‘Guy’s alone. Our HVT should have a whole entourage with him.’
But Blackburn wasn’t listening. The man was jogging in a lumbering kind of way towards the Land Cruiser, not a young man. A burst of tracer lit his face. That was all he needed. The same face that looked out from a hundred posters he’d seen since they’d entered Iran, the same face he had seen on the bank vault security monitor. Al Bashir.
‘Okay, he’s mine.’
Blackburn didn’t call it in. Instead he trained his sight on the occupant of the SUV, a younger guy sitting in the driver’s seat. A clean shot: the driver slumped forward as the side window exploded. Al Bashir reeled back, nearly lost his balance, then wheeled round to look in the direction of the shot before he moved towards the Land Cruiser.
Campo raised his M4. Blackburn shook his head. He ran along the perimeter wall, jumped the gap on to the section of the mall that the quake had separated, then down on to the lid of a dumpster, which broke his fall. He paused for a second to see Al Bashir reach the driver’s door, heave the wounded man out of the driver’s seat and let him fall on to the tarmac. Then he took a step over him and slid behind the wheel.
Blackburn ran along the edge of the roof to get closer to the Land Cruiser but Al Bashir slammed the shift into drive. With tyres screaming, the vehicle bolted out from its cover by the dumpsters. Blackburn took aim, shot out a rear tyre, but the four-wheel drive vehicle didn’t falter. He followed the vehicle in his sights, took another shot, missed, prepared to take another, when he saw it reach the gate where a shelled tank was still smouldering. Without slowing, Al Bashir swung the Land Cruiser into such a sharp right that it nearly toppled over. He then headed back towards the mall, disappearing from view behind a row of containers. Blackburn, as if powered by another force, vaulted on to the top of the nearest containers to get a better shot, only to find the vehicle headed straight towards him, too close to fire at. As Al Bashir slowed to take another right Blackburn leapt, landing sprawled across the windscreen. He grabbed a wiper. It immediately came off in his hand. He lunged at the door mirror as Al Bashir threw the Land Cruiser into a series of snaking swerves. Blackburn scrabbled with his legs, trying desperately to keep from sliding off the hood and under the front wheels. The windshield disintegrated as Bashir took a shot at his unexpected passenger. The bullet zinged past Blackburn’s left ear, the blast deafening him. Enraged, he slammed a fist through the remaining screen and grabbed Bashir’s gun arm. The gun discharged again.
Whatever it was Bashir ran into Blackburn never saw. The impact catapulted him on to the tarmac. As Bashir, dazed, struggled to engage reverse, Blackburn got back on his feet, wrenched open the door and grabbed the PLR leader with both hands. They fell in a heap beside the Land Cruiser, their faces inches apart.
The first he knew that Bashir had taken a bullet was the bubbling, bloody phlegm that oozed from his mouth and nostrils.
Campo was rushing towards them. ‘Good fucking job, man.’
Blackburn screamed back at him. ‘He’s hit, he’s hit. Adrenalin.’
Campo threw him a sachet which he tore open before banging the needle through Bashir’s tunic straight into his chest. He overheard Campo on the radio. ‘HVT in custody, wounded, preparing to move to extraction point.’
Fuck preparing to move, thought Blackburn. He’s dying. Al Bashir’s eyes swivelled up under his drooping lids. Blackburn pumped his chest, wiped the blood off his chin and performed mouth to mouth. Al Bashir jerked back into consciousness, panting wheezy bubbles of blood, but he managed a smile.
‘Should you be going to all this trouble? Or are you planning to bring me to justice?’
He coughed up the blood pooling in his mouth. Blackburn looked for the entry wound, found it in his neck. Blood was pulsing out of it. Blackburn jammed his thumb in it, yelling to Campo.
‘Tourniquet!’
‘Forget about me, soldier. It’s you who are done for. All of you.’
His eyes swivelled again. Blackburn pumped his chest, banging life back into him.
‘The suitcase devices — the nukes. Where?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘It’s not me you should be concerned about. I am history. The baton has passed. .’
Campo was on his knees beside Blackburn, stripping the plastic off a tourniquet. ‘He’s bleeding out, stop him talking.’
‘Try all you want soldier, whatever happens to me you are done for, my friend.’
Blackburn put his face close. ‘The other one who you were with, taking the nukes.’
He nodded. ‘Very good, yes. He will destroy you.’
Campo tried to apply the dressing. ‘He’s fucking lost it. He’s talking shit.’
Blackburn hushed him. ‘A name. Give me his name.’
‘His name is death, my friend.’ He coughed up more blood. ‘Sol-man.’
‘Solman?’
Bashir’s voice was now no more than a gurgling whisper. He used a breath for each syllable. ‘Sol. . o. . mon.’
After that there were no more breaths.
38
Vladimir leapt up and brushed some quake dust off the couch. Kroll offered her a cigarette. She draped herself across the beige leather: although she looked drained Dima noticed that she had refreshed her make-up. He wondered what she was hoping to get out of all this, presumably not a fling with any of this lot. Women like her made sure they went up in the world, not down.
‘The snow was very good. He even had a private ski-lift. It’s a protected area, for wildlife.’ She snorted. ‘He got special dispensation, a favour from the government. I think it once belonged to the Shah.’
‘And you’ve met him.’
‘Several times. Gazul always told me to be very nice, very attentive. “Whatever he wants to talk about, listen — like this”.’ She did a faintly sinister wide-eyed stare. ‘“Without him we are nothing.” That was his belief. I don’t know why, that sort of thing they never discussed in front of me. I thought it might be drugs. He always had plenty. One of his wives died of an overdose, his girlfriend told me.’
Dima was looking at Amara with a stare that was almost as intense as hers had been.
‘The place: describe it please.’
‘It’s well hidden, up a track that only a 4x4 can go, but also there is a helipad.’
‘Where?’
‘In the grounds. It looks like a Swiss chalet, you know, like Alpine, but it’s made of concrete and is cut’ — she made a chopping motion — ‘into the mountain. Kaffarov calls it his Kelsten something.’
She shrugged. Dima rose excitedly to his feet.
‘His Kehlsteinhaus. . the Eagle’s Nest!’
Everyone looked nonplussed.
‘So?’ said Vladimir.
‘Hitler’s secret retreat at the top of the Kehlstein mountain,’ said Kroll. ‘Built by Martin Bormann for his fiftieth birthday, cost: thirty million Reichsmarks. Only Hitler hardly ever stayed there.’
He and Dima looked at each other.
‘Because he was afraid of heights!’
Amara shrugged again. Some people had no sense of history.
‘Sorry,’ said Dima. ‘Go on.’
She shrugged.
‘How many guards will he have with him?’
‘I don’t know — some North Koreans, I think.’
‘The infamous Yin and Yang.’
‘They never speak. And some others who walked round waving their Uzis. Always guns, guns, guns, wherever you went.’ She shivered. ‘She said he always sleeps with one under his pillow.’