Dima looked distracted.
‘Omorova doesn’t know what to do. She’s already taken a big fat risk organising your “shooting”.’
70
Renskaya Morgue, Moscow
Friday night is rush hour at Moscow’s police morgues. But the Renskaya, one of the oldest in the city, was suspiciously quiet — to anyone familiar with the place, which Andrei Timofayev was not.
A nervous-looking orderly in a white coat, apron and rubber boots led the way down to the basement. The place smelled not of death, but of something unidentifiable and chemical, impersonal. The green paint on the brick walls of the corridors was scored by decades of gurneys, badly steered by drunken or careless porters. There had been no time to prepare the viewing chamber in advance of the Secretary’s visit. The tattered curtain across the window through which the corpses could be viewed for identification hung like a string of washing. Timofayev shook his head, as he did whenever he found evidence of Moscow’s resemblance to a city in the Third World.
‘If you would take a seat, Sir,’ said the orderly.
‘What for? Do I look like a grieving relative?’ Timofayev fluttered a hand at the curtain. ‘Get on with it.’
The curtain was drawn back. On a trolley behind the viewing window lay a pale corpse. Just the head and shoulders were showing: the rest was under a sheet — just visible was a corner of the plaster used by pathologists to close up, after they have finished their investigations.
All the colour had drained from the face. The eyes were closed, the head angled slightly towards the window to facilitate identification.
Timofayev glared at the corpse, narrowing his eyes.
‘I need a closer look.’
The attendant stepped forward, moving uncomfortably in his large boots.
‘I’m sorry, Sir, it’s not permitted.’
Timofayev pushed him aside and seized the handle of the door that separated the viewing gallery from the body display area. It was locked.
‘Open it. Now!’
The orderly did as he was told and stood back. He had done what he had been bribed to do. Now all he wanted to do was flee. Timofayev strode up to the corpse and peered at it, his face devoid of emotion.
Dima had only stopped shivering when he heard Timofayev’s voice. He had conquered the urge to shudder by putting himself in the same state as when he was thrown into the ice-covered lake in his Spetsnaz training, or when he had to fight one of his fellow recruits naked in the snow for the amusement of their instructor, a definite psychopath. He ordered his nerve endings not to respond to the cold, commanded his muscles to obey. Even so, he could still feel the goosebumps on his arms tingling. Bit of a giveaway that. Timofayev’s breath was warm and smelled of coffee and something alcoholic. His aftershave blended with the disinfectant that hung in the mortuary air, in a particularly nausea-inducing way. His breaths came in short rapid puffs that sounded like repeated snorts of disdain. He lifted the sheet back to expose the plaster.
And Dima opened his eyes.
Timofayev jumped backwards, crashing into the instrument trolley parked to one side, fumbling for his weapon. Dima sprang up and grabbed his wrist as his hand reached the Beretta.
‘You didn’t expect me back in Moscow, did you?’
‘I don’t expect anything of you. You’re way past your sell-by date, Mayakovsky. Same as your pathetic old boss.’
Timofayev’s eyes drilled into his, seemingly unfazed by the hold Dima had on his wrist. Had Dima wanted to kill him he would have by now but it was information he had come for. All the same, revenge was running a close second and catching up fast.
But with a superhuman force that took Dima completely by surprise, Timofayev wrenched his arm out of his grip and kicked him hard in his naked groin. There was nothing Dima could do but double up on the floor, the pain blotting out any coherent thought except for cursing himself for thinking up this ridiculous stunt.
‘See what I mean? You’ve been running around Iran these last few days, chasing your tail, getting tired, going without food and fluids. You overestimate yourself. It’s the same with all you two-dimensional comic book heroes. And then you pay the price.’
Through the fog of agony produced by his traumatised testicles Dima could sense Timofayev preparing to dispatch him. He had to postpone it.
‘Solomon’s going to make Russia very unpopular. The Americans already know where the WMDs come from.’
‘Your information is both inaccurate and out of date,’ said Timofayev. ‘The Americans have a man in custody who’s told them all about you, and they’ve drawn their own useful though rather unimaginative conclusions. In fact your blundering into them has provided Solomon with a very useful cover.’
‘Now you’re going to tell me you want him to get away with it?’
Dima was not only in physical pain, his whole worldview was crumbling. Would nothing stay still?
‘You just don’t get it do you, Mayakovsky? The world has moved on. The geopolitical ice is melting. The tectonic plates of power and influence are shifting. America and the West have had their day. They’ve had it far too good for far too long. New forces in the world are poised to take their place — are taking their place, even as I speak. And those of us with the imagination to see this are not going to let it be slowed down by a few feeble old dinosaurs too short-sighted — and weak — to know when it’s time for them to die out. You’re extinct, Dima. Give it up.’
Dima tried hard to focus on what Timofayev was saying. Concentrating on this pompous speech would help to distract him from the pain while he worked out his next move, if he had one. He was on the freezing floor, naked and unarmed, his head slammed against the wheel of the trolley.
‘Paliov warned me about you. He said you didn’t know when to stop. I was relying on you screwing up — which you seem to have done rather well.’
Timofayev was getting into his stride. The best Dima could hope for was that he’d relax his concentration, though he didn’t come across as the sort who would.
‘Were you hoping to wring some information out of me about that orphan boy in Paris?’
Dima didn’t feel like dignifying him with an answer, but his silence spoke for itself. He couldn’t bear the contempt with which Timofayev spoke about his son, and felt the balance tip towards vengeance.
‘Well I don’t have any and I never did. I expect some minion in my Ministry may have logged a name and address but we’re not obsessive collectors of trivia like our socialist forefathers. It just clogs up the servers. Besides, what would a bright young man do after finding out his father’s a failed Soviet agent? Hardly going to do much for his prospects is it? I should leave the boy alone if I were you, to get on with his life.’
Dima struggled to lift himself by grabbing a leg of the trolley, nearly pulling off the cover that was draped over it. He managed to get a grip on the edge of the shelf.
‘Go on, pick yourself up. Your story’s so sad I might even take pity on you and send you to one of the remaining gulags. You’d like that. It’s full of your generation. You can eat boiled onions and reminisce about the good old Soviet days of your youth.’
My generation? thought Dima. The two of them were only a few years apart in age. But they they were worlds apart: at least Dima had some morals, some sense of justice. The sterile android in the suit in front of him, who was sounding off about a new world order, had no belief in anything, no loyalty to any cause other than his own.
He put the flat of his hand on the trolley shelf, felt the instrument under his palm. It would have to do. But a new pain shot up his leg as he tried to lift himself again. He slithered back to the ground and doubled over, closing his hand over the instrument he had grabbed off the shelf, hoping Timofayev hadn’t noticed.
He was only dimly aware of what Timofayev was saying now. Evidently the man had quite a lot to get off his chest. Dima was now focused entirely on where Timofayev was standing, how long it would take him to get there from his current position, curled up against the trolley, and whether it was enough. Timofayev had good reflexes, that was apparent. As to whether his aim was as good, Dima would just have to take the risk.
The first part of his strategy was to kick the gurney so the sudden movement caused a microsecond’s diversion — enough to get him part of the way.
The first shot from Timofayev’s Beretta came almost simultaneously — but by then Dima, having stabilised himself, had sprung up from his crouching position and swiped the gurney, so it pinned Timofayev against the wall as three more shots rang out, hitting the ceiling. With his adversary in position, Dima stabbed the scissors hard into his gun hand. The Beretta spun to the ground.
He pushed him up.
‘Sure you haven’t just suddenly remembered any information that’s unexpectedly come back to you? Want to have another think?’
The scissors caught some of the sinews in Timofayev’s palm as Dima extracted them and plunged them into his wrist, severing the radial artery and spraying them both with blood. Timofayev’s eyes bulged with shock and a sharp smell of shit cut through the aftershave and disinfectant: a bully. And like all bullies, fatally weak beneath the bluster.
‘I. . I. . can help. .’
‘We both know that’s not going to happen. Last chance now: does anything come to mind. .?’