Moscow USA. Gordon Stevens

were wood and highly varnished, another set of stairs leading to the floor above. They went through the doors and into the flat.

      The hallway was long, the walls a pleasant pastel, and the lounge was on the left. It was large, windows on to the street, and the furniture and decoration were art nouveau. The library was through a door in the far corner, the dining-room was on the other side of the hall – exquisite oval table, finest tableware, elegant chandelier above it and priceless Lalique glassware behind it. The first bedroom – as Jameson would be shown later – was on the same side as the dining-room: again art nouveau and twin beds. The bathroom, large and luxurious, was next to it, and the double bedroom – king-size art nouveau bed – was opposite the bathroom, on the same side as the lounge.

      Half a dozen men were already in the room. Most were in their forties or early fifties, though two were older, all were wearing suits, and all were former or present generals in the KGB or its successors, the FSB, the internal security service, and the SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service.

      Jameson looked around. ‘Nice place.’

      ‘Marcus Wolfe used to use it when he was in town,’ Gerasimov told him.

      Marcus Wolfe was the legendary East German spymaster.

      ‘What I would have given to have been here ten years ago,’ Jameson joked.

      ‘What we would have given to have had you here,’ Gerasimov joked back.

      They accepted a Lagavulin and caviar and Gerasimov began the introductions, the conversations switching easily between English and Russian, and the handshakes and welcomes as if Jameson was a new friend rather than an old enemy.

      There was a movement at the door from the corridor and Malenkov came in. He was six feet tall, late forties and slim; hair beginning to turn silver and hand-cut suit that made him look like a high-flyer in an American or European bank or blue-chip investment house. His eyes were sharp and blue, the antithesis of the West’s image of a KGB general.

      ‘General Sergei Malenkov, Grere Jameson …’ Gerasimov did the introductions.

      ‘Recognize you from your file,’ Jameson joked in perfect Russian.

      ‘And I recognize you from yours.’ Malenkov’s face was locked in a smile and his reply was in flawless English.

       3

      Sherenko rose at six.

      The apartment was almost too big for him now. It had been small when Natasha and the girls had been there; the girls had had the bedroom, and he and his wife (when he was at home) a pull-down in the sitting-room. Their photos were still on the sideboard and the documents which chronicled their lives together lay in a folder in a drawer.

      He made coffee, ate a small breakfast, then cleared the table, washed up, slipped on the shoulder holster and Sig Sauer, locked the flat and collected the BMW, checking underneath it before he opened it. Fifteen minutes later he turned into the street where the company apartment was situated. The street was almost empty: half a dozen slightly battered cars were parked along the sides, the pavements were dusty, and a dog was relieving itself against a tree. The only man in the street, leaning with his back against the wall as if he was waiting for a tram or trolleybus, was as grey and inconspicuous as the street itself. Sherenko stopped and Kincaid got in.

      ‘Nu, chto vchera delal?’ So what did you do last night?

      ‘Nichevo osolennovo.’ Nothing in particular.

      The building, when they reached it, was faded red brick and looked like a factory. Sherenko turned through an unlit archway, showed an ID at the security barrier, then drove into the courtyard beyond. Despite the hour there were other cars already there, plus two transits. The morning was quiet, as if the walls around them deadened any noise. Sherenko locked the BMW and led Kincaid through a door in the wall opposite the archway, then down a set of stone stairs to the range.

      There were ten plywood targets, paper facing on them; seven were Figure 11s, half-body and head, and three Figure 12s, head and shoulders. Six of them were being used: the men shooting at them were dressed in battle fatigues, no insignia or identification, and all were in their early twenties. Their instructor nodded at Sherenko, his students glancing across.

      ‘What did you train on?’ Sherenko seemed at ease in the place.

      ‘Normal stuff,’ Kincaid told him. ‘Walther, Beretta, Uzi.’

      ‘What do you feel comfortable with?’

      ‘They’re mostly the same, I guess.’

      Sherenko took the automatic from his shoulder holster and gave it to Kincaid. ‘Sig Sauer P226. Swiss manufacture. The British SAS put it through two years of testing before they decided to adopt it in preference to the Browning. Fifteen-round mag, which is why the SAS also likes it.’

      Kincaid checked that the safety was on, settled in front of one of the targets, dropped into a combat crouch and brought the Sig Sauer up. Felt for the safety with his right and fired six rounds. Sherenko wound back the target. One round had hit the right shoulder, three the chest and abdomen area, and two more were slightly to the left.

      ‘When did you last use a gun?’

      The residue of antagonism flashed in Kincaid’s brain. ‘A few years back.’

      ‘You were a desk or a field man?’

      Kincaid hesitated. ‘Field man.’ He hesitated again. ‘But we had gorillas to take care of the dirty stuff.’

      Sherenko looked at him. ‘In Moscow you don’t have time to call the gorillas.’

      Kincaid fired six more rounds.

      ‘I suggest you come in each morning.’ Sherenko took the gun, slid in a fresh magazine, put the automatic back in his shoulder holster and turned away from the target.

      Screw you, you arrogant bastard, Kincaid thought as he had thought the previous evening.

      Sherenko turned, hand taking the Sig Sauer as he did so, body dropping fluidly into a combat crouch, the automatic on target as if it was an extension of himself and the right thumb flicking off the safety smoothly and naturally. Three rounds, change position, second three rounds. Drop and roll to left, always present a moving target. Three more rounds.

      Flash bastard – the other men on the range glanced across. Except he’s an old flash bastard. They themselves had been firing much quicker, getting off more rounds than Sherenko and were still on target, their rounds, like his, in a tight cluster.

      Sherenko suddenly looks his age, Kincaid thought; Sherenko suddenly looks like me. The real flash bastards, the ones who really were on the ball, were the guys twenty metres away.

      Sherenko stood, slipped on the safety, handed Kincaid the Sig Sauer, and wound back the target. The rounds were positioned in a tight cluster round the centre of the chest, none outside. ‘So that was my job and yours was running people. But this is Moscow, and in Moscow, if a street trader doesn’t pay up his pittance of roubles for protection, or a banker calls in a loan, he ends up in a place like C’urupy Ulica.’

      ‘And …’ Kincaid asked.

      ‘And we’re working together. If they come for you I might be there. So I’m looking after my ass as well as yours.’

      ‘Fuck you, Nik,’ Kincaid said.

      ‘Fuck you too, my friend.’

      They left forty minutes later. In the last quarter-hour Kincaid’s groupings had begun to improve, and in the final five minutes the rate of improvement had accelerated.

      ‘What time’s the flight?’ Sherenko cut past a line of cars. The traffic was heavy now, but most of it was coming the other way, into Moscow.

      ‘Nine.’

      ‘I thought the