Rake Ozenna 02 Man on Edge by Humphrey Hawksley

Author:Humphrey Hawksley [Hawksley, Humphrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448303649
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-09-17T21:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-NINE

Moscow

The Western Union office for Moscow’s Leningradsky rail station doubled up as an electronics store, selling phones and local cards, a clothes stall with hats, scarves, gloves, and T-shirts, and a souvenir shop with Russian dolls and Moscow ornaments. It was flanked by competing stores on the edge of the station in Komsomolskaya Square, a vast area, where three rail stations served different areas of Russia, busy even at this time of night, bursting with Christmas lights. Kazansky station dealt with the east and south-east; Yaroslavsky station handled the Trans-Siberian; and Leningradsky, where Carrie was heading, sent trains west to St Petersburg and Europe.

Carrie walked past the Western Union store twice, wheeling her hand-carry, watching for threats within a regular hum of life, the elegant, grand curves, the spires, columns, clock towers, colors, taxi lines, the flow of people, a direct opposite to Moscow and the corpses and shot-up van she had passed just over a mile away near her hotel.

On her phone were scrolls of messages from Sofia Gagnon’s friends and families, asking her to be safe, telling her they envied her travels, missing her, recommending the Café Pushkin in Tverskor Boulevard, ‘not as posh as it looks,’ and was she going to Peredelkino, the village outside Moscow where Boris Pasternak had lived. Amid them was Rake’s message, short, coded in a way that she knew it was him – O-neg.

She allowed herself an inner smile. It was intimate and clever. The message had been routed through a Montreal server, which meant he had resources to do that kind of technical thing and that gave her confidence.

Carrie waited in line at the Western Union counter. Two customers ahead of her moved quickly along. She showed the Canadian passport, kept hold of it, and said in broken English with a French accent. ‘I have money to collect.’

The wire-thin young man behind the counter in a black woolen hat and black leather jacket with a crucifix earing hanging from his right ear was fast and alert. He punched in the name, looked back at the exchange rates listed on a screen, and said. ‘Two questions, Miss Sofia Gagnon. Favorite Italian restaurant and favorite color?’

Rake again, bringing them together, making sure she knew it was him.

‘Boccaccio,’ she said, ‘and yellow.’

He looked down, punched more buttons, shook his head. ‘No, sorry, Sofia. That’s not correct. No money.’ He worked on the keyboard beneath the counter.

Carrie broke into Russian, not fluent, traveling podcast level. ‘Say the questions again.’

‘This is not a guessing game, Sofia. Please, respect the regulations of Western Union.’ His expression was stern. Carrie ran through options. She could risk the credit card and get picked up immediately. She could—

‘Only kidding, Sofia.’ Laughter pealed from behind the counter. ‘You see, because your favorite Italian restaurant should be Grabli, do you know it, in Arbat Street. My uncle owns it. I can take you there.’ He waved at the line behind. ‘One moment. One moment.’ He pushed an envelope of rubles across to her.

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