Dead Centre

by Andy McNab

  ‘I just leave mine here, mate. I don’t need it at home. And I don’t want it burning a hole in my pocket.’

  I glanced at the screen above his head. Anna was gobbing off into her mike, with crowds of chanting Libyans around her.

  Mitchell got the hint and went back to his showbiz partner, who was now watching Mong get even more pissed off with the Germans. They were larging it in front of an increasingly long queue of tourists waiting their turn.

  7

  ANNA LOOKED AS good as ever. The water in Benghazi must have been back on. The last email I’d got from her, the day before yesterday, told me the water had been cut off and she hadn’t washed her hair for a week. Her two-minute piece was done. I’d watch the full-length version when it came on later. The three o’clock news was more in-depth.

  I zipped my Glock back into its case and handed it in to the armoury. I didn’t bother saying goodbye to my new showbiz mates. I got my coat and headed outside into –8°C.

  The Russian media took the piss out of the UK continuously for grinding to a halt at the first hint of a snowflake. Moscow hadn’t seen a winter like this one for well over forty years, but it was still functioning. The mayor had gripped the situation. He’d raised an army of six thousand street cleaners.

  The city was covered with gloomy grey and black slush but nowhere was impassable. Ladas and Mercedes spun a bit and people slid, but it was business as normal. There was very little grumbling about it. Some people just forgot about their cars until spring. They took the Metro, the same as I did.

  The only problem was ice falling from rooftops. Two kids had been seriously injured yesterday. In St Petersburg, the roofs of a hospital and a hypermarket had collapsed under the weight of snow. They’d probably been built in the 1980s when Putin was mayor and subbing jobs out to the Mafia.

  Unless there was an icicle with my name on it, I was weatherproof. I wore a North Face parka with a huge hood well and truly done up. I looked out at the world through a little circle of fur a few inches in front of my face. The hood was so big it didn’t move when I turned my head. I looked like Kenny out of South Park. On my feet I had a pair of Dubarrys, the Gore-Tex and leather boots that were all the rage in this city. They looked like posh wellies. Anna had bought me a pair as a present for my first winter here.

  According to the mayor, this was going to be the last time the city ever suffered from snow. The grey stuff reflected badly on its image, and he was going to do something about it. This boy had more money at his disposal than many a nation’s GDP. He probably spent more in a day than Boris did in a year.

  He’d decided to ban snow from the city. He was going to invest in the same cloud-sealing programme the city rolled out on all the major holidays to ensure the citizens of Moscow didn’t get rained on. When had it ever rained on a May Day parade? Never. The city paid for jets to get up there and spray silver iodine into any clouds heading Moscow’s way so they’d dump their rain upwind well before it could spoil things in Red Square. I wouldn’t be needing the Dubarrys next May Day.

  Alongside the biggest collection of billionaires on earth there was a massive migrant population, as well as millions of the poor, the old, the dying and the drugged. These people were all fucked big-time. I passed a collection of Soviet concrete blocks where they scraped a living.

  Portable paraffin heaters provided their only warmth, but gave off so much moisture that their windows were still frozen solid on the inside – unless the residents had sold the glass and shoved up plywood in its place. In Putin’s Russia, everyone was an entrepreneur.

  8

  ONE OF THE promises I’d made myself during my dying days was to take the time to ‘stand and stare’, as Anna called it – to look at trees and plants, walk through gardens, shit like that. So every time I came out of Gunslingers, I turned left through Victory Park, along ‘Years of War’, its central avenue. Then I got the trolleybus home.

  Victory Park was a new creation. It was only finished after years of fuck-ups in the mid-1990s. Poklonnaya Gora, the hill it sat on, was where Napoleon had waited to be given the keys to the city when his troops surrounded it in 1812. He’d waited in vain.

  The park was finished just in time for the fiftieth anniversary of what we called the Second World War and the Russians called the Great Patriotic War. They had little interest in what had happened elsewhere. Fair one – more Russians were killed between ’41 and ’45 than all the other Allies put together. And eight out of ten Germans killed were dropped by the Soviets. In Western history books, those little details always seem to get lost in the footnotes.

  The ‘Years of War’ had five terraces, one for each year of the conflict, and 1,418 fountains, one for every day. They weren’t working at the moment because everything was frozen. But there were chapels, mosques, statues, rockets, all sorts of shit – and then, right at the centre, one big fuck-off statue of Nike, the goddess of victory. I kept meaning to ask Anna the Russian for ‘Just do it’.

  She was going to take me there on Victory Day, 9 May. Veterans, survivors, kids, everybody turned out. I was looking forward to seeing the old and bold. They’d be wearing more medals than Gaddafi. And it wouldn’t be raining.

  I was nearly at the main gate, head down, nose running, hands in pockets, making sure I didn’t slip on the ice, when the front panel and an alloy wheel with the Range Rover logo appeared in what little peripheral vision my hood allowed.

  ‘Hey, fella, want a lift?’ It was the gunslinger without the side parting.

  My head turned but my hood stayed where it was. I pulled the fur aside. Webb was at the driver’s window of a white wagon stained grey by today’s slush.

  ‘Where are you going? We’ll take you. It’s fucking freezing out there.’

  ‘Nah, it’s all right – I need the exercise.’

  I turned through a set of fancy iron gates. The Range Rover’s engine revved behind me, but instead of driving away it turned into the park. The wagon swept past and pulled up about three metres ahead of me. Even the number plate spelt drama. The back door swung open. Mitchell, in a big black Puffa, beckoned me inside. But he wasn’t smiling. ‘Come on, my friend. It’s a lot warmer in here.’

  The driver’s window was still powered down, and I could see that Webb wasn’t smiling either.

  I was about to turn back towards the main when Mitchell stepped out, weapon up. He’d obviously decided not to follow my advice. ‘In – the – fucking – vehicle – now.’

  9

  I SWUNG BACK towards him, hands now out of my pockets and up by my chest. Head down, I focused on the weapon. I could smell the exhaust fumes billowing from the cold engine. I got to within a couple of paces of the open door. I could smell the rich leather interior as I leant closer, and feel the warmth of the heater.

  I punched out with my left hand and grabbed the top of Mitchell’s Glock. I pushed down, gripping it so I was outside his arc of fire, and jabbed at his face with my right. Short, sharp jabs, three or four in quick succession. Not caring where they hit, just that they did.

  As his head jerked back, I took my chance. I found the trigger of the weapon and pushed down and round until the barrel pointed towards him.

  The Glock jumped in my hand as a shot kicked out and the guy went down. I let go, turned and legged it as fast as I could, back through the gates. I screamed across the road, slipping on ice the other side and going down hard. I got up, legs flailing, and turned immediately right, out of their line of sight and fire. I kept running, not looking back – not that I could have with my hood up – and took another right.

  I found myself in a service road. Steam spewed from heating vents set into the back wall of an industrial unit and engulfed a line of huge industrial wheelie-bins. I dodged between two of them, three-quarters of the way down, and fought to recover my breath.

  Webb would have had to wait until Mitchell was back in the wagon before coming after me. Even if he didn’t give a shit about him, he couldn’t just leave
the boy bleeding into the Victory Avenue snow. The police would soon be asking why.

  I leant against the wall, heart pounding. Now that I was still, the cold began to eat its way into my feet. But at least they were dry; that was all that mattered right now.

  I kept looking left and right to cover both exits of the service road. It wasn’t long before Webb drove past the end I’d come in from. There wasn’t much exhaust vapour now his engine had warmed up.

  I had to assume they knew where I lived. And that meant the only thing I could do was face them up. I had to find out who the fuck they were and why they wanted me.

  It looked as if Dostoevsky would have to wait. There was no way I could risk heading back to the flat or the range – or to any other known location – until I’d sorted this shit out.

  And if the Range Rover’s number plate was anything to go by, there was plenty of shit to sort.

  10

  IN MOSCOW, REAL people’s cars have white plates with black letters. The Range Rover had red ones with white numbers. Diplomatic plates. That could have meant jack-shit. You could buy them on the black market: they let you travel in the government-designated fast lanes and beat the Moscow jams.

  Lads with red plates were never stopped. About a month ago, the police had a clamp-down on their illegal use. They pulled over a genuine red-plated wagon: the diplomat’s BGs jumped out and overpowered them, spread the officers on the ground, weapons confiscated. How were they to know the police were genuine?

  But even if they were black-market gear, I still had to worry. These things cost at least twenty-five thousand dollars – more if you threw in the blue flashing lights. Which meant that whoever was after me had money as well as Glocks – and that wasn’t good news.

  Fuck it. Running away would only make me die short of breath. And then I’d never know what this was all about.

  I started to retrace my steps. They’d be back along that street sooner or later. They’d hit all known locations: Gunslingers, maybe the flat. Then they’d cruise around for a while longer. But not indefinitely. Mitchell was going to need medical attention, unless Webb was going to let him bleed to death. So I needed them to find me before they made that drop.

  I got back on the main, hood still up, but enough of my face sticking out to be able to spot the nearest mini-mart. These places were even more prolific than Starbucks. They sold everything the man who had nothing could possibly want: cigarettes, alcohol, sulphuric acid to keep your crumbling piping clear, paraffin to keep you warm and your windows frozen.

  I dodged and wove my way through the traffic and went into Apricot Garden. There wasn’t a piece of fruit in sight; they all had names like that. Milky Way, Cowboy’s Stable, you name it.

  The Russian version of X Factor blared from a TV mounted above the counter. An old woman who looked as though she’d been sitting by the checkout since before the Cold War puffed a cigarette and watched Simon Cowellski put the local hopefuls through their paces.

  I scanned the aisles, then grabbed a hammer and some overpriced paraffin in the kind of plastic five-litre container we’d use for ready-mixed screen-wash.

  I arrived at the counter as Simon gave his verdict and the singer burst into tears. A dozen or so brands of cigarette were on display, from Lucky Strike and Marlboro to Leningrad and CCCP in bold, no-nonsense Soviet-style packaging for those who still missed the old ways. I was interested in the lighters alongside them.

  I grunted and pointed. She hoovered up my roubles without taking her eyes off the screen.

  I headed back to the bins, put down my newly purchased gear and unclipped the wheel retainers on the last one in the line. I unscrewed the top of the paraffin container and pressed my thumb into the seal until it broke, then left it on the ground.

  I retraced my steps to the corner and looked around uncertainly, as if I was waiting for a pickup. I checked once more behind me. They’d be able to get their wagon down the service road, no problem.

  11

  I DIDN’T HAVE long to wait. The Range Rover was moving a lot faster now. Webb was still at the wheel. He spotted me and his mouth moved in double-time behind the windscreen.

  He hit the brakes just past the service road and the wheels spun in the slush. Mitchell was forced up and forward from where he was lying in the back seat and I saw him give a silent scream of pain as I turned and legged it down the service road, giving my best impression of a headless chicken. I shoved the lighter between my teeth.

  The Range Rover reversed at speed. I heard the engine roar as it powered into the narrow space. I reached the wheelie-bins, slid behind the last one, back against the wall, and shoved against it with both arms and then my right foot. The bin toppled into the path of the oncoming wagon.

  There was a flash of grime-covered white as Webb stood on the brakes, but he was too late. Metal screeched on metal and the bin clattered off down the road.

  The air-bags kicked off in the Range Rover’s cabin.

  I grabbed the hammer in my right hand and the paraffin container in my left.

  Webb tried to exit but his door smashed against the wall. There wasn’t room for him to get out. I swung the hammer at the bottom left-hand corner of the rear passenger window before they had time to draw down. The safety glass starred, then shattered.

  Shouts of anger and pain came from inside. I shoved the paraffin container against the frame and pushed down on it with my right forearm. There was a fine spray for a couple of seconds, then the rest of the seal gave way and fluid gushed into the interior. The fumes burnt my nostrils and can’t have been much fun for theirs.

  I dropped the container and shoved my left fist through the hole, lighter at the ready, thumb on the roller.

  ‘Show me your hands!’

  They got the message loud and clear. Webb put his straight on the steering wheel. He wasn’t pleased. ‘You’ve fucked up, Stone. Just stand down.’

  ‘Who the fuck are you? What do you want with me?’

  I didn’t get an answer. Maybe I wasn’t sounding crazy enough.

  I cranked it up. ‘What the fuck do you want? Tell me or I’ll fucking torch this. Tell me – tell me now!’

  I glanced down. The paraffin had mixed nicely with Mitchell’s blood on the tan leather. His leg was a mess.

  I heard a squeal of brakes and the scream of an engine coming towards us from the other end of the service road. Another Range Rover, two up. Black with a blue flashing light on the driver’s side of the roof. That was all I had time to register before I turned and started running in the opposite direction.

  I heard no shouts, no commands to stop, no gunfire. I kept on running.

  Then my head exploded. I went down like liquid. My legs moved like I was still running, but I knew I was going nowhere. Hands grabbed me and dragged my face across the hammer that had dropped me.

  12

  IT WASN’T LONG before I was in the back of the undamaged Range Rover, hands secured to my ankles with plasticuffs. I rested my forehead on the leather upholstery of the seat in front of me to try to release the pressure on my wrists.

  My skull had recovered from the initial pain where the hammer had connected, but I knew I was going to have a big fuck-off headache for the rest of the day. I just hoped it wasn’t a fracture and I’d get the chance to sort out the cut. I couldn’t feel any wetness, but I knew there had to be one. Maybe my parka had soaked up the blood before it reached my neck.

  Both wagons backed out of the service road. The driver of mine was a big old Nigerian lad in a blue Puffa. Blue and red beads tied off each braid of his cornrows and he had a shaving rash under his chin. The guy beside him looked like Genghis Khan. He must have come straight from the steppes. He kept turning in his seat to make sure his passenger wasn’t trying to escape – as if I was going to get far even if I did.

  The blue light started to flash. I could see it bouncing off shop windows as we drove down the main. We were heading out of the city.

  I was flapping.
None of these guys cared about what I saw or heard, and that wasn’t a good thing. It could mean they knew I was never going to get the chance to tell anybody.

  I checked the dash clock: 11:17. I tried to get a view of the speedo but it was blocked by the driver’s Puffa. The sat-nav was glowing, but it was all in Russian. All I got from it was our direction of travel.

  Genghis had his phone out. He grunted acknowledgements to whoever was on the other end and closed it down. These vehicles were brand new. The white one must have lost its sumptuous showroom smell, but the warmth and luxury of this one almost lulled me into feeling safe.

  I gave everybody time to settle down before I tried to get some sort of relationship going. I didn’t even know if these lads spoke English.

  ‘The small guy – he OK? No hard feelings, eh? I—’

  With a rustle of nylon jacket, Genghis turned and put his forefinger to his lips. He shushed me like a child. I nodded, returned my forehead to the seatback and began a close examination of the carpet.

  There wasn’t any point in trying to talk with these guys. They were only the monkeys. And if the organ-grinder wanted me dead, I would have been dead by now. They’d have done it in the alleyway while I was half concussed. But why had they let me see their faces? And why weren’t they pissed off that I’d shot their mate?

  I raised my head and caught another glimpse of the sat-nav. We were still heading west, but keeping off the M1, the main motorway. Suburbia was just beginning to take shape on the Moscow margins. The media were full of it – all the usual moaning about forests having huge holes ripped out of them to make way for gated communities with names like Navaho and Chelsea.