Moscow USA. Gordon Stevens

flight, be with you eight twenty-one your time. A car at the airport would speed things up.’

      ‘You got it.’

      The sign which the driver held up said simply ConTex. Jameson declined the man’s offer of assistance with his travel bag and followed him outside. In the sky to the west the sun was setting in a ball of fire. Twenty minutes later he shook hands with McIntyre in the ConTex president’s office.

      McIntyre was wearing a dinner jacket, red bow tie and cummerbund, as if he had just come from, or was on his way to, an engagement. He poured them each a Black Label and took his place behind his desk.

      ‘Tell me about ISS and Omega.’

      Jameson settled in a large wing-back leather chair in front of McIntyre’s desk but slightly to the right so that he wasn’t facing into the window.

      ‘ISS is an international security and investigation company staffed by former members of the security and intelligence services, mainly American but sometimes others. We have main offices in Washington and London, and subsidiary offices in other cities. Where necessary we form specific companies for separate projects or countries. In Russia this has taken the form of a joint venture. Omega is the company name of that joint venture.’

      ‘And who are your Russian partners?’

      The sun had set now, and the sky was a gentle layer of blue and purple.

      ‘Omega is headed by a former KGB general. Most of the staff are former KGB, specialists in their fields.’

      ‘Why Omega?’ McIntyre asked.

      Jameson hadn’t touched the Black Label. ‘Alpha-Omega, the beginning and the end, we provide it all. We would have liked to call the company Alpha, but that would have been confusing.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Alpha was the KGB’s anti-terrorist and special forces unit. Each republic had its Alpha unit. The head of our company in Moscow is the former head of state Alpha, the man who oversaw it all. A large number of the men we employ are also former members.’

      McIntyre leaned forward. ‘Ten years ago they were the enemy, now you’re working with them?’

      Jameson smiled. ‘The Berlin Wall came down in ’89, so in fact it’s seven years ago that they were the enemy, not ten.’ He placed the Black Label on McIntyre’s desk. ‘It also depends how you define the enemy. Militarily and politically the Russians may no longer be the enemy, commercially they still are, but so are all our former friends. Britain, Germany, France, Japan. It’s something my Russian partner and I are totally aware of.’ He leaned forward and picked up the glass again. ‘You said you had a problem.’

      ‘This morning we shipped a consignment of dollars into Moscow. It went missing. We want it investigated.’

      ‘How much went missing?’

      McIntyre took off his jacket, draped it across the back of his chair, and loosened his bow tie. ‘Six million dollars.’ He studied Jameson’s face for a reaction to the amount. Six million was small change, he understood. When the big shipments were going through there were armoured trucks waiting on the runway to load the dollars direct off the plane, and armed guards keeping everyone, but everyone, away. But six million of his money was six million of his money.

      ‘Hand-carried through Sheremetyevo?’ Jameson asked.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘How many couriers?’

      ‘There should have been two but one got sick.’

      ‘You had a secure collection?’

      ‘We were supposed to have.’

      ‘What went wrong?’

      McIntyre took a file from a drawer on the right side of his desk and passed it to Jameson. Jameson opened it, speed-read the five sheets of report inside, then laid it on the desk. Most people in his business guaranteed the world, but sometimes it was better to be straight. ‘I have to tell you that the chances of recovering that money are less than remote.’

      ‘The Russian mafia,’ McIntyre suggested.

      ‘Define Russian mafia.’

      ‘That’s why I contract people like you, for you to define it for me.’

      ‘One thing before I do. Are you sending another shipment over to replace the missing money?’

      ‘En route from New York to London at this moment.’

      ‘When do you want it in Moscow?’

      ‘Tomorrow.’

      Today in London and Moscow, because of the time difference.

      ‘I assume you want Omega to provide the secure collection at Sheremetyevo?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘In that case, would you excuse me while I make the arrangements?’

      Jameson telephoned Bethesda and ran the normal security routine. ‘Jim, it’s Grere. I’m with Cal McIntyre at ConTex. We have an immediate escort assignment, London – Moscow, leaving London on the next Moscow flight. I assume that’s the 9.50 AM British Airways. The shipment is six million, so we’ll need two couriers. There’s also an investigation, I’ll send you the background, but the first priority is the escort. Check with London who’s available, and put Moscow on standby for a secure collection at Sheremetyevo. Tell Moscow I want a guardian angel in addition to the pick-up boys. I’ll also speak to Gerasimov.’

      On the other side of the desk Cal McIntyre leaned to his right, picked up a phone and spoke to his personal assistant. ‘My appointment tonight. Send my apologies that I can’t attend. Then dinner for two in my office.’

      Jameson ended the call, punched Gerasimov’s number, and repeated the security procedure. ‘Mikhail, I’m with Cal McIntyre at ConTex.’ The conversation, in Russian, paralleled the one he had held thirty seconds earlier. ‘Jim’s phoning you from DC. I’ve told him I want an angel-khzanitel at Sheremetyevo as well as the pick-up team.’

      He finished the call and sipped the Black Label. The cellphone rang. London and Moscow were running, he was informed. ‘Who’s London sending?’ he asked.

      ‘The lead man is Brady.’

      ‘Where’s Kincaid?’ Jameson was already thinking ahead.

      ‘Amsterdam.’

      ‘Bring him in. Brady makes the run with him, but Kincaid is number one. Tell Kincaid he might be in Moscow for a while, and get someone to Amsterdam in his place.’

      McIntyre left his position behind his desk and settled in a chair opposite Jameson. ‘Define mafia,’ he said when Jameson had finished the calls.

      ‘You want the long or the short lecture?’

      ‘Somewhere in the middle.’

      Jameson laughed. ‘The Russian mafia is not like the Sicilian variety, not la Cosa Nostra. In a simplistic way, mafia in present-day Russia, and I’m using Russia as shorthand for the whole set-up east of what was the Iron Curtain, simply means crime. Everyone’s running scams, or exposed to scams, in Russia at the moment. Each factory or business or office is offered kreshna, a roof; each street trader is requested to align himself or herself with a group who say they will protect him.

      ‘However, it’s actually more multi-dimensional than that. Mafia isn’t just about market traders offering vegetables at high prices or hoods shooting each other or blowing each other’s Mercs up over territorial disputes. It isn’t just about hitting bankers and industrialists and judges. Mafia isn’t even about US or UK or other foreign firms taking on Russian partners and discovering after ten, fifteen years, that they’re in bed with the baddies. In a way it’s how society, from top to bottom, operates; it’s a recognized way of doing things. Many of the people at the top