‘Yes, and we were extremely lucky to lure Leonard Slatkin from St Louis,’ said Ben Thompson. Maggie was surprised that he didn’t offer to buy her a drink, and when she finally ordered an orange juice, she was even more puzzled when he made no attempt to pay for it.
‘Connor is so looking forward to joining you all at Washington Provident,’ she said, taking a sip of her juice. Elizabeth Thompson appeared surprised, but didn’t comment.
‘He’s particularly grateful to you, Ben, for allowing him to put it off for a month so he could complete that unfinished contract for his old firm.’
Elizabeth was just about to say something when the three-minute bell sounded.
Well, we’d better get back to our seats,’ said Ben Thompson, although his wife had only half-finished her drink. ‘Nice to have seen you again, Mrs Fitzgerald.’ He took his wife firmly by the arm and guided her towards the auditorium. ‘I hope you enjoy the second act.’
Maggie didn’t enjoy the second act. She couldn’t concentrate, as the conversation that had just taken place in the foyer kept running through her mind. But however many times she went over it, she couldn’t reconcile his attitude with what had taken place at the Thompsons’ only a fortnight before. If she had known how to get in touch with Connor, she would have broken the rule of a lifetime and phoned him. So she did the next best thing. The moment she arrived home, she called Joan Bennett again.
The phone rang and rang.
The following morning Connor rose early. He had settled his bill in cash, hailed a taxi and was on his way to Heathrow before the duty porter even realised he’d left. At seven forty he boarded Swissair Flight 839 to Geneva. The flight took just under two hours, and he readjusted his watch to ten thirty as the wheels of the aircraft touched the ground.
During the stopover he took advantage of Swissair’s offer to take a shower. He entered the ‘exclusive facility’ - the description in their in-flight magazine - as Theodore Lilystrand, an investment banker from Stockholm, and emerged forty minutes later as Piet de Villiers, a reporter with the Johannesburg Mercury.
Even though he still had over an hour to kill, Connor did not browse in any of the duty-free shops, buying only a croissant and a cup of coffee from one of the most expensive restaurants in the world.
Eventually he walked across to Gate 23. There wasn’t a long queue for the Aeroflot flight to St Petersburg. When the passengers were called a few minutes later, he made his way to the back of the aircraft. He began to think about what needed to be done the following morning, once the train had pulled in to Moscow’s Raveltay station. He went over the Deputy Director’s final briefing again, wondering why Gutenburg had repeated the words, ‘Don’t get caught. But if you are, deny absolutely that you have anything to do with the CIA. Don’t worry - the Company will always take care of you.’
Only raw recruits were ever reminded of the Eleventh Commandment.
‘The flight to St Petersburg has just taken off, and our package is on board.’
‘Good,’ said Gutenburg. Anything else to report?’
‘I don’t think so,’ replied the young CIA agent. He hesitated. ‘Except…’
‘Except what? Come on, spit it out.’
‘It’s just that I thought I recognised someone else who boarded the plane.’
‘Who was it?’ snapped Gutenburg.
‘I can’t remember his name, and I’m not that certain it was him. I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off Fitzgerald for more than a few seconds.’
‘If you remember who it was, call me immediately.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The young man switched off his phone and made his way to Gate 9. In a few hours he would be back behind his desk in Berne, resuming his role as Cultural Attache at the American Embassy.
‘Good morning. This is Helen Dexter.’
‘Good morning, Director,’ replied the White House Chief of Staff stiffly.
‘I thought the President would want to know immediately that the man he asked us to track down in South Africa is on the move again.’
‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ said Lloyd.
‘The head of our Johannesburg office has just informed me that Guzman’s killer boarded a South African Airways flight to London two days ago. He was carrying a passport in the name of Martin Perry. He only stayed in London overnight. The following morning he took a Swissair flight to Geneva, using a Swedish passport in the name of Theodore Lilystrand.’
Lloyd didn’t interrupt her this time. After all, he could play the tape back if the President wanted to hear exactly what she had said.
At Geneva he boarded an Aeroflot flight to St Petersburg. This time he was carrying a South African passport in the name of Piet de Villiers. From St Petersburg, he took the overnight train to Moscow.’
‘Moscow? Why Moscow?’ asked Lloyd.
‘If I recall correctly,’ said Dexter, ‘an election is about to take place in Russia.’
When the plane landed in St Petersburg, Connor’s watch claimed that it was five fifty. He yawned, stretched and waited for the aircraft to taxi to a halt before altering the hands to local time. He looked out of the window at an airport that was in semi-darkness because half the lightbulbs were missing. Light snow was falling, but didn’t settle. The hundred weary passengers had to wait another twenty minutes before a bus arrived to transport them to the terminal. Some things simply didn’t change, whether the KGB or organised criminals were in charge. Americans had come to refer to them as the Mafya, to avoid confusion with the Italian version.
Connor was the last to leave the aircraft, and the last to get off the bus.
A man who had travelled first class on the same flight rushed to the front of the queue to be sure of being the first through immigration and customs. He was grateful that Connor followed the textbook routine. Once the man had stepped off the bus, he never looked back. He knew Connor’s eyes would always be moving.
When Connor walked out of the airport onto the pot-holed road thirty minutes later, he hailed the first available taxi and asked to be taken to Protsky station.
The first-class traveller followed Connor into the booking hall, which looked more like an opera house than a railway station. He watched closely to see which train he would be boarding. But there was another man standing in the shadows who even knew the number of the sleeping compartment he would be occupying.
The American Cultural Attache in St Petersburg had passed up an invitation to the Kirov Ballet that evening so he could inform Gutenburg when Fitzgerald had boarded the overnight train to Moscow. It wouldn’t be necessary to accompany him on the journey, as Ashley Mitchell, his colleague in the capital, would be waiting on Platform 4 the following morning to confirm that Fitzgerald had reached his destination. It had been made clear to the Attache that this was Mitchell’s operation.
‘One first-class sleeper to Moscow,’ said Connor in English to the booking clerk.
The man pushed a ticket across the wooden counter, and was disappointed when the customer handed over a ten-thousand-rouble note. He had been hoping that this passenger would give him an opportunity to make a small turn on the exchange rate - his second that night.
Connor checked his ticket before making his way towards the Moscow express. He walked down the crowded platform, passing several old green carriages that looked as if they predated the 1917 Revolution, stopped at Coach K and presented his ticket to a woman standing by the open door. She clipped it and stood aside to allow him to climb aboard. Connor strolled down the corridor, looking for booth Number 8. Once he had found it, he switched on the light and locked himself in; not because he was afraid of being robbed by bandits, as was so often reported in the American press, but because he needed to change his identity once again.
He had seen the fresh-faced youth standing under the arrivals board at Geneva airport, and had wondered where they were recruiting them from these days. He didn’t bother trying to spot the agent in St Petersburg: he knew someone would be there to chec
k on his arrival, and someone else would be waiting on the platform in Moscow. Gutenburg had already briefed him fully on Agent Mitchell, who he had described as fairly raw, and unaware of Fitzgerald’s status as an NOC.
The train left St Petersburg at exactly one minute to midnight, and the gentle, rhythmic sound of the carriage wheels clattering over the tracks soon made Connor feel drowsy. He woke with a start, and checked his watch: four thirty-seven. The most sleep he’d managed in the past three nights.
Then he recalled his dream. He had been sitting on a bench in Lafayette Square, facing the White House and talking with someone who never once looked in his direction. The meeting he’d had with the Deputy Director the previous week was being replayed word for word, but he couldn’t recall what it was about the conversation that continued to nag away at him. Just as Gutenburg came to the sentence he wanted to hear repeated, he had woken up.
He was no nearer to solving the problem when the train pulled in to Raveltay station at eight thirty-three that morning.
‘Where are you?’ asked Andy Lloyd.
A phone booth in Moscow,’ Jackson replied. ‘Via London, Geneva and St Petersburg. As soon as he got off the train he led us all on a wild goose chase. He managed to lose our man in Moscow in less than ten minutes. If it hadn’t been me who taught him the doubling-back technique in the first place, he would have shaken me off as well.’
‘Where did he end up?’ asked Lloyd.
‘He checked into a small hotel on the north side of the city.’
‘Is he still there?’
‘No, he left about an hour later, but he was so well disguised that I nearly missed him myself. If it hadn’t been for the walk, he might have given me the slip.’
‘Where did he go?’ asked Lloyd.
‘He took another circuitous route, and ended up at the campaign headquarters of Victor Zerimski.’
‘Why Zerimski?’
‘I don’t know yet, but he came out of the building carrying all Zerimski’s campaign literature. Then he bought a map from a news-stand and had lunch in a nearby restaurant. In the afternoon, he hired a small car and returned to his hotel. He hasn’t left the building since.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Lloyd suddenly. ‘It’s going to be Zerimski this time.’
There was a long pause at the other end of the line before Jackson said, ‘No, Mr Lloyd, that’s not possible.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’d never agree to carry out such a sensitive assignment unless the order had come directly from the White House. I’ve known him long enough to be certain of that.’
‘Try not to forget that your friend carried out exactly the same assignment in Colombia. No doubt Dexter was able to convince him that that operation had also been sanctioned by the President.’
‘There could be an alternative scenario,’ said Jackson quietly.
‘Namely?’
‘That it’s not Zerimski they’re planning to kill, but Connor.’
Lloyd wrote the name down on his yellow pad.
BOOK TWO
THE LONER
12
‘AMERICAN?’
‘Yes,’ said Jackson, not looking down at the source of the piping voice.
‘You need anything?’
‘No thanks,’ he said, still not taking his eyes off the front door of the hotel.
‘You must need something. Americans always need something.’
‘I don’t need anything. Now go away,’ said Jackson firmly.
‘Caviar? Russian dolls? General’s uniform? Fur hat? Woman?’
Jackson looked down at the boy for the first time. He was draped from head to toe in a sheepskin jacket three sizes too large for him. On his head he wore a cap made out of rabbitskin that Jackson felt he needed more every minute. The boy’s smile revealed two missing teeth.
‘A woman? At five o’clock in the morning?’
‘Good time for woman. But perhaps you prefer man?’
‘How much do you charge for your services?’
‘What type of services?’ asked the boy, looking suspicious.
‘As a runner.’
‘Runner?’
‘Helper, then.’
‘Helper?’
‘Assistant.’
‘Ah, you mean partner, like in American movies.’
‘OK, so now we’ve agreed on your job description, wiseguy, how much do you charge?’
‘Per day? Per week? Per month?’
‘Per hour.’
‘How much you offer?’
‘Quite the little entrepreneur, aren’t we?’
‘We learn from Americans,’ said the boy, with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
‘One dollar,’ said Jackson.
The boy began laughing. ‘I may be wiseguy, but you are comedian. Ten dollars.’
‘That’s nothing less than extortion.’
The boy looked puzzled for the first time.
‘I’ll give you two.’
‘Six.’
‘Four.’
‘Five.’
‘Agreed,’ said Jackson.
The boy raised the palm of his right hand high in the air, something else he’d seen in American movies. Jackson slapped it. The deal was struck. The boy immediately checked the time on his Rolex watch.
‘So, what’s your name?’ Jackson asked.
‘Sergei,’ replied the boy. ‘And yours?’
‘Jackson. How old are you, Sergei?’
‘How old you want me to be?’
‘Cut the crap and tell me your age.’
‘Fourteen.’
‘You’re not a day over nine.’
‘Thirteen.’
‘Ten.’
‘Eleven.’
‘OK,’ said Jackson. ‘I’ll settle for eleven.’
‘And how old are you?’ demanded the boy.
‘Fifty-four.’
‘I’ll settle for fifty-four,’ said Sergei.
Jackson laughed for the first time in days. ‘How come your English is so good?’ he asked, still keeping an eye on the hotel door.
‘My mother live with American for long time. He return to States last year, but not take us.’
This time Jackson believed he was telling the truth.
‘So what’s the job, partner?’ asked Sergei.
‘We’re keeping an eye on someone who’s staying at that hotel’
‘Is a friend or enemy?’
‘Friend.’
‘Mafya?’
‘No, he works for the good guys.’
‘Don’t treat me like child,’ said Sergei, with an edge to his voice. ‘We’re partners, remember.’
‘OK, Sergei. He’s a friend,’ said Jackson, just as Connor appeared in the doorway. ‘Don’t move.’ He placed a hand firmly on the boy’s shoulder.
‘Is that him?’ asked Sergei.
‘Yes, that’s him.’
‘He has kind face. Maybe better I work for him.’
Victor Zerimski’s day hadn’t begun well, and it was still only a few minutes past eight a.m. He was chairing a meeting of the Central Council of the Communist Party which was being briefed by Dmitri Titov, his Chief of Staff.
‘An international body of observers has arrived in Moscow to monitor the electoral process,’ Titov was telling them. ‘They are looking principally for any suggestion of ballot-rigging, but their chairman has already admitted that with an electorate so vast and so widespread, there is no way they can spot every irregularity.’ Titov ended his report by saying that now that Comrade Zerimski had climbed to second place in the polls, the Mafya were pouring even more money into Chernopov’s campaign.
Zerimski stroked his thick moustache as he looked in turn at each of the men seated round the table. ‘When I am President,’ he said, rising from his place at the head of the table, ‘I’ll throw those Mafya bastards in jail one by one. Then the only thing they’ll count for the rest of their lives will be rocks.’ The members of the Central Council
had heard their leader lambast the Mafya many times before, though he never mentioned them by name in public.
The short, muscle-bound man thumped the table. ‘Russia needs to return to the old-fashioned values the rest of the world used to respect us for.’ The twenty-one men facing him nodded, despite having heard these words repeatedly over the past few months.
‘For ten years we have done nothing but import the worst America has to offer.’
They continued to nod, and kept their eyes firmly fixed on him.
Zerimski ran a hand through his thick black hair, sighed, and slumped back into his chair. He looked across at his Chief of Staff. ‘What am I doing this morning?’
‘You’re paying a visit to the Pushkin Museum,’ said Titov. ‘They’re expecting you at ten o’clock.’
‘Cancel it. A complete waste of time when there are only eight days until the election.’ He banged the table again. ‘I should be out on the streets where the people can see me.’
‘But the director of the museum has applied for a grant from the government to restore the works of leading Russian artists,’ said Titov.
‘A waste of the people’s money,’ said Zerimski.
‘And Chernopov has been criticised for cutting the arts subsidy,’ continued the Chief of Staff.
‘All right. I’ll give them fifteen minutes.’
‘Twenty thousand Russians visit the Pushkin every week,’ Titov added, looking down at the typewritten notes in front of him.
‘Make it thirty minutes.’
‘And Chernopov accused you on television last week of being an uneducated thug.’
‘He did what?’ bellowed Zerimski. ‘I was studying law at Moscow University when Chernopov was still a farm labourer.’
‘That is of course true, Chairman,’ said Titov, ‘but our internal polls show that it is not the public perception, and that Chernopov is getting his message across.’
‘Internal polls? Something else we have to thank the Americans for.’
‘They put Tom Lawrence in office.’
‘Once I’m elected, I won’t need polls to keep me in office.’
The Eleventh Commandment (1998) Page 11