Aggressor (34 page)

‘We didn’t kill him, Nana. You must have seen the CCTV. You didn’t see me kill him, did you?’

‘Save it for the camera. You’ll all have your chance.’

She waffled into the cell, was put on hold for a moment, then started talking again.

Paata fired up the Merc’s onboard generator and the arc lights burst into life. I could feel their heat on my face and back. My clothes started to steam.

Nana went into rapid-fire Paperclip mode; she checked her watch and waved her spare arm at Paata and his kit, as if whoever was on the other end could see. I could make out every mention of Baz’s name now; I’d heard it far too often these last couple of days not to.

Paata knelt by the van to unpack a sat dish from something resembling a black golf caddie. Nana’s exclusive was going to go out live, with us pleading our innocence straight to camera just before the police arrived.

Decision time.

Should we give up the papers now? Maybe we could still get out of this some other way, and hang on to them.

Bastard was going to say fuck all to her. Why incriminate himself?

But Charlie might . . .

I decided to hold off just a little longer, until we got ready for filming. Maybe we’d get to sit up; any chance we had to move was a chance to take action.

Nana finished her conversation and her gaze rested for a moment on something just beyond where we were lying. ‘That bench?’ There was sadness in her voice. ‘That is where Zurab sat on Saturday, when he took the call that made him go back to Tbilisi. If only . . . If only he hadn’t gone . . . If only I’d asked him even two or three more questions, who knows how things might have turned out?’ Her head jerked back towards me, her eyes full of loathing once more.

Charlie broke the silence that followed.

‘Nana, we didn’t do it. We can prove it. We have papers. That affidavit everyone’s after? I’ve got it here – and a tape of this fat fuck setting the whole thing up.’ He turned to Bastard. Their heads were just a couple of feet from each other. ‘Pipeline security, my arse.’

7

The tape started to spin in the console.

Koba now had the three of us lying down beside the Merc’s open door, but we could see everything we needed to. We had a pretty good view of one of the monitors; Koba and his Desert Eagle had a very good view of us.

To start with, Paata and Nana seemed more interested in what the fuck had happened to Eduard. I was getting the hang of this Paperclip now. Where was he? But then they went quiet as he concentrated on the screen and she flicked through Baz’s papers.

The picture quality was nothing to be ashamed of, given what it had been through. It was a bit gritty and fucked up by the mud, but it was clearly and unmistakably Jim Bastendorf coming into Charlie’s hotel room at the Marriott.

The little 10x8 screen didn’t do full justice to Charlie’s disguise, but it still brought a smile to my face. He’d remembered to keep his back to the lens, which was a smart move, given his outfit. He’d draped a towel over his head and shoulders, like a boxer, but no-one was going to confuse him with Muhammad Ali. He’d topped off the whole ensemble with a shower cap.

Somebody said something, but the sound quality was poor. Paata rewound the tape a few frames and turned up the volume.

We all listened to Bastard telling Charlie the reason he needed him to get into the house on Saturday night. ‘
The fuck’s away until Sunday
.’ He pointed a finger at the bathrobe in front of him. ‘
So it’s got to be Saturday night, you got it?
’

I flicked my eyes from the screen to the open barn doors. The rain-drenched track was beginning to look more like a duck pond. How long would it take for the police to arrive? And where would they come from? If there was a station in Borjomi itself, we could be seeing blue-and-whites any minute.

Koba was still standing, rock solid, a very professional three metres from our backs. What were the odds of gripping him and that .357 before we heard sirens? We had to be in with a chance. There were three of us, counting Bastard, and I guessed he’d pitch in. He’d gone far too quiet for my liking, but I knew he wouldn’t want to be lifted any more than we did.

Nana looked across at me. ‘Do you know what this says?’

I shook my head.

I had another go at explaining why we’d been in Baz’s house, but she just carried on reading. I wished now that I had taken action when Koba had kicked us to our feet and walked us the dozen or so paces to the van. No matter what, she was going to wait for the police.

But what the fuck, I told her everything I knew; how Bastard came into the story, why we were at the house – and how the tape proved not only that Bastard was part of the operation, but that we didn’t even know Baz was going to be there . . .

‘Hey, lady,’ Bastard chipped in. ‘I just do what I’m told. I knew nothing about that killing shit. I didn’t know he was gonna come home . . .’

He was wasting his breath. We both were. Nana’s head was down, and less than halfway through the second page she lifted a hand to silence us.

The folder was on her lap. I watched a tear fall from her cheek and land on the page.

‘Oh my God.’ She stifled a sob. ‘
Oh my God
 . . .’ Her hand reached out and gently touched Paata’s back. ‘We must go live with this – right now.’

8

Nana’s eyes devoured the remaining pages, and she had to keep wiping her face with the back of her hand to stop more tears from falling and smudging the ink.

Colour bars flickered to life on all three screens as Paata rigged up the dish just outside the barn doors. Koba sparked up behind us. I guessed he wanted to know the same things as the rest of us – what was wrong, what did it say?

The screens flickered. A woman in a blue jacket materialized in front of us, sitting at a desk in an empty studio. She pulled on her set of headphones and the speakers crackled. Sure enough, we were going live. ‘Nana? Nana?’

Nana cut the sound and pulled on her own set of earphones and boom mike. She took a moment to compose herself, then started talking in low, urgent tones. Baz’s name came up again and again as she looked down and quoted long chunks from the document. The woman in the studio looked horrified. Behind us, Koba was building himself into a rage. This wasn’t good; Baz’s text was supposed to help us.

When she reached the bottom of the last page, she closed the folder with a snap and shoved it into the side pocket of her Gore-Tex.

She exchanged a closing word or two with her colleague in the studio, who got up from the desk and disappeared off-screen.

Nana’s eyes were still full as she removed her headphones. ‘We planned to address parliament with Zurab tomorrow.’ She was trying hard not to break down. ‘We were going to film him presenting the contents of this document to us in front of his government colleagues, in front of the very men he was going to expose.’ Her head shook slowly from side to side. ‘But none of us had any idea . . . no idea that these revelations would be so . . . so . . .’ She really had to search for the word. ‘Abominable’ was what she came up with, but I could see from her expression it still didn’t fit the bill.

The word seemed to hang in the air, then her hand came up to her mouth again. I didn’t know what to say – how could I? I hadn’t a clue what it was she’d just been reading. All I knew was that Nana was a tough one, but Baz’s stuff had turned her into a mess. And that it didn’t look as though the document was going to help us get off the dirt and away from here.

‘Nana, you believe us now? You need to let us go before the police come.
Nana?
’

She still wasn’t listening. ‘He wouldn’t tell me . . . He thought it would put me in too much danger . . .’ She turned to face us again, with red, hate-filled eyes. ‘Believe you? Why? Why should I believe you? Explain it to the police. See if you can persuade them.’

‘Listen, lady. I wasn’t there. I just got told to deliver the bag. Don’t you lump me in with these murdering fucks.’ Bastard was nothing if not persistent. I almost found myself starting to admire him.

‘
You! Shut the fuck up
.’ Charlie clearly didn’t feel the same.

We had to try to convince her before the uniforms arrived. It was unlikely they’d be speaking our language. ‘Nana. Why would we give you this stuff? We’ve told you what happened. Did you see me kill him? No. All we were there for was the papers. If we were part of it, why would we tape this fat bastard?’

It wasn’t working. She turned back to the monitors. They were rerunning the bulletin. The girl in the studio was talking, but there was no sound. At least, not from the screen. But we’d all heard the noise outside.

‘Police.’ Nana sounded relieved.

Paata came running back into the barn, screaming in Paperclip. I only managed to pick up one word, and it didn’t sound good news to me.

I turned my head. Koba was still behind us. He looked like he hadn’t enjoyed hearing Akaki mentioned any more than I had.

The scream of engines got louder. Koba got more and more agitated. Three or four wagonloads of militants, by the sound of it, and only one of him. I could see his dilemma.

Nana tried to calm him down, but it wasn’t happening. The Desert Eagle was still pointed at us, safety off, and the muzzle waved alarmingly from side to side. His eyes brimmed with tears of rage.

Bastard just lay there. He seemed to be almost enjoying it. What the fuck was the matter with him?

Charlie turned onto his back.

‘Calm down, Koba lad. Or point that fucking thing somewhere else . . .’

I double-checked under the van, along the rear wall. No sign of a back door.

The vehicles were on top of us now. Charlie was the first to see them. ‘Taliban wagons!’

I glanced back towards the doors.

Guys in black masks and green combat jackets, some with ponchos, swarmed out of Toyota pickups, laden with AKs, light machine guns and belts of 7.62 short.

Koba ran straight for them, screaming, sobbing, going ballistic.

I leaped up and grabbed Charlie. ‘Let’s go, go,
go!
’

The heavy-calibre .357 kicked in Koba’s hands. I heard screams from both sides of the barn doors.

Charlie and I ducked down behind the van. Fuck knows where the other three had got to; I didn’t care.

Bastard materialized behind us as two bursts of AK put an end to the Desert Eagle. Angry shouts echoed round the barn.

I looked under the van. Koba was writhing in the mud beside one of the wagons. Blood pumped from the holes drilled into his torso.

A big guy with wild hair and an Osama-style beard walked across to him, the butt of an AK in his poncho-draped shoulder. He leaned in and squeezed the trigger. The weapon kicked, and Koba’s head exploded like a melon.

PART ELEVEN

1

Nana had balls, that was for sure.

She was straight over to confront Akaki and the first of his men who piled through the doors. She seemed to applaud his courageous victory over the cowardly capitalist lapdog, Koba, then she treated them to a blur of hands and Paperclip as she pointed to the satellite dish, the van, the arc lights, the camera.

But I didn’t get to see her whole performance. Another wagonload had swarmed round our side of the Merc and were using their boots and rifle butts to corral us in the corner of the barn, near Baz’s memorial bench. I’d already seen enough, though, to know that whatever she was on about, Akaki’s men were very poor listeners.

I tried to look on the bright side. At least we got to sit down. I also tried to look relaxed and avoid eye-to-eye with the guys herding us. One of them had tucked Koba’s mud-splattered Desert Eagle into his belt.

Bastard’s eyes were everywhere, scanning the crowd.

Some of Akaki’s boys were beginning to pull off their masks, exposing rough bearded faces and blackened teeth. There were a couple of teenagers still struggling to get past the bum-fluff stage, but most of them were in their late twenties or older. Whatever, they all affected the same swagger; they knew they were the big swinging dicks around here. They looked like battle-hardened Afghani mujahideen, right down to their choice of wheels. For a long time now, nobody I knew had called a Toyota pick-up anything but a Taliwagon.

Some had made a beeline for the Merc, and were poking about inside. Others, worryingly, just stared at us with glazed, fucked-up eyes, like the junkies in the graveyard.

Nana was still trying to engage the group near the doors, but they were losing interest fast. Most of them were just giving her lecherous looks and sharing the sort of boys’ talk that didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Paata’s eyes never left her. I hoped he wasn’t contemplating playing superhero. One of us dead in the mud was enough.

Charlie still seemed to be looking out for the non-existent back door, and the treeline on the high ground beyond it.

Akaki’s men took a deferential step or two back as he swept Nana to one side and strode into the barn. He stopped and surveyed the scene with wild, crazy eyes. Droplets of rain spilled from his curly black hair. He grabbed a handful of beard and squeezed out a pint or so more.

Nana was steeling herself to confront him when two blood-drenched corpses were dragged into the centre of the barn like dead dogs. They’d both taken several rounds to the torso, but the carefully positioned shots through their hands and feet told the most significant story.

Eduard and his wife had already had their interview.

Nana stormed across the barn, but Bastard was quicker. He jumped to his feet and brushed aside a couple of militants who weren’t quick enough to step out of his way. ‘Akaki, you miserable fuck!’

Akaki pulled his rain-soaked poncho over his head, to reveal a pair of Levi 501s, a US BDU jacket and the kind of woollen jumper that could only have come from the shop where Charlie and I had bought ours. He’d shoved some sort of semi-automatic into his shoulder holster and four extra AK mags in his chest harness.