by Andy McNab
Lena’s voice got louder as I liberated her from my pocket and put her to my ear. ‘Yep. All good here.’
The whippet sat on the floor, arms hugging her knees against her chest, back against the black-leather sofa. She wasn’t the slightest bit embarrassed about being naked. I guessed that was part of the job spec.
‘Lena, tell this woman that everything’s going to be all right. She’ll be safe as long as she does what she’s told. I’m not here to hurt her.’
‘Is she OK?’ She sounded more concerned about the whippet’s welfare than mine.
‘She’s more than OK. She doesn’t look like one of your victims. I’m passing the mobile to her now …’
The iPhone disappeared under the mass of hair. I picked up one or two Moldovan mumbles. Diminetz was all ears. Saliva oozed out of his mouth and down his chin to merge with the blood streaming from where I’d whacked him with the tumbler. His chest rose and fell as he fought for air.
She handed the phone back and said something to Diminetz. I could have stopped her but maybe what she’d said would be good.
‘You’re right. That one is no victim.’
‘This is what I want you to tell Diminetz …’
He raised his head at the mention of his name. I couldn’t see his eyes in the gloom, but I was sure they were trying to burn into the upstart he could see towering above him.
‘Tell him I’m going to ask him some questions, and that we’ll both be much happier if he answers. Because if he doesn’t try to make sense, I’m going to kill him.’
‘You can’t! That wasn’t what we agreed! I can’t be part of anything that—’
‘Just tell him, OK? I want to scare the shit out of him. That way he’ll save his own life, and he might very well save Katya’s. Tell him that once I find out where she is I’ll go. No one has to know the information came from him.’
Lena was still flapping. ‘Nick, no killing. I will not be part of it.’
‘I’m not going to do it. I just want him to think I am.’
I lowered the phone and shoved it against his ear. He answered Lena in pissed-off mode but managed to hold his temper. His head came up again and I pulled away. I couldn’t see if the good-cop-bad-cop routine had worked.
I switched on the bedside light. They both blinked and the whippet buried her head between her knees so a curtain of hair fell across her face. But not Diminetz: he seized the opportunity to size me up.
He wouldn’t have noticed me in the bar, but he certainly recognized me now.
I looked into his bulging eyes. ‘Yeah, that’s right, mate. The one in the photograph.’ I didn’t care if he understood or not. I just wanted to rattle him some more.
I got back on the iPhone to Lena. ‘What did he say?’
12
‘He said why should he tell you anything. What’s to stop you killing him anyway? Why would you let him live, so he can warn people you’re looking for her? Why would he do that?’
He stared at me as I listened. There wasn’t a trace of fear in his eyes, just sheer pragmatism. That was impressive. Maybe Frank had been wrong: maybe Diminetz wasn’t destined to remain in the gutter after all.
My eyes drilled into him. ‘Tell him I’m not here to kill him. I’m here to collect Katya. If he doesn’t tell me what I need to know, I’ll find her eventually anyway. And I’ll make sure that when I do I’ll tell any fucker in this city who’s in the mood to listen that he gave me the information. Tell him I guarantee he’ll be fucked. He’s got a good thing going at the moment, why spoil it?’
I stared at him, unblinking, throughout. He caught the tone of my voice. When I handed the phone back to him, he listened without looking up. He stared across the room instead. His lips curled into a smile as he waffled back.
‘What did he say?’
‘She’s already out of the country. He said you should feel happy that she’s gone. Otherwise you and your wife would be in even more danger than you are now.’ She didn’t pause for breath. ‘Nick, what’s happening? Anna? You never said—’
‘I’ll explain it all later. Did he say where she was?’
‘All he knows is that they took her to the airport and put her on a flight to Frankfurt, then on to Hong Kong. They told her someone called Soapy would be waiting for her. Nick, she could be anywhere by now. Soapy could be a broker. You need to tell me what is happening. Is Anna in danger?’
I took a breath. ‘That’s what I’m here for, to make sure she isn’t.’
‘Maybe it’s because she’s Hispanic. Maybe they need a specific tissue match.’
‘Ask him.’
Diminetz sparked up, jerking his head towards the phone. I held it against his ear again and he sounded as though he’d switched into Samaritan mode.
‘Nick, he says he has the Hong Kong number on his cell.’
Diminetz muttered something to the whippet, then looked at me for permission to get her moving.
‘Nick, all he wants is to get this over and done with. He will forget the whole thing if you will.’
I nodded at the whippet and watched her go over to Diminetz’s bedside cabinet. ‘He says this is not only bad for business, it’s very embarrassing. And he said—’
I watched her and I thought: Shit, there’s no mobile.
I turned to dive into the hallway as the whippet spun back towards me with a pistol screaming whatever the Moldovan was for You fucker!
The first round kicked off and she screamed and stood, arms at full stretch, firing rapid and uncontrolled shots. The TV took a round, then the mirror above it.
There were two more shots, one of which hit the radiator.
As soon as I reached the cover of the hallway, I checked behind me. Pressurized water was spraying across the room. By the time it reached the rug it had turned a deep shade of crimson. Diminetz had taken a round in the chest and he wasn’t fighting. His legs were still.
The whippet had stopped firing but she continued shrieking like a witch.
Then I heard Lena scream too.
I shoved the iPhone into my jacket pocket. The front door was being rammed hard enough from the corridor to part it from its frame but the wedge and safety latch were doing their jobs. They would keep the BG at bay for a while. I flung open the bathroom door and almost flew out of the window onto the roof of the first-floor veranda, taking time only to make sure my feet were lower than my head.
I slid off it, landing hard on the wooden deck of the terrace a couple of metres below me, closely followed by a shower of slate splinters. I lay there for a second, making sure nothing was broken, then scrambled up and stumbled into a run. I headed out into the darkness of the park with Lena still yelling in my pocket.
13
Hotel Cosmos, Negruzzi Square
03.18 hrs
I stood in the Cosmos service alley, back in a world I’d thought I’d never inhabit again – hiding in the shadows, shivering in the damp and cold. For one reason or another, I seemed to have done that my whole life.
It still felt OK, it still felt comfortable – which was strange, because it wasn’t as if I needed to do this shit for a living any more. Anna and I weren’t short of cash – not enough for a yacht, but enough to get by on; enough to last quite a while if we were smart about it. After that, who knew? I wasn’t going to worry about it until I had to.
When I was younger, I always thought that having a big wad was all you needed. When I did get a couple of serious paydays, I hadn’t really known what to do with it. A motorbike, maybe some new trainers, was as far as it went for me. But with Anna and our son I needed a cleverer plan, and hanging about in the dark in places like this wasn’t part of it.
I’d decided to learn Russian; I’d even bought some labels to stick on everyday objects around the house so I could start getting the hang of it. We wanted our boy to be bilingual: English inside the house, Russian everywhere else. That meant the two of us could learn together – and that meant I had to be there.
That had been my
plan, anyway. Now I wasn’t too sure that it was Anna’s.
I also wasn’t sure whether I was hiding from the police or a limo full of heavyweight BG. If the whippet had stuck around, she’d keep her mouth shut: she didn’t look the sort to cave in easily. But she might well have followed me out of the window. The way the BG would see it, the safety latch was across the door, their boss had been shot, and she was holding the smoking gun. Would they believe her story about a mystery intruder? They might do when they found the bits of broken slate on the terrace. I was pretty sure the BG wouldn’t call the police, but who knew what they got up to in this fucked-up country?
I got out the iPhone. It was a while before Anna answered. ‘It’s me.’ I heard the rustle of sheets and bedclothes as she sat up, and the gentle bleep of the life support doing its stuff in the background. ‘Are the lads still there?’
She sighed. ‘One of them is here all the time. It’s the Asian guy at the moment. Don’t they ever sleep?’
‘I hope not. They’ve got a job to do. So do I.’ I explained what I’d found out, and that Diminetz had been shot dead by his girlfriend, and what the next step had to be. ‘Hong Kong.’
Anna was silent for a few seconds. ‘Straight away?’
‘I need your help. Can you book me a flight out of here ASAP – the first plane out in the morning?’
‘I’ll get online.’
‘Wait out …’
A group of six or seven men in leather jackets and long coats walked past the end of the alleyway. Their heels clicked on the wet cobblestones. They weren’t looking for me. By the sound of it, all they were interested in was the odd moan about life and the share of a cigarette. The night brought out all sorts of wildlife in the city.
I gave it another five seconds before getting back on the iPhone. ‘As well as the flight, can you also book a hotel? A five-star. I need to look like I have cash to splash.’
She was totally awake now. ‘Sure.’
‘Can you find out Katya’s blood type?’
I could hear the keys rattle on her laptop. ‘I’ll try.’
‘How’s the boy?’
‘He’s fine. He’s putting on weight.’ More rattling. ‘OK, I’ve got Frankfurt at zero six oh five and …’ The keys went into warp speed.
‘I was told Katya went direct from there.’
‘Correct. Direct to Hong Kong.’
‘Perfect. But don’t send me anything until I call you from the airport.’
‘OK.’
I closed down reluctantly and deleted the log. It was good to have her at the end of the line. Not for all the PA stuff but because, well, for now at least, she was there.
14
Chisinau airport
05.37 hrs
I thrust some US dollars at the driver and stepped out of the cab, eyes peeled for police and Diminetz’s BGs. I rubbed my hands together and tried to slap some warmth into my shoulder muscles. I’d binned my bomber in case the woman at Reception had talked to the police about the weirdo who’d hung around the lounge all night.
The airport was busy, but there were no groups of lads off to stag parties or families with far too many suitcases and kids draped over them trying to catch a few zeds. Moldovans didn’t have the cash to burn on vacations. The crowd here was strictly business, and it looked like everyone had been to the same wheelie-case shop. And why not? It was the greatest invention on the planet, right up there with squeezable Marmite.
The locals stood out like a coach party full of sore thumbs in their plastic shoes and shiny, badly fitting suits. If they’d brushed their hair, they needed to buy a new brush. Their shirt collars gave them away, too. The Europeans’ were dry-cleaned and crisply pressed, but theirs were in shit state. I’d been able to spot bad ironing a mile off since my boy-soldier days. Pressing shirts the army way was almost our first lesson. If you started ironing a collar from the middle and worked your way towards the point, the material would gather and crinkle, and that would mean an ‘extra’ – a show parade at 23.00 hours, with shirt rewashed and re-pressed – for lack of attention to detail. You also had to wear your best uniform, your ‘No. 2s’, for the orderly officer’s parade, and that meant buckles, brasses and boots had to be perfect too – or else.
The check-in queue was hardly moving. The young clerk with bed hair behind the counter seemed to have all the time in the world. Unfazed, two guys in front of me with sharp hair, good-quality suits and real leather shoes held their BlackBerrys and German passports at the ready. I wasn’t sure whether they were about to invade Poland or just looking forward to another day in the Frankfurt office.
I smoothed my own hair down with my hand as we shuffled forward another couple of paces. There wasn’t a woman in sight; no Chanel two-piece on its way back to Western Europe. Maybe female executives chose to leave these ex-Soviet-bloc shit-holes to their male colleagues while they jetted off to the chic places, like New York and LA. Or maybe they’d experienced the Checkpoint Charlie-style check-in arrangements once, and that had been enough.
A couple more businessmen joined the line behind me, heads down, checking their smartphones, followed by a small group of locals: three teenage girls, accompanied by a man in his early sixties who waffled at them non-stop and kept referring to a couple of sheets of A4.
The girls’ jeans and sweaters were pure street market, but as new as their identical bright green nylon suitcases. Wherever they were going, there’d be no problem finding those things on the conveyor-belt at Baggage Reclaim.
All three had short, straight brown hair. They wore no make-up, which was strange for round here, and showed no sign of excitement. In fact, they looked apprehensive. If they were going on holiday, it was to somewhere pretty grim. Judging by the brand-new, bright blue passports the old man was clutching, this was their first flight, maybe even their first time out of the country.
He was a foot shorter than everyone else in the terminal – and obviously taking his shepherding duties seriously. He wore his new denim jacket like a uniform, zipped all the way up to his jowls. His jeans were new too, and freshly creased, and – a nice touch – his trainers were the same green as the suitcases. It wasn’t the too-young look of his clothes that was strange, but the jet-black hair. He carried on talking to the girls, slowly and gently, as if he was comforting them, cajoling them, making them feel that everything was going to be OK.
Bed Hair said something I didn’t understand, so he mimed: No luggage?
I rolled my eyes. ‘Business. Frankfurt, Moldova, one day.’
As I picked up my ticket and passport, I saw him nod at someone behind me. I turned to see a guy in a black-leather jacket legging it past the end of the queue.
I headed for the coffee stall. I spent a lot of time sipping a Nescafé instant and admiring the architecture as I watched a stream of passengers waiting at security, but I didn’t see the guy in the leather jacket again. The three girls were the last to go through, glancing anxiously behind them. I followed them towards the barrier and gave them a smile of encouragement as they hesitated again; Grandpa’s wave became so vigorous I thought he might take off too.
The Frankfurt flight was finally called. I left it ten minutes, then wandered towards the departure gate and studied the queue. The well-groomed Germans and the three girls were ready to board, but I didn’t want to go over there. Not yet.
Another five minutes and it was thinning out. I started to move.
Then I stopped.
Bed Hair had come airside to process embarkation. Behind him there was another guy, the one in the black-leather jacket. It could have been some kind of anti-terrorist check – except that he wasn’t looking at passports and boarding passes. He wasn’t even looking at anyone in the queue. He was just waiting.
The flight was called again, for the last time. I had to go on. I stood behind the three girls and got out my documents.
I knew there was going to be a problem as soon as I reached Bed Hair. The guy in the leather jacket
advanced along the far side of the counter, scrutinizing me and the girls, like he was weighing something up.
Bed Hair checked the girls’ documents, then glanced at the guy in the leather jacket and shook his head. He waved them on and it was my turn. He checked the photo against my face. Then he flipped through two or three pages of visa stamps.
‘You travel only you, yes?’
I nodded.
He still held onto the passport. Leatherman leaned over his shoulder and whispered something.
There was nothing I could do. The whispering stopped. Bed Hair gave back the passport.
I took it, and went to walk on. As I did so, Leatherman stepped in front of me and blocked my path.
‘Tax,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Exit tax.’ He held out his hand.
I got it. They weren’t looking for terrorists. They were looking for passengers with foreign passports and no mates. These people were subject to a special tax. I reached into my pouch and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. It must have been exactly the right amount because he spun on his heel and headed back to the check-in desk to start all over again.
I didn’t bother waiting for change.
PART FOUR
1
30 August 2011
15.28 hrs
The German stewardess instructed me in English, then prerecorded Cantonese to ensure my seat was in the upright position and my belt fastened as we were less than thirty minutes from landing.
At the press of a button my bed folded itself back into a very well-upholstered chair. It was a while since I’d flown business class on my own dime, but it was part of my cover story. So was staying in a five-star hotel. I had to behave like I had the kind of money it took to buy my very own cut-to-order kidney, and if Somali pirates could check out a hostage’s financial status on a ten-year-old Dell powered by a diesel generator in the middle of nowhere, I was sure Diminetz’s mates would be well up to speed. I had to pass their preliminary checks with enough A*s to know I wasn’t just pissing them about.
