The Lost Labyrinth (35 page)

‘Bribery. Petitier hadn’t left him any food or water. I gave him a bath too. He was really filthy.’

‘I’m feeling pretty filthy myself,’ grinned Iain. ‘Do I get a bath too?’

‘I scavenged some eggs and peppers and things,’ she told him, ignoring him. ‘What would you say to an omelette and a glass of chateau Petitier?’

‘Now you’re talking.’ He leaned forward to undo his laces then kicked off his boots. He stretched out his legs, wriggled his toes. She limped through to the kitchen, swinging her bad ankle out wide, instinctively wanting him to think she was more badly injured than in fact she was. She opened a dusty bottle of wine, splashed ruby liquid into a pair of tumblers, took them and the bottle back out.

‘Cheers,’ said Iain, offering his glass in a toast, before slurping down a full third of it.

‘Cheers,’ agreed Gaille, taking a more modest sip, struggling to keep the smile on her face, suspicion from her eyes.

Theofanis and Angelos were going through a folder of stills from the CCTV in the hotel lobby when the call came through. Theofanis listened for thirty seconds or so then turned to his boss. ‘Trouble at the airport,’ he said.

‘What’s it got to do with us?’

‘They’ve arrested a bunch of Georgians. And that guy Daniel Knox too.’

Angelos grunted like he’d been punched in the gut. ‘Knox,’ he said, as though it were a swear word.

‘Apparently he’s been asking for us,’ said Theofanis. ‘Apparently he thinks we’ll vouch for him.’

‘
Us
?’ asked Angelos incredulously. ‘Vouch for
him
?’

‘That’s what they’re saying. What do you want to do?’

Angelos checked his watch. ‘How long do you reckon to get out there?’

‘Forty minutes, I’d say. This time of night.’

Angelos grabbed his jacket in one hand, the file of photographs in the other, then strode towards the door. ‘Tonight let’s make it twenty.’

Night had fallen while Mikhail had been in the lock-up. Lamps had come on around the parking lot, casting pools of yellow light. Away in the distance, he could hear sirens. The police, as ever, were searching in the wrong places.

The runway lay the other side of these buildings, but it held little attraction for him. Open spaces and high security were the last things he needed. He headed the other way instead, across the parking lot, then over the low fence and through a thin line of trees, until he found himself on the top of a grass bank, looking down at the airport road, on which traffic was moving tantalisingly freely. Getting to it, however, meant crossing a well-lit security fence topped by strands of obliquely-set barbed wire, monitored by security
cameras. Hard, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He was on his way down the slope when a truck rolled into view on the road beyond. It slowed down just enough for an armed police officer to jump down and take up position by the fence, then it drove on a couple of hundred metres, before dropping off another man. The bastards were securing the perimeter.

He cursed and headed back to the cover of the trees, got out his mobile and began trying to call in assistance. No one answered. Not his father, not his grandfather, nor any of his brothers. No one. It seemed incredible to him that a nothing of a man like Edouard could have inflicted a serious wound upon his family, yet he could see no other explanation. He had a sudden suffocating memory of gaol, and an unfamiliar sensation rippled through him, like a breeze through a field of grain. He made calls further and further afield. Only when he tried Cyprus did anyone finally answer: Rafiel, their Cypriot chief-of-staff. ‘Who is this?’ he asked.

‘It’s me. Mikhail. What’s going on? Where is everyone?’

‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘There was a massive raid on Nikortsminda. Police and army. I spoke to Iakob. He managed to get away, he wouldn’t say how. He says there
was shooting, there were helicopters. He says your grandfather has been arrested, your father and your brothers too. But that’s not the worst. Your brother Alexei; he was killed.’

‘It’s not possible,’ said Mikhail. ‘They wouldn’t dare.’

‘The TV stations are apparently showing footage of him head-butting a policeman and then aiming a shotgun down at his face,’ said Rafiel. ‘People don’t like families who put themselves above the law.’

‘It’s a stitch up,’ said Mikhail. ‘The people will never accept it.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Rafiel. ‘There are reports from all over Georgia of people coming out onto the streets, of scuffles and gunfire, but it’s all too sporadic. There’s no one to organise it, no one to
lead
it, not with your family all under arrest. All except you, of course.’

Mikhail blinked. That aspect of it hadn’t occurred to him. The arrests had left him
de facto
head of the family,
de facto
head of the entire Nergadze-led opposition, indeed head of all resistance to Georgia’s fascist government. Others might have shrunk from such a responsibility, but not Mikhail. ‘Listen to me,’ he told Rafiel. ‘I’m boss now. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The relief in Rafiel’s voice was palpable. Orders. Structure. Hierarchy. ‘What do you need?’

Mikhail paused. The president had declared war upon his family; he had to realise he couldn’t risk leaving a single Nergadze on the loose. Fly home now, the authorities would arrest him on the spot. Stay here, they’d pile pressure on the Greeks to hunt him down. And until he was neutralised, one way or another, they’d keep looking. So his first job was to buy himself time and space. ‘Move out to the boat,’ he told Rafiel. ‘Take everything I’ll need to run our family’s operations, then sail her out into international waters.’

‘Yes, sir. Then what?’

‘Stand by. I’ll call back with a rendezvous point.’

He jogged along the tree-line until he reached the back of a car rental lot. He was still cut off from it by the security fence, but at least here it was partly shielded by trees. He drew the knife from his belt and fitted it through the wire, so that it dropped onto the grass the other side. He checked that the briefcase was locked and tossed it over the top. It landed with a loud thump on the other side; but there was no one around to hear. He took off his trench-coat and draped it over his shoulder and then began to climb. The mesh cut into his fingers, leaving red welts. It was hard to get purchase with his feet, they kept slipping and scraping, but he made it to the top in the end.

The triple strands of barbed wire leaned away from him, designed to keep people out of the airport’s
secure area, not inside. He grabbed his coat from his shoulder and spread it out over the wire, then clambered over it, safe from the barbs. He took a firm grip of his coat then dropped down the other side, pulling it after him, the barbs acting like a brake upon the leather. He stayed low for a moment or two, then crouched to collect his knife and the briefcase, and went to the nearest car. Its door was unlocked, but there were no keys in the ignition. He considered trying to hotwire it, but these new models were a bitch, their alarms went off at the slightest provocation.

Headlights swung his way. He ducked down, fearing it was police. But it was just a minibus dropping off customers. A family of four got off first. Father, mother and two sweet-looking girls. The idea came to him instantly: take the two girls hostage in the boot and make their parents drive him to safety. It went against his better nature to trust his fate to someone else, but he couldn’t see a better alternative.

He watched them to their car, exchanging banter with another passenger, a businessman in a pearl-grey suit, trying to look younger than his forty-odd years with his hair swept back and down to his shoulders. Mikhail silently willed him to leave them alone; but they kept chatting as the husband stowed their luggage in the back of the Mazda, while the wife strapped in her children.
Then they were away, waving cheerfully to the businessman, who walked on along the line of cars, looking for his own. He pressed his key-fob and the corner-lights of a sleek Citroen soft-top flashed orange.

The new plan came to Mikhail as suddenly and completely as the first. But this appealed to his nature far more, for it meant he had to rely on no one but himself. He pictured in his mind how it would go. A high-risk strategy, of course, but then everything was high risk in such situations. And if he could pull it off, he’d be clean away. He bowed his head and walked towards the businessman, already climbing behind the wheel. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, keeping a good distance back, so that the man wouldn’t think him a threat. ‘You don’t have the time, by any chance?’

‘Of course,’ grunted the man. Belgian or Dutch, to judge from his accent, but an EU passport for sure, which was the main thing. ‘Seven twenty-five.’

‘Thanks so much,’ smiled Mikhail. He nodded at the car. ‘I like your taste. Nothing beats a good soft-top.’

The man grinned. ‘I have five kids. All I ever get to drive back home is my wife’s damned people-carrier. Makes a change to get in one of these from time to time, remember what a proper car feels like.’

‘I’m the same with my own kids,’ said Mikhail, reaching behind him for his knife. ‘Until I’ve been away from the little bastards for a day or two, that is. Then all I can think of is getting home to see him.’

‘Yes, well,’ shrugged the man, buckling himself in, inserting his keys into the ignition. ‘That’s fatherhood for you.’

‘Indeed, it is,’ agreed Mikhail, walking towards him. ‘Indeed it is.’

Pandemonium had settled down into mere chaos at the airport, not helped by the fact that flights were still arriving and departing, the Easter weekend too important to disrupt. Police and antiterrorist units had arrived in huge numbers, and were now checking everyone leaving or entering the terminal buildings, while also going meticulously through the parking lots and public areas before sealing them off, gradually cutting down the space in which Mikhail could move. They’d also set up a roadblock at the airport exit, to check all departing vehicles, but the tailback had quickly reached the terminal building itself, threatening to wreak havoc. The police had therefore thrown numbers at the problem, and cut their
searches to an inspection of ID and a quick look in the boot, and the queues had shrunk back down.

Knox watched an ambulance leave, its blue light flashing but its siren silent, taking Nadya into Athens for treatment on her pulverised hand. She should have left long before, but she’d insisted on giving her statement first, to help exonerate Knox. He’d tried to convince her there was no need, for although Boris had zipped his lips, Davit had cracked like an old jug, and was spilling everything. Chatter on the police radio seemed to corroborate Knox’s story too: a mansion north of Athens had been found blazing, along with the husks of two expensive cars. So, from almost being shot as a suspected terrorist, Knox had rapidly found himself demoted to a mere object of curiosity, passed into the safekeeping of a kindly policewoman, who at least took the trouble to find keys for his handcuffs. She unlocked and removed them now. His wrists were sore and swollen, and his fingers throbbed painfully with returning blood, but his spirits still lifted. ‘Is that it?’ he asked. ‘Can I go?’

‘The boss wants to have you looked over by a police doctor,’ she told him. ‘After all, if you’ve been tortured as you say you have…’

He gave a little snort. ‘You mean he wants to make sure that my injuries match my account. Where’s this doctor, then?’

‘On his way. You don’t mind waiting, do you?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

He leaned against the parking-lot booth while he killed time; a police car pulled up alongside him, but it was Angelos and Theofanis in the front seats, not the doctor. ‘What are you two doing here?’ he asked.

‘You’re the one who wanted vouching for.’

‘I only said you knew who I was. I didn’t expect you to drive out here.’

‘Yes, well, we still have some questions.’ Angelos nodded at the back seat. ‘Get in.’

‘I’m waiting for a doctor.’

‘Just get in.’

Theofanis turned in his seat as he climbed in. ‘We’re trying to fit everything together,’ he said. ‘Petitier. Your friend Augustin. This man Antonius we found hanged. Mikhail Nergadze. Whatever happened here earlier—’ He didn’t have time to complete his thought, however, interrupted by commotion on the airport exit road. They all looked across to see a car roaring against the traffic towards them, its headlights flashing and horn blaring to warn other cars out of its way, as though it had taken fright at the police roadblocks.

Knox caught a bare glimpse of the driver’s face as he sped by, but it was enough. ‘It’s him,’ he said numbly. ‘It’s Nergadze.’

Angelos didn’t hesitate. He turned on his ignition, thrust it into first and then span a U-turn.
A train of police cars was already in pursuit, and they joined its tail, hurtling the wrong way up a slip-road to an overpass, past the control tower, then through open gates down a track to a vast parking lot around which some offices were being built. Even in the darkness, it was obvious that there was no way out for Mikhail, other than the way he’d come in. ‘We’ve got him,’ muttered Theofanis.

Mikhail must have realised this too. He slowed and came to a stop. The police cars slowed likewise, blocking off his escape. They had their man; there was no need for heroics.

Angelos lowered his window. ‘Give yourself up,’ he shouted.

‘Fuck you,’ cried Mikhail. ‘Fuck all of you. I’m not going back to gaol. I’m never going back.’

‘You can have a lawyer. You can have a trial.’

‘A trial?’ he scoffed. ‘I’m Mikhail Nergadze. You hear me? Mikhail fucking Nergadze! And who the fuck are you?’ He stamped down his foot and began to accelerate across the open prairie of the tarmac, then turned in a long sweeping curve, hurtling almost flat out towards a container parked against the edge. Knox flinched as the Citroen’s low bonnet passed beneath the container’s high fuselage, then its windscreen and bracing struts hit in a shriek of metal and glass, and the soft-top squeezed up on itself like a concertina, before being
hurled high in the air and landing some way back upon the tarmac, while the shorn bottom sped on beneath the container in a shower of friction sparks, before crashing through the wire fence and out into the trees beyond.