“I have been watching you,” “Tanya” said. “Not only here. I have seen you in other places. You don’t move like most of the Americans who come to places like this. They are fearful, afraid of being attacked. You move like… a panther. Everyone sees it. You are a player, as they say. And you are rich.”
“And how would you know that?” Mike asked.
“You realized you just handed Lydia a hundred-euro note, right?” Tanya said, laughing.
“Shit,” Mike snorted. “Is that what I did?”
“Yes,” “Tanya” said dryly. “And a man who can hand a cheap whore a hundred euros without noticing it, might have the money to buy… what we have to sell. And… Americans, even ‘player’ Americans, are more trustworthy than Russians.”
“And a man who had that much money might smell a rat,” Mike said. “For that matter, the American government would buy it. Why don’t you go to the embassy? Even a consulate?”
“Then there would be questions and problems…” the woman said, drawing the words out and shrugging. “That was talked about. As was simply pointing out their… misstep to the Russian government or selling it to an oligarch. I convinced them that I could find… a better buyer. One who would ask fewer questions.”
“I’m going to ask a damned sight of questions,” Mike said. “Because I smell what we call in America a con job.”
“No con job,” the woman said. “I can take you to a man who can explain where it came from. I can show you the… thing. You can test it as you wish.”
“And if I agree to buy this item?” Mike said. “What in the hell do I do with it, then?”
“You are a player,” the woman said, shrugging. “I can see that in your face, in your moves, in your eyes. You will already have an idea of what to do with it.”
If it wasn’t a con job, it might be a roll. That was looking more and more likely as “Tanya” got out of the cab and waved him towards an alleyway.
Mike stepped out, though, walking carefully and following the old whore. He had his senses dialed up to code orange, expecting at any moment to hear a stealthy movement as someone tried to mug him, or a group of thugs to appear and tell him to give them all his money. He could give them everything he had on him — even the money in his jump bag — and it wouldn’t make a dent in his bank account. But he was planning on shooting first and asking questions much later. Because Russian thugs tended to believe in the axiom that “dead men tell no tales.”
But there were no thugs, no stealthy movements. The woman led him to a set of steps to a basement club, a dive to make his previous haunts look serene. The door was guarded by a bouncer, a big guy who looked as if he used to be on the Russian wrestling team. And he had a telltale bulge on his hip that said he was packed. Hell, from the looks of the room, most of the patrons were as packed as they were drunk.
The room stank of spilled vodka, body odor and cheap tobacco smoke with a faint underlay of puke and piss. The whores were nowhere near as pretty as at the club he had come from and the patrons were not much better: low-class factory workers, bums and pensioners. He saw a few uniforms in the place and the Red Army pay was notoriously low. If the hookers in this place cost more than ten euros a night, it was because they were farming out their daughters as well. Five-ruble stand-ups were probably the order of the day.
The woman led him to a table at the back where a Russian lieutenant was slumped, staring at a shot of vodka like it was the Holy Grail. He picked it up and downed it as they reached the table and shook his head.
“I have found someone who is interested in the item,” Tanya said, sitting down with her back to the room, thus giving Mike the choice of a chair against the wall.
“It is too late,” the Russian said, shrugging. “Those idiots…”
“What do you mean ‘too late,’ ” the woman said, then broke into Russian.
The babble went back and forth and started to rise in volume as Mike surveyed the room.
“Uh, folks,” Mike said, waving a hand between them. “I don’t know what you are saying, but keep it the fuck down, okay?”
“He said that his men that were guarding the item have already sold it,” Tanya snapped. “He thinks it was to Chechens.”
“Okay, now this is bad,” Mike said angrily. “And this is no place to be discussing it. First things first,” he continued, digging in his pocket. “Tanya, go get a bottle of the most decent vodka they have in this place. When you do, we are getting the fuck out and taking this conversation to a hotel room, pronto.”
“Okay,” Mike said when they were in his hotel room. It was the best hotel in town, but it still would be a low-end Best Western in the U.S. It dated from the Soviet era and the construction showed: cheap carpets, horrible beds, lousy plumbing and walls of cast concrete that were flaking onto the cheap carpet. “Start at the beginning, go through the middle and get to now.” He placed the vodka on the table and waved at it. “You can have as much of that as you need, as long as you can keep talking.”
The lieutenant looked at the bottle for a moment and then shrugged.
“We are guards on an old nuclear facility,” he said, picking up the bottle, tearing off the thin metal cap and putting a splash of vodka in a glass. “Was accident in it, long ago. Is contaminated. But still stores some nuclear material, what they call isotopes.”
“I know what an isotope is,” Mike said, pouring himself some vodka and downing it. It was very, very bad. “Go on,” he gasped.
“Americans cannot handle their liquor,” “Tanya” said, pouring her own shot.
“There’s liquor and then there’s ant piss,” Mike said, waving at the bottle. “You can have all that ant piss you want. Keep going.”
“Is very boring,” the lieutenant said. “We are not to go in facility, but we get bored. We have radiation detectors. Is not so bad in most places. One of my men, Yuri, is very bored. He goes in facility. Is much of it underground. Is flooded, yes?”
“Yeah,” Mike said, thinking about groundwater contamination. But the whole of Eastern Europe was still such a cesspool from “enlightened Communism” and its approach to environmentalism that a nuclear facility leaking radioactive isotopes into the groundwater was barely a blip on the screen.
“So he finds part where flooding is not so bad,” the lieutenant continued. “And goes back up. There he finds… item.”
“Let’s get specific,” Mike said. “Are we talking a gravity bomb or a warhead or what?”
“Is very old warhead,” the lieutenant said, shrugging. “We cannot get manuals but Yuri is interested in these things. Thinks it was warhead from old missile. Is shaped like warhead,” he said, making a cone shape in the air, “and is very radioactive.”
“So Yuri ran and told you?” Mike asked.
“No,” the lieutenant admitted. “Tells others. Is… big fight. Yuri is wanting to tell government. Others, Oleg especially, want to sell to anyone. I am told by platoon sergeant. We all agree that I will find a good buyer. I sign myself on pass, yes? Know Tanya from… before. She knows people, so I tell her. We think, is much money, enough we can share. But… while I wait, Oleg is found buyer. They come and bring money. Platoon sells while I am gone. I find out tonight.” He stopped and poured another, large, shot and downed it. “Is gone. So is Oleg, went with buyer. Others have deserted, are afraid of what will happen when government finds out.”
“How much money did they get?” Tanya asked, angrily.