When he emerged, the other three were up and dressed, in conference in the living room. Two laptops were open in front of them.
Max pushed across a mug of coffee and a plate of hot rolls. ‘We’ve been looking at suitable venues. Jakub’s found the best one.’
Jakub turned the laptop towards Calvary. ‘Premiéra parkhouse. Fifteen minutes from here.’
Calvary looked at the images. Yes, it was as good as anything. He’d asked them to look for somewhere that was likely to be uninhabited early in the morning, and which had good vantage points.
*
The streets were waking up but still shrouded in dark. They belonged to cleaners, cabbies, the occasional ambulance. Eventually Jakub pointed down a side street and Nikola pulled the Fiat in. The district was residential bordering on commercial.
Ahead was a six-storey building with the dull, concrete appearance of public parking lots everywhere. The information online had said the opening hours were eight a.m. until one a.m. Calvary climbed out of the Fiat, motioning the others to stay where they were, and walked over to the entrances where the lowered booms blocked access to the ramps beyond. Yes, the sign confirmed the opening hours. A few cars were scattered here and there in the gloom beyond, but otherwise the parkhouse appeared deserted.
Calvary went back to the car and told them what he wanted them to do.
FIFTEEN
The Toyota saloon sat with its rear-view mirror angled precisely, giving a clear view of the Fiat two hundred yards behind.
Tamarkin watched Calvary climb back in, and considered his options.
Krupina had dismissed them at two a.m., ordered them to get the sleep they needed before an early start in the morning. By early start she meant eight a.m. At the office. Two hours from now. Even if he didn’t make it on time, he’d say he had been doing some investigating on his own, visiting informants, seeking a paper trail, anything that might give them access to the mobster Blažek.
He had no idea what Calvary and his trio of oddball sidekicks were doing at the hotel. But he had to assume that Calvary would recognise him – perhaps he’d been watching when they had found the discarded bug the night before – and so he couldn’t approach more closely. Couldn’t follow Calvary if he went back into the hotel.
It had been a simple matter to plant the tracking device on the Fiat outside the club. Tamarkin had been on his own in the Toyota after Arkady had gone in. He kept the tracker under the seat for use at short notice. A low dash alongside the parked cars had brought him alongside the Fiat, unnoticed either by its occupants or by Krupina and Lev, parked in the Audi at the other end of the road. He fitted the tracker to the Fiat’s undercarriage where it remained held in place magnetically. Back in his Toyota he’d opened his palmtop computer, established that the signal was working.
It was insurance, his own way of keeping track of the car even if the bug on Calvary’s person was discovered. It had proved a good idea. After they’d found the discarded bug and returned to the office, Tamarkin had checked the progress of the Fiat. Once Krupina dismissed them, he followed the signal, found the Fiat parked in a quiet residential street. Empty, and with no indication where Calvary and the others had gone.
So he sat there, all night, allowing himself to slip into the controlled doze he’d mastered after years of stakeout work. At a little after five thirty they’d emerged.
Ten, twelve hours. That was Krupina’s estimate of how long it would take for reinforcements, SVR personnel rustled up at short notice, to arrive. Even if her best guess was right, there were still five hours left.
A dozen SVR operatives would take Calvary down, without difficulty. Tamarkin could contrive some story about how he managed to track Calvary to the hotel. It would be infinitely preferable to an assault by Blažek’s cack-handed, untrained thugs. But Blažek’s people could be here in half an hour. Perhaps sooner. Krupina’s troops weren’t even in Prague yet.
Tamarkin watched Calvary, the woman and the other two men leave the Fiat and head for the entrance to the car park.
It gave him a little time.
*
Calvary had asked for an unused pay-as-you-go phone. Nikola kept a stash of them in her flat. She handed one over.
He’d done a quick survey of every floor of the parking lot, the others in tow. Two side-by-side lifts at the far end gave access to each floor, as did fire stairs adjacent to them. On the roof the early morning air was chill. The turrets of the old town loomed in the distance across the rooftops.
He led them back down to the fifth floor, one below the top.
Calvary dialled the number on the card he’d found in Zito’s wallet.
In a moment, a sleep-furred voice: ‘No?’
‘Is this Marek Zito?’ As usual Calvary used Russian. Zito had looked in his thirties, was therefore old enough to have had the language forced upon him as a boy and be at least reasonably proficient.
‘Yeah?’
In the background, an annoyed woman’s mutter.
‘Listen carefully. I’m not going to repeat myself. I’m the man who took your gun and wallet off you in the club last night.’
The shout blasted his ear. He could imagine the man leaping out of bed, knocking things over.
‘I want you to call your boss. Janos, not his father. Tell him to ring me on this number immediately. I have an offer for him. For him alone. Not Bartos.’
He cut the call.
They watched the phone in his hand. It rang less than two minutes later.
‘Who are –’
He recognised the voice.
‘As I said to your friend, listen. Just so we get it clear from the start that I am who I say I am, I chucked a tray of burning drinks into your lap last night, disarmed your gunman, and generally made you look like a complete idiot in front of your cronies. Probably earned you a spanking from Daddy, too, I’d imagine. Ring any bells?’
Silence.
‘Good. Now I’ve learned I don’t have anything to fear from you, I want to propose an arrangement. Is anyone listening in on this conversation? Are you on speakerphone?’
‘No.’
‘I’m at the Premiéra multi-storey car park on Chodov Street. The top floor, on the roof. I’ll be here for half an hour. It’s now six ten by my watch. Six forty, I’m gone.’
‘What’s this –’
‘Just listen. I can tell you why the man you have, Gaines, is so important. But I’ll tell only you. Not your father, not your uncle Miklos. Oh, and I want payment for it. Five hundred thousand koruna, cash.’
After a beat: ‘I can get this.’
Calvary knew he had him.
*
They stood saying nothing for a few seconds afterwards. It hit Calvary, the realisation of what he was planning. Of how risky it was.
Jakub walked to the chest-high wall that ran along the perimeter, peering down as if Janos could be out there already.
‘Can’t believe you said come alone.’ Max laughed, but there was a shake in it. ‘Bad line, man. Too many movies.’
‘Of course he won’t come alone. It’s what he’d expect me to say. He’ll assume I’m not alone, either.’ Calvary paced to get the blood flowing again, the muscles limber. ‘He started playing the game when he said he could get the money. Half a million koruna in half an hour? You’ve got to be joking.’
‘And you do not think he will tell his father?’ Nikola, this time. Face pale against the dark of her hair.