Garry Abson - Motherland - A Gripping Crime Thriller Set in the Dark Heart of Putin's Russia

She drove back to Tsentralny District and parked on the road outside her apartment. A BMW X5 pulled up behind her. The driver remained at the wheel while his passenger got out and casually sat on the bonnet to smoke a cigarette. It was the weightlifter from the airport. He waved at her gaily like an old friend. Knowing they were FSB, it was safe to assume they were using her phone to track her movements and maybe listening to her calls too. “You ignored the fucking warning” she thought. Well, she couldn’t fault him there.

On the floor above hers, she saw a light and heard “Everything’s going to be alright” sung at a quarter speed. She could see Sergei, the old violin teacher, as he meandered from room to room, his head bobbing in and out of view.

The men in the X5 had a clear view of the block door but she had no alternative. She started walking towards it, her rucksack draped over her shoulder. She bent to tie her shoelace and saw the driver had his face tilted in her direction and a mobile phone pressed to his ear. She picked up pace but they didn’t follow. That was good – they didn’t have orders to take her in; at least not yet. At the metal door she pulled out her keys from her rucksack and pressed a magnetic disk against the lock. There was a soft click and she was in.

Until now she had never used the lift in the apartment block but she was too weary for the stairs. It took her to the fourth floor and she tugged on a tarnished brass bell. In the confines of the corridor, the noise rang out like an old fashioned fire alarm. She could feel herself being observed through the peephole and wondered when the two men in the street would receive new orders.

‘Goooooiingng to beeeee allllll-riiiigggghhht!’

Sergei, her old neighbour, yanked the door open on the final word. Beneath the violin teacher’s neat brown goatee he was topless, wearing only a pair of blue jeans on which he was hastily fastening the fly buttons.

‘What’s up, darling?’

‘I’m in serious trouble, Sergei,’ she said, letting herself in. ‘I need your help.’

The sun was already up but the city was still asleep. From the shadows of his bedroom, she watched Sergei cross the street below. She’d told him to behave naturally but he was an ex-violin teacher not an expert in counter surveillance and she saw him turn his face away from the X5 as if the building’s wall held some fascination for him. With good reason, the men in the car would be intrigued by his self-conscious behaviour, wondering if they should question him, particularly now her phone had stopped transmitting its position.

‘Everything’s going to be alright,’ she sang to herself.

Sergei kept walking until he disappeared from view. Ten minutes later, the X5 suddenly came to life. Its headlights flashed on, and it performed a sharp U-turn in the street and accelerated away. She dashed out of Sergei’s apartment and took the stairs.

On the third floor she opened the door with a key, smelling cigarette smoke and fried food. The comforting wood-saw of Mikhail’s snores cut through the silence. She stepped over a bag of empty Ochakovo bottles to reach the bathroom and had a quick shower. As she reached for a towel the door burst open sending the flimsy lock flying to the far wall.

The steam iron was in Mikhail’s fist; his aggression offset by the pair of fake tiger-skin underpants she had bought for his fortieth birthday.

‘It’s OK, it’s just me.’ She finished tucking the towel over her breasts then found a wide-toothed comb and pulled it through her hair.

‘Tasha?’ He rubbed his face. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Can you put the iron down? Actually I’m surprised you knew where to find it.’

‘Funny.’ He rubbed his hand against his cheek making a rasping noise against the stubble. ‘Anyway, you left it out.’

‘Still, what are you doing here, Misha?’

‘I’d come to warn you again, but you weren’t in so I decided to wait. It appears Dostoynov is acting for his old friends… Stepan told me.’ He scrutinised her. ‘Jesus, you look terrible.’

‘I was interrogated by the FSB. They followed me here.’

He ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair, ‘Tasha, I told you to leave it alone, now you’ve brought them to our home.’

‘They aren’t there now.’

‘What do you mean?’

She pointed a finger skywards. ‘Sergei got rid of them.’

‘What were you thinking? He’ll be killed.’

‘Misha, I was desperate. I told him the risks and he agreed to help. I took the SIM and battery out of my phone and asked Sergei to reassemble it at Finlyandsky station. He’s going to hide it on the first elektrichka he finds. It was the only way I could get rid of them.’

Apart from the risk Sergei was taking, it made her feel sick thinking of the FSB getting hold of her phone with its calls to Dahl as well as the recording she had taken from Lagunov’s office. She may as well write them a note telling them everything she knew. Almost as bad, without her mobile she had few means of contacting anyone.

Mikhail looked deadly serious. ‘The FSB are paranoid fucks but they are not morons. When they know you’ve been playing with them they’ll designate you an enemy agent. I told you to stay away.’ Saliva flecked his chin. ‘I fucking told you, Natalya.’

The thought of being hunted down by the FSB made her spine freeze. The successor organisation to the KGB was barely twenty years old but they were already up to their elbows in blood and had displayed little concern about killing far more important people than her. ‘Where’s Anton?’ she asked, her voice rising in panic.

‘So now you think of him. I told him to stay at Dinara’s until you stop using State Security to commit suicide.’ He looked at her sternly. ‘I love you, Natalya, but I don’t want Anton dragged into this. Those pricks will ruin his life just to ruin yours. Now tell me where have you been?’

‘It was my day off, why should you care?’

‘I do care. Answer the question.’

‘Alright, I went to Stockholm to see Dahl, then I spent the night stuck at Pulkovo being entertained by an FSB gorilla.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Dahl? He told me he’d sent Axelsson to a ransom exchange at the boatyard.’

‘For what?’

‘Zena.’

Mikhail rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘Did he forget his daughter was dead? I suppose it’s easily done.’

‘He’s not stupid but some conman pretended to be a kidnapper and answered a proof of life question. He thought it was worth taking a chance—’

‘Sure, with someone else’s life. How did they know the answer?’

‘I’m guessing they eavesdropped on him while he discussed what question to ask.’

‘What were they after?’

‘The deeds to Dahl’s Russian companies.’

Mikhail let out a low whistle. ‘Christ. They got them, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’

‘How much are they worth?’

She shrugged, ‘Maybe half a billion dollars.’

Mikhail’s mouth slid open. ‘That’s a good con trick.’

‘At least it explains the FSB interest. They don’t get out of bed for a few million.’

He frowned briefly. ‘So what did the gorilla in the airport want?’

‘To scare me off.’

‘Then be scared. Get away while you can. Go see Claudia and come back when they have what they want.’

‘Misha, what’s going on? I called Primakov a few hours ago; he was in Yulia Federova’s apartment.’

‘Dostoynov heard the girl is missing and he’s scrabbling around to connect you to it. You forget our new major is ex-FSB, and any fool knows there’s no such thing as ex-FSB. I’m guessing someone whispered in his ear that you need to be put away.’