One speech and no theatrical gestures of friendship, and no emotion shown, and Gaz had believed each word he was told and had imagined small boats, inshore trawlers, buffeted by winds and tumbling through the white caps, and had felt stronger, a little.
He had realised he was being examined all the time he was on board and supposed he had passed some test – as he had done nine years before when he had pitched up at Stirling Lines, home of the cream of the Special Forces, and had been thrown into the rigours of training required by the instructors of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. Had been told the majority of the intake would fail, and might have been the youngest to reach those heights in the selection process. There had been a girl there. A sergeant’s daughter. Good enough looking, seeing him as a catch, but no special commitment returned by him. More important was the passing of the brutal tests inflicted on them. Each week seeing more of them carrying a bag to the minibus and taken to Hereford rail station, returned to unit, failed. Not Gaz… Did well enough in Close Quarters Battle Training and high marks in Close Target Reconnaissance and better than useful in Unarmed Combat Skills, and passing out. Off to Londonderry for the first operational posting and familiarising himself with working the housing estates where hatred for military was ingrained. Where, if trapped, he might shoot his way out and might not, in which case he would end up a bloodied corpse. Had rather enjoyed it, had handled the pressure and had been praised in the laconic shorthand the unit used. Had done time in the Province, had gone back to the camp in the west of England, close to the Welsh border, to find the sergeant had moved on but his daughter had stayed, seemed to expect him to move in with her. She was Debbie. Had done it, moved to her one-bed place. Shouldn’t have, but had… all the boys shagged available girls. Part of the way they all lived. Nice girl… and what had happened was not her fault, was his. He had gone to Syria. Not like the Creggan and the Bogside in Londonderry, but big boys’ games.
The boat crew had made the one speech, none of it repeated, and mostly he had huddled below deck and tossed with the bunk’s motion and only been out on deck at dusk going into evening and had seen one whale and two pods of dolphins and once they had been buzzed by an eagle that had come low over them, hoping for fish carcases to be thrown its way. What irked him most was that bits of the plan they were putting in place had already been decided before they had his arm-twisted agreement to be a part of it. Could he have refused? Not worth even scratching it over in his mind.
She led him to a car, where a driver waited for them. She opened the back door for Gaz. The driver didn’t speak. Gaz thought he was treated like he had the plague, was dangerous to know. The light rain had flecked his hair and dampened his anorak. He slung his bag ahead of him and climbed in. He reckoned he was being given all the attention due a ‘fatted calf’, pampered, cosseted and good for a week-long feast. Would he be remembered the day after the table had been cleared and the guests had burped and farted and staggered off home? Not likely to be. They drove away from the quay and towards a sprawl of buildings. Saw his target and the wire-fine line on his face that had seeped blood, could see him clearly.
The Jew stood. The meeting was concluded.
The Jew had been ‘invited’ to Lefortovo because the gaol and its section of interrogation rooms was the place where Lavrenti was most comfortable when in the capital and needed to meet strangers. He very seldom entertained in the bistros of the Arbat district, or in the dining-room of a larger hotel. To have control and to feel the exercise of authority, he chose one of the small, soundproofed rooms inside the gaol. Here, he could be confident that any individual he met would be unnerved, anxious, and therefore likely to put themselves in Lavrenti’s debt… Not this man.
The Jew had explained his position in the fields of Arctic mineral extraction, had outlined his proposed understanding, and now expected the major to ‘piss or get off the pot’. Implicit in what Lavrenti was offered was the Jew’s confidence that it was ‘take it or leave it’ and that there would be a queue of other men inside the Shield of the State, the Federal’nya sluzhba bezopasnosti, who he could turn to if this agreement were not accepted. The man wanted a roof; word would have passed to him that a rising star in the firmament could provide the necessary guarantees, a solid and progressive roof, a krysha. Also implied was the unstated and unarguable fact that the Jew took a chance with this young man and banked on his reputation to survive and to prosper. It was a long-term arrangement that the Jew looked for, and one of mutual benefit.
It was the usual tactic of Lavrenti, when a man was in front of him, across a bare desk, that he said little, aimed to increase the discomfort of his visitor… not so that morning. The Jew had his cigarette packet on the table, along with a chunky Marlboro lighter, and would soon – likely – ignore the No Smoking sign and light up, which would activate the alarms. The Jew seemed to feel he had given enough of his time, looked for confirmation and was ready to leave. The deal was for ten per cent, rising to fifteen per cent of anticipated profits.
The take-out was small initially, but the major was not yet in the giddy circles of those adjacent to the seat of power, the court of the Czar, but would soon be if he worked and exercised influence. The offer meant he was, as yet, taken on trust.
The Jew did not have any small talk and seemed puzzled that more questions had not been asked, but the detail was run through and Lavrenti stared down at the table. No paper record and no bugged recording of this conversation would exist. He had exercised his power many times in small rooms such as this one before going to Syria, and they would again be his fiefdom when he returned from the short visit to Murmansk. Now he was alone, faced a significant step into unknown territory, would no longer be the protégé of his father and feed from the old man’s hand… It had been another bad night.
It was hot that day in the small interrogation areas of the Lefortovo, the air-conditioning was off and the windows were sealed, and sweat beaded on the back of his neck and threatened to break loose on his forehead. In the night, fleetingly, he had felt the cold on his body when the wind had driven the rain against his camouflage gear and the wet had penetrated and the chill had gripped. He remembered each hour, each minute, at the village, and what had happened and what he had done.
This was the future… a deal to provide a roof and protection to a little Jew who would trick and bribe and evade responsibility for revenue payment and he would assure the success of the programme, and would live well off it – as his father had done with other cash cows. Now the Jew stared at him, looked hard into his eyes, showed little respect.