The Trinity Six (2011)

by Charles Cumming

  Even Brennan looked uncomfortable at the effrontery of the lie. Tanya was grateful for the opportunity to skewer Kepitsa on his hypocrisy.

  ‘So it’s OK for British academics, is it? But as soon as you have a Russian academic, a Ukrainian journalist - say, a Katarina Tikhonov - then it’s a different story. You murder people like that, don’t you, Mr Kepitsa? You poison them. You send thugs to gun them down in their homes. You allow them to rot in prisons and deny them basic medical care. Isn’t that the case?’

  The Russian was already reaching for his briefcase. Tanya expected him to say: ‘I have heard enough of this’, but instead he opted for the more tried and tested: ‘I have never been so insulted in my life.’

  ‘Oh, I expect you have,’ she said. ‘Just before you go, Max, do tell Sir John why you have two surveillance operatives sitting in a Mercedes, registered to the Russian Embassy, looking up at Holly Levette’s apartment as we speak? Tell him that. I’d like to hear your reasoning. I thought Doctor Gaddis was just a harmless British academic? If that’s the case, why are you taking such an unusual interest in his private life? Is it the tape? Are you trying to get to it before he does?’

  ‘Is this true, Maxim?’ Brennan asked.

  Kepitsa turned for the door.

  ‘This meeting is concluded,’ he said, shooting Brennan the look of a deceived man already plotting his revenge. ‘The next time I come to visit you, John, I expect to be treated with a good deal more respect.’

  Chapter 58

  It was dark when Gaddis came out of Holly’s building and stood momentarily on Tite Street, looking up at a pale orange sky. He now had two disks concealed beneath his coat. In his left hand he was carrying an envelope addressed to a colleague in the United States which contained a DVD.

  He needed a cigarette. He took out the packet, struck a match and brought the flame to his lips. It was his only mistake. The face of Dr Samuel Gaddis was momentarily lit up for the world to see.

  ‘I know that man,’ said Karl Stieleke.

  ‘Who?’ said Grek. ‘The guy who just came out?’

  ‘On Saturday. In Vienna. He was at the wedding. I saw him after the ceremony in the Stadtpark.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I am certain. He bumped into me.’

  Grek watched as Gaddis turned south and came directly towards them. For an instant, he thought that he was going to approach the car. Instead, he crossed Royal Hospital Road and walked towards a red letterbox just a few feet from the Mercedes. He posted the envelope through the slot, then continued south, heading in the direction of the river. Grek, who had been close enough to touch Gaddis as he passed the Mercedes, realized that he, too, had seen the man before. Several weeks earlier. He was the unidentified male who had left Charlotte Berg’s residence on the night that he had broken into her office. Approximately six feet tall, about eighty kilos, wearing a corduroy jacket with a leather satchel slung over the shoulder.

  ‘That is Sam,’ said Grek. ‘He posted the tape. Call Kepitsa and tell him to send somebody to break into the box. I will follow him.’

  Stieleke nodded.

  ‘Stay here, Karl. Stay with the vehicle and keep an eye on the girl. When I call you, when I tell you that Sam has been brought under control, you go in to Holly and you finish the job. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Des was watching them. He, too, had seen POLARBEAR coming out of the building and had privately admonished him for lighting a cigarette with a ‘fucking Swan Vesta’ so that ‘Dolph can get a really good look at your face’. Then he wondered why POLARBEAR was posting a package into the neat red letterbox on the south side of Royal Hospital Road.

  ‘I hope that’s not what I think it is,’ he muttered to himself, pulling out his mobile phone. ‘They’ll just nick it, you twat, they’ll just nick it.’

  He dialled Tanya’s number but she wasn’t answering. Des left a message.

  ‘POLARBEAR has left the building. He’s also just posted a package on Royal Hospital Road. Think it might be your tape. Give me a call, will you? I reckon things are about to get busy round here.’

  Sure enough, a moment after Des had hung up, he saw Alexander Grek stepping out of the Mercedes and buttoning up his overcoat. Des re-dialled Tanya’s number, but she was still not answering. He left a second message.

  ‘Like I said, things have just got busy round here. Foot surveillance. One of the FSB boys just went south after our man. POLARBEAR is heading for the river.’

  Gaddis was leaning on a stone balustrade, looking out across the Thames at the distant outline of the Japanese Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park, when he heard a voice behind him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  It was a deep, languid voice, with a certain music in it, a certain charm.

  ‘Yes?’

  He turned to find that a well-dressed man of about thirty-five had crossed the road from the south end of Tite Street. He was wearing a light brown overcoat and a pair of expensive leather brogues. Oligarch chic, Charlotte would have called it, but Gaddis didn’t feel like laughing.

  ‘It is Sam, yes?’

  ‘Do we know each other?’

  Gaddis had been waiting for this. He had known that they would come.

  ‘We do, we do,’ said Grek, extending a hand which Gaddis reluctantly shook. ‘My name is Alexander Grek. We met at the Russian Embassy in July, no? You came to our fundraiser for small businesses.’

  The lie had the odd effect of emboldening Gaddis. He was almost insulted by it.

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘A fundraiser? A party at the Russian Embassy? With all that you know, after everything you’ve seen, you think I’m going to fall for that?’

  Grek’s pale brown eyes, so soft and conciliating, suddenly lost their innocence; it was merely a question of narrowing them, like a man sighting a target on a shooting range. Moments earlier, Gaddis had thrown the butt of his cigarette into the churning waters of the Thames. Grek now took out a cigarette of his own from a pristine silver case and lit it with a Zippo lighter.

  ‘I see that you are direct, Sam. A straight talker.’ He closed the Zippo. Click. ‘Fine. If that is how you like to do business, then let’s be frank with one another. Let’s do business. You have something that I want. Something that my government will pay a lot of money for. Would you be so kind as to pass it over?’

  Des had watched Grek disappear towards the Embankment. He wondered if he should have followed him. But that was against Tanya’s instructions. She had told him to keep an eye on Holly’s apartment.

  His phone rang. He saw Tanya’s number flash up on the screen.

  ‘Des? Where are you?’

  ‘I’m still in the car.’

  ‘You’re still in the what?’ He heard her swear against the sound of traffic. It wasn’t clear whether she was walking along a busy street or speaking from inside a vehicle. ‘Go after them. Follow the Russian. Something could happen to Sam. Did you see where they’ve gone?’

  Des told her that POLARBEAR had been heading towards the river.

  ‘I’m in a cab,’ she said. ‘Half a mile away. I’ll be there in less than five minutes.’

  Grek inhaled deeply on the cigarette and gazed at the passing traffic on the Embankment as if the noise of it was an encumbrance to his enjoyment of what was an otherwise pleasant London evening.

  ‘Do you have it in your possession?’ he said. ‘Do you have the tape?’

  Gaddis held his nerve. He had two of the disks in his coat pocket. The other two, he knew, were safe. ‘You say it’s your government who are willing to pay for the tape?’ He did not dare smoke another cigarette of his own in case his hand shook as he lit it. ‘So you accept that you have been operating under the orders of Sergei Platov? You admit that Charlotte Berg, Calvin Somers, Benedict Meisner and Robert Wilkinson were killed with the approval, tacit or otherwise, of the Kremlin?’

  A pretty girl j
ogged past them wearing a Comic Relief T-shirt and tracksuit trousers set off by a pair of bright pink legwarmers. She was oblivious to the city beneath the rhythm of an iPod. Grek stared after her and nodded in appreciation.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, turning back to Gaddis as though already bored by the direction that their conversation was taking. ‘I have no idea what it is that you are referring to. If these people, as you say, are dead, you have my condolences. It has nothing to do with my organization.’

  ‘How do you do that?’ Gaddis surprised himself by moving towards Grek.

  ‘How do I do what, please?’

  ‘How do you justify it to yourself?’ Grek still looked bored, though Gaddis was now only a few inches from his face. ‘Did you know anything about Charlotte? I knew her very well. She was my closest friend. She was a sister to Amy. She was a wife to Paul. Her husband hasn’t been able to work, to sleep, to do anything very much these past few weeks except to grieve for the one person who ever meant anything to him. You did that. You took away his only happiness.’

  There was a tiny flicker of irritation, not remorse, at the edge of Grek’s pale brown eyes.

  ‘Did you know anything about Benedict Meisner?’ Gaddis was on a roll now, a distilled enmity boiling inside him. He watched the comet of Grek’s cigarette as he flicked it into the Thames. ‘Did you know that he had two teenage daughters, one of them anorexic? Did you know that? Did you know that he was an only child? His mother had moved to Berlin to be close to him. She was a widow. Her husband had been killed in a car accident. It was in the German papers. She was unable to identify her son’s body because of the gunshot wounds. You took away his face. You did that to a mother, to a woman of seventy-five. You forced her to see that and you shattered that family. Was it worth it?’

  Grek raised his face to the sky and sniffed at the chill evening air as though he had no intention of responding.

  ‘What was it for?’ Gaddis wanted to grab Grek by the arms and to shake an answer out of him. ‘I just don’t see how you rationalize it, how you square it with your conscience.’ He took a step backwards and found that he was almost smiling. ‘I don’t believe that people have no conscience. I can’t believe that. Otherwise such people are just animals, no better than a vulture or a snake, no? They say that everybody has their reasons, but it’s a mystery to me why you would destroy lives as freely as you do. There are so many other choices available to you. Is it just the thrill of it, the sense of power? Or are you so loyal to your country, are you such a patriot, that it short-circuits your decency? Perhaps it’s about status. Enlighten me. I’d really like to know.’

  ‘You are an interesting man,’ Grek replied, because he was too self-assured ever to be drawn into such a game. ‘Tell me about yourself. How did you become involved in these things?’

  Only then did Gaddis realize that Tanya had been right all along. The Russians really did know very little about him. He said: ‘You know exactly who I am,’ but only because he was so surprised by what he had heard.

  ‘Really, I don’t,’ said Grek. ‘You are a mystery to us.’

  ‘And yet you want to buy a tape from me, a tape that is worth a lot of money.’ Gaddis finally caved in to his desire for a cigarette and extracted one from the pocket of his coat. Grek immediately rolled the Zippo lighter across his hip and held out the flame. Gaddis snubbed it and struck a match of his own, cupping it steadily against the easterly wind.

  ‘We would like to buy that tape,’ Grek said.

  ‘Yes? What do you think it’s worth?’ Gaddis had taken himself beyond any further attempt to appeal to the Russian’s conscience; it was pointless. Better to conclude their ‘business’ as quickly as possible and to get back to Holly.

  ‘One hundred thousand pounds.’

  Gaddis winced, remembering the typed note, the photographs of Min and Natasha, and he realized that Tanya had been right about Brennan as well: the FSB and MI6 had joined forces against him. For a strange and terrifying moment, like a waking dream, he imagined that Grek was about to produce yet more pictures of his daughter, only this time in the nightmare of some terrible captivity. He knew in his bones that the Russian would stoop to such a thing as easily as he could hail a passing cab.

  ‘How did you arrive at that price?’ he asked.

  ‘We can arrive at any price you like.’

  ‘Any price?’

  Another jogger grunted by, a man in late middle age with a glowing face and a pot belly. Grek ignored him.

  ‘Does your British conscience tell you that you cannot accept money of this kind from the Russian government?’

  Gaddis was grateful for the chance to strike back. ‘Why would my conscience tell me that? I would happily take as much money from the Russian government as I possibly can.’

  Grek detected no irony. ‘So the sum offered to you for the protection of your child is not enough?’

  If Gaddis had possessed any doubts about the wisdom of his plan, they were extinguished by this casual threat to Min. ‘No, it is not enough,’ he said, and spoke in Russian so that no idiosyncrasy of his reply would be lost in translation. ‘I want half a million pounds. A hundred thousand each to the families of Benedict Meisner, Robert Wilkinson and Calvin Somers. One hundred thousand pounds for Paul Berg. And one hundred thousand pounds for myself. You will also guarantee that no harm comes to my daughter, to Holly Levette, to Tanya Acocella or to my ex-wife. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘These things can be very easily guaranteed.’

  ‘Don’t forget about my wedding.’

  Tanya’s voice took both men by surprise. She had appeared from within the shadows of a tree, the sound of her approach obscured by the noise of the rush-hour traffic.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Grek looked as though he was having trouble bringing Tanya into focus.

  ‘Just a private joke between myself and Doctor Gaddis,’ she said, moving towards them. She was also speaking in fluent Russian and, for a wrenching moment, Gaddis thought that they were working in tandem. ‘I’m getting married,’ she said. ‘Could do with the extra cash if you’re doling it out. Sam, would you introduce us?’

  Startled, he began to say: ‘This is Alexander Grek—’ but Tanya interrupted him.

  ‘I know who he is.’ She reverted to English. ‘And I know his friend in the Mercedes parked just over there.’ She gestured in the direction of Tite Street. ‘In fact, a colleague of mine is currently asking to see the friend’s identification.’ It was a lie, but Grek’s impassive demeanour finally cracked.

  ‘What is going on here?’

  ‘What is going on here is that you are going to do exactly what Doctor Gaddis asks. You are going to give him five hundred thousand pounds. In return for this, Doctor Gaddis will guarantee that the copy of the tape in his possession will never be shown or distributed during his lifetime. Is that the case?’

  Gaddis felt as though a vest, heavy as lead, had been lifted from his body. ‘That is the case.’

  Grek adjusted his stance, his hips shifting forward in a way that looked awkward. He was struggling to maintain his equanimity, a climber slipping on a wall.

  ‘We will need that tape,’ he said.

  ‘Fine.’ Gaddis found the courage to be almost dismissive with the tone of his reply. ‘But it won’t be any good to you. I made several copies. Each of them will be kept in a secure location. Should anything happen to me, the people charged with looking after them will release the Platov footage to the media.’

  Grek looked hard into Gaddis’s eyes, because he sensed that he was lying.

  ‘You had time to make several copies?’ It was an opportunity to claw back some lost pride. ‘I doubt that very much. I imagine that the only copy of the tape is currently at the bottom of a letter box not five hundred metres from where we are standing. I think you are bluffing.’

  ‘Try me,’ Gaddis replied.

  A teenage girl with what looked like a cold sore on her lip walked past them on the arm of her boyfr
iend. Gaddis saw that it was a lip-piercing and smiled to himself.

  ‘Something funny?’ Grek said.

  At that moment, his mobile phone pulsed in the inside pocket of his coat. The Russian reached for it and both Gaddis and Tanya flinched, assuming that he was going for a gun. But he reassured her by unbuttoning the coat slowly and retrieving the phone with the tips of his fingers.

  ‘Relax. You assume that I would shoot you? What do you think of me?’

  He looked down at the screen. It was a message from Kepitsa. Gaddis used the moment to glance across at Tanya, who reassured him with a nod. Grek looked up and spoke.

  ‘It would appear that you are right, Doctor Gaddis.’ In Russian, he added: ‘My instructions are to leave you in possession of the tape. I have your word that our business is concluded?’

  ‘You have my word,’ he replied.

  Grek replaced the phone and turned in the direction of Chelsea Bridge, so that his back was facing them. He seemed to consider the possibility of a parting remark but thought better of it and walked away. Within moments he had disappeared into the glare of the London night. Almost immediately, Des materialized beside Tanya and said ‘Hi’ to Gaddis as though they were still in Berlin.

  ‘Get to the Mercedes,’ Tanya told him. ‘Go back and keep an eye on Holly. And find someone to take a look at that postbox.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Gaddis told her. ‘It’s a decoy. It’s a DVD of Holly’s showreel. I gave one of the real copies to a cleaning lady in the lobby. She told me she was going to post it to Princeton on her way home.’

  Des acknowledged the trick with an admiring bob of the head and then crossed the Embankment, walking north up Tite Street. Gaddis leaned once more on the stone balustrade and saw an old wooden toy abandoned in the sands of the river, as if trapped by time.

  ‘What about Brennan?’ he said. ‘Does he know about the deal?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tanya was beside him, their arms almost touching. ‘The master tape is at Vauxhall Cross. I didn’t know that. It was the last of the many secrets he kept from me. Let’s just say that Brennan uses it for leverage whenever Platov gets ideas above his station.’