‘There’s no doubt,’ agreed Oskin, positively. The voice was still high.
‘The man whom Lvov thinks is local, to Kirov? Have you any idea who he is?’
Oskin shook his head. ‘There is one major gang here. Run by a man named Yatisyna, Lev Mikhailovich Yatisyna. If Lvov is right and there is a link with one of the big Moscow Families I think it would be through someone from the Yatisyna group. But it’s only my guess.’
‘Does Yatisyna have a record?’
There was another nod. ‘A lot of petty stuff, when he was young. Two more serious charges, of physical assault. Cleared on both occasions. Witnesses were intimidated against giving evidence.’
‘So there are photographs?’
The arrival of their food delayed Oskin’s answer. Natalia was conscious of Popov’s frown, at her question.
‘The photographs aren’t recent,’ said Oskin. ‘Eight, maybe nine years ago. That was the last time he was brought in.’
‘Still good enough,’ decided Natalia. ‘Let’s take them to Lvov tomorrow; photographs of everyone connected with Yatisyna, in fact. He might be able to identify someone.’ Natalia went through the pretence of eating, rearranging the food on her plate. It looked very good. She wished she was hungry. She was conscious of Oskin looking towards the door at each new arrival.
‘What are we going to do?’ demanded Oskin.
‘Stop it!’ said Popov. ‘What else?’
‘How?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ admitted Natalia.
‘With people from Moscow?’
‘Do you think that’s necessary?’
Oskin swallowed heavily, clearing a mouth he’d over-filled with pork and red cabbage. ‘Whatever you try to do will leak if you attempt it with local personnel.’
‘I could hand-pick a Moscow squad,’ Popov said, to Natalia. ‘It would guarantee security.’
‘When it’s all over I want Kirov cleared up! And cleared out!’ ordered Natalia, looking between the two men.
Oskin finished eating, neatly setting his knife and fork down but staying with his eyes on his half-finished plate. ‘I have a particular request. Something that’s very important.’ The voice was still high-pitched but practically at a whisper.
‘What?’ asked Popov.
‘I believe Lvov. That he and his family will probably be killed, either way. Coming to us… trying to get the people arrested… isn’t going to protect him enough. Just as there won’t be sufficient protection for me if I take part in whatever operation is mounted…‘
‘You mean you don’t want to take part?’ demanded Natalia.
For the first time Oskin smiled, a sad expression. ‘That wouldn’t protect me either. They know here I’m a Militia officer: know nothing could have been set up without my being involved. There’ll be retribution afterwards, whatever happens.’
Oskin had a wife and two sons, Natalia remembered, from the personnel file. ‘What then?’
‘A transfer back to Moscow. If I am not withdrawn I shall be killed. My family too. It wouldn’t just be the nuclear theft. I’d be blamed for the clean-up you’ve just ordered.’
Natalia was aware of the enquiring look from Popov. If Lvov were right and there was a Moscow Family as well as a local organized crime group involved then Oskin was hardly going to be any safer back in the capital. She let her mind run on, trying fully to assimilate what she was being told. Which was staggering – still difficult for her totally to believe – even if it were only half true. As it was equally impossible to believe that one provincial region and one provincial capital was unique in the corruption of its law and order mechanism. So there had to be others. Could the rot really be so bad? If it were – again, if it were only half true – the bad was inevitably going to overwhelm the good. Resulting in what? Chaos, she supposed: anarchic chaos. Too sweepingly catastrophic, she thought at once, refusing the despair. The situation – of which she still had no definite evidence, just the insistence of one very frightened and possibly paranoid man – in one town couldn’t be magnified by any over-active stretch of imagination into applying to a whole country, certainly not a whole country the size of Russia. Neither could, or should, the possibility of an enormous problem be overlooked. So what could she do? Hers was a specific division, in reality quite separate from the regular Militia and other law enforcement organizations, each of which had their own specific directors and chairmen ascending pyramid-fashion to the pinnacle upon which sat the Interior Minister himself. Did she have enough credible authority to emerge beyond her own department to make allegations other directors would inevitably infer to be criticism of their efficient control, organizational ability and honesty, both personal and professional? Natalia didn’t know the full answer. What she was sure about, without any doubt whatsoever, was that if she failed with this nuclear investigation, her own efficiency and organizational ability would be so destroyed she wouldn’t have any credibility left to achieve anything.
‘Well?’ finally prompted Popov, impatiently.
Natalia had been so immersed in her own reflections she momentarily had difficulty refocusing on what Oskin had asked. ‘You’ll be moved back to Moscow. You have my word.’
The tiny fat man straightened in his chair, as if relieved of a physical burden. ‘I am not a coward. Or a weak man.’
‘You’ve proved that already.’
‘It’s not easy to be honest in Russia. Much easier to be the other way.’
‘I know that.’
Popov stretched out a reassuring hand to Oskin’s shoulder. ‘You see! I told you it would be all right!’
Oskin kept his attention upon the door but did appear to relax, slightly. Natalia decided on the spot to move in a Moscow prevention squad hand-picked by Popov. To prevent any leakage of their movements, they would be helicoptered in at the last moment, although not to the airport. She and Popov would rely upon Oskin to designate somewhere close to the city or even nearer to Kirs itself, further to maintain the element of surprise. Trucks would be sent in advance, again from Moscow, for the final assault, with the helicopters kept on standby for any eventuality. Both men agreed Oskin could safely and without arousing suspicion get to Moscow for the final planning session by Natalia officially summoning him for reassignment talks, which was virtually the truth. Natalia agreed to the man’s family accompanying him then, to get them away from the area before the robbery attempt.
Natalia found herself instinctively employing her old debriefing techniques to take Oskin from the very beginning of Lvov’s disclosure, letting the man generalize as Popov had earlier generalized but then returning him to points of his story she wanted in more detail, hiding her disappointment at the final awareness that there was little more than what Popov had previously told her.
She didn’t have to hide it from Popov. He broke in as soon as Oskin began to repeat himself and Natalia reluctantly agreed they’d taken everything as far as they could, at that stage. The cautious Oskin left first with assurances to provide all the available photographs of the Yatisyna clan before their meeting the following day with Valeri Lvov. With Popov totally familiar with the city, it took the two men only minutes to fix a handover rendezvous.
Natalia accepted there was no reason for both of them to keep it. Popov said it would take him about an hour and Natalia decided to go to the cathedral, briefly shutting herself off from talk of murder and mass slaughter amid the incensed-calm of the baroque and filigreed church. She lit a candle for Sasha and then, upon second thoughts, added one from Popov and another for herself. She prayed for all their safety and for guidance in the immediate weeks to follow and still with time to spare sat half-listening to a black-bearded, black-robed prelate incanting the creed. She actually stayed longer than she should, reluctant to quit a sanctuary in which she felt cocooned and safe from the uncertainties outside.
Popov was already at the hotel when she got back, briefcase between his feet. He started up, the annoyance obvious. Before he could s
peak she said, ‘I’ve been to church. Prayed for us.’
Popov, whom she knew had no religion, said curtly, ‘We’re going to need more than prayers.’
‘How much stuff did Oskin have?’
‘Enough.’
Natalia accepted tension would be inevitable in all of them in the coming days. And just as inevitably probably get worse. ‘Let’s hope it is.’
The trip towards Kirs showed Natalia how thickly the region was forested. They seemed to drive, mostly in silence, constantly through canyons of tight-together trees. She supposed there were cleared areas in which helicopters could set down but driving along this road it was difficult to imagine where. It was, she recognized, superb ambush country. And then accepted the cover would be as good for those they were trying to trap as for themselves. Several times they were slowed practically to a walking pace by huge, flat-bed lorries piled high with chained-in-place cargoes of tree trunks. On four occasions Popov pointed out covered trucks marked with an insignia he identified as that of the nuclear plant, although there was no recognizable lettering: two vehicles in convoy were escorted by uniformed militia motorcyclists, headlights on to clear slower vehicles out of their way.
‘Does that happen a lot?’ asked Natalia.
‘I’ve never seen it before.’ Then, abruptly, Popov pointed to her left and said, ‘There!’
There was no immediate, positive break in the trees but then Natalia saw a slip road with a barriered control post some way back from the main highway. And beyond, just visible through the tree screen, four chimneys and what looked like a tower block, although they passed too quickly for her to be sure.
‘It doesn’t have a name, just a number,’ said Popov, formally. ‘Sixty nine.’
‘Where’s the town?’
‘Another four or five kilometres.’
Natalia guessed it was a further two, maybe a little less, before the treeline began to thin and finally straggle into a rolling plain. Almost at once Popov turned off to the right. The road was unmade and holed, jarring Natalia in her seat. It got worse when the hardcore trailed away into a dirt track, snarled with exposed roots and deeper holes. Very quickly the terrain became moonscape, undulating hills and low valleys with little ground covering until they came to a bowl-like core, an enormous open area sloping down for what must have been almost two kilometres to a lake at its bottom. Here there were a few stunted trees and when they got close to the water’s edge Natalia saw a small jetty protruding into the lake from an old and lopsided hut. Popov carefully took their car around to the rear of the ramshackle building and parked as close as he could to it on the side furthest from the lake. Here the trees were substantially although oddly thicker, the last hair on a bald head.
As Natalia got out she physically shivered at the cold desolation. ‘What happened here?’
‘An accident a very long time ago, just after the Great Patriotic War,’ said Popov. ‘This was where 69 was originally sited. They had to move it.’
‘Is it safe?’
‘Lvov says so. They’ve carried out tests. People eat the fish from the lake, fishermen built this hut.’
‘This is where we meet him?’
‘His choice, like Oskin’s last night. Anyone following would be visible for a very long way.’
Natalia shivered again, acknowledging the security. ‘This is all so…’
‘… Ridiculous?’ suggested Popov, when she trailed to a halt.
‘I wasn’t going to say that. I’m not sure what I was going to say.’ She started at a sound from inside the hut, jerking around to Popov.
‘He had to be here first, to see it’s safe,’ said the man, gripping her arm for reassurance. ‘If it hadn’t been he would have left, through the trees back there.’
The hut was dark, a square box without any furniture apart from benches along two walls and closed cupboards along a third, and actually smelled sourly of fish. There were other smells, too: the rot and decay of dampness. There was a rod and a small bag along one of the benches, which Natalia assumed belonged to the man waiting for them.
Valeri Lvov was thick-set but not fat and his hair was turning from grey into complete white. The shirt was stained and sweat-ringed under the arms and the boots into which the rough work trousers were tucked looked uniform issue. He stood half to attention, like Oskin had the previous night, but with his hands cupped before him, holding the cap he’d taken off as a further mark of respect. He appeared as surprised as Oskin that Natalia offered her hand, responding hesitantly. Lvov’s hand was wet and greasy. There was a nervous tic jerking near his left eye and his lower lip pulled constantly between his teeth.
Natalia didn’t want to sit – she didn’t want to be in the stinking hut – but did so in the hope of relaxing the man. He remained standing until she suggested he sit, too. He did so quite deliberately on the bench opposite and Natalia realized that from where he had chosen Lvov could see the track along which anyone had to approach through a split in one of the badly placed planks.
It was much more difficult than it had been with Oskin to urge the man through his story. He contradicted himself on the date of the first approach and on the day he was taken off the trolley car by the two strangers he was sure came from Moscow. When Natalia asked why, in contrast, he could remember their list of demands, Lvov said it had been written down: they had told him to memorize it. He didn’t have the list any more because they’d ordered him to destroy it. That had been before he was able to tell Oskin and felt he had to do everything they told him, to keep his family safe.
‘I know it was wrong. Stupid. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s done now,’ accepted Natalia. Judging it fitted this part of Lvov’s account, she took him through the Yatisyna Family Militia photographs. Lvov didn’t hurry, holding several prints up to the better light from the single, unglassed window.
‘No,’ he said, finally, offering the package back to her.
‘None at all?’ pressed Popov.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ soothed Natalia, the expert debriefer. ‘We only want what you’re sure of. Don’t tell us anything you think we want to hear that isn’t true. Or exaggerated.’
‘I’m sure they’re going to kill me! Harm my family!’ Lvov burst out, answering her literally.
Natalia remained silent for several moments, reaching a decision. ‘You were in the Militia, once?’
‘At the Kirov headquarters,’ confirmed Lvov. ‘That’s how I met Major Oskin. He arrived a month before I left. I’d already resigned.’
‘Why did you resign?’
‘I wouldn’t become part of the system. Become crooked. So they made it hell for me. No one talked with me, accepted me. I had to eat alone, in the canteen. Got all the worst shifts, all the time. They put shit in my locker, sometimes into my boots. There were phone calls to my wife at one or two in the morning with no one at the other end when I was working nights. Other times they were obscene: men saying they were coming around to screw my daughters while she had to watch
…’
Positively, Natalia announced, ‘I promise you that neither you nor your family will be harmed, for what you have done. And are doing, to help us. I will take you back into the Militia. Not here. In Moscow. I’ll transfer you and your family away from here, to where you’ll be safe.’ I hope, she thought. She was aware of Popov’s look of surprise but didn’t respond.
Like Oskin the previous night, there was almost a visible lift of pressure from the man. ‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’
Natalia coaxed Lvov on details, establishing there were two service roads into the complex other than the one she had already seen, also guarded by control posts operating road barriers. The plant was entirely circled by an electrified fence, which at night was permanently lit. The guard contingent had consisted of fifty men but that was being scaled down like everything else in the decommissioning.
Natalia picked on the word, risking the deflection. �
�On our way here today we passed some lorries, going in the opposite direction. There was a small convoy with motorcycle outriders?’
Lvov nodded. That’s part of it. A lot of stuff is being moved from Kirov, by special trains. Mostly to one of the closed-city sites around Gorkiy. It’s going to go on for several months.’
‘ Had!’ declared Natalia, realizing the mistake of going off at a tangent.
Both men frowned at her, bewildered.
‘Had,’ she repeated, to Lvov. ‘You said the guard contingent had consisted of fifty men. But that it was being scaled down?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Lvov, doubtfully.
‘So what is it now?’
‘Fifteen. I’m the lieutenant in charge.’
‘So how properly can you fill your rosters? Police everything?’
‘We can’t,’ admitted Lvov, in a puzzled voice as if he thought Natalia already knew that.
Beside her Popov stirred and Natalia guessed the information was new to him. ‘So what do you do?’
‘We don’t man the perimeter guard towers at night any more. Or mount the perimeter patrols we used to…’ Defensively, Lvov hurried on, ‘The bunker security… the entry combinations and the codes… are very good. They’re changed, daily. That’s enough, really.’
‘What about the guard posts on the entry roads?’ prompted Natalia.
‘That’s where I assign the officers I’m left with: the most obvious places.’
‘Day and night?’ she challenged, expectantly.
‘When I can. I’ve sometimes got to come down to one man.’
Natalia felt the satisfaction warm through her. She looked sideways at Popov, surprised he didn’t answer her smile. ‘They want the codes and security strengths from you?’
Lvov frowned towards Popov, then back to Natalia. ‘I told you that! I told Colonel Popov, too!’
‘Not in the way we understood it,’ said Natalia, sympathetically.
‘So because you’ve got to set them, you know in advance the main and subsidiary gate entry codes?’
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