A great team. One to be proud of. They turned away from the harbour and climbed the side street to the rented house. Alice would have heard them, perhaps had nothing better to do than come out to meet them. Had abandoned the preparation of breakfast, and they might just be about to broach a bubbly bottle, and Knacker saw her face. The angel quality gone from it, a hardness replacing the usual innocent prettiness, even the freckles in decline… he assumed it heralded the second stage, far worse than the first, of the waiting time.
Alice said, “It’s about knowing nothing. There’s zilch on their radio bulletins, nothing on Radio Volna and nothing on Big Radio, the principal stations, and the locals here would know if there was a security flap, would have it monitored. If an FSB joker was taken down then it would be top of the show stuff. There’s nothing. And the lift out would have sailed. Sorry, Knacker, but it is not looking great – don’t know how to dress it up.”
If he were punched in the stomach, Knacker would not react, would hide any pain. He walked towards the door, grimaced, went inside.
He had demanded they go back to the apartment because of his need for that rare item, quality time, an opportunity to think. Gaz straddled his prisoner and was satisfied that the lever on the pistol was back on safe, and kept the weapon barrel and foresight hard against the skin on the officer’s neck. What he had seen before of Timofey’s driving, Gaz would have rated him ‘high’: not now. The car skidded on bends and when overtaking, and the brakes went on late and the accelerator was stamped on: they careered through the city’s empty streets. He had seen a woman with a buggy frozen in fear in the middle of a street, unable to go back or forward and trying to protect her child from the inevitable impact. But Timofey had woven past her. Gaz had reckoned that Natacha believed herself the hard kid, a survivor of the prison system, fortified by her contempt for the regime that had failed to save her father’s fellow submariners, but she now cringed and had an arm across her face. Needed time to reflect, to consider… The kids did not understand him, and he doubted the officer would have been able to read him.
Gaz had been a trained man. Good at surveillance, at picking the hide needed for a covert eyeball position, decent on a shooting range… He would not have contemplated easing back the safety, squeezing the trigger and feeling the shudder through his whole body when the bullet was discharged and he was being spattered by blood and bone and tissue. Not his work. Which was his justification for the remark: I am going to take him out. End of story. And be thanked for it? A grim smile flickered at his mouth.
Chapter 13
Timofey opened the door, waved them through.
The room stank. He could see where he had slept on the floor and where the old man had been, saw the heap of discarded food wrapping, and noted the grime on the windows where thin sunshine tried to penetrate. Nothing had changed in the room but it seemed to Gaz as if he had never been there before. He had had no clear idea in his head of what was possible and what was beyond the realm of what he could achieve. The old man crawled to his feet and had used the sofa arms to heave himself upright. It was for Gaz to lead. He gestured for a chair to be brought forward. Timofey watched Gaz, did not move. Nor Natacha, but she translated the instruction and the old man lifted a chair out from under the table and carried it awkwardly to the centre of the room.
The old man called the officer ‘sir’. Showed respect for his rank and his uniform, demonstrated nervousness. Gaz thought the plastic blindfold had slipped enough for the officer to see the chair in front of him, and if he could see the chair then he could see the faces; perhaps good thinking of Timofey’s father to address him with deference. In the briefing rooms of the Forward Operating Bases, they often talked of ‘collateral’. The prospect of collateral damage should not stand in the way of achieving success in an end-game. Collateral was an acceptable risk in Helmand and in central Syria on the basis that the perpetrators would be long gone, well clear before the damage kicked in… worrying about collateral was for the squeamish. The officer would know the faces of those who had taken him if his blindfold had slipped. It seemed to have done… the officer knew in what direction he should go as Gaz manoeuvred him towards the chair.
The chair had a tubular metal frame, a hard seat, and a straight back. Was there rope in the apartment? There was not. Was there powerful adhesive tape? There was not. Were there more plastic bags? A handful were brought out from under the sink, some filled with rubbish. Gaz set the officer down in the chair. His head tracked Gaz as he crossed in front of him. Gaz lifted the officer’s arms behind his back and eased them behind his spine, and with a bag smelling of rotting vegetables tied the knot, fastened his arms to the chair. He was uncertain as to the reaction of the kids if the officer lashed out with his polished shoes, caught Gaz in the head or the stomach or the groin, disabled him. Might pile in and save the day, or might back off, or might free the officer and push him out of the door and slam it, shut themselves away from the arrival of ‘collateral’. Best done himself. Did it from the side and the officer would have known that Gaz’s face and belly and privates were beyond kicking reach. He tied both ankles to one chair leg.
Gaz reached at the officer’s face, caught at a corner of the bag used as a gag and tugged it clear. There was spitting, coughing, a near choke, and then quiet. Gaz told the kids to get the officer a glass of water. Again, work for the old man. A tap was run, glass swilled out. The father used the hem of his shirt to dry the glass. The water was brought and Gaz saw that the father’s hand shook and water slopped from the glass and some spilled on the officer’s trousers, and he was addressed again as sir and the water was held to his lips. The glass tilted, too much and too fast, more water was spilled and the father grovelled.
Timofey asked, “What now?”
“I look for time, not much.”
Natacha’s question. “How much time?”
“Until I am ready, that much time.”
The officer could have spoken, did not. Gaz assumed that FSB went on the same courses as his own crowd. This was a situation described by the colour sergeants as ‘arse pucker time’ – so tight a flea wouldn’t get in. He would have been taught to say nothing until he had a clear view of his captors’ competence, and attempt little until he had a comprehension of their qualities: would hide behind the blindfold and would absorb… Would have heard the old man’s grovelling acknowledgement of his rank. Would have heard the kids demand to be told the schedule. Gaz wondered if, yet, he had an inkling. He went to the window. He put the pistol under the belt in the back of his trousers.
Gaz saw the huge monument high on the hill and thought of it with the same respect he had for the memorial to the dead of two World Wars in the centre of the village where Bobby and Betty Riley had brought him up. They went there every anniversary Sunday for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day. No enmity towards their veterans, Russia’s dead, and would have been ashamed of himself if he had felt hostility. Saw the length of the flight-deck of the old aircraft carrier that had limped down the North Sea and English Channel, past Gibraltar and across the Mediterranean, and he had seen Sukhoi–33 attack aircraft – NATO codename Flanker – roaming in the skies over Syria when they had taken off from the geriatric craft. Saw the church where he’d mingled with the funeral party and been shown politeness and consideration and a priest had smiled at him. Saw the back section of the cut-out conning tower… and glimpsed a small cloud of smoke cresting over a tangle of low masts, and knew a boat prepared to get out into the main navigation channel. Saw nothing that was not a distraction. He looked higher, away to the west.