12

It was one of the most unpleasant things Roper had ever done. There was something reminiscent of the Nazis about the details of those incarcerated at Station Gorky, of Heinrich Himmler’s insistence on records of deaths, executions, gassing, so meticulously kept that eventually those who had committed the deeds were condemned in open court by their own records.

It was the same now with Station Gorky. The archives, long buried, were now available on the computer, lists written by hand or on cheap, old-fashioned typewriters, thousands of names.

For a long time, he seemed to be getting nowhere and it was hard going, but in the end, sitting back, easing his pain with more whiskey, the breakthrough came from a single phrase entered in the court documents referring to her sentence: in perpetuity. It was so simple in the end, like a code word, and when he tapped in “Station Gorky” and followed it with the dread phrase, one list after another was revealed. There were hundreds of them, with dates of incarceration and, in most cases, dates of death over the years.

He tapped in one or two as a start and found sparse entries, usually no more than two or three lines and a photo of the convict, shaven-headed for both men and women, eyes lifeless, all hope gone.

And Tania Kurbsky, admitted January 25, 1989, looked exactly the same, just like all the others, a creature beyond despair. To die of typhoid on March 7, 2000, must have been a blessing.

Roper sat back, totally depressed. For years, Alexander Kurbsky had accepted that his sister was dead, buried in Minsky Park Military Cemetery. To be told now that she had lived for eleven appalling years in the worst gulag in Siberia would be a terrible thing to have to come to terms with, but then, did Kurbsky need to know? What purpose could there be in telling him? None that he could see, but that would mean keeping the whole rotten business from everyone, and that included Ferguson.

He buried his face in his hands, and Doyle came in. “You all right, Major? Have you been overdoing it again? We can’t have that.”

Roper smiled. “Here we go again, the old Jamaican charm offensive.”

“The old Jamaican Cockney charm offensive. How about I take you to the wet room and you have a bloody good shower?”

Roper poured a whiskey and tossed it back. “You know what, Tony, that’s a good idea.”

KURBSKY REACHED THE Albany Regency Hotel and discovered that the normal parking area had been temporarily extended. A substantial building had been demolished next door and there was room for more cars until construction began. Many vehicles had taken advantage of the situation.

Kurbsky took a spot in a corner and noticed a manhole. He backed up against it, opened the rear door, found a crowbar among the tools and levered up the manhole, then positioned the yellow cones around it and propped the “Man at Work” sign against the Ford’s windshield. Now he was set for a while.

There was no sign of a laundry van. It was just after five, a certain gloom in the air as evening approached. He continued to search among the parked cars, and then he saw a notice on the wall: “Trade vehicles at rear entrance.” An arrow pointed to a narrow footway through an archway, and he hurried along.

BACK FROM HIS meeting, Blake Johnson had been dropped at the front entrance of the hotel only fifteen minutes before Kurbsky arrived, and Igor Oleg saw it. He was wearing a green uniform, the name of a laundry company printed on the back. His companion, Petrovich, was waiting in the courtyard at the rear of the building.

Oleg had gone around to the back using the very footway that Kurbsky was on now, and hurried down the steps to his companion, who already had a large four-wheeled cloth container waiting filled with towels.

“He’s here,” Oleg told him.

“Let’s get it done, then.” They went in through the basement door, entered the service elevator, and went up to the top floor.

BLAKE HAD TAKEN off his jacket, loosened his tie, and poured himself a whiskey-and a large one. Not because of his exertions at the NATO meeting-the highly classified twenty minutes he had spent with his good friend Charles Ferguson afterward had been much more demanding. The interesting thing about politics was that sometimes, though not often, you could help to make history just a little bit.

The door buzzed, he walked toward the door, drink in hand, opened it, and Oleg punched him very hard just under the breastbone. As Blake’s legs buckled, Oleg caught him and dragged him backward so that Petrovich could wheel in the laundry cart. His wrists were handcuffed together with plastic ties, his mouth was taped, a large plastic tie bound his ankles.

Towels were removed, and they hoisted him between them and dropped him in the cart, then covered him with the towels again. Oleg opened the door, checked that the corridor was clear, and they walked to the end and discovered the service elevator was on its way.

Oleg glanced nervously at Petrovich as they waited for the elevator door to open. A Filipino cleaning woman, in hotel uniform and carrying a mop and pail, emerged, nodded without a word, and walked off down the corridor. They got in the elevator and descended, smiling at each other, emerging on the ground floor and pushing the cart out into the courtyard toward the truck.

Kurbsky, emerging from the walkway, saw everything. He remembered Oleg and Petrovich from the GRU safe house outside Moscow, and the fact that they were pushing the cart said it all. The top half of the back of the truck was stretched canvas, the bottom half metal. Opened, it provided a ramp to facilitate loading. They shoved the cart inside, closed the ramp, and walked around to board.

Kurbsky was already rushing down the steps as the engine roared and the truck started to move. The bottom of the ramp protruded slightly, and he got a foot on it and hung on by his left hand, clutching the twine that held the canvas tight. He reached in his boot, found the gutting knife, stabbed into the canvas, and cut it from top to bottom. Then he sliced to one side, raised the flap he had created, and pulled himself through.

Once inside, he replaced the knife in his boot, found the ski mask in his left leg pocket, and pulled it on, stuffing his tweed cap into the pocket in its place. It was gloomy outside now and even gloomier in the truck. There was no sound from the cart, and there were several more all full of laundry, and he had to force his way through and listen from the back of the cab. He could hear voices, but not what they were saying.

He took out the gutting knife and sliced a hole in the canvas on the left side so that a flap hung down and he could see out to where they were going. Traffic, houses, but a busy road, obviously pushing out of the city. He turned to the cart and pulled out the towels, revealing Blake Johnson.

He had obviously recovered his senses, and his eyes were wide open and staring. Kurbsky spoke to him in street Russian, heavily accented working class. “I hear you speak Russian? If I’m right, nod your head.” Blake did so, and Kurbsky carried on. “You’ve been kidnapped by some pretty bad people. They’re taking you to an airfield called Berkley Down in Kent, where there’s a Falcon waiting to take you to Moscow or Siberia. I’ll take the tape off now so you can talk, but keep your voice low.”

He yanked the tape off in one quick pull, and Blake winced. “Christ, that hurt,” he said in English.

“Better we stick to Russian.”

Blake did. “Who the hell are you?”

“You ask too many questions, my friend.” Kurbsky sliced the plastic ties at his wrists and ankles. “There you go.”

His harsh, uncultivated tones could have been the voice of some low-life member of a Moscow Mafia gang, and Blake, pulling himself out of the laundry cart, had to grab hold of the nearest strut to stop himself from falling over.