Constanta
Murat Nagpal stood to the side of one of the apartment’s several rotting window frames and watched as Azat Sikand picked his way, on foot, across the busy road outside. A mixture of rain and snow poured out of steel-grey clouds. Sikand was getting soaked by it. He would, no doubt, be in another foul mood but Murat was pleased to see his comrade safely returned.
A few minutes passed then the apartment door slammed open.
“Murat?” Azat called.
“In here, my friend.”
The inner door opened and Azat stomped through, peeling off his sodden trench-coat and sopping woollen hat. “The rental car has been returned,” he reported gruffly.
“And the message?”
“Done.”
“Did the boy answer?”
“No. It rang out but went to voicemail. I said the codeword and hung up.”
Murat scowled, considering what that might mean. “And the borders?”
“No problem.”
“Excellent,” Murat pronounced. “I have secured replacement papers for you anyway. It will do no harm for you to have two sets. You are a vital asset and great friend.” It was best to make sure Azat felt suitably honoured, given his continued frosty expression. “Look here,” Murat waved his arm across the derelict squat and toward its tatty kitchen area. “I have made you hot tea to welcome you home.”
~~~~~
The Gower
It is bitterly cold as I hike up the dark lane toward the cottage. Small specks of snow pepper the air like flecks of ash drifting from Omid’s cold and distant funeral pyre. I am surprised that I feel no remorse for what I’ve done, even now, so many hours later.
I have spent the time trudging aimlessly around the outskirts of London, then slowly making my way back to Paddington Station to buy the return ticket I thought I’d never need, and later riding a lethargic train back into Wales. It has provided much time for thinking but yielded few conclusions. At the moment my planning extends only so far as to stay here at the cottage for the few remaining days of the lease, and then to make my way back to Sussex. This had been my backup plan. Ready for if I’d had to abandon or defer my attack on the worm. Or for if I’d lost my bottle.
Trudging through the darkness, I almost walk into the back of a darkened Jaguar parked on the side of the lane. This car wasn’t here when I left, was it? Glancing around I can’t see any other houses. Maybe there’s another place nearby? Set back behind the looming hedgerows?
I skirt around the obstructive vehicle and can see that there’s no-one inside it. It’s been here for a while because the light snow is settling, as a thin crust, over all of its dark coloured paintwork.
Turning away from the car, I finally see the cottage in the distance. It sits on the brow of the hill as a squarish patch of darker shadow against the night sky. At the moment I can only see the rooftop over the perpetual hedges. The house appears to be dark, even though I’d fitted timers to a couple of lamps, upstairs and downstairs, and did expect at least one of the lights to be on?
As I move forwards, the ground floor slowly creeps into sight and I can see a glow from downstairs. The feeble standard lamp in the building’s sizeable corner lounge is doing its best to dimly illuminate the various windows.
The bedroom bulb must’ve blown.
Being so close, I feel a burst of renewed energy and press on up the lane, boots crunching into the crisp, icy, sugarcoating and stomp past my own car to the front door. Slinging my pack down I notice that there are other recent bootprints embedded into the damp, gently rotting and ancient, coconut-hair doormat. Postman? Bending over, I fish out an insubstantial and similarly antique Yale key from one of the pack’s pockets, stand up and attempt to press it into the lock.
But the door just pushes open in front of me.
It’s not latched.
For a moment, I freeze solid. Is it the Police? Did they spot me as I left Omid’s street or alleyway? Am I about to be arrested?
Then, as quickly as I feel flustered, I feel an icy calm. Do I care? What difference would it make?
And if it’s not the police?
Again, the conclusions are the same. I don’t care. I should already be dead. I am dead, and the dead have very little left to be afraid of.
I step into the narrow hallway. The lounge door on the left hand side is standing open, its battered panels are plastered with many layers of forever yellowing gloss, which shimmers in bright rivulets as it reflects the pale lamplight from the paintwork’s myriad undulations. Three careful steps lead me to this opening, where I stop and slowly turn to look into the ample sitting room. It’s the biggest single space in this little cottage, taking up the whole end of the ground floor and, when the sun finally rises, it will afford magnificent views, from three sides, all along the nearby rugged shoreline – but, at the moment, I’m not interested in the views.
A man is sitting in one of the armchairs, legs crossed, lounging comfortably. He’s pulled the chair closer to the window, so he could see the lane and my approach more easily. In the meagre glow from the standard lamp he appears to be stocky and slightly overweight. His face is almost circular in shape and blandly unattractive. His dark, strangely bulging, almost frightened-looking, eyes are turned toward me but, despite this strange visage, his disposition stinks of belligerence, authority, dominance or, maybe, just psychosis. I sense his spirit is as cold as the bitter Welsh wind howling on the other side of the walls from him.
“Do come in,” he says plainly, in plush public-school English, and gestures for me to approach.
I say nothing but take a couple of paces into the room and drop my rucksack onto the floor beside me. I don’t want to move too close to him, nor too far away from the door. Here will do.
I gently loosen my arms within the long trench coat.
“This here is my friend.” He gestures back toward the lounge door.
I glance to my right and am surprised to see a second man, standing concealed from view behind the gloss-burdened panelling of the lounge door. This second man casually shoves the sturdy wood away from him and it swings shut with an ominous thud.
“Hello,” he says with the hint of an East-end London accent. He is taller than Bug-eyes and a bit of a scrawny geezer. More athletic looking, but still not what I’d describe as honed. He has longish, spectacularly white-grey hair which looks like it could be a patch of snow draped over his head. It stands out as a bright patch of light in the otherwise shadowy corner and, as I watch, he slowly raises his arm and the gun he is holding levels itself directly toward my face.
‘How quickly things can change,’ I think to myself as a sudden rush of panic flows through every vein. Then my fears collapse into unexpected excitement. These guys might be with the Travellers? Come for payback? Perhaps I can complete my journey after all? Perhaps these men will bring me the release I crave? I stare into the round black maw of the weapon and imagine the shiny metal nugget nestling at its core.
Willing the projectile forward.
“Do you know how to use that?” I ask hopefully, my deep voice sounding satisfyingly calm and unemotional.
Better a clean kill.
A momentary frown of surprise ghosts across White-hair’s age-crinkled forehead. “I’ll show you if you like,” he replies coldly.
“Now, now...,” interjects the insect sitting on my chair. “We’re not here for trouble.”
“Good,” I say in response to White-hair, but I suspect that they didn’t understand me.
Bug-eyes rouses himself slightly, pulling himself more upright. “Very impressive,” he observes, though whether he’s talking about me or something else I can’t be sure. “Messy and high risk but impressive all the same.” Is he talking about the Travellers? “The problem is: you haven’t covered your tracks very well, Nick.”
There is the merest hint of a lisp lurking behind his flaccid yet well spoken enunciations but, despite this, he uses my name like a solid brick wall at the end of his sentence and lounges back into the chair with the air of someone who thinks they’ve made themselves clear.
He hasn’t.
I stand there silently, watching him and gently shake my right arm as if flicking a few drops of molten snow from the long sleeve of my coat. Amongst the pallid skin and perpetual sneer, his pug nose wrinkles with annoyance and, for some reason, I wonder whether the burden of being born with a face like that has defined the man he has obviously become. It will certainly have been an uphill struggle for him. The thought makes the corners of my mouth twitch upward slightly and, in response to this, his frown deepens.
“I wouldn’t be so smug if I was you!” he barks suddenly, and I sense White-hair shifting slightly behind me. “Javed Omid was executed in cold blood.” The mention of the worm’s name vaporises my half-smile. “His murder will attract a lot of public interest. The police will hunt remorselessly for his killer and, given how easily we’ve found you, it won’t take them long to track you down. You took the law into your own hands, Nick, and the British Judicial System has a particular dislike for being undermined. You are about to find yourself at the epicentre of one f*cking nightmare of a public circus: a hunted man, on the run but with nowhere to hide and then, when they catch and prosecute you, which they most certainly will, you’re going to end up rotting out the rest of your miserable existence in jail. A place, where I strongly suspect, you’ll find that your cellmates will have a particularly virulent dislike for someone with a history which includes the murdering of fellow criminals.”
They’re not with the Travellers then.
“Who are you?” I grunt.
Bug-eyes smiles. “We’re here to offer you a chance,” he says more carefully. “A chance to avoid that unpleasantness. You are rumoured to have some basic skills that we feel we can use and, I understand, you have some, albeit unexplained, motivation for taking violent action related to what happened at Victoria?”
I nod, once. It’s starting to become clear that they don’t know all that much about me.
“We have the means to put you somewhere where you might be able to satisfy that desire, but you will need to follow our instructions to the letter. Any deviations and we will simply vanish, in much the same way as we’ve appeared, and you will fall swiftly back into the ruthless and dispassionate arms of the law. There will be no history of this conversation, no records to trace any connection to us, no lifelines, no parole, no good behaviour and no second chances. You will simply be incarcerated, until you die.”
I suppose he thinks that this is supposed to be threatening, but he’s not been living my life recently. “So, who are you?” I repeat frostily.
This seems to push his ‘go’ button and he leaps to his feet. “None of your f*cking business, you miserable piece of shit!” he rages. “Didn’t you f*cking well listen to me? You get one chance! Right now!” A spot of phlegm flies from his mouth and his arms gesticulate wildly. It’s good to see he’s about as stable and level headed as I am. “YOU are going to f*cking well do as we ask of you, exactly as we ask of you, when we ask you to, and maybe, just maybe, get an opportunity to strike back at the terrorist perpetrators of the bombing! Piss us around. F*ck up following our instructions. Turn us down, or just keep asking dumb-shit questions, and I’m going to walk out of here and call in the Police.”
“So why the gun?” I ask, as I neatly sidestep a second drop of airborne bug-spittle.
“Good point,” Bug-eyes recovers his composure and reaches up with one hand to tease his somewhat greasy black side-parting back into place. “I could just let Deuce here shoot you, and then have him heave your miserable body over the cliff. He’d enjoy that.”
I glance over my shoulder. White-hair, or Deuce, or whatever he’s called, stares impassively at me. I suspect Bug-eyes might be telling the truth.
“Deuce?” I grunt.
White-hair’s wince was so slight it was barely noticeable. But I saw it. Then he nodded, slowly, once.
“So you are?” I turn back to Bug-eyes.
“You will know me only as Ace,” says Bug-eyes and I struggle not to guffaw at him. “Code-names,” he adds, in case I hadn’t already guessed as much, then sits himself carefully back into the armchair and crosses his legs. “Other than to know that we do have, at least in part, official sanction for what we do, these code-names are all you will ever know about our identities and who we work for. There is no point in trying to find out more, any searches would only confirm that we do not exist anywhere beyond the confines of this brief encounter. If you elect to do the sensible thing and work for us then we will furnish you with means and opportunity to take action. Beyond that, you’ll be on your own. You will also vanish from existence.
“Be under no illusions,” he continues, looking at me calmly, “what we’re talking about is extremely dangerous. It is unlikely that you will survive and, if you are ever captured, wherever you might be captured, you will be alone and without support from any quarter.”
“So I might get killed?” The very question sends a thrill through me.
“If you’re lucky,” White-hair growls from behind me.
Bug-eye’s ugly face splits into a thin grin at his partner’s interjection. “Deuce is right,” he says. “Torture or imprisonment in a foreign jail are also probable outcomes.” He is studying my face for a reaction. There isn’t one. “I’m not sure you understand me?”
Oh, I understand. I’m just not alarmed and, at the moment, I’m wondering whether I might be better off if I can get Deuce, or whatever he calls himself, to pull that trigger.
“This guy is a moron.” White-hair pronounces with the full weight of his extensive knowledge of me. It’s an interesting observation though. The second use of such description and part of me is intrigued by it. “F*cking mentally imbalanced. This is a waste of our time. Let’s go. The cops can sort this one out.”
“Sentinel thinks differently,” says Bug-eyes calmly.
Sentinel?
There is a moment or two of uncomfortable silence. I sense that this Deuce-character might want to make further comments but is holding back. It might be that they can’t discuss this difference of opinion in my presence. “Would you like me to give you a moment alone?” I rumble helpfully.
Bug-eyes laughs and White-hair snarls, “Stay right where you f*cking are!”
I flick my arm and release one of my shuttered switchblades into my palm. The tension continues to rise and I can feel the cold embrace of death shuffling back to within touching distance. I can sense it. For some reason I can’t help but scan the dark windows – I wonder if you’ll appear there again – but the various window panes remain unoccupied. They’re just spiritless black rectangles of glass, populated only by dusty reflections of the room’s interior. “I’m not afraid of death,” I rumble, to myself.
“Very good,” says Bug-eyes, thinking I’m talking to him. “So is it going to be a slow rotting death, or would you like to hear more about what we might like you to do instead?”
“With this guy, all he’ll be doing is committing f*cking suicide,” Deuce mutters from his corner. “Messy suicide. After hours of agonising torture at the hands of a group of professionals who’re desperate to escape our clutches. They’ll drop him in a breath, then stop at nothing in their attempts to squeeze him for the f*ck-all he’ll actually know.”
“I’ll do it,” I say. Deuce’s words have helped me to make my mind up. I’m not interested in festering in prison. It’s too long a wait. Time for me to live up to their obvious expectations and, as they’d put it, to be a man.
Bug-eyes looks momentarily delighted. “You’re certain?” he asks grimly. “There’s no way back from here.”
“I’m in,” I repeat simply. “What now?”
Bug-eyes nods toward Deuce and a glance tells me he is lowering the pistol.
Damn.
“Now, we take you somewhere else. Not too far away. Deuce will spend the next few days with you. He’ll provide you with some equipment and instructions on how to use it. We will monitor this carefully. Failure to pick up these basics would be particularly unpleasant for you.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll spirit you to the continent under a new identity and you will be teamed up with another operative. He has material knowledge and experience so you will continue your training under his guidance. This agent will be your only lifeline, as you will be his.”
“God help him,” Deuce declares quietly from behind me.
“You have already been allocated a code-name,” Bug-eyes ignores his partner’s comment and continues calmly. “Mercury.”
“Very glamorous,” mutters Deuce. “Who picked that one?”
“Sentinel,” Bug-eyes replies coldly.
Deuce goes quiet again.
“And the other agent?” I ask... “Code-name,” I clarify.
Ace’s beady little eyes flash for a fraction of a second, as if my question has somehow been unexpected: unexpected and perhaps mildly impressive. “Tin,” he says carefully. “Deuce’s choice. He likes his agents to know who’s boss.” I can’t help raising one eyebrow at this. “You’ll need a new cover name too. We need to make up various identity documents for you, which we’ll do over the next few days whilst you’re undertaking your training and testing. What would you like to call yourself? Obviously you can’t use Jason Bourne or James Bond.” He smiles his ugly smile at his little joke. “That would be too much of a giveaway.”
I look at him coldly. “Nick,” I say.
“No, a made up name. To cover your identity.”
“Let’s play double bluff,” I grunt. “Let’s call me Nick.”
“Yeah. Nick Arsehole,” agrees Deuce.
There’s a faint whispering noise as one of my stilettos whistles past his suddenly wide-eyed face and embeds itself deeply into the lath and plaster wall behind him.
“Next time I’m aiming straight at you,” I say. “Right between your miserable eyes.”
He raises the gun, steps toward me and presses the cold muzzle against my forehead. “You don’t get a next time,” he snarls.
I lean forward gently onto the hardened steel and close my eyes. “Good,” I say.
~~~~~
Milan, Italy
It was late and he was tired, so Jack eased the rental Honda off the highway and onto the Milanese motel’s ice-rink of a car park. The car twitched nervously underneath him, tyres slipping on the frozen surface, and the dashboard erupted with a multitude of angry looking warning symbols. But the car park was deserted, so he punched the throttle once, gave a swift tug on the handbrake, and slid the complaining piece of high-tech Japanese engineering, sideways, into a parking space near the entrance.
Bitterly cold air was sweeping westwards across much of the mainland. Where, in the UK, there had been hints of sleet, here in Europe there was considerable snow. It was making his journey long and unpleasant, and he still had a long way to travel to get back to Greece. He hoped he could get there before his handlers tried to contact him but he had, at least, made it into Northern Italy.
He shook his head. He still wasn’t sure what had compelled him to make the visit to the UK. It had been a big risk, and had almost turned into something he hadn’t planned or expected.
He was pleased he’d been able to check in on Julie and little Michael. Pleased he’d been able to help out with the TV. Yet, at the same time, he felt guilty. Perhaps he’d been imagining things? Perhaps Julie would have been appalled if he’d tried to kiss her? Was he just taking advantage of her, of her situation, of her loneliness and need for company?
Other men, even other men in his squad, would probably have jumped at the chance to score with her, but it wasn’t his style. He always made himself out to be a bit of a ladies’ man, and knew that he had the looks to play the field if he wanted to, but for some reason he just didn’t, and never had. Perhaps it had been his upbringing in the orphanage? The homely matrons’ constant lecturing about good manners and respect, or something? For whatever reason, he had always found it easier to get on with other men.
He reached across and recovered his cellphone from the passenger seat. The tiny light on top of it was flashing, indicating he had a message.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself and opened up the text screen.
‘GO TO GOD. SOONEST. AFI. FU. D.’
He grimaced, even though he was pleased by what he read. He didn’t even need to fire-up his laptop to translate a numeric location code. He’d visited Göd before.
Deuce was instructing him to move to a safe-house, in a small town, a few kilometres north of Budapest. He liked this location, it was a top floor flat in a small and unusual block of residences on the shore of the Danube. Most buildings along the riverbank, even in Budapest itself, stood well back from the river but, where the tiny town called Göd merged into another called Sződliget, a small clutch of 1960’s cubes had crept up onto the crest of a for-once-near-vertical flood wall and, in turn, the agency had crept unnoticed into the top floor of one of them.
He had to get there quickly. That was okay. He’d drive on to Venice, dump the rental and get a train from there. Then he had to await further instructions – ‘AFI’. The final part of the message was just Deuce’s way of having another crack at him.
“F-U-too,” Jack muttered, grabbing his holdall and heading into the motel’s reception.
~~~~~
London
Major Charles sipped at his coffee and looked out through the rain-smeared bay window. This cafe was one of his favourite backstreet haunts for afternoon meetings like this one. A short walk from his office, and run by an industrious and often excitable Italian, it served excellent coffee and pastries and was usually, like now, almost deserted. This table in the bay window was his preferred vantage point. Segregated from other clientele by the sizeable counter, and with room for only two customers, it was regularly vacant.
Greere approached, carefully carrying a large cappuccino, which he placed on the table before moving his neatly folded raincoat and manoeuvring himself onto the other chair. He was wearing an immaculately tailored black suit with heavy white pinstripes, a white shirt, and a fat pink tie. Another businessman amongst the crowds. Another businessman who might as well have bought off-the-peg, given Greere’s capacity for looking unkempt in even the finest of clothing.
“So?” said Charles, bluntly. The small table and enforced proximity enabled conversation to be hushed without appearing clandestine.
“Well, after I managed to stop Deuce executing him on the spot, things seem to have progressed reasonably well.” Greere took a tiny sip of chocolate-encrusted froth before continuing. “Mercury seems to have a death wish... Is there something I need to know about him?”
Charles sat impassive. “Some things are best not discussed, Greere. I trust you did likewise?”
Greere noted the implicit warning and nodded. “He didn’t ask too many questions. Seemed reasonably happy to go-with-the-flow. Deuce thinks he’s a simpleton.”
“And you? What do you think, Greere?”
“Remains to be seen, sir. He talked us through his skills base, that you had already explained to me, and this is being verified at the moment. Deuce almost sounded impressed when I spoke to him earlier today. Nonetheless, he is unproven.”
“Well, you have the requisite experience in that particular area, don’t you?” The Bull leaned his dominant bulk fractionally closer to Greere. “Bad, and then worse, as I remember.”
Greere flushed slightly. “Yes, sir,” he replied quickly. “I wasn’t trying to infer...”
Charles cut him off. “Where are they? In the forest?” he asked, sitting back again.
“Yes, sir,” Greere visibly relaxed at the change of tack. “I deposited them there before returning.”
“They’ll hike out?” The small property referred to as ‘the forest’ sat in the midst of the Black Mountains of mid-south Wales. Utterly deserted, and with no neighbouring properties within a couple of miles, it provided an ideal training base.
“It’s about five miles across country to Edwinsford. Which will serve well for a final test of general navigation skills and fitness. For both of them.” Greere ventured a tentative smile.
Sentinel huffed and nodded. “Good. I think you’re a bit too lax with Deuce. I know you swear by him but nonetheless....” Sentinel let his words hang unfinished.
“Sir,” Greere acquiesced, though Sentinel suspected the acknowledgement wasn’t wholly sincere.
“And the training?”
“Mainly firearms, relevant communications protocols, and some advanced unarmed combat techniques. Mercury already has considerable fighting skill and excellent hand-eye coordination. Someone has also trained him, fairly recently, in the basics of subterfuge? Someone from the industry, or so Deuce reckons?”
“Very interesting,” Charles replied impassively, ignoring his subordinate’s attempt at fishing. “Has he... selected a cover name?”
“Yes, sir,” Greere ventured. “Deuce is annoyed by it, but it will do. He insisted he wanted to keep with his given name, Nicholas, but has chosen a translation of his family surname.”
“Interesting,” repeated Sentinel as he sat, staring out sightlessly into the beginnings of another dreary late-winter evening. “How very interesting... Anything new on the targets?”
“Nothing since the ‘Icarus’ message to the younger Ebrahimi’s cellphone, but we did a quick check and the brother is now in Central Europe: Romania to be precise.”
“No trace on the ‘Icarus’ call?”
“No. But we suspect it also came from that general area.”
~~~~~
Constanta
Two men watched from the shadows as Sergei Ebrahimi approached. He was making his way along the sea wall. A biting wind continued to cut in from the ocean, as it had endlessly done for the last few weeks. The young man was being buffeted by it, particularly as his bulky rucksack was acting like a weathervane strapped to his back.
Ebrahimi stopped. Even from a distance, his face looked tired and drawn above his bushy dark brown beard. They watched as he turned seawards, apparently watching the waves. They knew that he was actually, carefully, surveying his surroundings.
“You see,” muttered one of them. “The youngster is being cautious.”
The taller man merely grunted in halfhearted acknowledgement. “He looks like he’s been sleeping rough. I’m amazed he made it past the borders.”
~~~~~
Sergei leaned against the white-painted iron railings, ignoring the bitter brine-laden spray that felt like ice crystals as it battered his cheeks and forehead. Glancing to his left, the ornate cubes of the Cazinoul building stood deserted. A long portico on the leeward side, toward the land, might conceal watchers, but there was no way to know from here.
He looked at his watch: ten fifty-six. He had a few minutes yet.
He heaved the heavy pack off his back and stooped next to it as if rummaging for something inside. Meanwhile he studied the long arching pathway, back toward the docks. The route he had just walked along.
No-one.
Not a soul.
Perhaps not surprising given the bitter weather?
For a second he felt glad it was still winter. In summer it would have been impossible to tell if he was being followed.
He rubbed a gloved hand against his itching bristles. He hoped the others would be here. He was desperate for a good bath and shave. He knew he stank like a medieval cesspit. His journey had consisted predominantly of sleeping rough, in perpetual fear of arrest or sudden execution, constantly worrying about his younger brother, endlessly on the watch for hostile pursuers. His last decent wash and half decent night’s sleep had been before the crossing into Romania. At each border he had done the same thing: used the luxury of one night in a cheap rundown hotel for a swift metamorphosis from ragged beggar to penniless backpacking student.
The backpacker had never had a problem at the crossings. The one time his bag had been searched, the officers had abandoned the task when they reached an encrusted layer of filthy underwear, sitting just below the half-dozen random textbooks he’d collected, for show, from a secondhand shop in Germany.
There was nothing incriminating in the backpack anyway. Despite being uncomfortable about getting rid of it, he’d dumped his rusty old service revolver back in Poland.
Murat would no doubt be angry, but better that than getting caught with it.
For defence he had kept a twenty-centimetre hunting knife that he’d bought from the fishermen in the Baltic. It had a hefty, half-serrated, blade which had proven invaluable for cutting twigs for fires, and gutting rabbits and fish, as he’d lived amongst Europe’s hedgerows. But, whilst it was reassuring to have it to hand, he knew it wouldn’t be much use in a fire fight.
He gently eased the weapon out from where it was tucked in one of the bag’s many side pockets, and slipped it out of sight under his coat. Then he stood up, heaved the pack onto one shoulder and headed onward.
Still no-one in sight.
The grandiose building loomed over him. Heavy rain-laden cloud scudded seemingly inches over its rooftop entombing the long colonnaded portico in a mass of dark shadows, so he elected to circumnavigate the seaward exterior first.
Still no-one.
Slowly he crept into the cover of the long stone porch. At least here he was sheltered from the wind...
A sudden loud cough in the nearby shadows made him jump back.
Quickly, he dropped his pack and thrust the hunting knife out in front of him but, from nowhere, a tall man resolved out of the shadows and smashed his defensive arm to the side. The pain from the blow loosened his already frozen wrist and the knife slipped uselessly out of his grasp. It skittered away across the stone.
The bigger man leapt at him and grabbed his throbbing arm, then span him around, mushed his face into the white stone wall, and pinned his arm behind his back in a painful hold.
“Goat-f*cker,” the familiar growling hiss was laden with the reek of tobacco. The language was Turkmen.
“Sikand?” he grunted angrily.
“Glad you could finally join us, but never pull a weapon on me unless you intend to make good use of it.” Azat Sikand jerked Sergei’s arm further up his back making him wince in pain. “Are you alone?” he hissed into Sergei’s ear.
“No-one is following me,” Sergei rasped into the stonework. “I have been careful. That is why it has taken so long.”
“Enough.” A second voice commanded, and Sergei felt himself being released roughly.
He span around.
Murat Nagpal was standing to one side of his tall colleague, and the man reached down, picked up Sergei’s knife, span it over to catch it by its blade, then offered it, hilt-first, toward him. “Yours, I believe?” he said calmly.
Sergei reached forward and reclaimed his weapon. “Where is Jeyhun?” he asked. “Is he here?”
Nagpal looked at Sikand. “Get the boy’s bag,” he instructed.
Sikand scowled, then begrudgingly obeyed.
“Not yet, my young warrior,” Nagpal continued carefully. “Not yet. Let’s go somewhere we can talk and where you can wash that stench away.”
Part Three: Brothers
Secrets and Truths
Budapest, Hungary
Budapest straddles the mighty Danube River at the crossroads of Europe. It is a dichotic city with a split personality and chequered history. On the west-bank of the river lies Buda, a swathe of lush green hills dominated by its majestic castle. On the east-bank lies Pest, a bright and bustling metropolis of modern finance and retail. The city has been overrun time and again throughout its often bloody history; everyone from Mongol hordes to Nazi Stormtroopers have taken bites out of it but nowadays, thankfully, the tramp of massed armies has been displaced by the constructive forces of capitalism, tourism and the film industry. I’ve lost count of how many action movies I’ve seen crisscrossing these mighty landmark bridges and, if I’m honest, it feels a bit like a fiction for me to be here now, looking at them in person.
Deuce leads me along a wide promenade on the Pest side of the river. Walking these cobbles appears to be a popular evening pastime for Hungarians, tourists and prostitutes alike. The bright and welcoming plate-glass windows of a large hotel frame him as a dark silhouette alongside me. ‘Dark and perpetually irritable,’ I think to myself. To my left, the wide gunmetal waters of the river drift past, in the opposite direction to us, as they meander slowly toward Belgrade and eventually the Black Sea. Beyond them, the castle commands the distant bank, shining like a bright honey-yellow beacon in the darkness.
“What do you see?” asks Deuce.
“Any number of hookers,” I reply, though I do know what he’s really asking about. “Even you might get lucky...”
“Moron,” he growls.
I continue quickly. “Six up, two to the right.” Despite how satisfying it feels to wind him up, I don’t want to risk irritating him too much. I am too far away from my comfort zone and can’t be certain he won’t turn on me, now we’re out of the UK. “Heading in our direction. Long black coat: might be carrying. Hard to tell from here. Two male teenagers by the balustrade. Trying to look casual but paying too much attention to the men and women. Might be thieves, or pickpockets, or dealing.” I continue to promenade, seemingly disinterested, making no gestures and using my peripheral vision like he’s been teaching me. “Bloke in a suit, approaching. With a woman. Very dressed up.”
“They’re nobodies,” he mutters as if to himself.
“Agreed. But he should get her to pick his ties for him. That one’s a disgrace.”
Deuce snorts. “Not bad for a f*ck-wit,” he says dispassionately. “Black coat is definitely carrying.”
The man in question is more than fifty metres in front of us, walking more quickly. He had overtaken us earlier. Whilst he was closer, I’d seen that the heavy wool of his coat was falling awkwardly around some large obstruction on his left hand side. “Sawn-off?” I ask.
“Probably,” says Deuce.
“Agency or Police?”
“Neither,” he says. “Too unprofessional. Just a common or garden hood. This way.” He heads off to our right, away from the river, and into the surrounding streets.
“Where are we going?”
He glances at me slyly. “To meet your new best buddy,” he says. “I’m already sick of you.”
I huff but am content to return to silence. I can feel the effects of my earlier monologue on my still tender vocal cords. Short sentences and few words remain my preferred communication style, although they seem only to add weight to Deuce’s conviction that I am mentally retarded.
We make our way through the more busy and brightly lit shopping streets which, other than for the strange language on the signs, and obscure European fashions in the windows, look as familiar as any British town centre. Then we head off into narrower, and more dimly lit, side streets until, eventually, we reach a small backstreet bar.
Deuce pauses with his hand on the door. “Wait here,” he says.
“Why?”
He leans toward me. “’Coz I f*cking said so. That’s why,” he growls. “We’re early. I’m going in to see that everything’s cool. You wait here and keep your stupid gob shut,” and with that he vanishes inside.
I roll sideways, away from the doorway and lean up against the wall. The street is full of shadow. Darkened windows, flanked by broken shutters, observe me from ornate, gothic, stonework above me and in front. There are two streetlights working. One near me, and another about a hundred metres away. The building opposite has a recessed doorway, like an inset porch. I decide to move into it. It’ll make me less obvious.
As I cross the road a man emerges, presumably from an unseen alleyway somewhere between me and the more the distant streetlamp. He has long hair pinned down by a black woollen beanie. He is tall, a good few inches taller than me, and carries himself athletically. His heavy tan-coloured jacket does not disguise his muscularity. Boot cut jeans cling tightly to his powerful thighs.
The man wanders toward my position, along the footpath on the other side of the road, and I lean nonchalantly against the inside of the porch-way, keeping my eyes and face discretely angled away from him. I’m glad I crossed over the road. I can feel his stare. I can sense he is looking at me, studying me. I don’t look back. Time crawls into slow motion, and it feels like an eternity until he crosses through my line of vision.
Now the tables are turned, and I can study him. Turns out, there’s much to study.
High cheekbones on a face which might have been chiseled by Michelangelo. Strong jawline running from rugged chin. Good complexion, even under feeble streetlight.
He turns his head. A movement so quick and fluid that I have no time to react and I find myself frozen in the crosshairs of his piercing eyes. Stunning green eyes. With no other option, I return his stare for a moment, and then casually look away up the street behind him. Well, I hope it looks casual. My heart is beating like a hammer in my chest.
He continues along the street.
And when I look around again...
He is gone.
So I return to gazing, a little impatiently, at the featureless black doorway that Deuce has, so far, not reemerged from.
“Got a light?”
The voice, speaking in English, is so close to me that I jerk upright and spin round angrily. The stranger is back; though from where, I do not know.
“Van neked egy láng?” He is gesticulating with a battered-looking cigarette.
I can smell his aftershave, a deep musky scent which betrays not the slightest hint of tobacco smoke. I shake my head mutely and look away. Perhaps if I ignore him he’ll move on? Strange that he doesn’t smell like a smoker? Stranger still that he should choose English as his first choice for the question?
“Dohányzás annyira kiment a divatból. Igen?”
It’s obviously a question, but I have no idea how to respond. My hopes, that he’d go away if I ignored him, vanish as I feel the sensation of hard metal being prodded into my side, just below my ribcage. I feel him move closer still. “Not been brushing up on your Hungarian?” he asks coolly. “Very lax of you.”
I glance down and can see he’s pressing a matt-grey handgun against me. It seems that all of my recent introductions have been conducted over a gun barrel but, for some strange reason, death doesn’t seem to be hovering anywhere nearby. I am, in fact, feeling distinctly unexcited, despite the obvious threat. Maybe I can change that?
“Use it or put it away,” I grunt.
He looks at me calmly for a second or two, then says, “Deuce is inside.”
I nod once, carefully.
“It wasn’t a question. I know he is. I saw you arrive.”
I stare unblinkingly into his compelling eyes. Even in this poor light they look like two forest-dappled splashes of warm summer sunlight and somehow I can sense that he’s not a threat. “Tin?” I grunt.
“That’s me,” he says almost jovially. “Shall we join the miserable shit?” He nods toward the doorway. “Though I f*cking hate this bar. It’s a tiny shit-hole of a joint. Maybe we should go somewhere else and leave him to it?”
I smile at the thought. “Nice idea, but he said to wait.”
Tin laughed. “He always does,” he says, holstering his weapon under his jacket and heading toward the doorway. “Come on.”
I follow him over the road and in through the battered black portal to find myself in an equally battered black room. Tin had been right. The place was tiny.
Along the opposite wall runs a squat counter backed by grimy mirrors and an eclectic collection of bottles and optics. A string of small round lamp shades hang down along its length. Some of them even appear to have working bulbs inside. A bartender sits at one end flicking through a newspaper. He doesn’t even look up at us.
A handful of tables and stools or chairs fill the intervening space. Along the far wall, facing the door, where an already low ceiling steps down yet further, three small bays have been built by some dim and distant, probably long expired, proprietor. They each contain their own assorted tableware and are segregated from each other by oddly ornate wooden panelling. In the first of these cubicles, directly opposite us, Deuce casually observes our entrance through the bottom of his almost drained pint glass.
He’s the only other person in the room.
Tin nods at him and is rewarded by Deuce waggling his empty glass in our direction. My new partner’s shoulders rise and sag under an obvious sigh before he turns to me. “Pint?” he asks sullenly.
“Might as well,” I shrug.
“Any preference?”
My preference would be a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. I can’t remember the last time I had a pint. “You choose,” I reply and head to Deuce’s niche, where I drag one of the battered old stools out from under the table and plant myself down. The stool barely looks strong enough to bear my weight and it flexes ominously underneath me. “So, everything’s cool in here then, is it?” I rumble.
Deuce sits back, propping his almost-comfortable looking wooden chair onto the wall behind him and puts his hands behind his head. “Yep,” he replies, grinning to himself at his obvious superiority.
“You just wanted to jerk me about, right?”
“Yep,” he says.
Tin leans across between us and deposits three almost-clean glasses filled with amber lager onto the tabletop.
“I see you’ve already met Vital,” says Deuce, to me.
“It’s Vittalle,” says Tin, coldly, as he drags a second stool out and plants himself astride of it. He pronounces it ‘Vit-aah-lay’ in three deliberately discrete sections.
“And I see you’ve met the f*ck-wit,” says Deuce, to him.
Tin glances up somewhat uncomfortably at the low ceiling, then reaches out for one of the pint glasses. “Where are they?” he asks, then takes a hefty swig of beer.
I mirror his actions as best I can, but drink much less.
Deuce drags the third glass closer to him. “South of here.”
“In Hungary?” asks Tin.
Deuce shakes his head before drinking.
“The tags?”
Deuce lowers his glass, eventually. “Working. Looks like somehow you managed to do something right.”
Tin glowers at him.
Deuce continues, “You take Mercury to Göd. Mercury is greener than your poncey eyeballs so, despite the fact that you’re a f*cking useless shit yourself, you have to train him up. Use the time you have wisely. You might not have long.” Deuce lifted the half-full beer glass and commenced draining it.
Tin snatches up his own beer and continues to stare angrily at the older man, through its base, as he drinks. I watch in mild bemusement, as the slopping amber watermarks lower rapidly in both receptacles.
Deuce finishes first and slams his glass down in front of him as he stands. “We will contact you,” he says simply, then pushes his way past me and goes out of the door.
That’s it then? My future will be determined by this guy. A complete stranger, in a foreign land. Somehow, he’s going to prepare me for the kind of violent action I have always, until recently, detested...?
This thought, for some reason, makes me smile.
“Are you going to sit there and let that f*cking evaporate?” my new partner growls.
I pick up my glass and start drinking.
~~~~~