The Searcher (19 page)

T
he sight of Vekua in the doorway made no sense to him. His mind was still in the park, reeling from the noise of the gun, collapsing under the weight of the corpse. All the questions he would have coolly addressed on another's behalf had barely been framed: how the police had found him, why they had fired the shot, for whose benefit the whole thing had taken place. How his simple task had come to be so deadly, and so crazed.

Find a man. That's all he had to do. Quickly and quietly, without anyone noticing. For someone who had found fortunes and secrets in darker corners than this it should have been straightforward. But he had blundered through it, and his thoughts could gain no purchase on the chaos he had created. His shirt was cold and damp on his skin, with blood or rain he didn't know; on his hands the blood had dried, and now he held them open on the table, the fingers separated so that no part of him would touch another.

And in the storm of his thoughts, one kept returning to torment him. They had taken his things. His phones, his wallet. And in the wallet was Luka's address.

When Vekua opened the door she was carrying his briefcase, and his first instinctive thought was that she had again come to let him go. She dismissed the guard with a single wag of her finger and waited for him to close the door before speaking. Her eyes stayed on Hammer throughout.

“Your reputation is not accurate, Isaac.”

Hammer stared at the angular face, impossible to read, and felt only a deep impatience with the game.

“For once, just tell me what you fucking mean.”

“Your file says you are honest man. If you make a promise you keep it.”

“For fuck's sake—just tell me.”

“You interfered. Now it is serious. I can't help you.”

The disappointment in her face seemed constructed, an artifice. At her unknowability, Hammer felt rage well up in him.

“Now it's serious. Now it is. Before, it was just a bomb and seventeen dead Georgians and a few riots. Now I've interfered, the whole fucking thing has tipped into chaos.”

“I have been trying to help.”

Hammer stood up, shaking his head, not prepared to reason.

“You know what, I need to wash my hands. They have a dead man's blood on them, and I've been sitting with them out like this for the past hour. So now, I wash my hands, and then maybe I'll listen to you.”

“You must listen.”

“I won't hear a thing, I won't say a fucking thing, until these hands are clean.”

Vekua looked at him, understood, and opened the door.

“Come.”

She led him down corridors to a pair of doors marked with signs for men and women, and held open the women's door.

“I'm not going in there.”

Vekua continued to hold the door as Hammer pushed against the men's with his shoulder and went in. Vekua followed.

A Georgian policeman in uniform was drying his hands under an air blower. He saw Hammer, saw Vekua, thought better of saying something, and left. Hammer went to the row of sinks, ran the water until it was hot, and held his hands under them for as long as he could stand it, watching the grime and the brown blood rinse reluctantly away.

“You need soap,” said Vekua. “Here.”

He cupped his hands and she worked the dispenser for him. Awkwardly against the handcuffs he rubbed the soap between his fingers, underneath his nails, into every wrinkle and crease. When he was satisfied, he kept his hands under the water for another minute until they were red and tender
from the heat. New and old at once, they looked, the skin on his knuckles gathered and loose.

Throughout, Vekua had stood silent and watched.

“I am sorry,” she said at last, when the noise of the dryer had stopped.

“There was no need to shoot him. He was just scared.”

“And you were not?”

“He wasn't going to hurt me.”

“The police were not so confident.”

Hammer shook his head, resigned. He would never know whether that was why they had taken the shot.

“Why were they there? How did they know?”

“Come. I will drive you.”

“Where?”

“Come.”

 • • • 

A
s before, Vekua sat upright and correct behind the driver, Hammer next to her; as before, they drove along the river, but now they went east, away from the old town. Beside the driver was another policeman, or spy, both plainclothes, both with guns that they had wanted Hammer to see. The briefcase lay on her lap.

“Where are we going?” said Hammer.

“Tell me. Why did you go to Gori?”

“Why does anyone go to Gori? To see the Stalin museum.”

“You went to the apartments. You talked to the soldiers.”

She must have interviewed Koba. Hammer hoped he was all right. He would be fine. Koba was one person he didn't need to worry about.

“I did.”

“Your briefcase is full of documents about the bomb. So is your computer. All Karlo Toreli's articles, translated and in sequence.”

“How did you get in?”

“We are a government. We have ways.”

“Then you'll know that all that stuff was from the Internet. Google translated. My researchers put together a pack for me before I left.”

“You broke our agreement.”

“I was looking for my friend. Nothing more. Can you please tell me where we're going?”

“Who is paying you?”

“For the last time, no one is fucking paying me.”

“Who is paying your friend?”

“Where are we going, and when are you going to give me that case?”

“To the airport. You are leaving Georgia.”

He had been expecting it but wasn't prepared. Something like panic started in him. He saw Ben in some mountain prison. Saw Natela innocently waiting for the people who wanted her dead as they headed straight for her with his slip of paper in their hand.

“No. No, I'm not. Since I saw you I've done exactly what I said I'd do. I went to Batumi. I stopped off in Gori because Ben had been there, he had lunch there. I went to see the apartments because I was curious. We investigators are curious. You, you're only interested in what you're told to be interested in. I'm different. I like to know things. After Batumi I came back here and tried to get my briefcase back. That's it. Our agreement stands.”

“Why did you come back?”

Ever since meeting Vekua he had asked himself whether he could trust her, and no answer had come. She was clever, and she was involved. If she was the one who had arranged the trail to Batumi, he needed her to think that he was convinced by it. If she wasn't, he needed her help. It was a simple choice, and in a sense he had already made it: why was he so keen to stay in Georgia if he believed Ben was safely in Istanbul living it up with his Russian?

“Because he wasn't there.”

“Batumi is a big city.”

“Someone wanted me to think he was there. But they made mistakes.”

“You said he sent his wife a card.”

“I lied. Listen, I'll level with you. I think you're right. I think Ben started looking into Karlo's death and someone didn't like it. So I have a suggestion for you. We try to find him together. Your country's not easy. I've been in difficult places and some dark places but for sheer confusion, this takes it.
I have no idea what you're all doing. Who you all are. What you want. Who's pulling the strings. But you do. So how's this? I know my friend. You know your country, you know the case. We find him together, and if he's done something wrong, fine, you throw the book at him. I may enjoy watching you throw it. Along the way maybe you find whatever it is you need. I just need to tell his wife if he's alive. Or if he's not.”

He didn't mean the offer, didn't know how on earth it would work, hadn't considered what it meant for Natela, but it was all he had. Vekua didn't move; not a flicker of the eye or a parting of the lips. The studied engagement had gone, and as she stared at him Hammer couldn't tell whether she was assessing the proposition, or letting him sweat, or working out how to continue her manipulation of him.

“It is too late for you to trade.”

“No it isn't. It makes sense for everyone. You'd be with me. I couldn't do anything you didn't want me to do. We find my friend, you kick us both out. The problem's gone.”

“Your friend is not a problem to us. You are the problem.”

Hammer wasn't used to feeling powerless. He saw himself back in London, answering Sander's questions while two thousand miles away Ben and Natela perished without him. He couldn't go home. He belonged here.

The driver's handgun was on his right hip under his jacket, and for a moment he let himself imagine what would happen if he grabbed it, held it to Vekua's neck, issued his demands. The gun was power. If he was a different kind of American he might have lived by that creed, but as it was the thing was alien to him. The last time he had held one was in Iraq, where a stringer for
The Times
had got himself a handgun for protection and was flashing it round the hotel bar.

Maybe it was simple enough. Grab it, stick it into her side—more comfortable—tell her to order her men to stop the car, open the door with his free hand, and edge out backward into the night, keeping the gun trained on the three of them. It was crazy, the stuff of movies, but maybe that stuff worked. Shit like this happened. He was just never there to see it.

Don't press it against her, though. You need space between her and the gun.

The car was on the freeway now and smoothly racing forward. He watched the blank suburban landscape pass, gaging the distance to the driver's hip with the corner of his eye and shaking his head, apparently beaten, for Vekua's benefit.

With as much spring as he could manage he reached out and snatched at the gun. His hand was under the jacket, felt the hard, textured grip, and pulled at it. It wouldn't come. As he fumbled with the leather clasp on the holster the car veered sharply and then Vekua's hand was at his throat, grabbing his collar and pushing him back into his seat.

“Enough!”

Her voice was hard and straight. He pushed back at her but knew that it was over. They tussled for a moment and then in her free hand there was a gun, smaller than the one that he had tried to take but a solid fact nevertheless. He let go of her, and she let go of him. The driver corrected the car.

“Enough.”

Vekua stretched her neck, and then calmly smoothed out her suit. Her face was composed but she was breathing hard and her eyes were fierce.

“Your file said you were clever.”

“I have to stay.”

“You are gone, Isaac.”

S
he had timed it all, he realized, so that from the moment she appeared at the police station he would have no opportunity to wriggle. From the cell to the car to the airport, with the minimum of bumps, his bag recovered from Koba's car and now in the trunk, his passport and tickets in Vekua's hand. As she walked him into the check-in hall, one hand on his arm, he saw that the Lufthansa flight to Munich left in thirty minutes.

For him there was no check-in, no passport control, no lines. Straight through, with agonizing simplicity. There was nothing to take advantage of. They arrived at the gate to find perhaps twenty passengers standing in line ready to board.

“These are yours.” Vekua handed him his wallet and his English phone, its battery dead. He checked his cards, the cash, the note of Luka's address. They were all still there.

“My other phones?”

“There were no other phones.”

The way she said it, he almost believed her. For a moment they looked at each other.

“You needn't wait,” said Hammer.

“We will go when you are on the plane,” said Vekua.

“That was more of a joke.”

“Your jokes are better in London, I think.”

The driver put his bag down, and they stood a little distance away from the queue.

“I want to change my clothes.”

“On the plane.”

“I have the man's blood on me.”

“You can change on the plane.”

He had one last idea. It was basic, and cheap, and though he held out little hope for it, it had worked before.

“One thing I need you to do.” Hammer took his wallet from his back pocket. They had taken none of his cash. “My driver. I never paid him.”

Vekua nodded.

“Give him this. It's not much. I have more. Much more.”

“I am not interested in your money.”

Of course she wasn't. It would be easier to corrupt a nun.

Vekua's charm had all gone. She was the efficient servant of the state. Hammer looked at her and wished he knew what weakness to exploit, what final card to play. But she was all straight lines and smooth, hard surface. He could find no hold.

Whose side was she on? If he knew, he could work on her. If she was who she said she was, he could enlist her to protect Natela. And if she was the one who had wanted him gone from Georgia all along, if she'd spent all that time soft-soaping him, well, he was going, wasn't he? She'd got what she wanted. He might convince her that Natela was the irrelevance she so clearly was. Except that Vekua had never seemed one for convincing.

The last stragglers were having their boarding cards checked. Hammer hesitated for a moment before walking to the desk, watching people disembark from a plane out on the tarmac. The driver handed him his suitcase.

Hammer held out his hand for his briefcase.

“Your case was not recovered, Mr. Hammer.”

Vekua brought the case round in front of her and clasped the handle in both hands.

“National security.”

“You're a piece of work, you know that?”

Hammer looked at her one last time, calculating. Perhaps it didn't matter what side she was on.

“Natela Toreli,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I don't know whether you're good or bad, Elene, but she's in trouble, and she needs help. Someone's trying to kill her. Maybe that's you, I don't know. This place, it's beaten me. I can't figure it out. Some investigator.” He held her eye but it gave nothing out; she was blank. “If it's someone else, protect her for me. She's a good woman and she needs it. And if it's you, drop it. She's not a part of this. She doesn't know anything. Not a thing. She and her husband barely spoke.”

Vekua nodded, her expression unchanged, and Hammer was left wondering what he had achieved.

“Go,” was all she said.

What a way to end it. One friend almost certainly dead and another about to be. All those years of work, all that expertise, and he had fucked up the only job that had ever really mattered.

A woman took his ticket, checked it against his passport, waved him through. Thank you, Mr. Hammer. With those friendly, cheerless words he was back in that reassuring world where his money accomplished things effortlessly and his name was magically known. He had no appetite for it. Tomorrow he would briefly be a somebody again; in London, in his perfect little house, sleeping between sheets freshly washed and pressed by a housekeeper who anticipated every tiny thing he might need. He could barely accept the thought, it seemed so ludicrous.

Well, it might not be for long. He was due to see Sander in five days' time.

Row twenty-seven. Way back, past twenty-six rows of faces looking up at the last man to board and finding him fascinating, in his crumpled clothes with the bloodstains at his neck. His seat was on the aisle, next to a serious teenager in glasses who was already intently studying his book. In Russian, a hardback. Hammer sat down, settled into his tiny space, took his phone from his pocket, and vainly pressed the power button. The screen stayed black.

Natela. He could barely bring himself to think of her. His sense of powerlessness was complete.

He leaned forward and looked across for the last time at Georgia. Three days he had lasted. Three days was a humiliation; he should have entrusted the job to someone who knew this world well enough not to stomp all over it. Moscow. That was it. He would go to Moscow, enlist the help of Mr. V. He could be persuaded. Probably he knew people here who could help Natela, find Ben.

Cabin crew busied themselves. Hammer twisted in his seat and vainly imagined rushing for the rear exit, overpowering a steward, opening the door, and dropping to the tarmac. Who was he kidding? He was fifty-eight, and exhausted. His body was a dead loss, and his brain had failed him.

At the other end of the plane a man in a fluorescent yellow jacket came on board with the flight manifest and took it into the cockpit. When he was done, he would leave and the doors would close and that would be that. Hammer closed his eyes and tried to accept the finality. Opened them again and tried to imagine spending the next four hours motionless in this seat.

Then the woman who had checked his ticket appeared in the doorway and caught the attention of a steward. The steward called over a stewardess, and the three conferred, looking up at the passengers from time to time, before finally the stewardess made her way down the aisle. An overbooking, Hammer assumed, or some problem with the luggage. But she didn't stop until she reached him.

“Mr. Hammer,” she said, squatting down and talking quietly, confidentially, in the most discreet of German accents. “I must tell you that, if you wish, you may leave the plane.”

“If I wish.”

“If you wish.”

“I wish.”

He unbuckled his safety belt, got his things together, and, before she changed her mind, walked as fast as he could back down the aisle, conscious of all the eyes on his back. The crew, uncertain what to do, wished him a pleasant evening.

By the gate were Vekua and the policeman. Her arms were crossed, her lips tightly pressed into a line, and she watched him with a burning look. At first Hammer didn't recognize the two men standing opposite them, one
burly, the other scruffy and pale, but then it came to him: the big one was Iosava's man. The goon who had driven him to Iosava's house.

No one in either group seemed to want to speak, least of all to each other.

“What's going on?”

The goon looked at Vekua, who looked at Hammer.

“So you have no client,” she said, with a final glare, and walked away.

“Outside,” said the big man.