Alex Dryden: Death in Siberia

‘Why?’

Burt didn’t reply immediately. He just scuffed some stones beneath his feet and kicked one into the gently lapping waves. They were right on the shore, the water almost reaching their feet.

Burt turned and began to walk up the beach, away from the stone buildings and the prefab huts Cougar had erected, as if there were anyone who could hear them anywhere. Larry followed.

Finally, as he continued to walk slowly along the shingle, Burt spoke, but still in tones so low that Larry had to lean in slightly.

‘They’re charging him with murder,’ Burt said.

Larry was struck dumb.

He felt a deep anger coming from Burt, rather than hearing it in his voice. It seemed to steam invisibly out of him.

‘But that’s crazy,’ Larry exploded at last. His mind was working fast, thinking of the possibilities, the implications. ‘Have they found some link between him and Cougar? Is this their way of extracting something from us?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Burt replied.

‘Then what?’ Larry demanded, exasperated now by Burt’s low and halting delivery of information.

Burt stopped again and turned towards the sea. ‘He’s being charged with the murder of a German professor. A nuclear scientist. The man’s name is Bachman. According to our German friends he’s been missing for twelve days or more. Now the Russians say they’ve had his body all along. They’ve also found a briefcase of his, they say. Contains the usual things a man takes on a short trip.’ Burt stopped talking again and Larry restrained his impatience this time. ‘But along with the underwear and the shaving things and the change of shirt, they found a bald wig in the case,’ Burt said finally. ‘The Russians say the wig contains DNA that matches Clay’s.’

Larry was ready to explode.

‘Where’s the evidence?’ he almost shouted now.

‘Oh, the Russians are being surprisingly co-operative,’ Burt answered quietly. ‘They’ve invited FBI investigators to Krasnoyarsk.’

‘But it’s obviously a fix!’ Larry said. ‘They’ve just planted the DNA. They must know something about what Clay was doing in Siberia. They’ve let the other two go and kept him. So. They must be asking for something. They must be trying to screw us.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Burt said again, towards the sea. ‘They’re not asking us, or the CIA or the State Department, or any of us, for anything at all. They’re charging him with murder and they intend to pursue it. They want nothing, no bribe, to make them drop the charges, as they usually would. They see it as some kind of publicity coup, perhaps. A way to show the world they can solve a murder committed by a foreigner, even if they somehow fail to solve the murders they commit against their own journalists and MPs and anyone else in Russia who dissents from the Kremlin’s line.’

‘But it’s an obvious set-up, for Christ’s sake!’ Larry said, demanding the answer he wanted now, screwing his right foot into the shingle in anger. ‘You know that! They know he’s connected to us and they’re going to frame him. “Stop sending your spies on to our soil”, that’s their message, that’s what it’s about.’

Burt turned towards him, for the first time since the conversation had begun. ‘Of course, we’ve been making our own inquiries,’ he said softly. ‘That was also my opinion, naturally. A frame-up. This Bachman had been to Norilsk. He’d intended to meet Kryuchkov, but we hear he apparently failed. Kryuchkov no longer meets anyone. We believe he met another man in a hotel in Norilsk, however. Perhaps something passed between them, we don’t know. But Bachman was a marked man after that.’

‘But not marked by Clay! Jesus, Burt, stop talking this crap! It’s obvious the Russians are sending a warning shot across our bow. They know Clay isn’t who he says he is, that’s all. Maybe they even know he works for us, or believe he’s CIA. Who knows? But that’s what they’re doing. Straightforward extortion.’

Burt briefly put a hand on Larry’s shoulder. He knew Clay was close to the man standing next to him on the beach. He saw his distress. It was Larry who had recruited Clay initially and then Cougar had hired him after all the normal checks on the man had yielded favourable results. So it wasn’t Larry’s fault, Burt was thinking, but, nevertheless, Larry would blame himself. Burt knew that.

He removed his hand from Larry’s shoulder.

‘I repeat, they’re not trying to extort anything from us,’ he said. ‘And as I say, we’ve been making our own inquiries,’ he continued. ‘And not just in Russia. We’ve been working on this back in the States twenty-four hours a day.’ He paused. He didn’t want to go on. But finally he sighed and began to complete the story. ‘It seems Clay has a bank account in a small private bank in Mexico City. Under the name Santorio Mondragon, would you believe. There’s five million dollars in the account.’

Larry looked at him aghast.

‘The provenance of the money has been harder to discover. But we have, finally, discovered it. In double-quick time too. A company called Friar Tuck Investments…’ Burt gazed up into the sky. ‘Where do they get these names?’ he wondered aloud. ‘Santorio Mondragon… Friar Tuck… It baffles.’ Then his face turned down towards the shingle and, from the side of his face, Larry saw that he was frowning. ‘The company doesn’t exist, of course,’ Burt continued. ‘Or, at least, it exists solely for the purpose of depositing money to Santorio Mondragon. To Clay,’ he added delicately. ‘It is in reality a snake’s nest of entities, a poisonous soup of different ingredients, a consortium, in other words, of different companies, all of which are competitors in the normal way of things, but who, on this occasion, share the same interest.’

Burt violently kicked a pebble into the sea. Larry was too stunned to speak or even think.

‘Apparently, representatives of this consortium knew about Bachman’s visit to Kryuchkov and, even though he failed to meet the Russian professor, they must have had reason to believe that he’d taken something with him back to Krasnoyarsk, something the people in the consortium wanted very badly indeed. Evidently, this was communicated to Clay. A little taster of five million dollars was paid into the account in Mexico City. No doubt the eventual reward, if Clay found what they were looking for, would have been ten, a hundred times greater. What this consortium want is the same thing that we want – Kryuchkov’s magic formula,’ Burt said dryly. ‘If it exists. And I now believe it does. In any case, assuming Clay did kill Bachman, did he find anything on the German? Kryuchkov’s equations? If he did, the Russians have now relieved him of them. But they’ll never let him go. Maybe he’s hidden a copy of them – if indeed he did find anything on Bachman. Maybe he’s even smart enough to keep the equations in his head. Who knows?’ Burt paused. ‘I’m sorry, Larry,’ he said, turning towards the taller man. ‘But it seems that Clay did murder Bachman. And if he found anything, no one’s going to get a sight of it in the West or anywhere else. Clay’s lost, buried for good, he’ll probably catch typhoid, or “commit suicide”, or get shivved by a fellow prisoner in a Russian cell in Moscow or Krasnoyarsk, or far out of the way in one of their prisons in the middle of Siberia. Once the Russians have presented us and the FBI with irrefutable evidence, he’ll be tried in camera for the murder and convicted. Correctly, I’m afraid. That will be almost a first for Russia; a correct conviction. Then he’ll simply be disappeared. Too dangerous to remain alive – if he did get sight of what Kryuchkov has found. If he didn’t, the Russians won’t care. They won’t take the risk. They’ll kill him. In one of their well-appointed dungeons. If he’s lucky, they may not even bother to torture him first.’