Moscow USA

They accepted a Lagavulin and caviar and Gerasimov began the introductions, the conversations switching easily between English and Russian, and the handshakes and welcomes as if Jameson was a new friend rather than an old enemy.

There was a movement at the door from the corridor and Malenkov came in. He was six feet tall, late forties and slim; hair beginning to turn silver and hand-cut suit that made him look like a high-flyer in an American or European bank or blue-chip investment house. His eyes were sharp and blue, the antithesis of the West’s image of a KGB general.

‘General Sergei Malenkov, Grere Jameson …’ Gerasimov did the introductions.

‘Recognize you from your file,’ Jameson joked in perfect Russian.

‘And I recognize you from yours.’ Malenkov’s face was locked in a smile and his reply was in flawless English.

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

Sherenko rose at six.

The apartment was almost too big for him now. It had been small when Natasha and the girls had been there; the girls had had the bedroom, and he and his wife (when he was at home) a pull-down in the sitting-room. Their photos were still on the sideboard and the documents which chronicled their lives together lay in a folder in a drawer.

He made coffee, ate a small breakfast, then cleared the table, washed up, slipped on the shoulder holster and Sig Sauer, locked the flat and collected the BMW, checking underneath it before he opened it. Fifteen minutes later he turned into the street where the company apartment was situated. The street was almost empty: half a dozen slightly battered cars were parked along the sides, the pavements were dusty, and a dog was relieving itself against a tree. The only man in the street, leaning with his back against the wall as if he was waiting for a tram or trolleybus, was as grey and inconspicuous as the street itself. Sherenko stopped and Kincaid got in.

‘Nu, chto vchera delal?’ So what did you do last night?

‘Nichevo osolennovo.’ Nothing in particular.

The building, when they reached it, was faded red brick and looked like a factory. Sherenko turned through an unlit archway, showed an ID at the security barrier, then drove into the courtyard beyond. Despite the hour there were other cars already there, plus two transits. The morning was quiet, as if the walls around them deadened any noise. Sherenko locked the BMW and led Kincaid through a door in the wall opposite the archway, then down a set of stone stairs to the range.

There were ten plywood targets, paper facing on them; seven were Figure 11s, half-body and head, and three Figure 12s, head and shoulders. Six of them were being used: the men shooting at them were dressed in battle fatigues, no insignia or identification, and all were in their early twenties. Their instructor nodded at Sherenko, his students glancing across.

‘What did you train on?’ Sherenko seemed at ease in the place.

‘Normal stuff,’ Kincaid told him. ‘Walther, Beretta, Uzi.’

‘What do you feel comfortable with?’

‘They’re mostly the same, I guess.’

Sherenko took the automatic from his shoulder holster and gave it to Kincaid. ‘Sig Sauer P226. Swiss manufacture. The British SAS put it through two years of testing before they decided to adopt it in preference to the Browning. Fifteen-round mag, which is why the SAS also likes it.’

Kincaid checked that the safety was on, settled in front of one of the targets, dropped into a combat crouch and brought the Sig Sauer up. Felt for the safety with his right and fired six rounds. Sherenko wound back the target. One round had hit the right shoulder, three the chest and abdomen area, and two more were slightly to the left.

‘When did you last use a gun?’

The residue of antagonism flashed in Kincaid’s brain. ‘A few years back.’

‘You were a desk or a field man?’

Kincaid hesitated. ‘Field man.’ He hesitated again. ‘But we had gorillas to take care of the dirty stuff.’

Sherenko looked at him. ‘In Moscow you don’t have time to call the gorillas.’

Kincaid fired six more rounds.

‘I suggest you come in each morning.’ Sherenko took the gun, slid in a fresh magazine, put the automatic back in his shoulder holster and turned away from the target.

Screw you, you arrogant bastard, Kincaid thought as he had thought the previous evening.

Sherenko turned, hand taking the Sig Sauer as he did so, body dropping fluidly into a combat crouch, the automatic on target as if it was an extension of himself and the right thumb flicking off the safety smoothly and naturally. Three rounds, change position, second three rounds. Drop and roll to left, always present a moving target. Three more rounds.

Flash bastard – the other men on the range glanced across. Except he’s an old flash bastard. They themselves had been firing much quicker, getting off more rounds than Sherenko and were still on target, their rounds, like his, in a tight cluster.

Sherenko suddenly looks his age, Kincaid thought; Sherenko suddenly looks like me. The real flash bastards, the ones who really were on the ball, were the guys twenty metres away.

Sherenko stood, slipped on the safety, handed Kincaid the Sig Sauer, and wound back the target. The rounds were positioned in a tight cluster round the centre of the chest, none outside. ‘So that was my job and yours was running people. But this is Moscow, and in Moscow, if a street trader doesn’t pay up his pittance of roubles for protection, or a banker calls in a loan, he ends up in a place like C’urupy Ulica.’

‘And …’ Kincaid asked.

‘And we’re working together. If they come for you I might be there. So I’m looking after my ass as well as yours.’

‘Fuck you, Nik,’ Kincaid said.

‘Fuck you too, my friend.’

They left forty minutes later. In the last quarter-hour Kincaid’s groupings had begun to improve, and in the final five minutes the rate of improvement had accelerated.

‘What time’s the flight?’ Sherenko cut past a line of cars. The traffic was heavy now, but most of it was coming the other way, into Moscow.

‘Nine.’

‘I thought the first BA flight is this afternoon.’

‘I’m flying Aeroflot.’

So lucky you, Sherenko’s eyes said. ‘What time you seeing Pearce?’

‘As soon as I get in.’

‘What about the flight back?’

‘The first one as soon as I’ve wrapped up with Pearce. I’ll let the office know.’

Sherenko slowed for a set of lights. ‘Don’t get a cab into town. Most of the drivers are cowboys and the road is bad. Cross to the Novotel, there’s a shuttle for hotel guests every fifteen minutes.’ He turned into Sheremetyevo. ‘Riley told you about the party tonight?’

‘Yeah, he gave me the name of the restaurant. I’ll make it if I can.’

Sherenko pulled up the slope and stopped in front of the departures area on the upper level of the airport building. Kincaid hurried inside, checked on the monitors that his flight was on time, then stood in line for the currency, customs, ticket and passport formalities. Most of those checking in were businessmen, some of them Russian, the expats wearing the standard suits and the Russians wearing Versaces and looking as if they were going to a nightclub. Kincaid bought a black coffee in the Irish Bar and waited for the flight to be called.

So what was that about last night? Why the hell had he gone walkabout?

Because Sherenko and Riley had been right, even though they hadn’t told him directly. Because he, Jack Kincaid, God knows how many years in the game, had come into Moscow like all the other expats. Believing that he owned the world. Believing that because Moscow had lost the Cold War the Russians had everything to learn from him, and he had nothing to learn from them. And gently – actually not so gently – but in their different ways, Sherenko and Riley had let him know.

Riley to start with, when Kincaid had shown his reaction to the Omega offices on Gertsena Ulica, even though Riley had done it indirectly through Brady. Then Sherenko at the Santa Fe, indirectly again, via Brady; and Riley in the company apartment that night. You got a problem with Moscow, Riley had asked. And Riley after he had failed to show Gerasimov the proper respect at their first meeting. Good to meet you, Mikhail, Kincaid had said. Mikhail Sergeyevich – Riley had referred to Gerasimov in the conversation he had had with Kincaid the evening after. Had thrown in Gerasimov’s patronymic, his second name, because in Russian that was a sign of respect. Especially formally, or at a first meeting.