‘So, what’s your name?’ Jackson asked.
‘Sergei,’ replied the boy. ‘And yours?’
‘Jackson. How old are you, Sergei?’
‘How old you want me to be?’
‘Cut the crap and tell me your age.’
‘Fourteen.’
‘You’re not a day over nine.’
‘Thirteen.’
‘Ten.’
‘Eleven.’
‘OK,’ said Jackson. ‘I’ll settle for eleven.’
‘And how old are you?’ demanded the boy.
‘Fifty-four.’
‘I’ll settle for fifty-four,’ said Sergei.
Jackson laughed for the first time in days. ‘How come your English is so good?’ he asked, still keeping an eye on the hotel door.
‘My mother live with American for long time. He return to States last year, but not take us.’
This time Jackson believed he was telling the truth.
‘So what’s the job, partner?’ asked Sergei.
‘We’re keeping an eye on someone who’s staying at that hotel’
‘Is a friend or enemy?’
‘Friend.’
‘Mafya?’
‘No, he works for the good guys.’
‘Don’t treat me like child,’ said Sergei, with an edge to his voice. ‘We’re partners, remember.’
‘OK, Sergei. He’s a friend,’ said Jackson, just as Connor appeared in the doorway. ‘Don’t move.’ He placed a hand firmly on the boy’s shoulder.
‘Is that him?’ asked Sergei.
‘Yes, that’s him.’
‘He has kind face. Maybe better I work for him.’
Victor Zerimski’s day hadn’t begun well, and it was still only a few minutes past eight a.m. He was chairing a meeting of the Central Council of the Communist Party which was being briefed by Dmitri Titov, his Chief of Staff.
‘An international body of observers has arrived in Moscow to monitor the electoral process,’ Titov was telling them. ‘They are looking principally for any suggestion of ballot-rigging, but their chairman has already admitted that with an electorate so vast and so widespread, there is no way they can spot every irregularity.’ Titov ended his report by saying that now that Comrade Zerimski had climbed to second place in the polls, the Mafya were pouring even more money into Chernopov’s campaign.