The streets outside The Daily building were busy. It was lunch time. This time round no one dined outside. It was a pretty day with a blue sky, but the winds were shoving a bank of white clouds along at a rate of knots, and wind whistled through the streets. All the office workers were dining in today, apart from the smokers who were committed to their own private torture.
Quinn was at least as good as his word even if he couldn’t give them some foot soldiers he had called Eva with some information. Anna Kropotkin was visiting at The Daily. Dobcek was in residence, along with another man believed to be an FSB officer. That was enough intel to get them rushing to Shad Thames before Kropotkin could disappear to launch another attack.
Across the street from The Daily was a sandwich bar called Theos. Theos made good looking sandwiches. Georgiev and Brodski sat at the bar in the window, each eating foot long baguettes packed with the works. Eva, Dan and Trevor sat out of sight at a chrome table below them.
“I can’t see any sign of the motorbike. Maybe she parked and walked here,” said Georgiev.
“That bitch? No way. It’s a style thing, she rides everywhere,” said Brodski.
“The important thing is we haven’t seen her leave since we got here. I think it’s safe to assume there are MI5 or MI6 spooks in the vicinity keeping watch or else they wouldn’t have been able to inform us about her,” said Eva.
“I’d assume we’re under watch right now. Now the spooks know about us, and about you being bait, they’re not going to let you out of sight.”
“That doesn’t sound reassuring. Bait usually gets eaten before you can catch the fish,” said Eva. Dan’s face went thoughtful. Eva saw he knew she had a point.
“It’s okay. We’re not waiting for those spooks to do anything. We’re going to do it ourselves, right?”
Eva nodded. There was no choice. “Trevor, are your men coming?”
“They’ll be here shortly. They know where we are,” said the big man as he chewed. “But they won’t approach together. If they did they’d draw attention. They’ll be here, don’t worry.”
“What about your boys, Dan? The other Russians,” she said.
“There’s only two available. The field got trimmed pretty ruthlessly by Marka.”
“And now Obstov is gone too,” said Brodski.
Dan slapped a hand on Georgiev’s back.
“Now’s not the time for mourning, Georgey. Now’s the time for revenge.”
Brodski nodded firmly. Georgiev looked out at The Daily building. They looked ready to blow the whole place up.
Ten minutes later, when the sandwiches were finished and the coffee cups almost empty, Brodski made a little cheer and stood up. Georgiev followed his line of sight. A man with a beard and straggly hair was walking towards them beside a small man in a black suit with a bald head. They looked like an odd couple, like a homeless man walking with an estate agent. Dan stood up to see and he smiled. “It’s Parazkin and Barozhvilli!”
Eva tried to look impressed, but wasn’t.
Trevor phone rang. “Yes?” he said as he picked up.
“My boys are here too. Are you ready?” said Trevor.
“I’m ready,” said Eva.
“When we storm those offices it will look like a bank job or an act of terrorism. They will play it that way,” said Trevor.
“They can spin it anyway they like. All we need to do is get that woman and trap her. When that’s done, Quinn‘s people can have her.”
“That’s one idea,” said Trevor.
“What’s yours?”
“I stick her so full of bullet holes we could use her as a sieve.”
“That’s another,” said Dan. “Let’s see who wins.”
In the crowded street they walked together, gathering into clutches as liquid mercury flows together into globs on the floor. They barely acknowledged one another and kept walking. The crowds paid no attention to them. Trevor looked to his left and made a signal to people somewhere behind him. They walked through the city workers towards a side street, a small one with a red and blue dead end sign. Eva saw Trevor point that way and their whole group started to veer toward it. They gathered in the quiet street.
A woman with a briefcase stared at the gathering with curiosity before her high heels clacked up the steps of a nearby office building. The crowds flowed past at the end of the road. Here they were surrounded by tall brown walls on either side, and yet the sharp wind still whistled down the street and blew through their clothes. Eva counted their number. Including herself and Dan, Trevor, Brodski and Georgiev there were five. Their number had swollen to fifteen, with the two new Russians and eight rough cut looking Travellers of varying ages and types. They were dressed not for the city, but for brawls, in denims and thick anoraks or bomber jackets.
“You mind?” said Dan, looking to give out instructions.
“Whatever,” said big Trevor with a shrug.
Dan moved out to the front of the gathering and glanced back towards the street.
“So, here’s how this is going to work. Eva and me know this area. We know The Daily building. We had to turn it over just this summer. That’s an advantage. We’ve got two options. We go in there and find Anna Kropotkin, or we wait her out. Who knows when that will ever happen? It could be now, but if some snitch tells them we’re here, then she could wait it out all week. We should go for this. What do you think, Eva?”
The gathering looked at Eva. She threaded her hair behind her ear. “I haven’t got any choice in the matter. If I don’t find this woman before she finds me, I’m dead already.”
Dan nodded. “They have a Russian FSB man with them. That’s KGB in new money. These are the people who topped Obstov. These are the people who killed all of our friends across the last couple of years. Remember that. Use it, but don’t lose your heads. The plan is we get to the top of the building with the least possible fuss, and then we tear the house down. They’ll be in the penthouse up top. Trevor, are your boys up for this?” said Dan.
“Boys?” asked Trevor.
The men nodded and grunted in agreement.
“Remember, no hurting anyone, no smashing, and no shouting, nothing at all until we get up to the top floor. Until then, we’re good little citizens and we’re quiet as mice. Understood?”
Trevor grunted on behalf of his crew. Georgiev nodded with a grim face.
“Let’s just hope that Quinn was not another mole.”
Eva looked at Brodski with a deadpan stare. “Don’t even go there. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
They broke into small units, little bunches of natural looking numbers. Dan went with the dissidents and a couple of the Travellers towed along. Eva walked with Trevor and his boys someway behind Dan’s set. There were three groups in all, around twenty feet apart, with the lunchtime crowds making them seem remote from one another. The street was busy. Eva recalled the summer. She had been just as terrified then, but back then the crowds had seemed relaxed in the golden wash of the summer sun. This winter version of Shad Thames was grey and stark and the crowd seemed antsy. Eva looked back for the third group and couldn’t see them. They were missing. She whirled around the whole way, and saw people everywhere, people in suits, women in winter coats but she didn’t see the rest of the crew. Anywhere. They’d only been apart one minute to 90 seconds maximum. “Wait,” she said to Trevor. “Something’s not right.”
Trevor and his boys stopped and he followed her line of sight. Immediately his face changed. Trevor saw it too. His men were gone. “No. Way.”
Dan was feeling confident up in the lead. Whenever there was action he felt like he was right at home, even if it meant danger was all around. They were getting close to The Daily building, and his excitement was rising. His pace was picking up, his heart beat spiking as his Russian friends followed. They were all focussed and prepared to take revenge for decades of misery and fear. But to a man they were so focussed that they barely noticed the men surging from the right hand
side of the street. Walking briskly through the crowds, a swathe of men in smart suits pushed up beside them. Taken off guard, nearly knocked off their feet, the Russians spilled into Dan and the Traveller types. Like a rugby scrum, the suits kept driving. Dan threw some punches against the wall of suits, but he couldn’t get his foothold to make the punches count. He looked behind him. They were being pushed towards an alley between two buildings. No one was doing anything to stop them. No one was even raising a shout or a complaint about what was happening on the streets in before the crowd. They started to fight back now, but the suited men were tough, and mostly they absorbed the blows and some traded. Georgiev took a wrecking punch into his guts and spilled back into the alleyway, and then they all collapsed into the alley, with the mouth up ahead filled with a wall of dark suits, ties and faces all bearing down on them. Dan was shocked dumb. Who were these guys and what were they going to do?
Eva looked up ahead. Now Dan’s bunch had been consumed by the crowds. Now Eva was worried, and anxiety was surging through her blood stream, making her breath quick and tight. “This is it, Trevor. I think this could be it!”
“We’ll kill them first. Don’t worry.”
As they passed a side street, people poured from the left and pushed them towards the narrow lane. It wasn’t just pushing. The people in suits had caught hold of their shoulders, their bodies, their waists and were driving them forwards, pushing with all their might. Eva tottered back. Trevor pushed between her and the big cropped-haired man assailing her. Before Trevor could do much, the cropped-haired man smashed his head through Trevor’s shades and sent him dizzy with a bleeding nose. They pushed until even the biggest Travellers, swearing and swinging their fists through the wall of men, had relented. The gang of suited men pulled away and straightened up into a wall as soon as they were in the alley. Eva looked up and around her. There were the Shad Thames walkways high above. Behind them, there was another street crossing through nearby. She felt a moment’s relief before she saw another gang of men in suits appear at the rear, blocking them in. Eva eyed them all. Some had cropped hair, some had short back and sides. Some had blue suits, some grey and some black. They were all different, and yet somehow they were similar. They looked strong. They were fit. They looked predatory, and had a military bearing.
“What is this?” she shouted. “Who the hell are you?!” but they didn’t answer.
“They’re dead. Dead is what they are,” said Trevor.
“Kettling. They’ve kettled us apart like police in riots,” she said.
And just as she said it, Eva heard the sounds of smashing glass and howls of pain in the near distance. “They’ve separated us. And now they’re wiping us out,” she said.
The end had come early. If this was it, Eva wanted to say her goodbyes. She picked her phone out from her handbag and dialled Dan, silently praying he wasn’t hurt… that he was still alive…
Seventeen
Dan picked up his phone. “Eva honey, this is not a time for talking.” He stared straight at the meanest looking stubble-chinned son of a bitch he could see while he spoke.
“But it could be the only time we’ve got. Can you hear that noise?” she said.
“It’s the other crew. They must be fighting hard.”
“Or being exterminated, Dan.”
“You always were such an optimist.”
“Dan…”
“Yeah?”
“…stay alive.”
“You too, honey.”
Dan shut the call down. As last words, they didn’t seem adequate. Dan decided his last words had to be a battle cry.
“You think you’re tough? Is that it?” Dan moved forward, and the two Travellers joined him. The Travellers loved a good scrap. The faces at the front of the wall shifted and they drew weapons. One of them had an extendable nightstick. One of them had a gun.
Dan pointed at it. “You’re going to use that here? In the middle of London? You’ll have the helicopters and the TV cameras on you before you can empty the cartridge. Come on you wuss! Let’s do this the old-fashioned way.”
The man with the gun gritted his teeth. His voice came out with the same cutting accent as his friends. He was Russian, as if Dan didn’t know already.
“No. Let’s not.”
The man raised the pistol. Dan swallowed. He didn’t have time to do anything and if he ducked another man was going to take the bullet. He should have told Eva that he loved her. The gun changed direction, the shot rang out and Dan looked round. Parazkin, the man with the hair like a cardboard city bum had been cut down already. There was a hole in his head just above the eye. Parazkin, who had only come to help. Rage, now... Pure rage. Dan dived for Parazkin’s hand. The wily old Russian had come armed, maybe that was why the suit downed him first. Another shot ricocheted down the alley, making them deaf for a second. But Dan wasn’t struck. Surely they’d shoot him first. He rolled over and aimed the gun at the gang of suited men. They were moving forwards, but he saw the fear in their eyes. Something had changed. Dan saw one of their number had fallen and there was blood pooling around him. Another shot sounded and a bullet whistled by. Another enemy dropped like a sack of mud and had Dan looked back behind him. He scanned the walls and the roofline. There, just there at the top, at ground floor height was a skylight window. Dan saw a face in the shadows and the rectangular barrel of a pistol jutting out into the alley. Dan moved down the side wall. He nodded backwards, and Brodski followed his eye line. Brodski nodded and covered him. It was a gun fight and right at the head of the alley, the Travellers shouted as they traded blows with the men in suits. Blood flew in the air. Bones were being crunched.
“Quinn?” called Dan.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, but they couldn’t see his face. The angle of the wall hid him from view.
“Here, catch.”
Dan moved and opened his hands. He caught a large semi-automatic pistol. It was the kind of gun Dan liked to read about. A Beretta, able to discharge one, three or more bullets at a time. Automatic triple tap, ensuring the enemy stayed dead.
“Nice.”
“Better than that cap gun you’ve got there. That should help you get out of this. We were never here.”
“What the hell is this?!”
“You know what this is. They knew you were coming. They’ve got other insiders. Must have.”
“You sending anyone else?”
“We can’t have an international incident, here.”
“Quinn!” shouted Dan. “This is an international incident!”
“No, it’s not Bradley. It’s common or garden terrorism. If you live, you can see it on the news.” Quinn was gone.
“Bastard.” Dan checked the cartridge. It was full. He set the gun to a triple shot. It was time to end this. It was time for bad guys to die. He looked around. Barozhvilli was down and bleeding beside his dead friend Parazkin. One of the Travellers was dead. Brodski and Georgiev had somehow survived. They fought side by side now with the remaining Traveller. Still the police hadn’t showed. There were no helicopters scrambled. Dan smelled a cover-up and he wasn’t going to let Eva die as a part of it. He needed to know she was still alive – it was the most important thing in his mind. He ran forward howling like a madman, he took aim at one of the Russians who was covered in blood like a lion at his kill. Without fear or prejudice Dan pulled the trigger, and a whir of bullets sounded and brought a new spray of blood into the air. A body fell. Dan let the message sink in with the rest of the dead man’s team. They started backing away, and then they ran. Dan ran too, sliding the gun into his coat. There were only three words in Dan’s mind. Find Eva Now.
Eighteen
On pure aggression Trevor’s men broke through the enemy line at the mouth of the street. The two big Travellers at the front hammered into the suits. The fighting was brutal, and the men in suits were well drilled, but they couldn’t contain the ruffians. One of the suited men drew a small pistol and took aim at one the Traveller
s as they broke out into the street, but Trevor was on him quickly, and threw his massive weight into a punch that jerked the enemy’s head as far as it could go without snapping. Trevor snatched the little gun from the man as he fell, and smashed one of the suited men around the head. “Come on!” Trevor shouted at Eva, as the line of men at the back of the lane started to run towards them. The big men moved as quickly as they could as gunshots sounded nearby. The crowds were pausing and looking around. Eva saw panic in their eyes as she ran past. London was used to terror by now, but still no one ever expected that the terror was going to happen to them. Trevor plodded quickly towards a narrow windowed café. “In there now.” The others pushed on ahead of Trevor and Eva, all except one who stayed just at her side, looking back over their shoulder.
“Are they still with us?”
“Yeah. They’re coming fast. Run faster.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
Trevor reached the café door and hurled Eva inside before he and the last man made it inside. There were customers drinking and eating, looking up with food falling out of their mouths.
“What’s going on?” said one.
Trevor pointed to the coffee shop owner.
“Bad things are happening out there. You got a back door?”
The café owner’s chin trembled as he took stock of the five bruisers ranged around him.
“Have you got a back door?” said Trevor, repeating himself more slowly.
“Yes.”
“Then use it right now,” he shouted, “ALL of YOU.”
At the sound of Trevor’s shout the people got up from the tables as if they’d been tazered into action. Plates flew, chairs fell and they ran around the counter past the glass sandwich counter. The café owner pointed the way and pushed them through the kitchen door, then ran after them himself. The Travellers spread out as Trevor stared out at the men in suits as they drew up towards the café. “Lock every door, every window. Shut this place down, now!”
On Borrowed Time Page 11