stool at the eating island and spread them out. Holliday picked one up at random. It was a genuine U.K. passport in the name of Simon Toyne, London resident at 20 Cheyne Walk. Holliday knew London well enough to know that Simon had big bucks; Cheyne Walk was for big-time high rollers, often in the music or the writing game. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the English poet, had once lived there, as had Henry James, George Eliot and Mick Jagger. Holliday wondered what Simon did to make his pile, and also wondered how the rich man with the twinkling dark eyes and the slightly unnatural-looking silver hair had come to lose his passport in Odessa.
“U.K. is better for your Cuban pal than Puerto Rico. Lots of blacks in England these days. He speak any African?”
“Nenda kajitombe, mkundu,”
said Eddie with a smile.
“I’m not even going to ask,” said Bondarenko. He picked up another passport, this one American. It belonged to a man named Michael Enright, a professorial-looking man about Holliday’s age, half-bald, with a silver-gray goatee and a pair of thick Harry Potter spectacles that made him look a little silly. Both the U.K. and U.S. passports were definitely genuine.
“Where do you get them?”
“I’ve got pickpockets at the train stations. Odessa, Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg. Airports, too. I buy them wholesale: two hundred per. Kids work the whole railway system like Gypsies. It’s the only kind of work they can find these days.”
“How do you work all the electronics and the biometrics?”
“I toss out biometric ones, just keep the older ones. I’ve got a laminator in the back and a heat delaminator as well. I print out your picture on ultrathin Mylar and drop it in over the existing one. We leave everything else the same, name, age and all that.”
“All right,” said Holliday.
“Let’s see your plastic.”
Holliday reached into his wallet and took out the Carte Bleue card that he’d found in the safety-deposit box after reading Helder Rodrigues’s bloodstained notebook. He never got printed statements, and apparently the account it drew against was infinitely large. He handed the card to Bondarenko. “How long is this going to take?”
“No time at all. Half an hour or so. I’ll take your pictures and get right at it.”
“All right,” said Holliday.
Bondarenko stood up and then paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Where are you guys going?”
“Do you have to know that?”
“No, but it’s better if you don’t fly. The cops here are pretty uptight about airport security after all these crazy suicide bombings.”
Holliday thought about the Korovin .25 and the Stechkin APS he and Eddie were still carrying.
“What do you suggest?”
“Train. The cops at all the stations are usually local
militsiya
. Slobs. Except for Moscow, maybe. Everyone travels by train. You’ll fit in better.” He glanced at Eddie again. “If that’s possible,” he added.
“Okay.” Holliday nodded.
“While I’m doing the documents you should go down to the market and get some luggage, backpacks or something.” Bondarenko crossed the room, opened a cupboard and returned with a Nikon D3X. Now Holliday knew what the blank white space on the wall was for.
“Since you’re being so helpful, Gennadi, maybe you can get something else for us,” said Holliday.
“Yeah?”
“Ammunition. Twenty-five-caliber hollow-point and nine-millimeter Parabellum.”
Bondarenko gave Holliday a long, thoughtful look and nodded slowly. “Sure, I could do that, but if the
militsiya
or the OMON catch you, you never met me, okay?” The OMON were special police units stationed in every district. They were the Russian equivalent of an American SWAT team.
“Okay,” agreed Holliday.
“How much you want?”
Holliday thought about it for a second. The Stechkin on full auto went through bullets like popcorn. “Five hundred of the nine and a hundred of the twenty-five.”
“I can do that,” said
“U.K. is better for your Cuban pal than Puerto Rico. Lots of blacks in England these days. He speak any African?”
“Nenda kajitombe, mkundu,”
said Eddie with a smile.
“I’m not even going to ask,” said Bondarenko. He picked up another passport, this one American. It belonged to a man named Michael Enright, a professorial-looking man about Holliday’s age, half-bald, with a silver-gray goatee and a pair of thick Harry Potter spectacles that made him look a little silly. Both the U.K. and U.S. passports were definitely genuine.
“Where do you get them?”
“I’ve got pickpockets at the train stations. Odessa, Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg. Airports, too. I buy them wholesale: two hundred per. Kids work the whole railway system like Gypsies. It’s the only kind of work they can find these days.”
“How do you work all the electronics and the biometrics?”
“I toss out biometric ones, just keep the older ones. I’ve got a laminator in the back and a heat delaminator as well. I print out your picture on ultrathin Mylar and drop it in over the existing one. We leave everything else the same, name, age and all that.”
“All right,” said Holliday.
“Let’s see your plastic.”
Holliday reached into his wallet and took out the Carte Bleue card that he’d found in the safety-deposit box after reading Helder Rodrigues’s bloodstained notebook. He never got printed statements, and apparently the account it drew against was infinitely large. He handed the card to Bondarenko. “How long is this going to take?”
“No time at all. Half an hour or so. I’ll take your pictures and get right at it.”
“All right,” said Holliday.
Bondarenko stood up and then paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Where are you guys going?”
“Do you have to know that?”
“No, but it’s better if you don’t fly. The cops here are pretty uptight about airport security after all these crazy suicide bombings.”
Holliday thought about the Korovin .25 and the Stechkin APS he and Eddie were still carrying.
“What do you suggest?”
“Train. The cops at all the stations are usually local
militsiya
. Slobs. Except for Moscow, maybe. Everyone travels by train. You’ll fit in better.” He glanced at Eddie again. “If that’s possible,” he added.
“Okay.” Holliday nodded.
“While I’m doing the documents you should go down to the market and get some luggage, backpacks or something.” Bondarenko crossed the room, opened a cupboard and returned with a Nikon D3X. Now Holliday knew what the blank white space on the wall was for.
“Since you’re being so helpful, Gennadi, maybe you can get something else for us,” said Holliday.
“Yeah?”
“Ammunition. Twenty-five-caliber hollow-point and nine-millimeter Parabellum.”
Bondarenko gave Holliday a long, thoughtful look and nodded slowly. “Sure, I could do that, but if the
militsiya
or the OMON catch you, you never met me, okay?” The OMON were special police units stationed in every district. They were the Russian equivalent of an American SWAT team.
“Okay,” agreed Holliday.
“How much you want?”
Holliday thought about it for a second. The Stechkin on full auto went through bullets like popcorn. “Five hundred of the nine and a hundred of the twenty-five.”
“I can do that,” said
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