“Come,” said the Chechen who squatted to Monk’s right. All three arose. In the lobby they retrieved their shoes and put them on. The two flankers took up position on either side; the watcher by the door brought up the rear. Monk was marched out of the compound to Durova Street where a big BMW waited at the curb. Before he was allowed to enter it he was expertly frisked from behind.
Monk went into the center of the backseat with a flanker on either side. The third man slipped into the front beside the driver. The BMW moved off and headed for the ring road.
Monk had calculated the men would never defile the mosque by offering violence within it, but their own car was a different matter, and he knew enough of men like those around him to be aware they were all supremely dangerous.
After a mile the one in the front reached into the glove compartment and withdrew a pair of wraparound dark glasses. He gestured to Monk to put them on. They were better than a blindfold, for the lenses had been painted black. Monk completed the journey in darkness.
In the heart of Moscow, down a side street that it is wiser not to penetrate, is a small café called the Kashdan. It means “chestnut” in Russian and has been there for years.
Any tourist wandering idly toward the doors will be met by a fit-looking young man who will indicate to the stranger that he would be advised to take his morning coffee elsewhere. The Russian militia do not even bother to go near it.
Monk was helped out of the car and his black glasses were removed as he was led through the door. As he entered, the buzz of conversation in the Chechen language died. Two-score eyes watched in silence as he was led to a private room at the back beyond the bar. If he failed to come out of that room, no one would have seen a thing.
There was a table, four chairs, and a mirror on the wall. From a nearby kitchen came a smell of garlic, spices, and coffee. For the first time the senior of the three watchers, the one who had sat by the entrance of the mosque while his subordinates did the questioning, spoke.
“Sit,” he said. “Coffee?”
“Thank you. Black. Sugar.”
It came and it was good. Monk sipped the steaming liquid and kept his eyes away from the mirror, convinced it was a one-way device and that he was being studied from behind it. As he put down his empty cup a door opened and Umar Gunayev entered.
He had changed. The shirt collar was no longer worn outside the jacket, and the suit was not cheaply cut. It was of an Italian designer label and the tie of heavy silk probably from Jermyn Street or Fifth Avenue.
The Chechen had matured over twelve years, but at forty was darkly handsome, urbane, and polished. He nodded several times at Monk, with a quiet smile, then sat down and put the flat cardboard box on the table.
“I received your gift,” he said. He flicked the lid open, and picked out the contents, holding the Yemeni gambiah to the light and running a fingertip down the cutting edge.
“This is it?”
“One of them left it on the cobblestones,” said Monk. “I thought you might use it for a letter-opener.”
This time Gunayev smiled with genuine amusement.
“How did you know my name?”
Monk told him about the mug shots the British in Oman had collected of the incoming Russians.
“And since then, what have you heard?”
“Many things.”
“Good or bad?”
“Interesting.”
“Tell me.”
“I heard that Captain Gunayev, after ten years with the First Chief Directorate, finally became tired of the racial jokes and having no chance of promotion. I heard he left the KGB to take up another line of work. Also covert, but different.”
Gunayev laughed. At this the three watchers seemed to relax. The master had set the mood for them.
“Covert, but different. Yes, that is true. And then?”
“Then I heard that Umar Gunayev had risen in his new life to become the undisputed overlord of all the Chechen underworld west of the Urals.”
“Possibly. Anything else?”
“I heard that this Gunayev is a traditional man, though not old. That he still clings to the ancient standards of the Chechen people.”