Seconds later, all four men were inside the house, and the Filipino manservant lay sprawled on his back, staring up into the muzzles of three assault rifles.
Breakfast was some barely edible kasha porridge, served in a steel bowl, and a cup of weak tea. Borisov tried a couple of spoonfuls of the porridge, then gave up and just drank the tea.
He emptied the remains of the meal down the toilet, swilled out the bowl and mug in the sink, and attempted to wash himself in the icy water. The tiny piece of soap produced barely any lather, and his hands were still really painful, but he did his best. He had neither toothbrush nor toothpaste, so he rubbed his teeth with the end of the towel. His rudimentary ablutions finished, he put his jacket and shoes back on, lay down on the bunk and waited.
An hour or so later the cell door opened, and another police officer appeared. He gestured, and Borisov stood up and preceded him down the corridor. The policeman gave him a shove in the back as he passed, and Borisov made a mental note to complain to Litvinoff when he saw him again. In fact, that turned out to be almost immediately.
The policeman opened the door of the interview room and gave Borisov another hefty push. As the prisoner stumbled inside, he saw Litvinoff sitting at the table. The investigator didn’t look pleased, and Borisov guessed that something unforeseen had happened. He said nothing then, just walked to the other chair and sat down.
Litvinoff was studying the bank passbook, turning it this way and that in his hands, and ignored Borisov. Finally he tossed it across the table.
‘You must think I’m a fool,’ he snapped.
Borisov had no idea what the other man was talking about. ‘What?’ he asked, in surprise.
‘That.’ Litvinoff pointed at the passbook. ‘Very funny indeed. It must have amused you, sending me off with that. Perhaps it won’t seem quite so hilarious when you’re being sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour or you find yourself looking at a firing squad.’
Borisov still had no idea what Litvinoff meant, but whatever had irritated the investigator was clearly serious, and might have disastrous consequences.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I really don’t know what you mean.’
Litvinoff stared at him blankly for a moment, then reached across the table and retrieved up the passbook. ‘This,’ he shouted. ‘This is what I’m talking about. This two million dollars.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘You must have known, even before I left here yesterday.’
‘I must have known what?’
‘You must have known the account was already empty.’
It seemed to Borisov as if the floor of the interview room had suddenly vanished, and he was falling backwards down a long dark tunnel. For a few moments he just shook his head, his mouth working soundlessly as his brain struggled to accommodate what he had just been told.
Watching him closely, Litvinoff realized that either Borisov was one of the finest actors he had ever encountered in his long career with the FSB, or the man genuinely hadn’t known the account balance was zero.
‘I checked it very carefully through our foreign banking section. The outstanding balance was transferred yesterday to a bank in the Cayman Islands. From there they think it was sent back to Europe, but they couldn’t trace it any further.’
Borisov just gaped at him, shaking his head helplessly, his mind still refusing to accept what the other man was saying.
‘I assume your partner-in-crime found a better home for those funds than Switzerland.’
‘Partner? What partner?’ Borisov asked, his mouth dry and his voice quavering.
Litvinoff picked up the passbook again and pointed to a single word inside it. ‘Do you know what “Gemein-schaftskonto” means? It’s German,’ he added helpfully.
Borisov shook his head.
‘Pity. If you’d looked a bit more carefully, you might have noticed it. The word means “joint account”. You had a joint account, and either party had authority to access all the funds. Your partner — the man you claim you didn’t know about — removed everything yesterday. The whole balance. And this is the best bit. Would you like to know your partner’s name?’
Litvinoff glared across the table at Borisov, who nodded desperately.
‘His name was rather unusual. He was a Mr M. Mouse. We managed to find out from the Swiss bank that his first name was Mickey. Mr Mickey Mouse. He’s probably the richest rodent you’re ever likely to meet. And now, Borisov, I think it’s time we had a serious talk.’
Saadi stood in the centre of the spacious hall and held up his hand for silence. The house seemed totally still, no noise anywhere, but that didn’t mean that nobody else was awake. He gestured to Massood, pointing down the hall towards the back of the house, and his colleague moved away, heading for the rear door.
Saadi looked round. The hall was long and wide, the floor marble, the walls decorated with English hunting prints and paintings — probably expensive, Saadi thought, his lip curling in disdain. At one end a winding staircase led to the upper level, and on either side of that corridors ran off to the left and right, leading to the various ground-floor reception rooms.
He gave the manservant a brief, dismissive glance, then looked back down the hall, where Massood had just reappeared, followed by two other members of the group. The other four would be securing the stable block and detaining the staff who lived there. He looked again at the Filipino, then nodded to one of the men standing beside him.
‘No blood,’ he ordered, his voice a whisper.
Bashar nodded, slung the Kalashnikov over his shoulder, and stepped behind the recumbent figure. He pulled out a roll of wide gaffer tape, a loop of stout cord and finally a short length of wood from the pocket of his gellabbiya, and beckoned. Two of the men stepped forward and seized the manservant, pulling him to his knees and holding him firmly in position.
Bashar tore off a six — inch strip of tape and swiftly stuck it over the Filipino’s mouth to silence him. Then, with a single unhurried movement, he dropped the loop of cord over the young man’s head, where it settled around his neck. The manservant finally realized what was about to happen, and began to struggle violently, trying desperately to pull his arms free from the Arabs who were holding him.
It did him no good. Bashar slipped the length of wood into the back of the loop and began turning it, holding the twisted cord in his left hand while rotating the wood with his right. When the garrotte began tightening on the Filipino’s neck, Bashar changed position and seized the wood with both hands, so as to exert maximum force.
Saadi and Massood watched impassively as the young manservant’s face bloated, the skin flushing red. His strug-gles grew more and more desperate, then suddenly weaker. Finally the light went out of his eyes and he slumped forward. But Bashar maintained the pressure on the garrotte for another minute, just to make sure, before he removed the cord.
‘Leave him there,’ Saadi hissed, turning away and heading towards the staircase.
The two Americans woke early, stiff and cold. They’d barely slept and both were feeling the strain. They climbed out of their uncomfortable and unauthorized overnight accommodation back on to the platform, pulling their cases behind them. They could hear the sounds of the station coming to life, and the last thing they wanted was to find their carriage shunted onto a siding or, worse, hitched to a locomotive and taken off to Moscow or Kiev or somewhere.