Then they were gone, the images swirling back into their Hadean mists. This time the waking nightmare had been over quickly. Sometimes the revulsion lingered, destroying his control.
He waited for his heartbeat to settle, then wiped the sweat from his eyes with a shirt sleeve. He had to press on.
At the next joint in the ducts he followed the pipe to the panel for room 610. Muffled voices growled beyond the plasterboard. He heard the whirr of the fan.
He pushed the twist-drill against the panel and turned the handle. Slowly. Quietly. The material was soft. Didn’t take much to make a neat round hole.
Then he backed away with his tools, feet first towards room 614.
Konrad dripped the brown liquid into the reservoir of the paint sprayer. A quarter of a litre was all it held. As he stopped the flow, a couple of drops spilled onto the tissue he’d laid out to catch them.
He held his breath. Then, steadying his hands, he screwed the cap back on the jar, which was still half full. He wiped the rim with the soiled tissue and placed the refuse in a polythene bag. Finally he screwed the reservoir onto the stem of the air brush.
‘Psst!’
Pravic’s head hung down from the vent in the lobby. Konrad passed him the second face mask and a pair of rubber gloves.
‘Make sure it fits,’ he warned. ‘Mask must be tight. Understand?’
Pravic grunted. Then Konrad handed him the air brush and the propellant canister in a bag.
‘Don’t connect the air until you are ready,’ he reminded him.
Pravic looked irritated. He knew exactly what to do and didn’t like old fools like Dunkel telling him.
Two doors down, Dr Hamid Akhavi had also donned rubber gloves. Plutonium’s toxicity made it foolish to touch it with bare hands.
The sample was smaller than he’d expected, like a segment of an orange. But from its colour and its weight he knew it was the real thing. Twenty pieces like this and he could make an atomic bomb.
‘We still must analyze it,’ he said, trying not to show his excitement.
He packed the plutonium back in its container then went to the bathroom to wash his gloved hands. As he dried them on a towel, he looked up sharply, hearing a creaking from the ceiling.
He listened again, but there was nothing more. Must be the ancient plumbing, he decided.
‘There is still a problem, Pavel,’ he said, returning to the table and pulling off his gloves. ‘Your price is . . . unjust.’
Kulikov bristled. He hated the bazaar mentality of the Islamic world.
‘Twenty kilos is a lot of plutonium, my friend. It would take you decades to produce in your own reactors.’
Akhavi held up his hands in acknowledgement.
‘Of course. But my country simply cannot pay one hundred million dollars. Already the nuclear programme starves our economy. The reactor contracts with your government and with the Chinese, they are not cheap. And the machinery . . .’
‘You too must understand something, my friend. There are many people I must pay. A whole shift of the security personnel. Senior officers who will arrange transportation. Border officials . . . the list is long. And the risk to me is great. If I’m found out it’ll be the firing squad.’
They looked at one another. They both knew there was truth in each other’s position. They guessed too there was room for manoeuvre. What neither could be sure of was how much.
‘What is your offer, my friend?’
‘Twenty million.’
The Russian exploded with derisive laughter.
Pravic heard the outburst through the plasterboard, and froze, terrified he’d been discovered. An angry Slavic voice boomed through the ceiling panels.
A fresh tremor of panic rippled the length of his body. He dug his nails into his palms, puncturing the thin rubber gloves.
Then he heard two voices. Anger directed at one another, not at him.
He breathed again. Short quivering breaths.
Do the job, he told himself. Then the passport would be his. A passport to freedom.
He pressed the nozzle of the airbrush into the hole he’d drilled. A tight fit. Then he connected the propellant can with the tube. He eased the mask over his nose and mouth, the rubber slippery on his sweaty skin.
He held his breath, pressed the button on the spray and held it down. With the torch lighting up the reservoir he watched the brown liquid disappear into the conditioned air of Room 610.
Outside in the street, Martin Sanders re-parked his car to overlook the hotel entrance. He wanted a photo of the Russian if he could get one. He guessed the silver-haired smuggler might be on the flight to Moscow at eight-fifteen in the morning.
Vaillon also waited nearby, his task to follow the Iranian back to the airport.
Akhavi and Kulikov shook hands, not because they’d agreed a price, but because they knew they’d have to eventually. Thirty million was as high as the Iranian had been prepared to go.
They were ready for the next phase – the proving of the sample at the desert laboratories. Then they could plan for shipment and delivery.
Kulikov eased open the door, looked both ways and slipped back to his room. In his hand the Samsonite briefcase which had held the plutonium sample was now packed with $100,000 in used notes.
Dieter Konrad cleaned the equipment with the bactericide Kemmer had given him. Every piece of tissue he’d used, every part of the spray, he placed in a plastic bag and sealed it.
The half-full flask of brown liquid he encased in ‘bubble-wrap’ plastic to protect it, then stuffed it in his bag to be disposed of later.
Pravic watched, emotionally drained. The precautions Dunkel was taking alarmed him. He didn’t even know what it was, this lethal substance he’d administered, and he had a lurking fear it could have contaminated him too.
‘You go now, Milan,’ Konrad announced. He sounded tired and flat. ‘I’ll stay until the morning. It will be less suspicious. Ring me at the Dubrovnik at ten. By then I will have decided when we go to Berlin. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day.’
Pravic hesitated. He trusted no one.
‘You have the passport?’ he demanded.
Konrad frowned in irritation.
‘Yes, but not here. I’ll give it to you tomorrow at the hotel.’
He saw the suspicion in Pravic’s ice-blue eyes.
‘Don’t worry.’
After Pravic was gone, Konrad lay on the bed and closed his lids. To rest and to think, but not to sleep. That was impossible. It always had been after sentencing someone to death.
Twenty-One
Friday 1st April. 4.35 p.m.
Rhein-Main Air Base, Frankfurt
COLONEL IRWIN ROCHE eased his Opel Vectra forward. He’d got used to a manual shift since being in Europe and liked it. He was even considering giving up on automatics when he returned to Milwaukee.
The line of cars leaving the base seemed slow today, or maybe his wish to get home was stronger than usual. Not that he wasn’t always happy to see Nancy and the twins, but tonight they were expecting a new arrival.
The woman from CareNet had called that morning to say they’d be arriving late. Very late, probably. Lorna Sorensen, that was the name she’d given. Didn’t know when they’d get here, but he’d looked up the map and Ancona was a hell of a long way south.
The queue of automobiles surged a little. He waved to the duty man at the guard post, and then he was through to the public highway. He took the slip road down onto the Autobahn and eased into the slow-moving traffic. Always solid at this time of day, and in the mornings. Fortunately the next junction was his turn-off, so he never had more than a few minutes of it to put up with
The village of Pfefferheim had hardly existed twenty years ago. Built as an overflow for Frankfurt, there were two other USAF families renting houses there. Well-built, spacious homes with a basement and a good-sized yard, it suited them well. And Nancy liked living ‘on the economy’ instead of in family accommodation at
the Air Base. She saw enough of the place as it was, working there part time in the welfare office.
It was the arrival of Nataša in their household a year ago that had transformed Nancy’s life. A twenty-one-year-old refugee from Mostar, she was just one of hundreds of thousands of Bosnians taking refuge in Germany until peace let them return to their homes.
The Roche family fed and housed her, and in return she drove the kids to school, picked them up again, and helped with their care. Nancy had relished the chance it had given her to work again. And the Colonel enjoyed having a pretty young woman around the place.
Irwin Roche was a self-confessed computer-freak. He used a Unix system on the base to plan loads for the giant C-5 Galaxies that tramped back and forth across the Atlantic. But in his own home it was his Compaq PC that occupied much of his time. While Nancy and the kids watched TV in the evenings, he plugged into the Internet, communicating with cyberspace addicts all over the world.
Most of the Newsgroups he subscribed to were trivial, but he’d stumbled across
The Roche family had had it good. Better than they were entitled to expect perhaps, looking at all the misery in the world. One night in bed, he told Nancy what he’d been thinking. Shouldn’t they be offering the comfort of their home, and the security and warmth of their family, to a child whose life could be transformed by it?
Nancy had responded with silence at first. She was just getting some of her own life back, now the twins were ten and Nataša was here to help. But then she’d begun to look at the TV news in a different light. All those suffering kids – she’d felt so helpless about them before. Maybe the two of them could do something. Maybe they should.
Then just at the beginning of this week, Irwin had seen the computer message about Vildana. The girl needed ‘an angel’ the e-mail had said. He’d pulled Nancy away from the TV and showed her the screen of the Compaq.
Within minutes they’d decided. Minutes later he’d emailed an offer to the agency.
Things had moved fast. It turned out that CareNet had contacts at Rhein-Main, and the next day he and Nancy were given a grilling from a fellow colonel. They must have passed, because two days later they’d been signed up.
The twins were pretty stunned at their decision. Bound to be when their even, predictable young lives were about to face the unknown.
Nataša had wept for a day. They weren’t too sure why.
Roche eased the Vectra into the garage. Scott and Ella came running round from the yard.
‘When’s she coming, have you heard?’ they yelled.
‘Late. Real late. But in time for breakfast tomorrow, I guess.’
Innsbruck, Austria
5 p.m.
It was crazy to do the drive to Frankfurt in one day. Innsbruck was only half way and they’d been on the road since 8 a.m. Lorna was exhausted. She’d hoped doing the journey in one burst would be the best way to minimize its effect on the kid. Vildana had slept for much of the journey, so perhaps she’d been right.
She’d had to let Josip share the driving; on motorways he was less of a liability, with no narrow gaps and mountain tracks to negotiate. It had given her time to think.
About Alex. She missed him desperately. Wanted to run back to Split and tell him she hadn’t meant to brush him off, that she’d just needed to hurt him a little, to show him he couldn’t remain unpunished for what he’d done all those years ago.
The next step was up to him. She’d shown him he couldn’t just snap his fingers for her to come running, but she’d also given him a way to contact her if he wanted to.
The Battle of the Sexes business – it was a game she’d never been good at. Never known how far to go, when to resist, when to give in. She pushed her fingers through her hair and kneaded the tension from the back of her neck, terrified she’d got it wrong.
Passing Vildana off as her own daughter had worked well at the frontiers. Their passports had merited just a cursory glance, and at Split, the stamp that Alex had created had passed unnoticed.
It was illegal what she was doing, of course, but it would be for the Roche family to sort matters out with the authorities later. She was just the delivery girl.
They’d stopped for lunch on the Autostrada near Verona, Vildana’s pale face blank-eyed with bewilderment. She had hardly eaten anything. Lorna could imagine the terrors the child must be going through, travelling halfway across a continent to live with strangers.
At Innsbruck they’d taken another short break, and Lorna telephoned CNN. It was lunchtime in Atlanta: the girl on the newsdesk had been expecting her call.
‘Great!’ she’d said. ‘You’re happy we run the story in the next World News in a couple of hours?’
‘Sure. We’ll be in Germany by then.’
Lorna would have liked to see the programme, but there would be no chance of that with another six hours of driving ahead of them.
The next stretch of road cut northeast through the Tyrol to the German border. Josip was at the wheel. Lorna looked out at the hills in the fading light. Still plenty of snow on the upper slopes. She used to ski most winters. Last time had been with Rees in Colorado. They’d left Julie in the care of her sister Annie for a couple of weeks.
Sometimes she envied Annie. Not often, but at times like this, when life became so convoluted.
Annie had met Joe at College, a good, Irish boy. They’d married soon after graduating, and produced five kids. Just like that, with no doubts raised, questions asked, or mind-shaking problems presenting themselves. Joe and Annie had never faced a crisis in their lives, as far as Lorna could see. Not a single one! Yet for her, crises were like milestones, popping up with alarming regularity.
And now she was in the midst of one called ‘Alex’.
Frankfurt International Airport
6.20 p.m.
Standing by the carousel, Alex gathered up his bags from the Croatian Airlines flight, found a trolley and passed through into the terminal building.
Two hours wait in Frankfurt before the British Airways connection to London, which he wasn’t planning to take. He could think of only one reason for returning to Britain just now – Kirsty. If things had changed and she needed him, he would go back. For a while anyway.
Leaving Bosnia had turned his thoughts once more to the place and the people that had been ‘home’ for twenty years. He still had obligations there which he couldn’t ignore. Had to find out if the woman he was married to wanted him back.
He wheeled the trolley to a bank, changed a 20 Deutsche mark note into coins, and found a telephone.
He rang East Lothian and spoke to Kirsty’s brother, who’d just got home from work.
‘Och, it’s good to hear your voice Alex,’ he said. ‘And so close, you could be in the next room.’
‘How’s Kirsty?’ Alex’s throat was dry.
‘Och, about the same. Not been able to pull herself together much. The doctor’s still giving her tablets.’
‘I see. Does she ever talk about me?’
He heard a sigh at the other end of the line.
‘No. She does not.’ Another sigh, then, ‘I could tell her you rang, but it may be better not to, frankly. But what of yourself? They had pictures of you on the television earlier in the week. You were refusing to answer questions about that monster from Edinburgh. Must ha’ been awful. We felt so sorry for you getting mixed up in such a thing.’
‘Aye, well it’s all over,’ he said, slipping back into his lowlands accent. ‘I’m in Frankfurt now and don’t expect to be going back to Bosnia. I’ll be here a few days. Maybe ring you again in another week or so?’
‘Grand if you would.’
He rang off. Fifteen Deutsche marks left. Should be enough for his ne
xt call. He fumbled in his pocket for Lorna’s card. It was well past lunchtime in Boston.
‘CareNet, Bella speaking.’ A nasal voice, a slight echo on the line.
‘Hello. I’m calling from Frankfurt, Germany,’ he said hurriedly, watching the phone counter tick away the Pfennigs. ‘I need to get in touch with one of your people over here, Lorna Sorensen? She should be arriving in Frankfurt today or tomorrow, but I don’t know where she’s staying.’
‘Oh, let me just check . . . Who is this?’
‘My name’s Alex Crawford. I’m an old friend. I’ve just been with her in Bosnia.’
‘Sure, hold the line please, Mr Crawford.’ There was a click and the sound of Vivaldi. Ten Deutsche marks gone already.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Bella said, back on the line, ‘we don’t know where she’s staying in Frankfurt. She hasn’t told us yet.’
‘What about the address of the family who are taking the child? Vildana, you know?’
‘Oh that’s confidential information, Mr Crawford. We can’t give that out to anybody,’ she replied stiffly. ‘I tell you what. I could e-mail her if you wish.’
‘E-mail? Send her a message, you mean?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Okay then . . . Just say Alex is in Frankfurt and has to see her . . . I’ll ring again tomorrow to see if she’s told you where I can contact her.’
‘That’s all? Just – Alex is in Frankfurt?’
‘Yes. No! No, one other thing. Write . . . write this: Alex says he loves you.’
‘Oh, that’s cute! You want me to e-mail that?’
‘Sure. I’ll ring again tomorrow.’
The phone cut. His money was out.
Bavaria
7.10 p.m.
At the border post between Austria and Germany, the Bundesgrenzschutzpolizei received a daily update of names. Some belonged to undesirables to be denied entry to the Bundesrepublik, others were of felons to be arrested.
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