The Eyes of Lira Kazan (22 page)

“Anything ahead?” she asked.

“No, no,” he murmured.

“Am I walking straight?”

“You're perfect, just stay beside me.”

“Anything unusual?” she asked again.

“Nothing.”

Lira's mind was buzzing. It felt as though the buildings around her were pressing down on her head and each passing car almost seemed to touch her. All these massive shapes were enlarged by her fear, and closed in as though about to suffocate and crush her. She concentrated hard, listening carefully to the sounds of the crowd, to the footsteps, trying to measure distances in her head. Nwankwo waited for them to approach, they were not far away now. He suddenly noticed a car moving slowly along the street; it looked like the one that had been waiting outside Mark's building and it appeared to be following them from a distance. He leapt forwards.

“Nwankwo?” Lira said as he got level with them.

“Yes, Lira, it's me, we've been spotted, they're following us. We'll go into the Underground, we'll have to walk fast, you must trust me.”

He took Lira's arm now, and explained to the man whose clothes he was wearing that he should go, things were getting dangerous. Adit murmured his farewells and gently let go of Lira, who clutched onto Nwankwo. Neither of them turned around at the sound of squealing brakes behind them. They would never know that Adit had stepped in front of the car to slow it down. They went down into the Underground.

“Who's after us, Nwankwo?”

“I don't know.”

“What do they look like?”

“Brutes.”

“Brutes or cops?”

“They're pretty similar sometimes, but I'd say these are brutes.”

Nwankwo looked at the signs, and hesitated. Circle Line, Central Line – it was a deep station, with escalators down to the platforms.

“Hang on to me, Lira. We're going down an escalator.”

She was terrified of stairs, she had said so in the Oxford house. Each step seemed like a precipice. Nwankwo dragged her down, no time to stand still. The killer was bound to be right behind them now. He counted out loud for her: “One! Two! Three! Four!” Lira went down in step with him, each one a leap into the void. She dug her nails into Nwankwo's skin, breathing heavily. The other passengers stood aside as they came down, embarrassed by the spectacle of this strange pair.

Nwankwo suddenly heard running footsteps in the passages and then complaints from people being jostled and pushed aside. The killer was nearby. They had to go deeper. There was a second escalator below the first and, gathering Lira up, Nwankwo said, “I'm going to carry you, Lira.” He swept her into his arms and threw himself down the stairs, begging the crowd to let him pass. There was a maze of corridors at the bottom and he put her down.

“Can you run, Lira? It's not too crowded – just hold my hand tight. Run!”

Blind people never run, they walk. They hold a white stick, which they wave from side to side when they're lost. But Lira ran. In her mind she could see herself running along the edge of the Neva, or along a platform to catch a train. Her brain supplied enough images to keep her legs moving.

Run, Lira, run! The little voice in her head kept saying it. Her hand was crushed in Nwankwo's. He would say “Watch out, we're turning right!” and they would turn. But the footsteps behind were growing closer – where had all the other people gone? It was as though they had deserted the station on purpose, leaving them to die. Nwankwo was going too fast, pulling Lira's arm. She fell down, he picked her up, they set off again. But soon the man was there behind them, then in front of them. He had a gun stuck into his waistband.

“He's armed,” Nwankwo murmured.

The man approached, his thumb on the handle of the gun. Lira recognized his voice, then his smell.

“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?” she suddenly said, in Russian.

The sentence had come out of nowhere, Nwankwo didn't understand what she was saying. But the man did, and was not amused. He came forward – he'd teach the blind girl a lesson she'd never forget. Lira let him come, holding back Nwankwo, who wanted to intervene. The man was tall, she could sense that. He let her grab his arms, quite sure that he could easily flip her onto the ground. But Lira had another phrase in her mind now, from those happy days when all the fighting she did was at karate class on Tuesday nights with Tanya: “Girls, if you're attacked in the street you've got one advantage. No one expects anything from you. You just need one surprise blow, and then you should just run.” One surprise blow – there! The man was close and Lira kicked her knee up hard. The man doubled up, Nwankwo grabbed the gun and hit the assassin on the back of the neck.

“Kill him!” Lira screamed.

She was now possessed with rage, rage for life and for death. She didn't allow Nwankwo to hesitate. She was close enough to him to grab the gun, and she fired it at the lump by her feet. “One for the blind girl,” she said. “Now run!” Nwankwo shouted, seizing the gun again. The man lay bleeding and moaning on the ground, his cries echoed through the corridors. A second man was probably close behind. And the surveillance cameras were pointing down at them.

A train pulled in just as they reached the platform and they jumped in, using the crowd as cover while they discreetly removed cap, moustache and wig.

“Did I hit him?” Lira whispered.

“Yes, and you aimed well, you got him in the thigh. You didn't kill him, but he won't be moving for a while. What did you say to him?”

“Just a line from an old movie that my friend Tanya likes.”

Then they were silent. Nwankwo had not let go of Lira's hand. They sat down. She was shaking, the fear was suddenly catching up on her, invading her whole body. She should have been paralysed back there in the passage, facing that man, but she hadn't allowed her terror to surface. Nwankwo didn't know what to say, except that he admired her. He looked up and down the carriage constantly, but everything appeared calm: just commuters with their own preoccupations, listening to music, reading, looking at puzzles. Each station was an ordeal, danger could reappear at any moment through the opening doors. The line on the Tube map was like a countdown for them. They were on the Central Line, they should have taken the yellow one, the Circle Line. They would have to change at Holborn onto the blue Piccadilly Line to St Pancras where their hotel was – just next to the station so that they could escape the next morning.

The hotel. Another new room to get used to, another new space to tame. The lift was too close to their room, doors kept opening and closing, a bell ringing, more possible danger. Lira lay down as soon as she came in. She was exhausted and fell into a coma-like sleep. When she woke up, Nwankwo had ordered some food. He turned on the television, to a news channel. At first nothing seemed to affect them, but all they had to do was wait. Sure enough, there was a story – a body on the Underground, shot with two bullets at Notting Hill Gate.

“Two bullets?” Nwankwo said.

“His accomplice will have wanted to shut him up. He finished him off. Louchsky will eliminate everybody, down to the last…” Lira sighed.

At the end of the news another story appeared: the death of Sunleif Stephensen, far from London, in the icy waters of the Faroe Islands. He had drowned in the sea off the shores of his home. The banker had gone out fishing alone, and the boat had been found empty. His body had been swept away into the deep waters. The newsreader implied that there might be some doubt about this so-called accidental death. There followed several interviews with British investors who had lost a great deal of money in the crash of Grind Bank. They looked as though they had drowned, in a way, as well.

“Down to the last one, I'm telling you.”

Night fell. The lift brought back the last drunken night owls who reeled noisily down the corridor. And then all was quiet. The hours passed, sleepless with fear of nightmares or attack. The two of them could easily become the next two bodies on the news channels, Lira and Nwankwo, lying side by side on their twin beds.

Then Lira started to talk, a meaningless stream of words, pouring out, as though she was still running. Having finally fallen asleep she was now in the middle of a nightmare. Her arms thrashed about in the dark, she knocked over the bedside light and sat up straight in the bed. Nwankwo was already beside her, calling her, trying to wake her up and rescue her from the underground maze she seemed to be trapped in. He held her head gently against his shoulder and pushed aside the sweat-soaked hair that framed her face, his fingers lingering on her cheeks. Lira caught his hand, kissed it, pressing it against her head and her neck.
He mustn't see my eyes
.

She held the hand against her, trapping it between her head and her shoulder. Nwankwo's fingers plunged into her already tangled hair, and then slowly travelled down, willed on by both of them, onto Lira's neck, then between her breasts, and then onto her breasts. Their breathing changed pace, became heavier. Nwankwo still sat on the edge of the bed in the position of someone simply comforting her, but his hand now wandered farther, following the contours of Lira's whole body, as if to say “You're beautiful, you're complete, you were magnificent today…”

Nwankwo had never really looked at white women. They belonged, in both ways, to the opposite side of the human race; but tonight it was just the two of them, alone against the rest of the world. Lira pulled him against her, throwing her head back, letting Nwankwo's lips explore her neck.
He mustn't see my eyes
. Sometimes they stopped moving, and then started again, not quite knowing how far they would go. Eventually their fingers strayed beneath their clothes, undoing buttons and belts and their two arched bodies were completely united, from head to foot, by a surge of life and the threat of death. He came inside her – they were rescuing one another on this bed in the middle of nowhere.

Afterwards they lay, still entwined, their breathing becoming more regular. Soon the fear would return and they would be back in their usual places. Lira dreaded Nwankwo's first embarrassed words, the excuses he would stammer out to erase the whole event, so she spoke first:

“We're alive,” she said.

 

US EMBASSY, COPENHAGEN

 

CONFIDENTIAL

 

SECTION 01.081720

 

SEPTEMBER 25

 

SUBJECT: SUNLEIF STEPHENSEN/WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM

 

THE BANKER SUNLEIF STEPHENSEN HAS NOW BEEN DECLARED PRESUMED DEAD BY DROWNING YESTERDAY IN THE FAROE ISLANDS. THE STORY HAS APPEARED IN THE PRESS AND ON TELEVISION EVERYWHERE, INCLUDING GREAT BRITAIN. THE PROGRAM IS CONTINUING AS PLANNED. WHEN STEPHENSEN ARRIVED AT THE EMBASSY HE HANDED OVER THE GRIND BANK COMPUTER FILES. OUR SERVICES IMMEDIATELY STARTED WORK ON THEM. STEPHENSEN APPEARED EXTREMELY AGITATED. HE WAS BREATHING WITH DIFFICULTY AND SPEAKING INCOHERENTLY, REPEATING OVER AND OVER AGAIN THAT HE COULD NOT LEAVE THE ISLANDS. IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ANY SENSE OUT OF HIM AS HE WAS CLEARLY IN A STATE OF SHOCK. HE KEPT ASKING THE TIME. HE REPEATED OVER AND OVER AGAIN HIS ACCOUNT OF HOW ALL THE EMPLOYEES HAD STREAMED OUT OF THE BANK, OF HIS FAREWELLS TO HIS OLD GARDENER AND ESPECIALLY TO HIS OLD NANNY WHO HAD WORKED FOR HIM FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AND WHO HAD BROUGHT UP HIS CHILDREN. HE STARTED TO CRY. IT WAS DECIDED THAT HE NEEDED HELP AND A TRANQUILLIZER WAS ADMINISTERED. HE WAS NOT SHOWN THE ACCOUNTS OF HIS DEATH IN THE NEWSPAPERS.

 

TWO HOURS LATER, WE INFORMED HIM OF HIS NEW IDENTITY AND THE ADDRESS WHERE HE WOULD BE LIVING DURING THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. WE STRESSED HOW IMPORTANT IT WAS THAT HIS CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE INFORMED FOR THE TIME BEING. HE HARDLY REACTED. HE SEEMED MORE CONCERNED WITH THE FAROESE PRIME MINISTER'S ANNOUNCEMENT TWO DAYS EARLIER THAT THEY WOULD BE INSTIGATING PROCEEDINGS AGAINST HIM. HE MAINTAINED THAT THE FAROESE GOVERNMENT WERE WELL AWARE OF THE NATURE OF HIS ACTIVITIES AND HAD MADE NO OBJECTION TO THEM AS LONG AS THEY WERE GOING WELL.

 

SUNLEIF STEPHENSEN SAID THAT JONAS RASSMUSSEN HAD COME TO HIS HOUSE EARLY ONE MORNING ACCOMPANIED BY ARMED MEN. THEY HAD FORCED HIM TO HAND OVER ALL HIS PROPERTY APART FROM HIS HOUSE IN THE FAROES. THIS RASSMUSSEN IS A LAWYER BASED IN LONDON. HE HAS ACTED FOR SERGEI LOUCHSKY SEVERAL TIMES. THE FACT THAT HE BECAME PERSONALLY INVOLVED WITH SUNLEIF STEPHENSEN INDICATES THAT HE WOULD HAVE FOUND IT TOO RISKY TO EMPLOY ANY INTERMEDIARIES. THIS IMPLIES THAT THE BANK FILES CONTAIN IMPORTANT AND PROBABLY COMPROMISING INFORMATION CONCERNING THE BUSINESS DEALINGS OF SERGEI LOUCHSKY AT A TIME WHEN HE IS ABOUT TO LIST HIS COMPANY IN THE CITY.

 

SUNLEIF STEPHENSEN WILL BE TRANSPORTED IN SECRET TO THE UNITED STATES WHERE HE WILL BE GIVEN A NEW IDENTITY.

“You'll see,” said Dmitry… (
No, I won't see
, Lira thought) “Polina is quite safe there. It's a beautiful house with a big garden, well out of reach of any surveillance, no telephone, no television, no computers, no tax status, no bank cards or bank accounts, no electricity bill…” Dmitry was extolling the virtues of his friend. Jacques had been a film-designer; he had become allergic to modern life, with its data-gathering and surveillance cameras. Dmitry described his survival economy enthusiastically, as if it was his own. He told her about the generator, the solar panels, the wood-burning stove for cooking and heating the house, and the battery-powered radio, their only link with the outside world, on which they listened to the news each morning. Lira realized, as she listened to him talking, that after she had left him she had condemned him to a lifetime of fear. He would forever be in the position of the anxious spouse waiting for news, always dreading the telephone call that would announce her death. They had never got around to divorcing.