Read Online Mazurka by Campbell Armstrong - Free Book Online Page B

with you. Come to think of it, I’m not exactly delirious about you either. Take your pick. Either you talk to me, or you take a short car ride to the Soviet Embassy, where you get to sit in a dark room and they shine lights in your eyes and smoking isn’t allowed. You’ll meet some men whose coats seem just a little too tight and who make loud noises with their fists.”
    Kiviranna sat upright now. “I killed the guy on British soil. I know the law, man.”
    â€œYou think you know the law, Jake. But when it comes down to tricky stuff like the death of a Russian, it starts to get pretty complicated. Diplomatic considerations raise their ugly little heads, chum. Her Majesty’s Government might owe the Soviets a favour, let’s say, and that favour might just turn out to be you.”
    Kiviranna leaned back against the wall. “I set one foot inside that Embassy and I’m history. I’m past tense.”
    â€œRight, Jake. It’s not a healthy prospect.”
    â€œIt’s a fucking political game. And I get shuffled like a pawn.”
    â€œPawns don’t get shuffled, Jake. You’re thinking about cards.” Pagan smiled, and leaned across the table so that his face was a mere six inches away from the other man’s. “Let’s just talk, okay? No more rubbish. Let’s start with motive.”
    â€œMotive?”
    â€œWhy did you kill Romanenko? Money? Political conviction? Or was it something else?”
    â€œHe was a fucking asshole, man.”
    Breathtaking . Pagan had expected some high-flown political cant, the kind of platitude assassins and terrorists so enjoy, that overblown rhetoric which was ultimately meaningless. He was a fucking asshole, man wasn’t the kind of thing he’d anticipated at all. He stared at Jacob Kiviranna for a while before he said, “If that was sufficient cause to blow a man away, the streets would be practically empty.”
    â€œOkay. He sold out to the Russians. Is that enough for you?”
    â€œExactly how did he do that?”
    â€œYou name it. He carried out Kremlin policies in Estonia. He kissed all the Russian ass going. Guy was never off his fucking knees. An order came down from Moscow, Romanenko was the first to implement it. Didn’t matter what it was. He’d get the job done. He was the Kremlin’s rubber stamp. It didn’t matter he was born in Estonia, he was the Kremlin’s boy through and through. Which made him a goddam traitor.”
    Pagan listened to the man’s toneless voice, then picked up the US passport, flipped the pages. “You’re an American citizen, Jake. How come you give a damn about Romanenko anyway? I don’t see how he could have affected your life.”
    â€œI got family left over there,” Kiviranna said. “Cousins, a couple of uncles, aunts.”
    Revenge, Pagan wondered. Did it come down to a motive as basic as that? “Had Romanenko threatened your family? Had he done something to them?”
    Kiviranna didn’t say anything for a time. He smoked another cigarette and the small windowless chamber clouded up and the young cop by the door coughed a couple of times. Kiviranna gestured with the cigarette and looked very serious. “He didn’t have to do anything personal to them, man. He was a Communist and a traitor to his own people. That’s enough. We’re talking about evil. I eliminated evil. That’s the only thing that matters. You see evil, man, you wipe it out. The more evil you get rid of, the more good there is in the world. That’s what it’s all about. It’s logical.”
    Evil – now there was a fine melodramatic word you didn’t hear a great deal these days unless you frequented certain extreme religious sects or moved in mad terrorist circles, where it was used to describe anyone who didn’t believe in either your choice of a God or your cause. Pagan studied