Aggressor (28 page)

‘No.’

‘They wouldn’t have managed mine, of course. Those clips were way too small.’

I smiled at him. ‘Makes you think though, doesn’t it? These guys weren’t fucking around. If they had their way, you’d never see Hazel and the grandkids again.’

‘It’s not ideal, lad.’ He shrugged. ‘But I’m dead anyway, remember? It’s different for you.’ He paused. ‘Don’t waste any time fantasizing about that little box-head of yours, though – you should be working out how to get us across the border. It’s your big chance to show the world what you picked up from the master.’

‘That’s the thing . . .’ I hesitated. ‘I have been worrying. I have been thinking about her. It’s the first time something like that has ever worried me. You’ve had it your whole life, haven’t you?’

He shifted about in his seat. ‘Fucking hell, don’t tell me you’re finally thinking of joining the human race?’

‘How did you mix it? You know, “What the fuck am I doing here? I’d rather be at home doing I don’t know what, mowing the grass or finding the cat, or something”?’

‘It was all about trying to hang on to the balance. And that meant finding somebody like Hazel, somebody who understood what was going on in this thick head of mine, and was prepared to live with it. But it’s a partnership, lad, which is one of the reasons she’s going to be pissed off with me at the moment. After all those years, she thought she’d served her time, just like me.’

He had another look at his bleeding hand. ‘But it’s that fucking stallion in the paddock, Nick; that’s what got to me. And with these fucking things starting to behave as if they’ve got a mind of their own – well, I just had to do it without her this time. If you know they understand what’s going on, even if they disagree, you don’t have to worry about the Hazels of this world when you’re in the shit. You know they’ll be counting on you to use what brain you have to get out of the shit and get back home . . .’ He tailed off. ‘Make any sense?’

I nodded. ‘Suppose so.’

‘Good. Remember to write it down, lad. Something else you’ve learned from the expert.’

We must have been travelling for about twenty minutes along the valley floor when the Lada’s engine started to groan and we headed uphill. As we approached the crest, I killed the headlamps and edged forward, hoping not to see a VCP looming out of the darkness below us.

It was worse than that. Less than a K away was a large cluster of American lights illuminating the rows of twenty-man tents and Portakabins. A few Ks beyond that, on the higher ground, was another light cluster. But these belonged to the Russians.

‘Vasiani,’ I muttered. ‘I suppose at least we know where we are.’

Charlie looked up from his first aid. ‘We’ll have to bin Turkey for a while, lad. We need that gear back.’ He nodded down at the lights. ‘Listen, it’ll be suicide trying to get in there and find the duty wagon. I say we go for it in the morning. At least we know where it’ll be. Let the fucking thing come to us.’

‘You think that wagon’s going to be back on the road?’

‘Course – that thing’s gonna last longer than me, lad. Whoever’s running the transport pool down there would already have slapped on new tyres and done a jet spray under the arches. Come on, it’s a fucking army, isn’t it? What they holding it back for, forensics?’

He was right. It was the duty wagon and that was that. Every vehicle was allocated to something or other, and if this one had done a bit of cross-country, so what? That was what they did.

Charlie kept his eyes down. ‘He tell you he was leaving tomorrow?’

‘Yeah – more of the futility stuff, I thought.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. But I know I’d want to get the fuck out of town if I didn’t have control of whatever we got in the back of that 110 – wouldn’t you?’

He turned to me and I could make out just a little of his face in the ambient light from the valley. ‘It’ll be a fucker, but all the more reason to go to the airport, no?’

Two or three sets of headlights fired up and moved around inside the camp. Then one of them broke away and headed towards the main gate.

‘We’d better assume the twins had phones, Charlie boy. We got the Russians or that VCP to get past. Or – you want to get out and leg it? Even you’d be better cross-country than this thing.’

Charlie reached for the dash, smearing blood onto the plastic as he started rocking backwards and forwards in a not terribly serious attempt to make the Lada go faster.

He caught my expression. ‘Russians. Got to be done. I’m not hopping over these hills all fucking night or risking bumping into that squaddie I ripped apart.’

I put my foot down. The acceleration was so feeble that his rocking actually seemed to help.

‘That’s it, lad – to boldly go where no Lada has gone before.’

I changed down into third, trying to get a burst on. The engine whined, but that was about all it did. I rammed the gearstick back into fourth.

My eyes strained to pick out the holes in the road. I didn’t get much joy from the Lada’s headlights – even on full beam they only lit up about two feet in front of us. The junction right was coming up. The other set of headlights was coming fast down the track towards it.

If we didn’t get past first, the other wagon would block us off.

‘Come on! Keep it going!’ Charlie rocked as if he was having a fit.

There was nothing I could do but keep the car pointed in the right direction and ram my foot down.

By the time we reached the junction the engine was not too far short of cardiac arrest. The other wagon’s headlights were immediately to our right, about four hundred metres away.

Flecks of saliva sprayed me as Charlie urged us on. ‘Keep going, lad, come on.’

The engine groaned again as we started to head uphill. It wasn’t steep, but it was clearly steep enough.

The whole vehicle shook as we rumbled over the rough tarmac and I threw the wheel left and right to swerve around the potholes.

‘That’s it, lad. Keep going . . .’

The other headlights came to the junction and turned to follow. It didn’t take long for them to start closing in.

The lights of the Federation camp were less than a K away. I changed down to try to get a few more revs out of this fucking thing, my face almost against the windscreen as I tried to read the road.

Charlie checked behind. ‘It’ll soon be in spitting distance, lad. Keep that foot down.’

As if I needed telling.

Into fourth. The engine squealed.

The Russians’ floodlights were getting closer, but the hill was getting steeper.

Our speed dropped. Into third. A burst, then slowing.

Into second. We both jerked as the gear kicked in and the engine screamed.

‘It’s a Pajero, Nick! Got to be Bastard!’

Even as he said it, the 4x4’s lights flooded the inside of the Lada and we got the first nudge. It actually speeded us on our way.

‘Is it Bastard? You sure?’

Charlie was still twisted in his seat. ‘Who gives a shit? Just keep your foot down!’

Another slam into the back. Another jolt forwards. If it was Bastard, maybe they’d do without the helis. That had been all about the duty wagon, not his shit.

Not far to the Russians now, maybe four hundred.

The next collision was to the rear nearside. The back of the Lada slewed to the right. All I could do was keep the front wheels facing forwards and my foot on the floor.

The back fishtailed and I spun the wheel like a lunatic.

‘He’s backing off, Nick, he’s backing off. Well done, lad, just keep those fucking wheels straight.’

We were coming up to the Russian camp’s fence line.

I checked the rear-view. Charlie was right, the headlights were receding. Whoever it was, he was bottling out. Charlie checked behind us one final time, then relaxed back into his seat.

The Federation flag fluttered high over the floodlit main gate. Four fresh-faced guards stirred in their sentry posts, and started to prepare a traditional Russian welcome. They were in camouflage uniforms and helmets, AK assault rifles slung across their chests. They stared at us in a certain amount of confusion as we gave them a cheery wave.

‘Maybe we should stop,’ Charlie said, laughing. ‘One of the lads might fancy making us an offer for the car.’

‘You can leave it to him in your will, you stupid old fucker.’ The lights from both the camps disappeared and we dropped into lower ground. ‘Sooner I get you back, the better.’

4

Monday, 2 May

The line of taxis outside the terminal hadn’t moved much in the hour since first light. When the odd cab did leave the front of the rank, the drivers behind didn’t start their engines to shuffle forward, they just got out, leaned back in through the window, and pushed.

I had the trigger on the terminal entrance from the other side of the road. I was past the three garden sheds, sitting on the concrete between overflowing rubbish skips and four old abandoned buses in the small, potholed car park. I blended in well; I was wearing a black woollen hat I’d found in the boot of the Lada, that smelled like it had been worn by a wet bloodhound. The big ear flaps made me look like one too, but it helped hide some of my face.

Blue-and-whites had been cruising past every few minutes, and one was static right now by the sheds. The two cops inside drank coffee and smoked.

Charlie and I had come right into the lion’s den, but there was no other way. Our only chance of retrieving the papers and tape was to get into the duty wagon. There were two fixed points where we knew it would be during flying hours – at the camp and at the airport.

We could have tried to wave it down on the road, but SOPs for military vehicles usually precluded them from stopping – and after the stunt we’d pulled yesterday, every driver would be on red alert. A hijack was out of the question; instead of dead ground, you need an open stretch of road, so you can identify the vehicle before you hit it in the dark. Our current plan wasn’t perfect, but it was the only one we had.

I checked Baby-G. It was just after eight. Charlie had hobbled into the terminal ten minutes ago to get into position. He had to take the lead; I couldn’t run the risk of being recognized.

The idea was simple: the wagon turns up to drop off or pick up; Charlie sees it through the glass; walks out, lifts it, heads into the car park behind me; I’d jump in and we’d head for the border. This time he wouldn’t just bark a whole lot of orders, but rely instead on his weapon. He had a little 9mm Makharov, the sort of thing James Bond used to tuck into his dinner jacket.

Assuming there weren’t any delays, all the international flights were gone by midday. If Bastard showed up for one of them it would be one fuck of a big bonus for us, even if the 110 didn’t show.

We had gone through dozens of what-ifs. What if he turned up before the 110? We had to hold him until it came, and use him to get the gear out. What if he turned up after the 110? Well, we would never know because we’d be gone – unless Charlie managed to find out what flight he was on.

What it boiled down to was that we would have to take the situation as it came – otherwise we’d still be out in the cuds a week on Wednesday, going through thousands of options. Fuck it, let’s just get on with it and get out of here.

My revolver was also Russian, and looked like it had seen action in the Crimea. It still had seven big 7.62 rounds in the cylinder, and that cheered me up a lot. Given that our plan stank worse than the dog blankets, it was the only thing that did.

I slumped down against a skip, sliding my legs under the one in front of me. The guys in the blue-and-white finished their brew and drove off. I craned my neck to look along the building. Two more policemen had taken up position outside the terminal. After yesterday’s nightmare, word had obviously got round.

After dumping the Lada in the city at about five this morning, we’d hidden up and waited for the place to come alive a little before approaching a taxi. Between them, Hari and Kunzru had had exactly 127 lari in their wallets – about $70, as it turned out. The taxi driver had pocketed about ten, and Charlie had custody of the rest. He was going to need it to grease a palm or two at the check-in desks to see if his best mate Jimmy Bastendorf was leaving today. Charlie wanted to arrange a birthday surprise for him when he got home and wasn’t sure when he was flying. Was it today, or maybe tomorrow? In a dirt-poor country, even loose change can get you anything.

A rust- and grime-covered yellow bus pulled up at the stop outside the terminal, its exhaust pumping out diesel fumes you could cut with a knife. Most of those disembarking looked as though they were airport workers, but there were one or two others with suitcases. The airport was coming to life.

Charlie appeared through the fumes, lurching across the road like Long John Silver. His hand had been OK when he left me, just cut and sore, but his ankle had swollen like a balloon, even though I’d tried to strap it up with a couple of strips of blanket.

He had a newspaper in his hand. ‘Bastard’s off to Vienna, we’ve got him.’ He lobbed it in my direction and it fell between the skips as he carried on past. ‘Here’s the bad news.’

He had to do a circuit now, maybe check something out in the car park. Nobody just exits a terminal and crosses the road, only to cross straight back ten seconds later.

I crawled over to the paper, then back to where I could still keep trigger in case there was a drama. If ten blue-and-white Passats screamed up to the terminal and dragged Charlie away, I needed to know.

He’d chucked me a copy of the
Georgian Times
, the English-language paper. Folded inside was a large bar of chocolate. I ripped the foil off and popped a chunk into my mouth, but when I scanned the front page my throat went dry.

Most of it was covered by a grainy photograph of the yard in front of Baz’s house. The banner headline screamed:
‘SAINT’ SLAIN!

It went on in a similar vein, to bemoan the savage killing of the most honest and incorruptible public servant the country had ever seen. This wasn’t the picture Bastard had painted, but that wasn’t much of a surprise.