The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [72]
I hope Maxim doesn’t take too long . . .
At first Stevie didn’t dare to open her eyes. Even with the thick purple goggles she was afraid they would burn. It was getting hot, a strange, electronic heat that had little to do with days lounging on the granite boulders of the Costa Smeralda, nor with the feel of the fine white sand of Australia’s southeastern beaches, nor even with the bright white sunshine that hit the striped deck chairs overlooking the lake of Zurich at the Eden Roc. She realised she longed for summer with every cell in her roasting body.
Over the noise of the machine, Stevie heard the door open, then close and lock. She prised an eyelid open but could see only bright light in various shades of purple.
‘Slushaitye.’ The man’s voice was quiet, but audible over the humming machines. ‘Listen. I am the friend of Henning who wishes to do him a favour. My name is Maxim.’
Stevie, naked under the lights, her eyes sealed by goggles, could only ignore how surreal the whole thing was and respond in kind.
‘I remember you, Maxim. I am Stevie.’
‘I know.’
There was a long silence. Stevie imagined Maxim was undressing, getting ready to tan. Sure enough, the lid to his electronic coffin soon creaked, and the motor started whirring.
‘There are two bodyguards outside the door,’ Maxim’s voice came slightly muffled now. ‘So you can tan in peace with no concern about interruptions. I like to talk here, Stevie, because I like to tan, and because the noise of these machines is at a particular frequency that makes it impossible for anyone to eavesdrop electronically. Convenient, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Oh very, Maxim. Ingenious.’
‘I like to come here and pretend I am in St Tropez or Ibiza. Just for an hour. It is important to be tanned. It makes a man look vital, young and fertile. I can’t afford to have my enemies ever think I am weak or they strike. But mostly it is my vanity. I like to look good. Pale colours and gold jewellery always look better on tanned skin.’
Stevie suddenly felt like she might be at the beautician’s, having a pedicure and overhearing the conversation of the other women. She had to remind herself that Maxim—oh yes, she had done a little research on him the night after they had met—was certainly in a group that included the top twenty most wanted men in the world. Arms trafficking was his big deviance, but he sold anything to anyone regardless of politics, intent, allegiances or any other considerations. As a total privateer, he was free from any of the constraints of foreign policy or pretence of morality and he could do business with whomever could pay.
Possibly there were some members of democratic governments around the world who secretly envied Maxim this freedom, but this only made them want to catch him even more. And they had tried, many times. But each time they grounded a plane in Afghanistan, or the Congo, or any other godforsaken place rent by catastrophe, they had found nothing—a cargo of frozen chickens, an empty plane, ‘humanitarian relief’ supplies . . . Maxim was too clever.
He dealt in anything, legal and legitimate as well as illegal and immoral. It didn’t matter. Maxim did not pretend to try to distinguish between good and evil, and right and wrong. He stuck to what he knew—buying and selling, the demands of the market.
He was in his early forties and a billionaire a few times over. This empire had all been built since the fall of the USSR. Maxim was an extraordinary example of a global entrepreneur, if you admired him; a merchant of death, if you did not.
‘These machines are designed to give a perfect Mediterranean tan,’ Maxim was still on the subject.
Stevie didn’t quite know what to say. She was caught in a Moscow solarium at two o’clock in the morning with an international über-criminal and he wanted to discuss the quality