by Dan Latus
Then Vorodin went through the rules of engagement once again. There wasn’t a lot to say, but what there was said it all. I didn’t really need Dalibor’s translation, but I listened intently anyway.
‘It is in all our interests,’ Vorodin said firmly, ‘to bring hostilities between the two parties to an end. Mr Blatko and myself are determined to do what we can to help bring that about.
‘As previously agreed, the delegates here now will seek amicable agreement. Once that is established, the two principals will be summoned to endorse the agreement. Then,’ he added with a smile, ‘our lives will be able to go on happily in this beautiful historic city.
‘Finally, let me repeat that Mr Blatko and myself will take the most serious view of any transgression of the rules of engagement. You are here in good faith, accepting our hospitality, and proceedings will be conducted in an appropriate manner.’
By which, he presumably meant, we were not to start fighting or shooting each other – or else! That was fine by me.
‘Gentlemen – and lady –’ Vorodin said in conclusion, ‘that is all I wish to say. Now I turn the proceedings over to you.’
As previously agreed, I made my pitch on behalf of Leon. It was simple enough. In return for a truce, a cessation of hostilities and agreement to draw a line under all that had happened, it was proposed to transfer ownership of the Svoboda gold mine in the Russian Far East to Bobrik.
I listed the headline figures for the mine covering age, longevity, output, reserves, and so on, and then invited Martha to present a more detailed account. She did that rather well, with Dalibor translating. She spoke crisply, and judged the pace of her delivery superbly. I was impressed.
The other side listened intently, as if they were waiting to hear what the catch was. They were led by a guy called Brodsky, who looked to me like a streetwise lawyer from Moscow. It seemed to go well enough.
Brodsky nodded at frequent intervals and asked Martha a few questions that kept the interpreters busy. His sidekick, whose name I had missed, weighed in with a couple of points of detail that Dalibor translated and Martha fielded. Vorodin seemed to take a keen interest, Blatko less so.
As I say, it seemed to be going well, but I wasn’t sure. This was partly because I was distanced from the nub of things by the language barrier. It was like peering through murky water, trying to get a clear picture of a fish you are targeting. Probably the Russian poker faces, or chess faces, didn’t help, either. So I found it hard to get a feel for things.
It began to seem too easy somehow, too relaxed. Early days, perhaps, but there was none of the heated argument I had anticipated. It was a question and answer session, not a real negotiation. Nobody, absolutely nobody, was getting het-up or in any sort of tangle. Good, in a way, that people were so cool, but it felt strange. As I say, I was uneasy.
Men had died in this feud, quite a few to my knowledge. A dozen, at least. A score, actually, when you added up Montenegro and The Chesters, not to mention casualties I knew nothing about. And for what? Could it all have been avoided by seating people around a table, discussing things sensibly, like this? I had my doubts.
While Martha was engaged in a long, tedious explanation of transportation arrangements in the Russian Far East, I pushed my chair back and stood up to ease my limbs. I moved slowly over towards the window, aware that Vorodin and Blatko, and no doubt all four of their men, would be watching me like hawks. I didn’t care. I needed to get away from the table for a moment.
I stared down at the river. A couple of pleasure boats, floating restaurants, were moving slowly upstream, heading for the system of locks that would get them past the artificial rapids the Vltava encounters in the centre of Prague. It was a tortuous journey. That wouldn’t trouble the skippers and crews, of course, or the tourist passengers, either. This was the best stretch of river to be afloat on in Prague, the historic heart of the city, with the castle high up on one bank and the Old Town on the other shore.
Tortuous. These interminable discussions were, too. Then it struck me. This wasn’t a negotiation at all. It was the delivery of set-piece speeches in the form of a question-and-answer session. It was as if the business had already been concluded, perhaps even before the meeting started.
I returned to the table, listening intently. What were they talking about now? The process for refining gold from the ore extracted in a hard-rock mine. They had finished with transport. Now this. They could have got it, this information, from Wikipedia!
I interrupted Martha, impatient to bring this to some sort of conclusion.
‘Forgive me, Mr Brodsky, but time moves on, and I am anxious to complete the main business of the day. May I suggest this level of detail can best be settled in later sessions between our technical advisers?’
Looking daggers at me, Martha said, ‘Frank, it’s important!’
Despite that, I was determined to impose my agenda and my timetable on the meeting.
‘I know it is, Martha, but I would like to hear Mr Brodsky’s response – even if it is only in principle – to our basic proposal for ending hostilities.’
‘Frank—’
Thankfully, Dalibor intervened at that point. ‘I think Mr Doy is right,’ he said with an apologetic smile. ‘I myself am due in court very soon, and won’t be able to stay here for the duration of the technical discussions, I’m afraid.’
Martha looked ready to blow a blood vessel. Somehow she desisted. She shrugged and pushed her chair back from the table, signalling that she was giving way, if reluctantly.
‘Mr Brodsky?’ I said gently.
It looked as if he had been caught unawares by this shift, and he twisted uncomfortably in his chair for a moment while he worked out what to say. I noticed that Vorodin was taking a keen interest in Brodsky’s discomfort.
Through their interpreter, Brodsky said yes, they were prepared in principle to accept the offer of the mine, with one caveat. They insisted on the funds that had been taken from the Cayman account being restored. Otherwise, there could be no deal.
I mulled that over for a moment, eager to create the impression that the qualification was one I was prepared to entertain, which, of course, on behalf of Leon, I was not.
Then Martha beat me to it. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is fair. I’m sure Mr Podolsky will agree to that.’
‘No, Martha!’ I snapped, scarcely able to believe my ears. ‘That is not acceptable. Definitely not.’
‘Frank—’
I held up my hand and turned to face Blatko, who had been following our exchanges and was looking amused by the breakdown of our negotiating position. I said that we required an adjournment. There needed to be consultations with my principal.
‘Very well,’ he said, glancing at his watch, and then at Vorodin, who nodded. ‘We will allow you a thirty minute recess. If you cannot return to the table by then, the meeting will be brought to an end, and the negotiations abandoned.’
I nodded my thanks and got to my feet. Dalibor followed. Martha was reluctant to leave the table, but acquiesced with poor grace. We were shown to a nearby room, where we could speak amongst ourselves, although perhaps not securely.
‘Frank,’ Martha said, ‘I have never been so humiliated! How dare you?’
‘Shut up, Martha. Your behaviour in there was completely unacceptable.’
I pulled out my phone.
‘Who are you phoning?’ she demanded.
I ignored her and made the call.
‘Leon? I want Martha taken off the team. She has just tried to give away our negotiating position. I’ve called for an adjournment while we sort things out.’
To his credit, Leon reacted calmly. ‘Tell me what happened, Frank.’
I told him.
‘Is Dalibor there with you?’
‘He is.’
‘Let me speak with him.’
I handed the phone over, and listened to Dalibor giving his assent to whatever Leon was saying or asking.
‘Well?’ I
demanded when I got the phone back.
‘Martha is to leave immediately,’ Leon said quietly. ‘Let me speak to her now.’
Together with Dalibor, I returned to the meeting and tried to pick up the pieces.
‘Your caveat is not acceptable,’ I told Brodsky. ‘The Cayman funds will not be returned. They will be used to pay for at least some of the damage caused to Mr Podolsky’s property and businesses. For example, the destruction of his yacht in Montenegro, the hotel here in Prague and his historic property in England.
‘We very much doubt that the funds will be sufficient to cover the cost of all the damage. Even so, we still offer to transfer ownership of the gold mine.’
Brodsky was shaking his head.
‘No? You think it is not enough?’
‘Not enough,’ he said, struggling in broken English.
‘Then we are done here,’ I told him. ‘This meeting is over.’
Chapter Forty-Two
IT’S FAIR TO SAY I was fuming when I left the meeting, and the building. I couldn’t believe Martha’s behaviour. It was nothing short of sabotage. Why the hell had she done it?
Leon’s car picked me and Dalibor up outside the hotel and took us to where Leon was waiting. We said very little to each other on the way. I think Dalibor was just as bemused as me.
The car dropped us off outside a small hotel a few streets away. There, Dalibor shook my hand and wished me good day. He said he would speak to Leon later. In the meantime, other business was pressing. I nodded and thanked him for his support.
He gave me a wry smile and said, ‘What’s that saying the Americans have? Shit happens?’
I grinned and shook his hand.
Leon was waiting in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the hotel. He looked weary.
‘How did it happen?’ he asked.
‘No idea. Where’s Martha?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Sit down, Frank, and tell me again.’
I took a seat and told him the story.
‘Brodsky insisted that, as well as the mine, they wanted the full return of the Cayman funds. I told him no, that the money would be used to pay for some of the damage they had caused. He repeated their position. Martha supported him. So I asked for an adjournment, and walked out.’
I leant back in my chair, and added, ‘So where is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ Leon said again. ‘She didn’t come here. Lenka is looking for her.’
‘Lenka? She’s around? It’s a pity she wasn’t with me and Dalibor. Bloody Martha!’
Leon nodded. ‘It sounds like she compromised our position.’
‘She certainly did. I couldn’t believe it when she said we would agree to return the Cayman funds. She wouldn’t stop when I challenged her, either. She argued like a wildcat.’
Leon waved to a waiter, who brought us both coffee. It gave us a breathing space. My fury began to subside.
‘I wonder what got into her?’ Leon said quietly as he stirred sugar into his coffee.
‘That’s my question, as well,’ I said bitterly.
‘You feel betrayed, Frank?’
‘Well….’
‘Me, too,’ Leon said.
I took a sip of my coffee and then sat back. My poor old brain began to function on something other than rage.
‘You know, Leon, I haven’t said anything before. In fact, I hadn’t even worked it out properly. But I’d been starting to wonder about Martha. I know, I know!’ I said hurriedly as his eyebrows went up in surprise.
‘Yes, we slept together a couple of times. I admit it. I like her, or I did. We seemed to get on well together. We went through some tough times together, as well.’
‘But?’ Leon said quietly. ‘Is that a “but” I hear?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, it is. It bothered me that Bobrik seemed to know so much about the Podolskys, and their business interests. Everywhere we went, everything we did, we couldn’t turn around without Bobrik being there. I began to wonder if there was a mole in your camp.’
‘An informer?’
‘Yeah. Someone who knew a lot. I don’t know many of your people, and most of the ones I’ve met seem to have got themselves killed. So who could it be? I didn’t think it could be family, and once I started thinking about it Martha came into the frame.’
Leon nodded slowly and waited for me to continue.
‘Then I thought about how Martha and I first met, and how lucky it was for her that she came to visit me after I’d left The Chesters. If she hadn’t done that, I thought, she would probably have been killed, along with Andrei and the others. It couldn’t have been better for her if it had been planned.
‘Then yesterday, at the preliminary meeting, I sensed that she understood Russian. She didn’t need anybody to translate for her. And finally, today, she broke ranks and tried to scupper the negotiations.’
Leon was silent as he studied what I’d said. I could see him testing the idea of Martha as a traitor.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he said eventually. ‘Why would she do that when she has a good job with us? She has been almost part of the family.’
By then, I was beginning to think the same thing myself. I was just stringing a lot of coincidences together. The only thing I was sure of was that Martha had screwed up our negotiation.
‘Well, she certainly let you down today,’ I said wearily. ‘Me, too.’
Leon’s phone danced on the table. He picked it up. I overheard some excitable babble in Russian. Leon asked a couple of questions and gave some instructions. Then he switched the phone off.
‘I wonder,’ he said slowly. ‘Perhaps you are right, Frank. Svoboda is worth at least ten times what Martha said. Perhaps more. That was one of my accountants. I had him check a few things about the mine.’
‘And you think she knows that?’
He nodded. ‘She does. Once you look at the figures, the accountant said, it is obvious. And Martha has access to the same data he does.’
I grimaced. My perspective changed again. It looked as if Martha had done a good job for Bobrik. The only thing that puzzled me was why she had come out into the open now, in the way she did, in the meeting. What was that about?
I thought for a few moments more. Then I said, ‘I’m going to look for her.’
Chapter Forty-Three
WHERE, THOUGH? WHERE TO look?
I had no idea, but I believed Martha wouldn’t be far away. She couldn’t be. Lenka would probably have picked her up if she had taken off somewhere. My guess was that she would be around the Presidium still. So that’s where I went.
The catering department was open for business again. However the management had explained the default of kitchen and restaurant, there were plenty of diners there now. Whatever meal they were partaking of at three in the afternoon, they seemed to be enjoying it, too. I made my way through the restaurant and entered the coffee shop, where I sat and ordered an espresso, and then glanced briefly at a newspaper someone had abandoned.
Then I thought about Martha. She would have been in a highly agitated state when she left the meeting, summoned by Leon, her career probably in ruins. Whatever had possessed her?
By now, I had calmed down enough to persuade myself that she had been very stressed and had acted out of character. She had no longer been the high-powered, up and coming project manager of a global business. For some reason, the situation had got on top of her. She had blown it.
Even if she had been intent on helping Bobrik, she had picked a funny way of doing it. The negotiations had broken up, without resolution. Bobrik wouldn’t be pleased, any more than Leon and I were. Something had gone wrong, and she had found herself in a hole.
So where had she gone?
I doubted if she was familiar with Prague. The UK, London particularly, was her beat. She wouldn’t have had a personal bolt-hole here to run to. Nor could she have expected to receive an ecstatic welcome from Bobrik. Perhaps she knew, too, that Lenka, or somebody else dele
gated by Leon, would be looking for her. So?
My guess was that she hadn’t gone far at all. She had known she simply had to make herself scarce, and that’s what she’d done. But where had she gone?
A lift pinged on the other side of the coffee shop. I glanced at it, and at the perfectly ordinary middle-aged couple who emerged from it, laughing and having such a good time. People often do, I thought cynically. Not me, though. Hell on wheels summed up my relaxing short break in the Czech capital.
My gaze strayed to the lights signalling the lift’s progress back upstairs, all the way to the top floor, the tenth. The tenth? I frowned. No. That wasn’t right. This hotel had twelve floors. I’d counted them when I was outside.
I thought about it. The meeting had been on the tenth floor. Not the top of the building, but perhaps the highest floor to which there was public access. As the hotel belonged to either Blatko or Vorodin, or both of them, the two top floors might well be set aside for their own private use.
Thinking along those lines gave me an idea. Martha, even in her agitated state, would have known that she would be picked up by somebody if she tried to leave the building. Possibly by Bobrik’s men, or by Leon’s people – Lenka even. She wouldn’t have wanted any of that to happen. But she needed somewhere to go to sort herself out. Why not up there?
It made sense. I left money for my coffee and headed back into the atrium and made for the lifts.
There were two floors above the tenth, where the meeting had been held. A lift on the tenth floor gave access to them, but I looked for and found the emergency stairs. They took me to the very top of the building. I ignored what were probably prohibitive notices on various doors and kept going upwards until I could go no further. Then I opened a fire door and made my way onto the roof.
That was where I found her, just as I had half-expected, and had hoped.
She was gazing out over the city. I approached her slowly, carefully. But she still heard me coming. Her head swung round.