Who Dares Wins (36 page)

From the airport he drove to the outskirts of Marseilles, a concrete mess of low-rent high-rises. Gangs of kids – North African, mostly – hung around in groups, smoking and drinking. Jacob navigated the streets swiftly. Surov’s man had given him the name and address of a contact round here and he wanted to get the meet over and done with.

He pulled up outside one of the concrete towers, pocketed the GPS and stepped out into the humid exterior before locking the doors and glancing skywards. Thirteenth floor. A bastard to break out of in an emergency. He made his way into the building. The lift was broken and the stairwell, covered in graffiti, smelled of piss and spices. He trotted up hurriedly, aware of some voices down below that hadn’t been there when he entered. Had he attracted attention from the dealers and the drunks? Probably. But it didn’t matter. He could handle them.

The entrance to Flat 207 was the fifth in a long line of doors along an external corridor. The paint was peeling away. Jacob banged a fist against it and then stepped to one side. He waited tensely.

A voice from the other side.

‘
Oui?
’ A man. Gruff. Unfriendly.

‘Edward Rucker,’ Jacob called. ‘
Vous m’attendez. Je veux acheter quelques trucs
.’

Another pause. The door clicked open slightly. Jacob gave it a moment, then used his foot to open the door further. He peered in. Gloom. No noise from inside.

He stepped over the threshold.

As his eyes grew used to the dimness, he saw there was someone standing in another doorway at the end of the corridor. Black skin. Patchy stubble and a scarred face. As soon as their eyes met the man disappeared into the room, leaving Jacob to shut the door behind him and follow.

It stank in the flat, a mixture of marijuana and sweat. As Jacob entered, his mind instantly catalogued what was there. Thin, frayed curtains against the windows. Yellowing walls. A bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling by a flex and a woman, mixed race, crouched in the corner. Asleep? High? Impossible to say. Upturned milk crates – chairs, Jacob supposed. A sofa, threadbare. Several flight cases. None of them open. The man stood in front of them. He wore a brightly coloured woollen top, but his face was a lot less friendly. He scowled at Jacob.

‘English?’ he asked in a heavily accented voice before taking a drag on a roughly rolled cigarette.

Jacob nodded.

‘What is it you want?’

Jacob looked at the flight cases. ‘Open them,’ he instructed.

The man’s lip curled. He raised one finger and shook it. ‘Show me your money first,
mon ami
.’

Jacob gave him a flat look. ‘Forget it,’ he said, before turning to leave. Instantly the man was all over him, pulling him back into the room. He stank intensely of body odour. Jacob swatted him away, but stayed. The man, suddenly faintly obsequious, scurried back to the flight cases without another word.

Even Jacob was impressed by their contents. Assault rifles, sub-machine guns, handguns. Rocket-launcher attachments, tear-gas canisters and grenades. One of the flight cases was filled with boxes of rounds of all types. As weapons stashes went, it was a good one.

‘Who do you get this shit from?’ Jacob asked. The man just smiled, revealing an incomplete set of teeth. He didn’t answer. He did, however, step aside to let Jacob examine the merchandise. Jacob knew what he was after and it was no surprise that his attention was immediately caught by one weapon in particular. It was a suppressed Armalite AR30, a sleek bolt-action weapon with a twenty-six-inch barrel. ‘Serial numbers ground off?’ he demanded.

‘Of course,’ the man replied, as if slightly insulted. ‘I show you how to use it?’ He sounded excited by the prospect.

Jacob shook his head and rested the weapon carefully on the floor. ‘Shut up and let me look.’

From another case he selected a bipod and a telescopic sight, before turning his attention to the handguns. There were eight or nine to choose from; he felt most comfortable with a Sig 226, a Regiment stalwart. He added this to his stash, then examined the rounds. 7.82s for the Armalite. Enough to go through body armour and still make a fucking big hole. They came in sleek boxes of ten, about twice the size of a cigarette packet. The AR30 had a five-round magazine. Jacob took two boxes. Twenty rounds. Enough for a test fire to zero the weapon in; and enough for the op. ‘Match rounds,’ the dealer said. ‘Very good, very . . .’ He fished for a word. ‘Accurate.’

A box of .357s for the Sig and Jacob was done. He turned round to the seedy arms dealer. ‘How much?’

The guy looked like he was plucking a figure out of thin air. ‘Three thousand,’ he rasped, before flashing another of his unpleasant grins. He folded his arms.

Jacob knew he was being ripped off, but he didn’t care. He pulled out his wallet, peeled off the notes and threw them dismissively on to the couch. ‘I need a bag,’ he said.

The dealer scooped up the money. In the corner the woman stirred. She looked over at them, bored, before seeming to notice Jacob. Something lit up in her face. ‘
Salut
 . . .’ she said, pathetically trying to make her rasping, addled voice sound seductive. She patted down her clothes and found a cigarette. ‘
As-tu du feu?
’

Jacob turned away. ‘The bag,’ he repeated. He didn’t want to stay in this dump any longer than he had to. The dealer disappeared to find something, while Jacob stripped down the Armalite. Minutes later he was walking back down the stairwell, the dealer’s insincere ‘
Enchanté
’ ringing in his ears and the weapons stashed in an old canvas holdall. On the ground floor, some youths had congregated. They had a lairiness about them, and gave Jacob the eye; but they soon noticed the canvas bag and backed off. Clearly they knew why strangers arrived in this building, and what they were carrying when they left.

Jacob stowed the weapons in the boot of the Laguna, climbed into the driving seat and got the hell out of there. He had a long journey ahead of him and he needed to get started.

Gabriel Bland walked quickly, Toby Brookes trotting behind.

Bland had never been to this interrogation centre, a deserted farmhouse in the middle of the Hampshire countryside. It had a well-protected basement where matters were discussed that would never make it on to
The Archers
. Better all round for him not to visit, though he had made use of plenty of the information that had been extracted here by various means – some of them legal, others decidedly not. Today, however, he had no time for coyness.

‘I want to know everything he’s said,’ Bland told Brookes as they walked through the farmyard, past a faceless security guard and into the house proper. ‘Miss nothing out, Toby.’

‘Redman broke into his house, sir. Tortured him.’

Bland stopped and looked at Brookes, his eyes flashing dangerously. When he spoke, it was in an emphatic whisper. ‘
How
, Toby?’

Brookes glanced at the security guard, clearly embarrassed by his boss’s rebuke. ‘Removed his fingers, sir. Two of them.’

Bland showed no sign of shock.

‘Seems like Dolohov sang like a canary, sir. Still singing. I guess he doesn’t have the stomach for any more interrogation. That and the fact that we’ve hinted that if he plays ball, we won’t send him back to Moscow.’

Bland didn’t bother to remark on how unlikely
that
was. ‘Go on,’ he instructed, allowing Brookes to lead the way through the farmhouse kitchen and down a set of cellar steps into the basement. He listened as Brookes detailed what he knew about Dolohov, an intricate story of assassinations and intrigue, with Jacob Redman at the heart of things. The meeting at Piccadilly Circus two days from now.

They walked down a long corridor with a concrete floor and uniform doors on either side. ‘One other thing, sir,’ said Brookes. ‘Dolohov told Sam Redman that he thinks one of the red-light runners has been activated to carry out a hit. Major political figure. No details on who or when, but we’ll get our inquisitors to sweat it out of him.’

Bland stopped in his tracks for a second time. He blinked and looked at Brookes – who sensed that he had once again said the wrong thing – with evident exasperation. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

Brookes kept quiet, like a schoolboy receiving a telling off.

‘Listen carefully.’ Bland pronounced his words slowly, as if to a child. ‘I want increased security for all members of the Cabinet. Special forces bodyguard assigned to the PM. Alert COBRA and tell them we take this threat extremely seriously. Level 1. Cross reference this information with any other intelligence chatter. Have you got that, Toby, or do I need to repeat myself ?’

‘No, sir. Now, sir?’

‘Show me where he is first.’

They walked to the end of the corridor, then turned right. On their left-hand side a pane of glass looked into a room. Next to it was a door above which a red light was illuminated. ‘One-way glass, sir. He can’t see you.’

Bland nodded and Brookes disappeared to make the calls, leaving his boss alone to stare into the room. It was sparse. Just a table and two chairs. At one of them sat a man. His head nodded, as though he kept falling asleep and awakening himself at the last moment; his hands were palm down on the table. They were heavily bandaged.

Brookes returned, a little red-faced and out of breath. ‘All done, sir.’

‘Good,’ Bland replied. His previous frustration had left him and now he felt strangely pensive. ‘Do you believe him, Toby?’

Toby Brookes hesitated.

‘I, ah . . . I only ask,’ Bland continued, ‘because he gave you a great deal of information in a very short amount of time and with almost no, ah . . . persuasion. Does that not strike you as odd?’

‘Redman cut two of his fingers off, sir. Cauterised the wounds with a blow torch. Tore off a fingernail. God knows what else he threatened. If someone did that to me, I don’t think I’d be in the mood to play games.’

‘Indeed not,’ Bland murmured, still not taking his eyes of Dolohov. ‘Indeed not.’ His voice trailed off. ‘To think,’ he resumed suddenly, ‘this man has been working under our very noses for all these years.’

‘He hardly looks like an assassin, sir.’

Bland nodded slowly. ‘You’re too young to remember the Cold War, Toby. It was a lesson well learned in those days that the person you were looking for was likely to be the last person you expected. The char ladies. The postman.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘The Cold War is supposed to be a distant memory,’ he said. ‘But you know, Toby? Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I really do wonder.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Brookes said, obviously uncomfortable with his boss’s moment of reflection, looking like he didn’t know whether to stay or go.

They continued to stand in silence, still looking at the nodding foreigner.

‘I find myself,’ Bland mused, ‘in the curious position of having to readjust my opinion of Sam Redman. If it weren’t for him, we’d still be groping in the dark. Speaking of which . . .’ He looked hopefully at Brookes.

Brookes shook his head. ‘No sign of him, sir. The SBS made chase, but he got away. We’ve got eyes out in Hereford and Clare Corbett is still being trailed, but I don’t hold out much hope. He just seemed to vanish.’

‘Nobody just vanishes, Toby,’ said Bland angrily. ‘I think we can safely say where he will be in two nights’ time.’

‘Piccadilly Circus, sir?’

‘Piccadilly Circus, sir. Along with Mr Dolohov, ourselves and, of course, Jacob Redman. It sounds to me like quite a party.’ He continued to gaze through the one-way glass at Dolohov.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Jacob Redman has to enter the country somehow. No doubt he will have a false passport. You are sure that his photograph has been disseminated to all the ports?’

‘Quite sure, sir.’

Bland sniffed. ‘Then let’s hope our immigration officials are feeling alert.’ He bit his lower lip. ‘I think I’d like to have a little chat with our friend Dolohov, as he’s feeling so compliant. I’ve been playing cat and mouse with the FSB for some time now. I’m absolutely positive that we’ll find plenty to talk about, aren’t you? And in the meantime, Toby . . .’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘In the meantime, I want to make sure everything is done to catch up with these infuriating brothers. They are running rings round us and it’s becoming embarrassing, not to mention dangerous. Find Sam Redman, Toby. And I want his brother the moment he sets foot on UK soil.’

*

It took ten hours hard driving up the autoroute to reach the bland flatness of northern France. At one point Jacob took a detour and drove off into the middle of nowhere. In a deserted field, far from any sign of habitation, he test-fired the Armalite, zeroing it in to his eye. Thanks to the suppressor, the weapon barely even disturbed the birds in the trees. Back on the autoroute, he paid for his petrol and tolls with cash; when he pulled off the motorway into some faceless French town to buy a sturdy rucksack, a high-quality windproof Goretex jacket and waterproof trousers from a camping shop, plus a pair of heavy-duty lopping shears from a DIY place, he paid cash for them too. It raised an eyebrow or two in the camping shop, but that was better than leaving an electronic trail with Edward Rucker’s credit cards, no matter how safe he believed the identity to be.

Night had fallen by the time he started seeing signposts for Boulogne. He eased off the accelerator. Nothing was going to happen before midnight. He had a few hours to kill.

He headed for the centre of town. Parking up outside a small
épicerie
he bought bananas and chocolate for energy, as well as water. Not much. Just enough to see him through till morning. Back in the vehicle he ate ravenously, sank a litre of water, then drove off. He followed signs for the marina and it only took him minutes to arrive.

There were hundreds of boats here. Yachts, motorboats, some of them old, some of them expensively new. Jacob parked up, shoved his hands in his pockets and – with the air of a tourist enjoying a late evening walk, while ogling at the pastimes of the idle rich – he headed down into the throng of vessels. The salty air was filled with the sound of halyards clattering against their masts – a good sound because it meant there was a decent wind; lights glowed from a nearby clubhouse, reflecting on the shimmering water; there were very few people about and those that were nodded at Jacob in a friendly, comradely way. He felt relieved that he had cleaned himself up before leaving Moscow. Had he looked a state among these well-heeled boat owners, he’d have stuck out; but in his Goretex he felt he fitted right in. He nodded back. In another life and under other circumstances, this would have all the hallmarks of a relaxing holiday stroll.