Min was fast, but fast didn’t cut it. Maybe anywhere else in London, he’d have been fine, but here and now in this room he was toast.
The third shot, he spilt most of. Piotr and Kyril were already leaning back, empty glasses lined up, roaring.
When he could speak, Kyril said, “You lose.”
“I lose,” Min admitted. The three vodkas joined the two from the previous round, and the one from the round before that. Plus the penalty shots for having lost both. Plus the beers he’d drunk in that pub near where he worked, though finer details, such as what the pub was called, and where he worked, had grown hazy. These guys, though—these guys. These guys were kind of crazy, but it was surprising how quickly barriers broke down when you got past the job descriptions. Like his own, which was to keep an eye on these guys without them knowing he was doing so.
It was possible he’d compromised that particular part of his mission.
“So tell me,” Kyril said, “When I did that thing with the key. When I—”
“Stuck it in the back of my neck, you bastard!”
Kyril laughed. “You thought it was a gun, yes?”
“Of course I thought it was a gun! You bastard!”
All three were laughing now. It was a picture, for sure: Min, convinced his last moments had come. That a Russian spy had a pistol screwed into his neck, and was about to pull the trigger.
Kyril stopped laughing long enough to say, “I couldn’t resist.”
“How long did you know I was there?”
“Always. I saw you on your bicycle.”
“Jesus,” Min shook his head. But he didn’t feel too low. Okay, so he’d messed up, but it hadn’t had serious consequences. Though he was pretty sure it would be best if nobody else got to hear about it. Specifically Lamb, he thought. And Louisa. And everybody else. But specifically them.
Piotr said, “Don’t feel too bad. We do security. We’re trained to spot faces in crowds.”
“Just like you are trained to do whatever it is you do in the … Department of Energy,” Kyril added. His broad smile supplied invisible quotation marks.
“Look,” Min began, but Piotr was waving a hand, as if seeing him off on a journey.
“Hey. Hey. Arkady Pashkin is an important man. You think we don’t know there will be … interest in him? Government interest? We’d be worried if there wasn’t. It would mean he was no longer important. And people who aren’t important don’t need people like us.”
“If my bosses found out I was here—”
“You mean,” Kyril said slyly, “if they found out you’d botched a shadowing job.”
Min said, “Well, I tracked you to your lair all right.”
“And now you’re finding out what happens to Department of Energy guys who get too nosy.”
They all roared again. Piotr refilled the glasses.
“To successful outcomes.”
Min was happy to drink to that. “Pravda,” he said, because it was the only Russian word he knew.
And everyone roared with laughter again, and another round had to be poured.
They were on the topmost floor, which was a self-contained flat. This was the kitchen, and there were at least two other rooms. The kitchen was clean, though the window was smeared with the usual city grime. The fridge was full, and not just with vodka. It held cartons of juice and bundles of vegetables, plus little wrapped packets from delis. This pair were used to being away from home, Min suspected, and knew how to take care of themselves in a foreign city without resorting to takeaways. He also suspected that if he drank much more he’d forget where he lived, let alone the ability to cycle there. Last thing he wanted was to finish up under a bus.
There was a noise from elsewhere, the front door opening and closing, and someone new wandered into the room. Min turned, but whoever it had been was already vanishing back into the hallway.
Piotr said, “One moment,” and left the kitchen.
Kyril poured more vodka.
“Who was that?” Min asked.
“Nobody. A friend.”
“Why doesn’t he join us?”
“He’s not that sort of friend.”
“Not a drinking man,” Min surmised. His glass flaunted itself in front of him. What had he just decided about alcohol? But it would be rude to leave a full glass, so he echoed whatever toast Kyril had proclaimed, and threw the vodka down his throat.
Piotr returned, and said something to Kyril that sounded to Min like a pile-up of consonants.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said Kyril. “Nothing at all.”
Paranoia was back, if it had ever been away. Shirley Dander, all in black, fitted like a bathplug on the streets of Hoxton, but still felt out of place, as if her every step left a neon footprint.
Hardly night-time, really. Half past ten.
