Omorova opened a laptop. ‘We need to know about any sightings of Solomon on recent trips to Paris. Chances are he’s been there to recce as well as to set up some kind of team. He won’t be starting from scratch. He’s very meticulous. If he’s there he’s only been there a few days, so he’s bound to choose somewhere he knows to operate from. My guess is he won’t be staying somewhere unfamiliar that he has to check out, or that means he’s having to look over his shoulder.’
Dima nodded. ‘Yeah, but we can’t assume that. We can’t assume anything. He could come through the front door posing as a fund manager, an oil trader, someone in derivatives. He’s extremely plausible whether he’s playing Lebanese, American, Israeli. .’
Omorova smiled. ‘Better than you?’
Suddenly he wished she was coming with him. But equally, there was an aspect of this mission he didn’t want to have to explain. He was travelling back in time to a place in his life he thought he had put behind him. Also, in part of his mind he had already written off the quest as hopeless. Trying to find one man and a bomb in a major capital city with just four people to help. . Possibly, now, only three.
She sighed, as if reading his mind.
‘And you’re still not officially off the wanted list. Timofayev wouldn’t sanction it until. .’ Her voice trailed away. ‘There’s still a covert shoot to kill directive against you with all the European security agencies.’ She read from a printout. ‘“The CIS will not, repeat not, protest in the event that the target does not survive arrest.” Nicely put, eh?’
Dima shrugged. He hadn’t expected anything less.
‘What are the Americans saying?’
‘Ah. Want the rest of the bad news?’
‘Bring it on.’
‘Langley are putting it out that a US Marine is under arrest for the murder of his commanding officer — in Iran. .’
Dima winced.
‘Go on.’
‘They don’t want it known at all that a Russian was there at the time. It just makes it more complicated for them. But our back channel communications with them are saying that the prisoner has corroborated claims by the Russian security services that one Dima Mayakovsky is at large and is a potential threat in the European mainland.’
He shook his head.
‘The poor guy probably didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘How come he’s not claiming you shot his CO?’ said Bulganov.
‘He had a terrible choice — either deny me and forget what I’d told him about Solomon, or come clean and try to get his message across. He could have saved himself.’
‘Such honesty, such selflessness. .’ His voice trailed away. Bulganov was baffled.
Omorova frowned, thinking. ‘You were only with him for what, an hour?’
‘You can learn a lot about someone in that time. It would be good if he knew I was still out there. Is there anything you could do?’
He looked out of the window. Below, he could see the lights of the new Moscow glittering all the way to the horizon.
‘He saved my life so I could get this done. I cannot fail.’
73
Fort Donaldson, USA
Blackburn wasn’t sure what he felt about being back in America. All he had seen of it so far was at Andrews Air Force base, when they transferred him from the windowless plane to the windowless truck. From the stairs he saw a vast expanse of tarmac, those strange-shaped vehicles that only inhabit airfields and an American flag hanging limp in the humid air. Not realising who he was, a woman, one of the ground crew, looked up as a pretty young woman might at a handsome young man, and gave him the sort of winning smile that brought an instant lump to his throat. Would any woman ever look at him like that again?
He travelled the seven hours to Fort Donaldson in a cubicle inside a prison truck. There was a toilet under the seat so he didn’t have to be let out. A letterbox in the door opened once or twice and a hand offered him a Hershey bar and a bottle of water. There was a window but it had been painted out. Already he felt desperate for the sight of just a bit of sky or a single tree.
Once at Donaldson he was escorted straight to the MP’s facility and into an interview room. A small man with a moustache and big black-rimmed glasses sat at a metal desk, head down, peering at a thick file. He whipped off the glasses and stood up.
‘I’m Schwab, your lawyer.’
The hand Blackburn was offered felt cold and dry, but it was a hand nonetheless. No one had offered him a hand to shake in a long time.
His small mouth twitched into a cautious smile. He knitted his fingers together and leaned over the file. His voice dropped to almost a whisper.
‘I’m the only friend you got right now so the more you confide in me, the more I’ll be able to do for you.’
Blackburn didn’t react. He didn’t feel like confiding. He’d said it all — three, four times he couldn’t remember — to a variety of different people, half of whose names or jobs he never discovered. Bleary and jet-lagged from the flight, not knowing what time it was, he gazed doubtfully at Schwab.
‘What is it exactly that you do?’
Schwab looked thrown.
‘I mean — when you’re not defending me.’
Schwab’s mouth twitched. He pushed his glasses up his nose with an index finger.
‘I defend the un-defendable. Someone’s got to.’
It was a joke of sorts, but it fell way short of Blackburn, who didn’t even know whether he still had a sense of humour. Then without warning, Schwab dropped his bombshell.
‘Wanna talk to your Mom?’
74
Schwab dialled and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. He had already been in contact. Blackburn imagined his mother cradling the phone in two hands, as he’d seen her do many times, as if it could bring the person closer.
‘Hello, baby.’
Her voice was clear and strong, as if she’d been practising what to say for days — which she probably had.
‘I know I’ve only got two minutes but I want you to know that your father and I love you very much and we believe in you — whatever. Okay?’
‘Mom?’
‘Yes, darling?’
Her voice cracked as she heard her son speak for the first time since hearing he’d been jailed.
‘Is Dad there?’