I slipped off the spectacles, popped out the contacts. ‘Hex to see Mr Yakovlevich,’ I said.
‘You have an appointment?’ Yuri knew full well I didn’t.
‘No.’
‘Wait.’ His eyes never leaving mine, he took out a mobile phone, pressed a few digits. A quick burst of Russian and I was allowed over the threshold. As usual I removed my shoes and was subjected to a full body search. Unpleasant and humiliating but essential if I was to gain an audience with Yakovlevich.
I followed Yuri upstairs to a first floor drawing room of immense proportions with fabulous views of a walled garden. The room should have been stunning. It was if one’s taste was one of decadence meets burlesque. Thick-pile rugs on oak flooring, gaudy ornaments atop highly decorated French furniture, and a series of floor to ceiling paintings of Yakovlevich’s young mistress in various states of undress, the last verging on pornographic.
Yakovlevich lay half-sprawled on a cream leather sofa. He was wearing one of his signature outfits: dark Italian suit, now crumpled, white shirt and silk tie. Red-faced, he held a glass of Chivas Regal in his hand, the half empty bottle sitting on the marble-topped coffee table in front of him. Chugging on a Cuban cigar, no doubt from Davidoff on St James’s, he welcomed me with a cheery wave.
‘Hex, my friend, come in, take a seat. I hope Yuri did not treat you roughly,’ he boomed, deep-voiced. I smiled as if being treated in such a degrading fashion happened to me every day, and sat down opposite him. He stared at me blearily. ‘Drink?’
‘Thank you.’ Refusal would only invite censure.
Mikhail summoned his butler. More whisky poured, I settled back, glass in hand. I was used to the drunken fool routine. A frustrated actor at heart, Yakovlevich was no more inebriated than his butler. He knew I knew but we all played along.
‘So what brings you here?’ His Russian deep-set eyes fixed on mine like barnacles clinging to the rusted hull of a wreck.
There was no point in using an obtuse approach with Yakovlevich. Well-connected, it was only a matter of time before he worked out my angle. In any case I really wanted to see if I could smoke him out. Making no distinction between commodities, the Russian was the kind of man who would do a mean trade in ‘babushkas’ if there were a ready market. It was rumoured that Yakovlevich had personally paved the way for the transportation of nuclear material from an old and decrepit nuclear facility. I never did discover who the buyer was and where it ended up. A man without scruples, Yakovlevich would not hesitate to deal in other forms of trade, including bio-weapons, as long as there was good money to be made.
‘Nerve agents,’ I said, suitably obtuse.
‘I know nothing of such things.’ Yakovlevich smiled broadly. ‘Only what I hear on the grapevine, as you say.’
I nodded, smiled encouragingly and took a long swallow of whisky. I had the feeling I was going to need it.
‘I remember some years ago,’ Yakovlevich began, a sage expression on his fleshy features, ‘Something about a stolen smallpox virus from a bio-containment laboratory in Siberia. A terrifying prospect.’
‘There are still bio-labs in Russia?’
‘All old. All crippled,’ Yakovlevich said morosely. ‘Before the break-up of the Motherland, there were many scientists working in the field. Many worked for Secret Department Twelve.’
I made an educated guess. ‘Part of the former KGB?’
‘The KGB’s First Directorate responsible for biological espionage,’ he explained.
‘What sort of research?’
‘The study and creation of toxins and substances specifically designed to poison reservoirs, pharmaceutical drugs and contaminate air conditioning systems.’
I stifled my interest by taking another snatch of whisky. ‘Where are these scientists now?’
‘Scattered to the four corners of the earth.’ He snorted a gust of thick aromatic smoke into the atmosphere.
‘To work for the highest bidder?’
‘Something a man of your obvious talent can surely appreciate.’ The chill in Yakovlevich’s eyes tempered the smile on his face. I returned the expression. A snake in a suit, Yakovlevich dreamt, slept and ate in terms of profit margins, marketing potential. ‘I understand there is a market for such commodities,’ I said softly.
He sat up, knifed me with a sharp smile. ‘You think I, Mikhail Yakovlevich, would trade in such things?’
‘Not at all,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said bluntly.
‘But who would, Mr Yakovlevich?’
His face assumed a dolorous expression. ‘Look at the world around you, my friend. Think of the turmoil. Think of the threat from Islam. See what they have done in Chechnya. Now that Bin Laden is dead there are any number of young radicals keen to avenge him and spill the blood of ordinary Russians.’ He leant towards me, a hawkish look in his eye, ‘What if such a commodity fell into the hands of fundamentalists?’
I snatched at my drink. Faced by such an appalling prospect it was hard to think, let alone think in clear straight lines. I attempted to factor this possibility into the context of my work. People for whom I worked, gangsters and felons, pimps and pornographers, could fill a criminal version of ‘Who’s Who.’ Many based abroad, all fell under the wide umbrella of international organised crime, yet I could no more envisage them doing deals with al-Qaeda than Santa Claus. Yakovlevich remained an exception and I knew for a fact, aside from the grandstanding, that he wasn’t choosy about his trading partners.
Temporarily forgetting his drunkard impression, he said, ‘I am guessing you did not come here for philosophical debate.’
My turn to smile, I leant back, took a verbal detour, eager to bring down the conversational temperature. ‘I need to be in Barcelona in three days.’ Which meant I had less than forty-eight hours to trace the hard drive. ‘You once offered me the personal use of your helicopter, remember?’ Originally Yakovlevich had suggested it in the particular context of a job he wished me to carry out. I’d declined. I’m not keen on flying coffins. He later proposed it in the form of a bonus. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity to make good on his offer.
‘I haven’t forgotten, Hex.’ He puffed out his massive chest. ‘I am a man of my word, a man of honour.’
He was neither of those things but I didn’t argue.
‘That’s most generous of you.’
‘Not at all, I am sure you will return the favour,’ he said, with a wily smile. ‘I will speak to my pilot and put him on standby.’
We discussed the finer details of pick-up and time. Yakovlevich took a big gulp of whisky and leant back, making the leather creak. ‘These scientists to whom you allude,’ he said slow-eyed, picking up from where we left off. ‘How is this of interest to a man like you?’
I evaded giving a direct answer. ‘In the light of the brain drain, Russia’s bio-weapons systems must be set back a couple of decades, at least.’
Yakovlevich closed his eyes. He looked half-cut. The more inebriated he seemed the more interested he was. ‘Officially, Russia has no interest in such things. Unofficially, who knows?’
‘Is this why the FSB are interested in the death of a British scientist?’
‘The Kelly affair,’ Yakovlevich ventured with another slow blink. He leant forward and deposited the remains of his cigar into an antique marble ashtray.
‘More recent, the Wilding affair.’
‘Ah, I heard something about it on the lunchtime news. Most