Russian Roulette

ВЕНЕЦИЯ – VENICE

It was night-time when we landed.

Once again we came plunging out of the darkness with only the sound of the engine and the rising feeling in my stomach to tell me we had reached the end of our journey. The seaplane hit the water, bounced, then skimmed along the surface before finally coming to rest. The pilot turned off the engine and we were suddenly sitting in complete silence, rocking gently on the water. Looking out of the window, I could make out a few lights twinkling in the distance. I glanced at Rykov, his face illuminated by the glow of the control panels, trying to work out what was going on in his mind. I was still afraid he would turn round and shoot me. He gave nothing away.

What next?

Although I didn’t know it at the time, Venice was a perfect destination for those travelling by seaplane, particularly if they wished to arrive without being seen. It is possible, of course, that the Italian police and air traffic control had been bribed but nobody seemed to have noticed that we had landed. For about two minutes, no one spoke. Then I heard the deep throb of an engine and, with my face pressed against the window, I saw a motor launch slip out of the darkness and draw up next to us. The pilot opened the door and we climbed out.

The motor launch was about thirty feet long, made of wood, with a cabin at the front and leather seats behind. There were two men on board, a captain and a deckhand who helped us climb down. If they were surprised to find themselves with an extra passenger, they didn’t show it. They said nothing. Rykov gestured and I sat out in the open at the back of the launch, even though the night was chilly. Zelin sat opposite me. He was clutching his travel bag, deep in thought.

We set off and as we went I heard the seaplane start up and take off again. I was already impressed. Everything about this operation had been well planned and executed down to the last detail. There had been only one mistake… and that was me. It took us about ten minutes to make the crossing, pulling into a ramshackle wooden jetty with striped poles slanting in different directions. Rykov stepped out and waited for me to follow but Zelin stayed where he was and I realized he was not coming with us.

I held out a hand to the helicopter pilot. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for letting me come with you.”

“That place was horrible and Sharkovsky was beneath contempt,” Zelin replied. “All those things they did to you… I’m sorry I didn’t help.”

“It’s over now.”

“For both of us.” He shook my hand. “I hope it works out for you, Yassen. Take care.”

I climbed onto the jetty and the boat pulled away. Moments later it had disappeared over the lagoon.

Rykov and I continued on foot. He took me to a flat in an area near the old dockyards where we had disembarked. Why do I call him Rykov? As I was soon to discover, it was not his name. He was not a mechanic. I’m not even sure that he was Russian, although he spoke my language fluently. He told me nothing about himself in the time I was with him and I was wise enough not to ask. When you are in his sort of business – now my business – you are not defined by who you are but who you are not. If you want to stay ahead of the police and the investigation agencies, you must never leave a trace of yourself behind.

We reached a doorway between two shops in an anonymous street. Rykov unlocked it and we entered a hallway with a narrow, twisting staircase leading up. His flat was on the fourth floor. He unlocked a second door and turned on the light. I found myself in a square, whitewashed room with a high ceiling and exposed beams. It had very little personality and I guessed it was merely somewhere he stayed when he was in Venice rather than a home. The furniture looked new. There was a sofa facing a television, a dining table with four chairs, and a small kitchen. The pictures on the wall were views of the city, probably the same views you could see if you opened the shutters. It did not feel as if anyone had been here for some time.

“Are you hungry?” Rykov asked.

I shook my head. “No. I’m OK.”

“There are some tins in the cupboard if you want.”

I was hungry. But I was tired too. In fact, I was exhausted as all the suffering of the last three years suddenly drained out of me. It had ended so quickly. I still couldn’t quite accept it. “What happens now?” I asked.

Rykov pointed at a door which I hadn’t noticed, next to the fridge. “There’s only one bedroom here,” he said. “You can sleep on the couch. I have to go out but I’ll be back later. Don’t try to leave here. Do you understand me? You’re to stay in this room. And don’t use the telephone either. If you do, I’ll know.”

“I don’t have anyone to call,” I said. “And I don’t have anywhere to go.”

He nodded. “Good. I’ll get you some blankets before I leave. Help yourself to anything you need.”

A short while later, he left. I drank some water, then made up a bed on the couch and lay down without getting undressed. I was asleep instantly. It was the first time I had slept outside my small wooden cabin in three years.

I didn’t hear Rykov come back but I was woken up by him the following morning as he folded back the shutters and let in the sun. He had changed once again and it took me a few moments to remember who he was. He was wearing a suit and sunglasses. There was a gold chain around his neck. He looked slim and very fit, ten years younger than the mechanic who had come to mend the Bell JetRanger.

“It’s nine o’clock,” he said. “I can’t believe Sharkovsky let you sleep this long. Is that when you started work?”

“No,” I replied. At the dacha, I’d woken at six every morning.

“You can use my shower. I’ve left you a fresh shirt. I think it’s your size. Don’t take too long. I want to get some breakfast.”

Ten minutes later, I was washed and dried, wearing a pale blue T-shirt that fitted me well. Rykov took me out and for the first time I saw Venice in the light of an autumn day.

There is simply nowhere in the world like it. Even today, when I am not working, this is somewhere I will come to unwind. I love to sit outside while the sun sets, watching the seagulls circling and the traffic crossing back and forth across the lagoon… the water taxis, the water ambulances, the classic speedboats, the vaporettos and, of course, the gondolas. I can walk for hours through the streets and alleyways that seem to play cat and mouse with the canals, suddenly bringing you to a church, a fountain, a statue, a tiny humpback bridge… or perhaps depositing you in a great square with bands playing, waiters circling and tourists all around. Every corner has another surprise. Every street is a work of art. I am glad I have never killed anyone there.

Rykov took me to a café around the corner from his flat, an old-fashioned place with a tiled floor, a long counter and a giant-sized coffee machine that blew out clouds of steam. We sat together at a little antique table and he ordered cappuccinos, orange juice and tramezzini – little sandwiches, made out of soft bread with smoked ham and cheese. I hadn’t eaten for about twenty hours and this was my first taste of Italian food. I wolfed them down and didn’t complain when he ordered a second plate. There was a canal running past outside and I was fascinated to see the different boats passing so close to the window.

“So your name is Yassen Gregorovich,” he said. He had been speaking in English ever since we had arrived in Venice. Perhaps he was testing me – although it was more likely that he had decided to leave the Russian language behind… along with the rest of the character he had been. “How old are you?”

I thought for a moment. “Eighteen,” I said.

“Sharkovsky kidnapped you in Moscow. He kept you his prisoner for three years. You were his food taster. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“You’re lucky. We tried to poison him once and we were considering a second attempt. Your parents are dead?”

“Yes.”

“Arkady Zelin told me about you in the helicopter. And about Sharkovsky. I don’t know why you put up with it so long. Why didn’t you just put a knife into the bastard?”

“Because I wanted to live,” I said. “Karl or Josef would have killed me if I’d tried.”

“You were prepared to spend the rest of your life working for him?”

“I did what I had to to survive. Now he’s dead and I’m here.”

“That’s true.”

Rykov took out a cigarette and lit it. He did not offer me one but nor did I want it. This was the one good thing that had come out of my time at the dacha. I had not been allowed to have cigarettes and so I had been forced to give up smoking. I have never smoked since.

“Who are you?” I asked. “And who are Scorpia? Did they pay you to kill Sharkovsky?”

“I’ll give you a piece of advice, Yassen. Don’t ask questions and never mention that name again. Certainly not in public.”

“I’d like to know why I’m here. It would have been easier for you to kill me when we were in Boltino.”

“Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. As it is, it may be that I’ve made a bad mistake. We’ll see.” He drew on the cigarette. “The only reason I didn’t kill you is because I owed you. It was stupid of me not to see the second bodyguard. I don’t usually make mistakes and I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you. But before you get any fancy ideas, we’re quits. The debt is cancelled. From now on, you’re nothing to me. You’re not going to work for me. And I don’t really care whatever happens to you.”

“So why am I here?”

“Because the people I work for want to see you. We’re going there now.”

“There?”

“The Widow’s Palace. We’ll get a boat.”

From the name, I expected somewhere sombre, an old, dark building with black curtains drawn across the windows. But in fact the Widow’s Palace was an astonishing place, like something out of the story books I had read as a child, built out of pink and white bricks with dozens of windows glittering in the sun. There was a covered walkway on the level of the first floor, stretching from one end to the other, held up by slender pillars with archways below. And the palace wasn’t standing beside the canal. It was actually sinking into it. The water was lapping at the front door with the white marble steps disappearing below the murky surface.

We pulled in and stepped off the boat. There was a man standing at the entrance with thick shoulders and folded arms, wearing a white shirt and a black suit. He examined us briefly, then nodded for us to continue forward. Already I was regretting this. As I passed from the sunlight to the shadows of the interior, I was thinking of what Zelin had said as he left the helicopter. You don’t know these people. They will kill you. Maybe three long years of taking orders from Vladimir Sharkovsky had clouded my judgement. I was no longer used to making decisions.

It would have been better if I had run away before breakfast. I could have sneaked on a train to another city. I could have gone to the police for help. I remembered something my grandmother used to say when she was cooking: out of the latki, into the fire.

A massive spiral staircase – white marble with wrought-iron banisters – rose up, twisting over itself. Rykov went first and I followed a few steps behind, neither of us speaking. I was nervous but he was completely at ease, one hand in his trouser pocket, taking his time. We came to a corridor lined with paintings: portraits of men and women who must have died centuries before. They stood in their gold frames, watching us pass. We walked down to a pair of doors and before he opened them, Rykov turned and spoke briefly, quietly.

“Say nothing until you are spoken to. Tell the truth. She will know if you’re lying.”

She? The widow?

He knocked and without waiting for an answer opened the doors and went through.

The woman who was waiting for us was surely too young to have married and lost a husband. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven and my first thought was that she was very beautiful. My second was that she was dangerous. She was quite short, with long, black hair, tied back. It contrasted with the paleness of her skin. She wore no make-up apart from a smear of crimson lipstick that was so bright it was almost cruel. She was dressed in a black silk shirt, open at the neck. A simple gold necklace twisted around her neck. She could have been a model or an actress but there was something that danced in her eyes and told me she was neither.

She was sitting behind a very elegant, ornate table with a line of windows behind her, looking out over the Grand Canal. Two chairs had been placed in front of her and we took our places without waiting to be told. She had not been doing anything when we came in. It was clear that she had simply been waiting for us.

“Mr Grant,” she said, and it took me a moment to realize she was talking to Rykov. “How did it go?” Her voice was very young. She spoke English with a strange accent which I couldn’t place.

“There was no problem, Mrs Rothman,” Rykov – or Grant – replied.

“You killed Sharkovsky?”

“Three bullets. I got into the compound, thanks to the helicopter pilot. He flew me out again. Everything went according to plan.”

“Not quite.” She smiled and her eyes were bright but I knew something bad was coming and I was right. Slowly she turned to face me as if noticing me for the first time. Her eyes lingered on me. I couldn’t tell what was in her mind. “I do not remember asking you to bring me a Russian boy.”

Grant shrugged. “He helped me and I brought him here because it seemed the easiest thing to do. It occurred to me that he might be useful to you… and to Scorpia. He has no background, no family, no identity. He’s shown himself to have a certain amount of courage. But if you don’t need him, I’ll get rid of him for you. And of course there’ll be no extra charge.”

I had been struggling to follow all this. My teacher, Nigel Brown, had done a good job – my English was very advanced. But still, it was the first time I had heard it spoken by other people, and there were one or two words I didn’t understand. But nor did I need to. I fully understood the offer that Grant had just made and knew that once again my life was in the balance. The worst of it was that there was nothing I could do. I had nothing to say. I’d never be able to fight my way out of this house. I could only sit there and see what this woman decided.

She took her time. I felt her examining me and tried not to show how afraid I was. “That’s very generous of you, Mr Grant,” she said, at last. “But what gives you the idea that I can’t deal with this myself?”

I hadn’t seen her lower her hand beneath the surface of the table but when she raised it, she was holding a gun, a silver revolver that had been polished until it shone. She held it almost like a fashion accessory, a perfectly manicured finger curling around the trigger. It was pointing at me and I could see that she was deadly serious. She intended to use it.

I tried to speak. No words came out.

“It’s rather a shame,” Mrs Rothman went on. “I don’t enjoy killing, but you know how it is. Scorpia will not accept a second-rate job.” Her hand hadn’t moved but her eyes slid back to Grant. “Sharkovsky isn’t dead.”

“What?” Grant was shocked.

Mrs Rothman moved her arm so that the gun was facing him. She pulled the trigger. Grant was killed instantly, propelled backwards in his chair, crashing onto the floor.

I stared. The noise of the explosion was ringing in my ears. She swung the gun back to me.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” she asked.

“Sharkovsky’s dead!” I gasped. It was all I could think to say. “He was shot three times.”

“That may well be true. Unfortunately, our intelligence is that he survived. He’s in hospital in Moscow. He’s critical. But the doctors say he’ll pull through.”

I didn’t know how to react to this information. It seemed impossible. The shots had been fired at close range. I had seen him thrown off his feet. And yet I had always said he was the devil. Perhaps it would take more than bullets to end his life.

The gun was still pointing at me. I waited for Mrs Rothman to fire again. But suddenly she smiled as if nothing had happened, put the gun down and stood up.

“Would you like a glass of Coke?” she asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“Please don’t ask me to repeat myself, Yassen. I find it very boring. We can’t sit and talk here, with a dead body in the room. It isn’t dignified. Let’s go next door.”

She slid out from behind the desk and I followed her through a door that I hadn’t noticed before – it was part of a bookshelf covered with fake books so as not to spoil the pattern. There was a much larger living room behind the door with two plump sofas on either side of a glass table and a massive stone fireplace, though no fire. Fresh flowers had been arranged in a vase and the scent of them hung in the air. Drinks – Coke for me, iced tea for her – had already been served.

We sat down.

“Were you shocked by that, Yassen?” she asked.

I shook my head, not quite daring to speak yet.

“It was very unpleasant but I’m afraid you can’t allow anyone too many chances in our line of work. It sends out the wrong message. This wasn’t the first time Mr Grant had made mistakes. Even bringing you here and not disposing of you when you were in Boltino frankly made me question his judgement. But never mind that now. Here you are and I want to talk about you. I know a little about you but I’d like to hear the rest. Your parents are dead, I understand.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how it happened. Tell me all of it. See if you can keep it brief, though. I’m only interested in the bare essentials. I have a long day…”

So I told her everything. Right then, I couldn’t think of any reason not to. Estrov, the factory, Moscow, Dima, Demetyev, Sharkovsky… even I was surprised how my whole life could boil down to so few words. She listened with what I can only describe as polite interest. You would have thought that some of the things that had happened to me would have caused an expression of concern or sympathy. She really didn’t care.

“It’s an interesting story,” she said, when I had finished. “And you told it very well.” She sipped her tea. I noticed that her lipstick left bright red marks on the glass. “The strange thing is that the late Mr Grant was quite right. You could be very useful to us.”

“Who are you?” I asked. Then I added, “Scorpia…”

“Ah yes. Scorpia. I’m not entirely sure about the name if you want the truth. The letters stand for Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and Assassination, but that’s only a few of the things we get up to. They could have added kidnapping, blackmail, terrorism, drug trafficking and vice, but that wouldn’t make a word. Anyway, we’ve got to be called something and I suppose Scorpia has a nice ring to it.

“I’m on the executive board. Right now there are twelve of us. Please don’t get the idea that we’re monsters. We’re not even criminals. In fact, quite a few of us used to work in the intelligence services… England, France, Israel, Japan… but it’s a fast-changing world and we realized that we could do much better if we went into business for ourselves. You’d be amazed how many governments need to subcontract their dirty work. Think about it. Why risk your own people, spying on your enemies, when you can simply pay us to do it for you? Why start a war when you can pick up the phone and get someone to kill the head of state? It’s cheaper. Fewer people get hurt. In a way, Scorpia has been quite helpful when it comes to world peace. We still work for virtually all the intelligence services and that must tell you something about us. A lot of the time we’re doing exactly the same jobs that we were doing before. Just at a higher price.”

“You were a spy?” I asked.

“Actually, Yassen, I wasn’t. I’m from Wales. Do you know where that is? Believe it or not, I was brought up in a tiny mining community. My parents used to sing in the local choir. They’re in jail now and I was in an orphanage when I was six years old. My life has been quite similar to yours in some ways. But as you can see, I’ve been rather more successful.”

It was warm in the room. The sun was streaming in through the windows, dazzling me. I waited for her to continue.

“I’ll get straight to the point,” she said. “There’s something quite special about you, Yassen, even if you probably don’t appreciate yourself. Do you see what I’m getting at? You’re a survivor, yes. But you’re more than that. In your own way, you’re unique!

“You see, pretty much everyone in the world is on a databank somewhere. The moment you’re born, your details get put into a computer, and computers are getting more and more powerful by the day. Right now I could pick up the telephone and in half an hour I would know anything and everything about anyone you care to name. And it’s not just names and that sort of thing. You break into a house and leave a fingerprint or one tiny little piece of DNA and the international police will track you down, no matter where in the world you are. A crime committed in Rio de Janeiro can be solved overnight at Scotland Yard – and, believe me, as the technology changes, it’s going to get much, much worse.

“But you’re different. The Russian authorities have done you a great favour. They’ve wiped you out. The village you were brought up in no longer exists. You have no parents. I would imagine that every last piece of information about you and anyone you ever knew in Estrov has been destroyed. And do you know what that’s done? It’s made you a non-person. From this moment on, you can be completely invisible. You can go anywhere and do anything and nobody will be able to find you.”

She reached for her glass, turning it between her finger and her thumb. Her nails were long and sharp. She didn’t drink.

“We are always on the lookout for assassins,” she said. “Contract killers like Mr Grant. As you have seen, the price of failure in our organization is a high one, but so are the rewards of success. It is a very attractive life. You travel the world. You stay in the best hotels, eat in the best restaurants, shop in Paris and New York. You meet interesting people… and some of them you kill.”

I must have looked alarmed because she raised a hand, stopping me.

“Let me finish. You were brought up by your parents who, I am sure, were good people. So were mine! You are thinking that you could never murder someone for money. You could never be like Mr Grant. But you’re wrong. We will train you. We have a facility not very far from here, an island called Malagosto. We run a school there… a very special school. If you go there, you will work harder than you have ever worked in your life – even harder than in that dacha where you were kept.

“You will be given training in weapons and martial arts. You will learn the techniques of poisoning, shooting, explosives and hand-to-hand combat. We will show you how to pick locks, how to disguise yourself, how to talk your way in and out of any given situation. We will teach you not only how to act like a killer but how to think like one. Every week there will be psychological and physical evaluations. There will also be formal schooling. You need to have maths and science. Your English is excellent but you still speak with a Russian accent. You must lose it. You should also learn Arabic, as we have many operations in the Middle East.

“I can promise you that you will be more exhausted than you would have thought possible but, if you last the course, you will be perfect. The perfect killer. And you will work for us.

“The alternative? You can leave here now. Believe it or not, I really mean it. I won’t stop you. I’ll even give you the money for the train fare if you like. You have nothing. You have nowhere to go. If you tell the police about me, they won’t believe you. My guess is that you will end up back in Russia. Sharkovsky will be looking for you. Without our help, he will find you.

“So there you have it, Yassen. That’s what it comes down to.”

She smiled and finished her drink.

“What do you say?”