True Colours ss-10

by Stephen Leather

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.’

  ‘Has to be that way, Jock. We’ll only get one go at this and it has to be done right.’

  Podolski pressed the doorbell and tidied her hair, her crash helmet tucked under her arm. The door opened and Max Barsky grinned at her like a lovesick schoolboy. It was clear from the moment he’d first seen her that he fancied her, especially as they were both from the Ukraine. He was a nice enough boy, but at twenty-three, that was what he was, a boy. And Podolski preferred men. ‘Alina, come in,’ he said, stepping to the side. ‘The place is a bit of a mess, I had hardly any time to tidy up.’

  ‘You need a woman to take care of you,’ she said, patting him on the arm as she walked by him.

  ‘So what was so urgent that you needed to see me before the shift?’ he asked.

  She put her crash helmet on a table in the hallway and turned to face him. ‘What do you think?’ she said, and smiled.

  Barsky frowned, not understanding, but as Podolski unzipped her leather motorcycle jacket, a smile slowly spread across his face. ‘Are you serious?’ he asked, unable to believe his luck.

  He took a step towards her, forgetting that the door behind him was still open. Monotok stepped into the hallway and brought the butt of his gun down on the back of Barsky’s head. He fell to the ground without a sound. Monotok put the gun away and closed the door, before dragging Barsky into a cramped sitting room that stank of stale pizza and sweat.

  He took a handful of long plastic ties from a backpack and gave them to Podolski. ‘Do his ankles,’ he said. ‘One’s enough but use three or four. Then find something to gag him with.’

  As Podolski began to bind Barsky’s ankles with the plastic ties, Monotok reached into the backpack again and pulled out a pair of rubber-handled secateurs. Podolski grimaced. ‘Is there no other way?’ she asked.

  Monotok grinned cruelly. ‘It’s a bit late to worry about that now, my love,’ he said. He knelt down next to the unconscious man and lifted up his right hand. Podolski turned her head and closed her eyes as Monotok slotted the blades of the pruning shears either side of the thumb. He pressed hard and there was a crunch like a stick of celery being broken and blood spurted across the carpet. ‘See,’ said Monotok as the severed thumb fell away. ‘It didn’t hurt a bit.’

  ‘There you go,’ said McIntyre, placing the two home-made suppressors on the kitchen table. He’d made the two suppressors from plastic Evian bottles packed with Brillo pads. A clear tube made from the tops of bottles formed a passage for the bullets through the bottle, and the wire wool would absorb most of the sound of the round firing.

  Shortt picked one of them up and nodded appreciatively. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘I hope you cleaned up after yourself?’

  ‘All the waste is in a carrier bag in your garage,’ he said. ‘We can burn it with the rest of the stuff.’

  Shortt gestured at the two Makarov pistols on the table. ‘And we use duct tape to fasten them to the guns?’

  ‘Duct tape works just fine. It’ll be good for two or three shots and that’s all we’ll need.’

  The doorbell rang and both men jumped. Shortt grinned shamefacedly. ‘If it was the wife, she wouldn’t ring the bell,’ he said. He went to open the front door. It was Harper. The white van was parked in the street outside.

  ‘Hey, hey, the gang’s all here,’ said Harper.

  ‘Come on in, mate,’ said Shortt. ‘We’ve got time for a coffee before we head off to meet Spider.’

  The gate opened and Podolski waved at Thomas Lisko in the guardhouse. He waved back. She looked to her left, where Monotok was at the wheel of Barsky’s car. Because she had stopped the bike close to the driver’s door Barsky wasn’t able to see who was driving. As the car moved forward, Podolski matched its speed, keeping herself between the car and the guardhouse.

  As they approached the garage the doors rattled up and Podolski accelerated and led the car down into the parking area. The gate closed behind them.

  Podolski drove over to the far end of the parking area and climbed off the bike. Monotok reversed into a parking space and switched off the engine. Podolski removed her crash helmet and put it on one of the bike’s mirrors. She smiled at Monotok. She wanted to go over and kiss him but she knew that he wouldn’t open the window in case anyone was watching on the CCTV. He winked and reclined his seat so that he was almost horizontal.

  She flashed him a smile and started walking to the security centre, her heart racing. She took deep breaths to calm herself down, one hand holding the shoulder strap of her backpack.

  She took off the glove on her right hand and pressed her thumb against the sensor, then tapped in her security code. Vlad Molchanov was sitting in front of the CCTV monitors. As the door opened he hurriedly switched off his iPad but not before Podolski caught a glimpse of naked flesh. She couldn’t tell whether it was male or female. ‘So what’s happening, Vlad?’ she asked.

  ‘Mr Grechko’s in the pool. He just went in. Dmitry’s in the gym with Leo. Konstantin’s in the library doing the lie detector thing.’

  ‘Where’s Boris?’

  ‘In here!’ called Volkov from the briefing room. ‘Glad you made it, I’m gasping for a cup of coffee.’

  ‘I was just about to offer,’ said Podolski. She put her backpack on the floor, then slipped off her motorcycle jacket and hung it on the coat rack by the door. ‘Where’s Tony?’

  ‘The library. He’s in on all the lie detector tests. You know they want you in there this evening?’

  ‘Yeah, Dmitry told me yesterday.’

  ‘They’re doing Konstantin then one of the kitchen workers and then you.’ He frowned. ‘What happened to Max?’

  Podolski froze. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He came in with you, right? Where is he?’

  Podolski forced a smile. ‘He went to see the chef. Said he hadn’t eaten all day.’

  Molchanov chuckled. ‘He’s always eating, that lad. He’ll be as big as a house soon.’

  Podolski went over to the coffee machine and made three coffees. Volkov was engrossed in a bodybuilding magazine so didn’t notice as she took the small plastic vial from her pocket and poured the contents equally into two of the mugs. Both Volkov and Molchanov took two sugars in their coffee so she spooned it in and stirred vigorously. Monotok had told her that the drug was tasteless, fast acting, and would render them unconscious for at least eight hours.

  She put one of the mugs down in front of Volkov and he thanked her with a grunt. She took the other two mugs through into the outer room and gave one to Molchanov. She sat down and sipped her coffee as she looked at the CCTV screens. On one she could see Barsky’s car. The lights reflecting off the windscreen meant she couldn’t see Monotok, but she knew that he was there. Waiting.

  Lex Harper looked at his watch for the hundredth time. It was coming up for six. ‘He’ll be here,’ said Shortt. They were sitting in the white Transit van in the car park on top of the Whiteley’s shopping centre in Bayswater. They had arranged to meet Shepherd there at just after six.

  ‘He’s always on time,’ said McIntyre. He was sitting in the back of the van on the floor. Next to him was a holdall containing the two revolvers and the two Russian pistols with the home-made suppressors now attached with duct tape.

  ‘He’ll be here,’ said Shortt. ‘Stop worrying.’

  Monotok took slow, deep breaths, preparing himself mentally for what was to come. In his right hand he was holding a SIG Sauer P227. It was one of his favourite handguns, a high-powered, high-capacity pistol that took.45 ACP rounds and held ten in the clip. In his left hand he held a pair of ATN PVS7 night vision goggles, standard issue to US Army ground troops. They weighed just one and a half pounds and were powered by two AA batteries that would sustain the unit for at least ten hours. The gun was to take care of any of Grechko’s security team who tried to get in his way. When he finally came face to face with Grechko, he wouldn’t be using the gun. He’d be using th
e hunting knife in a nylon scabbard on his belt.

  There was a dull thud from the briefing room, followed by the sound of a mug hitting the floor and shattering. Podolski looked over and through the open door she saw Volkov slumped over the table. ‘What was that?’ said Molchanov, slurring his words. He put a hand up to his face. ‘I feel funny.’

  Podolski stood up. ‘Are you OK?’

  Molchanov frowned as if he was having trouble hearing her. He pushed himself up out of the chair but then all the strength went from his legs and he slumped down. Within seconds he was snoring heavily. Podolski hurried over to her backpack. She put it on the desk under the CCTV monitors and unzipped it. She took out a matt black box the size of a laptop computer and screwed in four rubber-covered aerials of differing sizes, the smallest the size of a cigarette, the largest the size of a fountain pen.

  She took it through to the briefing room, where Volkov was sprawled over the table. There were pieces of broken mug and a small pool of coffee on the floor. Podolski placed the jammer on a chair and switched it on. Four green lights winked on. She took out her mobile phone and looked at the screen. For several moments nothing happened, then one by one the signal bars disappeared. The jammer was powerful enough to kill all mobile phone signals within a hundred yards or more, enough to cover the whole house. And its battery was powerful enough to keep it going for at least three hours, which would be more than enough time for Monotok to do what he had to do.

  She went back to her backpack and took out a pair of secateurs. They were the ones that Monotok had used to cut off Barsky’s thumb and there was still blood on the blades. She headed for the door. First she had to cut the phone lines, then she had to come back to deal with the power, exactly as Monotok had told her.

  Shortt looked over at Harper, who was tapping his gloved hands on the steering wheel again. ‘Lex, mate, will you relax,’ he said.

  ‘He’s late,’ said Harper.

  ‘He’s not late,’ said Shortt. ‘And even if he was, we’ve plenty of time. We don’t want to get there early and be sitting in the car park too long. We want to get there just before Khan leaves.’

  ‘What if something’s happened?’

  Shortt sighed. ‘If something’s happened, he’ll call.’

  ‘I’m going to check, just to make sure,’ said Harper. He reached into his pocket and took out a Nokia mobile.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ said Shortt when he saw the phone. ‘No mobiles, remember?’

  ‘Relax, Jimbo. My phone’s in my hotel. This one’s a throwaway that we’ve used to mark the place where we’re going to dump the body.’ He switched on the phone. Shortt put up his hand to acknowledge his mistake. ‘I know what I’m doing, Jimbo. Don’t panic.’ Harper grinned. He tapped out Shepherd’s number but frowned as it went straight through to voicemail. ‘His phone’s off.’

  ‘He’s probably on his way,’ said Shortt. ‘We’ve got time.’

  Harper switched off the phone and sat tapping it against his knee. He looked at his watch again. ‘I just want to get it done,’ he said.

  ‘We all do,’ said McIntyre.

  Podolski sat back on her heels and looked at the fuse box in front of her. She had opened the metal panel in the briefing room to reveal the wires and fuses that controlled the power and lighting in the house. She took a folded sheet of A4 paper from her pocket. It was a photograph of the fuse box. She had used her Samsung phone to take several pictures of the box a few days earlier and Monotok had blown them up and spent hours analysing them before marking on one of the pictures which wires she had to cut and which fuses she had to trip.

  It was important that some of the circuits remained live — Monotok needed the thumb sensors to be working so that he could move around, and they needed the gate to be working so that they could make their escape. But they had to cut the power to the CCTV cameras, the lights and the lifts.

  She looked at the photograph, then began to cut the wires.

  The lights went out, plunging the car park into darkness. Monotok smiled to himself. He switched on the night vision goggles and slid the strap around his head and adjusted the fit. He could see everything clearly, albeit with a greenish tinge. He opened the car door and got out and headed for the security centre. The door to the driver’s room opened and one of the drivers, Yulian Chayka, stood in the doorway. ‘What happened to the lights?’ he shouted into the darkness in Russian. ‘Is anybody there? What the hell’s going on?’ He was waving his hand in front of his face. The darkness was absolute and Monotok knew that Chayka could see nothing.

  The keypad to the side of the security centre door was still glowing. The power had to be on for the doors to open so he had been very specific what fuses Podolski had to pull and which she had to leave in place.

  As he reached the door, he slid the gun into the pocket of his jacket and took out a small plastic bag containing Barsky’s bloody thumb. He pressed the thumb against the sensor and tapped in the four-digit code that Podolski had given him. The door clicked open and he put the thumb back into the bag and into his pocket.

  He pushed the door open and stepped into the room. She was sitting in one of the high-backed chairs, facing him. Molchanov was slumped in his chair, unconscious.

  She smiled, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. ‘It worked,’ she said. ‘It worked perfectly.’ She stood up and held out her arms. ‘Say something, it’s spooky in the dark.’

  ‘I’m here,’ said Monotok.

  She smiled, moving her head from side to side as if that would help her see. Monotok looked to the left. All the monitors were blank.

  ‘What about Volkov?’

  ‘In the other room. Out for the count.’

  ‘And Grechko’s still in the pool?’

  ‘That’s where he was when the lights went out.’

  ‘And Popov?’

  ‘In the gym with Leo. The only man down on Basement Three with Grechko is Ivan.’ She waggled her hands. ‘Give me a hug, I want to feel you.’

  Monotok smiled and walked towards her. He avoided her hands and walked slowly around her. She continued to waggle her hands in the direction of where she thought he was.

  She took a step forward and he moved behind her.

  ‘Kirill, come on, stop messing me about.’

  Monotok put his hands on her hips and she stiffened, then relaxed. She ground her hips back, pressing herself against him. He ran his hands up her sides and caressed her breasts. She reached behind her with her right hand and rubbed his groin.

  ‘Why don’t you hammer me in the dark?’ she said, as she felt him grow hard. ‘How sexy would that be?’ She ground against him again, harder this time.

  Monotok chuckled and slid his gloved hands up to her shoulders. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said.

  ‘Crazy for you,’ she said. ‘Come on, baby, hammer me. Hammer me good.’

  He put his hands either side of her head as she pressed herself against him. He slid his left hand up on to her head, his right hand under her chin, then he pulled hard, twisting her head to the right, hearing a loud crack and feeling the vertebra snap away from her skull. He felt her turn into a dead weight and he stepped back as she slumped to the floor.

  He bent down and pulled the Bluetooth earpiece from her ear then lifted up her jacket and pulled the transceiver off her belt. ‘Consider yourself hammered,’ he whispered.

  Harper tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, then looked at his watch. ‘This is not good, guys,’ he said. ‘We can’t sit here all night. We have to make a decision.’

  ‘He could be tied up in the house,’ said McIntyre. He stretched out his legs and they banged against the two shovels in the back of the van. ‘He’s organising lie detector tests for the staff.’

  ‘He could have changed his mind,’ said Harper.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Shortt. ‘He wouldn’t and even if he did he’d have let us know. Something’s happened, he’ll get in touch.’

  ‘Yeah, but
that leaves us sitting here with four guns and our thumbs up our arses,’ said Harper. He banged the steering wheel with the flat of his right hand. ‘Guys, it’s time to shit or get off the pot.’

  ‘Do it without him, you mean?’ asked McIntyre.

  ‘I don’t see that we’ve got any choice, do you? If we get caught with those guns we go down for ten years.’

  ‘He’ll be coming,’ said Shortt.

  ‘Then he’ll be too late,’ said Harper. He tapped his watch with his finger. ‘We’ve got just enough time to get to Shepherd’s Bush and pick him up. If we leave it any later we’ll miss him.’

  ‘Then we’ll do it tomorrow,’ Shortt said.

  ‘Jimbo, the hole’s dug. We’re all geared up for doing this now. Every day we leave it is another day we can get caught. Do you want your wife and kids visiting you in prison?’

  Shortt sighed and looked at his own watch as if he hoped it would show a different time to Harper’s. ‘Screw it,’ he said. ‘Try his phone again.’

  Harper took his Nokia out of his pocket and switched it on.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ asked Shortt as Harper waited for the phone to power up.

  ‘It’s counter-surveillance 101,’ said Harper. ‘Whenever your phone is on you’re vulnerable. They can track you and they can listen in.’

  ‘Who can?’

  Harper tapped the side of his nose with his finger. ‘Dark forces, mate,’ he said. He tapped out Shepherd’s number and once again it went straight through to voicemail. ‘It’s still off,’ he said. ‘Look, I say we go ahead. The three of us.’

  ‘I’m up for it,’ said McIntyre.

  ‘Jimbo?’ said Harper. ‘This has to be unanimous. The three musketeers and all that. We’re primed, we’re ready to go. Just say the word.’

  Shortt sighed and then slowly nodded. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’

  Shepherd stood by the window, looking out over the grounds as Lee continued to ask questions of Serov. Serov was the twelfth member of staff to be questioned, the fifth bodyguard, and Shepherd had sat in on all the sessions. Lee switched easily between English and Russian, and while Shepherd couldn’t understand the Russian bits he could tell that Lee spoke the language with a strong Newcastle accent. Shepherd had spotted Lee’s technique early on. There were basically three types of questions. There were irrelevant questions which were used solely to establish a baseline and they usually involved the examiner asking something like ‘the sky is blue, true or false’ or ‘when water freezes it turns into ice, true or false’. They were simple questions to which everyone knew the answers so lying was out of the question.