Aggressor (35 page)

He didn’t even blink as Bastard approached; just raised a hand to calm anyone shaping up to blow holes in him. The expression on his face was that of a man who’d spotted a relative he’d never much liked, but had to put up with. They knew each other all right.

‘
You!
’ Bastard’s finger jabbed in Nana’s direction. ‘Fucking Barbara Walters! Give him those papers; tell him I want out of here.’

The Merc’s suspension groaned as he disappeared through the side door.

Akaki ripped Baz’s papers from Nana’s outstretched hand. She kept talking, fuck knows what about, but he was no more in the mood to listen than she had been ten minutes ago. He lashed out with his fist; she took the punch square on the cheek and crumpled to the floor.

Paata sprang to his feet but took the butt of an AK in the chest for his trouble. Nana screamed at him to stay put. Akaki bellowed at her and raised his hand to deliver another slap.

Bastard was firing on all cylinders. ‘Happy now, you demented fuck? Got what you want?’ He jabbed at Akaki with a sausage finger to emphasize every word. ‘I nearly got killed because of you. Now get me out of here!’ He kicked Nana in the ribs. ‘Translate! Fucking tell him! Tell him the police are coming.’

Nana did as she was told; at least I thought she did. The word ‘police’ is pretty much universal.

Akaki just laughed, and one by one his men joined in. Yep, they were really shitting themselves that a couple of blue-and-whites were on the way.

Bastard wasn’t fazed. I saw the outline of the Marriott cassette in his wet jacket pocket.

He turned his attention towards me and Charlie, as if the joke was on us. ‘You two fucks really think I was coming all the way with you?’

He came and stood inches from my face. ‘You know what? I should have gone to the cemetery and done the job myself, instead of hiring a moron with a machete to make a king-size fuck-up.’

He spotted Koba’s weapon and hooked it out of its proud new owner’s belt.

Fuck him; I wasn’t going to flinch this time when he squeezed the trigger.

I looked him straight in the eye as he closed one hand on the grip and brought the other one up for good measure.

Nana screamed Paata’s name but she needn’t have bothered. Akaki roared an order and Bastard got an AK butt on the side of the head before he even saw it coming.

Charlie kicked the Desert Eagle away as it fell to the ground at our feet.

The militant leader stormed across and started yelling at Bastard, punctuating every sentence with a good kick to the American’s prostrate bulk. The fat man only managed to crawl away as his attacker began to tire.

Nana translated. ‘He says you can take Eduard and Nato’s car. If you don’t go now, he will kill you. He says that he imagines he’s not the only person here who would like to see that.’ She paused. ‘And on that score, at least, he is telling the truth.’

Bastard reached Eduard’s corpse on his hands and knees, and delved into the bloodstained pockets like a starving man fighting for food. A set of keys glinted in Paata’s arc lights, and he staggered to his feet. His gut heaved. He stared at me, his nostrils flaring and whistling as his overweight body sucked in oxygen. He had things he still wanted to say, but he’d left them too late.

Akaki grabbed him by the roll of fat above his collar and frogmarched him all the way to the door.

Bastard disappeared from view, but he was still determined to have the final word. When Akaki’s boys had finished applauding their beloved leader’s most recent show of strength, his voice echoed along the rain-soaked track.

‘I want those fucks dead! Kill them!’

2

I was starting to get the hang of Akaki; he wasn’t a big fan of the long game.

He towered over Nana, pummelling her shoulder as he let her know what was on his mind.

Paata kept a watchful eye on the AKs just inches away from them as he translated for us. ‘He wants an interview, right here and now. He has an important message for his fellow Georgians, and wants his words to be recorded for posterity.’ He somehow managed to talk as calmly as if he was discussing overtime rates.

The three of us watched Nana’s hands emphasize every word of her response. She wasn’t backing down.

It was turning into quite a show. Even the guys guarding us were crowding round and tuning in.

‘He’s rambling,’ Paata said, as Akaki turned up the volume another couple of notches. ‘He says he wants to tell the world of his fight for freedom and against corruption. He says he will work to continue this battle, until victory – or until he meets God.’ An edge of concern crept into his voice.

Charlie nodded. ‘He knows he can come out with any old bollocks he wants to now. He’s got the papers, and Baz isn’t here to disagree.’

I was worried about Nana. ‘Why don’t you guys just let him have what he wants? What’s she giving him a hard time about?’

‘She’s telling him it’s a great idea, but we should go and film him in the village. He needs to be seen out in the open, among his people, not cowering in a cattle shed . . . She says his film needs to have an epic scale; anything less would not do his message justice. She’ll do the edit when she’s back in Tbilisi.’

‘Yeah, right. I bet he’s really buying into that.’

‘She has to try.’ He sighed. ‘He only tolerates people like us as long as we’re of use to him. And when we no longer are, or if we do something that offends him . . .’

‘We’re history?’

Paata nodded. ‘He slaughtered a French crew not so long ago . . .’ He cocked his head. He’d heard something he didn’t like. ‘Oh shit . . . He’s talking about the dish. He knows we can go out live.’

His eyes flicked anxiously between us and Nana. ‘She’s insisting they tape it, and in the village, not here . . . She’s trying to give us a chance to escape, I’m sure of it.’

I glanced back at Akaki. His arm was raised, ready to give her the good news again. ‘What’s his take?’

‘It’s not good. I’m sorry.’ The blood had drained from his face. ‘She was calling him murdering barbarian scum on camera last week . . .’ Paata’s voice tailed off.

‘Didn’t go a bundle on it?’

Paata nodded gloomily.

Nana was turning away. She knew when to concede. Akaki gave her a parting kick in the small of the back to help her on her way. It must have been agony, but she was determined not to show it.

She limped the remaining five or six paces to the bench. ‘Here’s the deal . . .’ The left side of her face was livid red and swelling. ‘No pre-record. We go live or he kills us all now. He wants to sit right here on the bench and address not just his fellow Georgians but the USA too – and he wants to do it live.’ Her eyes bored into Paata. ‘Go and fix up the link.’

Paata hesitated. He knew there was one thing missing from her instructions. I grabbed him as he stood up. ‘Take your time, mate.’

‘No.’ Nana was adamant. ‘Get it rigged, and set up the link. Tell them who we have.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘We – need – the – cavalry . . . Understand?’

We all did now.

Akaki had some more stuff on his mind. He charged over like a wounded bull, with two of his arse-lickers in tow. Up close, he wasn’t any prettier than he’d seemed from a distance. He was probably still in his thirties, but looked older, partly because any skin on his cheeks not covered by beard was badly pockmarked.

He raised one of his field labourer’s fists and pushed the others out of the way to get to me. His eyes burned into mine.

His two arse-lickers demonstrated how hard they were by grabbing Nana and forcing her to translate as he went into another major-league rant.

‘The murdering scum is telling you that he will kill the servants of the infidel crusaders as surely as we will kill their kings . . . He says he does this to avenge those of God’s children they kill.’

Akaki prodded me so hard in the shoulder I reeled backwards.

‘He says America has made many accusations against him; they have said that he is a man with a hidden fortune . . . These are infidel lies . . . He says that this is what he wants to say to the people of America.’

As I recovered my balance, I saw the screens in the Merc flicker into life again.

The two standing guard behind Akaki saw them too, and started gobbing off to their boss.

‘Excellent.’ Nana tried to look pleased. ‘Charlie and Nick, help me with the camera and lights.’

I returned her smile. It wasn’t all doom and gloom round here then. She was starting to call us by name.

3

Akaki sat, smoked and brooded as we helped Nana lug the camera and lighting gear over to the bench. Several AK muzzles tracked our every move.

The barn roof was no longer being pelted with rain, and the big red puddle around Koba’s head was almost still. The sudden silence inside the barn only seemed to make it harder for Nana to ignore the bodies of Eduard and Nato. Her eyes kept straying back to them. I knew she felt responsible.

I glanced at them once or twice myself. They looked as though they’d been crucified. If the
Georgian Times
had thought Baz’s body was grisly cargo, I couldn’t wait to see what their headline writers would make of this.

I was pretty much resigned to the fact that, at this rate, we’d be joining them on the inside pages, dangling by the bollocks from a barn door. But there was still a chance. There was always a chance. When Nana’s cavalry arrived, so would the mother of all gangfucks.

It wasn’t long before everything was rigged, even with two of us on the job not really knowing what we were doing. It couldn’t be helped. There’s a limit to how much you can tear the arse out of a task before it’s obvious you’re doing fuck all, and on that front, at least, I was an expert. I’d been an infantryman for ten years.

Akaki groomed his beard with a gap-toothed plastic comb, preparing himself for TV stardom. There was a light either side of him and the camera right in front. He liked what he saw.

Nana fiddled about with the lens for a bit and altered the height of the tripod, but she knew as well as we did that she wouldn’t be able to put this off for much longer. She stuck in an earpiece and plugged it into the camera.

Akaki handed his comb to one of his minions. It looked as though it had recently been dipped in goose fat. The expression on his face said he was ready, and ready right now.

But Nana wasn’t, not quite yet, anyway. She moved to his side and murmured quietly in his ear. He looked at her and tugged thoughtfully at a handful of beard.

After a few more tugs, he started bellowing again, but this time Nana wasn’t his target. Ponchos were going back on. AKs were being shouldered.

Charlie and I were busy looking busy, making needless adjustments to the kit. Nana came back over to us, pointing at the lights and conveying a series of highly technical instructions with her outstretched arms.

‘I’ve told him that if this is to go out live to the US, I need to do a series of links to camera in English. These will be used as trails, to guarantee the biggest possible audience . . . I’ve also suggested he send some men to scout exterior locations, and round up enough locals for a crowd scene. He understands it’s very important we get this right. We’re going to meet them at the village hall once we’ve closed down the link.’

Three of the Taliwagons were already firing up as the guys clambered aboard.

Akaki was keeping just the two arse-lickers behind. They stood a few metres away, AKs trained on Charlie and me.

I watched the Taliwagons charge up the track, towards the houses nestled among the trees.

‘Well done, lass.’ Charlie put an avuncular hand on Nana’s shoulder.

She smiled briefly then was back in control. She waved us away from the kit so Akaki could see what was happening. ‘Nick, Charlie, go get in the van. I don’t want him to see your faces when I go live. Go, please.’

She fired some more waffle at Akaki, and he was lapping it up. By the look on his face, he wasn’t too far from suggesting the two of them got a slot together as Georgia’s answer to Richard and Judy.

The lights burst into life as we made our way to the van, and the corner of the barn became Akaki’s little slice of Hollywood.

4

Paata sat hunched in front of us, one earphone on, the other high on his head, ignoring everything but the image of Nana’s face on the screens. We just watched and listened.

‘Yep, that’s OK, Paata. How am I for level? Did you get through? Are they coming? One, two, three, four, five . . .’

She took a deep breath and composed herself. ‘Five seconds!’ Paata kept his voice level. ‘Yes, they are airborne. String it out.’

I caught Charlie’s eye, and knew he was also thinking that we might still be able to keep our bollocks the right side of the barn door.

Nana just stared into the camera, nodding as the countdown crackled in her earpiece.

‘Two . . . one . . .
On air
 . . .’

‘Standing right here next to me . . .’ She turned to Akaki and gave him a deep, respectful bow, ‘is a disgrace to mankind, the most despicable gangster ever to walk the blessed earth of Georgia.’

He nodded his acknowledgement then stared back into the camera.

‘And within the last few minutes I have seen documentary evidence of his most appalling act of treachery to date . . .’

Her voice quavered and Akaki’s brow furrowed.

‘An abominable act . . . perpetrated by the murderer who sits before you . . .’

Akaki nodded his appreciation, not understanding a word. I hoped neither of the arse-lickers had taken a year out at Princeton.

Nana smiled and nodded back. ‘Evidence so important that I have to relay it to our beloved nation right now, in case I do not live long enough to hand it over to the appropriate authorities . . .’

Nana swept her arm to embrace the whole valley, as if describing it as Akaki’s domain.

‘An affidavit was to have been sworn today by a member of parliament whose name I cannot mention because this monster beside me will recognize it . . .’

Her hand gripped the mike so tightly I could see her knuckles whiten.