Solomon’s lips curved into a thin smile. ‘So very nearly the family man. How very touching. And how sad you never knew him. He’s at the Bourse, as you know. A nice boy, looks like you.’
Dima’s heart was smashing against his ribs, as if it was about to punch its way out of his chest.
‘Timofayev’s dead. I killed him. So’s Kaffarov. It’s over. You’re on your own.’
Solomon smirked. ‘You’ve forgotten, Dima, I was always on my own. I’ve never acted otherwise.’
‘You’ve missed your chance in Paris. You think you’ll get lucky in New York?’
He frowned, dismayed, his eyes glinting now. ‘Whatever do you mean? I never miss anything. Surely you remember that?’
Solomon’s eyes were wells of deathly black. ‘You know what I’m most disappointed about? That I didn’t arrange for an occasion to slice your irritating head off your sad old shoulders with a nice sharp blade. It would have given me such pleasure to watch you die.’
He started to get up. Dima lunged forward and grabbed his neck with both hands. Solomon’s crushing grip closed round his wrists. Immediately an alarm sounded and out of nowhere half a dozen security goons surged towards them. Four of them lifted Dima off and forced him to the ground.
Solomon straightened his suit and turned towards the other passengers hurrying away from the melee. Then he stopped and came back, bending down so his face was just inches from Dima’s.
‘Poor old Mayakovsky. Always in the wrong place. You should have been at the Bourse trying to save your son.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Too bad you’ll never have that reunion. Ten-thirty and—.’ He snapped his fingers in the air. ‘Au revoir, Paris.’
89
New York City
It was twenty minutes since Whistler had put in a call to Langley and he was still on hold. The CIA operative supposedly in charge of Homeland Security Liaison had called in sick and no one had been called to deputise.
‘So much for joined-up intelligence,’ Whistler said to the Vivaldi coming out of his cell phone.
The person who did pick up had to go away and double-check Whistler’s credentials before routing him to a department called Asset Registry. He asked a dreamy-sounding woman called Cheryl for available background on asset codename Solomon and was told that it wasn’t available ‘at this time’.
‘What time would it be available then, Cheryl?’
She snorted. ‘Like never. You don’t have the clearance, Hon.’
Whistler had had enough of being given the run-around. Blackburn had thrown down the gauntlet. What would Whistler say if Blackburn had something? How would it feel to be the one who dismissed him? He often thought of those guys who chose not to follow up on the suspicious trainee pilots who went on to down the Twin Towers. Would he have done the same? Would he want to live with that?
So Whistler did something that was bound to earn him a reprimand. He called Senator Douglis’s office and asked to speak to him. To his amazement he was put straight through.
‘Sir, I’m the agent detailed to follow up on Sergeant Blackburn.’
‘Very good to hear from you, Agent Whistler. How can I help?’
Whistler told him the gist and the Senator said he’d get right on to it. Three minutes later his cellphone chirped. It was the Deputy Director of Homeland Security, a man he had never met.
‘Whistler, you trying to get yourself fired?’
‘Sir, I’d rather be fired for trying to get a question answered than be the one who didn’t ask the question.’
Half an hour passed. Whistler took Blackburn a cup of coffee.
‘I want you to know that I just put my career on the line because of you.’
Blackburn didn’t respond. He was too busy experiencing the first cup of coffee he’d had since this whole nightmare started.
Another half an hour passed and three men he had never seen before came in, accompanied by Whistler’s immediate boss, Dumphrey, red-faced and still in his golfing kit. All three had the same grim expression. The shortest and baldest one carried a large ring binder of ID photos.
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
‘This better be worth it, Whistler, or you are in so much shit.’ whispered Dumphrey.
90
Paris
‘Okay, okay, okay. Just give me a minute, gentlemen.’
Bulganov was discovering depths of humility he didn’t know he had.
‘Gentlemen, I apologise. We are Russian. We are an excitable people. When we have our falling out — it can be bad. Thank the Lord God no one was armed — thanks to your rigorous security. If you wish me to get the Interior Minister on the phone I will make a personal apology right now.’
The hint that Bulganov had friends in high places stalled them for a moment. But Officer Giraud, Senior Airport Security Officer at Charles De Gaulle, wasn’t one to have rank pulled on him by some fat cat Russian oligarch.
Giraud ignored Bulganov for the moment. He was giving Dima a close look. The man was a mess. He appeared to have dust in his hair. There was a faint smell of urine. He had examined the Iranian passport, heard Bulganov’s quick-witted account of him being a fugitive from the regime. And he wasn’t convinced. Besides, he thought he had seen this face somewhere. He would have to check.
Dima was silently cursing himself for the futile attack on Solomon. Another mistake. He was unravelling. But crowding out all coherent thought was what Solomon had just told him.
He wouldn’t have given up on the Bourse because of the security. Solomon never gave up on anything. Either he had already placed the bomb before the guard was doubled or he had gone in there as part of the guard.
Bulganov was still trying to negotiate.
‘If you would consider, on this occasion making an exception and releasing my man back into my custody, I will be forever indebted to you. .’
Giraud was taking no notice. He was looking at a mugshot image on his iPhone. His eyes suddenly widened. ‘Dima Mayakovsky. You are coming with us.’
91
New York City
The one in charge of the ring binder was Gordon, from the CIA’s New York office. Smaller and fatter than Whistler, but oozing the natural superiority of Langley’s finest.
‘Gentlemen, if you would stand away from the desk when I open the binder, thank you. These are classified images. I don’t need to remind you this is a highly unusual situation we find ourselves in, showing photos of CIA assets to a felon.’
Whistler heard his boss let out an indignant sigh before complying.
Gordon placed the binder on the table in front of Blackburn. They all watched as he turned the pages. There were fifty mug shots in the binder. Blackburn took his time. Despite the coffee, whatever they had sedated him with was still coursing through his system, weighing down his eyelids. He recalled Harker’s turbanned executioner. He remembered the face on the bank security screen. Solomon, the name Al Bashir had uttered with his dying breath. He turned the pages, examining each face one by one.
One of the Homeland guys sighed and glanced at his watch. He was going to take his time. He was going to get this right if it was the last useful thing he ever did.