by Henry Porter
Naji focused on what was happening with Samson and Harland. Harland had just hung up on a call, which had lasted almost as long as Naji’s interaction with Jamie. He was smiling and his eyes were watering.
‘So?’ said Samson.
‘Nyman’s people are going to work for us tonight,’ said Harland. He paused and laughed. ‘But they don’t know that.’
‘How do you mean?’ said Samson.
‘My friend at KaPo wants to get them off his back, so he’s offered Nyman the old dossier in exchange for surveillance help. Nyman accepted with alacrity. His people will cover Crane’s home, the restaurant where he dines and the bar. When they see Crane’s white Porsche move, they’ll phone him and he’ll let me know immediately.’
Samson smiled. ‘And they have no idea?’
‘No. But there’s a price. KaPo want everything we have.’
‘There’s some good stuff in the email,’ said Samson, looking over to Naji.
Naji nodded but said nothing. He was aware of Samson’s gaze lingering on him with suspicion.
‘Send it to me and I’ll put it their way,’ said Harland.
‘But you didn’t tell them what we’re planning?’ said Samson, turning back to Harland with one final penetrating glance at Naji.
‘Of course not! They suspect he’s preparing to leave, anyway. There’s been activity at the house to indicate that. If he goes missing, I believe they won’t be overly concerned. They’re angry that he’s been running his operation here because of the problems they’ve had in the past with Russian money-laundering.’ He sat down and dabbed his eyes with a tissue. ‘There’s something else. They inserted surveillance devices into Crane’s house. A rushed job: two or three needle microphones, which they got in overnight. Seems KaPo independently located the house yesterday. They need help on something and they’ve sent an email with a transcript which’ – he looked down at his phone – ‘should be here any moment. Yes, here it is. I’ll send it to you.’
The transcript was of two individuals talking in English, one of whom was Crane, identified as Chumak. There were occasional interruptions from a third individual who spoke in Russian, and these were redacted. KaPo wanted explanations and an ID for Chumak’s main interlocutor.
CHUMAK: I asked you not to come but you came anyway. That was unwise.
AMERICAN MALE: I had to – what else could I do?
CHUMAK: You came on your own plane, landed at the airport in Tallinn. You think the authorities won’t register this? They pay attention to private jets.
AMERICAN MALE: I couldn’t email or send a message. I needed to see you personally. You have to understand that he’s in possession of more information that Daniel gave him. Much more.
CHUMAK: What makes you think that?
AMERICAN MALE: Things he said to me after the meeting a couple of days ago.
CHUMAK: It doesn’t matter – the operation will be completed by the end of the day. There are just a few things to tie up. (Pause.) Now you are here you should celebrate with us. You’ll meet some of the people we are working with and then …
AMERICAN MALE: Then what?
CHUMAK: We go our separate ways, of course.
AMERICAN MALE: What about the hostage? You’re going to let her go, right? That was the deal. We agreed that you would do this. Just a few days while he was in jail and you got things straight, you said.
CHUMAK: Her husband is still a danger to us.
AMERICAN MALE: He’s in jail. His business is fucked. He can’t hurt you. You got everything you wanted, Adam. And now you’re going to disappear … (inaudible)
CHUMAK: Why are you so concerned?
AMERICAN MALE: She’s a good woman. She has nothing to do with this.
CHUMAK: You like her?
AMERICAN MALE: Sure, I like her.
CHUMAK: This is the reason you’re here – to plead for her life.
AMERICAN MALE: What’s the point of another death? Let her go, Adam. That’s what you agreed to.
CHUMAK: I’ll see what I can do, but you have to understand this is a very complex matter now. (Pause.) I’m surprised by your sudden interest in her welfare. Has he got to you? Has he told you to come here?
AMERICAN MALE: No, of course not. I’m here of my own volition. I came because I wanted to make sure you knew what was going on in the States.
CHUMAK: Thank you. But you shouldn’t have come here.
AMERICAN MALE: I understand, but you owe me, Adam. I’ve helped you to do what you wanted. Now I’m asking you for something in return. Let her go and …
CHUMAK: We’ll talk about it later.
Samson skimmed it again, then looked up. ‘The American male is a man named Gil Leppo. Anastasia’s husband identified him as Crane’s man and sent him to plead for her life. This is his back-up plan – definitely not working. Crane is going to have her killed, that’s plain.’
‘What do I tell KaPo?’ asked Harland.
‘Say it means nothing to us.’
‘They’re not stupid.’
‘Find a way of stalling them.’
A few minutes later, they gathered round a laptop, opened Google Earth and went through the plan. The snatch was ludicrously simple and would involve just Samson and Vuk. It could only work if the timing was perfect and they had more luck than they deserved. Harland said he would run the communications from near the Soviet-era Olympic yachting centre at the port, where they would dump the Porsche and transfer Crane to the pick-up.
‘Where I will be?’ asked Naji.
‘You’re staying here,’ said Harland.
Naji picked up his laptop and walked to their end of the room then faced them. ‘I have new information on all bank accounts. I must be with you to look at his iPad.’
‘How do you know he has an iPad?’ asked Samson.
‘My source. In one hour he will tell me everything about Crane’s operation. I must be with you.’
‘I promised your sister,’ said Samson. ‘What source?’
Naji remembered the moment in the Macedonian border town when he had implored a group of migrants to take him with them on the road north. He placed his laptop on the table. ‘You can tell me nothing about fear, nothing about danger,’ he said quietly. ‘I have seen more in my life than any of you – men killed for smoking cigarette, women beaten for wrong ringtone. I saw barrel bombs fall from sky and destroy a school. I see what security forces did to my father. I was nearly drowned. I survived. Perverts and terrorists tried to murder me. I lived. And when Almunjil was going to kill you, Samson, I saved your life.’ He stopped. ‘Even then I was not a boy.’
Harland cleared his throat and said, ‘He can wait with me in my car at the port. He’ll be fine. Then we will lead you to Johannes’s place.’
‘I’m against it,’ said Samson, ‘but I agree, on the understanding that you do not place yourself in danger.’ Naji nodded. ‘So I have a few things to say,’ he continued. ‘I and Vuk will be armed, but these weapons will not be used.’ He looked at Vuk. ‘I repeat, they will not be fired. I don’t want a bloody shoot-out. This has to be quick and clean. Talking of which, Vuk, you need to shave and get yourself a jacket and put on a bloody tie and clean shirt for the first time in your life so you can pass as Crane’s driver.’ Vuk looked aggrieved; Harland said he could help. ‘As soon as they know we’ve got Crane they’ll contact us. They won’t call Hisami because they know he’s back in jail, so the call must come on this phone.’ He held up one of the several phones lying on charge. ‘Then we’ll make arrangements to swap Crane for Anastasia. This will take place somewhere along the Russian border.’
Harland’s face betrayed his many doubts, but in response to a less than friendly look from Samson, he said, ‘It is what it is. We’d better get on with it.’
The storm rolled in at 9.15 p.m. with strong winds that forced two ferries trying to dock in the port of Tallinn to retreat to the open sea. The downpour halted traffic and sent the few people still on the streets running for shelter. To
rrents coursed in the roads; the tram system was paralysed because of fallen trees that had taken overhead lines with them; and a section of the city was plunged into darkness when the Ranna substation, undergoing an upgrade, was inundated.
By the time the storm hit, several messages had passed from Harland to Samson relaying the movements of Crane’s white Porsche, which had departed the Russian-style residence at 8.35 p.m. and at 8.57 p.m. arrived at the restaurant Gogol, where it dropped off Crane and male and female companions. One of Nyman’s people had booked a table, so was able to relay to KaPo the descriptions of Crane’s party for dinner. Harland’s friend at KaPo passed much of this information to him, but only essential details were relayed by an encrypted message service to Samson and Vuk, who waited in the white Porsche identical to Crane’s in a back street three minutes’ drive from Bar MS. The sending of these messages had been taken over by Naji, who had put all the phones in a group on an app and was quicker at typing than Harland, who, with eyebrows raised and glasses at the end of his nose, tended to stab at the phone’s screen with his index finger.
Naji and Harland watched the storm in silence while waiting for news from the restaurant. When the wind died Harland got out and dashed to the pick-up to make sure it would still start.
To Naji, Harland seemed something like the model Englishman conjured up by his father, who had almost certainly had inaccurate ideas about such things from his reading of the English classics. He was polite, listened intently and asked many interesting questions about Syria and Naji’s escape through the mountains.
Their conversation came to an end when messages began to pour into Harland’s phone. Naji relayed them to Samson via the app.
‘Party about to leave restaurant.’
‘Two cars outside restaurant.’
‘Crane and companions get into white Porsche.’
‘Four men get into Black Mercedes SUV, German plates.’
‘Crane’s car now on way to Bar MS.’
‘Second car waiting at Gogol. Passenger has forgotten something.’
Harland looked at his watch. ‘Now we’ll see what happens. If that bloody Porsche stays outside the bar for the duration of Crane’s time there, we’re …’
‘Screwed,’ said Naji.
‘Just so.’
Fifteen minutes passed before the white Porsche appeared at the bar. It took much longer than Harland had expected and he assumed there had been some kind of hold-up because of the storm.
A message from Samson asked, ‘Has Porsche left the bar with Crane’s woman?’
‘No word,’ replied Harland.
Another few minutes elapsed. Harland tapped the steering wheel. Naji consulted the message app he was using to talk to Jamie. As yet, there was nothing from him.
Another message came in from KaPo. ‘Both cars outside bar.’
Harland waited, his eyes locked on to the screen.
A new message read, ‘Three people are out of white Porsche. Four men out of black Mercedes. They are saying goodbye to the woman.’
Harland held his breath.
‘Woman returned to white Porsche with driver. Both vehicles leaving now.’
Harland nodded and patted the steering wheel a couple of times.
Naji sent the message on to Samson and got the reply, ‘Thanx.’
‘We have a bit of a wait now, maybe two hours. I want to hear about your music. Samson tells me you have talent,’ said Harland.
Naji looked mystified.
‘I’m interested,’ said Harland.
But before Naji could respond Harland received a call from Rasmus, his source in KaPo, who spoke for thirty seconds, during which Harland said nothing apart from a grunted goodbye. He dictated a message for Samson. ‘One unidentified male – not ours – watching bar.’
The white Porsche rented by and containing Samson and Vuk had moved closer to the street with the bar in it and was now parked just two minutes away, in the shadow of a church. On reading the latest message from Harland and having replied, Samson got out and moved along the side of the church so he could drop down into the street about a hundred metres from the Metsa Sõbrad bar. It was still raining and there was much debris in the street, but evidently the main body of the storm had passed on its journey eastwards. Samson waited in the lee of the church, quite well sheltered from the rain, watching for any movement. There were more cars parked opposite the bar than on the previous evening, but nothing stirred until ten thirty, when three vehicles arrived in quick succession, followed by two Mercedes people-carriers, and dropped off men at the entrance of the bar. Several more cars drew up. Samson estimated that about twenty-five men had gone into the bar. He lifted his binoculars and watched them as they hurried to the door. They were a less rowdy bunch than before, and most wore suits. There was certainly a sense of occasion and formality.
Three quarters of an hour passed during which he became aware of an uneven bump in an otherwise regular shadow on the other side of the street, cast by one of two streetlights between him and the bar. There was no movement, of course, yet the shadow could conceivably have been the back of a man’s head. A glance through the binoculars wasn’t conclusive, but Samson remembered this was more or less the spot from which an armed man had emerged to beat up the two drunken thugs.
A dog appeared, trotting from the direction of the bar, stopped, lifted its leg against a tyre and seemed to do a double-take by the driver’s door, as though it had picked up a scent or a movement in the car. It soon lost interest and continued on its way. Samson trained the binoculars on the car and saw mist on the inside of the windscreen – the breath of perhaps two occupants rather than one condensed on the rain-chilled glass. The car was facing away from the bar, which meant that the driver could observe the entrance in his wing mirror. It had to be Nyman’s team.
Muffled by the rain, the clocks of Tallinn began to chime eleven. Samson folded the binoculars and put them inside his jacket then made his way back to the Porsche. When he opened the door, Vuk thrust a mobile in his face. ‘You fucking idiot who does not look at fucking phone.’
Samson read that Crane’s white Porsche had left the residence four minutes before.
‘Go! You know what to do,’ he said, scrambling into the back and reaching for the gun on the floor. ‘When we get into the street, slow down until you see people at the door. Don’t arrive there too early. Then pull up beyond the door so they don’t see you.’
‘Numbers fucked with water. I take away.’
Samson processed this. The registration plates Naji had mocked up were unusable because of the storm. ‘They won’t notice – they’ll still think it’s Crane’s car.’
They entered the street. ‘Slow down!’ hissed Samson.
‘I know this. Don’t tell me fucking story again.’ The car coasted across the cobbles and stopped. ‘They come now,’ said Vuk, moving off.
‘Okay … Just ease it beyond the doorway.’
As the car moved towards the bar’s entrance, Samson looked between the seats and saw the doorman recognise the car as Crane’s and move into the street with an umbrella.
They glided past the entrance. Crane was standing in the doorway. He looked up crossly from a leather folder he held in both hands then back into the doorway. Vuk stopped.
‘Damn! He’s waiting for someone,’ said Samson under his breath. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ And he knew who that might be. The doorman moved to the car. Crane glanced behind him then followed and arrived at the passenger door just as it was opened. At that moment, Samson saw Gil Leppo, in a long black raincoat, dive towards the car. Crane was halfway in. Leppo opened the back door, saw Samson with the gun and let out a kind of yelp, which made Crane hesitate. At this point, there was a soft explosion behind Samson as the back windshield shattered. More bullets clipped the roof of the Porsche and thudded into the back door. The doorman, who was midway between the car and the entrance to the bar, was hit and fell sideways. Samson saw Crane rooted to the spot, looking as
tonished. The only thought in his mind was that, if Crane were killed, Anastasia would certainly die. He flung open the back door on the driver’s side and rolled on to the street, loosing off three shots blindly into the shadows, where he had seen the immobile shape of a man. But the man was no longer hidden. He was in the centre of the road holding a silenced automatic weapon that produced a series of muzzle flashes not much brighter than a Christmas-tree light.
Samson rolled again and fired and at the same time became dimly aware of Nyman, who had appeared out of nowhere and was dithering between two parked cars to Samson’s right. The gunfire continued and he heard a yell from the direction of the car. Now Nyman was looking at him aghast, trying to compute what his former colleague was doing in Crane’s car and why he was now carrying out the duties of a seasoned bodyguard. Samson also took in Sonia Fell, crouching by the wall of the building on the other side of the line of parked cars. Next thing he knew, Crane’s white Porsche had materialised in the street and Crane’s driver, comprehending at least part of what was happening, had opened fire on the gunman.
Samson rolled once more, scrambled up and went round to the front of the Porsche to seize Crane, who had taken shelter behind the back door, which had been wedged open by Gil Leppo, who had been wounded in the stomach but was still moving. Crane searched Samson’s face, not knowing whether he was friend or foe, and rightly decided that the man he vaguely recognised from twenty-four hours before was trying to save his life. He let himself be hauled over the wounded Leppo and bundled into the back of the car. As Samson gave him a final shove, he noticed the leather iPad case lying on the cobblestones by the doorman. He picked it up and leapt in with Crane, dropping the case on to the front passenger seat without another glance at Leppo, who looked as though he was about to die.
‘Go!’ he shouted. Vuk hit the accelerator, but the wheels of the Porsche spun wildly on the damp cobbles and the car began to drift sideways into the body of the doorman. Then Vuk took his foot off the gas, tried again and the Porsche lurched forward and over the man’s lifeless body. They passed rapidly through the old gateway and down the slip road, crossed the ring road, crashing three sets of lights, and entered the avenue of modern commercial buildings that led to the ferry terminal. It was only when Vuk swung left towards the dark, concrete mass of the Linnahall – the V. I. Lenin Place of Culture and Sport – that it dawned on Crane that these men were far from his saviours. He scrabbled with the locked door. Samson placed the gun to his chest and said, ‘Shush! We just saved your life, pal.’
