Black Friday

by Robert Muchamore

  Now Amy sounded keen. ‘So what’s this guy’s name?’

  21. PROFILE

  There were a couple of offices in use on the Kremlin’s fourth floor, but nobody worked weekends so Amy called Ryan up to see her there first thing on Saturday morning. They met in a cobwebbed operations room, dominated by a vast map table on which generals had once plotted the movements of the Soviet spy planes for which the airfield had been built.

  ‘You smell like wet dog,’ Amy said, as Ryan came in dressed in squelching Nikes, with a sweatshirt over a full tracksuit.

  ‘Outdoor weights and a five K run,’ Ryan explained. ‘Brutal in this cold, but I don’t wanna fail my fitness assessment when I get back to campus.’

  ‘You certainly don’t,’ Amy said, smiling. ‘I got lazy on one of my early jobs. Had to do two months of six a.m. fitness training before I got mission-ready status back.’

  ‘Speaking of lazy, have you swept this room for bugs?’ Ryan asked cheekily.

  Amy smiled through gritted teeth. ‘My bad,’ she admitted.

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ Ryan said. ‘This one might even have helped us. At least I assume that’s why you called me up here.’

  ‘Igor Mutko,’ Amy began, as she slid a plastic document wallet across to Ryan. ‘This is the guy Tamara thinks has links to Leonid Aramov.’

  There was a photograph of a typically Russian man on the first sheet inside the folder. He was in his early thirties, well built, fairly handsome, with a foppish blond fringe worthy of a boy band.

  ‘I’ve seen him around the Kremlin,’ Ryan said. ‘Always friendly, buys a lot of drinks. Kazakov played poker with him a few times.’

  Amy nodded, as Ryan flicked through pages of printouts. She’d dug up some of Igor’s Russian military records, but there wasn’t much to show apart from national service and a rejected recommendation letter for a bravery medal.

  ‘No obvious reason why Leonid would pick this guy to be his spy,’ Ryan noted.

  ‘It’s possible Igor was in the FSB – the Russian Federal Security Bureau,’ Amy said. ‘We can’t get hold of FSB records. But if Leonid is using Igor, it’s safe to assume he’s good at what he does.’

  ‘What’s Igor’s official job at the Kremlin?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘That’s another reason why I’m convinced Tamara’s right about Igor being Leonid’s spy,’ Amy said. ‘He draws a salary as a member of a de-icing team.’

  Ryan laughed: there was a constant battle to keep the Kremlin’s runway in service and stop ice building up on aircraft wings during winter. But while Kremlin pilots and mechanics were mostly Russian and Ukrainian, this menial job which involved hard labour in foul weather was done by a team of Kyrgyz peasants.

  ‘He’s nicely dressed whenever I’ve seen him,’ Ryan noted. ‘No way he’s a de-icing guy. That lot only come into the Kremlin to collect their wages and they’re proper rough.’

  ‘I suppose we should have been suspicious before,’ Amy said. ‘But I’ve never been through the Kremlin payroll in detail.’

  Ryan shook his head sympathetically. ‘There’s over three hundred aircrew based here on and off. Plus mechanics, cooks, admin, maintenance, family members. At least seven hundred people in and out of the Kremlin at different times. You can’t track all of them. At least not without making it obvious that we’re spying on them.’

  ‘We need to find out how Igor gets in touch with Leonid,’ Amy said. ‘Communications inside the Kremlin are locked down tight: Internet restricted, phone lines tapped, no cellphone masts.’

  ‘There’s at least a hundred web cafés in Dordoi Bazaar,’ Ryan said. ‘More in the centre of Bishkek. And you’ve only got to drive a couple of kilometres out of the valley to pick up a phone signal.’

  ‘I asked around discreetly,’ Amy said. ‘Igor’s a man who tries to make friends with everyone, like any good spy should. Besides buying lots of drinks and letting people win his money at poker, Dan reckons he’s always offering to give people lifts and he’s happy to pick stuff up from the bazaar.’

  ‘Stuff?’ Ryan asked.

  Amy shrugged. ‘You know, one of the aircrew has been away for a few days, so he picks up groceries for when they return. Takes clothes to be dry-cleaned. He takes a few som for petrol, or lets them buy him a drink. But it’s always handled like a personal favour, rather than a transaction.’

  Ryan nodded admiringly. ‘It makes Igor seem like a nice guy, and gives him an excuse to ask the pilots what they’re up to.’

  ‘So, I got Dan to sound Igor out, saying he needed a part for his car and asking if he was going to the bazaar any time soon. Igor said he was going this afternoon. I want you to see what he gets up to.’

  ‘He’ll be suspicious if we follow him there,’ Ryan said. ‘But the bazaar’s so huge it’ll be impossible to find him after he’s arrived.’

  ‘Already thought of that. Dan gave Igor a broken windscreen wiper motor to make sure that he gets the exact replacement … ’

  Ryan finished Amy’s sentence. ‘You put a tracking device inside the motor?’

  Amy smiled. ‘The tracker’s only the size of a shirt button. It’s only useful over a kilometre or so, but it should allow you to follow Igor around the bazaar without stepping on his heels. Hopefully Igor has been doing this long enough to get comfortable and fall into a routine. Maybe there’s a web café Igor uses, or a bar where he regularly connects to Wi-Fi, or a spot where he makes cellphone calls. Once we find that spot, we can intercept his signals, identify his phone and e-mail accounts, and with luck that will lead us to Leonid.’

  ‘What about searching his quarters?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘I’ll get that taken care of too,’ Amy said. ‘Though I doubt he’ll be stupid enough to leave anything obvious lying around.’

  Three hours later, Ryan was wandering through Dordoi Bazaar, scoffing a freshly baked naan. Over two kilometres long and a kilometre across, Dordoi was the biggest market in central Asia. As well as serving locals, it was a trading hub for the entire region.

  There were over eight thousand pitches. Most comprised stacked metal shipping containers, with the lower container serving as a shop and the upper one used for storage. Saturday was the bazaar’s busiest day and the crowds moved at a shuffle.

  Ryan felt his phone vibrate. He tucked an ear bud in with his gloved hand before answering. Natalka sounded annoyed.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ she moaned. ‘It’s Saturday, I thought we’d do something together.’

  Ryan had sneaked out of the Kremlin and jumped into one of the battered taxis that usually ranked out front. He’d assumed she’d call and had his excuse prepared.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ryan said sadly. ‘I was in my room thinking about my dad. I needed to get out of there.’

  ‘Poor you,’ Natalka said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the bazaar. I’ll bring you back a present.’

  ‘Cigarettes?’ Natalka said brightly.

  ‘I’m not feeding your habit,’ Ryan said, half-jokingly.

  ‘I could jump in a cab and meet you.’

  ‘No offence, Natalka, but I really feel like being alone. We’ll eat together later.’

  ‘OK,’ Natalka sighed. ‘My mum’s not back until tomorrow. We could reheat some more of her soup.’

  Ryan laughed. ‘It was nice of her to think of me, but frankly I’d rather eat my own toenail clippings.’

  ‘There’s four litres of it left,’ Natalka said cheerfully. ‘We could probably sell it to someone who needs to paint the underside of a boat.’

  Ryan was distracted by a beep from the tracking device inside his coat.

  ‘You’re breaking up,’ he lied. ‘I’ll see if I can buy a DVD to watch tonight. Love you!’

  ‘Love you,’ Natalka said, but Ryan had already hung up.

  He backed into a gap between two stacked containers, then took off one thick glove before pulling his iPhone out of his jacket. The tracking receiver in his coat pocket was connected by Blue
tooth and he touched the display to open a tracking app.

  Although Igor was Ryan’s only target, there were two dots on his phone’s screen. Dordoi’s rows of metal containers were reflecting the low-powered radio signals and his target was either two hundred metres east, or four hundred north-east. That distance would normally be a minute’s walk, but in Dordoi on a busy Saturday even the most ardent pusher-and-shover got nowhere fast.

  The bazaar’s traders tended to clump together, so all the computer stalls were in one part of the market, all the ones selling pets in another and so on. Ryan caught a break, finding an alleyway specialising in watches and jewellery that was less crowded and enabled him to pick up his pace.

  He’d been to the bazaar at least once a week in the seven months he’d lived at the Kremlin, but the rows of containers looked identical and he got disorientated every time. Beyond the jewellery area, wheeled food carts were set along one of the bazaar’s main thoroughfares.

  The two blips on the iPhone screen mercifully merged as Ryan closed in. The screen said he was less than ten metres from Igor. He glanced about, anxious not to walk into his target, but there was no sign of him.

  Finally, Ryan noticed a sign offering haircuts. Traders commonly had family members offering an extra service, like barbering, shoe repair or a nail salon. Often these secondary trades had no connection with the main business, and Ryan spotted his target deep inside a container specialising in teddies and party gear.

  Igor had a red-and-white chequered cloth draped over his shoulders as an elderly Kyrgyz man worked his blond head with fast-moving scissors. Ryan backed into the crowd, then leaned against the corrugated side of a container biting chunks of his naan, and occasionally glanced at his watch like he was waiting for someone.

  Igor hit fresh air ten minutes later, rubbing a napkin around an itchy neckline before sliding his outdoor coat up his arms and merging into the flow of bodies. The tracker gave Ryan the ability to follow his target out of visual range. But Ryan needed to see what Igor was up to, not just where he was going.

  After buying a large bag of fruit and vegetables, Igor grabbed tea and a pastry and ate on the move as he headed to a part of the bazaar that Ryan had never visited. The stalls here were all run by Chinese. Rather than offering actual goods, these traders were wholesalers, who filled their glass display cabinets with samples of everything from 2013 calendars to Hello Kitty alarm clocks.

  The crowds were thinner, mostly men in business suits, smoking and haggling. Ryan didn’t like it because people his age didn’t come here. Everyone stared and he had to drop further behind Igor and rely on the tracker.

  After a couple of hundred metres, the wholesale zone merged into an area where over fifty traders sold auto parts. The containers had car company logos painted on the doors and hubcaps swinging precariously from wires strung across the alleyway.

  Ryan got close as Igor backed out of a container that sold reconditioned Lada spares. He was baffled when he saw Igor move while the tracker blip stayed still, but Igor was laden with bags and Ryan realised that he must have dumped the faulty wiper motor with the tracker inside, or traded it when he purchased the replacement.

  Either way, Ryan now had to rely on his eyes. It would be too risky to follow Igor in visual range for long, but Ryan didn’t want to go back to the Kremlin with nothing, so he decided to take a chance and follow Igor for a couple of minutes.

  Igor had a backpack and two big shopping bags. Ryan realised he was heading for his old Toyota wagon. But instead of driving off, the Russian locked the shopping in the back before crossing the car park and entering a shabby café alongside the bazaar’s metal-canopied bus station.

  Once Ryan was sure Igor was staying, he headed inside himself. The café’s strip lighting was dazzling after the outdoor cloud. There were fifty tables, but only six customers.

  All were men and Ryan got a shock when he noticed a stage at the back with a couple of not-very-attractive women dancing and vaguely making threats to take their tops off. There was also a bar where more women stood about in short skirts and too much make-up. Most were so skinny that Ryan reckoned they had to be drug addicts.

  Igor was at a table off to the side of the stage, speaking with another blond Russian who could have been Igor’s brother, though he was bigger and had a squashed-up nose. Before Ryan could learn any more a buxom waitress came over and spoke words she’d clearly said a million times before.

  ‘I’m Lulu your hostess, can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Coke,’ Ryan said warily.

  ‘Right you are, sweetie,’ Lulu said, jotting something on her pad and pointing towards the bar. ‘Any of our girls catching your eye?’

  ‘I just thought it was a normal café,’ Ryan explained. ‘I don’t have to … I mean, can I just have a drink while I wait for my bus?’

  ‘Free country,’ Lulu said, before crouching down and winking. ‘Don’t be shy. Call me if you want a girl to come over.’

  ‘Really, I’m great,’ Ryan said. ‘I’ve got a girlfriend.’

  He felt like adding, a girlfriend who isn’t a prostitute.

  Once the waitress had cleared off, Ryan tried working out what Igor and the squashed nose were up to. They didn’t have much to say to each other, but Igor slid some papers across the table and a roll of money in an elastic band went the other way.

  Ryan had been looking for some form of electronic communication, but Leonid Aramov had lost most of his fortune when TFU hacked into his online banking. After being bitten once, it made sense that Leonid would revert to more traditional face-to-face communication for his Kremlin spy.

  ‘Coke,’ the waitress said, as she banged a bottle and glass on the table, along with a bill for three times what it would have cost in any café that didn’t have ugly women dancing about.

  Ryan wanted a picture of Igor’s companion. The iPhone would be too obvious, but he had a sugar-cube-sized spy camera in case something cropped up. As Ryan raised the bottle of Coke to his lips, he simultaneously aimed the tiny camera and clicked off three pictures of the Russian.

  He only just got them in time. As a belch rose up Ryan’s throat from the Coke bubbles, Igor and squashed nose parted with kisses on the cheek. The big dude headed off behind the bar as Igor went for the exit. But before he made it, he took a swerve and came for Ryan.

  His tone wasn’t angry, but wasn’t friendly either. ‘I saw you in the mirror when I was having my hair cut. Then again in the parking lot.’

  Ryan’s guts flipped, but he kept his voice casual and changed the subject to sidestep a was I or wasn’t I following you type conversation.

  ‘You’re Kremlin,’ Ryan said, smiling with recognition. ‘You played poker with my dad a few times.’

  ‘Kazakov’s boy,’ Igor said, his tone warming. ‘I heard what happened, I’m sorry.’

  Ryan shrugged and looked down at his spitting Coke. ‘Shit happens.’

  ‘You haven’t bought much for someone who’s been walking the bazaar for three hours,’ Igor noted.

  ‘Gotta keep an eye on my money,’ Ryan said. ‘Dad left a few thousand, but I don’t know when I’ll get any more. Just came out to wander. Walls of my room were closing in on me.’

  ‘And you came in here for … ?’

  ‘I’d heard you could get a girl in here,’ Ryan said. ‘Thought it might make me feel better.’

  Igor laughed. ‘There’s a hundred better places than this if you want a girl.’

  Ryan spoke quietly. ‘I’d happily pay these women to put more clothes on.’

  Igor roared with laughter, then stuck a ten-som note on Ryan’s table to pay for his Coke. ‘You heading back?’ he asked. ‘You want a lift?’

  ‘For sure,’ Ryan said.

  22. SQUASHED

  ‘Igor kept asking questions about America, but I didn’t give much away,’ Ryan told Amy. ‘Just that we lost Irena’s money and I made it to the liaison in New York on a Greyhound bus.’

 
They were back in the map-room on the fourth floor and Amy was plugging Ryan’s miniature camera into her laptop.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ Amy said excitedly, when the first of Ryan’s three photos cropped up.

  Ryan moved closer as Amy zoomed in on the dude with the squashed nose.

  ‘Know him?’ Ryan asked. ‘They’re quite alike. Brothers maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know if they’re related,’ Amy said, as she used the track pad to zoom the face. ‘But you remember the explosion on the beach?’

  ‘Not something I’m likely to forget,’ Ryan said, remembering the first phase of the Aramov mission.

  He’d been staying at a beachfront house in California, a few doors from Ethan and Galenka Aramov. His mission was to befriend Ethan and pick up information about the clan. This ended abruptly when two goons rocked up in rubber dinghies, murdered Galenka and blew up her house. Ethan only survived because Ryan helped him escape through a window minutes before a bomb went off.

  ‘After you ran back to our house with Ethan, I crept between the houses and got a glimpse at the two assassins as they left,’ Amy explained. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s one of them.’

  Ryan felt a tingle of excitement. This all but confirmed Igor’s link to Leonid. ‘How certain are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Ninety-six point three four per cent,’ Amy joked. ‘It’s a distinctive face, but Ethan got a much better look at the assassins. I’ll e-mail the photo to Ted Brasker and he can get Ethan to confirm the ID.’

  ‘And what next?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘I’ll have to try and find out more about Mr Squashed-Nose, but that’ll be hard without more manpower.’

  ‘Can we get someone in?’

  Amy shook her head. ‘We’re supposed to be winding down the Aramov Clan. I’m gonna have a hard time getting extra agents on board for a side mission.’

  ‘I thought Dr D was keen on catching Leonid,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Undoubtedly. But she’s serving out her last weeks before forced retirement, with the head of the CIA and the Intelligence Secretary right on her back.’