“I’ll tell him you want to return the money.”
“Not all of it. I didn’t do this to end up with nothing.”
I shrugged, put down my coffee cup.
“You get to keep your life. Isn’t that worth something?”
“If he gets all the money back, then he wins. And if he wins, what’s to stop him getting rid of me anyway?”
I said nothing, saw the determined set of her jaw.
“There’s one other thing you should consider, Inspector. He isn’t going to want any witnesses who might be persuaded to testify. And that includes you.”
I nodded. That had occurred to me as well. There are lots of ways a Murder Squad inspector could die in the line of duty. And who wants to live constantly wondering about cross hairs seeking out the back of their skull?
I was still working out how best to deal with Tynaliev when my phone rang. The number was blocked, but I answered it anyway.
“Borubaev?”
The voice hoarse from two packs a day, a grating Chechen accent.
“Kulayev.”
“Have you found the girl? The minister is getting impatient. And he’s angry that you haven’t given a progress report.”
“He’s a busy man, important. I don’t want to disturb him with trivial details.”
I heard Kulayev sigh. I seem to have that effect on a lot of people.
“I’ve found Miss Sulonbekova.”
“So where is the bitch? And does she have what Tynaliev wants?”
“Actually, she’s sitting opposite me. And yes, she does. So it’s probably time for me to contact the minister.”
“That’s not necessary, Borubaev. Just get the information, and I can have you on a plane back to Bishkek tonight.”
Now it was my turn to sigh. “I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“What do you mean? If she won’t hand it over, just put two in the back of her head, get the stuff and we’ll meet.”
“No, we won’t.”
I ended the call, looked over at Natasha. She raised an eyebrow.
“I’m supposed to get the memory stick from you, maybe kill you at the same time, and hand it over to Kulayev. And then he probably kills me, goes to Bishkek, gets all the glory and a pat on the head from Tynaliev.”
Natasha shook her head.
“Or he might use the stick to put pressure on Mikhail. We’re out of the way and he can link our deaths to Tynaliev.”
“You have a very devious mind, Miss Sulonbekova. I’m not sure I like that in a woman.”
Natasha gave one of those feminine dismissive gestures that mean men don’t realize just how stupid and easy to manipulate they are. I think she included me in the club.
“So what do you suggest?” she asked.
“First of all, I think you should give me the memory stick. I don’t know how to access it, so you’re not losing anything. And you’ve probably made a copy anyway. It gives me something to bargain with, to appease Tynaliev.”
Natasha considered this for a moment, nodded. “But it’s not on a memory stick, not anymore.”
“So where is it?”
“I had the Bulgarian geek transfer the information onto a mobile SIM card. Much less conspicuous. Everyone has a mobile, right?”
I could see the logic behind her thinking. And a SIM card would be a lot easier to get through customs, either in Dubai or Bishkek.
Natasha reached into her bag, took out one of those tiny Ziploc plastic bags you can buy in any pharmacy. I could see the SIM card inside. She passed it over, and I slipped it into my shirt pocket.
“How does it work?” I asked.
“There’s a dedicated website that you log onto. You can only reach it via this SIM card. It asks you for a nine-digit number. That gives you access to the encryption processor.”
I nodded as if I understood what she was talking about.
“You then have to dial in a series of three three-digit numbers, and that gives you access to a screen that asks for your code word. You type it in and that allows you to transfer your money.”
“And you’ve changed all the numbers?”
“No, only the code word. But that’s enough to stop anyone getting to the money but me.”
“So you’ll give me the new code word to take back to Tynaliev and hope that he gives up hunting you and lets you have your ten percent?”
Natasha nodded, perhaps more convinced of Tynaliev’s forgiving nature than I was. She paused for a moment, as if deciding to tell me something important.
“Akyl, there’s something you should know.”
“Yes?”
“About Kulayev. Don’t trust him.”
I waited. I looked at her, saw the strength and intelligence that most people missed by staring at her body.
“He’s the man who complained about Nargiza to Atanasov. He got her tortured. He’s responsible for her suicide. And I’m going to kill him.”
I started to tell her I didn’t think that was such a good idea, especially since I didn’t want her to do it with a gun that had my prints on it, but before I could get very far, my phone rang again.
I checked the number. Blocked. This was getting tedious, but I answered.
“Borubaev.”
“Don’t you think she’s a little young for you, Akyl?”
I recognized the voice. Honey drizzled over vanilla ice cream. A voice that belonged to some of the biggest trouble of my career. I listened as the voice gave me instructions, ended the call without speaking.
Natasha looked at me. I shook my head, threw a few notes down on the table, stood up.
“I have to go. I’ll talk to you later, work out how we can get out of this mess. And Natasha? I want my gun back now.”
I made sure no one was watching, palmed the Makarov, tucked it safely away in my pocket. I had a feeling I might need it.
Chapter 17
I walked through the mall, past a big supermarket packed with shoppers buying trolley-loads of groceries, and a dozen free-standing booths selling watches, sweets, ice cream and cosmetics, into the covered car park. The air conditioning didn’t reach this far, and I could already feel the heat starting to trickle down my spine. I’d been told to look for a white Porsche Cayenne with smoked windows, parked on its own, as if too proud to sit with the other vehicles. As I approached, I saw that the engine was running.
The driver’s window slid down, and Saltanat Umarova looked across at me, eyes hidden behind wraparound sunglasses, her face unreadable. The sweat that smeared my palms wasn’t caused simply by the heat.
Saltanat had always been a mystery to me, even during the brief time that we were lovers. She ran to her own speed, discarding everything else as irrelevant. I knew she’d been married, that she was brought up in an orphanage, just as I had been; but I hadn’t been trained by the Uzbek authorities to become an assassin, and I didn’t have her knack of evading emotional involvement. I didn’t know if she was here to help me or to kill me.
“Get in.”
No time for pleasantries. Irrelevant.
“Here for the shopping?” I asked, hoping to at least raise a smile.
Saltanat put the car into gear, and we headed for the exit and out onto Sheikh Zayed Road, a motorway in all but name. The traffic was solid, all high-end vehicles: no likelihood of seeing a rusting Moskvitch here. Bishkek seemed a very long way away.
I furtively looked over at Saltanat: dressed in black as always, in spite of the weather. Cool, unruffled, in complete control. A beautiful woman, and one I’d seen put a gun to the head of a treacherous colleague and paint the walls with his brains. I’d been there when she and her former mentor fought with knives in Panfilov Park, watched her walk away, bloody and victorious. I’ve encountered killers, mobsters, rapists, but Saltanat Umarova was more dangerous than all of them put together.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” was the answer; I knew better than to try to get any
more information out of her. The weight of the Makarov in my pocket did a little to reassure me, but I’d seen the speed with which Saltanat could strike. And I knew that I’d have difficulty pulling the trigger on a former lover. I sat back and stared out of the window at the wealth passing by.
The contrast to Bishkek couldn’t have been greater. Every street in the Kyrgyz capital is lined with mature trees that give shade in the summer and shelter in the winter. Despite the broken and uneven pavements, the piles of rubbish, the tired-looking buildings that need a fresh coat of paint or pulling down altogether, there’s a sense of community, of people doing the best they can in a poor country. And wherever you look, there’s the swell of snow-covered mountains in the distance.
In Dubai nobody walks anywhere, and the rare spots with trees, grass or flowers are fed by black plastic pipes that snake across the ground and spray water during the evenings. The skyscrapers twist and turn in elaborate architectural designs that belong in a science fiction movie, separated by patches of sand. No mountains or snow here.
I hadn’t felt comfortable in Dubai since I arrived, but when you’re Murder Squad, it’s hard to feel relaxed wherever you are. You never know what the next hour will bring you, so you never drop your guard.
I adjusted the air conditioning vents to ensure I wouldn’t be an icicle by the time we arrived at wherever we were going. The Porsche was certainly the most luxurious vehicle I’d ever been in; I hoped it wasn’t also going to be my hearse.
I knew that Saltanat was a keen believer in the philosophy of keeping hidden in plain sight, but I couldn’t help being impressed as she drove up to the entrance of a five-star hotel. Not for the first time, I wondered about the size of Saltanat’s expense account.
A valet sprang forward to open the door for her, bowing and scraping as he took the car keys. No one bothered to open my door, but I somehow managed to do it and scrambled down. I’m nothing if not versatile.
The doorman guarding the entrance gave me the sort of look that normally accompanies a raised eyebrow, but I simply gave him an insincere smile and followed Saltanat into the lobby. No ordinary lobby, though; it was smaller than the White House parliament building in Bishkek, but only just. Saltanat made for a long reception desk, collected a plastic pass key, gestured toward a wall of glass lifts. As we hurtled up toward the twenty-seventh floor, Dubai sprawled below us like a creature exhausted by the heat. A haze obscured the middle distance, but I could see the sea, sparkling blue, inviting. When you come from the most landlocked country in the world, it’s difficult not be impressed by the ocean’s sheer size, the idea of freedom and endless possibilities that it suggests.
“I haven’t booked you in,” Saltanat said, unlocking the door. “I’m sure you’re perfectly happy where you are. Somewhere cheap and not cheerful, I imagine, knowing your spartan tastes. Or are you staying with Little Miss Bigtits?”
“She’s a suspect in the case I’m working on,” I said, realizing just how pompous and defensive I sounded.
“If you say so.”
I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, looked down at the artificial lake below, then at the silver needle of the Burj Khalifa. From this height, the cars resembled children’s toys, and the silence felt alien, imposed. I felt I was looking at an architect’s model of a city, rather than a living, breathing place where people lived, loved, raised their families. Nothing was real; everything was an illusion, a stage set.
I turned to find out why Saltanat had brought me here, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of light, as if the sun’s reflection had been caught in a mirror.
And it was then that the window imploded, hurling razor-edged shards of glass across the suite.
Chapter 18
I threw myself to the floor, bracing myself against the impact of the second shot. When you shoot through tempered glass, the impact throws the bullet off target, sending it tumbling rather than spinning. That means you need to fire again through the hole the first shot punches in the window to hit your target. I didn’t look to see if Saltanat had followed my example; she was far better trained in this sort of thing than I was.
After a couple of moments I decided that perhaps the second shot wasn’t on its way, so I began to squirm my way to the door. The shooter wouldn’t want to stay in place for very long; someone might have heard the shot, called the police or wondered why there were noises coming from the empty office next door.
The door to the suite started to open. I held the Makarov out in front of me in case a second shooter was coming in to deliver a death shot to our heads.
“Move!” Saltanat said, and I saw her dive through the open doorway just as a second shot smacked harmlessly into the double bed, fragments of foam rubber dancing up into the air.
Just as well we weren’t lovers anymore, I thought and rolled forward to join her. In the corridor I hauled myself to my feet, pocketed my gun and raced after Saltanat, already halfway to the lifts. I knew that she hadn’t been hit; life isn’t like the movies, where you simply grit your teeth against the pain and swap gun hands. Get shot by a rifle, and the impact rips off an arm or a leg, or simply punches through you, cutting a plate-sized exit wound in your back.
Saltanat hammered at the lift buttons, her face a mask of anger. I saw by the discreet bulge at her waist that she was carrying. She almost certainly also had a knife strapped to her boot. Whoever had fired at us needed to flee the scene right now, before vengeance arrived.
When the lift finally arrived, we scrambled in. I could see Saltanat’s reflection in the mirrored walls. Anger had been replaced by a cold efficiency. Outside the hotel, rather than wait for Saltanat’s car we ran toward the building from where the shots had been fired. I could feel the heat licking at me like some giant feral cat, leaving my skin soaked and sore.
As we neared the building, a black Prado, windows tinted to hide its occupants, roared up from the underground car park and halted at the barrier. Saltanat shot at the windscreen, hit the bonnet, but we could only stand and watch as the barrier rose, the car took a right turn away from us and headed toward the motorway.
“There’s no point trying to follow them,” I said, trying to catch my breath, regretting every cigarette of the last twenty years. “By the time we get your car, they could be anywhere.”
Saltanat nodded. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, watching the car disappear. “I know who they are. It’s just a case of finding them.”
I didn’t know how well Saltanat knew Dubai, but with two and a half million people living in the city, finding them wasn’t going to be easy.
Back in the cool of the hotel lobby, Saltanat told the receptionist that some freak accident had shattered the window of her suite. The manager was promptly summoned, ordered to provide an alternative suite. After accepting his apologies, Saltanat beckoned to me, pointed to the bar.
Once we’d sat down, Saltanat with a glass of red wine, me with a glass of mineral water, I decided it was time I asked some questions, the sort that usually plunge you into trouble when you get the answers you want. The bar was almost completely empty, no one within earshot.
“You say you know who the shooter was? Care to share or is it a state secret?”
Saltanat sipped at her wine, pulled a face. My water tasted flat, warm.
“I take it you’re not here to visit the water parks,” Saltanat said. “And I can’t believe that an inspector—an ex-inspector—earns enough som to take your little friend on an all-expenses-paid holiday. So either you’ve taken a drink from someone or she’s work, right?”
Trying to buy time, I waved the waitress over and asked for ice. She showed the same enthusiasm as if I’d asked her to give me a free lapdance, slouching off to wherever the ice was hidden.
“Sort of work. Not Murder Squad. Private.”
“Irate boyfriend needs mistress tracking down?”
Saltanat had come uncomfortably close to the truth of the matter.
“Irate, ve
ry rich and powerful boyfriend?”
I tried to look emotionless, but Saltanat could always read me like a very small book with very large letters.
“So, Tynaliev,” she said with a finality that should have reassured me but didn’t.
“Everyone’s a detective these days,” I said.
“Hardly. Everyone knows that your old boss has a thing for young women, while his wife looks the other way from a conveniently distant dacha.”
I shrugged. No point in trying to bluff it out.
“What’s he promised you? Your old badge back?”
And then I found myself telling her about how I had felt at a loose end after leaving the force, about how my reason for being was to find justice for the dead. I’ve always believed that if murder victims don’t have a dreamless sleep, it all comes back to haunt us. All the bad guys have to do to win is to make the good guys look the other way. Not that I’m claiming to be a good guy, but I try.
I sat back, embarrassed by my little speech, at revealing myself to a woman I’d slept with but hardly knew. I concentrated on crunching ice between my teeth; right then it felt like the only thing I might be any good at.
I had a sudden flashback, of Chinara scolding me for doing exactly that. She said the noise drove her crazy, as well as making her worried about the cost of dental repairs. And as always, whenever I thought about Chinara, an unexpected wave of sorrow knocked me off my feet. I couldn’t ever catch her killer, the cancer, but I knew who had smothered her with a wedding pillow to end her suffering. And even if I could forgive myself, I knew I never would.
Saltanat couldn’t have read my thoughts, but she obviously sensed they were unpleasant. To break my mood, she tapped the side of my glass.
“I wish you’d take a decent drink once in a while. For a hard-bitten Murder Squad cop, you do a very boring holier-than-thou routine.”
I smiled. The idea of getting drunk with Saltanat was a prospect not many would relish and even fewer might survive.
A Summer Revenge Page 7