The last bedroom was larger than the first, with a slept-in double bed where the fourth team member had rested, most likely the leader. When Victor stepped inside the room his heart rate increased by several beats per minute. Not because there was an open suitcase sat on the bed, with clothes scattered around it on the bedclothes. Not because there was nothing else inside it of use to him. His heart rate quickened because on the opposite wall to the double bed was a fifth recently used camp bed.
But no suitcase.
CHAPTER 29
Zurich, Switzerland
In a dark room two men who were not Swiss stood before an antique wooden desk. The first man was in his early thirties and wore jeans and a windcheater. The second was old, very short, wearing a suit. He stood slightly hunched over. Before them a laptop computer sat on the desk. Video footage filled the laptop’s screen. The footage had been recorded with state-of-the-art infrared cameras, of a hotel suite. The recording showed three men, acting shocked and confused. The laptop’s speakers played strange sounds.
‘He’s shooting through the door,’ the man in the windcheater explained.
The older man nodded and watched as one of the three men jumped down behind a sofa a second before the suite door burst open and a man with a sub-machine gun and night-vision goggles charged in and opened fire, mercilessly gunning down the two standing men, and then the third through the sofa. There was no sound of gunfire, only the results of it.
The man in the windcheater said, ‘Silenced FN P90. He’s using subsonic ammo. That’s why we can’t hear it.’
The video footage cut to another camera as the man with the P90 continued his assault, shooting through a bedroom door and lying down next to it, before opening the door and killing those in the room beyond.
The man in the windcheater rubbed his tired face and said, ‘My team is next.’
The gunman was then shot by two men arriving behind him, and played dead until they had passed him, then killed them also. He exchanged fire with a final man, before shooting him and leaving. The video jumped forward in time, and the man had returned to squat down next to the last man he’d shot, who wasn’t dead. He stayed squatted down for almost half a minute.
‘Is he questioning him?’ the old man in the suit asked.
‘I expect so. The microphones didn’t pick it up. He wouldn’t have told him anything.’
‘How else are we exposed?’
The man in the windcheater answered. ‘The authorities will have found the surveillance equipment, of course, but I retrieved and disposed of the plane tickets and passports of the others. Our computer was destroyed — I believe by the assassin as a precaution. Not that it helped him, as we had the footage continuously backed up to the safe-house server, otherwise we wouldn’t have anything of him.’
‘Show me the other part.’
The younger man tapped some keys on the laptop and used the track pad. The infrared footage was replaced with colour footage of the hotel suite. Two men were visible, conversing in Russian.
‘Which is the one who killed my boys?’ the old man in the suit asked, leaning closer.
‘The guy on the left is a member of Petrenko’s entourage. The man on the right claims to be from hotel management, but he doesn’t work there and does nothing except look around the suite. Reconnaissance, of course.’
‘So we have his voice, and his face.’
‘And nothing else. I’m so sorry, Father.’
‘But that’s enough,’ the old man in the suit said as he reached for his phone.
CHAPTER 30
Mount Lebanon, Lebanon
‘This is Xavier Callo,’ a scared voice said. ‘I’m in Minsk.’ There was a pause, the sound of heavy breathing. ‘Tell Yamout it’s a trap. Vladimir Kasakov is going to kill him.’ Another pause, longer, more breathing. ‘He tried to kill me already but I got away. Tell Yamout-’
‘That’s it,’ Yamout said. ‘That was Callo’s message. He made the call shortly before he was beaten to death.’
Baraa Ariff nodded, not quite believing what he was hearing. He sat in an eighteenth-century Turkish armchair carved ornately from ebony. Before him a mobile phone set to speaker sat on a coffee table. Yamout sat opposite Ariff, perched on a hand-stitched silk couch.
‘Play it again,’ Ariff said.
They listened to Callo’s words another time. Ariff shook his head before the recording had finished.
The two arms dealers sat in silence for a moment. They were in the combined lounge and bar of Ariff’s private wing on the second floor of his mountain villa. It was cool and quiet in the room. Ceiling fans thrummed softly overhead. Set within the north-east corner wing he also had an office, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and balcony for his exclusive use. The area was inaccessible to his wife and daughters due to an electronically sealed door that only he and Yamout knew the code to.
Ariff sat back in the armchair. ‘What time was the call made?’
‘The voicemail log says nine-thirty, last night.’
‘Nine-thirty,’ Ariff said thoughtfully. ‘Shortly after you were attacked.’
Yamout nodded.
‘So Kasakov went after Callo and you simultaneously. A coordinated strike against us. But Callo’s death matters nothing to me except I have now lost the money he owed us, and we need the services of a new diamond merchant. Both of which are trivial. What is important to me is that you, my dear friend, were cunning enough to escape Kasakov’s foul assassins.’
Yamout made a face. ‘Yet I came within a hair’s breadth of losing my life. His men were but a room away from killing me. I employed no cunning in my escape, only terror. I am lucky to be alive. It is nothing short of a miracle.’
Ariff gave a mocking smile. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. God would no sooner save you than he would me. Miracles are reserved for the pure and the good. We are neither. Men like us must make our own miracles.’ Ariff stood. ‘Come.’
Yamout followed him through the door into the rest of the villa. The decor changed markedly. Ariff liked his private rooms to be simply decorated — animal-skin rugs on the floor, comfortable furniture, nothing that did not serve a practical purpose. The gold-painted armchairs, bronze statues, Persian rugs, crystal chandeliers, exotic house plants and original oil paintings in the rest of the villa were the doing of Ariff’s wife. She had extravagant tastes and had the interior of the house set like the palace of an opulent prince.
They descended the huge marble staircase. When Ariff reached the bottom his youngest daughter appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and sprinted straight up to him. He caught Eshe under the armpits and hoisted her off her feet. He blew raspberries on her belly. She laughed hysterically. Yamout watched and smiled.
The nanny came rushing after Eshe. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said to Ariff. ‘Eshe, come here, don’t bother your father.’
Ariff lowered Eshe and stroked her hair. ‘Do as you’re told, my dear.’
The nanny took Eshe’s hand and pulled her away.
Ariff was still smiling when they entered the massive garden that lay behind the villa. It stretched into the distance, seeming to meet the mountainside that rose high behind the villa. There were no clouds and the sun was hot. A guard patrolled on the far side of the crescent-shaped swimming pool. He was armed with an assault rifle — not one of the cheap AKs that were Ariff’s main product — but an American-made Armalite. The villa was set within forty thousand square feet of land patrolled continuously by six mercenaries. Two more were stationed inside the house itself while another two monitored the twenty security cameras and dozen motion sensors that ceaselessly watched over Ariff’s home. Ariff only employed the best to watch over himself and his family.