Who Dares Wins

by Chris Ryan

  He did not dare shout out. The weapon was pressed into his back now; it hurt his knobbly spine. ‘What do you want?’ he whispered in Kazakh, but the man did not appear to understand him. They moved swiftly out of the bedroom, into the only other room of the small house. Through the window he saw – on the forecourt of his small petrol filling station – an old four-by-four truck. The lights were off, but it sounded like the engine was turning over. It was parked right by his single, solitary pump and just beyond the small booth where he took his customers’ money near the controls for the pump.

  He turned to the gunman. In here he could see his face better. He had dark hair and a scraggly beard. His eyes were narrow and hard. The gunman pointed towards the booth. ‘We’re going there,’ he said. ‘You’re going to turn the pump on.’

  The Kazakh didn’t understand his foreign-sounding words. ‘I have no money,’ he replied in his own language. ‘No money here!’

  His assailant pointed to the booth again. Then, letting go of him for a moment, he mimed the turning of a key. The man nodded quickly, then ran back into his room. He pulled on his trousers and shirt while the gunman surveyed him from the doorway, then removed a bunch of keys from his trouser pocket and held them up. The gunman nodded in satisfaction. ‘Open up,’ he said, then stepped aside to let him pass.

  He was marched, at gunpoint, outside. The gritty ground was painful against the soles of his feet, but he was hurried quickly to the booth anyway. His hands shook and it took a couple of goes to insert the key into the door; but once he managed it, the booth opened easily. Inside he headed straight for the till and flicked it open. ‘Look,’ he said, indicating the empty tray, ‘nothing!’

  The gunman shook his head darkly, then pointed out towards the pump. Only then did he understand. The guy wanted fuel. For a brief instant he wondered why someone would go to such trouble – such danger – simply for diesel, but he didn’t let it worry him for long. Under the counter there was another keyhole. He inserted the relevant key and switched it on. On the forecourt, the faint humming of the pump started up.

  The gunman, still pointing the weapon in his direction, urged him outside. They approached the vehicle and, without having to be asked, he started filling the tank. Meanwhile, the gunman opened up the back and dragged out four empty fuel canisters. When the vehicle was full, he moved on to these. The dial on the pump whizzed around and somewhere at the back of his mind the young Kazakh had a vision of simply stuffing hard currency into the canisters. But he said nothing. The presence of the wicked-looking weapon was enough to keep his mind on the job.

  His whole body was trembling by the time the fourth canister was filled and returned to the back of the truck.

  The gunman raised his weapon. He aimed it at the young man’s forehead.

  A terrible cold numbness spread through his body. He closed his eyes. ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘I have done as you asked.’

  He waited for the sound of the shot.

  A bang. It seemed to go straight through him. But it wasn’t the gun. He opened his eyes. The gunman was not there. The noise had been only the sound of an exhaust backfiring. He collapsed to his knees in relief, watching, shivering, as the vehicle disappeared into the darkness.

  Sam and Clare sat in their room, surrounded by a bubble of tense silence. The night they had spent together was all but forgotten. They were not two lovers in a hotel room; just two people with a common interest, and common fears.

  ‘There could be more than one Alexander Dolohov, you know,’ Clare said.

  ‘Then I’ll visit them all.’

  ‘How will you find out which is the right one?’

  Sam didn’t answer. There were some things she didn’t need to know.

  Clare stared at him. ‘You’ve found out things that I don’t know, haven’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Your friendly granddad from MI6 paid me a visit.’ He saw Clare shudder slightly. ‘They’ve got a theory.’

  ‘Care to share?’

  Sam hesitated. His instinct was to keep everything to himself, but it seemed a bit ridiculous keeping Clare in the dark. ‘The red-light runners,’ he said. ‘The Firm claims they’re nothing to do with MI5. That they’re being trained up by some foreign agency and led to believe they’re working for Five.’

  Clare’s eyes widened. ‘Who?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘Your man wouldn’t say. My guess is the Russians.’ His voice went quieter. ‘Remind me to ask Dolohov when I catch up with him.’

  Clare looked at him intently. ‘But Sam, maybe you should just tell MI6 what you found on this laptop. I mean, it could be serious.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘No way.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He considered telling her – about the Spetsnaz soldiers surrounding the camp and his suspicions that someone in the Firm had tipped them off about the Regiment’s arrival – but he kept quiet. ‘It’s just not safe,’ he muttered inadequately. ‘Trust me.’

  At that precise moment, there was a knock on the door. Sam and Clare exchanged a look just as a voice called from the other side. ‘Phone!’

  They hurried downstairs.

  Clare took the call almost in silence, the telephone nestled in the crook of her neck as she made notes in a speedy shorthand. She nodded occasionally – pointlessly – and when the conversation was over she uttered a brief word of thanks before replacing the handset. A short nod at Sam and they returned to the privacy of their room.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Two Alexander Dolohovs,’ she said. ‘One in Manchester, one in London.’

  ‘Shit,’ Sam cursed.

  ‘Not really,’ Clare replied. Despite the stress, there was a twinkle in her eye. ‘The one in Manchester is three years old.’ She scribbled an address on a piece of paper from her notebook, tore it out and handed it to Sam. ‘I’d say that was your man.’

  Sam read the address. A road in Maida Vale. Flat 3.

  ‘My friend couldn’t get much on him. He teaches Russian at a university college in Bloomsbury. I, er, I also asked her to look into a couple of other things.’

  Sam raised an eyebrow. She indicated the laptop. ‘The red-light runners. I gave her the names of the two latest, er… the two who died most recently.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Accidents. Both of them. A car crash and a, er…’ She blushed. ‘A sort of sex game gone wrong. No suggestion of foul play.’ She said this last part brightly, as if it were good news.

  ‘Of course not,’ Sam murmured.

  They sat in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Rain pattered hard on the window. Sam tried to connect this new information in his mind, but he still felt like he was doing a crossword without the clues.

  ‘How is your brother involved in all this, Sam?’ Clare asked quietly. She was looking wide-eyed at him, as though scared of the answer.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Maybe he was on to them. Jacob always thought he could do everything by himself.’ He set his jaw. ‘I’m going to go and see Dolohov.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yeah. Now.’

  ‘I’ll come.’ She sounded plucky, but nervous.

  ‘No you won’t.’

  ‘You can’t keep doing this to me, Sam. Bringing me in when it suits you, then discarding me when I’ve given you everything you want. It’s not fair. I’m coming with you.’

  Sam felt his face twitch. He stood up and looked out of the window. When he turned round again, his face was in shadow. ‘Go home, Clare,’ he said softly.

  She sat obstinately on the bed. Sam looked back out of the window. ‘You asked me earlier if I killed the red-light runners. Do you want to know the truth? They were sleeping when we arrived. I shot them in the neck. I would have aimed for the head, but we were ordered to take their photographs. It’s not very easy to recognise someone who’s had their face blown away. Take it from me – it happened to some of them.’ He turned once more and stepped into the light. Clare was looking at him
in horror. ‘Shocked, Clare? That’s fine. Be shocked. It stopped worrying me a long time ago. But let me tell you this. I don’t know who this Dolohov guy is. If he’s got something to do with your dead red-light runners, though, he’s not going to want to talk about it. So it’s going to be up to me to persuade him. Still think you want to be part of the party?’

  It took a moment for Clare to reply. ‘Holy Mother of God, Sam. What are you going to do to him?’

  Sam looked at her seriously. ‘Do to him? Hopefully nothing. Hopefully he’ll sing like a canary.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t?’

  ‘If he doesn’t, I’ve been trained to make people talk.’

  ‘You’re going to hurt him?’

  Sam continued with his dead-eyed stare. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. He looked at the door. ‘We should leave. There’s no point waiting and I don’t suppose you fancy spending the night in this shit hole any more than I do.’

  SIXTEEN

  Sam looked at his watch. 11 p.m. The rain had not let up; in fact it was worse. He was soaked to the skin as he walked along the Maida Vale street lined high with mansion blocks. At this hour and in this weather there was nobody else around. Cars had parked double on the road and lights shone out of those flats whose occupants had not yet gone to bed.

  Dolohov’s mansion block was just like all the others along this part of the road: rather grand, imposing buildings with elaborately tiled entrances and ornate doors. He walked past the building several times, looking up for any likely entry points. Each floor had a small balcony protruding from the front, but without any equipment they were impossible to scale. He walked to both ends of the terraces, looking for fire stairs that he could use to get up to the roofs; but there were none. With grappling irons and the regular resources of the Regiment, gaining entry would be child’s play. By himself it was going to be much more difficult. He cursed under his breath as the rain swelled intensively. There was only one way he could get access to this place and that was through the front door.

  The mansion block had a state-of-the-art intercom, which Sam viewed from the pavement. He quickly dismissed the idea of simply ringing Dolohov’s flat – he wanted to retain the element of surprise – and so he was left with only one option.

  He scoured the pavement for a twig – just a small one. Then he bent down and undid his shoelace. And then he lurked under a nearby tree, and waited.

  The rain continued to pour, but it made no difference to Sam. He couldn’t get any wetter. He could get colder, though, and he did. He started to shiver. He had been waiting for the best part of an hour when a taxi arrived, its yellow beams lighting up the rain and the road as it stopped right outside the mansion block. A woman emerged; she paid the driver, erected her umbrella and walked briskly up to the mansion block. Sam hurried after her. They reached the door at about the same time.

  The woman – she was perhaps in her late fifties and had striking, once-beautiful features – looked at him nervously as she held her key fob up to a panel on the intercom. Around her neck she wore an expensive-looking fox fur, the stuffed paws of the animal still attached. The door clicked open and she pushed it.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sam said, filling his voice with gratitude. ‘Lousy weather, eh.’ He looked down and pretended to see that his bootlace was undone. The woman was inside now; Sam crouched down on the doorstep to do up his lace; as he did so, he dropped the twig against the frame of the door. It went unnoticed by the woman who was shaking down her umbrella. Sam stood up again and smiled at her. She looked uncertainly back at him and cleared her throat.

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she said, ‘but do you have a key?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Staying with a friend,’ he explained.

  The woman looked unsure of herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, apologetically. ‘It’s just, we have this agreement, all of us. Would you mind buzzing up? Can’t be too careful…’

  Sam stepped back immediately and held up his hands. ‘Of course,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Very sensible. No problem.’

  The woman let go of the door. It started swinging slowly closed. ‘Thank you!’ she called. ‘So sorry!’

  She disappeared from sight.

  Sam waited. He didn’t want to walk in while she could still see him. The door closed, but did not click shut. The twig had done its work.

  He gave it a minute before entering. His clothes dripped on the marble floor of the small lobby. To his right was a metal post cabinet with a locked box for each flat. Flat three bore the words Professor Alexander Dolohov in a neat, rounded hand. Sam started to climb the stairs.

  The stairwell, warmly carpeted and with a smooth banister, was dark. At each landing was a glowing light button, but Sam didn’t press them, so his natural night vision became adjusted to the darkness. There was just one flat on each level. As he approached the third floor, he found his heart was pumping fast. Was it nerves, or was he getting out of condition?

  Flat 3. The door was like all the others. Glossy black paint, a shiny brass number and a brass bell. Sam looked at the bottom of the door. A thin strip of light escaped. There was somebody there. He took a deep breath. It would be easy enough to shoot the lock and force his way in, but that would cause alarm in the mansion block. Much better to do it the easy way. He rang the bell.

  There was silence. Sam couldn’t even tell if the bell had sounded. He rang it again and for a slightly longer time. Still silence.

  And then a man’s voice, slightly high pitched and with the trace of an accent. ‘Who is it?’

  Sam sniffed. ‘Delivery for Dolohov,’ he called. ‘They let me in down the bottom.’

  A pause. No reply. Sam thought he heard footsteps on the other side of the door and without any warning, the strip of light at the bottom of the door disappeared. The darkness in which Sam stood became a little bit more impenetrable. He felt a surge of adrenaline as he stepped to one side of the door and pressed his back against the wall, feeling for his weapon. His hands were steady, but his breathing was deep and slow. All his senses were on high alert.

  Suddenly, silently, the door clicked open, just a few inches. Inside was dark.

  Sam’s sopping clothes were clammy against his skin as he stood in the blackness, carefully selecting his next move. Whoever was inside, whoever this Dolohov character was, he clearly didn’t believe that someone had just turned up to deliver him pizza. But the opening of the door was an invitation of some kind. He just didn’t know what to. Edging towards the gap, he held the gun firmly in his right hand, while gently pushing the door further open and peering inside.

  It was difficult to make much out in the darkness. There was an entrance hall of sorts, a circular table in the middle and an ornate mirror on the wall, which reflected some kind of ambient light seeping in from a room off to his right. He could see nothing to his left because the door was in the way. The walls were filled with bookshelves.

  ‘Alexander Dolohov?’ he called.

  No reply.

  ‘I need to speak to you. I’m armed. You might as well show yourself. It’ll stop things getting messy.’

  Silence.

  Sam stepped inside. His eyes flitted around, but he couldn’t see anyone. He could make a pretty good guess as to where his target was hiding, though: behind the open door. They always chose the most obvious places. Sam momentarily readjusted the gun in his hand and then, in one swift movement, hooked his left foot around the edge of the door, slammed it shut and pointed his weapon into the space that had just been revealed.

  No one was there.

  It was at that precise moment that he heard the footsteps again. Swifter this time, and behind him. He turned around quickly, just in time to see the silhouette of a man approaching, some kind of cosh held above his head, ready to use. The man was smaller than Sam, smaller and fatter. But fast. Sam just had time to see the thick, square-rimmed glasses that covered his eyes, before the cosh was brought down on his head with a sudden, brutal crack. Dizziness overwhelme
d him. He tried to aim his gun again, but he could feel his knees going. Vaguely, he was aware of the cosh being raised once more; he felt it slam against the side of his face.

  And then he fell to the ground. He felt sick, but only for a moment as the darkness seemed to close in on him, and he passed out.

  *

  When Sam awoke, his head felt crushed and his skin was stinging. A light – a bright one – shone into his face, blinding him and making him squint so hard his eyes were almost shut. How long had he been out? He couldn’t tell, but as he touched his fingers to his cheek and felt the wetness of his own blood he realised it couldn’t have been that long. His clothes were still soggy.

  He was sitting on a hard wooden chair at the end of a long table. The lamp was situated at the other end of the table and behind it sat Sam’s attacker. In front of him, lying on the table, was Sam’s gun; in the man’s podgy hand was another weapon – a GSh-18 pistol. Smaller than more modern handguns, but a firm favourite of the Russians. Including the Commie cunt in front of Sam.

  ‘Dolohov?’ Sam demanded. His voice was little more than a croak and as he spoke a wave of nausea passed through him.

  A pause. Sam wished he could see the guy’s face properly.

  ‘I think it would be wiser,’ Dolohov replied with the elegant precision of man for whom English is not a native language, ‘if we concentrate first on who you are.’

  Sam didn’t reply. His mind was working overtime.

  ‘A few…’ Dolohov sounded like he was searching for the right words. ‘A few ground rules. I haven’t tied you up, but if you move from that seat, I will shoot you without hesitation. I’m sure I don’t need to repeat myself. Do I need to repeat myself?’

  ‘Your gaff,’ Sam replied, peering harder into the light. ‘You do what you want.’

  ‘I intend to.’ Dolohov stood up and stepped away from the light, revealing more of his features. He was a small, dumpy little man with a jowly face behind unfashionable spectacles. His thin hair was Brylcreemed and combed into a severe parting. He wore slacks and an open collar under his jumper. The small gun in his hand remained firmly pointed in Sam’s direction.