The door flew open and…
Instead of Sergei, instead of Mamon, instead of any Russian-speaking mafioso I had been expecting, there stood before me the well-built, clean-shaven, immaculate pretty boy Jurgen – Hans’s chief assistant. He was also the chief security specialist in Hans’s outfit. From behind his back peered a dolled-up Magda.
– Well, – muttered Jurgen under his breath. – A rendezvous with the Motherland has deprived somebody of his brains.
Then he turned to Magda and said:
– Translate that we know this man. The problem connected with him and his statements will be resolved in the near future.
Magda translated from German into Russian. Sergei, who had come into the room third and therefore gone unnoticed at first, flashed his glasses joyfully.
Jurgen waited for the end of the translation and continued:
– What has he done here?
Magda translated again, and Sergei immediately informed on me:
– Blew up the garage and destroyed three cars. A Cadillac Fleetwood, a Chevrolet Blazer and a Volga.
Jurgen, having heard the translation, looked at me in surprise. He seemed to smile faintly at the corners of his mouth. Then he shifted his gaze to Magda. She answered him with a quick lift of an eyebrow. What are they winking at each other about?
– Magda, tell them that now they can satisfy themselves as to the reliability of our warnings. This man is the main strike force of the competitors, whom we shall endeavour to neutralise.
What rubbish is he talking? I opened my mouth, but Jurgen, cutting across the translation, continued in German, incomprehensible to the locals:
– Arbalet. If you want to live, keep quiet and act as though you don’t know us.
And all the while Jurgen didn’t take his eyes off Sergei, as though it were he who was Arbalet and he who needed to play the hunchbacked stranger in order to preserve his life.
Magda, having fallen silent for a couple of seconds, resumed her translation. I set about working it out: What does all this mean?