‘Of course,’ said the resident intelligence officer.
Charlie sent all the photographs, even the women, wanting the unnecessary comparisons to take as long as possible.
The choice of the railway terminal as a meeting spot was professionally excellent, crowded with passengers and noise amongst which it was easy for Vasili Zenin to merge invisibly. With his customary caution he arrived thirty minutes early, the mistake of taking the woman back to the apartment still nagging irritatingly in his mind and determined against any further relaxation.
He found a slightly raised section near the northern departure gates from which it was possible for him to maintain an elevated watch, alert as he had been at the restaurant the previous day for any surveillance build-up and like the previous day isolating nothing about which to become alarmed.
Zenin picked out Sulafeh almost as soon as she entered the vast concourse, immediately curious at the woman’s demeanour. She was hurrying and darting bird-like looks around her, behaving quite differently from the way she had when he’d followed her from the Palestinian hotel and Zenin’s initial impression was that she had herself spotted someone in pursuit whom he’d missed. Anxiously he scanned the crowd around and behind her, letting their planned meeting time pass while he searched, unable to detect anything.
He still approached cautiously, until the last moment hiding himself from her, conscious as he got closer of her continued nervous fidgeting. Sulafeh thrust forward when he let her see him at last, holding out her hand almost in some sort of plea, her face twisted as if she were in physical pain.
‘What is it!’ he said.
‘It’s not going to work!’ she said. ‘It can’t work, not now!’
Chapter Twenty-nine
It only took minutes for Vasili Zenin to realize the woman’s attitude was fuelled by anger and not anxiety but longer to discover the reason because so furious was she that her thoughts and words came disjointed, without any comprehensible thread. He held the hand she offered and talked over her, telling her to stop and become calm but had to say it several times before she ceased babbling, her throat moving as if she were literally swallowing the words. As she did so the tension went visibly from her, so that she seemed to sag in front of him.
Zenin looked quickly around, judging it safe to talk where they were at least until he got some reason for her attitude, and said: ‘OK. But slowly now. Why can’t it work!’
‘Dajani,’ she started, the explanation still jumbled. ‘The other translator, the one I told you about.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘He was waiting for me when I got back to the hotel after I left you: and began the usual stuff. I couldn’t stand it, so I told him to go to hell,’ expanded Sulafeh. ‘When I got to the Palais des Nations this morning I was called in by our secretariat Director; his name is Zeidan. He said there were to be some changes to the translation rota. I’ve been relegated. For everything.’
‘The photographic session?’ demanded Zenin, at once.
‘That’s why it can’t work now,’ said the woman. ‘I specifically asked about the ceremony. He said Dajani would definitely lead there. They published this morning for secretariat guidance the positions in which everyone will be standing — I’ve brought it with me. I shall be at least twenty yards away.’
She was right, accepted the Russian, it couldn’t work now. He looked around him again, deciding they had been there long enough. And he needed time to think. He cupped her arm in his, conscious of the anger still trembling through her, and said: ‘Let’s go and find a cafe.’
Sulafeh fell obediently into step beside him, enjoying his touch, the frustration ebbing away: he’d think of something, she knew. Make it all possible. She felt completely protected — confident, too — now that she was with him.
Zenin took her to the first reasonably sized cafe they encountered, on the corner of the Rue Fendt: there were pavement tables but he went inside and got a booth in a corner near the bar, where they were quite hidden. He retained her hand across the table, aware she needed his touch, pressing her fingers against any conversation until they had ordered and the waiter had delivered the drinks — mineral water, retaining the pretence — and then said: ‘I want to go through everything, know it all. Why won’t it work? How is Dajani involved?’
‘Because I asked specifically about that, too,’ said Sulafeh. ‘It was always the intention for me to lead the photographic session: I manoeuvred for that particular appointment for months, because it was so important. Obviously I reminded Zeidan. He said Dajani came to him this morning. Said it might offend the other Arab delegations to have a woman in such apparent importance. Sexist bastard!’
The operation had always been structured for the aftermath to be more important than the actual killing and the cornerstone of that structure was the woman’s involvement, Zenin knew: whatever an unknown man named Dajani had done was almost immaterial. The one consideration was to get Sulafeh Nabulsi within apparent killing distance of the assembled delegations because the Palestinians had to be blamed. He said: ‘There is no possibility of persuading …’ He stopped, searching for the name. ‘… Zeidan,’ he resumed, remembering. ‘No possibility of persuading Zeidan to reverse the change?’
‘None.’
‘Is he someone else who’s tried to get you into bed?’
Sulafeh hesitated, finding the conversation more difficult than before because of what had happened between them. Reluctantly she said: ‘Yes.’
‘Have you?’
‘No.’
‘Would it work?’
She wished so much he hadn’t asked like that: as if he were talking about some other woman and not her. She said: ‘There’s not enough time.’
‘No,’ he agreed, his voice distant, his thoughts quite detached, ‘there’s not enough time …’ And then he stopped, smiling, coming back to her. ‘Time!’ he said. ‘There’s not enough time!’
Sulafeh regarded him curiously. She said: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘There are only two of you, as translators? You and this man Dajani?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long did your selection take?’
‘Me, about six months. Him, I don’t know.’
‘And there’s been a long preparation?’
‘Of course,’ said Sulafeh. ‘We’ve had to memorize the position papers and be able to recognize the delegation spokesmen for the translation to be simultaneous …’ Now she smiled, at an irony by which she imagined he would be amused. ‘And we had to be acknowledged acceptable by everyone attending.’
Zenin continued smiling but at his own hardening resolve to the problem, not what she regarded as amusing. He pressed her hand again but more sensually this time. ‘If anything happened to Dajani there would not be enough time to prepare a replacement, would there? You’d have to be restored to the original arrangement?’
‘No,’ she agreed, with slowly growing awareness. At once came the caution, mixed with the memory of her excitement. ‘But when I told you Dajani could be a nuisance you said you couldn’t risk attention by killing him.’
‘I’m not thinking of killing him,’ said the Russian, ‘just removing him.’
‘Could you do it? So that it would create a problem, I mean?’ asked Sulafeh, feeling that coveted excitement stir again.
‘Yes,’ said Zenin. ‘I could do it. But I’ll need your help.’
‘It would be a pleasure,’ she said, a remark as much for her own benefit as to reassure him.
Zenin’s earlier street-by-street movement about the city well equipped him to know best where to look. He wanted narrow roads as little used at night-time as possible, so it had to be the old part of the city. It meant crossing the river so they took a taxi to the Pont de l’Ile, where Zenin paid it off to go the rest of the way on foot. They went slowly along the Rue de la Corraterie towards the Place Neuve, Sulafeh contentedly holding on to Zenin’s arm with no idea of the purpose for t
he reconnaissance but blissfully content just to be with him. The need was for a meeting place with only one possible approach and Zenin had actually to go beyond the Place, near the university park, to find it, a narrow, winding cul-de-sac with alleyways off and a striped-awning bistro at its top. The length of possible vision was important, so while he remained out of sight in the shadows Zenin sent Sulafeh right up to the bistro, ostensibly to study the menu, while he edged back to the last point from which the necessary signal would be discernible. He was completely concealed in one of the bordering alleys when she returned and he set the test, pleased that she obviously could not see him until he reached out to stop her.
‘I don’t understand what I am supposed to be doing,’ Sulafeh protested.
‘You will,’ assured Zenin. ‘It’s perfect.’
‘What do I do now?’
‘You telephone your hotel and speak to Dajani,’ instructed Zenin. ‘You say that you’re sorry about your rudeness last night. That you want properly to apologize and that you’d very much like to explore the city with him.’
‘What!’
Zenin ignored her surprise. ‘Tell him that you’ve found a discreet bistro …’ Zenin stopped, nodding beyond her. ‘Arrange to meet him there and be precise about the time.’ Zenin looked at his watch. ‘Two hours from now. You arrive early to get one of those outside seats, with a view of this road. I don’t know what the bastard looks like, so I’ll need a signal to go with the physical description you’re going to give me. I shall be concentrating entirely upon you. The moment that you see him, put your napkin to your lips; that’ll be the signal.’
‘What then?’
‘You wait for five minutes, then pay for your drink and walk back along this cul-de-sac. I’ll pick you up, as you pass.’
‘What are you going to do to him!’
Zenin detected the thickness of anticipation in her voice and looked at her curiously. He said: ‘Remove him as a problem, like I said.’
‘Can I see you do it!’
‘Of course not: you can’t be involved.’
‘Afterwards then!’
‘No,’ he refused.
‘Please!’
‘I said no.’
‘Tell me about it later then, at the apartment?’
Zenin hesitated and said: ‘In all the detail that you want.’ He’d never known a woman excited in this way before.
They went back out on to the busier Place Neuve and Sulafeh called the Barthelemy-Menn hotel from a brightly lit bar. Zenin stayed against the bar, drinking the pastis he’d bought to justify their use of the telephone, apprehensively aware of the uncertainty of Dajani being there and not even relaxing when he saw her obviously in conversation because it could have been with another member of the delegation.
She was smiling when she came back towards him and he said: ‘Well?’
‘He promised not to be late.’
He relaxed then, answering her smile. ‘I hope he won’t be,’ he said.
He offered dinner but she said she was too tense to relax over a meal so they had another drink and left with an hour to spare before the arranged meeting. To avoid being conspicuous in the confined cul-de-sac Zenin led her into the park and she pulled herself closer to him and asked him if he could guess what she wanted to do, here and now on the grass, and he said he could but they would have to wait until later, back at the apartment. Instead he took her again through everything he wanted her to do and made her repeat it, to ensure that she completely understood. Then he had Sulafeh provide as detailed a description as she could manage of Mohammed Dajani, querying and probing to add to it when she protested there was no more to describe because he knew there would be under questioning, which there was.
Sulafeh got a kerbside seat in the bistro half an hour before Dajani was due to arrive and carefully following his instructions she dabbed her lips with her red-checked napkin after the first sip of her wine, as an insurance that the signal was still visible now that it had become darker and a rehearsal for later. Zenin saw it perfectly. He pulled into the blackened alleyway, vaguely aware of distant sounds, a radio and a child crying. The crying went on for a long time and became more and more distressed and the assassin thought how cruel it was to abandon a child like that. The cul-de-sac was comparatively busy but the alleyway in which he waited remained deserted and Zenin decided again it was an excellent choice.
Tonight would be the last night she would be able to return with him to the apartment, Zenin realized: the last night they would make love, in fact. The following day he had to retrieve the rifle from the Bern garage and set it up in the Colombettes apartment to carry out the full rehearsal, strapped into the harness. He didn’t want her back there, once he’d assembled everything. She’d been an interlude, an enjoyable way of filling in the time, but after tonight it would be over. A pity, in some ways; she really had been incredible in bed. Possibly the best he had ever known.
He remained constantly alert to the time, clearing his mind of any outside reflection and concentrating entirely upon Sulafeh Nabulsi fifteen minutes before the Palestinian was due to arrive. Which was fortunate because the man was early.
Warned of the approach by the napkin signal Zenin turned away, looking directly into the cul-de-sac, recognizing Dajani at once. Dajani was as fat and unattractive as the woman had described him, a wobbling, oddly shaped figure of a man. Zenin’s attention went immediately beyond, to anyone around his victim, seeing at once that his luck was holding: at that moment the cul-de-sac was deserted.
Dajani went to hurry by and Zenin guessed the man would be able to see Sulafeh, apparently waiting. As the Palestinian drew level Zenin snatched out, the trained attack perfectly co-ordinated. He grabbed the man at the shoulder and jerked him abruptly off balance, and pulled downwards, so that Dajani spun into the mouth of the alley. Zenin saw the man’s mouth open, the beginning of a cry, and cracked upwards with the heel of his left hand but not hard enough to kill, as he’d killed Bara-banov in that final test. All it did was drive Dajani’s mouth closed and jarred his head backwards. Zenin had the man’s coat lapels in both hands now, hauling him into the darkness and bringing his knee up into the man’s groin in the same movement. Dajani stumbled at the moment of contact and Zenin missed. He still caught the man in the groin, so the breath grunted from him in agony, but not at the breaking point so Zenin hauled him upwards and kneed him again, this time conscious of the pelvis cracking. As Dajani doubled up, Zenin chopped against the carotid artery in his neck, once more not hard enough to kill but sufficient to render him deeply unconscious.
There was a dip in the alley wall to accommodate some drainage pipes, and Zenin dragged the slumped man into the alcove. He pulled the heavy gold watch from the man’s wrist and went quickly through his pockets, to make it appear the robbery he intended the police to record. There was some accreditation identification for the conference and this Zenin was careful to throw down nearby, the action of a thief frightened to discover whom he had mugged.
He was at the entrance when Sulafeh reached it.
‘Where?’ she said, trying still.
‘Come on!’ the Russian insisted, urging her away.
‘Let’s get back to the apartment then, quickly!’
‘We’re not finished yet,’ cautioned Zenin.
They walked fast but without any obvious attention-attracting haste back down the Rue de la Corraterie to the bridge and a public telephone kiosk Zenin had spotted when they crossed earlier. He said: ‘The secretariat Director, Zeidan? Is he staying at your hotel?’
‘Yes,’ she said, curiously.
Zenin nodded towards the telephone. ‘Call him,’ he ordered. ‘Say you had an appointment tonight with Dajani but he did not turn up: ask him if he knows where Dajani is.’
‘Why?’
‘To maintain your absolute, unknowing innocence,’ said Zenin. ‘This way you are a worried colleague who has been stood up. If you don’t bother to raise what is later going to
become an alarm, there might be some suspicion.’
She smiled up at him. ‘You’re very clever, aren’t you?’
‘Careful,’ he qualified.
Sulafeh was very quick and when she came back to the Russian she said: ‘Zeidan thought there must have been some misunderstanding. He asked what I was going to do.’ She hesitated, pointedly. ‘I said I was going to eat by myself and then look around the city; that I might be late getting back. Which I want to be.’
Zenin did not bother to look at what he’d taken from Dajani’s pockets until he got back to the apartment and when he did he laughed.
‘Dajani’s a careful man, too,’ he said. ‘Look! Condoms!’
‘We’re not going to need those, are we?’ said Sulafeh.
Alexei Berenkov re-read completely the interrogation transcript and the trial record of Edwin Sampson after his return from Potma and created for himself more uncertainties than he discovered answers. It was Kalenin’s turn to eat with them, which gave Berenkov the opportunity to discuss it informally while Valentina was discreetly and customarily busying herself in the kitchen.
‘Sampson is adamant that Charlie Muffin had no part in his attempted infiltration,’ insisted Berenkov. ‘I threatened him with interrogation at the Serbsky again and to block any release approach, from the British. He still maintained his story.’
‘You believe him then?’
‘Yes,’ said Berenkov, simply.
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘With Natalia Nikandrova Fedova,’ said Berenkov, simply again.
‘She was adamant, too,’ remembered the KGB chairman. ‘At the trial she said she followed Charlie Muffin to the GUM department store and saw him meet Sampson there after they had been debriefed and separated from each other here. There was nothing she said that varied at all from what she told me the night Charlie Muffin escaped, the night she raised the alarm.’
‘I’ve read the transcript,’ said Berenkov. ‘She was hardly questioned, because of Sampson’s confession of guilt.’
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