Firewall (12 page)

I wasn't going to open the envelope there and then. I didn't want to look desperate and untrusting. I was both, but I didn't want her to know that.

I hadn't had the time to take much notice of her before. The first time I was aware of her was the day that Val arrived in Finland, three days before the lift. are about planning, not admiring the view. But I did now. I'd never seen a woman with such a perfectly symmetrical face-a strong jaw, full lips, and eyes that felt as if they knew everything but revealed nothing. Her statuesque body looked like it had been shaped by canoeing or rock climbing rather than jumping up and down to music in a gym.

The feel of the bundles in the envelope, even through the bubble-wrap lining, brought me back to the real world. I put my helmet at my feet, unzipped my jacket and slipped the envelope inside.

She turned and went to sit on one of the chairs beside her purchases.

I took up my position against the wall. She invited me to take one of the seats with a wave of her hand, but I declined, preferring to stand and be able to react if Liv had a few of her squareheaded friends around and this encounter turned out to be not entirely friendly.

I was starting to get jealous of Val. Money and power always attract beautiful women. My mailbox full of late notices never had quite the same effect, Liv sat there looking at me in the way that Mr. Spock did on the bridge of the USS Enterprise when he thought things were illogical. It was the same look she'd given me at the hotel, penetrating and searching, as if she was staring right into my head, but somehow managing to give nothing back. It made me uncomfortable and I stooped to pick up my helmet before leaving.

She sat back and crossed her long legs.

"Nick, I have a proposition for you, from Valentin."

I left the helmet where it was, but said nothing. I'd learned the hard way that it's worth remembering we have two ears and just one mouth.

Her gaze remained cool. "Are you interested?"

I certainly was. "In principle." I didn't want to spend all day beating about the bush, and she didn't look or sound like the sort of person who'd do that anyway. So let's just get on with it. "What does he want from me?"

"It's a simple task, but one that needs to be handled delicately. He needs someone-and he wants it to be you-to assist another person to enter a house in Finland. The other person is a cryptographer-a highly skilled hacker, if you like. Inside the house are computers which this other person will use his skills to access and then download the contents onto a laptop for removal. The contents, before you ask, are merely some competitive intelligence which Valentin is keen to have in his possession."

She uncrossed her legs and pulled open one of her bags.

"You mean industrial espionage?"

"That's not entirely correct, Nick. More commercial than indus trial. Valentin is asking you to assist in the procurement of this data, but without the house owners knowing that you have done so. We want them to think they are the only ones with this information."

"It's as straightforward as that?"

"There are some minor complications which we will discuss if you are interested."

I was, but minor complications don't exist. They always turn out to be major. "How much?"

I had to wait for an answer while she fished a cream-colored cashmere sweater out of the Harrods bag with a rustle of tissue paper. Sitting back in the chair, she laid it across her thighs, tucked her hair behind her ear again and looked directly at me.

"Valentin is offering you one point seven million dollars-if you are successful, of course." She put up a hand. "Nonnegotiable. That is his offer, more than a million pounds. He wanted you to have a round figure in your own currency. You're a lucky man, Nick; he likes you."

So far it sounded like a dream come true. That alone made me feel suspicious, but fuck it, we were just at the talking stage. "Valentin is powerful enough just to take what he wants by force. Why does he need me?"

She expertly removed the tags from the sweater, dropping them back into the bag. "This is a job that requires finesse, not muscle. As I said, no one must know that Valentin has this material. In any event, he would prefer this was accomplished outside his normal channels. It's a delicate matter, and it was obvious in Helsinki that you have a certain skill in this area."

That was all very nice, but it was question time. "What exactly is it I'm trying to lay my hands on?"

She put on the sweater, her eyes not leaving mine, still measuring me up, I was sure of it. "That, Nick, you don't need to know. We just need to be there before the Maliskia."

I had to cut in. "You mean steal it before the Maliskia?"

She smiled. "Not 'steal," copy. Download it. Your task is to get our man in and out without anyone knowing it has happened. Those are the terms, if you wish me to continue."

"I get it," I said. "Maliskia must be Russian for 'minor complications." "

She smiled again, her lips parting slightly to show perfect white teeth. "The West call us the Russian Mafia, or simply ROC, as if we were one big group. We're not. We are many groups. The Maliskia are one faction, and Valentin's only real competitor. Whatever you may think about him, he is a man with vision. The Maliskia are not; they are just gangsters. It is very important that they never have access to this information. It would be a disaster for all of us, West as well as East. That is all I am prepared to say on the matter. Now, do you wish me to continue?"

Of course I did. It's always good to know something about who you're racing against. Not that she'd told me anything Val hadn't. I listened intently as she explained that the target house was still in the process of being prepared to use the "competitive intelligence" Val wanted. It wouldn't be online for another six or seven days, and only then would I be able to get their man in to copy whatever it was. The problem was that once it was online the Maliskia were likely to trace its location very quickly.

"That's the race, Nick. I emphasize again, we must get it first and no one must know that we've got it."

It sounded okay to me. I'd spent years doing this kind of thing for far less than $1.7 million. Maybe this was my chance to sort out my life and Kelly's once and for all. One big fuck-off finger to everyone, especially Lynn. The meeting with him had really pissed me off. He knew the reason I'd been spared and he hadn't was that I was more useful to the Firm as an operator on the ground, whereas Lynn was just another paper-pusher. And ever since Washington, the Firm knew they had me by the balls, and I hated it when people had me by the balls.

"I'm concerned about going back to Finland," I said. "I don't think I'm very popular there."

She smiled patiently. "They aren't looking for you, Nick. As far as the Finnish police are concerned it was a purely Russian event.

Valentin has already made a statement to that effect to the authorities. Don't worry, it's not an issue. If it was, Valentin wouldn't have risked offering you this task."

She gave me time to consider what she had said as she picked fluff off her new sweater. "They weren't your friends, I hope?" She looked up.

"Perhaps the choice of team was not one of your best decisions?"

I smiled and shrugged. I had no defense.

"I thought not." She twisted her forefinger and thumb to release the fluff onto the floor.

For the next few minutes I asked questions and she failed to give adequate answers. The objective, she said, was simple enough, but it didn't sound low risk to me. There were far too many questions left unanswered: How many people were in the house? What de fences did they have? Where the fuck was it? I wasn't even allowed to know who I was taking in. I would find out only when I signed on the dotted line. On the other hand, $1.7 million versus 290 pounds a day wasn't the kind of discrepancy I could afford to live with.

She held out a piece of folded paper. I walked the five paces and took it.

"These are the contact details of the man you will be taking with you, assuming you can persuade him. If you can, the fee goes up to two million dollars, to cover his cut. Now, one other minor complication: Neither Valentin nor I can risk being associated with this task, so you will be the contact point. It's up to you to convince him to do it."

I turned back to my helmet, reading an address and phone number in Netting Hill.

Liv said, "His name is Tom Mancini. I believe you know him."

I turned to face her. The name did ring a bell, but that didn't concern me. What did was that she knew about me, that she knew things about my past.

My concern must have been plain to see. She smiled again and shook her head very slightly. "Naturally Valentin has gone to the trouble of learning a lot about you these last few days. Do you think he would employ someone for such a task otherwise?"

"What does he know?"

"Enough, I'm sure. Also enough about Tom. Valentin is sure you are both the right people for this. Now, Nick, as you will appreciate, there is little time. You need to be in Helsinki by Sunday. All I will require are your travel details. Everything else will be looked after."

She gave me the contact details. They were very basic, if not a bit over the top, but easy to understand, which was good, because my head was spinning around with 1.7 million other things at the time.

She stood up. Our meeting was obviously over. "Thank you for coming, Nick."

I shook her hand, which felt warm and firm. I looked her in the eye, probably for a fraction of a second too long, then bent to pick up my helmet.

She followed me to the front door. As I reached for the handle she said, "One last thing, Nick."

I turned to face her; she was so close I could smell her perfume.

"Please do not turn your cell phone on until you are far away from here. Goodbye, Nick."

I nodded and the door closed. I heard the locks and chain being put back into position.

Going down in the elevator I resisted the urge to dance a jig or jump up and click my heels. I had never been one to embrace good fortune blindly I'd never had that much of it to embrace, really but Valentin's proposition sounded rather good, and what few doubts I had were dispelled by the envelope inside my jacket as long as it didn't go bang on the way home.

The elevator slowed and the doors opened on the ground floor. The doorman was frowning at me as he tried to work out why I'd been up there so long. I pulled the ski mask from under my helmet and nodded to him. "She was wonderful," I said. By the time the sliding doors opened and I was facing the security cameras, the mask was over my head again.

Walking up the driveway I started to pull out the chin strap on both sides of the helmet with my thumbs and forefingers. I'd just got past the gate and onto the sidewalk when I heard the noise of an approaching car. As I played with the straps I looked up and to the left to check it was okay to cross.

A Peugeot 206 was screaming toward me at the speed of sound. It was dark maroon and dirty from the last couple of weeks of slush and road salt. Behind the wheel was a white-knuckled woman in her early thirties with a chin-length bob. I waited for her to pass, but as soon as she was about thirty feet away she slowed to a more controlled pace.

I checked to my right. The Israeli security guy about two hundred feet away wasn't fussed about it, nor the uniformed officer, who was looking very bored and cold on the opposite side of road.

I watched her get down to the barrier, indicating left, then join the stream of traffic. I spotted the license plate. It was a '96 registration, but there was something else that was much more interesting no sticker on the back window telling me how wonderful the dealership was. I suddenly felt I knew what she was about. Just as quickly, I threw the idea aside. Shit, I was getting as paranoid about surveillance as Val and Liv were about cell phones.

Pulling my helmet on, I put the key into Ducati's ignition and was just starting to put my gloves on when I spotted another vehicle about forty or fifty yards further up the road a midnight-blue Golf GTi in a line of vehicles, two up, both sitting back in their seats with no conversation or movement. The side windows were steamed up but the windshield had a direct view of the gates to the apartment building. I took a mental note of their registration. Not that it mattered. Well, that was what I tried to tell myself, anyway. PI 16 something, that was all I needed to know.

I decided that if I didn't stop being paranoid I'd end up in the clinic with Kelly and began to give myself a mental slapping. Then I remembered: Paranoia keeps people like me alive.

I had one more look around, my helmet down as if I was checking over the machine. I couldn't see anything else that made me feel uneasy, so I straddled the bike and pushed it off its stand.

Turning the engine over, I pushed down the gear selector with my left foot, got into first, revved it up a little, turned left and made my way down toward the main gates. If the Golf was a trigger, the team that was about to follow me would have just received a point by-point, stage-by-stage description of exactly what I was doing over the net.

They needed a visual picture of what I looked like, what the bike looked like, its registration, and what I was doing. "That's helmet on, that's gloves on… not aware… now complete (on the bike).

Keys turned, engine on, stand by, stand by. Mobile toward Kensington exit… approaching. No intention (no indicators on to show which way the vehicle is going)…"

Everybody had to know exactly what I was doing and where I was to the nearest thirty feet so they could put good covert surveillance on me.

It's not like Miami Vice, where the good guys are sitting there with hand mikes at their mouths and a big antenna stuck on the roof. All the antennas on E4 vehicles are internal, and you never see any mikes.

All you've got to do is hit a press el a little switch placed wherever you want. My preference had always been to have it fixed internally in the gear shift. That way you can just talk, making it look as if you're having fun, or having an argument. It doesn't really matter as long as you're giving the details. Which, if I was getting triggered away from here, these two would now be doing.