‘That’s perfect. Bill won’t be in the office this afternoon, so we go straight there. I’ll leave a note telling him I‘m staying at some address, asking him to meet me there. If anyone comes in the afternoon, then Radka must have read the note and we’ll know it’s her. If no-one comes then it’s probably not her and it might be Bill who’s been tipping them off.’
‘What if he does go to the office?’ Denis asked.
‘He won’t.’
‘’Ow can you be sure?’
‘Because he always goes home at lunchtime on a Friday. He goes home early for shul.’
Denis looked at me incredulously. ‘What?’
‘Shul, you know, Jewish church.’
‘I know what shul is. Why didn’t you tell me Bill is Jewish?’
‘Is it important?’
‘Of course! It must be ‘im. ‘E is thecafteur.’
I was confused. ‘Why? Because he’s Jewish?’
‘Of course. He’s Jewish, he must be working for Mossad.’
‘Not all Jews work for Mossad.’
Denis looked at me like I was a naïve child.
‘Not all Arabs are Al Qaeda.’ I continued, hoping that would settle the argument.
‘Pffft.’ Denis clearly thought otherwise.
‘Well that makes you Al Qaeda then.’ I said. I should have known better, should have shut up, gone along with his bigotry; but I just couldn’t help myself.
He rose to the bait. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You were born in Algeria; your mother’s Arab, doesn’t that make you a terrorist?’
He hit me. I should have known, should have seen it coming; but he’d been so weak I didn’t think he had it in him. All I saw was a bright white light; then next moment I was lying on the floor.
I wasn’t going to take that from him, grabbed his legs, heaved, sent him crashing down. We went at it for a while, neither trying to do any real damage: handbags at dawn really. I let Denis get the better of me – in his state I could have thrashed him despite that first blow – apologised for bringing his mother into the conversation.
‘Don’t do it again or next time I will really kick the shit out of you.’ He mumbled; we cleaned up the room together.
We were back on the road before long, but I started having misgivings as we approached the border. ‘What if there’s a description out on the car?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if someone in Marseilles got a look at the car, passed it on to the police. What if they’re checking the borders?
‘ Merde. ’
I had an idea. ‘Doesn’t the airport at Mulhouse serve Basel as well?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I think so. Why?’
‘We could leave the Audi there. Cross into Switzerland inside the airport, hire a car on the other side, drive into Germany.’
‘Germany.’
‘Yes.’ I replied, increasingly pleased with my plan. ‘The airport pretty much borders on all three countries. We leave the car in one, hire a car in the next and drive to the third; they’ll never trace that.’
And that’s what we did. I hired a car on the Pavel Kalik credit card, telling them that we had arrived from Paris and were on a business trip to Basel, promised to return the car that afternoon. Then drove straight to Germany and on to Czech, where we crossed to border without a hitch just after lunchtime. It was good to be back.
There was a thaw. Green poked through a threadbare blanket of snow. Prague was almost free of winter’s grip. The vibrant colours of the city’s buildings shone in the crisp evening air. Sun glistened off countless spires. I almost forgot that it was less a homecoming than a showdown.
Chapter 65
We drove straight to the office. It was past midday by the time we arrived. After checking that Bill’s car was not there, Denis wrote the note. We’d talked about the details on the ride from Mulhouse, decided that a note from me, considering everyone thought that I was dead, would cause too much of a stir.
So Denis wrote the note from Zdeněk at the Savarin. In the note ‘Zdeněk’ said that he was a friend of mine, that he had received instructions from me to pass a package on to Bill if anything should happen to me. It asked Bill to meet him at Charles Bridge at 15:00. Denis sealed the envelope, marked it ‘Private and Confidential.’ I slipped it under the front door, left quickly, in case Radka saw the note being pushed under the door, decided to investigate.
On the way to the old town, we stopped at my favourite Prague shop: Zbraně Střelivo, not far from the Old Town. Czech gun laws are quite liberal compared to the rest of Europe. As a foreigner I was allowed, and had, a gun license. But most guns require a police permit before one can buy them. The exception is Category C weapons, such as bolt-action rifles and revolvers. To get one of those all you need to do is fill in some paperwork and register the weapon with the police within ten days. Zbraně Střelivo had everything that we might need and more.
We had to tear ourselves away from the cabinets filled with assault rifles and sub-machine guns. Despite their obvious appeal, they required a special license and wouldn’t be suitable. We were planning to have our showdown on Charles Bridge a three o’clock on a Friday afternoon. The bridge would be filled with people; not a good place for a sub-machinegun unless you were planning on filling the mortuary.
We chose a CZ 550 hunting rifle in 7.62 mm (the old standard NATO round) with 7 x 50 telescopic sight; and a Stainless Steel Smith & Wesson 357 Magnum revolver with 2-½ inch barrel. The two guns with a box of ammunition for each and a good pair of binoculars set us back two and a half thousand dollars, but they were the insurance we needed and it all took only thirty minutes. I had a bad moment after I had filled in the paperwork when the proprietor disappeared to the back. I thought that he’d gone to call the police. We were about to leg it when he returned with a complimentary bag for the rifle. We had just under an hour to prepare for our meeting on Charles Bridge.
There was no time to test fire the rifle. The telescopic sight had been bore-sighted in the shop and at the distance Denis would have to shoot, if it came to that, a few clicks here or there wouldn’t matter much.
I’d chosen Charles Bridge for the meeting place for a number of reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, it was very public. It would be filled with throngs of people and street vendors on a Friday afternoon. There were many places like that in Prague, but they were all overlooked by tall buildings and spires, all perfect sniper hideouts. Charles Bridge had only one building overlooking it within reasonable gunshot range: the Old Town tower on the east side of the bridge had commanding views of the bridge and surrounding buildings.
We parked the car on Smetanovo nábřeží, not far from the pension where I had stayed while I was on the run. Even in its brown bag, the rifle was conspicuous, but there was no other way of getting it to the tower, so Denis slung it over his shoulder and we walked purposefully to the bridge. There was a problem. We found the tower covered in scaffolding, closed to the public. But it turned out to be a blessing. The scaffolding was empty; the workers had knocked off early for the weekend. We ducked under the tapes blocking access, found a door that gave access to the stairs leading to the gallery. Denis’ nest could not have been better. The workers had stretched hessian on the outside of the scaffolding to protect the tourists below from any debris that might fall during the renovation, making a perfect screen to hide behind.
While Denis reconnoitred the tower, checking for blind spots, escape routes, I gathered some bricks to make a seat for him and fashioned a rest from some hessian that I tore from one side. From my position I could see St. Vitus Cathedral towering above Hradčany Castle across the impassive Vltava. To the left the twin spires of the Loretta poked above the hill. Not far from there, Martina was probably at work, serving tables. I wondered what she was thinking, if she was still in mourning. I missed her, for a moment wanted to leave Denis there on the tower, go and find her; for a moment I didn’t care about Mossad, Bill or
the CIA.
‘Eh roastbeef. Where are you?’
I looked around. Denis had completed his reconnaissance, was standing over me, watching my reverie. ‘I just popped out for a moment. But I’m back now. Finished?’
‘Oui.’ Denis removed the rifle from its case, pushed five rounds into the internal magazine. Once he was comfortable and organised, I took the time to check my Smith & Wesson, load it, shove some extra rounds into various pockets in case things went pear-shaped.
I left Denis on his perch, went down to the bridge. The afternoon rush had begun. Portrait painters, trinket sellers and pickpockets competed for tourist tin. I moved towards the centre of the bridge, gripped the revolver firmly in my right hand, pushed between the tightly packed masses.
Perhaps the bridge wasn’t the best place to have the meeting. I wanted crowds, but the seething mass was too much. It would be easy to get right up to me without my noticing, slip a knife in my ribs without anyone seeing. Even Denis would not be able to spot who had done it from his vantage point. And if he did, it would be almost impossible for him to take out the assassin without hitting the people around him. I reached for the phone, almost called him to cancel the whole thing; but as I neared the centre of the bridge, the crowds thinned a little and I didn’t feel quite so hemmed in.
I found a space up against the one side of the bridge, checked to see that Denis had a clear view of me, called him. ‘Everything okay up there?’
‘ Oui. But there are a lot of people. It will be difficult to get a clear shot. ’
‘I know. But it’s too late to go back now. We’ll have to make the best of it.’ I put the Blackberry back in my pocket, grasped the revolver again, looked at my watch. It was half-past two, still thirty minutes to go. But I didn’t have any illusions that if someone had taken the bait, they would not stick to the timetable. They would be early or late: never on time.
I stood with my back to the river, scanned the crowds, tried not to look up at Denis’ position too often lest I give him away. But we had chosen the spot well; when I did glance at the tower, it looked deserted.
Three o’clock went. By half past, I was already planning our next move. Radka hadn’t taken the bait, so it was probably Bill, but how were we going to prove that? My Blackberry vibrated. I scanned the crowds, recognised something, something familiar, but for a while I couldn’t put a finger on it. Then I saw him. He was moving towards me from the opposite side of the river. I couldn’t see all of him - he was masked by the crowds - but got occasional glimpses of a shoulder, the side of his head. It was enough; I recognised the walk, the grey hair, the glasses. It was Bill. My mind raced; questions pummelled me. He shouldn’t have been there, he always went to shul on a Friday afternoon; what was he doing there?
Bill didn’t see me at first. He was scanning the faces, looking for someone, someone unfamiliar, expecting to be called out. When he saw me he stopped: gobsmacked; I almost laughed.
‘Noah? Bloody hell!’
I nodded, gripped the revolver.
‘But you’re…’
‘Dead.’
‘What happened…?’
‘It’s a long story.’ While I was talking to him I was scanning the crowd around me, looking for threats. ‘Never mind that now. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in shul?’
He looked confused. ‘I was. I was on the way there. Then Radka called. Said that someone had phoned the office looking for me, that he had a parcel for me, that I should meet him here…’
‘Christ! You’re the bait.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. We have to get out of here.’ I grabbed his arm, hustled him towards the Old Town Tower. He resisted.
‘Hang on. What’s going on? Where are we going?’
‘There isn’t time for that. Your secretary is a Mossad spy and she’s dropped us right in it. We have to get out of here.’ But it was too late. Up ahead, between us and the tower, the troops were assembling. This time they hadn’t sent the hired help; they’d sent the professionals. Two of them angled towards us. They weren’t hard to spot, lions closing in on their prey; they’d smelled blood.
I hung back, looked up at the tower, waiting for help from Denis. There would be no doubt when Denis joined the fight. The rifle was standard, no silencer. There’s nothing quite like the roar of a 7.62 mm round to get your attention in a crowded street. But it was silent.
I looked over my shoulder. The rest of the pride was there. I didn’t know how many, but there was no mistaking the ones I saw. We were boxed in. We’d made the same mistake as the Americans did at Shinkolobwe, underestimated the opposition. I thought that they’d go for the subtle approach, the quiet assassin. But they’d done the opposite, brought in the cavalry. We were fucked. But, always the Legionnaire, I was prepared to go down fighting against insurmountable odds, ready for a glorious defeat.
A bulge appeared in the hessian near the top of the tower. It tore, ejected a man clutching a rifle. He seemed to hang there for an agonising moment, then plunged to the cobblestones below. I was alone. Well I had Bill, but he wasn’t going to be much help: more of a hindrance.
I pulled Bill behind me, tried to give him some shelter with my body, stayed close to the wall, glanced behind: the hunters were almost on us.
The tourists had worked out that there was something going on, moved away from us, left us in the open. There was a small alcove beneath one of the statues; I ducked in there, dragged Bill behind me. It gave us cover from the predators in front, left us exposed to those behind. I drew the revolver, pointed it: tourists scattered. The hunters had drawn their guns too. I aimed at one who was lining up on me, squeezed the trigger. There was a loud explosion next to my ear; I jerked the trigger, missed. The gunman fell. I turned, looked to see where the shot had come from. Bill had a gun in his hand, smoke curled from the barrel, he squeezed the trigger again, another fell.
Moments earlier, the bridge was hidden under the writing mass of tourists. Apart from the two men lying bleeding in front of us, it was suddenly deserted. ‘Where the fuck did that come from?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘The gun.’
He looked at me strangely, didn’t deign an answer. ‘How many more?’ He asked.
‘Not sure. At least one behind us that I saw, three between us and the tower.’
‘You got any backup?’ Bill asked.
‘I did. Denis was in the tower, but they got him.’
‘The geezer I saw falling?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bollocks! Any ideas?’
‘Can you swim?’
One of the men in front of us groaned, reached for the gun lying in front of him; Bill shot him in the head. That brought on a hail of bullets. But they were shooting blind, didn’t have a chance of hitting us. Even so, we couldn’t stay there forever.
I risked a glance over the wall, to the river. There was a weir just above us, below the water was calm; ice guards above each column showed just how cold the water could get. If we jumped we might get away; but the water wasn’t flowing very fast and as we passed beyond the bridge we would be sitting targets. It wasn’t an end I relished. ‘Scrub that. How many rounds do you have left?’
Without looking down, Bill answered, ‘Thirteen in this magazine and fifteen in the spare.’
‘Who dares wins?’
He nodded. ‘Which way?’
‘Towards the castle. We’ve killed two on that side. Odds are there’s not many left.’
Bill thought for a moment. ‘No. Towards the tower. Fewer shooting at us from behind.’
He was right. ‘On three?’
There was a flurry of gunfire from the direction of the tower. It wasn’t aimed at us. Then the chatter of a sub-machine gun. Someone else had joined the fight. The tempo increased, built to a crescendo. There was a wail of sirens. It was time. I shouted, ‘Three!’ We leapt to our feet and charged towards the tower.
Chapter 66
The bridge was almost empty, sprinkled here and there with a cowering tourist, a vendor doggedly guarding his stand. And hunkering in the alcoves, firing towards the tower, our hunters. Bill and I sprinted for the tower, snapped shots at the crouching men, more to keep them down than in the hope of actually hitting anyone.
Bill swore, staggered, fell. I swerved to him, grabbed his collar, dragged him to cover: an empty alcove. We were almost off the bridge, tantalisingly close to the tower. The hunters were all behind us, no one between us and our objective. But we had lost the momentum; standing up would mean death. We were stuck. I examined Bill. It wasn’t good. Blood oozed from his pants just next to his hip. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked.
He looked at me the way a buck does when it’s moments from death: eyes glassy, ashen, defeated.
Above the cacophony of gunfire, a shout. A voice I recognised. ‘Eh roastbeef, you okay?’ He was close.
It was Denis! ‘Christ. Are you okay? I saw you fall…’
‘It wasn’t me. But the fucker grabbed my rifle… your rifle.’
‘What now? Can you cover us?’
‘No chance. You come this way you’re dead.’
‘What then?’ I shouted.
‘The river.’
‘I don’t like it. And Bill’s hurt, bad.’
‘Trust me. It’s the only way.’
I’d come a long way trusting Denis. It wasn’t time to start questioning him. I turned to Bill. ‘Sorry mate, I’m going for a swim.’ I planned to leave him there, leave him for the police, who were fast approaching the bridge. But the light came back to his eyes.
‘Don’t leave me here.’ There was still steel in his voice.
No time to argue; I levered myself under Bill, lifted him onto a shoulder, prepared to launch us over the wall, into the river. I shouted to Denis, ‘Cover me,’ pushed with all my strength, used Bill’s weight to topple us over the edge. We plummeted towards the frigid water.
In the brief seconds before we hit, I saw that we were dangerously close to the river bank. For the briefest moment I wondered if the water would be deep enough. Then we hit.
Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller Page 32
