by A P Bateman
“Come on!” he shouted.
Caroline had lost her momentum for attack, and saw The Beast already getting to his feet. He was reaching for his pocket and she decided not to be there when he got what he was after. She turned and ran, following Michael between the two buildings. Behind them, The Beast was screaming in Russian. Already, the courtyard was illuminated by the lights flicking on within the farmhouse. As Caroline caught up with Michael, their shadows were cast by a powerful outside light set high up on the lee of the farmhouse.
Michael was a fast runner and although Caroline ran regularly to maintain fitness, she could not match his pace. She dared a backwards glance and was horrified to see that The Beast, despite his bulk, had gained ground on her. She was sprinting hard, as best she could in the boots, but the heel put her at a disadvantage. She tried to increase her pace, but she realised that both fear and adrenalin had dealt her all the speed she was ever going to get. Michael dodged right, beside some bins and a pile of scrap metal. Caroline followed, the sharp turn in direction catching The Beast off guard. He missed the turning, cursed and doubled back. Ahead of them, Caroline saw the metal fence. She already knew she would not get clear before The Beast caught her. The track was narrow, and Michael would slow up to make the initial leap. He would reach half-way and climb, but Caroline did not have enough distance between herself and The Beast to make it. She had another twenty-metres to go, saw her opportunity and went for it. The barn to her right was constructed of wood, but a sizable section had rotted away. Caroline leaped to her right, partially clipping the wood, which splintered as she crashed through into the darkness. She tripped and fell, but rolled loosely, and got back onto her feet in time to see The Beast run past. Two gunshots shattered the night air and she heard The Beast before she saw him, he was breathing hard, rasping and grunting. He seemed to have spent every ounce of resolve in the long sprint, even swallowing sounded an effort. He bent his massive frame to get into the hole in the wall, his broad shoulders wedging briefly as he pushed himself through. Caroline had broken the rotten wood away when she had flung herself through at speed. Maybe she had more momentum, or maybe the rotten wood had been trimmed away, but The Beast struggled to push himself through.
And that was all Caroline needed.
She stepped out of the darkness. Shafts of light penetrated the gloom and she stepped closer. The Beast had both hands on the floor, his backside high in the air, like a great ape about to spring up and pound his chest, except he wasn’t going to spring anywhere. Not with his shoulders and neck touching the wood, and nor with the table leg crashing down onto his skull.
The Beast grunted, dropped onto the ground. Until then he had the tiny automatic pistol in his right hand but sandwiched between his palm and the ground as his arms took his weight. Now his hands were free. He waved the pistol towards her, but she was already taking another swing. The table leg cracked his skull again and the tiny pistol scattered out of his hand and across the ground.
“You will have to do better,” he grunted.
He was still moving, crawling closer to her, his body now completely through the hole and inside the building. He pushed himself up onto all fours, his legs scrabbling on pieces of broken wood and discarded waste from years of neglect.
Caroline struck again, this time on his shoulder, shattering his clavicle. He screamed, grit his teeth and continued to push himself up. Caroline adjusted her grip on the table leg, positioned the two-inches or so of protruding bolt and swung as hard as she could. The table leg travelled in a wide arc, but The Beast raised his arm and met the attack. The impact shook Caroline to the core and the table leg rebounded off his arm. Enough force to break most men’s arms, but his arms were like most people’s legs. He didn’t make a sound, stared into her eyes through the gloom and stood up to his full height, towering above her. Caroline took a step backwards, trod on the pistol and skidded, losing balance. She fell backwards but was already scrabbling for the pistol as The Beast stepped forwards. She slapped the floor repeatedly with her palms, desperately searching for the pistol in the darkness. She glanced upwards, saw how close he was, and dropped onto her belly as she searched.
“Just where I want you, bitch!”
Caroline’s fingers groped the pistol. She got her hand around the butt, brought the weapon up to The Beast’s groin and fired. The pistol jumped in her hand and the noise inside the confines of the building was deafening. The Beast screamed, cupped his crotch and dropped down onto his knees, his sheer weight enough to shake the ground she laid on.
Caroline pushed herself up and pushed the hot muzzle into the man’s right eye and fired. She said nothing, didn’t so much as give a backward glance as she walked on past the man as he dropped to the ground and lay still.
51
The shouts and commotion pierced the cool night air. Vehicles started their engines, headlights cut swathes of light through the darkness. Caroline had dropped heavily over the fence, curled up in the undergrowth to wait. She needed to get a handle on what was happening. She did not want to stumble blindly into her captors. A few minutes to assess, and she’d move on.
She had given up on Michael. The man had not waited for her, nor had he come back to help. She could not entirely blame him. He had played his hand with these people and he would have been called out by now. It would only be a matter of time before they caught up with him, she was sure about that. She needed to accept that she was on her own and plan accordingly. She had The Beast’s pistol, which made her feel more secure. The weapon only had three bullets remaining, but it was still an advantage. She knew that to head north was not an option. The mountains were indeed a solid range of towering peaks, interjected by few passes, and like Michael had said, a dangerous place. To the south, the mountains were less dramatic, but she doubted the problems would be different. To the east? The opposite direction from home, towards Azerbaijan or Chechnya and the Caspian Sea? Not an option. Not for an attractive western woman with blonde hair travelling alone. She may as well hand herself back in and resume her role as prisoner. Which left west. A limited alley through which to travel, hemmed in by mountains, funnelling out to the Black Sea and the same towns where Helena Milankovitch once spent her time along the coast of Russia, Georgia and the Ukraine, imprisoned by the Russian mafia in the sex trade. For Caroline, the choices were coming down to just one. But what she feared more than her imminent situation, was that Helena would work out her choices as well. Which meant she had to get moving.
Caroline got slowly and carefully to her feet, making sure she did not disrupt the bushes as she pushed her way through the undergrowth. She needed to remain out of sight, and that meant everything around her should stay still, too. The way ahead was no longer illuminated by the lights around the farmhouse and courtyard, but the ambient glow seemed to create a halo around the area, making the night sky difficult to see in detail. She could no longer ascertain the direction of the mountains, which she knew to be due north. Without knowing the direction of north, and without being able to pick out the stars for reference, she would not be able to work out which way was west. She walked onward, keeping the farmyard behind her, which at least meant she was not heading east or south. She would have to best-guess until she could find a marker.
Keeping low, Caroline negotiated the brush. She knew that from what she had seen from the bedroom window, that it would thin-out soon and open out to farmland before long. From there, it was almost uninterrupted meadowland thirty or so miles to the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. She kept the automatic in her right hand, her finger off the trigger with well-instilled discipline. The Makarov was chambered for a unique 9.2mm cartridge that made for a hard-hitting round in such a small pistol. The fact that she had killed The Beast and had his weapon to offer herself protection did much to bolster her resolve and confidence. She had been captured when she had been in a vulnerable state and she had not had an opportunity to escape until now. She was an ex-soldier, a trained agent with MI5 an
d she would be a tougher opponent than they could ever imagine.
Armed and dangerous.
She almost stood on Michael. Stopped herself in time. She crouched down and prodded him. He groaned. Her eyes were well-adjusted by now and she could see he was bleeding from his chest and stomach.
“My back,” he said weakly. “My back hurts…”
Caroline tried to roll him and examine the wound, but he was a dead weight and he wheezed, a trickle of blood reaching the corner of his mouth. She looked at the two holes, both were ragged and large enough for a golf ball to pass through. She could picture it happening, The Beast shooting him as he climbed the fence. He would have dropped over heavily, crawled desperately to this place.
“Michael,” she said, prompting him to answer. He didn’t, but he was still breathing. “Michael, tell me about the car. Where is it?”
“The Village,” he grunted. “Skhimili.”
“Where is the village?”
“I need a doctor,” he said.
“I need the car,” she paused. “We can’t go anywhere without the car. Where are the keys?” He tapped his hip pocket, but his hand was almost moving in slow motion. Caroline snatched them out and stuffed the bunch into her pocket.
“Green Opel Corsa,” he said. “It is parked beside a general store,” he paused. “Where I got you the foods in sealed bags… the cola…” He was trailing off, his eyes opening and closing in time with his shallow breathing.
“The village, Michael,” she urged. “Where is the village?”
“Keep going,” he said. “Keep heading the way you were. It is two-kilometres. You will come back for me?”
“Of course,” she lied.
She wasn’t being malicious. The man had helped her, but he would be dead within ten to twenty-minutes. There was no point in telling him so. She was about to leave when the thought of him being discovered occurred to her. If they found him, pressed him for information, he could tell them where she was heading. She bent down and spoke slowly and clearly into his ear.
“Michael. I must end this. Helena will not stop looking for us. I am going to double back around the farmhouse and kill her. I have Jurgen’s gun, she won’t expect me to go back.” She tucked the pistol into her back pocket and took the keys out. She looked at the keys, quickly worked out which one was for the car and which looked like house keys and she slipped the car key off the bunch. “Take these Michael. Keep them safe. I will be back for you soon. You are going to be okay.” She pressed the bunch of keys into his hand and stood up. She took a pace, then stopped and turned around. “Thank you, Michael,” she said with genuine emotion in her voice. “Thank you for getting me out…”
52
Neil Ramsay gratefully accepted the coffee and paced over to the window. His own window afforded glimpses of Table Mountain, while Marnie’s looked over the choppy blue-green waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He couldn’t decide which view was better, but as he sipped the milky coffee and mulled it over, he decided he could watch the Atlantic from his usual holiday retreat in Cornwall but would probably never see the beauty of a sunrise over the prodigious landmark again.
Rashid perched on the edge of Marnie’s hastily made king-sized bed and sipped his breakfast tea. “Nice view, isn’t it?” he said to Ramsay’s back.
“Not bad,” he said. “I’m surprised you noticed it.”
Marnie had powered up her laptop, purchased their tickets and had already been briefed by the technician at GCHQ. She glanced up at Ramsay, then shared a glance at Rashid.
“Anything I should know?” Ramsay asked, his back still turned on them, the rising sun casting a golden hue across the surface of the water in front of him.
“The account used to pay Botha was set up in the Channel Islands, but the money made its way to it via Luxemburg and Switzerland,” said Marnie.
“Not that,” Ramsay said curtly. He sipped some more coffee and turned around. “I’m referring to the poorly-made bed, Rashid still wearing the same clothes he wore last night.”
“I was sleeping, then threw the bed together when Rashid knocked!”
“Yeah, and I couldn’t sleep, thought I’d come around and see what was happening.”
“And the clothes?”
“I’m a grubby sod.” Rashid shrugged. “Hey, I’m travelling light.”
“And I’m engaged!” Marnie protested indignantly.
Ramsay held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay,” he conceded. “I was mistaken. Just doesn’t help things, people getting together in the service. There’s too much at stake. Pillow talk for one thing, conflicts of interest for another,” he paused. “Just look at King. He’s storming around Europe taking out mafia brotherhoods. He wouldn’t be doing that if he was not emotionally involved with Caroline.”
“Brotherhoods?” Rashid asked.
Ramsay took out his phone and thumbed to a text. “This was sent in the night, from Mereweather,” he paused, before reading out the name in his best Italian accent. “Monteverdi Marittimo,” he said. “Some mountain town in Tuscany, Italy. An Italian mafioso called Luca Fortez was hit at his home, his family threatened. He was a real piece of work. Took down other mafia families, moved in on their assets. A cold, vicious bastard, by all accounts.”
Rashid shrugged. “Good. The world is a safer place. Or at least Italy will be.”
Ramsay nodded. “No doubt. But it doesn’t end there. A deal was being struck between Luca Fortez and a group of Russian gangsters, or Bratva. The Russian boss was a man called Nikolai. Not sure it it’s a Christian name or his surname, but he was an even bigger piece of work. He wound up dead as well. The police suspected the deal went wrong, but I have it on good authority that it was merely made to look that way.”
“Whose authority?” Rashid asked.
“We have an open line of communication with Interpol. They are working with Italian intelligence, their internal intelligence and security agency.”
“And?” Rashid prompted.
“This Nikolai character was in deep with Sergeyev once. They were enforcers for the Bratva. They worked along the Black Sea resorts at the same time Helena Milankovitch was there.”
“Coincidence,” Rashid countered. “All these Russian shits know each other. And they move on each other’s territory all the time. They’re backstabbers. Just because they are both dead, it doesn’t mean King had anything to do with it. It’s a dangerous lifestyle.”
“CCTV showed King was there.”
“Where?”
“This Monteverdi place.”
“So?”
“So, the man was there.”
Rashid shrugged. “He was there, big deal! A lot of people would have been there. It’s Tuscany. It’s a popular tourist spot. Half the middle-classes go there to drink prosecco and become cultured twats for a weekend. See some shitty leaning tower and reflect how good it is that the all the chavs still go to the Costas.”
“You’re a loyal friend.”
“Only type of friend in my book,” Rashid said, glaring at him. “Unless they have footage of King popping some guy in the head, deny it and move on.”
“Now, look here…”
“Deny it!” Rashid shouted, interrupting him. “And move on… Caroline is in trouble and King is working the angles, the only way he knows how. He’s buying her time.”
“And we’re looking for Helena. To find Caroline,” Ramsay protested. “Find Helena, find Caroline. That was your input, I’ll remind you!”
“Stop!” Marnie shouted. She stood up and walked over, hovering between them. “Let’s take a moment. We have her secret bank account. We have traceability, a link that she paid a South African government agent to set up his colleague and organise a hit. In doing so, he endangered a British government agent. But what use is all that? Botha is dead. There’s no material witnesses and nobody to prosecute. The South African’s aren’t going to come forward because they passed up one of their own. Had us do the dirty work in return f
or questioning him and gaining access to his computer. This investigation has dried up. We need to concentrate on location. And we have that with this place in Georgia. A location where Helena’s laptop has been recently.”
Ramsay considered this for a moment. He placed his coffee cup down on the table and looked at Rashid. “Have you heard from King?”
“No,” he lied.
“And do you think Georgia is the next logical step?”
Rashid nodded. “I do. We know Helena was in Sweden, and we know that King went there, as instructed in the letter. But we don’t know what happened in Georgia, or how important it is, but if the laptop was there, the IP address used, then we need to check it out.”
Ramsay turned to Marnie. “All right then, cancel the tickets to Stockholm. Get us on the next flight you can find to Tbilisi. Unless there’s somewhere closer?” he paused thoughtfully, looking at his watch. “Okay. Let’s meet downstairs for breakfast in half an hour. That will give you enough time to get some tickets booked. I’ll check in with Thames House, let Simon Mereweather know what our next line in investigation is.” He walked to the door, let himself out as Rashid finished his cup of tea.
Rashid drained the remnants, placed his cup down on the table and smiled. “Close?”
“Close.”
“Well, I’m glad he went for Georgia,” he said.
“It would have been awkward telling him I’d already bought them,” she smiled. “God, I was worried, began to wish I hadn’t listened to you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
She walked over to him, stood barely half a pace away. “Well, you were extremely persuasive…”
Rashid moved in close, bent down and kissed her. She responded, her tongue slipping inside his mouth, both searching. She pulled away first. “Oh god,” she said. “You’ve made me cheat on my fiancé!”
