tallest structure. Rolling up the collar of his jacket, he passed a fountain of Neptune around which a gaggle of schoolchildren were crowding. Ahead lay the Rathaus, Berlin’s town hall, an imposing red brick building, and another crossing, which took him down Rathausstrasse, past shops and cafés and boutiques. A man with white-blond hair and skin as pale as an albino approached from the opposite direction. He wore a dark trench coat with a white silk cravat at his throat. His smart, shiny shoes clicked as he walked along the pavement. Drawing level with Tallis, he minutely adjusted his designer sunglasses. Tallis registered the gesture, slowed down a little, quartering the street to check for surveillance, but there was nobody in sight. Nothing more than a fashion-conscious German, he thought, glancing over his shoulder, seeing the man disappear round the corner and from view.
Within seconds he reached Nikolaiviertel, a quaint quarter of cobbled streets on the bank of the river Spree. The place was crammed with bars and clubs, though none were open and all possessed a slightly addled, sleepy look. Few people were milling about. A lone chauffeur-driven Mercedes prowled down the street, a Japanese woman dressed in a fur coat seated in the rear.
Tallis walked on past a statue of a bear holding a shield, a toyshop selling teddies, two souvenir shops and a high-class and exclusive gift emporium, no prices on the merchandise. Then he caught sight of the twin towers of the Nicholaikirche, the oldest, most sacred building in Berlin.
The door of the church was closed. Outside, a gravelled path on which a number of orange-eyed pigeons were pecking at the dirt. Underneath, a sign that said no football, no bikes, dogs welcome; a solitary bicycle was propped against a lamppost. To the right of the path, a grassy section with a single fledgling fir tree stood next to a large statue of a woman, half Boudicca, half pre-Raphaelite in style. Her naked foot rested on a helmet. Tallis gazed up at the church, a blaze of sunshine catching the leaded glass, then followed the path, passing the statue and a number of green garden seats with flaking, peeling paint until he came to a large half-moon-shaped bench hidden in a recess, secluded, cool and shadowy. Asim, wearing a dark cashmere overcoat and sunglasses, was already seated.
At the sound of Tallis’s approaching footsteps, Asim neither turned nor flinched. Mysterious and inscrutable, he sat as still as one of the many statues Tallis had passed en route. Tallis slipped down next to him.
‘Bonjour,’ Asim said. ‘ça va?’
‘Bien, merci,’ Tallis replied, slipping easily into French. This had to be a first, he thought. His conversations with Asim were usually conducted in English. He hadn’t even known that Asim spoke French.
‘I need you to travel to Russia,’ Asim said without preamble. ‘You’ll be based in Moscow for a short time, building up your cover. From there, you’ll go to Chechnya.’
Chechnya? An image flashed before his eyes. It was the same image that had taken the world by storm when the fighting had first broken out over a decade before: the picture of a woman in a headscarf, a bony hand clasped to her face, crying over the ruin that was Grozny. And things had just got sticky there again. Terrific, Tallis thought, shootings, bombings, and abductions. From Tallis’s understanding, Chechen gangsters were like a high-octane version of the Sicilian Mafia. Winter in the mountains wasn’t his idea of fun either. Many of them were mined.
‘You speak Chechen?’ Asim continued.
‘I’m rusty. Why? I had a fr—’
‘How long would it take you to become fluent?’ Asim cut across. ‘Could you do it in a week?’
‘You must be joking.’
‘Two?’
‘Busting a gut, but, yes, probably.’ Good job it wasn’t Cantonese, Tallis thought.
Asim’s dark head dipped slightly as though nodding approval. He explained the approach made to him by Christian Fazan, and that Tallis was to be temporarily seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service. ‘I want you to locate an intelligence officer belonging to the SIS. The man was sent to penetrate a fundamentalist group loyal to a Chechen warlord, Akhmet Elimkhanova. The officer has been under cover since 2003. From my understanding, he yielded high-quality intelligence. For the past twelve months, nothing has been heard of him.’
‘So it’s basically a search and rescue, that right?’ Tallis had the clear impression he was only being given edited highlights. There were too many gaps in the commentary. Best to stay tuned.
‘It’s a little more complicated than that,’ Asim said, the hesitation in his voice so minor it would normally have passed unnoticed. Sitting next to him, however, Tallis spotted the body language, the slight twitch in Asim’s jaw. ‘We believe he’s gone native.’
Gone native? Tallis baulked. A very different proposition to gone missing.
‘It’s possible he’s responsible for a number of high-profile murders in Moscow.’ Asim went on to describe the victims and circumstances of the killings.
Bloody hell, Tallis thought. If there was even a grain of truth in the allegation, the political consequences could be dire and would require a high degree of fancy diplomatic footwork.
Asim cleared his throat. ‘We thought you were best suited for the job because the man you’re tracking is an old friend of yours.’
‘Oh?’
‘Graham Darke.’
Christ. He hadn’t seen Graham since he was fifteen. They’d met in the last year at primary school in Herefordshire. He remembered a boy with sharp features, small for his age. Bullies made the fatal mistake of assuming Graham’s stature indicated vulnerability. In Tallis’s experience, it was often the short, wiry types who proved the most formidable opponents. Not too many tall and lanky members of the SAS. Graham proved no exception. He turned the tables in spectacular fashion one break-time. In the aftermath, two lads required hospital treatment, although neither could remember how they sustained their injuries. Tallis was the first to congratulate Graham. From that moment, they were firm friends, and went on to secondary education together. They’d also hit it off for another less obvious reason. Both had grandmothers on their mother’s side who were foreign. Graham’s gran was Chechen, Tallis’s Croatian. It was the reason for Tallis’s knowledge of both languages. But that was all a very long time ago. They hadn’t been in contact since Graham abruptly left one night and moved with his old man to another part of the country.
Tallis glanced at Asim and did a mental recap. Graham Darke: an intelligence officer for the SIS. His mission: to penetrate one of the fundamentalist gangs roving the Chechen mountains and gather intelligence. Success rate: high, yielding good intel. Current status: Darke missing. Suspicion: Darke turned rogue agent. At this, Tallis frowned. Unless Darke had changed inordinately over the years, Tallis thought it unlikely, although was smart enough not to voice his opinion. When talking to Asim it was as well to listen more, speak less.
‘I’m guessing Darke’s suitability for the job was due to his Chechen roots,’ Tallis said. Chechens, he remembered, were fiercely nationalistic people. They belonged to teips or clans, the system based more on land than blood. He was buggered if he could remember which teip Graham Darke’s gran belonged to.
‘Correct.’
‘Are you suggesting that the killings are just the tip of the iceberg?’ Where the hell did this bloke, Christian Fazan, Asim’s contact in the Secret Intelligence Service, get his information?
‘Which is why we require you to bring him back. This is no time for split loyalties,’ Asim said in response to Tallis’s sharp intake of breath.
Fucking cheek. Tallis bridled.
‘What I meant,’ Asim said, emollient, ‘is that he’ll be given a fair hearing.’
Oh, sure, and a lengthy jail sentence, Tallis thought. Or worse, he thought, Darke would be ‘disappeared’.
‘He’s not the first agent to feel compromised.’ The slightly smug note in Asim’s voice hinted that he was, nevertheless, glad Darke was not one of his. But there was something else, a note of caution, perhaps? Asim normally conducted all dealings in comfortable, hospitable settings. By adopting this slightly over-the-top approach, was he showing his hand? Was he suggesting that the danger to Tallis was over and above what could normally be expected, and was he unconsciously trying to distance himself from the dirty work in which he was engaged? There was definitely something Asim wasn’t telling him.
Tallis turned towards him. ‘How much is at stake?’
Asim kept his eyes fixed ahead. ‘A great deal. Should Darke follow through on his plans, he could help trigger World War Three.’
‘What?’
‘Darke has Andrei Ivanov, the Russian prime minister, in his sights.’
Jesus! ‘You’re absolutely certain?’ This really didn’t sound like Darke unless he’d lost the plot entirely. Then again, what did he know? He hadn’t clapped eyes on Darke in nearly twenty years. An awful lot could happen to a man in that time—he should know. Being honest, Tallis couldn’t escape the fact that a small silent part of him recognised he might be wrong about his old friend.
‘That’s my information,’ Asim said.
Tallis wondered again about Fazan’s original source but said nothing—it was above his pay grade to ask. Asim was speaking again. ‘You know of nothing in Darke’s background that could indicate his vulnerability?’
‘Apart from the obvious fact he has Chechen blood flowing through his veins, which I presume the SIS has already looked into and discounted, no.’ Then another thought struck him. ‘If you’re right,’ Tallis said, ‘what the hell makes you think Darke’s going to come quietly?’
Asim turned his head fractionally. ‘Nothing.’
Kill or be killed, was that the deal? Tallis wondered with alarm. And if he refused the job, what then? ‘Is this a suicide mission?’
‘You could decline the offer.’
That wasn’t quite the answer he was expecting. A straight yes or no would have done. And if he did refuse, he might never work again. ‘What do you take me for?’ Tallis smiled.
‘An intelligent man.’
Intelligent enough to know when to quit? Tallis thought. Was Asim warning him off? Was he saying he didn’t rate his chances? ‘No, I’ll do it. I can never resist a challenge. Besides, there’s a man’s honour to defend.’
‘Oh?’
‘Graham Darke’s,’ Tallis said, bullish. Until he had proof, he refused to give up on his old friend. In many ways, Tallis realised, they worked in allied fields. As undercover operatives, both he and Darke were deniable and expendable. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Meet me at the Brandenburg Gate in one hour. It will give you time to clean the bird shit off your jacket,’ Asim flashed a smile. And with that, he got up and walked away.
‘Great,’ Tallis muttered, briefly surveying the foul green-yellow splodge on his shoulder, small comfort that it was supposed to be a sign of good luck.
Notwithstanding Asim’s advice, Tallis stayed where he was, taking the opportunity to study his surroundings, a cover for what was really going on inside his head. He thought back to the Graham Darke he knew, a tearaway, and a ruffian. Tallis suspected that Graham’s behaviour was a response to a childhood defined by neglect: he was one of eleven children. Although Graham at fifteen had been more prone to think first and lash out afterwards, his flashes of extreme anger spoke of a volatile temperament. What was not in doubt was Graham’s sharp intelligence, a commodity, Tallis presumed, that served him well in his current occupation. It took courage to go undercover—he should know—but it took balls of steel to pass yourself off as a committed Chechen fighter. And what a terrifying way to spend the best part of a decade, Tallis thought. Strange, he’d often wondered what had happened to Graham Darke but never in his wildest dreams had he imagined this.
After cleaning himself up back at the hotel, Tallis headed off at a leisurely pace. He estimated it would take him no more than twenty minutes to reach Brandenburger Tor, the defining symbol of Berlin.
His immediate impression as he walked along Unter den Linden, the main street leading to the gate, was one of wide, open spaces, huge muscular buildings, perfectly proportioned, the sheer size mind-blowing. There was no visible litter, no dog crap. Culture oozed from every brick and column. And it was hard to miss the statues, which were in every conceivable place, lining bridges, staring down from rooftops, gracing every square and gravelled path.
Crossing to the next block, Tallis was delighted to find an entire row of car showrooms on opposite sides of the high street. With plenty of time to kill, he dawdled, face virtually pressed up against the windows of Ferrari and Bugatti, admiring the sleek lines and fast colours. For the tighter budget, there was also VW, Seat and Skoda, he noticed, quickly turning round at the sound of a minor spot of road rage—a lad on rollerskates pissing off a cab driver. Tallis smiled at the minor blow for freedom, and dragged himself away, continuing along the main thoroughfare until at last, up ahead, just past an S-Bahn station, he saw the familiar fluttering of embassy flags and then the gate itself with its fine neoclassical architecture and the four-horse chariot sitting on top, as magnificent and imposing as he’d expected. Evading a gaggle of Italian tourists who wanted their photograph taken next to a German soldier, Tallis cut towards Asim, who was standing in the square on the other side of the gate. At Tallis’s approach, Asim turned on his heel and started to walk briskly west in the direction of the Tiergarten which, that morning, looked more wasteland than parkland. Tallis followed. A church bell tolled in the distance. Traffic whizzed by on three-lane carriageways. Cyclists tore down cycle-paths that seamlessly and confusingly adjoined the pavements. The sound of chainsaws buzzed his ears. A sign indicated that three hundred metres away and down a path stood the Reichstag in all its glory. Next, a huge monument commemorating the Soviet soldiers, over 300,000 of them, who’d lost their lives in the Battle for Berlin at the end of the Second World War. He looked neither right nor left, his eyes fixed on Asim’s back, the way he walked sleek and feline and self-assured.
They were heading down Strasse des 17 Juni, named after the 1953 uprising—more reminders of Berlin’s past. On they walked, towards Charlottenburg, once the centre of West Berlin until, without warning, Asim crossed the busy highway and stopped by a sign marked Potsdamer Place. There, he turned towards Tallis and stood with his arms folded, a wry smile on his face.
‘What was that all about?’ Tallis said, catching up.
‘Checking for tails.’ Asim said, this time speaking English. ‘Shall we?’ Asim said, indicating a path through the park.
They walked a little way along. Silver birch flanked both sides. The air felt cool and still, the atmosphere as tranquil as a Gregorian chant; the only people a middle-aged overweight jogger and a woman walking a German shepherd.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Asim said softly.
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘There are always choices.’
Tallis cast Asim a low, level look. ‘And mine’s made.’
Asim gave an as you wish nod. They walked on again. ‘You will be working under the cover of commercial interests,’ he said eventually.
‘About the only activity the Russians haven’t stamped all over,’ Tallis said.
Asim smiled. ‘Those who have prospered under Ivanov are keen to hang onto their wealth and you are going to take advantage of it.’
‘Go on.’
‘Your newfound skill for flying helicopters is about to be put to good use.’
Tallis felt himself visibly brighten. ‘Does this involve Shobdon, by any chance?’ Shobdon was the small airfield in Herefordshire where he’d learnt to fly.
‘It does,’ Asim said. ‘We’ve already talked to the owner of Tiger Helicopters and he’s happy enough for you to use them as cover. I believe you know one of their employees.’
‘Ginny Dodge?’
‘Curious name.’ Asim frowned.
It was. Tallis remembered her opening line. ‘Dodge by name. Dodge by nature.’ They’d got on like the proverbial house on fire. In fact, Ginny, slick and polished, wouldn’t have looked out of place in Berlin, he thought.
‘Ms Dodge is going to coach you in sales speak.’
Things were looking up, Tallis thought. ‘You mean I’m going to be selling helicopters?’
‘To the Russians.’
‘Are they in the market? I mean, they’ve got their pick of ex-military choppers.’ Tallis was considering how on earth he, a complete novice when it came to business, was going to fool some filthy-rich Russian oligarch.
‘I think you’ll find there’s a certain cachet in buying from Britain.’
‘If you say so,’ Tallis said uncertainly.
‘It’s going to be your route in. With the recent troubles, Chechnya is closed to outsiders, even journalists right now, so you’re going to have to get inventive to penetrate checkpoints and border controls.’
‘I take it I’ll be armed.’
‘You’d be a fool not to be. The gloves are off on this one,’ Asim said, plunging into silence as a jogger plugged into an MP3 player sped past, kicking up the gravel, followed by a group of workmen in yellow jackets carrying chainsaws. Tallis stared upwards, over the tops of the trees, catching sight of the massive Sony building, a construct of Perspex, steel and glass. Asim waited for the workers to pass by before he continued. ‘There should be no problem picking up hardware once you’re in Moscow. The place is swimming in weapons.’
Tallis nodded gravely. ‘Where will I be based?’
‘We’re going to rent an apartment for you, details to follow. No trace to us, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Tallis smiled.
More footsteps. More silence. It was almost companionable, Tallis thought. ‘And this bloke, Elimkhanova,’ Tallis began.
‘The warlord Graham’s tagging along with. What about him?’
‘Where do I find him?’
‘The last report states he’s somewhere near the mountain village of Borzoi. Think you can negotiate the terrain?’
‘No problem.’ Tallis expressed more confidence than he felt. It had been a long time since he’d tried anything like this—and he’d been a lot younger.
‘This way,’ Asim said, taking a detour, clearly clocking a woman cycling lazily towards them. She was swaddled in a hoodie, a white guitar case on her back. Tallis couldn’t help but smile. What did Asim think—that she was going to dismount and produce an automatic weapon, Mafia-style? The woman flashed a Guten morgen as she ambled past.
They were in a maze of cobbled pathways that led to a monument, this time to musicians, including the greats—Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart. Beyond, and on the right, a small lake, and beyond this, where the leaves were stripped from the trees, a statue, green with verdigris, of a man on a horse. The place was unaccountably stark, the air chill, as if something dreadful had happened there years before; they fell into silence. It was some minutes before Asim broke it.
‘Think you’ll persuade Darke to return?’
‘Depends on whether he’s guilty or not.’
‘Perhaps I should rephrase that. If he’s guilty, will he come quietly?’
Tallis had pondered the same. ‘I’d say the answer was no.’
‘It’s something you should be prepared for.’
Yes, he knew.
‘With regard to brushing up on your Chechen,’ Asim said, ‘you must be able to speak the language as if it were your own. Your life could depend on it.’
He was well aware of that. He just hoped to God that Viva Constantine, an old friend of his, could deliver.
‘We have plenty of linguists on hand to assist,’ Asim said. ‘Probably easier if you come to London.’
‘Won’t be necessary,’ Tallis said.
‘Oh?’
‘I’d like to use one of my own contacts.’
‘You know someone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Paul, we don’t have much time.’
‘I know, but I don’t want to be coached by someone who only speaks the language. I need someone who’s intimately familiar with the culture.’
‘There is also the small matter of security,’ Asim said, arching an eyebrow.
‘I appreciate that.’
‘So discretion is the name of the game.’
‘Naturally.’
‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours on your return. If your contact lets you down, for whatever reason, you’ll let me know?’
‘I will.’
Together, they retraced their steps back onto the path and turned back onto the main road and into the shadow of the Sony building once more. Street sellers wearing fur hats with earflaps were out in force. Back at Brandenburg Gate again, Asim invited Tallis to join him for coffee, a transparent attempt to lighten the mood.
‘I know the perfect place,’ he coaxed.
Was this intended as a last act of a kindness to a condemned man? Tallis wondered. And why the hell had he agreed to do it? Easy, he thought. He needed focus, a goal, something to live for. He was also, frankly, curious. When he’d told Asim that he wanted to defend the honour of an old friend, he’d meant it.
The wind had dropped. Embassy flags flapped listlessly in the dead air.
‘No, I’ll head off. Start the ball rolling.’
About to extend his hand, Asim’s mobile rang. He picked up. ‘Yup?’
Tallis watched his expression, enigmatic and impenetrable.
‘Right,’ Asim said, closing the phone. He looked off for a moment, clearly digesting the news he’d received. Tallis looked at him in question.
‘That call,’ Asim said, dark eyes glinting.
‘Yes?’
‘A former Russian general has just been killed in a car bomb attack outside his house. Looks as if our man has struck again.’