He got up, stretched, poured another cup, then spent a moment gazing at the city: its skyline a tourist magnet, its weather a systems glitch. But Jesus, the money pouring through it, day after day. Even on the domestic level. This apartment, forty floors up – the perfect bachelor pad, though he never let his wife hear him call it that – the maintenance charge alone would cripple a prince. But it was worth it for this view, which wasn’t just what you could see, it was knowing how few shared it. Sure, there was a viewing platform, but that was just to show people what they didn’t have. There was a sense in which this encouraged them to dream huge dreams, but there was another much bigger sense in which it told them to fuck off. Cantor approved of a system which had allowed him to get rich, but he also believed in pulling the ladder up afterwards. If everyone succeeded, nobody did. Anything else was basically communism.
His phone rang, intruding on philosophy.
It was lobby security, the morning guy – Clyde or Claude or something – and was he expecting a visitor? Claude or Clyde looked like a prop forward for Western Samoa, and hadn’t sat an IQ test to get the job, but seriously: it was seven o’fucking clock in the morning. He’d have to be having a Viagra-induced emergency to be expecting a visitor.
‘Did they give a name?’
‘Sir, he says he’s from …’
Muffled dialogue took place.
‘Sir, he says he’s from a Diana Taverner?’
Okay, thought Cantor. That’ll add flavour to an already spicy morning. ‘Thank you, Clyde. Send him up.’
‘It’s Clifton, sir.’
‘Yeah. Send him up. The flat, not the studio.’
The lifts were fast, but not that fast. Cantor had time to finish his coffee before his visitor arrived.
There’s a sense in which any leader in a field feels closer to her opposite number than to her immediate colleagues. There’s another, more important sense in which she wants to mince that opposite number into bite-sized chunks and strew them in the path of hungry beasts, but stilclass="underline" talking to Vassily Rasnokov, Diana Taverner couldn’t help but feel that there was a level on which they understood each other better than anyone else. Rather like her relationship with Jackson Lamb might be, if she and Lamb were on opposing sides. So, rather like her relationship with Jackson Lamb. Though she and Lamb had yet to reach the point where they were counting each other’s dead.
‘You’ve put a team across our borders, Vassily.’
‘A “team”?’
‘Again.’
‘We allow freedom of movement to our citizens, Diana. Surely you remember what that was like? And there are many beautiful things to see in your country. All those church spires. Who could blame anyone for wanting to spend their leisure time visiting your fabled attractions?’
‘Please. They’ve not been admiring our architecture, they’ve been painting our walls.’
‘I’m not familiar with the expression.’
Like hell he wasn’t.
Diana was on the roof. The phone wasn’t a burner, exactly, but it was one she only used for calling Rasnokov – current First Desk at the GRU – and she never did that in her office. Around her, below her, the city was making those incoherent early morning noises, sometimes ascribed to traffic and the raising of metal shutters, which meant it hadn’t yet decided what day-face to wear; the happy, sunny, get-things-done one, or the grubby, sullen, no-eye-contact glower.
She knew how it felt.
Rasnokov said, ‘We also are concerned about a regrettable murder within our borders. A young woman, a secretary with the GRU, was killed right here on the streets of her own city.’
‘A secretary,’ said Diana. ‘Is that right?’
‘I’m sorry, do I have that idiom correctly? You are asking for clarification?’
‘No. I understand.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that. She was apparently the victim of street crime, which raised suspicion among the investigators, as this is much rarer here than in your West. Much, much rarer. So they examined the case closely, and came to the conclusion that this murder was carried out by foreigners. Foreign … mercenaries? I think there’s a more accurate term.’
‘Hitmen.’
‘Yes, thank you. Foreign hitmen. You can imagine the distress. To have a citizen cut down by foreign criminals, professional assassins. Our president was most concerned that such activities should not go unchecked.’
‘And was he reminded that the action was not unprovoked?’
‘The president remained focused on the details. A grave insult had been paid to an arm of our national security. Such insults must receive the appropriate response.’
‘Which is where we came in. That incident was itself a measured and appropriate response to an outrageous act. You damn well know that.’
Rasnokov did not reply. Diana filled the gap by walking to the edge of the building and looking down. She liked to think she had a head for heights, but there was something about watching people far below, people who imagined themselves unobserved, that provoked dizziness.
She stepped back.
‘And to continue along this path, this repeated exchange of appropriate responses … Where’s that going to lead, do you think? Anywhere good?’
The silence continued.
It was going to be a long day. The boys and girls on the hub had been at it all night, combing through CCTV, ANPR, whatever they could squeeze from GCHQ, but the team responsible for dropping Kay White off a ladder, burning up Struan Loy, and frightening Sidonie Baker into the shadows had vanished from sight. The last time a pair of the GRU’s worst and wildest had broached UK borders, they’d arrived bearing sequentially numbered passports. That might have looked like a schoolboy error, but felt, in hindsight, like a two-fingered salute. The current model had been less openly abrasive, and, murders apart, hadn’t left a footprint. Or not one the hub had yet identified.
Rasnokov spoke at last. ‘We have no listening ears?’
‘None this side, Vassily.’
He hesitated again. ‘It is perhaps fair to say that the decision to … How can I put this? The decision to visit your marvellous cathedral was taken over my head. And might better have been left untaken.’
That he was saying this surprised her, but not its import. Rasnokov was as capable of brutal thuggery as the next man, but he’d never struck her as mad. And the original attack had been set in motion by a madman.
She said, ‘And you can’t have expected us to leave it at that, Vassily. We’ve already spoken of how such actions amount to insults.’
‘There was speculation that your Service lacked the necessary resources to indulge in such an extravagant response.’
‘Then your speculations are out of date, aren’t they? We’re not as strapped for cash as you imagine.’
‘“Strapped for cash”?’
‘Short of money.’
‘Ah, yes. “Strapped for cash.” I like that.’
‘Happy to help. So what about your current … tourists? Were they also wished on you from on high?’
She took his silence for assent.
It was going to be a long day, yes, but there was a glimmer of hope here. If she could tie a ribbon round the GRU hit team, she’d be able to focus on her other problems. Making truce would mean allowing the Russians to walk away, of course, but this wouldn’t be a public humiliation: the unnewsworthy deaths of a few former spooks hadn’t created the waves that the murder of a citizen had. Nobody missed a slow horse.
Jackson Lamb aside, that was. But she could deal with him later.
Rasnokov said, ‘Our current tourists. It might be fair to say that in this day and age, a time of environmental concerns, such holiday-making is uncalled for. The costs to the planet are too high. It might have been better had they too stayed at home.’