Christopher Jones - The Silent Oligarch

“I should have frisked you.”

“You wouldn’t have found anything. This was on the table.”

Lock shook his head. “Can I see?”

Webster handed the phone over. “When you take the battery out, it starts recording. When you put it back in, it stops. It’s a brilliant idea. Mossad had it first, apparently.”

Lock held the phone in his hand and inspected it closely. “What I could have done with this.”

“Exactly. That’s my idea.”

Lock looked up. “This?”

“Part of it.” Lock waited, still toying with the phone. Webster went on. “What’s the worst thing Malin has done?”

“We don’t know. That’s the point. Unless you count destroying my life.”

“Quite. He tried to kill you. And we’re fairly sure he killed Gerstman. But the only evidence we’ve got is you, and the note that they left.”

“What note?”

“A suicide note. They left it in your hotel room.”

“Jesus. What did it say?”

“That you’d lost your family and your reputation, and that Dmitry’s death had sent you over the edge.”

“Do you have it?”

“Yes, I took it from the room and left a dummy in its place. It may have fooled them.”

Lock nodded.

“Do you want to see it?” Webster said, leaning forward as if to get up.

“Like seeing your own obituary,” said Lock, as if to himself. He shook his head.

Webster sat back. “But it won’t be enough. We can probably prove it’s not your handwriting, but there won’t be fingerprints and even if there were they wouldn’t help.”

“So?”

Webster collected himself. “Malin wants the dossier. He also wants you. If you go back to Russia we’ll never see you again. So we bring him here, control it very carefully, and you talk to him. You ask him why he tried to have you killed.”

“He’ll never say anything.”

“You’d be surprised what people will say when they know no one’s listening.”

Lock thought for a moment.

“He’ll never come.”

“He will. He’ll come for you.”

Lock looked down and smoothed the hair on the side of his head—twice, three times. “And what do I want?”

“What do you tell him?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t really matter. The one thing that isn’t going to happen is that you hand over the dossier and he meets your demands.”

“It might.”

Webster considered this. He looked at Lock; his face was puffy, the skin on his cheeks still a sickly pale. “OK. We could play it like that. You can try for both. Or either. In any event it needs to sound convincing, I suppose. What would you ask for?”

“A separation. I’d sell up. Or I’d look like I was selling up. He’d find a buyer and I’d sell to them. In return I’d want some money and a guarantee that he leave me alone.”

“A guarantee?”

Lock shrugged his shoulders. “I know. But if I’m gone and the story’s OK why draw attention to it by finishing me off?”

Webster nodded slowly. He gave Lock a candid look. “We don’t have to do this. We can go back to London. Get you somewhere safe.”

“I’m not really up to thinking.” Lock stood up, one hand on the bed for balance. “I’m going to lie down.”

“But if we do it, we should do it soon. You should call Malin today.”

LOCK SAID YES. After an hour in his room he knew what his answer had to be.

He had sat and watched the lake, like steel now under clouds that had moved steadily in from the west. It was overhung by black trees that looked sketched in charcoal; its farthest shore he couldn’t see.

He had never been close to death before, and now that he had, he couldn’t remember it. Malin had robbed him even of that. But he knew that things had changed. His life—this sickly thing he had been living—had come to a point. In Berlin they had rendered him senseless, but in truth he had been senseless for years: serene, peaceful, a fool among knaves. To stumble to his death, unseeing and unthinking—that was the right way for that life to end. And it had. It was over. It wasn’t just that he could no longer bring himself to protect Malin; he could no longer stand to protect his old self. The FBI, the Swiss, Tourna, the journalists, the joke-makers in Moscow: they could have him. They had been right all along and if they had to prove it, crow about it, then let them.

Malin, though; Malin was his. Lock wanted that inflated, bullying life reduced, its power drained away, its crookedness laid bare. He wanted Malin to understand what it was to be nothing; to be a beggar; to be undone.

HE FOUND WEBSTER in the restaurant, the only person in the neat, bright dining room. The place smelled faintly of toast and fried bacon. Webster was stirring a cup of coffee, the spoon chinking against the side; only his table had a tablecloth.

“You alone?”

“They don’t serve lunch. Herr Maurer’s wife made me an omelette. I’m sure she’d do another.”

Lock shook his head. “Just the smell in here is enough. Thank you.”

“Coffee?”

“Water.”

“Sit down.” Webster got up and went into the kitchen; he seemed to be making himself at home. Lock looked out the window, which gave onto neat brick outbuildings by the side of the hotel. Herr Maurer was wheeling a tall white fridge on a trolley toward a white van whose doors were open at the back.

Webster came back with a bottle of still water, a bottle of fizzy, a glass and a bowl of ice.

“I didn’t know which you wanted.”

“What do you think they gave me?”

“They gave Dmitry something called GHB. It’s made of floor cleaner.” Lock didn’t say anything. “But there was a bottle of gin in your room that I don’t remember seeing. Was that yours?”

“No. No gin.”

“Then they probably gave you quite a lot of that as well. If not from that particular bottle.”

“That makes sense. I can taste it on my breath.”

Webster held up the bottle of still water to Lock, who nodded.

“We should do it.”

Webster finished pouring and passed Lock the glass.

“Are you sure?”

“Utterly. I owe it to Nina. Not to mention Marina and Vika. Christ, and everybody else.” He took a drink. He could feel it cool and mineral in his throat.

Webster watched him, as if expecting more. Lock drank again.

“You’re certain?”

“Certain.”

“Then we have a lot to do.”

LOCK CALLED MALIN THAT NIGHT. Webster had written a script for him, and told him to keep his tone professional. This was a deal, like any other.

Webster had bought new phones from town that afternoon. Six more; they were getting through them. He had also spent hours talking to people in London about the operation. Security people were flying out, and would be there that evening. Nina was going to stay with her sister in Graz. Lock marveled at how precisely each move had to be plotted. He was coming to rely on Webster, he realized: swapping one controller for another.

It was late in Moscow when he called. Malin would still be up, though. He slept little.

The line rang five times before he answered.

“Richard.”

“Konstantin.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere you can’t find me for once.” They spoke Russian.

“I wish you would come home.”

“It isn’t home anymore, Konstantin. Let’s be honest, it never was.” Webster, standing over Lock, tapped his finger on the script on the desk. Get on with it.

“Richard, I am perhaps the one man anywhere who can protect you. Don’t listen to anyone else who says he can.”

Lock glanced up at Webster, who nodded. “Konstantin, I have a proposal. I have something you want, and you have something I want. I have Dmitry’s file. I know you’ve been looking for it.”