her. He wasn’t expecting an attack from a car or across the street, but some habits came too naturally to ever change.
‘The email is from the same address as the previous one,’ Muir explained. ‘This one’s subject is Second Date. You must have made quite the impression.’
‘When?’
‘The message said at your earliest convenience.’
‘Where?’
Muir shook her head. ‘No location this time around. But there’s a phone number to call.’
Victor nodded. ‘Makes sense. He’s met me once. There’s no need to go through another face to face, especially as the first was set up purely to test Kooi’s reliability. I take it you’ve checked out the number.’ He gestured. ‘This way.’
He turned onto another side street lined with independent coffee shops, record stores and fashion boutiques. He smelt marijuana on the breeze.
‘The number you’re supposed to call is a cell phone. It matches that of a prepaid handset and SIM card bought together last week in Romania.’
‘Before or after I met with Leeson?’
‘Before.’
Victor nodded again. ‘The meeting wasn’t simply a formality, if that’s what you’re deducing from that.’
‘I get that it’s just Leeson being cautious and prepared. If you didn’t pass the test he could just ditch the cell. A few bucks down the drain isn’t likely to make him lose any sleep. Purchasing the phone in the same city where you met is just a smokescreen. He doesn’t know how much you can know or find out. But you know he was in Budapest. If he bought the phone in some other city he’s just giving away needless information about his movements. Give me some credit, please.’
‘I didn’t doubt you for a second. What about the industrial site?’
‘Owned by a Swiss real estate developing corporation. They’re going to build condos on it. The textile plant they demolished belonged to some industrialist whose business took a nosedive when the banks did the same. They’re clean. Rich people clean, if you know what I’m getting at.’
They were quiet for a minute while they walked past a crowd drinking on the pavement outside a pub. Pint and wine glasses rested on the pub’s broad windowsills.
The next street was quiet and Muir continued: ‘As predicted, we couldn’t trace the Makarov to Leeson. Like you said it was Cold War era and commissioned by the KGB a few years before the collapse. It sat with about a thousand others in crates in a warehouse outside of Minsk for a couple of decades, gathering dust until they vanished.’
‘Quite a magic trick for a thousand pistols.’
‘You got that right. Especially when the crates of AKs and RPGs they were stored with disappeared too. Coincidentally not long after a Russian multinational bought shares in the company that manages the warehouse and several others like it, which in turn is owned by a very unpleasant Minsk mafia crew. ATF is all over it because one of those rifles turned up in downtown LA, but they’re being stonewalled by Moscow because that Russian multinational just happens to have a guy called Vladimir Kasakov on their board of directors. You heard of him?’
Victor shook his head.
‘Heavyweight arms dealing scumbag. Literally heavyweight. Word on the street was that his business was in turmoil or he’d retired, but whatever. People always want guns. That’s never going to change, I suppose. So, how your driver got hold of the Makarov is anyone’s guess. I’ve passed the serial number to a friend inside ATF and they’ll add it to their file and in return if anything comes up, I’ll be first to hear about it. I know a little more about the driver.’
‘Hold that thought.’
A pair of police officers appeared ahead, rounding the corner at the end of the block about twenty metres away. They were both male, both in their thirties, both of useful dimensions. They wore standard-issue stab resistant vests but as they weren’t armed response officers, the only weapons they carried were truncheons and mace.
One spoke into a shoulder-mounted radio, and all Victor read on the man’s lips was some code he didn’t understand.
Victor glanced around. Alleys led off both sides of the street. Foot traffic was light. No cars passed. No other police presence.
Muir registered his reaction, and whispered, ‘Are they here for you?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘They’re alone. Just on patrol.’
‘Evenin’, ma’am,’ one officer said to Muir as they passed one another.
When they had reached the end of the block, Muir glanced back over her shoulder to check the two officers were out of earshot, then turned to Victor and said, ‘That