Reminded of timings, Zenin twisted, awkwardly restricted, and took from his wrist the heavily calibrated watch, placing it on the convenient chair where it would always be in view. As he did so he depressed the button to start the second sweep, bending over the rifle again. He aimed, fired and edged the weapon slightly at each shot, as he would have to the following day, on the fifth occasion snatching a look at the watch to fix exactly the position of the moving hand.
And then started his release. He unbuckled himself from the tripod first, then the rifle, moving from butt to muzzle, as the last strap fell away jerking up to free himself from the leather vest. Zenin continued the zipping down movement as the fitment came off, snapping off the timing. Four minutes thirty seconds, he saw, disappointed. It had to be a month since he’d last practised. On the second attempt he only clipped ten seconds off the first test and just a further five on the third run through. For several moments he paused, panting and wet with the on-off effort, gazing down at the discarded vest. Should he discard it, literally? Zenin was confident he could hit every time, without it, and as he’d told the woman all he needed was to hit because the shock factor of the hollow-nosed bullets ensured it would be fatal, wherever the wound.
But all the training had been conducted wearing it, he reminded himself, in balancing argument. And it guaranteed absolutely the accuracy necessary after the first or second shot, because by then the panic would have erupted.
Sighing, Zenin zipped and buckled himself into the vest yet again, rehearsing and adjusting and rehearsing and adjusting, not satisfied until he had achieved the Balashikha minimum of four minutes on three consecutive occasions.
Physically aching, Zenin slumped on to an easier chair, away from the rifle and the tripod but staring fixedly at them, the harness crumpled alongside. One minute ten seconds to loose off the shots, four minutes to disentangle himself, a minute to the door, putting on his jacket as he moved, six minutes to quit the building allowing for the two minutes it had usually taken on his test departures for the elevator to get to the top floor and descend again. Twelve minutes ten seconds. During that time he was sure there would be nothing but panic at the Palais des Nations, no one knowing what was happening or from where, milling about in confused pandemonium. And there was the woman as the decoy, the person whom all the security forces were supposed to believe responsible, not immediately troubling to search further. Zenin smiled at his calculation. He decided he could allow as much as a further three minutes to get clear of the apartment and he already knew how long it would take for him to walk briskly but unhurriedly to the railway terminal. Easily enough time for the Carouge train: later that day, after getting rid of Sulafeh, it would mean his driving the Peugeot there, for it to be waiting when he arrived.
The orders were that he should abandon the car, against the risk of Swiss intelligence carrying out some car-hire sweep after the killings and ensnaring him in the net, but now that he had evolved his method of escape Zenin doubted the necessity. He’d leave the final decision until later but the Russian saw no reason why he should not return the vehicle on the due date and leave the country quite ordinarily. But not by air, initially. He’d wait a day or two – not in Bern but somewhere else, Zurich perhaps because it was conveniently north – and then cross the border into Germany by train. He had no need for an airport until Amsterdam, for the connection back to Moscow, so Zenin thought he might continue by rail right into Holland. But not in one journey. He’d break it in Germany: Munich, maybe. He’d never been to Germany and considered he would deserve a short vacation, after it was all over. And it would not strictly be an indulgence. His training was to work in the West, so the more exposure he got in the different countries the better he would be able to carry out the assignments.
Aware of the appointment with Sulafeh, Zenin shifted at last, going back to the guncase still containing the Browning with which she was to be supplied. Her obvious excitement by violence concerned him: she could not be relied upon to have it today, he determined. It would have to be a last minute hand-over. There was the need anyway for them to meet briefly on the actual day in the event of there being schedule changes so it could be done then.
Zenin closed the bag and arranged the harness more tidily over the rifle, like a dust cover. He carefully pulled the already concealing curtains and looked briefly around the apartment, ensuring he had forgotten nothing, before removing the wedges from beneath the door. He stared uncertainly at them for a moment, realizing that by not using them he could reduce by at least thirty seconds – maybe a whole minute – the time it would take him to leave the apartment, after the shooting. Something else to be decided on the day, he thought, putting them neatly side by side on the table.
Zenin was customarily early at the café on the Rue de Coutance he had given Sulafeh as a meeting place, wanting his usual satisfaction that it was safe, not approaching it until he saw her arrive without any pursuit – and unflustered like she had been the previous day – and settle herself at a window table.
She smiled up eagerly when she saw him approach, reaching out for his hand to pull him down into the chair opposite.
‘It worked!’ she announced at once.
‘Tell me.’
‘All hell was breaking loose when I got back to the hotel last night,’ said the woman. ‘Some passer-by had found Dajani in the alley. His accreditation, too, so it didn’t take long for the police to notify the delegation. They even interviewed me!’
‘The police!’ said Zenin.
‘There was no problem,’ she said, reassuringly. ‘They just asked me what the arrangement was and I said we were going to dine as colleagues but that he did not turn up. Zeidan sat in on the interview and confirmed that I had called, asking about Dajani …’ She smiled. ‘I agreed last night that having me call him was clever, didn’t I?’
Her coquettishness irritated him. ‘Was it only the police!’ he demanded.
Sulafeh retreated, as she always did. She said: ‘Of course, darling! It was just routine!’
‘How routine!’ he persisted.
‘Just like I said it was. Zeidan confirmed that I had called: said – like he told me – that he thought it had been a misunderstanding and didn’t bother to do anything. That he hadn’t worried about it until they, the police, arrived.’
‘How much questioning was there about what you were doing?’
‘None,’ insisted Sulafeh. ‘I said that after telephoning I went to another café, had a meal, walked around Geneva and then went back to the hotel. Where I found the police waiting for me.’
‘Did they ask which café?’ said Zenin, realizing another possible oversight.