by Dan Latus
I held on to her for a few moments while she gasped and shivered. Then I helped her get dressed, all the while wondering at the strength and durability of that tiny body. I marvelled even more at Lenka’s mental strength and resilience.
Chapter Forty-Nine
WE HEADED BACK TO the car as quickly as we could, not troubling about anything else very much but simply getting there. Lenka was doing her best, and had recovered slightly, but she was a pale shadow of the street fighter I knew her to be. Her ordeal had sapped her physical strength and taken a lot out of her mentally as well. It was a wonder she had managed to do what she had back in the cellar. Without her brave struggle, neither of us would have survived. Smoke inhalation would have done for us pretty quickly.
When I asked her how on earth she had managed to squeeze through that tiny gap, she just said she had done some caving, pot holing, and had used some of the technique she had learned doing that.
‘For getting through small spaces?’
‘Of course. Sometimes small spaces that last a long time.’
‘Like a tunnel, you mean?’
‘Exactly, yes. Maybe for a kilometre or more. And sometimes,’ she added with a bit of a twinkle in her eye, ‘sometimes under water, too.’
Dear God, I was thinking. What else can this woman do? She would be a handful if she wasn’t on your side. That reminded me to ask her how Martha’s gang had caught her.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They guessed, I suppose. And laid an ambush.’
‘Maybe they expected me to walk into it?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. They hit my car and it turned over. I must have banged my head. When I came round, I was tied up.’
Then it got worse for her. I decided to halt the questioning. It couldn’t be doing her any good.
‘Not far to the car now,’ I told her cheerfully.
She nodded but didn’t say anything more.
The car was where I had left it. So was the driver, but he was dead. Someone had shot him in the head.
‘Another one gone,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘When will it end?’
‘Only when Bobrik is dead,’ Lenka said flatly. ‘It is the only way.’
I thought she was probably right. It was hard to see how else the killing would ever stop. Even I could see that now.
We put the driver’s body in the boot and set off to drive back to Prague. There was still business there to conduct. Most of all, and more than ever, I ached to settle with Bobrik. He had a lot to answer for.
Lenka used my phone to call her brother and quickly update him. I left her to do it. Driving was difficult enough in those conditions, especially after the last few hours, and I needed to concentrate on that.
‘Leon will make arrangements,’ Lenka said when her conversation was over. ‘But he wants to continue with the meeting with Bobrik.’
What kind of arrangements, I wondered? What did that mean? Lost in translation, I thought.
‘So the negotiations with Bobrik will continue?’
‘For now, yes.’
‘What does he want us to do?’
‘For you to join the meeting, the discussions, but to say nothing about these events here. I will do something else. I must go to the airport. So I will take the car when we reach the Presidium.’
I wondered if she was capable of driving, but didn’t ask. So far as I was concerned, Lenka was free to do whatever she wanted and felt herself capable of doing. I’d never met anyone like her.
The airport, though? What was that about? Again, I didn’t ask. I suppose I was getting used to how the Podolsky family operated. They would tell me only what they wanted me to know.
In the Presidium car park, I surrendered the car to Lenka and then made my way inside. After cleaning myself up as best I could in one of the toilets, I headed upstairs for the meeting. Guards checked me out and borrowed the Glock before permitting me to enter the conference room, where people were milling about and being served drinks by a couple of waiters.
Leon came across to join me. He looked at me questioningly.
I nodded. ‘OK, thanks, Leon. We made it.’
‘Good.’
I glanced around and added, ‘It looks as though the meeting is over. Am I too late to participate further in the negotiations?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so, Frank. But all is well, I think.’
‘The mine?’
‘We have reached agreement, and now our lawyers are dealing with the legal documents.’
‘You got a good deal?’
‘I believe so, Frank.’
‘It looks as if Bobrik thinks he did, too.’
Leon just nodded. I hoped like hell that he hadn’t given away the family silver.
Leon must have guessed what I was thinking because he said quietly, ‘Keep the faith, Frank. Keep the faith.’
What I could see right then was that Blatko and Vorodin were happily chatting away with Bobrik, who seemed happy as Larry. He was laughing at our hosts’ jokes and agreeing with everything they had to say to him.
My mind jumped back to the house his people had just evacuated and torched, and to the trail of bodies lying behind him. I needed to get out of here before I exploded. I couldn’t see any reason for Leon to be content with the outcome of the negotiations, none at all. It looked to me as if Bobrik might have got his money back, as well as the Svoboda gold mine. I felt sicker than ever.
One of the waiters was offering me a glass of something or other, and I accepted it. Whatever it was, it just tasted bitter to me. I sipped anyway, easing the burning pain in my throat from the smoke I’d had to breathe.
The waiter looked vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until he turned away that I recognized him. It was Charles, the man who had helped me escape from Leon’s hotel when it was being shot to pieces by more of Bobrik’s apes. What was he doing here?
I glanced at Leon with the question on my lips. Leon smiled and gently shook his head just once. Something was going on, I realized then. My interest piqued, I straightened up and became more attentive. Perhaps there was a script behind this scene that I didn’t know about. I hoped so. I hoped so like hell.
Somehow, like many of the others, Leon and I had drifted out onto the terrace with its wonderful view of Prague at night. I wasn’t sorry. The room had been insufferably hot. No wonder Charles and a colleague had opened the big patio doors.
A couple of pigeons from the river perched on the low wall at the edge of the terrace for a moment. When they saw we were drinking rather than eating, they took off again, disappointed. I moved over to the edge of the terrace and watched them disappear down into the darkness of the riverside, where a million of their kind roosted safely on the wooden pilings in the river that protected the ancient bridge from boat traffic and flood-borne debris. It was a long, long way down, but I watched their progress all the way. Then, with an involuntary shiver, I turned around.
Blatko and Vorodin came out onto the terrace. More people followed, including Bobrik. I stood next to Leon. Bobrik was at the far end, where Charles was still serving from a tray of drinks. It looked as though Vorodin was preparing to make another of his little speeches.
He was. He began, his social smile soon converting to a more serious expression. Leon translated in an undertone for my benefit.
‘It is with great satisfaction,’ Vorodin said, ‘that we are able to bring the recent hostilities amongst the Russian community in this wonderful little country to an end. Nothing could make us happier.’
Amen to that, I thought, if only it were true.
‘My colleague, and friend, Mr Blatko,’ Vorodin continued, ‘holds the legal documents that have been negotiated and approved here today. The negotiation was not without difficulty, as you all know, but now it is over.’
He turned to Blatko and took from him the several documents that the lawyers had presumably prepared, and that Leon and Bobrik had presumably signed.
‘Unfortunately,’ Vorodin continued, �
�one party to the negotiation did not come here openly and honestly, in good faith. One party decided to ignore our conditions, as hosts, and to continue to engage in unacceptable activities.’
Now, with a dramatic gesture, he suddenly ripped up the legal documents and hurled the pieces to the floor, stunning me and almost everyone else on the terrace. ‘The agreement is null and void,’ he announced, ‘and now the penalty will be paid.’
He was looking directly at Bobrik as he spoke, and his head seemed to move in a small nod. I turned my head to look at Bobrik, too, and was only just in time to see what happened.
What I saw was the waiter, Charles, suddenly dip low, wrap his arms around Bobrik’s thighs and heave him upwards. With a yelp – perhaps surprise, perhaps protest – Bobrik flew over the wall at the edge of the terrace. With a scream, he hurtled down to join the pigeons along the riverside.
‘Come, Frank,’ Leon said quietly a moment later. ‘Our business is done here. It is time to go.’
Without a further word with anyone, we made our way out of the room and took the elevator down through the atrium, to leave the Presidium for the last time.
Chapter Fifty
BACK AT THE VILLA, Olga joined us. Two Podolskys. Only Lenka missing. I told Leon and Olga what had happened to me, and to Lenka.
‘So the tracker worked?’ Leon mused.
‘It was the phone that worked,’ Olga said. ‘Martha soon got rid of the tracker.’
‘I thought she switched her phone off, or handed it over?’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, she did. One or the other. But I had put something inside the phone that she didn’t know about. It continued to transmit.’
‘Why did you do that?’
Olga shrugged. ‘Martha,’ she said, as if that was explanation enough. Perhaps it was.
I nodded. Clever Olga. Clever bloody family, in fact! Even if between them they had nearly got me killed.
‘Leon, it’s a pity you didn’t work Martha out, but you did know what was going to happen at the Presidium, didn’t you?’
Leon nodded. ‘Not everything, but something. Yes. I knew Blatko and Vorodin had found out what Bobrik was doing, and wouldn’t stand for it. They were offended. The rules of engagement we had agreed beforehand were breached, and it was known from the beginning that there would be penalties if that happened.’
‘But not, exactly, what those penalties would be?’
Leon shook his head. ‘Not exactly, no.’
‘What about Charles? How did he come into it?’
‘He was borrowed for the evening from my hotel.’
‘And instructed to do what he did?’
Leon raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Let us say that because I was the innocent party, I was given the opportunity to seek redress. Redress? Is that the correct word?’
‘You bloodthirsty bastard,’ I said with a reluctant grin. ‘Fuck whether it’s the right word or not!’
These people!
‘There is something else you should know, Frank,’ Leon continued. ‘You have been such a good friend and comrade that I must tell you, although the matter is still a little delicate.’
‘Go on. I could stand a bit of something delicate.’
‘Blatko and Vorodin are very well connected in Moscow.’
‘So you said once before.’
Leon nodded. ‘There have been consultations, and I understand they were told to advise me that it is possible that our differences can be reconciled.’
I wondered what the hell that meant. ‘Go on,’ I urged.
‘The Kremlin became dissatisfied with Bobrik, and….’
‘And now he’s dead, bless his soul.’
‘Indeed. They want us to know that they will stop pursuing the Podolskys, and our business interests, with one condition.’
‘And what is that?’
‘If I accept the position of governor of a region in Siberia or the Far East, perhaps the one where our gold mine is situated, we will be allowed to pursue our interests in peace. We will be able to move freely in and out of Russia once again. It is an offer I have accepted.’
That was quick work, I was thinking.
‘Even the online news agency?’
‘Yes,’ Olga contributed happily. ‘My baby!’
‘It is true,’ Leon admitted. ‘Surprisingly.’
I was struggling to get my head around all this. ‘And you will live in Siberia, or wherever, as Governor of Something-or-other?’
Leon shook his head. ‘It is not necessary. I will visit, of course, and formally I will have this role, but mostly I will be required to help develop infrastructure in the region.’
‘Organization – and investment, you mean?’
‘Exactly. It is a price we, as a family, are prepared to pay.’
I nodded thoughtfully. How the world turns, I couldn’t help thinking. It was just one damn thing after another!
Just then the door opened and Lenka appeared. She looked even more tired but there was also a glow about her. She looked uplifted, excited even. She smiled at us all, hugged us one at a time, received our greetings, and then said something to Olga. Olga got up, crossed to a big TV screen and turned on the power.
By then, I had ceased my wondering. Something was afoot, and I guessed I was about to learn what it was. I didn’t bother asking. I can do patient when needs be.
Olga had chosen the CNN channel, perhaps in deference to my language capabilities. A rolling news programme was showing. We all watched, and waited in silence. Then the item we awaited – me unwittingly – appeared.
A private plane flying from Prague to Minsk, and on to Moscow, had crashed, apparently, in some remote mountains of which I had never heard. The crew and up to ten passengers were all believed dead. It was believed that engine failure may have been responsible for the accident.
I was stunned. My mind went blank for a moment, but only for a moment.
‘Not a bomb, then?’ I asked of no-one in particular. ‘Engine failure. An accident. Presumably that was Martha’s flight?’
Leon nodded, and briefly looked sad. Olga appeared mildly interested. But Lenka was positively triumphant. Remembering the ordeal she had experienced, and remembering how resourceful and relentless she was, I could neither blame her nor feel much surprise.
‘It is over,’ Leon said with finality.
Not quite. Not for me, at least. There were several questions I wanted answering. Leon and his sisters did their best.
‘Why did she do it?’ Leon repeated with a shrug. ‘Ambition, greed, power? Who really knows? What I can tell you is that it wasn’t for love of Bobrik!
‘We believe it was Svoboda that turned her head. She discovered we still owned it, even though we were no longer aware of that, and approached Bobrik. In return for helping him in his campaign against me, she would get Svoboda.’
Ownership of a gold mine? It seemed a bit unlikely to me. But how wonderful if you could get it.
‘Olga has been able to find traces of email and phone conversations between them that Martha thought she had eliminated,’ Leon added, sensing my disbelief. ‘It is true. Bobrik would allow her to have the mine, if that meant he could finish with me.’
‘But Martha backed the wrong horse,’ Olga said softly. ‘She believed that Bobrik, with the Kremlin behind him, would win. The Podolskys were a lost cause so far as she was concerned.’
‘And, knowing Martha, she was determined to be on the winning side?’
‘Exactly,’ Olga confirmed.
‘To help her case with both Bobrik and me,’ Leon added, ‘Martha deliberately falsified the value of the mine, and made it seem less attractive than it was, and is.’
I nodded slowly. I could see it now. What a performer Martha had been!
Something else that puzzled me was why Martha had told Olga about The Chesters. How had that helped?
‘She told me,’ Olga said ruefully, ‘because she knows what a silly romantic I am. She kne
w that as soon as I heard about this poor old house I would want to help it – and she was right! Martha is – or was – very cunning.’
‘Also, remember,’ Lenka contributed, ‘we knew that sooner or later we would need a new base if we were to continue with our work. I never liked the old house, but that didn’t matter. Olga would deal with it.’
I smiled and shook my head ruefully. All that sounded about right to me.
‘But the attack on The Chesters scared Martha,’ I pointed out. ‘She didn’t know about that in advance, I’m certain.’
‘That was Bobrik playing his usual games,’ Leon said. ‘He didn’t tell her because he wanted to remind her who was boss – and it wasn’t her!’
‘And there was nothing she could do about that,’ I suggested, ‘because by then she had burned her boats with you. There was no going back. She had to put up with whatever Bobrik did. Is that right, do you think?’
Leon nodded. ‘I believe it is, yes.’
I turned to Lenka. ‘You warned me about her, didn’t you? Foolishly, I ignored you. But what was it that made you distrust her?’
For once, Lenka smiled. ‘I knew she understood our language,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Martha denied it, but I knew. I could tell. Intuition, do you call it?
I smiled ruefully and nodded. ‘I should have trusted my own instincts. I knew that, too.’
‘So I didn’t trust her, and she knew it,’ Lenka added.
I just nodded.
So there we were. All, or most, questions answered. But I had still to come to terms with how I felt about Martha, or should I say the two Marthas?
There was the evil version that had been responsible for the terrible things done to Lenka, as well as the cold-blooded decision to consign us both to the flames in that horrendous basement. But there was also the Martha who had seemed so close to me in a different way, a loving way, and of whom for a time I had been very fond.
Is it possible for there to be two different versions of the same person? Of course it is. Psychiatrists call that state psychosis. That’s what I call it, too.
Chapter Fifty-One