Deathlist

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Okay,’ said Porter. ‘I believe you.’

  The kid looked relieved. As if he thought the operators might actually let him go. Then Porter took the pillow and gun and moved towards Petrovich. The Serb immediately understood what was happening and opened his mouth to protest. He didn’t get the words out in time. Porter smothered his face with the pillow then shoved the suppressed Beretta into the fold and depressed the trigger. There was a dull crack as the suppressor absorbed all of the muzzle flash and some of the noise, with the pillow diluting the sound further. Petrovich jerked. Like someone had pressed a couple of defibrillator pads to his chest and flicked the switch. Then he went as still as the dead Serb by his side. Porter stepped back. Tossed the pillow aside. Dug out his car keys and tossed them to Coles.

  ‘Bring round the Alfa,’ he said. ‘Park under the balcony. Me and Jock will start bagging these fuckers up.’

  ‘On it, chief.’

  Coles departed. Porter grabbed a box of latex surgical gloves from the bucket of cleaning products. He took one pair for himself and chucked another pair at Bald. They each grabbed a waterproof plastic bag from the bucket and pulled them over the dead Serbs’ heads, fastening the bags with black masking tape around the necks and sealing off the only points of bleeding on both victims. Then they dragged Kavlak over to the balcony doors. Bald stepped out onto the balcony and peered down below, checking to see that Devereaux had steered the Alfa Romeo into position. He glanced up and down the street to make sure it was clear of witnesses. Then the two operators grabbed Kavlak by his ankles and hoisted him up and over the wrought-iron parapet. The Serb’s head dangled over the side of the balcony, the plastic bag rustling in the frigid breeze.

  Bald and Porter did a three count then released their grip. Kavlak tumbled to earth like cargo spilling out the back of a plane. He landed with a thud on a heap of black bin bags twenty metres below. Devereaux and Coles immediately hopped out of the Alfa and swung around to the back, popping open the boot. They hefted up Kavlak by his arms and legs and shoved the dead Serb in the back of the Alfa while Porter and Bald grabbed Petrovich from the living room. They hurled his dead weight over the balcony and watched him nosedive to earth, crash-landing in the same spot among the bins. Devereaux and Coles somehow crowbarred him into the boot alongside his uncle. Then they piled back inside the Alfa and sped off in the direction of the airport.

  They would dump the motor in a spot in the long-term parking bay, leaving the Serbs stashed in the boot. The bodies would stay hidden until the team had killed the rest of the names on the deathlist. Once the mission was over, one of the guys would make an anonymous phone call to the local cops. Read out the Alfa licence number and report that there were a couple of bodies hidden inside. The delayed discovery would send a message to the world. This is what happens when you fuck with the Regiment.

  After Devereaux and Coles had peeled off, Porter headed back inside the penthouse. He looked to Evelyn and said, ‘What have you touched?’

  ‘We’ve done this before,’ Ophelia replied, rising to her feet. ‘We’ll take care of it.’

  She stubbed out her cigarette and grabbed a pair of gloves. So did Evelyn. They went to work alongside Porter and Bald, wiping down every surface with a bottle of bleach and a roll of paper towels they’d raided from the bathroom. Ophelia found a handheld vacuum in the kitchen and hoovered any stray hairs and shards of broken glass. Evelyn dusted down the tumblers they’d handled. They were meticulous. Anything the forensics teams might try and get a fingerprint or DNA sample from.

  While the spies cleaned, Bald and Porter rearranged the furniture and put everything back in its place. They placed a bottle of half-empty Grey Goose on the coffee table and topped up a couple of dirty glasses. Arranged a few lines of coke next to the bottle. Closed the balcony doors and put the lock back in place. Stuck a hardcore porn film in the DVD player and hit Play. By the time they were finished the bloodstains and shattered glass were gone and the porn flick was playing at full blast. To a casual observer it looked as if Kavlak and Petrovich had been sitting at home getting hammered on the toot and booze, and at some point in the evening had simply decided to check out of the penthouse in search of some action.

  As if they had vanished.

  2124 hours.

  They left the penthouse and stepped out into the quiet street. Porter, Bald, Ophelia and Evelyn. It was dark outside. The air was cool but clammy. The two operators and spies made their way over to the Ford Transit parked on the other side of the road from the apartment block. Porter took the wheel. Bald sat up front. Ophelia and Evelyn clambered into the back with the tied-up hookers.

  Seven minutes later they were shuttling out of Valletta.

  They stayed under the speed limit. Drove south-west. Past a bunch of places with strange names like Marsa, Tarxien and Hal Ghaxaq. They continued south for six miles until the freeport slid into view on the horizon. Porter took a right turn and motored past ancient ruins and barren fields for another quarter of a mile before he pulled over. He killed the engine, stepped out of the Transit and swung around to the side door. Grabbed the handle, sucked the door open. Took out the Stanley knife he’d grabbed from the toolbox back at the penthouse and cut through the zip wires strapped around the hookers’ ankles and wrists. Then Ophelia and Evelyn removed the gags from their mouths. They left the blindfolds on. The spies helped the hookers out of the Transit. There was nothing but dirt and rocks for miles in every direction.

  Porter dug out two envelopes from his jacket pocket. Two bands of a hundred thousand dollars apiece. He gave one to Legs. Gave the other to Petite.

  ‘The fuck is this?’ Legs said in a thick eastern European accent, feeling the envelope.

  ‘For your troubles,’ said Porter. ‘This should more than cover what the Serbs owed you.’

  He turned the blindfolded hookers around until they were facing south on the road. Like spinning a kid before a piñata game.

  ‘Walk down that road and count to a hundred. Then take off your blindfolds. There’s a taxi rank about two miles south of here. No hard feelings, love.’

  Legs laughed drily. ‘Fuck you, mister.’

  She spat on the ground. She cursed him and called him every name under the sun. But she kept hold of the money. They always did. Porter slammed the Transit’s side door shut and folded himself back behind the steering wheel. Legs and Petite were already shuffling off down the road, taking small steps and counting to a hundred in their heads. Porter steered onto the main road. Left the hookers behind and headed north towards the airport, where they would RV with Devereaux and Coles. He considered it unlikely the hookers would go to the cops. But he didn’t want to take any risks. The way things stood, the hookers were an hour from civilisation. By the time they managed to alert the cops, the strike team would have already bugged out of the country.

  ‘What now?’ said Bald.

  ‘First we go after Stankovic,’ Porter replied. ‘Then we’ll get to Ninkovic.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Two days later. Budapest, Hungary.

  1843 hours.

  ‘He’s not home,’ said Bald.

  They were sitting in a rented Toyota Corolla on the corner of Népszínház Street and Galajda Street, in downtown Budapest. Coles and Devereaux in the back seats, Porter up front with Bald behind the wheel. At their nine o’clock was a concrete tower block, grey and bleak and monolithic. The product of the warped imagination of some over-enthusiastic Soviet planner in the fifties. To their right was a shabby parade of downtrodden cafes and shuttered bars and porn shops with a rusted Trabant parked outside gathering dust. Twenty metres away at their twelve o’clock stood the apartment block at number 61 Népszínház Street.

  For the past twenty-four hours the team had been running surveillance on the safe house, working in two-man teams and changing shifts every six hours. They’d arrived in Budapest at 0900 hours the previous morning, taking a Turkish Airlines flight out of Malta to Istanbul. There was a nine
-hour stopover in Turkey before the team could take the next direct flight to Budapest. They agreed that Ophelia and Evelyn would stay on in Istanbul and rent a room at the Marriott close to the airport. They wouldn’t be needed for the Budapest op, but they would come in useful again when the time came for the team to go after Ninkovic.

  Twelve hours after they breezed out of Valletta, the strike team touched down in Budapest. They’d bought a bunch of maps of the city from a souvenir shop at the airport and rented the Corolla from the Europcar rental desk. They booked into a cheap hotel on a narrow side street a hundred metres from the bustling main thoroughfare along Andrassy Utca. Budapest’s equivalent of Fifth Avenue or Oxford Street. Designer fashion outlets jostled for space with upmarket coffee shops and Argentinean steakhouses. It was like Communism had never existed.

  Devereaux quickly established contact with Templar’s local guy. They met outside an abandoned factory in the 21st district, on the Buda side of the Danube. It wasn’t hard to find weapons in Hungary. And they were cheap. The country was practically overrun with old Soviet guns. Devereaux bought four PA-63 semi-automatic pistols, chambered for the 9x18mm Makarov round. The Makarov was the standard bullet used by Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War and roughly equivalent to the 9x19mm Parabellum round. Including ammo and holsters, the total bill came to five hundred quid. Cheaper than a night out at Spearmint Rhino. By the late afternoon they were ready to start OP’ing the target.

  Twenty-four hours later, there was still no sign of activity in the apartment.

  Coles had carried out a detailed recce of the block. From the layout of the building, they knew that number 12 faced out onto the main street. Porter and Bald could see the living room window above the small balcony, with the kitchen and bedroom windows either side of it. But the lights had been off the entire day, and the previous night. There had been no movement inside the flat. No comings or goings. Nothing at all. It was as if there was nobody home. Just like Bald had said.

  ‘He has to be in there,’ said Porter. ‘You heard what Petrovich said. These guys are under strict orders not to leave their safe houses.’

  ‘Maybe Brozovic gave the order,’ Bald thought aloud. ‘Or maybe he just got cold feet.’

  Porter mulled over it. Shook his head. ‘No, mate. These guys wouldn’t cross Brozovic. They’re shit-scared of him. If Stankovic has been told to stay put, he’ll do exactly that.’

  Bald shrugged. ‘Just saying. If he is in there, he’s being fucking quiet.’

  ‘I agree with Jock,’ said Coles. The South African and Devereaux had climbed into the back of the Corolla a few minutes ago to take over their OP duty from Bald and Porter. ‘Something ain’t right. This is a good location. Discreet. Not many tourists. No darkies. He wouldn’t abandon it. Not without a bloody good reason.’

  Porter nodded and thought some more. They had a simple choice. Stay put, carry on observing the apartment and hope for some movement. Or go proactive and check out the place for themselves. There were risks attached with going in through the front door. They might alert Stankovic. Or they might be walking into a trap. But there was no point staking out an empty gaff. One way or another, they had to know if the target was in there or not.

  He looked to Bald. ‘Grab the snap gun, Jock. Let’s check it out. Davey, Mick. Wait here.’

  They stepped out into the street. Bald retrieved the snap gun from the boot of the Corolla. He’d carried it with him from the job in Valletta, in case the team needed to break into a room or a house belonging to one of the other targets. Now it was going to come in handy. He followed Porter across the street towards the apartment block. It was dark outside, the bright winter sun replaced by the sickly apricot glow of city streetlamps. A putrid smell of piss and sewage wafted across the air, violating Porter’s nostrils. They hit the block and stepped through the entrance leading to the ground-floor foyer. It was cool and damp inside. The cheap fluorescent lights flickered on and off. Porter smelled detergent. He could hear dripping from somewhere close by. There was no elevator inside the block, presumably because money was tight under the old regime. Or maybe the Communists didn’t believe in elevators. Maybe there was more solidarity in walking.

  The operators climbed two flights of stairs and hits a dimly lit landing with damp on the walls and a mosaic floor with half the tiles missing. Bald and Porter moved down the landing until they reached the door to number 12. Bald took out the snap gun from his jacket pocket and gave the door the once-over. Plain green, no spyhole. Deadbolt lock. Not Yale, but something cheaper. More cost-effective, but easier to break. Bald took out the snap gun. It was a small metal thing about the size of a pocket pistol. Like a drill that had been shrunken down in the wash. Bald took the tension wrench from his jacket pocket and inserted it into the bottom of the door lock. Then he adjusted the striking speed by rotating a wheel on the back of the snap gun. Porter stood to the side of the door while he worked, watching the landing. He kept his right hand resting on his shoulder-holstered PA-63 semi-automatic in case of trouble. He could hear voices from the bottom of the stairwell. Kids screaming. A parent shouting at them.

  ‘Hurry up, Jock.’

  Bald drove the screw-needle mounted at the end of the snap gun into the lock just above the tension wrench. Then he pulled the trigger. The snap gun made a loud clapping noise, striking the pins inside the lock and jolting them up, applying tension until they hit the shear line. Using a snap gun was faster and less complicated than the old method of raking the pins individually. But the gun sometimes needed to be fired several times before it could bypass the lock. The voices in the stairwell were getting louder. Bald kept pressing. The snap gun kept snapping. After maybe a dozen clicks the lock sprang open and the operators stepped inside the apartment and closed the door behind them.

  A vicious smell hit Porter as he entered the hallway. The odour of rotting flesh and expunged gasses.

  He lowered his gaze.

  Saw the body.

  Froze.

  Stankovic was lying face-down with a hole in the back of his head big enough to sink a golf ball into. Porter recognised the Serb from the description Petrovich had given them. He had a curved cross tattoo on the side of his neck. The same one he’d seen on the other gunmen. A puddle of blood had formed beneath Stankovic. His body was puffy and bloated. Like someone had pumped him full of air. There was no smell of cordite in the air. Porter guessed the guy had been lying there for at least a day.

  ‘Shit,’ said Bald.

  ‘Looks like someone got here before us.’ Porter glanced around the apartment. Nothing out of place. Nothing obviously missing or stolen. No sight of a struggle. No forced entry. No casing.

  This was a professional hit.

  He pointed to the door. ‘Whoever did this job, Stankovic must have known them. He just went ahead and let them walk straight in. He didn’t think they were a threat. Then he turned his back on them and they popped him in the back of his head.’

  Bald glanced at the door. Looked from the door to Stankovic. ‘Who would have slotted him?’

  Porter frowned, said nothing. He didn’t know. Maybe a freelance killer? Another kill team the Firm hadn’t told them about? But whoever it is, he thought, they’re one step ahead of us. And that could only mean one thing.

  We’re not the only ones after the names on the deathlist.

  Three days later. Zlatibor, western Serbia.

  1439 hours.

  ‘Its definitely him, mucker,’ said Porter.

  Bald looked down at the black-and-white photograph clipped to the front of the manila folder. They were standing in the middle of a chintzy room at the Hotel Aventinus, a four-storey concrete edifice on Zlatibor’s equivalent of Main Street. Bald, Porter, Devereaux and Coles, plus Ophelia and Evelyn. There was a rotary-dial telephone on a dusty bedside table and cigarette burns on the floral carpet, and a single window overlooking a derelict yard outside. The radiators in the room didn’t work and they were all wearing their outer
layers.

  A dozen colour snaps were spread out on the lumpy bed in front of them. The photos been taken the previous morning, and they all showed the same thing: a portly man in his fifties dressed in a parka and frayed jeans, sitting on a wooden jetty by a lake. The man had a shock of grey hair tied back in a ponytail and a long white beard and thick-rimmed spectacles. He looked like a cross between a hardline Islamic cleric and Santa Claus.

  Dusan Ninkovic.

  Bald swung his gaze back to the black-and-white shot. A note below the pic said it had been taken in 1994. Five years ago. The guy in the photograph looked very different from the Santa Claus lookalike in the snaps laid out on the bed. He didn’t have glasses or a beard, for a start. His hair was cut short and in the old photograph he was staring determinedly into the cameras, his jaw set firm and his eyes glancing up beyond the camera, as if preparing to address a large crowd. About the only similarity between the two sets of pictures was the eyes, thought Bald. They were heavy-lidded and black, and set deep into his face. Like a pair of bullet holes in a paper target. There was no mistaking that they belonged to the same person.

  The team had arrived in Zlatibor eighteen hours after leaving Budapest. Bald, Porter, Coles and Devereaux had flown back to Istanbul to RV with Ophelia and Evelyn at the Marriott. Then they’d bought six tickets on a Turkish Airlines flight to Sarajevo. The sanctions against the Milosevic regime were still in place and commercial air travel direct to Belgrade was all but impossible. So they took the scenic route. From Sarajevo the team had stocked up on travel guides and rented a couple of Skoda Octavias. Then they made the two-hour drive east towards the Serbian border. Ophelia and Evelyn were staying on with the team to help with their cover story. Four middle-aged blokes entering Serbia would look suspicious. Throw in a couple of girls and they suddenly looked like a group of tourists on a trip to check out the local ruins and health spas.