As impatient as he was, Jax didn’t have sufficient time or a clear enough vantage point from which to observe the rest of the groups right now, nor did he yet have the courage to move from his wall. He hadn’t been singled out. But he knew it was just a matter of time.

CHAPTER 5

St Petersburg, Russia

THERE were no nice touches in the fifth-floor apartment. He had disposed of the curtains as soon as he moved in, throwing the gold and regally patterned imitation silk into the industrial dumpster on the street. Then he’d boarded the windows with flattened carboard boxes and gaffer tape. No one would think this was odd. Some of the apartments in the ten-storey block didn’t even have windows panes; almost none had coverings.

Most things in Kirovsky were broken – its economy, its buildings, its people. One of St Petersburg’s eighteen administrative districts, Kirovsky was almost completely covered in concrete. A post-apocalyptic postcard of socialism, it was a sea of ten-storey apartment blocks, all white and decaying in unison – the communist way.

Ali, the name he had chosen when he converted to Islam, hadn’t had much choice when it came to renting an apartment, as the layouts, sizes and general state of disrepair of everything on offer were all about the same. But he’d been very particular about one thing: no carpet, tiles only. Hard surfaces were easier to clean. He’d eventually had to settle for linoleum, however, after he’d learned that tiles were a luxury item in Russia, only used in bathrooms and homes belonging to pop stars, politicians and mobsters.

He’d rented the apartment through an online agency for 192 euros a month. Calling himself Aleksandr Sokolov – Russia’s most popular male first name and seventh-most popular surname – he’d obtained a Hotmail account with a Russian IP, then he used Google Translate to read the agent’s emails and reply in Russian. He could have paid the entire six months of the lease in advance, but no one did that in Kirovsky, as everyone lived from week to week. And he didn’t want to attract attention.

He’d used a no-questions-asked Russian money transfer service to pay both his bond and the first month’s rent. After he’d signed, scanned and sent back the agreement, the agent had left the key inside the unlocked apartment and sent him an email. Ali had pasted the Russian text into Google Translate: Nothing to steal, and squatters have better taste. Okay, unlocked I will leave.