Moscow USA

Kincaid felt the bump as the 767 touched down. The Boeing swung right, followed the taxiway and stopped, and the seatbelt signs flicked off. Kincaid pulled one bag on to the seat, stood in the aisle, and allowed Brady to stand in front of him and pull the other bag from the floor. Whyte came this way yesterday, he was aware; Whyte thought everything was going smoothly. He took the weight of the bag, thanked the cabin crew and walked up the tunnel of the jetbridge. The woman in the Border Guard uniform was at the top, two men with her.

‘Kincaid?’ One of the two pick-ups greeted him in Russian.

‘Yes.’

‘How’s the weather in London?’ The first line of the code, still in Russian.

‘Fine, how about Moscow?’

‘Sunnier than Washington.’

Right pick-up team today.

He and Brady gave the woman their passports and visas; she ticked them off a list, waited till one other passenger joined them, the others going right to the normal immigration area, then she led them left, along the corridor, through the duty free area, and up the stairs to the VIP lounge. The room was small, a bar to the left, a Daewoo television set in one corner, an arrivals/departures monitor hanging from the ceiling, and two girls in an immigration booth to the right. The walls were covered with dark grey hessian and the seats were vinyl.

Two more pick-ups were waiting for them. Ten minutes later one of the pick-ups collected the passports from the window of the immigration booth. ‘Bring the cars in,’ the komandir, the team leader, told the drivers on the Motorola.

They left the lounge, went down the stairs, and cut through the crowds in the arrivals area. Sheremetyevo smelt wrong – it hit Kincaid: dark terminal and darker corners; so who was waiting for him, who was going to try to take him and Brady and the Omega guys around them? They sliced through the waiting drivers. So where the hell’s the angel-khzanitel, because that was what the briefing in London had said: security pick-up plus guardian angel. Hope to Christ the Omega boys had spotted whoever might be waiting for them, hope to hell the angel-khzanitel had him covered. Christ, why wasn’t he carrying?

The convoy came in – Saab 9000 in front, Volvo, second Saab 9000 behind – and stopped immediately opposite the main doors, the drivers remaining in place, engines running, and two men getting out of the lead and tail cars, neither of them looking at the cars, Uzis held discreetly beneath their coats and eyes scanning the crowd and the pavement and the doors.

Kincaid came through the door and saw the convoy: Saab, Volvo, Saab; saw the two men by the cars still scanning the crowd. Knew he was being taken care of but looked round anyway. They were five metres from the Volvo. The man beside it opened the rear door. Kincaid threw the bag on to the floor, crossed over to the other side of the car, one of the pick-ups already in the roadway on that side, and slid in. Brady threw his bag on the seat and tumbled in beside it. One of the pick-ups eased into the front passenger seat and clicked on the thief locks. The other pick-ups were already getting into the Saabs, two remaining on the pavement and still checking, even as the convoy began to pull off, then dropping through the doors as the drivers accelerated away.

The man with the Sig Sauer and the AKSU47 under his coat collected the BMW, left Sheremetyevo and pulled left toward Moscow.

Five years ago this week Vorkov had contacted him in Boston — the teni proshlovo came back at him again … Five years ago he had been in the air to La Guardia – the ghost reminded him … Five years ago Vorkov had directed him to the restaurant on East 54th …

In front of him Nikolai Sherenko saw the convoy.

2 (#ufb43b5a6-d377-55e9-8f28-54b6955e0eee)

The convoy cut across the river, passed the outer ring road, dropped toward the city centre and turned right down Gertsena Ulica. The street was lined with shops, three- or four-storey apartments and offices above them, and an occasional white-painted church or garden, railed off and set back from the road. The lead Saab stopped and the pick-ups stepped on to the pavement.

The door was wood and painted a dark heavy brown, no number on it. On one side was an electrical shop and on the other a small supermarket, both filled with shoppers. One of the pick-ups crossed the pavement and checked inside. The Volvo slid in behind the lead Saab, no doors opening, and the Volvo itself pointing out with enough space in front to scream away. The tail Saab slid in behind the Volvo and the other pick-ups got out, hands inside their jackets. The pick-up at the door checked inside and nodded.

Still a chance for someone to take them out – Kincaid glanced down and across the street. On the opposite side of the road the BMW pulled into position.

Clear, the komandir told Kincaid. Kincaid slid out, pulled the bag after him, Brady behind him and the pick-ups tight around them, crossed the pavement, up the single worn step to the door, and entered the building.

The floor inside was stone, there were stone stairs to the left, the walls were painted a faded off-cream, and an ancient elevator with a metal grille rattled up the front. The Omega team ignored the elevator and took the stairs, turned a corner, came to a landing, two doors off it, and continued up, came to another landing then another. The door on the left was wood but the one on the right was padded leather, the usual indication that the door itself was steel. The keyboard for the security lock was on the left. The team leader punched in the combination, pushed open the door and went in, Kincaid and Brady behind him and the pick-ups behind them.

The walls and ceiling of the outer office were lined with wood and the linoleum on the floor was worn. There were two desks, the men lounging against them standing to greet them as they came in. A door on the left ran back down a corridor, no indication what was there, and another corridor ran off the outer room, directly in front of them, two doors off it on the left and one on the right. A shaft of sun struggled through the bars on the single window in the room, the dust playing in its light.

‘Welcome to Omega,’ the team leader said in Russian.

Sure, Kincaid thought.

The man who entered from one of the rooms in the corridor in front of them was mid-thirties, just under six feet tall and wiry build. ‘Glad you made it safely.’ The accent was English. ‘Pat Riley.’ ISS’s manager in Moscow, Kincaid understood; service with the Parachute Regiment, ending his career as a major in the Third Battalion, plenty of time at the sharp end, including Northern Ireland, and fluent in Russian.

They shook hands then Riley led Kincaid and Brady along the corridor.

‘ConTex have been notified that you’ve arrived. They want five million delivered right away, the boys will see to that. They want the other million escorted to Kazakhstan tomorrow morning. Tom, you take that down with an escort. Mikhail’s on his way in.’ Mikhail Gerasimov, Grere Jameson’s partner in Moscow. ‘Conference as soon as he arrives. You needn’t attend, Tom.’

He led them into the office on the right of the corridor, overlooking the street. The room was functional but sparse: cream-painted walls, desks with computers, a good-looking woman at one, late twenties and well-dressed, and men at the others. Riley introduced them in Russian, translating for Brady:

‘Tatyana, our office manager …

‘Oleg and Josef, a couple of the boys …

‘Igor Lukyanov …’ Former KGB intelligence, their access point to the present FSB. Lukyanov was five-six and squat; his blond hair was short, and the suit jacket which hung on the back of his chair was expensive and well-cut.

‘Igor, this is Jack Kincaid and Tom Brady from DC. Jack’s working on the ConTex investigation. You probably had a file on him in the old days.’

Gerasimov’s room was on the opposite side of the corridor, and furthest from the outer office. It was wood-lined and small, functional desk and computer, grey carpet on the floor, one print on the wall, and a single window to the courtyard at the rear. The conference room next to it was also small: oval table with hard-backed chairs round it, window on to the courtyard, and the walls were papered, the design like the onion domes of St Basil’s in Red Square.

‘Not like ISS’s offices in London or DC,’ Riley suggested to Brady.

‘Not quite,’ the ex-FBI man conceded.

Riley perched himself on the edge of the table. ‘One thing you have to realize, Tom. Moscow is the third most expensive city in the world. Office space is at a premium; so you pay through the nose or you do a deal with someone you know for somewhere like this. Another thing you have to understand is how the system works here. The owner’s an old friend of Mikhail’s. He runs an import-export business from an office down the corridor, to the left as you come in. We get cheap rates for Omega, and he gets protection from the government and the mafia.’

He led them back to the main office and poured them each a coffee from the percolator in the corner. On one of the phones someone was speaking to Kazakhstan, on another to Kiev, the secure fax humming in the background.

‘While you’re in Moscow, for this trip at least, you’ll be staying in the company apartment which I use. Tom, you’ll be collected at five tomorrow morning, then fly to Kazakhstan with an escort and an interpreter. You return to London via Budapest. It’s an eye-opener. You may even enjoy it.’ He finished the coffee and poured himself another. ‘I’ve asked one of the boys to show you both around this evening.’

He turned to Brady. ‘Give us five, Tom.’ The order was polite and friendly. Brady nodded. Riley settled behind the desk in the left corner of the room and Kincaid pulled a chair in front of it and took the file Riley gave him.

‘Background on the ConTex investigation. You’ll be working with one of Mikhail’s people. We know this is a team job, but remember this is Moscow. New Moscow maybe, but some things never change. If you want anything, do it through them.’

Mikhail Gerasimov was on his way in, the office manager told them.

‘Any questions?’ Riley asked Kincaid.

‘Not yet.’

Kincaid went through to the conference room, sat at the table and read through the file. It was eleven hours since he had first been woken in Amsterdam and told to get to London, and the tiredness was seeping into him. Perhaps because he had been woken in the middle of the night, perhaps because he’d been carrying six million dollars and the previous day six million dollars had gone missing. Perhaps because he was in Moscow again.

The door opened and Gerasimov and Riley came in. Gerasimov was forty-eight, tall and powerfully built.

‘Mikhail Sergeyevich Gerasimov.’ Riley did the introductions. ‘Jack Kincaid.’

‘Good to meet you, Jack.’

‘You too, Mikhail.’

They sat at the conference table, Gerasimov at the head, his back to the window and facing the door, Riley at the other end, and Kincaid between them. The door to the boardroom opened again and the fourth man came in. I know you – it was a flash in Kincaid’s subconscious. I’ve seen you before.

‘Jack Kincaid, Nikolai Sherenko.’ Gerasimov did the introductions this time. ‘I think you’ve already met.’