The Stephanie Fitzpatrick series

Stephanie shook her head. ‘Without a care in the world.’

‘Or maybe with every care in the world.’

‘But to be so casual about it?’

‘Perhaps suggesting that he was under the impression that he was injecting himself with something else. Something that would provoke a reaction but which wouldn’t kill him. In any event, it’s unlikely we’ll ever find out what he thought he was doing.’

Stephanie continued to look at Klepper. ‘Still, no great loss, I suppose …’

‘We now know that he was the first of five couriers, two of whom were UK-bound. We don’t know about the other three. We do know that the action was abandoned after his death but SIS was unable to discover the target or the identity of the end users. As for the suppliers of the Plutonium-239, the intelligence community looked no further than the former Soviet Union. One name emerged. Or rather, an alias. Koba. But that was the end of the line. Until March. Then, out of the blue, SIS were contacted by Oleg Rogachev, head of the Tsentralnaya crime syndicate, an organization that has been strongly linked to nuclear smuggling in the past.’

‘How was the contact made?’

‘Through a Kazak investment company. Almatinvest. They have an office here in London but the contact was made through their Moscow office. An Almatinvest representative got in touch with the British Embassy on Rogachev’s behalf. The request was for a secure face-to-face with a senior SIS official. The job of evaluating that request fell to Roger Stansfield, a man I know personally. He concluded that the approach was bona fide. The representative said that Rogachev wanted to give SIS Koba’s real name.’

‘What did Rogachev want in return?’

‘Nothing.’ Alexander saw her expression change. ‘I know what you’re thinking. But maybe fingering Koba was some reward in itself.’

‘Or maybe Rogachev saw SIS coming and figured that he could get them to eliminate a rival on his behalf, at no risk to himself. Koba probably doesn’t even exist.’

‘That thought did occur to Stansfield. Which was why he didn’t want anyone from SIS involved. Not directly.’

‘So he asked you.’

‘Exactly. The plan was simple enough. Masquerading as a senior SIS officer, Marshall met Rogachev in Paris. At the meeting, Rogachev was supposed to hand over a disk containing information on the terrorists, the end users and the couriers. The two men met at a brasserie on the rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré. As far as we know, the meeting went to plan. However, as they stepped out of the café …’

Alexander changed the picture. There were two bodies lying face-down, one splayed across the pavement, the other crumpled in the gutter. The blood looked black. Although Stephanie was looking at the screens, she could tell that Alexander was staring at her.

‘No disk was recovered from either body. Nobody recalls the assassin frisking either man. It’s possible the disk was removed later. It’s also possible that the disk had already been lifted – perhaps in the brasserie. The only thing we know for sure is that it’s now in the possession of George Salibi.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘A Lebanese banker. Lives in New York. Founder of First Intercontinental.’

‘How does he fit into this?’

‘The way he fits into everything else. Money. God knows how he got hold of the disk but you can be sure he’ll use it.’

‘How?’

‘He’ll auction it or use it as leverage. Either way, the disk is now currency. And that’s not a situation we can tolerate.’

‘Salibi’s a target?’

‘The disk is a target. If Salibi gets in the way … well, that’s his problem.’

‘So that’s the job, then? The disk.’

Alexander’s glance was scathing. ‘James Marshall’s murder cannot go unpunished.’

‘Sounds a bit Old Testament to me.’

‘It’s not purely a question of revenge. It also sends out a message. Then there’s Koba. We don’t know whether Klepper’s consignment of Plutonium-239 was destined for Britain or whether it was merely in transit. And because we don’t know, we have to assume the worst. That being so, we need to find out who Koba is, who he’s supplying and what their target is.’

‘And then?’

‘As long as Koba’s alive, he’s a threat. The problem is, if we simply wanted to find a Koba, that would be easy. There are plenty to choose from. But we need to find the Koba.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘There’s a tradition of Russian criminals adopting aliases. The original Koba was a Georgian robber who protected the poor from their oppressors. A sort of Caucasian Robin Hood, if you like. The legend has lasting appeal. Criminals today are still calling themselves Koba. Even Stalin fell for it, adopting the name while he was robbing banks in Georgia at the beginning of the twentieth century.’

‘So you have no idea who you’re looking for.’

‘On the contrary. We’ve narrowed our Koba down to two. By the time you’re ready, we’ll know which one he is.’

‘And what if you don’t?’

‘There’s always the fail-safe option.’

‘Both men?’

‘There would be no other way to be sure.’

‘Cute.’

‘Believe me, the world wouldn’t miss either of them.’

‘Which makes it okay?’

‘If you spared yourself the pretence of a conscience, you’d see that it makes it better.’

Stephanie couldn’t be bothered to argue the point. ‘Could Koba have killed Marshall and Rogachev?’

Alexander shot her a withering look. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

He looked back at the images of the dead men on the screen. ‘There was one assassin, two shots per victim. Neither had time to react. In the panic that followed, the assassin escaped easily. There were witnesses but their accounts varied wildly. It was raining hard at the time. It was a dark afternoon. The killer was dressed in black or blue or grey, and wearing some kind of dark jacket with a hood to obscure the face. An anorak, maybe. There might have been an umbrella for extra cover. Physically, we have almost nothing to go on. A slim build, between five foot six and six foot tall – let’s say five foot nine, for the sake of argument. In other words, about your height.’

With the conference room lights dimmed, part of his face was hidden in shadow. She could see the flickering screens reflected on his eyeballs.

‘Might have been a man.’ He held her gaze completely. ‘Could have been a woman.’ Alexander leaned into a cone of pale light. ‘Is any of this starting to sound familiar?’

Stephanie was incredulous. ‘You think I had something to do with this?’

‘There’s a rumour going around …’

‘You’re out of your mind.’

‘Really?’

‘If you provided me with the date, I could probably tell you.’

‘Let me guess. Masson would vouch for you. I was with her the night before and the night after. But from where you live, Paris is a day trip.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Always.’

‘You can’t prove it, though, can you?’

Alexander’s smile was cold. ‘I don’t need to. You’re the one with something to prove.’

The hijack at Malta was my last job for Magenta House. In the chaos of its aftermath, I vanished. That should have been it. Instead, for the next two and a half years, I was Petra Reuter, more than I ever was before. Life imitated art and I became the professional assassin.

Today, sitting in this room, I can look at the way Magenta House originally transformed me into Petra Reuter and I can understand that process, even though I’m repelled by it. What I don’t understand is why I chose to embrace her so completely once I was free of her. Alexander doesn’t understand it, either. Which is why he’s wondering whether I killed Oleg Rogachev and James Marshall. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated, as long as the contract was right. So why not now?

I can see where this is leading. I need to find the culprit in order to prove that it’s not me. Although Alexander says he needs Koba and the disk, what he really wants is the Parisian assassin. He craves revenge because he feels responsible for Marshall’s death and this is the only way he can deal with that. Somebody else must pay. A life for a life. That’s what Magenta House trades in.

‘You chose to learn Russian. Why?’

‘For professional reasons. I was led to believe there’d be plenty of work for me – for Petra – in Russia. Or at least from Russian criminals.’

‘And was there?’

‘Actually, no. I never took a contract from a Russian, although I came into contact with quite a few.’

‘Where?’

‘Serbia, Cyprus, Latvia. In Paris and Zurich, too.’

‘Who led you to believe that learning Russian might be a good idea?’

‘Stern.’

‘You were in contact with Stern?’

The surprise in his voice was, itself, a surprise to Stephanie. ‘Yes.’

‘Do you know who Stern is?’

‘Of course not. That’s the whole point of him.’

Stern, the information broker. A man who existed only in the ether of the Internet, trading secrets and rumours for cash. Some said he was Swiss, others thought he was German. Or Austrian. Or even American. Like Alexander, a man with no first name. Or perhaps with several. Stephanie had always called him Oscar when they communicated. It had been his suggestion but she’d never believed that was his real name. He might once have been a spy although no one could agree for whom. Others said he’d been a journalist, or a mercenary. Stephanie had heard a theory that Stern didn’t exist at all, that he was a collection of people. Or perhaps a single woman.

‘Tell me about him.’

‘After Malta, I scanned all the old websites looking for messages for Petra. I didn’t expect to find anything but there he was, casting into the dark. I replied and we began to correspond, both of us cautious at first. Eventually, he told me he had work for me, if I was interested.’

‘How did your relationship evolve?’

‘We came to an arrangement. I agreed to let him act on my behalf. Essentially, he became my agent. It worked well because it meant I never met the client face-to-face. And no one ever met Stern. Everyone’s anonymity was protected. Stern used to joke that it was a perfect example of practical e-commerce. He said the Internet was invented for people like us.’

‘Sounds as though you two were made for each other.’

‘It was a relationship with no downside.’

‘You paid him, I suppose?’

‘He took fifteen per cent of the fees he negotiated on my behalf. On top of that, he offered other services, which I bought separately.’

‘Such as?’

‘Information, general or specific. Or reliable contacts in strange cities. That kind of thing.’

‘You never worried about that?’

‘Not unduly. If anything happened to me, he stood to lose money. And Stern hates to lose money.’

‘Don’t we all?’

His tone took her by surprise, so she stayed silent.

‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

She knew perfectly well. ‘No.’

‘One million and eighty thousand dollars, give or take some loose change.’

Stephanie felt herself harden. ‘I earned that money.’

‘It belonged to us.’

‘It belonged to Petra.’

‘Petra belonged to us.’

‘Petra belonged to nobody. Not then, not now.’

The colour began to drain from Alexander’s face. ‘You will return it.’

‘Are you a betting man?’

‘Petra was our creation. You were playing a part. Nothing more.’

‘What about after Malta?’

‘We’re talking about money earned before Malta.’

‘Well, guess what? Before Malta, after Malta, I don’t give a toss what you think. I was Petra. I’ve always been Petra. If you want the money, sue me.’

4

The first week is the worst. Some mornings, we talk in his office. On other mornings, we use a briefing room, or an office I’ve never seen before. It’s just the two of us. He makes occasional notes on paper, taking care to prevent me from seeing what he’s written. We break for lunch – an hour usually – then continue until five or six. Spending so much time alone with him is a form of claustrophobia.

At first, the questions are general, as he establishes a chronological order for everything that happened after Malta. I don’t mind that so much. Later, when he grows more specific, focusing on detail, I start to lie. Not all the time, only when it matters. I give him some dry bones to pick over, but I won’t give him my flesh and blood.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ I tell him on the fifth morning. ‘You have no idea whether what I’m telling you is the truth.’

‘Believe me, I’ll find out.’

‘Only if I let you.’

Which, on occasion, I do. Despite a general instinct to give him nothing, there are some exceptions. I want him to know that the Petra I became was better than the Petra that Magenta House created. When I describe how I infiltrated Mario Guzman’s fortified villa overlooking Oaxaca and then silently assassinated the Mexican drugs baron, I can hear the pride in my voice. Alexander pretends not to have noticed. And I’m happy for him to know how I lived in a shattered storm drain in Grozny for almost a week, before taking the single sniper’s shot that killed Russian General Vladimir Timoshenko.

I should feel too ashamed to boast about such things but I don’t. Not when I’m with him. Instead, I feel pleasure. That’s the corrupting effect he has on me.

At the end of each day, I try to leave my anger at Magenta House but it’s almost impossible. Another gruesome rush-hour ride on the Underground, a few groceries from Waitrose, an evening in front of the TV, a night of fractured sleep. I miss Laurent and the sound of the dogs barking in the valley. I miss the murmur of the cicadas, the scent of lavender and a glass of wine on the terrace.

On Friday afternoon, Alexander says, ‘Stern handled all your financial affairs, did he?’

‘He’s an information broker, not my accountant or banker.’

‘But he negotiated your contracts?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much money did you make through him?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘I’m making it my business.’

I shrug in an off-hand way. ‘A lot more than I took from you.’

Alexander looks absolutely furious.

I smile slyly. ‘A lot more.’

We move into the second week. Sometimes I’m moody and silent, sometimes I’m ready for a fight. We argue several times a day, which brings out the worst in my vocabulary. On Thursday afternoon, we have a stand-up row in his office. I storm out, slamming the door behind me. I don’t slow down until I’ve left the building. Rosie Chaudhuri catches up with me in Victoria Embankment Gardens.

She approaches me as though I’m a dog that bites. ‘Stephanie?’

I’m pacing but I’ve got nowhere to go. ‘What?’

‘You okay?’

‘What the fuck do you care?’

‘Hey …’

‘What is this? Good cop, bad cop? Are you going to sweet-talk me, then run back inside and tell him what I tell you?’

‘Is that what you think?’

It wasn’t. ‘You work in there, don’t you? For him …’

She looked disappointed, not cross. ‘I thought you knew me better than that.’

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Christ, Rosie …’

‘It’s okay.’

I put my hand on my forehead, shielding my eyes. ‘No, it isn’t. I’m sorry.’

At the weekend, I decide to strip the flat. I’d sooner it was bare than cluttered with someone else’s idea of personal touches. I take the pictures off the walls and dump them in the storage room in the basement. I empty the photos and paperbacks into black bin-liners. I sift through the CDs to see if there’s anything worth keeping. It’s a collection of chilling mediocrity; Michael Bolton, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Elton John. Not a decent song between them and the rest. I reject all thirty-four albums in the rack.

I spend an hour of Saturday afternoon in Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street, where I buy a few paperbacks of my own. On Sunday afternoon, I buy half a dozen CDs at Tower Records on Piccadilly Circus, including two Garbage albums and Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp. In the early evening, I watch Wonder Boys at the Prince Charles cinema on Leicester Square. When I come out, I go back round to the front and pay to watch the next film on the bill, Buena Vista Social Club.

Wednesday afternoon. The febrile humidity of morning had made way for rain. They were sitting in Alexander’s office. Two windows were open; the downpour drowned the sound of traffic on the Embankment.

Alexander lit a Rothmans and said, ‘Tell me about Arkan.’

Arkan and his paramilitary Tigers. Stephanie’s skin prickled. ‘What about him?’

‘There was a rumour that Petra Reuter killed him.’

‘I never read that.’

‘It wasn’t in the papers.’

Stephanie tilted back on her chair. ‘Arkan was a dog. Not a tiger. And he died like a dog; he was put down, not assassinated.’

‘Did you kill him?’

Stephanie closed her eyes. It was 15 January 2000. Arkan – real name, Zeljko Raznatovic – was striding through the lobby of the Hotel Inter-Continental in Belgrade. For a fraction of a second they’d looked at one another. It had been his last fraction of a second. She’d used a Heckler & Koch submachine gun and had aimed for the head because Stern’s sources had said that Arkan would be wearing a bullet-proof vest. Which turned out to be true. Three of the bullets she fired found the target.

‘Eye-witnesses spoke of two assassins. Who was the other?’

‘It doesn’t matter. He’s dead.’

Stephanie saw something in Alexander’s reaction. Surprise, distaste, consternation? She couldn’t tell. He said, ‘The contract came through Stern?’

‘Yes.’

‘With no indication of the client’s identity?’

‘Not at first. Stern described the job as domestic.’

‘How did you interpret that?’

‘Slobodan Milosevic.’

Alexander reflected for a moment and then nodded. ‘I agree. You never met Milosevic, I assume.’

‘No. But I met his idiot son, Marko.’

‘How did that come about?’

‘Stern set up a meeting with an intermediary. I travelled from Belgrade to Pozarevac –’

‘Milosevic’s home town?’

Stephanie nodded. ‘I met the intermediary – a Belgian named Marcel Claesen – at Bambi Park. It’s a kind of sick amusement park that Marko Milosevic built.’

‘And he was there?’

‘Yes. With Malizia Gajic.’

‘Who?’

‘His partner. They had a child together.’

‘Did she have any connections that you know of?’

‘Only to a plastic surgeon who evidently believed the bigger the breasts the better.’

‘What about Marko?’

‘He thought he was a businessman.’

‘But you didn’t?’

‘I thought he was as thick as elephant shit. He had a peroxide spike for a haircut and wore a lot of Tommy Hilfiger.’

‘Did he appear to know the Belgian?’

‘In a manner of speaking. They were talking but I got the impression that Claesen was embarrassed to be seen with Marko.’

‘Do you think Marko passed on the information to Claesen?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Was Bambi Park simply the rendezvous or was Marko in the loop?’

‘I doubt it. I mean, Claesen was the intermediary. If Marko had been involved, he could have just given the information to me himself. There would have been no need for Claesen.’

‘Yet they clearly knew each other. Suggesting previous associations. Perhaps involving other members of the family?’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Then what?’

‘Claesen and I drove back to Belgrade and he provided me with the information.’

‘Which was what?’

‘Where to pick up the weapons, where to meet the second gun, what Arkan’s schedule was.’

‘Why did you pick the Inter-Continental?’

‘It was nice and open, plenty of scope for panic.’

‘Did you kill the bodyguard, Momcilo Mandic?’

‘No. I focused on Arkan. The second gun scattered the protection. And everyone else.’

‘There were suspects arrested, I seem to remember. A man called Dusan Gavric, who was wounded.’

‘Getting shot doesn’t make him guilty. It makes him unlucky. Or careless. Having said that, I wouldn’t have fancied being in his position after he was arrested …’

‘Petra’s name was linked to other murders in the region. What about Pavel Bulatovic?’

‘No.’

Stephanie remembered the details clearly, though. The federal defence minister of Yugoslavia had been eating at the Rad restaurant in Belgrade, an establishment that looked onto a football pitch. The gunman had fired his Kalashnikov through the window in three concentrated bursts, cutting across the room in a diagonal, before using the pitch as his escape route. Following so soon after Arkan, Stephanie had wondered whether both assassinations had been ordered by the same individual.

‘What about Darko Asanin?’

She’d heard the name, a former Belgrade criminal. ‘No.’

‘Anybody else I should know about from that part of the world?’

Stephanie smiled coldly. ‘Arkan isn’t enough for you?’

I can’t face the Underground. It’s a foetid evening. Businessmen sweat into their shapeless suits. I walk beneath Hungerford Bridge, along Victoria Embankment, past the Ministry of Defence, towards Westminster Bridge. Gradually, the noise of the traffic, of the aircraft overhead, of the multitude around me, begins to recede. In my mind, it grows darker, cooler. The open spaces restrict themselves to four walls until I’m in a cramped room in a small hotel. There is a narrow bed with a thin mattress, a single wooden chair between a cupboard and a chest of drawers.

I’m lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. I’m cold but I’m perspiring. I look as though I’m saying something but there’s nothing to hear. I don’t notice when I urinate, soaking the lumpy mattress. I only move when I know I’m going to vomit. But I react too slowly. I fall to my knees and throw up onto the floor. My back arches as I retch, and when it’s over I collapse onto my side and roll myself into a ball. I don’t know how long I stay there.

January 20th, 2000, Bilbao. Five days since Belgrade, five days since Arkan. Three days since I arrived in Bilbao and checked into this black hole. I was only supposed to be here for thirty-six hours. The arrangements were not complicated: pick up the package at the post office, use the new identity to travel to Rabat and then discard it, spend a week relaxing in Morocco as Delphine Lafont – the identity I used to enter Morocco ten days ago – and then return to Paris, as scheduled. Simple, clinical, perfect. Pure Petra.

At first, there was an overwhelming lethargy. My muscles turned to lead, my blood cooled. I imagined it congealing, turning black. With it came a sense of dread. Creeping up on me, smothering me. For two and a half years, I had functioned without fear. In my pursuit of mechanical perfection, I turned anxiety into caution, pain into penalty. I wanted to feel nothing, no matter what I did. And whatever I did, I wanted to do it with ruthless efficiency. I thought I’d eliminated doubt and chance from Petra Reuter’s life.

Now, lying on the floor, drenched in sweat, my head a sandstorm of emotion, I know that I’ve snapped. For two days, I’ve been unable to eat or drink. My body has rejected everything I’ve put into it. My body and also my mind. I can see that in some ways I’m rejecting myself. Seen from another perspective, however, I’m rejecting an intruder.