Skeleton Key

thumb forming an 0. “That is the signal that our business has been successfully concluded. Start the engine at that time. We don‟t want to stay here one second longer than we have to.”
    They got out of the plane. There was a thin layer of gravel on the runway which crunched beneath their combat boots as they walked round the side to the cargo door. They could feel the sullen heat in the air, the heaviness of the night sky. The island seemed to be holding its breath.
    Carlo reached up and opened a door. In the back of the plane was a black container, about one metre by two. With difficulty, he and Marc lowered it to the ground.
    The younger man looked up. The lights on the landing strip dazzled him but he could just make out a figure standing still as a statue beside the jeep, waiting for them to approach. He hadn‟t moved since the plane had landed. “Why doesn‟t he come to us?” he asked.
    Carlo spat and said nothing.
    There were two handles, one on either side of the container. The two men carried it between them, walking awkwardly, bending over their load. It took them a long time to reach the jeep.
    But at last they were there. For a second time, they set the box down.
    Carlo straightened up, rubbing his palms on the side of his jeans. “Good evening, General,” he said. He was speaking in English. This was not his native language. Nor was it the general‟s. But it was the only language they had in common.
    “Good evening.” The general did not bother with names that he knew would be false anyway.
    “You had no trouble getting here?”
    “No trouble at all, General.”
    “You have it?”
    “One kilogram of weapons grade uranium. Sufficient to build a bomb powerful enough to destroy a city. I would be interested to know which city you have in mind.”
    General Alexei Sarov took a step forward and the lights from the runway illuminated him. He was not a big man, yet there was something about him that radiated power and control. He still carried with him his years in the army. They could be seen in his close-cut, iron grey hair, his watchful pale blue eyes, his almost emotionless face. They were there in the very way he carried himself. He was perfectly poised; relaxed and wary at the same time. General Sarov was sixty-two years old but looked twenty years younger. He was dressed in a dark suit, a white stmt and a narrow dark blue tie. In the damp heat of the evening, his clothes should have been creased.
    He should have been sweating. But to look at him, he could have just stepped out of an air-conditioned room.
    He crouched down beside the container, at the same time producing a small device from his pocket. It looked like a car cigarette lighter with a dial attached. He found a socket in the side of the box and plugged the device in. Briefly, he examined the dial. He nodded. It was satisfactory.
    “You have the rest of the money?” Carlo asked.
    “Of course.” The general straightened up and walked over to the jeep. Carlo and Marc tensed themselves—this was the moment when he might produce a gun. But when he turned round he was holding a black leather attaché-case. He flicked the locks and opened it. The case was filled with banknotes: one hundred dollar bills neatly banded together in packets of fifty. One hundred packets in all. A total of half a million dollars. More money than Carlo had ever seen in his life.
    But still not enough.
    “We‟ve had a problem,” Carlo said.
    “Yes?” Sarov did not sound surprised.
    Marc could feel the sweat as it drew a comma down the side of his neck. A mosquito was whining in his ear but he resisted the urge to slap it. This was what he had been waiting for. He was standing a few steps away, his hands hanging limply by his side. Slowly, he allowed them to creep behind him, closer to the concealed gun. He glanced at the ruined buildings. One might once have been a control tower. The other looked like a customs shed. Both of them were broken and empty, the brickwork crumbling, the windows smashed. Could there be someone hiding there? No. The thermal intensifier would have shown them. They were alone.
    “The cost of the uranium.” Carlo shrugged. “Our friend in Miami sends his apologies. But there are new security systems all over the world. Smuggling—particularly this sort of thing—has become much more difficult. And that‟s meant extra expense.”
    “How much extra expense?”
    “A quarter of a million dollars.”
    “That‟s