by Andy Maslen
Resisting the urge to floor the accelerator and get away from the scrapyard at top speed, Gabriel kept to forty. No sense in picking up a speeding ticket from local law enforcement and having to answer a whole lot of awkward questions. He drove on for another five miles, listening to the women beside and behind him talking in low yet excited tones about their ordeal, which he could tell was already reshaping itself into anecdotal form. Good for them, he thought.
On a narrow stretch of road through a wood composed of birch and spruce, he found a layby and pulled over.
“I need to call someone.”
Gabriel walked a few yards away from the car and called Don. He picked up on the second ring.
“Tell me, Old Sport.”
“It’s all good. I have Sarah and Chloe. They’re both fit and well. Bit grubby, and Chloe’s going to need a decent plastic surgeon, but in good spirits. Four Chechens down, and two ex-Spetsnaz Russians too.”
“Right. I’ll organise a cleanup team. Are you exfiltrated?”
“Five miles from the scrapyard on a bearing roughly north-west from Tartu. Should be plain sailing from here – the Merc’s armoured. Took a whole magazine from an AK and didn’t even lose a windscreen wiper.”
“Extraction point, then. We’ll find somewhere suitable. Keep driving, and I’ll text you the GPS coordinates.”
“OK. We’d better press on. I think we were isolated enough for the firing to go unnoticed but I don’t want to get entangled with the Estonian police.”
“No. On you go, then. I’ll be back in touch.”
Gabriel ended the call and turned to Sarah. “Can you open Don’s text when it arrives please? He’s fixing up your flight home.”
“I’ll do it,” Chloe said.
She reached forward and took the phone then leant back in her seat.
“That was a pretty neat trick you pulled with your own phone,” Gabriel said. “How did you do it?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you? I’m a genius with electronics. I relax by dicking around with quantum computing.”
“Chloe, please!” her mother interrupted.
“Sorry, Mum. I designed a cheeky little circuit that can transmit a super-powerful GPS ping. It was an idea a few of us were working on back at UMIST. Kasym thought he was being clever taking my SIM. But Emmeline works without one.”
“Emmeline?”
“After Emmeline Pankhurst. The suffragette leader? We thought it was a cool name for a gizmo designed to let people know where you stand.”
“Well, it worked brilliantly. I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a tap on the shoulder with a brain like yours.”
Now it was Chloe’s turn to look puzzled. “A what?”
“When they recruit spooks. Spies, you know? It’s what they call it. Shadowy chaps in dark-grey suits and old-school ties loitering around Oxford and Cambridge looking for other chaps they can trust. And chapesses these days.”
“Well, they might have to consider slumming it in Manchester if they want to get their hands on Emmeline, then. Oh, your phone buzzed. Here’s the text. Hold on. OK: fifty-nine degrees, twenty minutes, zero-point-three-two-six north. Twenty-five degrees, fourteen minutes, forty-eight-point-one-zero-nine seconds east.”
“Thanks. Now can you launch an app on there called Recipes?”
“Why? Are you going to cook something for us?”
“Just do it, please. You’ll see.”
There was a pause while Chloe searched for, found and launched the app.
“Oh, wow, how cool is that? It’s some kind of black ops satnav isn’t it?”
“Kind of. Just cut and paste the coordinates into the box and then could you hand it to me?”
Another pause, and then Chloe’s hand snaked between the front headrests and handed Gabriel the phone. He wedged it into a cupholder, and then his shoulders dropped. He felt the tight steel coils around his chest unwinding until he could breathe deeply again. A glance down told him all he needed to know.
“We have about an hour’s driving. I’m going to put my foot down. If you two want to sleep, that’s fine by me.”
“No thanks,” Sarah said. “I’m too excited to sleep. And look at those beautiful trees. I don’t want to miss this. After all, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Estonia.”
Gabriel looked over. The woman was smiling at him.
“When we get back to England, I think I would like to take you out to a very nice restaurant, Gabriel. And your partner, if you have one.”
Gabriel wondered if any woman fitted that description. Not Annie Frears. Not Britta Falskog. Not really.
“I’m single. But yes, I would like that very much.”
“That’s settled then. Though I should probably ask you your surname if we’re to become better acquainted.”
“It’s Wolfe. With an ‘e’.”
“Well, Gabriel Wolfe-with-an-‘e’, I shall spend some time thinking where to take you.”
With shafts of late-afternoon sunlight arrowing down through the pale-green leaves of the birch trees, Gabriel leaned back against the leather seat, and took the Mercedes up to ninety. There was virtually no traffic as they drove back towards Tallinn, just the odd truck or car, maybe twenty in the entire time they were on the road. Despite her protestations, Sarah had fallen asleep. Gabriel glanced to his right and saw her head was canted over at an awkward angle, her right temple resting on the window. In the rear seat, Chloe snored softly, her face in repose like a child’s: unlined, pale complexion showing through the streaks of grime; rounded cheeks, soft, pouting lips. He drove on.
After another three-quarters of an hour, the satnav woke up, and a pleasant female voice told him to turn off the main road. He slowed for the turn and took the sweeping curve of the slip road at a more sensible thirty, before merging onto a single-carriageway country road. It was the end of the mission, and he was exhausted, but he had time and enthusiasm left to admire the countryside: multicoloured fields interspersed with clumps of deep-green woodland. Whether it was pollen or dust blowing off the bone-dry fields, Gabriel couldn’t tell, but the hazy sunshine illuminated the air itself and lit up the white trunks of the birches so they glowed. The hedges flashing by on either side bore swags of white flowers amid the glossy leaves shining in the soft, golden light.
Then, in the distance, he saw a familiar object. As the satnav announced he was approaching his destination, the pale blue-and-black signboard confirmed its conclusion.
You are now entering Amari Air Force Base.
This is a restricted area.
Please stop at gatehouse.
He turned right onto a wide concrete apron in front of a pair of steel gates topped with razor wire, and got out of the car. A soldier wearing a pale-blue NATO beret and carrying an Israeli-made IMI Galil assault rifle over the crook of his arm came up to the gates from the other side. He had three stripes on his upper arms.
“Yes, sir. How can I help you?” A challenge as much as a request.
“My name is Gabriel Wolfe. I believe you’re expecting me?”
The man’s face, so watchful a moment or two before, now broke into a wide grin. “Yes, sir. Wait there while I open the gates.”
Gabriel climbed back into the car as the young sergeant ran back to the gatehouse. Sarah and Chloe were both awake. A few seconds later, the heavy gates swung back on remote-controlled pistons, and clanked into their open position. Gabriel eased the car through the gap, and watched in the mirror as they swung closed behind him.
“Sarah, Chloe, you’re safe.”
Chapter 46
Sarah and Chloe were taken off for hot showers and a meal by a female Estonian lieutenant who spoke flawless, unaccented English. Gabriel sat with Don Webster in the officers’ mess drinking mugs of hot, strong tea.
“Thought I’d pop over and handle things personally, dear boy,” Don said, then blew the surface of his tea. “Jesus! What do they use to make this, a nuclear reactor?”
It wasn’t a very
good joke, but it didn’t need to be. Gabriel laughed, relieved that the mission had been a success. Hostages out, unharmed; himself out, also unharmed, more or less. He had an appointment with the base’s resident trauma surgeon for some work on the stab wound, which had started to throb.
“How are you getting them home?” he asked.
“We’re getting them – and you – home on a chopper across the Gulf of Finland to Stockholm, then you’re booked First Class on a scheduled flight to Heathrow. You should be home by midnight. You called Bryant, so he’s a very happy man. And,” he checked his watch, a battered, silver-faced Timex on a frayed red, white and blue canvas strap, “I would say just about now some very clever, but also very bad Ukrainian scientists are discovering the delights of an MI5 interrogation suite. Gulliver has been temporarily suspended, but we secured the parallel batch of clean pills, so Farnborough’s going to be fine. Which just leaves you.”
Don leaned back in his chair, careful not to spill any of the irradiated tea, and watched Gabriel over the rim of the mug as he blew on it again. Gabriel looked at the man who had sent him into battle all over the world. Tried to read what was behind those grey, crinkled eyes. Failed.
“Which just leaves me. I know you want me to go back to England straight away . . .”
“But?” The older man waited for Gabriel to speak again.
“But there are a couple of loose ends I need to tie up here. It won’t take long. Maybe until tomorrow morning.”
“Listen Old Sport, after what you’ve just accomplished, if you need to kiss a girl goodbye or give someone a hiding, that’s your business.”
How did you know? We used to joke you were psychic but that was a little too close for comfort.
“Nobody has any further calls on your time. I’ll be here until tomorrow, so let me know when you’re ready and we’ll fly you out pronto.”
“Thanks, Don.”
“And you’ll find, the next time you log on to your bank, there’s a rather tidy sum of money sitting there for you that wasn’t there when you left England. Your fee from us and a bonus paid personally by James Bryant.”
*
An hour later, Gabriel was sitting in the Merc on a deserted industrial estate three miles east of Tallinn. He had Erik’s phone in his hand. All but one of the outbound calls were to the same contact: Yuri. He tapped the text icon by the number and began the message, the Cyrillic characters on the virtual keyboard no problem whatsoever.
Chechens dead. Hostages and Fox dead too. Chechen-style. Have souvenirs. Out of gas. Rastvallu Business Centre car park. Need ride, bring money.
Gabriel pressed Send, then waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Thirty seconds later, the phone vibrated in his hand.
Good. You did well. There in 30 mins. Next time fill tank BEFORE leaving the job.
Gabriel went round to the back of the car and pulled open the tailgate by the handle, too impatient to wait for the electric motors to do their work.
He took what was left of the C-4, moulded it into a ball, then got onto his belly and squeezed under the car. Grunting with the effort, he wriggled his way between the floor pan and the gritty ground, wedging the grey lump behind the gearbox above the prop shaft. Then he pushed the radio detonator supplied by Yuri himself into the lower surface of the explosive. He flicked the tiny switch to arm it then crawled backwards to get out, watching the red LED winking its “ready and waiting” message at him.
With the radio trigger in his hand, he walked away from the Merc, locking it with the remote as he went. The sunlight was fading fast, but there was no chance Yuri would see the LED, it was too well hidden. An alley between two dilapidated factory buildings offered the perfect place of concealment, and he sat with his back against a wall, buried in the shadows, with a clear line of sight to the Mercedes.
The dusk faded to night, but there were no streetlamps on the vast expanse of tarmac to reveal his position. He wiped his palm across his face, the oily, plastic smell of the C-4 catching in the back of his throat.
Then, in the distance, a familiar yowling engine note. Of course, what other car would a Russian gangster drive but a Ferrari? The white-blue headlamps of the car swept across the deserted space as Volkov drove onto the tarmac and pulled up a hundred yards away from the Mercedes.
Cautious. Even with your own men. Good for you. You sent them to kill the people I was rescuing, and me too. I’d be cautious in your shoes.
There was enough light pollution from Tallinn’s streetlamps, pink against a hazy night sky, to reveal the car as a white FF, Ferrari’s only four-seater. Volkov emerged. He sauntered towards the Mercedes, no doubt enjoying making his dimwitted lieutenants wait for their lift home, maybe planning a few choice words about efficiency.
Volkov was halfway to the Mercedes. Then he stopped and took his phone out. The phone in Gabriel’s pocket buzzed against his hip. He fumbled it out and checked the screen.
Why no lights?
Gabriel’s mind raced to come up with an answer. His fingers flew over the screen.
Konstantin asleep. I’m tired, too.
Gabriel watched as Volkov shook his head, pocketed his phone and resumed his march towards the Mercedes. He was within thirty yards now.
Gabriel’s thumb flicked the cover from the red ‘Fire’ button.
Twenty yards.
Gabriel closed the pad of his thumb over the greasy plastic circle.
Ten.
Five.
“This is for Astrid,” he whispered.
Chapter 47
Gabriel saw the vermillion flash first. Then the crack and boom of the explosion hit him with physical force. He squeezed his eyes shut as what had been a five-tonne armoured Mercedes flew outwards in a hemispherical cloud of shrapnel. The larger pieces of wreckage – doors, body panels, transmission, engine, running gear – travelled hardly at all. Mostly, they were mangled by the blast where they stood. But the windows, the interior and thousands of smaller components, from wires to fuel filters, hurtled upwards before obeying gravity and spattering the ground in a hail of red-hot metal, glass splinters and molten plastic.
Gabriel opened his eyes and looked towards the wreck. A cloud of black smoke rolled around itself as it climbed a hundred or so feet into the air. The remains of the car were burning fiercely, sending flames and showers of multicoloured sparks out as different materials ignited or exploded. He waited, as the harsh, greasy smell of the fire drifted over him on the breeze.
Then with a dull crump, the petrol tank blew, the orange fireball sending green afterimages dancing across Gabriel’s retinas.
Gabriel ran over to the burning mess of tangled metal. Of Volkov, there was no sign. Or not precisely no sign. Lying ten feet apart were a pair of blackened Gucci loafers, their snaffle bit decorations distorted into golden pretzels by the intense heat of the blast.
Gabriel smiled grimly and nodded his head.
Knowing that even on an abandoned industrial site like this one, there would be a police and fire presence shortly, Gabriel sprinted for the Ferrari. Thanks to Volkov’s instinct for the potential double-cross, it was parked far enough away to be untouched by the explosion. He slid into the scarlet leather seat, turned the key and thumbed the starter button. To his right, lying flat on the passenger seat was a black, crocodile-skin briefcase with gold furniture. He pressed the small circular button beneath the handle. The latches popped open with a muted clack, revealing bricks of green hundred-euro notes encircled by duck-egg-blue paper bands.
He flipped the paddle behind the steering wheel to engage first gear and pulled away, heading back into Tallinn.
Five minutes later, he stopped at a green traffic light to let a screaming convoy of police cars and fire engines shoot across in front of him, on their way to the industrial estate.
His first stop was at his hotel. Ten minutes later, he was packed, checked out and back in the FF. He called Astrid.
“Hello?”
“Hi Astrid, it’s Gabriel.”
“Hey, where have you been? You were missed, you know.”
“Tartu. Are you working tonight?”
“Yes. Till three. You want to get together afterwards?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to leave.”
“Leave what? The bar?”
“No. Estonia. I found the women I told you about. I’m leaving tonight. But I have something for you. Maybe it will help Joonas a bit too. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”
*
Gabriel parked in a side street and left the keys in the ignition. He grabbed the briefcase from the passenger seat and set off for Jonny Rocketz.
There was a new guy on the door. Silvi had gone back to the tried and tested model: six-five, made out of girders and cement, shaved head, jutting jaw, narrowed eyes. Gabriel nodded at the man and pushed his way into the bar. It was a noisy night. Silvi had installed a karaoke machine, and a paralytically drunk woman of maybe thirty-five or six was staring fixedly at the TV screen in front of her and howling into a metallic blue microphone.
He shouldered his way through the audience and found a space at the bar. Astrid was pouring a pint for a heavily tattooed guy with a huge ginger beard and thick-rimmed, black glasses. She saw him, and then turned back to her customer to take his money and give him change from the till. She came over to Gabriel.
“I knew you were too good to be true,” she said. “And I really liked you.”
“I’m sorry, Astrid. But work’s work, I’m afraid, and my work here is finished. Look, I can’t stay but I’ve got something for you. Meet me at the end of the bar.”
Astrid waved a hand to the other bartender, a muscly guy in white T-shirt and bleach-washed jeans.
“Hey, Marek, cover for me for a minute, OK?” she shouted.
He rolled his eyes, then smiled and flapped his hand: “Go! Go!”
