Sam stood and picked up the shears. Dolohov shook his head violently. ‘Young men,’ he started gabbling. ‘My job is to make their deaths appear accidental. To stop anyone from investigating them further. The last hit was a car crash. I doctored the engine and made it happen when he was speeding on the motorway. Before that…’ His cheek twitched. ‘Before that, what your doctors call auto-erotic asphyxiation. I made it appear as if my target had…’
Dolohov continued to talk, but for a moment Sam lost his concentration. The words matched the information Clare had given him. He knew the Russian was telling the truth. ‘So you’re the guy that’s been bumping off the red-light runners,’ he said.
‘The what?’ Dolohov asked. He managed a half-smile. ‘That is what you call them? I call them fools.’
An image flashed through Sam’s brain. Kazakhstan. The training camp. The bullets pumping into the bodies of the slumbering kids. The photos of their corpses.
‘Talk to me,’ Sam demanded. ‘Everything you know.’
Dolohov’s face reverted to its look of hate. ‘You work for the British security services?’
‘I work for myself. Spit it out, Dolohov. Now.’
The Russian paused before speaking, almost as if gathering his thoughts. Sam listened in silence to the monologue that followed.
‘You call them red-light runners. Perhaps they call themselves red-light runners? I do not know why. The truth is that they are just foolish young men, targeted by the FSB. A very particular type of person. A type of person that would be attracted by a particular… A particular lifestyle. A type of person that enjoys danger. A type of person that is easily misled. As I have already told you: fools. They are approached – I do not know how or by whom – and told that they have been selected for a certain purpose: to work undercover for your MI5.’
‘Only they’re not working for Five at all,’ Sam interrupted thoughtfully. ‘They’re working for the Russians. But they don’t know it.’
Dolohov inclined his head. ‘They are taken to a training camp where they are given instruction. Surveillance techniques, the construction of improvised explosive devices, weapons training. When they are returned to this country, my government has a sleeping army. If one of them is caught, they do not know who they are really receiving their instructions from. They will always tell the same story – that they are working for MI5.’ He gave Sam a piercing look. ‘No matter how many of their fingers you cut off.’
‘None of this explains why you’ve been slotting them, Dolohov. You’d better start sounding convincing.’
A wave of pain passed across the Russian’s face again. He spoke with difficulty. ‘They are told to keep silent, to tell no one. It is…’ He searched once more for the correct words. ‘It is drummed into them. But to be silent is not in their nature. We know, sooner or later, that they will speak. They are weak and impulsive. They cannot help it. For a year, perhaps, they are able to keep their own counsel. But after that, they start to get sloppy. They are not professionals, like us.’ Sloppiness, Sam deduced, was something he could not abide. ‘That is when I am called in. They are given twelve months. In that time they may or may not have been useful to our cause, but they are eliminated anyway, then replaced by fresh recruits.’
‘Jesus,’ Sam whispered. The Russian’s casual disrespect for the lives of his victims impressed even him. What Dolohov was telling him had begun to fill in some of the gaps; but there were more questions springing into his mind. Some of them he wanted answers to. Others he wasn’t sure he did. Dolohov, though, was flagging. It was obvious. His body had taken punishment and his head was starting to droop. Even so, Sam wasn’t in the mood to mollycoddle him.
He reached for the bottle of vodka and held it to Dolohov’s lips. The Russian took a gulp, then winced slightly as the alcohol burned his throat. Sam stood then turned and faced the fireplace. A thick silence descended. He contemplated his next question.
‘I’m afraid,’ Sam said finally, ‘that I don’t really believe you.’
He turned once more, strode quickly to the table and before Dolohov knew what was happening he had grabbed the shears and was already unfurling one of the Russian’s thumbs. Dolohov tried to shout out, but his breathlessness stopped him for a moment. When he eventually managed to speak, it was with more of a sense of terrified urgency than Sam had ever heard before.
‘There’s more. I can tell you more. Do not do it again!’
Sam paused. Dolohov was almost weeping now. Through gritted teeth, the ultimate humiliation. His good English failed him. ‘I begging you not do again.’
‘Start talking.’ Sam kept the blades of the shears resting against the skin of the Russian’s thumb.
Dolohov spoke quickly. ‘I do not know everything. They do not tell me everything. It is better that way. But I know some things. One of them is to be activated. Maybe he already has. A major hit. Political. It will happen soon.’
‘Who?’
‘I do not know.’
‘I don’t believe you, Dolohov.’ He allowed the blade to slice gently the skin on his thumb.
‘I do not know! I would tell you if I did…’ And again his voice collapsed into sobs of helpless terror.
‘What’s the name of the red-light runner?’
But Dolohov couldn’t speak. He just shook his head, desperately, while the sounds of animal fear emerged from his throat.
Sam found himself breathing deeply and sharply. He let the Russian’s hand fall, ignoring the trickle of blood that seeped from the small flesh wound. Without a word he walked out of the room. He felt the sudden need to be alone, away from Dolohov. The need to collect his thoughts. The need to decide if he really wanted to ask the question that was on his lips. There was a fire in his blood. Anger. His head was spinning. In some corner of his brain he knew that Dolohov’s life was hanging by a thread. Sam Redman was on the edge, barely able to control himself. A nudge in the wrong direction and he would do to the Russian what both of them had done to any number of red-light runners.
He calmed himself. His eyes narrowed and his jaw set. He walked back into the room feeling numb, but somehow purposeful at the same time. Dolohov was slumped, corpse-like. Sam had seen it before – the shock that drained all colour from someone’s face. Even his lips were grey. He stood in front of the man and gave him a thunderous look.
‘Who gives you the orders?’ he asked. ‘Who tells you to kill the red-light runners? Who gives you the details?’
Dolohov raised his head and paused as he summoned up the last dregs of his arrogance.
‘You really know nothing,’ he observed in a weak voice. ‘Is our system really so difficult for you to work out?’
Sam didn’t hesitate. His body under the control of some force other than his thoughts, he grabbed his handgun from the table and pressed it hard against Dolohov’s head.
‘Who?’
‘The same man who trains them,’ Dolohov whispered. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face. ‘British. We never meet.’
‘Damn it, Dolohov. What’s his name?’
They’ll tell you things, Sam. Things about me. Don’t forget that you’re my brother. Don’t believe them.
It was like a dream. Sam heard the words and they were like a trigger firing a weapon. Out of control, he raised his gun hand and slammed his fist against the side of Dolohov’s face. The Russian’s glasses cracked and flew across the room; the chair in which he was sitting tottered back and fell to the ground, taking its occupant with it.
Sam knelt down and once more pressed the gun against the Russian, this time into the flesh of his neck. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he hissed. ‘Tell me the truth. What’s his name?’