Three-quarters of the Trinity staff were male. There was quite a range of ages, with the oldest person looking to be in her fifties, and the youngest being Alla. Several looked in their twenties and early thirties. Appearance-wise, they were also a mixed bunch: from an elegantly besuited middle-aged guy with Central Asian features to a closed-faced young tough with a blond rat’s tail and leather jacket; from pretty, plump Alla with her helmet of glossy black hair to a formidable-looking hatchet-faced woman in a severe gray hairstyle who sat with arms folded.
Alexey said, “Helen, I want to introduce everyone, one by one. But perhaps you could say a quick word to them first? Most of them understand at least some English, some are very good at it, for the rest I can give a quick translation.”
Helen nodded, nervously. She felt almost as though she were at a job interview. A really important job interview. Trying hard to sound calm and businesslike, she said, “Dobry dyen. I am honored to be here as an observer, and I promise I won’t get in your way.”
“We are glad to welcome you,” said a tall thin man with a shock of wild hair and glasses perched on the end of his nose, who seemed to speak for them all. “Any friend of Alexey Ivanovich’s is a friend of ours, and we hope you will find your time with us interesting.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” said Helen, blushing, feeling like a fraud.
Then Alexey introduced each person in turn, and she concentrated, trying to remember them all. Fortunately it was only first names he used, or she’d have become completely lost. As it was, it all passed in a bit of a blur. Alla and Grigori she knew already. The other women were easy to remember, with the formidable woman, who was revealed as surprisingly friendly, being the office manager, Sonya. A flash, mini-skirted blonde was Yulia, head of IT; and a young woman in jeans and red jumper, introduced as a junior researcher, was Natalia. Among the men, she knew she’d remember Zakhar, Mr. Rat’s Tail, field investigator; Igor, a short round man with a shock of red hair; and Timur, the gray-suited Central Asian financial manager, as well as Ilya, the chief researcher, the tall thin man who had welcomed her in his excellent English. The rest varied as to proficiency in the English language, Ilya told her, but only three of them – Sonya and two of the men – had practically no English at all.
Then Alexey started talking animatedly in Russian. She couldn’t understand everything he was saying, but from one or two words she caught, and an intake of breath from a couple of people, she realized he was informing them about what had happened in Petersburg. There were anxious questions then but, from what Helen was able to judge, Alexey succeeded in reassuring the staff. Then he began speaking about more general things, interrupted by people asking questions, and she quickly got lost. She knew he hadn’t said anything about the memory card, or the Koldun file. He’d agreed with Volkovsky that nothing should be said about it till more was known.
It was getting stuffy in the airless room, and she felt a headache coming on. Murmuring an apology, she slipped out to the bathroom.
There was a small plastic glass in a toothbrush holder on the sink, and she filled it with water, and was rummaging in her bag for some paracetamol when a sudden sound made her spin around – just as a black-clad figure climbed in through the window and into the room.
For a heartbeat, she could only stare. Then she made a dash for the door, but too late, as another sinister figure dropped into the room. In an instant, she was on the floor, efficiently gagged and bound, as a third sinister figure appeared. A helpless Helen could only watch as they took the key out of the inside of the door and went out of the room, locking it firmly behind them.
Chapter 18
As soon as they were gone, Helen tried shuffling on her side across the hard tiled floor, trying to reach the door to bash on it with her boots and alert the others. But it was hard going. She winced as every jerking movement made the tightly knotted plastic rope cut deeper into her skin. The gag in her mouth made her feel sick and her head, pressed against the tiles, beat like a drum.
She heard a crash. Another. A shout. Many shouts. A pounding of feet, slamming of doors. Yelling. There’s only three of them, she thought, and more than a dozen of us, it’ll be over in seconds, they don’t have a chance. Then her heart nearly stopped as she heard an unmistakable sharp cracking sound and someone screaming.
Oh my God, they’ve got guns, they’re going to kill everyone! Sobbing, she beetled desperately across the floor. And then – the lock rattled, the door was flung open. Alexey was in the doorway, pale, eyes wild. Behind him crowded several shocked faces, but Helen hardly noticed as he bent down to her and rapidly untied the gag, the ropes. She began, “Oh Alexey, I’m so sorry that I couldn’t warn –”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his eyes on her face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said, quietly, taking his hand. “Just a bit bruised. It’ll heal.”
“Those bastards,” he spat.
“How’s – how’s everyone else? I heard the gun go off – did anyone ...”
“No. Grigori got a nasty crack on the head but no one was shot. Thank God.”
“And thank you,” said Ilya, gravely, from behind him. “If you had not been there, Alexey Ivanovich, then I think one of us would not be going home tonight. Maybe more than one. You are a real hero, my friend.”
Alexey went red. “Oh no. No. No. I was just lucky.”
At that, Zakhar, who was standing next to Ilya, burst into a torrent of excitable speech, half-Russian, half-English, recounting how Grigori had been the first to rush out of the meeting room after they heard the crash, but before he could draw his gun, he had been knocked out cold by one of the intruders. The man had snatched the gun and shot into the air, screaming at everyone to get back, then the intruders had backed toward the front door. Two of them turned tail and ran, but the third, the gunman, quite deliberately moved toward the terrified employees and aimed his gun straight at them. And it was then Alexey had moved – “like hot lightning!” exclaimed Zakhar – had knocked the gun out of the man’s hand, and the breath out of his body. “It was astonishing, magical, like something in a movie! And then a whole swarm of us came at that scum, and knocked him out cold and locked him the bathroom where Igor and Arkady are standing watch over him. But if it hadn’t been for Alexey and his judo move ...”
“Zakhar, please don’t go on like that,” muttered Alexey.
At that moment, red-headed Igor came in and said something to Alexey. “The guy’s come to,” Alexey told Helen. “They’ve moved him to the meeting room. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to leave you for a moment to ...”
“No,” said Helen. “I want to be in on this. I want to hear what he says.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He hugged her. “Okay then. Davai! Let’s do it!”
*
Stripped of his sinister mask, the man on the floor of the meeting room looked a pitiful sight, not at all like the fearsome creature of Helen’s imagination. Thin and small, he sat with his knees up, his arms wrapped around them, shaking, his face hidden, his ribs showing under the black pullover, the very model of a strung-out junkie.
Alexey sent everyone out of the room except himself, Helen, Ilya, Sonya and Igor, saying that a crowd of hostile faces would only spook the intruder, and prevent them from getting anything useful out of him. But as Ilya remarked, whether you could trust anything such a man said was questionable. Still, they had to try.
Alexey squatted on the floor, his face level with the man’s knees, and said, quietly, a simple Russian phrase that Helen understood perfectly: “Who are you?”
The man didn’t reply. Alexey repeated the question. Still no reply. Beside Helen, Sonya clucked impatiently and was about to say something when Alexey reached out a hand and touched one of the man’s hands, clenched tight around his knees. The man’s head jerked up. Revealed, his face did not belie earlier impressions. Deep-set blue eyes were set in a ravaged, hollo
w-cheeked face. In a weird echo of Alexey, he whispered, “Who are you?” His voice was hoarse, thin, frightened.
Sonya gave a startled exclamation. Before any of the others knew what was happening, she marched over to the intruder. Grabbing him by his stringy hair, she stared into his face. He squealed, but she took no notice. She dropped him and spoke rapidly, excitedly. Alexey looked astonished at first, but Ilya nodded, thoughtfully.
Alexey turned to Helen and said, “Sonya says this man used to work here as a cleaner a couple of years ago. Nikolai Pavlovich fired him when he caught him going through office drawers one night.”
“I’d forgotten him,” said Ilya, “but Sonya swears it’s him. She did not recognize him at first. He has become very thin. But his voice, yes. She says his name’s Grisha. She can’t remember his last name. But it will be in staff records.”
Alexey said, “Sonya said he told Kolya that he’d get even one day. But nobody’s seen anything of him for ages.”
“But somebody must have found him,” said Helen, “and hired him to do this.”
“Exactly,” said Alexey, grimly. “And now he’s going to tell me who that was.” He turned back to the man, and spat something at him in which Helen recognized the name “Repin”.
A sly smile flitted across the man’s face, and he said, very clearly and simply, so even Helen understood it, “Nyet. Ivan Mikhailovich Makarov.”
Alexey recoiled as though he’d been struck. Recovering himself, he said something Helen understood instinctively. “What did you say?”
Grisha had an ugly smile on his face. He mimed a phone conversation. He said, “Ivan Mikhailovich, da.”
Sonya and Ilya yelled something at him, but Alexey just stared, stricken. Helen said, quickly, “Is he saying your father called him?”
Alexey nodded, numbly.
“Then either he’s taunting you or someone put him up to saying that and he really doesn’t know who hired him. Look at him, Alexey. He’s a junkie. He can’t think straight. Ask him who his mates are. We’ve got to find them.” Alexey nodded. “You’re right. I’m an idiot, getting spooked by this little rat.” He turned back to Grisha, and growled something which Helen took to be a question about the other two.
Grisha didn’t answer. Alexey repeated the question. This time, Grisha made an obscene gesture, and Alexey completely lost his cool, and yelling, lunged at the man. Everything happened very fast then as the intruder, driven by blind panic, jumped up and ran straight at the window, shattering it in a shower of exploding glass, his body disappearing into emptiness.
For an instant, no one could move. Then they all raced to the window at the same time as the others, alerted by the noise, burst into the room.
But there was no broken body lying on the pavement below. Instead, Grisha, bloodied but definitely alive, was staggering to his feet. Zakhar, followed by several of the other men, had already sprinted out of the office after him – but too late. For Grisha, driven by desperation, was not about to hang around, and by the time the men appeared in the street, he had already gone. Even so, the fleet-footed Zakhar might have caught up if by bad luck he hadn’t run straight into a feisty group of dawdling babushkas who weren’t going to give ground to anyone, especially not some rude little punk in a rat’s tail and a leather jacket! As he recounted ruefully later, he wasted precious seconds squeezing politely past the scolding old ladies and by the time he turned the corner into the boulevard, he was only just in time to see Grisha sprinting across the busy road, to the wild honking of startled drivers. An instant later, he disappeared down the escalator that led into the big underground shopping mall in the square on the other side, and though Zakhar and the others followed in hot pursuit, they lost Grisha almost immediately in the heaving mall crowds.
Chapter 19
Alexey was berating himself. “If only I hadn’t lost my temper, he wouldn’t have slipped through our fingers. God, what a durak I am. What a bloody fool.”
“Don’t,” said Helen. “At least we know who he is.”
“Fat lot of good that is,” he said, despondently. “He could be anywhere.”
Sonya had looked up the staff records, found Grisha’s surname – Chekushkin – and an address and phone number for him. Trouble was, when she’d called the number, the woman at the other end said that Chekushkin had moved out of the apartment nearly two years ago. No, she had no idea where he’d gone.
“I’m sure we can find him,” Helen said, comfortingly. “That cop – Serebrov – he probably knows all the Moscow low-lifes. Alexey, I know it’s not going to be easy to tell Nikolai, but you’ve got to call him.”
“I know,” said Alexey, glumly.
“I’ll go and help clear up while you call him,” said Helen, discreetly.
Alexey nodded, and picked up the phone. As she went out of the room, Helen heard him say, “Kolya?” in a here-we-go sort of voice. She gave him a thumbs-up and, closing the door gently behind her, went off to help the others.
In the short time they’d had, the intruders had made an amazing mess, mostly in the reception area, but also in a couple of the offices. They’d violently swept the framed certificates, testimonials and icon off the shelf, wrenched open filing cabinets, torn files up and strewn them around, and overturned Alla’s desk, complete with her computer. Helen set to work with others in the reception area, wading through shredded paper, smashed glass, broken computer components and splinters of wood. Nobody spoke much; the adrenaline of the attack and its immediate aftermath had drained away, leaving everyone feeling flat.
She was sweeping up stray pieces of picture frame and glass when she saw it. She almost missed it at first because it was so small. And even when she did spot it, her brain couldn’t take it in properly, as she stared at the tiny sliver of blue plastic, with the label on it reading ‘Sandisk, 4GB’. It was a digital camera’s memory card.
She picked it up. She knew she had to tell Alexey at once, without alerting anyone else. She looked around. No one had noticed. Thrusting it out of sight into her pocket, she went to find him.
He was still on the phone, but when she came in, closed the door and he saw the expression on her face, he said, “Wait a moment,” and put the phone down.
“What’s up, Helen?”
She handed him the memory card. His eyes widened. “Where ...”
“It must have been hidden behind one of those frames and fell out when it got broken.”
“My God.” He took the card from her. “It’s got to be the one.”
She swallowed. “Yes. We need to – to see what’s on it.”
“Yes. Hang on.” He picked up the phone again and spoke, rapidly, in Russian. There was Volkovsky’s voice at the other end, exclaiming, and then another voice came on the phone – Serebrov’s. After a moment, Alexey spoke, a stream of speech that sounded annoyed. Serebrov spoke again and this time Alexey said, “Da, da,” and clicking off the phone, put it down. He looked at Helen. “They wanted us to wait until they got here to look at it. I said there was no way we’d wait that long, because even if they manage to get a plane straight away, which I doubt, they’re not going to be here for three or four hours at least. And I can’t wait that long to know.”
She swallowed. “No. What did they say to that?”
“Maxim said we have to be careful. Look at the images but not make any copy of them. No saving to the computer, no printing out. He thinks we should do it away from the office. No one here knows about the Koldun file and he doesn’t think they should learn about it. Not yet.”
She shot him a glance. He said, “I know, I don’t like the implication either. I can’t believe – I don’t think anyone here is – is not to be trusted. But well – I think I’d like to see it first, anyway. Before anyone else does. Except for you,” he added, quickly.
“What are we going to do then?” She spoke in a whisper.
“We’ll go to my apartment and look at it there. We’ll need something to view it on. Not a camera. Scr
een’s too small, and if there are printed files, we’ll never be able to read them. We could use the laptop in the apartment to ...”
“Wait,” Helen said. “What about one of those digital photo frames? We can view it all but there’s no record, no computer footprint or anything. And if we get a good big one, it’ll be easy to read documents too.”
He smiled. “Great idea. We can buy one in the mall across the road and then get a cab to the apartment. I’ll tell the staff we’re going out for a while, they don’t need to know why.”
*
Alexey’s large and elegant family apartment, furnished in his father’s preferred coolly modern style, was on the top floor of a building on Tverskaya Street, a large central boulevard that is sometimes known as the city’s equivalent to the Champs-Élysées, sweeping down with a thunder of traffic and glitter of lights to Red Square and the Kremlin.
The view from the living-room was stunning, but Helen was too preoccupied to do more than only half-notice her surroundings as Alexey let them quickly into the apartment and locked the door behind them. Taking the phone off the hook, and not opening the blinds – on advice from Maxim – they sat on one of the big pale leather sofas. Alexey looked at Helen. There was a hectic light in his eyes, and his white knuckles told of his tension. She put an arm around him and hugged him. “Are you okay?”
He said, tightly, “Yes. I’m fine. Let’s do it.” He pulled out the big digital photo frame they’d bought and, with slightly shaking fingers, he set it up on the coffee table and inserted the card in the slot.
At first, it seemed like there was nothing. Picture after picture came up blank. And then, quite suddenly, there it was. A page of flowing Cyrillic script. Alexey focused the image. He stared at it. “It’s Dad’s writing,” he said at last. “It’s … weird. It’s not at all what I thought – it’s like some kind of memoir.” Touching a finger to the screen, he translated the lines, slowly. “So many years since I thought of my father, and yet he has never really left my mind. He was a great man, but there was that about him which did not let me get close. I loved him but I was afraid of him as a child. Only later I understood him better. He did what he had to do without flinching. He was a solitary man, who had been born late to his parents, my grandparents, when they had almost given up hope of a child, and so growing up he had no brothers or sisters and very little other family. I never met his mother, my grandmother, she died before I was born. I remember my grandfather as a stern old man who rarely spoke. We did not often go to his place when I was a child, and my father went alone to his funeral.”
Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Page 16