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“With swords, tommy guns, rockets. What about gamma rays, anthrax, nerve gases? The art of extermination has modernized.”
Gunayev rose, stripped off his jacket, draped it over his chair, and walked to the picture window with
its view over the roofs of Moscow.
“You want him eliminated? Taken down?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not? It can be done.”
“It won’t work.”
“It usually does.”
Monk explained. A nation already in chaos plunged into the abyss, probably civil war. Or another Komarov, perhaps his own right-hand man Grishin, storming to power on a wave of outrage.
“They are two sides of the same coin,” he said. “The man of thought and words, and the man of action. Kill one and the other takes over. The destruction of your people continues.”
Gunayev turned from the window and walked back. He leaned over Monk, his face taut.
“What do you want of me, American? You come here as a stranger who once saved my life. So for that I owe you. Then you show me this filth. What has it to do with me?”
“Nothing, unless you decide so. You have many things, Umar Gunayev. You have great wealth, enormous power, even the power of life and death over any man. You have the power to walk away, to let what will happen happen.”
“And why should I not?”
“Because there was a boy, once. A small and ragged boy who grew up in a poor village in the northern Caucasus among family, friends, and neighbors who clubbed together to send him to university and thence to Moscow to become a great man. The question is, Did that boy die somewhere along the road, to become an automaton, triggered only by wealth? Or does the boy still remember his own people?”
“You tell me.”
“No. The choice is yours.”
“And your choice, American?”
“Much easier. I can walk out of here, take a cab to Sheremetyevo, fly home. It’s warm there; comfortable, safe. I can tell them not to bother; that it doesn’t matter, that no one over here cares anymore, they’re all bought and paid for. Let night descend.”
The Chechen seated himself and stared into some distance long past. Finally he said, “You think you can stop him?”
“There is a chance.”
“And then what?”
Monk explained what Sir Nigel Irvine and his patrons had in mind.
“You’re crazy,” said Gunayev flatly.
“Maybe. What else faces you? Komarov and the genocide carried out by his beastmaster, chaos and civil war, or the other.”
“And if I help you, what do you need?”
“To hide. But in plain sight. To move but not be recognized. To see the people I have come to see.”
“You think Komarov will know you are here?”
“Quite soon. There are a million informants in this city. You know that. You use many yourself. All can be bought. The man is no fool.”
“He can buy all the organs of the state. Even I never take on the entire state.”