True Colours ss-10

by Stephen Leather

  Shepherd put the rifle back in its hiding place and picked up one of the pistols. It looked clean and serviceable. He checked the action and nodded approvingly. ‘Looks fine, Jimbo. But what about the ammo?’

  ‘It’s old, no argument there. Can’t guarantee it hasn’t gone off.’ He laughed. ‘No pun intended.’

  ‘I can get ammo, no problem,’ said Harper. ‘For the AKs, too, if you want?’

  ‘Just the pistols,’ said Shepherd. He gave the gun back to Shortt. ‘You might think of giving them a really good clean just in case there’s DNA anywhere.’

  ‘I’ve cleaned them already,’ said Shortt.

  ‘The DNA tests they have these days are really sensitive,’ said Shepherd. ‘They can get a full profile from the merest smear of sweat. In the grip or inside the chamber. Just a touch. Before we use them you need to put on gloves and wipe every surface, inside and out. Did you ever strip them down?’

  ‘Sure, a couple of times.’

  ‘Then your DNA will be all over the mechanism. A lot of gangbangers forget that. They wipe down the grips and the barrel but forget that their DNA’s all over the inside of the gun. And on the clip, too. You’d be amazed at the number of guys in prison who wiped down the gun but left their prints on the clip. And on the ammo.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Shortt. He put the gun back in its hiding place and replaced the wooden panel. ‘To be honest, I’ve been thinking of getting rid of them for a while now. Guns and kids aren’t a good mix.’ He nodded at Shepherd and Harper and they pushed the chest of drawers back in front of the panel.

  ‘Who else knows about them?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘As of today, just us,’ said Shortt. ‘The missus doesn’t even know they’re there. I just wanted a few souvenirs, you know? Didn’t you bring something for a rainy day?’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘Sue wouldn’t have stood for it,’ he said. ‘But to be honest, I was never a great one for souvenirs.’

  ‘Probably because of your trick memory,’ said Shortt. ‘You remember everything. But for me, holding one of those guns brings it all back.’

  The three men went downstairs to the kitchen. Shortt took a bottle of Bell’s whisky from a cupboard and showed it to Shepherd. ‘Just a small one,’ said Shepherd. ‘With soda. I’m driving.’

  ‘I’ll take ice with mine,’ said Harper.

  Shortt made a whisky and soda for Shepherd in a tall glass, and poured himself and Harper equal measures of whisky before dropping in a couple of ice cubes. They clinked glasses and drank.

  ‘You’re sure about this?’ said Shortt, sitting down at the table.

  Shepherd joined him. ‘About Khan? Sure.’

  ‘You don’t sound convinced.’

  ‘He’s convinced,’ said Harper, swirling his ice cubes around with his finger.

  ‘It needs to be done,’ said Shepherd. ‘It’s the right thing to do. But it’s …’ He struggled to find the right words.

  ‘The wrong thing to do?’ Shortt finished for him.

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s not the doing of it, it’s making sure that there are no repercussions. This won’t be the first time I’ve done something like this, so it’s not about having a conscience or anything. It’s about doing it right.’

  ‘We’ve all got a lot to lose, Spider. The last thing I want to do at my age is to go to prison. And the job you’ve got.’ He shrugged. ‘If they get you, they’ll throw away the key.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So that’s why I’m asking if you’re sure.’

  ‘We’re sure,’ said Harper. He drained his glass. ‘We’re damn sure.’

  Shepherd stared at his glass. ‘This isn’t what about he did to me,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not even about the fact he killed Captain Todd. That was combat. OK, the captain and I weren’t a threat to him, but we were the enemy and we could have shot back. It’s what he did to those three Paras that I can’t forgive. They were shot in the back, Jimbo. He pretended to be on our side, he said he’d bring in the rest of his men, and he waited until they were out in the desert and he shot them in the back.’ He shook his head and drained his glass, then slammed it down on the table. ‘That was nothing to do with war,’ he said. ‘That was terrorism. If a man picks up a gun and fights another man, that’s combat and may the best man win. But lying and cheating and shooting soldiers in the back, that’s something else.’

  Shortt poured more whisky into Shepherd’s glass and added soda water. ‘We’ll get the bastard, don’t worry about that.’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But we have to make sure there’s no comeback.’

  ‘There won’t be,’ said Shortt. He grinned and clinked his glass against Shepherd’s. ‘What can go wrong?’ he said. ‘We’re professionals.’

  Shepherd was back at Grechko’s mansion by two o’clock in the afternoon. He hadn’t eaten all day but Sheena the chef was in the kitchen and she happily made him one of her amazing club sandwiches, accompanied by a plateful of double-fried chips that were so good he had to force himself to refuse a second helping. He was finishing his coffee when he heard Dudko in his earpiece. Dudko had been manning the main gate all day.

  ‘There’s a Charlotte Button here, says she’s got an appointment to see Mr Grechko. But she’s not in the book.’

  ‘That’s my fault, but she is expected,’ said Shepherd. ‘Check her ID and send her in. Vlad, where is Mr Grechko?’

  Vlad Molchanov was in the control centre. ‘Library,’ said Molchanov.

  Shepherd thanked Sheena and hurried out of the kitchen and down the corridor to the library. He knocked on the door.

  ‘What?’ snarled Grechko.

  Shepherd pushed open the door. Grechko was sprawled on a sofa with the day’s newspapers laid out over a coffee table. One of his secretaries was sitting at a side table with her pen poised over her notebook. ‘Charlotte Button’s here, sir,’ said Shepherd. ‘She wanted a word with you, remember?’

  Grechko growled and looked at his wristwatch, a diamond-encrusted Rolex. ‘What does she want?’

  ‘She said she wanted to tell you herself, sir. Too important to talk about on the phone.’ Shepherd knew exactly what she wanted but Button had made it clear that she wanted to be the one to have the conversation with Grechko.

  Grechko chuckled. ‘That’s right, you can’t trust the phones here. MI5 spend more time eavesdropping on your citizens than the KGB ever did on ours.’ He tossed a copy of the Financial Times on to the table in front of him. ‘OK, show her into the piano room, I’ll meet you there.’

  Shepherd closed the door quietly and walked across the hallway, his shoes squeaking on the Italian marble. He opened the front door just as a black Series 7 BMW purred down the driveway. It parked and Button climbed out. ‘I thought you’d have a driver,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Those days are long gone,’ said Button. She nodded at the house. ‘How is he today?’

  ‘Same as always, alternating between that creepy smile and snarling like a bear with a sore head. I think he might be bipolar.’

  ‘A bipolar bear, now that would be something,’ said Button. She looked up at the house. ‘Now this certainly is something,’ she said.

  ‘It’s like a bloody hotel,’ said Shepherd. ‘And there’s more of it underground than there is above. All the parking is down there and there’s room for fifty cars on two levels. There’s a gym for the staff and an even bigger one for Grechko and his family, a huge sauna, an indoor pool, a gun range, a cinema, a games room with pretty much every video arcade game ever made, and that’s only the bits I’ve seen. I got the tour but I wasn’t taken everywhere.’

  ‘A gun range?’ said Button.

  ‘Yeah. In a country where ownership of handguns is a criminal offence. Funny that. They say that it’s only used for airguns but I’ve seen some of the targets and the holes are bloody big for pellets.’

  ‘Have you seen any of the bodyguards with guns?’

  Shepherd
shook his head. ‘To be honest the gun range is well soundproofed so I’ve never heard anything being fired. Just seems a funny thing to have in a private house, that’s all. Dmitry showed me airguns and swore blind that’s all they have, but I’d be very surprised if there weren’t a few firearms in the house. Mind you, there’s a full-size tenpin bowling alley and I’ve never seen that being used either.’

  He took her inside and down a wood-panelled hall to a set of double-height doors. He pushed them open to reveal a room the size of a basketball court with a Steinway piano at either end and a scattering of ornate sofas and easy chairs. ‘The piano room,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Does he play?’

  ‘No, but the new Mrs Grechko does apparently. She’s still in France.’

  There was a large fireplace in the centre of the room, and over it a gilt mirror with mermaids around the edge. There were two large chandeliers each with hundreds of small bulbs, and half a dozen oil paintings that looked as if they had just come from the National Gallery. ‘Does Mrs Grechko do the interior design?’ asked Button, sitting on one of the sofas and crossing her legs at the ankles.

  ‘Have you seen the new Mrs Grechko?’ asked Shepherd. ‘She’s a twenty-two-year-old former Miss Ukraine, she doesn’t do much of anything other than spend his money.’

  Button looked around the room. ‘Well, whoever did this seemed to be going for the Buckingham Palace look,’ she said.

  ‘He has a team of people who do nothing else but design his homes, his yacht and his planes. They were discussing how big the chandeliers could be on his new jet before turbulence became a factor.’

  ‘Chandeliers? On a plane?’

  ‘One of them is going to be above his Jacuzzi,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m still trying to get to grips with the image of him sitting in a hot tub at thirty thousand feet.’

  The doors opened and Grechko strode in. Button didn’t get up and the Russian made no move to greet her, he just walked over to the sofa facing her and sat down. He put his hands on his knees and looked at her expectantly. Shepherd went to stand by the fireplace.

  ‘I’m sorry about coming to see you at such short notice, but we have come across evidence that suggests that the attack against you was perhaps not political.’

  Grechko sneered at Button with undisguised contempt. ‘Are you stupid?’ he said. ‘How can it not be political? Those in power, those bastards in the Kremlin, they hate me because of what I have, of what I have achieved.’ He threw up his hands. ‘This is ridiculous. I will speak to your prime minister, it’s as clear as the nose on your face that you have no idea what is going on. Perhaps you are in the wrong job, Miss Button.’

  ‘Of course, you are perfectly entitled to call the PM and I have no doubt he will listen to your concerns and then he will probably call the head of MI5 who will talk to my boss who will then call me into his office where I will tell him exactly what I’m telling you, because what I’m telling you is the truth. I’m not going to change that truth simply because it’s not something you want to hear. All I ask is that you listen to me and then we can decide how to move forward. Believe me, Mr Grechko, all I want is to make sure that you come to no harm on British soil.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘Or anywhere else, for that matter.’

  Grechko continued to glare at her for several seconds, then he flashed her an insincere smile. ‘I am not an unreasonable man,’ he said. ‘And I am not unaware that I am a guest in your country.’ He waved at the coffee table in front of her, a thick slab of crystal on gold legs. ‘Would you like tea? This is the time of day when you English drink tea, is it not?’

  ‘I think we English will drink tea at any time of the day,’ she said.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Grechko. He took a small remote control unit from his pocket and pushed a button. Within seconds the double doors to the room were opened by a butler in a crisp black suit. ‘Tea, for two,’ he said. ‘And those little sandwich things.’

  The butler, a grey-haired man in his fifties, nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Anything but Earl Grey,’ said Button.

  ‘Earl Grey?’ repeated the Russian, frowning.

  ‘I’ve never liked Earl Grey tea,’ said Button with an apologetic smile.

  Grechko pointed at the butler. ‘No Earl Grey tea,’ he said.

  ‘Absolutely, sir,’ murmured the butler, and quietly closed the doors.

  ‘He worked for Prince Charles for many years,’ said Grechko. ‘He served the Queen many times. Do you know how much the Royal Family pays its butlers?’

  Button shook her head. ‘I don’t. Sorry.’

  ‘Well, I do. A pittance. They treat their staff like serfs. I pay him five times what they paid him. Five times.’

  ‘I’m sure he appreciates working for you,’ she said.

  The Russian’s eyes narrowed as if he was trying to tell whether she was being serious or sarcastic, but then he smiled and chuckled. ‘He does,’ he said. He waved a shovel-like hand at Shepherd, who was still standing by the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘And you, Tony, sit, please.’

  ‘I’m on duty, sir, and I’m supposed to be on my feet at all times,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Sit!’ said Grechko. ‘I’m sure that I’m safe in my own home.’

  Shepherd nodded and sat down on the sofa next to Button. The Russian steepled his fingers under his chin and stared intently at Button, his brow furrowed. ‘So you have come here to tell me that the attack on me was not political, that someone other than the dogs in the Kremlin is after my blood?’

  Button bent forward, maintaining eye contact. ‘The attack on you in London recently was clearly professional. But the assassin missed.’

  ‘Luckily for me,’ said Grechko with a tight smile.

  ‘Indeed. And like you we put that down to good fortune. It was a difficult shot, even for a skilled marksman. But we hadn’t realised that Oleg Zakharov was the target for another assassination attempt, earlier this year.’

  ‘Ah yes, poor Oleg. He was a good friend.’

  ‘A good friend who died recently, in Monte Carlo.’

  ‘A cocaine overdose.’ Grechko mimed sniffing the drug. ‘He also had a liking for drugs, I warned him many times to be careful.’ He frowned. ‘You think that it wasn’t an accident?’

  ‘Cocaine overdoses are somewhat unusual,’ said Button. ‘And if as you said he was a frequent user, the police might not look too closely at the death.’

  ‘Then if it was murder, it was those bastards in the Kremlin,’ spat Grechko. ‘They are filled with jealousy and hatred for what we have achieved.’ He threw up his massive hands. ‘If it was murder, then the death of Oleg proves that we are all targets.’

  ‘Targets, yes, I understand that, but not necessarily targets of the Russian state,’ said Button. ‘Mr Grechko, why didn’t you mention to me that someone had tried to kill Mr Zakharov?’

  ‘It was months ago. And it was in Prague.’

  ‘It was in Prague, yes. A sniper. He missed and a bodyguard was shot in the leg.’

  ‘Yes, Oleg told me he was lucky.’

  ‘I wish that you had told us this earlier.’

  ‘Why do you think it is important?’

  ‘Because it suggests that a killer was also targeting Mr Zakharov.’

  ‘So? Doesn’t that make it even more likely that what is happening is political?’

  ‘We’re not sure, but the fact that there were two failed assassination attempts is of some concern.’

  ‘Concern?’ repeated Grechko. ‘You are concerned that he missed?’

  ‘I am concerned that having missed Mr Zakharov, the same sniper also misses you.’

  ‘You are assuming that it was the same sniper, of course,’ said the Russian.

  ‘I have checked and the ballistic evidence shows that the same weapon was used,’ said Button. ‘It’s very unlikely that two snipers would use the same weapon. What I am having trouble understanding is why a sniper who failed once is then given a seco
nd chance. If I was hiring an assassin and he failed, I doubt that I would give him a second contract.’ She saw the look of surprise on Grechko’s face and added quickly that she was talking hypothetically. Grechko folded his arms and lowered his chin as if deep in thought.

  ‘Mr Grechko, since we last spoke I have widened my enquiries. You knew Sasha Czernik, is that correct?’

  Grechko frowned. ‘Yes, he was a good friend. His heart attack came as a great shock.’

  ‘Did you know that a month before his heart attack, his security team found a bomb underneath his car?’

  ‘Sasha had a lot of business rivals,’ said Grechko. ‘He was a Ukrainian, you know? And he refused to leave, said it was his homeland and that was where he wanted to be buried.’ Grechko flashed her a tight smile. ‘He didn’t realise it would happen so quickly, of course. He was only forty-five.’ He shrugged. ‘I told him Kiev was a dangerous place, he should move to London or Paris. New York, even. He had enough money, he could buy citizenship anywhere. I told him he should speak to Murdoch, make an offer for some of his papers. Even in the age of the internet, the men who own the papers make the rules. Isn’t that so?’

  Button ignored the question. ‘The point I’m making is that someone tried to kill Mr Czernik. Is it possible that it was the same person who has tried to kill you and who took the life of Mr Zakharov? Can you think of anyone who might have a personal grudge against the three of you? Someone with a military background?’

  Grechko shook his head. ‘I don’t think you fully appreciate the position that men like us are in,’ he growled. ‘They want our companies or they want us dead. Or both.’ He looked up, his eyes blazing. ‘This is because we won’t give them what they want.’

  ‘And what do they want, Mr Grechko?’

  ‘They are like pigs at a trough,’ said the Russian. ‘All of them. Worse even than the grasping pigs in this country. They see what we have and they want it. In the past we’ve bought them mansions in London, we’ve put millions in Swiss bank accounts for them, we’ve bought businesses for them in Europe and America. Between us, we’ve given those robbers billions of dollars, Miss Button. And still they want more.’