A Spy's Life (36 page)

‘So whoever left these computers in the exchange boxes is free. He could be anywhere?’

‘From St Bart’s to St Petersburg.’

Or a neurological unit in central London, thought Harland. There was no other explanation. That was why they’d killed the young girl and pursued Tomas, using every possible tracking device. He wondered whether Vigo was part of the operation. Why else would he have gone to the hospital and cross-examined the doctor about Tomas’s condition, unless he wanted to make sure that Tomas was effectively out of action? And once he knew this he had told Harland that his interest had moved on. Of course it had. He already knew that it was simply a matter of finding the devices that were sending out the coded messages. That’s why he no longer needed Harland. But this supposed that Vigo knew of Harland’s real connection with Tomas, and there was no reason to believe that because Vigo would have used it. Moreover he had approached Harland in New York before he knew of Tomas’s existence. Something was still missing in the Grand Theory of Everything.

‘Are you there?’

‘Sorry, I was just thinking about Vigo’s angle in all this. I can’t work it out.’

‘Well, you can be sure it has something to do with his own interest. He never stirs without a percentage of the action.’ The Bird coughed. ‘Look, I gather Macy and Ziggers have been on the blower all day. I’ll let Zikmund give you the SP when he sees you. I’ll only balls it up if I try to tell you.’ Harland remembered that Cuth always deferred to Macy’s intelligence-gathering skills and business sense.

‘But surely you can tell me roughly what they’ve been discussing?’

‘Friend Oleg – the man you discovered in the photo library.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘Good hunting. I think things should be fairly quiet from now on. Come and see us when you get back.’

Harland hung up and sat for a while in the echoing, brightly lit sitting room of his suite. He noticed a couple of cigarettes that had been left by the cleaner in an ashtray, presumably dropped by a previous guest. He took one and went to the window where he lit up with a book of matches. He pulled the window open and looked down on the damp, cobbled street. A violin was being played in the apartment block opposite. The sound filled Harland with a deep melancholy. He was glad that he would not have to spend too much longer in this city.

21

EVA

The next day they set off early from the hotel in a hire car, which Zikmund conjured at a cheap rate from one of his contacts at the airport. He explained that he wasn’t sure that his own car would go all the way to Jizerské Hory.

As they passed through the western outskirts of the city, Harland asked about the conversation with Macy Harp. Zikmund turned to him, his yellowish-grey complexion not improved by the morning light.

‘Yes, I talked to Macy. I also talked to the FBI here. Did you know they have a bureau in Prague? How things change, eh?’

‘What did they say?’

‘The FBI clammed up when I started asking questions about Kochalyin. They said they weren’t investigating anyone of that name. But that’s not true. Macy told me he’d heard about the investigation of a particular bank account in London through which a very great sum of money has passed to New York. Macy would know about this because he does business here and all over Eastern Europe. There’s this one bank account in the name of Driver. Driver is a Russian who took his wife’s name when he married. She’s an executive in the Illinois State Metal Bank which is why they didn’t look so closely at the money going through his account. Eight billion dollars – maybe more – passed through and fanned out into a hundred different directions, mostly as payments to overseas companies. The operation was pretty hard to pin down because some money went the other way as camouflage. But the East–West flow was larger.’

‘And this was Kochalyin’s money?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ he said, flicking a cigarette out of the car window. ‘But it’s only one account and the FBI – though they do not confirm this – know there are a lot more involved.’

‘Macy told you that?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s this add up to? Every Russian mafioso launders money through the Western banking system. There’s nothing new in that.’

Zikmund looked mildly irritated. ‘Listen, I’m giving you background, Mr Harland. You may need it. The point is that Mister K has become so powerful that Western governments rely on him for certain services. He negotiates contracts between East and West. He brokers information. He buys people off. He fixes elections. He makes sure there is just one bribe on a deal. That bribe goes to him, then he sees that the contract is completed on time. That’s an important guarantee to have if you build a dam in Turkey or a power plant in Slovakia. Business will pay a lot of money for that.’

‘You’re saying he’s so useful that Western governments ignore the money laundering?’

‘Yes, but you’re missing the point. Mister K is a very fluid, very adaptable man. He is nowhere and everywhere. He does not have a base, no single home, no single office, no single citizenship. He inhabits many different identities and owns many different businesses. He can control everything from a computer screen. Nobody has to see him for a deal to be completed. He is like a wisp of smoke and when a situation goes bad for him, like his interests in Yugoslavia, he becomes someone else. It’s like that process – what is the word when a maggot changes into a cocoon and then a butterfly?’

‘It’s not a maggot, it’s a caterpillar, and the process is called metamorphosis.’

‘Metamorphosis – like the Kafka story. How could I forget? But there have been many more stages than with a butterfly. They are without limit but there is always some type of maggot at the end.’

‘Do you get all this from Macy?’

‘No, just the information about the Driver account. The rest came from my colleagues in the service here.’

‘When you talk about the business in Yugoslavia, you mean his part in the war crime?’

‘Yes – partly. There was a reason that it became necessary to have Lipnik assassinated. He had also been involved in taking money from the Serbs. At the beginning of the war the Serbs froze all private savings and took over the National Reserve – the part that was left in Belgrade. A lot of money was taken out of the country in the next three years. It went to Cyprus and then most of it disappeared. He was offering to launder money for the Serbs using the traditional import-export routes. But he took a very fat commission. He stole most of it. So in ’97 the Serbs ordered him to be killed.’

Which led to the plan of the staged assassination, thought Harland. Settling Lipnik’s account with the Serbs and the War Crimes Tribunal in one burst of gunfire.

‘But he still has business in the Balkan states. My former colleagues are researching the illegal immigration that goes across the Czech Republic. The European Union requires us to do this. They know that the main routes being run from Ukraine and Romania go through Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Croatia. They suspect that Mister K is behind those too.’ He paused to light up again. ‘He’s no idiot, this man. The Serb leaders imprisoned themselves in their own country. They cannot leave because of the indictments from the War Crimes Tribunal. K has done as much as them yet he can move anywhere at any time. He’s outplayed them all. You know why I am telling you this?’

‘Yes, you’re warning me. You’re saying that the proof that Lipnik and Kochalyin are the same person and the evidence that he is alive is a very dangerous possession.’

‘Right, because you don’t know of the alliances this man has made in the West. There are many who want to keep him alive and free to carry out their business for them. And you are about to contact the woman who was his wife. She may still be on friendly terms with him. Her home may be watched. They must know about you.’

‘You’re probably right. But this man tried to have her only child killed so they can’t be on particularly good terms.’

‘You are not listening to me. This is a very risky plan you have and I want you to think about how you are going to contact this woman. Remember, she worked for the StB. She was a spy for the Communists. She may not be reliable.’

Harland said nothing. He opened the window to get some fresh air. A few minutes later Zikmund motioned ahead of them.

‘This place here is where the Warsaw Pact troops gathered before the Soviets ordered them to go into Prague in the summer of ’68.’

Harland looked out at a featureless grey plain.

‘And I want you to notice the road sign along here.’

‘Why?’

‘If I remember this road right, you will see, Mr Harland.’ Harland noticed now that there was always an ironic edge when Zikmund addressed him formally.

A few miles on they passed a sign which directed drivers north, to a town twenty-five kilometres away. Its name was Lipnik.

‘You see, this guy carries things from the past right through his life. He must have been here in August 1968 and he used the name in one of his false identities. Remember that, when you see this woman – he carries things through his life.’

They took another hour to reach the Giant Mountains and begin the climb to Jizerské Hory. Zikmund explained that the area had been cleansed of Germans at the end of the Second World War on the orders of the Allied powers. The property was given to the Czechs or seized by the government.

They pulled up in a village square and Zikmund went off to ask for directions. Harland got out and wandered into a nearby churchyard. Every headstone bore a German name. Along the street behind him the faded paint of German store signs was still visible.

It was odd then that Zikmund managed to find one of the few Germans whose forebears had not been tossed back into Saxony. He was a thin, bearded blond with a weather-beaten face, who had just tramped up the village street, prodding his way with a stave through the rutted snow. Two sheepdogs crouched and trembled in the snow as he stopped and answered Zikmund’s questions. He spoke in broken Czech at first but then fell into German when he realised that Zikmund and Harland could understand him better. Yes, he knew old Mrs Rath. She was a good sort – she spoke German well. He used to deliver wood to her and she in turn allowed him to graze his sheep on her pastures in summer. She’d lived here fifteen years back, and her daughter and grandson had moved in with her for a period. They left about ten years ago. He had an idea that they were in Karlsbad in western Bohemia. He said the postman might be able to supply them with an address.

For the next hour they chased a post van from village to village. Eventually they caught up with him at a bridge and he gave them the address in Karlsbad.

‘So we have learned something about the Rath women,’ said Zikmund as they set off on the long drive. ‘They are not poor. That German fellow said they had come into money. So perhaps Mister K has been generous to his womenfolk.’

An hour passed as they descended from the mountains and headed west across another flat expanse of landscape. They spoke little. At some stage Harland became aware that Zikmund was looking in his wing mirror more than seemed necessary, given that the road was free of traffic. He scrutinised the mirror on his side for a few minutes but saw nothing and sank back in his seat.

‘Who knows you are here? asked Zikmund accusingly.

‘No one but Macy, The Bird and my sister.’

‘Someone else does. They follow, then they don’t follow; then they follow. A car, maybe two. I’m not sure. But they are behind us, Mr Harland. I know it.’

Harland turned in his seat. The road behind them was still empty.

A few miles on, Zikmund pulled the car into a turning, then reversed at great speed on to a piece of ground that was hidden by a disused barn. He climbed out and peered round the barn. Harland did likewise.

‘I was right, we do have a companion,’ he said. ‘This is the car.’

The blue Saab had to slow down before taking the bend in front of them and they were able to see that it contained two men. The car appeared to be in no hurry, but Zikmund was agitated. He took out a mobile phone, speed-dialled a number and began to speak slowly, enunciating the Saab’s registration which he’d scrawled with his finger in the grime on the rear window.

‘I called an old colleague,’ he said, lowering the phone. ‘He will arrange for the police to stop the car in the next town and inspect it for faults. That should delay them. We will take the road south so if there is anyone still following us they will think we are going back to Prague.’

They waited for ten minutes before driving on. The landscape became a smoky blue and then for a brief period the setting sun appeared in the west. Zikmund said that even with the detour they would make Karlsbad by eight that evening.

‘You know something?’ he said, after another period of silence. ‘I’ve been thinking of Ostend.’

‘Ostend? In Belgium? Why?’

‘It’s a very interesting place. There are a lot of planes at Ostend and those planes often leave Ostend with no cargo. They fly to Burgas in Bulgaria where they pick up their cargo. Do you know what that cargo is? Military supplies. And then the planes leave for their destinations in Asia and Africa – sometimes South America. It has been the route for most clandestine arms traffic in the last seven years.’

‘Ostend?’

‘It’s near Nato headquarters. Many of the illegal arms shipments are made with Nato’s blessing because they are destined for the armies and militias that Nato supports. Kochalyin is very big in the arms trade and his contacts in Burgas are excellent. Is it possible that Nato owes him a favour or two?’

‘You’re forgetting something,’ said Harland. ‘During the Bosnian civil war, Nato was trying to stop arms shipments from the East into Yugoslavia. That’s how Kochalyin got his foot in the door with the Serbs, by supplying them with arms and fuel. So he was never Nato’s best friend.’

‘Yes, but things change! Nobody cares about Bosnia anymore! Maybe NATO needed his help in making shipments to other parts of the world – you understand what I am saying? So they arranged to fake his death and then tried to prevent your friend investigating it.’