‘IT WAS him,’ Lecha said, his voice spiked with malice, pointing an accusing finger at Tallis.
They were counting their losses. Of sixty-eight men who’d gone out to fight, twenty-five returned, two dying on the fierce retreat through the mountains. Of those twenty-five, ten were injured, three seriously and not expected to last the night. Women keened for their lost husbands and sons. Children cried for their fathers. Everywhere there were women with empty eyes. The mood in the camp was sombre. And there was anger.
‘How can it be him?’ Lula said, drawing a shape in the earth with the toe of her boot. ‘He only just arrived. This has been planned for days, if not weeks.’ She glanced at Darke, who was also standing with them. For a second Tallis wondered if Lula suspected something.
‘Doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved,’ Darke said, casting Tallis a stony look.
Thanks very much, Tallis thought. He understood Darke’s desire to protect his back and his cover, but he didn’t need to sell him out to do it. As for what he’d witnessed on the battlefield, he hadn’t yet fully processed it. Darke’s behaviour was a paradox. Just when Tallis thought he had a handle on it, that Darke had, indeed, turned native, Darke acted in a way that didn’t fit. Spy or rogue? Tallis simply didn’t know. Akhmet, his fury contained under an ominous cloak of silence, was of the opinion that the informer was a police officer. Tallis was not fooled. The cold look in those dark eyes told a different story. No way had Akhmet ruled out that there was a traitor among them.
That night there was no celebration, no dancing. The dead were washed and prepared for burial, their bodies dispatched to the ground on a grassy slope to the east of the compound with a speed that left Tallis breathless.
Many hours later, as the night manacled the moon to a cloud, Tallis made his way to Darke’s quarters, a low dwelling of stone and corrugated metal. Nudging the door open, he slipped inside. A kerosene lamp burnt in the centre of the room, casting shadows over Darke’s living quarters. It took Tallis two seconds to see that Darke was not in bed.
Two seconds too long…
The blade felt cold and sharp against his throat. Darke, shorter in stature, was wiry and extremely strong, the muscles in his bare arms rope hard. His voice was a low growl.
‘You’ve got thirty seconds to make your pitch. You screw up and either I’ll denounce you as a spy and hand you over to Akhmet’s tender mercies, or I’ll slit your throat here and now.’
‘I’ve been sent to find you and bring you back.’
‘Who by?’
‘The SIS, the people you work for, or had you forgotten?’ The blade grazed his throat, making a tear in the skin. Fuck, it hurt. Tallis tried to control his breathing.
‘Keep talking.’
‘They say you’ve dropped off the radar, that you’ve made no contact for months.’
‘I nearly died, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Alright,’ Tallis conceded. ‘Thing is they have intelligence that you’re directly involved in a number of murders in Moscow.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘They have forensic evidence.’
‘Bollocks again.’
‘They think you’ve defected.’
‘Absolute crap.’
‘Is it? It would be understandable.’
Darke wrenched at his throat hard, almost throttling him. ‘Have you forgotten what I did on the battlefield?’
‘Maybe you did it for show,’ Tallis rasped, ‘to impress me, seeing as I was the only witness.’ Christ, Tallis thought, he was taking a risk. An image of Sprite cutting a Russian soldier’s throat, animal and gory, raced through his mind, but he had to be clear about which master Darke served.
‘And maybe they sent you for show,’ Darke sniped back.
So you do remember me, Tallis thought.
Darke was still arguing. ‘If anyone else had seen, we’d both be dead. These murders…’ he said, relaxing his grip a fraction.
‘What about them?’
‘I can’t be answerable for the entire Chechen nation.’
‘So you had no involvement?’
‘How could I?’
Easily, Tallis thought. You could have trained the killer. ‘You know nothing about a plan to murder those involved in the last conflict?’
Darke let out a low laugh. ‘Now I know why they sent you. You always were a fool, Paul. It would be suicidal for the Chechens to do such a thing,’ Darke said, cold creeping back into his voice.
‘Pity they didn’t remember that when they stormed Beslan.’
Tallis felt a blade of fear pass through Darke’s body and into his own. ‘That was different.’
‘Was it?’
‘It was a grave mistake and I wasn’t involved.’
‘You mean you didn’t actually take part?’ Tallis said, his voice scathing. ‘Isn’t that what the guards said when they herded the Jews into the death camps?’
‘How fuckin’ dare you?’ Darke snarled. ‘You think I like what I do? Think I enjoy it?’
So it wasn’t exactly a denial, Tallis thought. Something cold slimed in the pit of his stomach. ‘It’s well documented that although many terrorists were killed at Beslan, some escaped. Were you one of them?’
Darke suddenly yanked Tallis back. Tallis closed his eyes. This was it, he thought. He was going to die like a dog in a strange land. Then the grip eased and he was free. He turned, faced Darke’s gimlet eyes. In that brief moment in time Tallis understood how the years of living a lie, with death hounding him from every corner, had taken its toll on his old friend. He suddenly looked ancient.
Darke let out an anguished sigh, put the heel of his hand to his forehead. ‘I tried to send warnings, but it was hard to get word out. Believe me, I’ll carry the guilt of what happened at that school to the grave. But you have to understand that Beslan and many other atrocities were gifts to Ivanov. They handed him his raison d’être, both with his own people and with the West. It wasn’t the bombing of terrorist camps but the wanton destruction of cities and villages, the killing of hundreds of innocents, that produced the state of terror that will take generations to rectify.’
Exactly how Lena had described it, Tallis recalled. ‘You sound like a sympathiser.’
Darke shook his head. ‘I’m telling you how it is. Ivanov is on a mission. He won’t rest until he’s subjugated the Caucasus, even if it takes him to the day he dies.’
‘Which might be a lot sooner than you think.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve no idea about any plan to assassinate him?’ Tallis’s expression was searing.
‘Christ, they sent you all this way to ask me that? They actually risked your life and mine? Unfucking-believable.’
‘Obviously not,’ Tallis said with a dry smile. ‘And if someone kills him and it’s discovered that you’ve been working alongside the rebels, imagine the political fallout.’
Darke cast him a hard look. ‘If. Have you any idea of the personal risks I’m taking? Do you know what would happen to me if Akhmet got even a suspicion that I’m a spy?’
Unfortunately, Tallis could.
‘So you go back, tell our masters I’m clean, and, while you’re at it, you can pass on the latest piece of intelligence.’
‘What intelligence?’
‘You think I’m just going to come out with it?’ The haughty, distrusting note had crept back into Darke’s voice. Was this the hallmark of a man who’d spent the best part of a decade trusting nobody but himself, or did it signify something else? Tallis wondered. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ Darke said, with narrowed eyes.
‘Because I came through the mountains to find you. Because I remembered a lad who cheered me up, who made me laugh, who stuck up for me when nobody else did, and whom I missed when he left. And because seven men have died on your account, including a young Chechen I couldn’t save. You don’t own the monopoly on guilt, Graham.’
‘Graham.’ A smile touched Darke’s mouth. ‘Haven’t heard that name in years,’ he said, momentarily dreamy, his pin-sharp eyes losing their intensity, drifting off to some far-away and forgotten place. ‘Alright,’ he said, collecting himself. ‘Akhmet is planning a meeting with a bloke called Hattab.’
‘The same Hattab who wants to overthrow the Algerian government and set up an Islamic state?’
Darke nodded. ‘He bears allegiance to a number of jihadist causes and movements. It’s thought he has close links with al-Qaeda.’
‘And Akhmet’s going to do business with him, you say?’
‘It signals more bloodshed to come.’
For which ordinary people like Katya will be deemed culpable, Tallis thought. ‘Can’t do it,’ he said. ‘I’ve express orders to bring you back.’
‘Says who?’
‘Christian Fazan at the SIS.’
‘You work for Fazan?’ Darke said, amazed. ‘He sent you?’
‘I’m on secondment to him. I’ve been working for Five for the past couple of years. Before that, I was with West Midlands police as a firearms officer.’
Darke thoughtfully stroked his beard. ‘And Fazan believes that I’ve gone native, that I’m working with the rebels? That I orchestrated the hits in Moscow?’
‘And that you have the prime minister and former president in your sights.’ He suddenly remembered Asim’s fears for the opening ceremony of the World Newspaper Congress. Time in the mountains seemed to work in a different vortex. He wondered whether it had taken place or not, whether it had, in fact, passed off without incident.
‘Where did Fazan get his information?’ Darke scowled.
‘I wasn’t privy to his source.’
Darke didn’t say it but Tallis knew what he was thinking. Something isn’t right. ‘What’s this Fazan bloke like?’ Tallis said.
‘Experienced, dedicated, been in the service for a good many years.’ Darke shrugged.
‘Think someone is trying to frame you?’
‘Or him?’ Darke smiled. ‘I don’t know. Chechens get the blame for most things.’
Had the Russians somehow pulled the wool over Fazan’s eyes, too? Tallis wondered. But they didn’t know about Graham Darke so what had led Fazan to be so specific? And then another more ugly thought entered his head. What if Asim had been set up? What if Asim was in some kind of danger?
‘I’ve got to get word to my contact,’ Tallis said urgently.
‘Not going to be easy. Especially after what happened this morning.’
‘What was your usual method for communication?’
‘Going down into the foothills and making contact with a Russian commander who is also working for the British. Last time I went there was no sign of him. Might mean something, might not.’
‘If you try to sneak away now, it will look like you had something to do with the ambush going wrong and the trap laid. Any thoughts on that?’ Tallis said.
‘Two. I don’t believe Akhmet’s contact in the police snitched. I do believe we have an insider. And it wasn’t me,’ he added in response to Tallis’s challenging expression.
‘Think it’s me?’ Tallis gave him a level look.
Darke smiled. ‘Not unless you’ve changed.’
‘People do,’ Tallis said mildly.
‘Not people like you.’ It was the closest he’d come to a good-natured smile. Tallis smiled back, a mask for a misshapen thought flitting through his mind. Why you and not us?
‘Look, maybe I can talk to Akhmet,’ Darke said, ‘try and persuade him that we need to scout out the surrounding area, see how many Russians are heading for the mountains.’
‘Think he’ll buy it?’
‘Don’t see why not. Then you could give me the slip.’
‘Dangerous. Much better if you come with me. Clear your name.’
Darke thought for a moment. ‘Leave them all behind?’ He sounded almost wistful, Tallis thought. ‘No, it’s more valuable if I stay.’
‘But I have my orders. For Chrissakes, Graham, someone out there is killing an awful lot of people. The President and the Prime Minister could be next. Whatever your personal thoughts about the people in the Kremlin, I need your help. You’ve got to come with me.’
‘I’m not coming back,’ Darke said, eyes flashing, immutable.
Loyalty or treachery? Tallis wondered.