The Case of the General's Thumb

by Andrei Kurkov

  A young Turk ushered them out to a waiting limousine.

  They drove by way of a pleasant mountain road affording glimpses of sparkling sea to the Altinaya Holiday Village. Here they were shown to a chalet.

  Viktor went straight upstairs and flopped down on a bed.

  Nik investigated the fridge, and was disappointed to find it empty, as would be his future when this affair was over, as it soon would be. Then what? Back to where? Saratov? Kiev? Paris, and naive, wide-eyed Tatiana, to whom he’d grown attached and was missing? A normal life was what he craved, such as, at the moment, was beyond imagining.

  A creak from the wooden floor overhead brought his thoughts back to Viktor, whose timely intervention at Pierre’s had been not unlike his own “contrived deliverance” of Sakhno. In both cases it had been the result that mattered.

  Feeling a sudden urge to talk, he made his way slowly upstairs.

  “I’d just like to thank you, Viktor,” he said simply.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Turning up when needed.”

  “Pure luck. Officially, I was there to protect Pierre from you, but unofficially, to do what I did.”

  Nik looked uneasy.

  “How’s dear Ivan Lvovich?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “Wasn’t it him who sent you?”

  “No, someone I only know as Georgiy.”

  “What happens to me when you’ve collected the cash?”

  “No idea. But something I’d like to ask you is, who was behind the death of Bronitsky?”

  “Behind whose death?”

  “General Bronitsky, Adviser on Defence to the President. The one whose dead body got sent up on a Coca-Cola balloon.”

  “And landed on the roof of Security HQ? I heard about that from Ivan Lvovich the day I arrived in Kiev.”

  “So you were still on the train when Bronitsky died.”

  “I’ve still got the ticket somewhere. No, I certainly didn’t kill him.”

  “So you’re free to go back to Ukraine or Russia,” Viktor said, feeling he was the last person to offer such an assurance.

  “Shall we take a walk?”

  Half an hour later they came to Kyrenia, a compact little town of pastel-coloured buildings, with few people or cars, and a castle extending into the sea.

  “Got a wife?” Nik asked.

  “And a daughter. Both at a safe house. There’ve been attempts to kill us.”

  “Some would kill a whole city for the sake of four billion.”

  Viktor looked at him in astonishment.

  “Where did you get that figure from?”

  “A chap called Weinberg.”

  They walked on in silence, Viktor grappling with the thought that Nik, like Georgiy, knew more than he, and that Georgiy, in describing Nik’s part as played, must know more than Nik.

  80

  That evening Georgiy rang.

  “Thumb in fridge, I take it.”

  “Actually, no.”

  “Put it there. It’ll keep better. Enjoying your relaxation? You’ve a first-class sea-food restaurant on the doorstep, how about a slap-up supper? You both deserve one.”

  In the pleasant, candlelit restaurant, they were shown to a table by the Village Manager himself.

  Prawn soufflé, squid in batter, and a medium-dry pleasantly tangy wine, rounded off with Turkish coffee and honey-nut-balls, made an enjoyable and satisfying meal. Once, as they ate, Viktor had the impression that they were being watched by a man sitting alone at a distant table, but put it down to overwrought nerves. The bill, when Nik called for it, was not forthcoming. It had been attended to, the manager informed them, glancing in the direction of the now vacated distant table.

  The sky was studded with stars. A warm, gentle breeze rustled the leaves.

  “God, what a lovely place!” exclaimed Viktor, but with a note of sadness.

  “Why so mournful?” asked a familiar voice, and a grey-suited figure stepped from the shadow of some trees. “Life, for all its difficulties, is good.”

  “Georgiy!” exclaimed Viktor.

  Having shaken hands with Nik, Georgiy suggested that they walk down to the sea.

  They made their way in silence, and reaching the beach, sat on a fallen tree. The moon formed a ripply path on the water. Tiny waves lapped the shingle.

  “This is where Bronitsky was this time last year,” said Georgiy. “Holidaying with some newly made friends.”

  He paused dramatically.

  “The sum withdrawable by Bronitsky alone, as opposed to in concert with two old friends of his, blissfully unaware what he was up to, struck these new friends as inadequate. So back he goes to Kiev to persuade the other two to join in the withdrawal, the intention being then to disembarrass himself of them. All, perhaps, against the promise of the premiership, though not much of a return against the billions involved. Bronitsky bit off more than he could chew.”

  “And so you killed him?” Viktor challenged.

  Staring impassively out to sea, Georgiy hurled a pebble.

  “Bronitsky died of cognac and tablets he ought not to have taken with alcohol, thereby leading us a dance. What happened between his leaving the restaurant and becoming airborne, I don’t know, nor does it matter. For a day or so, while we complete his business for him, he’ll still be with us in a sense.”

  Nik’s thoughts were elsewhere. He was trying to imagine becoming reunited with Tanya, and finding it impossible. It was as if the very possibility had been blocked by his acceptance of her death.

  “Thinking of her, Nik?” Georgiy inquired out of the blue, passing him a snapshot. It showed Tanya about to board a train, and as could be seen even by moonlight, plainly unhappy.

  “Taken at Kiev.”

  “Who by?” asked Viktor.

  “Those charged with your safety.”

  He heaved himself to his feet.

  “Come, let’s hit the road for Altinaya. I’ll relieve you of the thumb, you can relax, and the day after tomorrow it’s back to work.”

  Nik showed surprise. Viktor concealed his.

  High over the mountains a meteorite shot into nothingness.

  81

  “That thumb,” said Viktor, as the three of them sat next morning in Kyrenia over a glass of beer on the sea promenade, “what are you going to do with it?”

  “Tomorrow you’ll see,” said Georgiy.

  Disinclined to think that far ahead, Nik found himself envying Sakhno in hiding with Uli, but almost certainly enjoying life.

  They lunched at Georgiy’s expense and largely in silence, in a little fish restaurant, and by 5.00 were back in Altinaya sitting over wine and coffee.

  “Take it easy for the rest of today,” was Georgiy’s fatherly parting advice. “Have an early night. Big day tomorrow. I’ll call for you at 8.00.”

  Nik lay on his back contemplating a ceiling dappled with light from the narrow window. This abrupt removal to Cyprus left him unmoved. After Tanya and Volodya’s return from the dead nothing could surprise him. But having lived their deaths, it was not easy to rejoin their lives. Having been buried with them, it was as if he had ceased to exist for them.

  “You asleep?” he asked turning to Viktor.

  “No.”

  “Ever go camping with the Pioneers when you were a kid?”

  “No.”

  “I did. Three times. This is like a fourth.”

  “How so?”

  “There was a game we had. Summer Lightning. Sort of treasure hunt. I don’t remember exactly. What I do remember is how one evening we’d be told, Summer Lightning tomorrow! And how excited we’d be, not knowing what to expect, but expecting it to be fun. You’re like that as a kid.”

  “And now it’s the same?”

  “Expecting it to be fun, yes,” Nik said, but with a note of uncertainty that implied the opposite.

  Viktor made no response. He, too, was staring at the ceiling.

  A motorcycle roared past outside.
r />   “So tomorrow it’s the big one,” Nik said calmly. “After which we’re disposable. Not that I feel of any bloody use to anyone any more.”

  Again no response from Viktor.

  Georgiy arrived at 8.00 in summery flannels, dark blue shirt and grey jacket, and carrying a briefcase.

  “All fit?” he inquired, leading them out to a Suzuki mini-jeep.

  “Fifteen dollars a day, petrol extra. It’s peanuts what they charge for these things here.”

  Viktor sat beside Georgiy, Nik in the back.

  “This is where we collect, is it?” Nik asked abruptly.

  Georgiy smiled into the mirror.

  “Yes. The big money.”

  Seeing how tiny the mini-jeep’s boot was, Nik wondered where they would put it.

  A mobile rang. Viktor reached for his, but Georgiy forestalled him.

  “Be there in an hour … All set this end … Suzuki jeep, brownish yellow. OK. At the Karpas Peninsula–Famagusta fork we slow.”

  Pocketing his mobile, Georgiy produced automatics.

  “You’re my bodyguards …”

  At the fork, where Georgiy slowed, a chocolate-coloured Mercedes eased out behind, and as they accelerated, fell back.

  Famagusta seemed larger, livelier, busier than sleepy Kyrenia, and Georgiy appeared to know the place. At the flower-bedded, Atatürk statue roundabout, he swung right and brought them to a hotel overlooking the lifeless, war-scarred buffer zone between the Turkish sector and the Greek.

  They made their way out onto a terrace facing the sea, and Georgiy ordered coffee.

  “From this point on, questions are out,” he said. “Understood?”

  They nodded.

  Georgiy consulted his watch.

  “We’ll be joined shortly by someone else for you to protect.”

  “Is danger anticipated?” Viktor asked.

  “Not at the moment, though anything’s possible. After which, no more questions!”

  They drank their coffee in silence, Georgiy looking now at his watch, now around at the other customers, now at a ship on the horizon.

  Someone came and sat at the table next to theirs. Georgiy greeted him with a smile. The newcomer, Viktor saw to his astonishment, was Refat.

  “Good morning.” He looked pleasantly at each in turn, and as a waiter appeared ordered a coffee in English. “We leave in twenty minutes,” he said. “It’s fifteen minutes from here to the bank. We’re expected.”

  “And you two keep close behind, eyes peeled,” Georgiy threw in.

  At the bank, an Arab official took five copies of a document from a leather folder and laid them out on his desk, open at the last page.

  Georgiy made an ink impression of his right thumb on each document in the appropriate place, and Refat did the same. The Arab, who had shown him the greater deference throughout, wiped Refat’s thumb clean with ink solvent before turning to Viktor and Nik, assuming one of them to be next. At which point Georgiy, having pulled on surgical gloves, produced the thumb, and the Arab supervised the imprinting as unconcernedly as if it were still part of a person.

  When the three thumb-signatures had been computer-scanned and checked, prints were taken of Viktor’s right-hand index finger and Nik’s right-hand thumb. These were then scanned into the computer together with each of their passport photographs.

  Outside in the brilliant sunlight, Georgiy tossed Viktor the keys of the jeep, and travelled with Refat in the Mercedes.

  “You all right?” Viktor inquired after they had driven for ten minutes in silence.

  “Bit tired,” Nik confessed, then added, “You know this Refat chap, do you?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I was thinking of a pal of mine in Africa, who drove over a mine.”

  “No chance of that here.”

  “How about an in-car bomb? Stop and have a look?”

  “Georgiy said keep close behind.”

  “So we wouldn’t stop and look.”

  “Then why all that stuff with our fingerprints and photos?”

  “Means nothing. Things can be kept in test tubes.”

  Viktor found Nik’s unease infectious, and the more so since the out of the blue arrival of Refat. If Georgiy had all along been hand in glove with Refat, why all the nonsense of his having to conceal from Georgiy his own connection with Refat?

  “And where the hell is this cash they’ve just signed for?” Nik persisted.

  “No idea.”

  They had now left the town behind. On one side, meadows; on the other, barbed wire of some military installation.

  “Does your wife know where you are?” Nik asked suddenly.

  “Look, Nik, if you were expendable, you’d have been expended in Paris.”

  “Seems we’re heading for the airport,” Nik said, as a plane flew over very low – dark thoughts apparently allayed.

  The Mercedes pulled into the side, Viktor drew in behind. Georgiy came round to Viktor’s window.

  “Let’s have the guns.”

  Meekly they handed them over.

  Producing a duster, Georgiy wiped both weapons free of prints, and tossed them into the roadside grass.

  “That’s it,” he said, smiling broadly. “So on and up we go!”

  82

  From Ercan they flew to Istanbul, from Istanbul to Rome, and from Rome to Larnaca in the Greek sector of Cyprus, morale much improved by the excellence of the in-flight catering enjoyed on the final leg of their journey.

  From Larnaca airport they were driven to Limassol and the offices of Kostakas & Co., where they were received by Zakhariya, clearly an old friend of Georgiy’s.

  “All set, then, at this end?” Georgiy asked in English.

  “Of course! We’re the best.”

  Cinnamon-scented coffee was served by Zakhariya’s charming daughter, and for a while they sat in silence.

  “Just one small thing, Georgiy,” Zakhariya began unctuously, “storage charges have gone up a little.”

  “And it’s payment in advance.”

  Zakhariya nodded.

  “How much?”

  “Half a million would cover it.”

  Georgiy and Refat exchanged glances.

  “You really are all set to load?” Refat asked.

  “We are,” smiled Zakhariya. “Slick as a Swiss bank, that’s us.”

  Refat drew one of Zakhariya’s phones towards him.

  “Per Western Union,” Zakhariya prompted, with a smile which broadened as Refat authorized Moscow to pay.

  At the vast dockside container warehouse Zakhariya reached down one of the cartons, with which Refat’s container was packed, stripped back the sticky tape, and stepped aside for Georgiy to examine the bundles of hundred-dollar notes it contained. Refat declared himself satisfied, the warehouse manager re-sealed and replaced the carton, then closed and re-sealed the container.

  “See it loaded, and accompany it on board,” Georgiy ordered Nik and Viktor.

  “On board what?” Viktor asked.

  “Container Ship Lisichansk. Ukrainian flag.”

  They saw the container loaded, then sat guard on thoughtfully provided plastic chairs. Hot food was delivered to them.

  “Do you know,” said Nik suddenly, “I was supposed to get a family flat in Kiev on the strength of reclaiming this money. Plus a job in Security.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “A sort of Ukrainian Federal Bureau, a new idea Parliament refused the funds for. So my Ivan Lvovich said.”

  “There actually is a new National Investigation Bureau.”

  “Is that what you are?”

  “Wish I was. No, I’m just militia.”

  Refat and Georgiy appeared shortly after dark, accompanied by the ship’s captain.

  Refat broke the seal and opened the container.

  “That’s the one,” said Georgiy, pointing to the carton opened at Limassol.

  Refat lifted it down.

  Opening the carton, Georgiy handed Vikto
r and Nik ten bundles of notes each, then turned to the captain.

  “There’s eight hundred thousand dollars there for you. And you can come with us if it’s a question of dodging Ilichovsk customs, and we’ll put you ashore at Istanbul.”

  “No sweat,” said the captain. “We can hide anything up to a tank.”

  Refat closed the doors.

  “Come, you two,” said Georgiy. “We’re leaving ship.”

  They followed him to the side. Bobbing below they saw a trim motor yacht.

  “You’re leaving all that money, just like that?” Viktor asked Refat as they waited for Georgiy to climb down the ladder.

  “What we’re leaving is a container of contraband cigarettes, shortly to be escorted by our own brave Navy to the Black Sea port of Ilichovsk. Come on, down you go.”

  Two hours later Dimitris, the swarthy Greek skipper, brought his yacht alongside Grozny, a towering container ship, port of registration Novorossiysk, hove to with engines silent.

  “Decision time,” Refat announced, joining Viktor and Nik drinking coffee with Dimitris in the cabin. “Georgiy and I are sailing on Grozny to Novorossiysk, and can do without you for the time being. Dimitris will be happy to land you at Piraeus, and from there you can make your own way.”

  “Why Novorossiysk, when the money’s for Ukraine?” Viktor asked in surprise.

  “The money’s for Russia,” said Refat, “to set against the Ukrainian debt for natural gas. All by agreement with the future government. The present Kiev bunch would only blow it on getting re-elected. Better our way, don’t you think?”

  Viktor ignored the question.

  “Kiev for me,” he said firmly.

  “As I expected,” said Refat. “So come with us to Novorossiysk, and travel home from there. How about you, Nik?”

  Nik said nothing.

  “We’ll call further on your services,” Refat continued. “And we’ll see you safe. After all, we’ve you and Viktor to thank equally for the recovery of four billion. So where’s it to be?”

  “Paris,” Nik said quietly.

  “I’ve a fax here that could change your mind,” Refat said, passing it to him.

  Above the letterhead, a tiny picture of Sakhno and Uli seated on the bonnet of the familiar hearse before the premises of Sachs Funerals.