Execution ht-5

by Adrian Magson

  ‘Does that include the FSB?’

  She gave a thin smile. ‘I cannot answer that.’

  ‘How about a non-legal answer?’

  ‘If they are acting under the direction of a person who is not part of a government agency, then they are classified as criminals. The only way to stop them would be by direct force.’

  The words, voiced without drama or heat, seemed to lower the temperature in the room instantly.

  ‘Then that’s what we have to do.’ Harry was reaching for his phone to call a cab, when it buzzed.

  It was Rik.

  ‘Bogeys are on us,’ he said quietly. ‘Two cars, one at each end of the street, plus two on foot. Looks like a war party, and they know exactly where we are.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  ‘They’ve found us.’ Harry relayed the information to the two women. He drew his gun. This really wasn’t the place for a fire-fight, but he wasn’t about to let any of them be taken without some kind of resistance. If these new arrivals were acting on orders from Gorelkin, then they were looking to silence Clare and anybody with her. Finding Katya would be a bonus and her future would be equally short-lived.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Katya. She had gone pale, but looked quite calm. ‘How could they know?’

  ‘No idea — unless you were followed or have a tracker on you.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I was not followed, I promise you. Absolutely not.’

  ‘Then it’s a tracking device. But let’s get out of here first.’ He went to the door and opened it a fraction. The corridor was empty. He didn’t waste time checking the front window onto the street, but led the way along the corridor to the back stairs. Clare was in the middle with Katya bringing up the rear, gun still drawn.

  Unlike most hotels, this one believed in making the fire stairs as comfortable as possible, with a decent carpet to deaden the sound of footsteps and lighting to make the descent easy. Harry went one floor ahead to check the way, cracking the floor doors a little each time to listen, in case the Russians had had time to insert anyone ahead of the main force arrival. But the building was quiet save for the hum of air conditioning and the occasional sound of music or voices.

  They had just arrived at the ground floor where a lobby gave access to the kitchens and office, when a door to the front reception area opened and Rik appeared.

  ‘They stopped outside for a powwow,’ he told Harry quietly. ‘But they haven’t split up yet. I think they’re waiting for orders. The two on foot are right by the front entrance. They’re all in casual gear.’

  Harry was still puzzled by how quickly the followers had got here. He was certain the hotel wouldn’t have had any reason to tell the authorities. And if they had, the new arrivals would have been police, not men in street clothes. But there had to have been something.

  He looked at Katya and said quietly, ‘We can’t stop here, but you need to start dumping anything that could have been fitted with a radio tag. Otherwise there’s no point in us running; they’ll catch us wherever we go.’

  She nodded and pulled out a wallet and her mobile phone. ‘I have never given my wallet to anyone. But this,’ she hefted the phone. ‘They took it away while I was being questioned. I think they were checking my calls and contacts.’ She put her gun away and ripped off the back of the phone, and took out the battery. ‘Dura!’ she swore softly. ‘I’m an idiot.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Rik. He took the phone and slid out the battery. Behind it was a paper-thin disc, with a tab placed to share the phone’s power supply. He took it out and handed back the phone. ‘They didn’t trust you much, did they? Leave this with me. I’ll lose it. Come on.’ He turned and went through a rear door fitted with an emergency handle, although this was down. The door was propped open by a block of wood, no doubt where the staff took their breaks.

  They emerged onto a small yard piled with beer crates, aluminium casks and a stack of delivery cartons, all lit by a single overhead light. It was impressively tidy. Double gates led out onto a service alleyway running parallel to the front street. It was shut fast. Harry pointed to a door set in a high wall bordering the side of the yard. ‘Where does that go?’

  Rik stepped across and slid a bolt. The door opened to reveal a narrow passageway running between the buildings on either side, no doubt a left-over from when the area was criss-crossed with narrow channels to allow pedestrians easy access without venturing onto the streets.

  ‘They’ll know we went out that way,’ said Clare.

  ‘Not if it stays bolted,’ said Rik. He held it open while they filed through, then closed it behind them and slid the bolt. Using one of the beer casks to stand on, he put his hands on the top of the wall and kicked the cask away before clambering up. The cask rolled away and came to rest across the yard, near the rear gates. Dropping down the other side, he trotted after the others, flicking the tracking bug away into the dark.

  ‘Go!’ Captain Yuri Symenko gave the order to his men and switched off his radio. The rest was now up to him. A chance to prove himself worthy of better things.

  The team piled out of the car and crossed the pavement to join their two colleagues at the front entrance to the hotel. Four of them moved inside while two others trotted along the street to an intersection to check the rear of the building. Symenko followed at a more relaxed pace, enjoying the feel of power at the flick of a finger.

  Inside the hotel, a man was sitting behind the reception desk, reading a book on French architecture.

  ‘BVT.’ After two years, Symenko’s German was fluent enough to pass muster. He flashed an ID card stating that he represented the Federal Agency for State Protection and Counter-Terrorism. ‘You have suspects in this hotel we wish to interview.’ He produced photos of Clare Jardine and Katya Balenkova and slapped them on the counter in front of the clerk, who seemed bemused by the show of strength rather than intimidated.

  ‘The dark haired one, yes,’ he said, pointing at the picture of Jardine. ‘But I’ve never seen the blonde one. What have they done?’ He stared around at the men with Symenko, all dressed in jeans and jackets, none of them bothering to hide the automatic weapons they were carrying. They seemed to fill the space with their presence and were all staring at him in silence.

  ‘Never mind that. Which room?’

  The man told them, and stood watching as two men headed for the lift and the others took the stairs. ‘Don’t break anything,’ he called after them, then shrugged and went back to his book. They hadn’t even asked for a key. He made a note to get the cleaning ladies in early tomorrow; no doubt they’d be needed.

  Upstairs, the team gathered along the corridor leading to the English woman’s room and waited for Symenko to give the order to go. When he nodded, one of the men leaned across, knocked on the door and waited. No answer.

  ‘Force it.’ Symenko moved back to allow the men to kick the door in, which they did with a crash.

  The room was empty. They checked every drawer and the bathroom, but there was nothing of interest.

  Symenko was about to call in the results when his radio crackled.

  ‘They went out the back.’ It was one of the men outside. ‘I can see them moving along an alleyway.’

  ‘Follow them and keep them in sight. And keep this channel open.’ He ordered his men out and back to the vehicles.

  Symenko was smiling in eager anticipation. This was no longer a simple trace and report; it was now turning into a hot pursuit.

  FORTY-NINE

  ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Rik, as Harry led them across an intersection towards a darkened area in the distance. ‘We’re not going down in the sewers, are we? I saw that film. It gave me the creeps.’

  ‘Relax,’ Harry murmured. ‘If we do I’ll send one of the girls down first to shoo away the nasty spiders.’

  They were passing between a seemingly endless collection of four-and-five storey apartment blocks set back on streets that were too wide for comfort. All the Russia
ns would have to do was hit the right street and they would be caught out in the open.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Katya. She seemed calm enough, but there was an air of tension about her that spoke volumes about the kind of men pursuing them.

  ‘There’s a safe house we can use,’ Harry replied. ‘If we can get to it. But we can’t do that with them following us.’ He had tried calling Richoux, but there was no response. The man’s local knowledge would have been invaluable, but they were going to have to fall back on their own resources. So far they had seen no sign of a taxi, and hanging around for one to turn up was not an option. If the Russians called up reinforcements and flooded the area, it would be only a matter of time before they were seen.

  Up ahead the glow from the street lights between the apartment blocks appeared to fade, showing an area of relative darkness. Harry had mentioned it to be a park near the Praterstern, a large gyratory system connecting a number of roads like spokes of a wheel. If they got to that safely, they could go under cover in the park until they managed to pick up a taxi and head south to the district of Favoriten, where the safe house was located.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Rik turned to check on Clare, who was being helped along by Katya. She had refused his help earlier, and he’d figured she was better off doing it herself if she chose.

  He was about to turn back when he noticed a flicker of movement a hundred yards away. A figure was jogging along the street, flitting in and out of the shadows. He’d seen some movement before, but had dismissed it as normal. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  ‘I’m going to drop back,’ he told Harry. ‘I think we’ve got a tail. I’ll catch up at the park.’

  Harry turned and looked behind them. The pursuer had vanished. ‘You sure you can handle it?’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘OK. Don’t take all night; his buddies won’t be far behind.’

  Rik stepped of the street and into a small belt of trees and bushes bordering an apartment block. The trees conveniently blanked out any view of the windows above and behind him, leaving him in almost complete darkness. He allowed his breathing to settle and listened to the night, trying to block out the hum of traffic and focus instead on noises closer at hand.

  He heard the man before he saw him. Whoever he was, he had a clumpy tread and was breathing heavily with a faint wheezing sound, like a worn-out prize-fighter who had encountered too many punches. Rik waited until the last second, then peered out as the man passed beneath a street light. He was short and stocky, dressed in jeans and a nylon jacket. He had close-cropped hair and a developing paunch, but walked with the resolute gait of a man accustomed to long route marches.

  The glint of a weapon showed in a hip holster to one side.

  As the man drew level with his hiding place, Rik stepped out and hit him across the throat with his gun.

  Whatever his physical state, the man had good instincts. He moved to one side the moment he sensed trouble, lifting his forearm to block the attack and uttering a sharp expletive. But he was a fraction of a second too slow. His arm took most of the blow, but the gun barrel glanced off the solid mass of muscle and bone and thudded into his throat. He grunted and made a choking sound and pitched over backwards.

  Rik bent and dragged the man into the bushes, picking up the gun which had slipped from its holster. He flipped the body over and took out the man’s shoelaces, then tied his little fingers and thumbs together, palms outwards to prevent him from breaking them, and used the man’s belt to secure his ankles. It wouldn’t last long, but would give them breathing space to get away unseen.

  He stopped, hearing footsteps approaching along the street. Another one? He waited, then heard a snuffling sound, and came face to face with a red setter ducking its head beneath the foliage. It stared at him, tongue hanging out, then whined. He wasn’t sure who was most surprised, but was thankful when the dog retreated at a sharp command from a woman walking by just a few feet away.

  He allowed her to move away before going back to searching the unconscious man’s pockets. He felt a bulky object in the jacket. It was a shortwave radio. He made sure he didn’t touch the controls and put it in his pocket to dispose of later. Then he set off after the others.

  ‘Preshkin’s not answering.’ One of Captain Symenko’s lieutenants, a recent addition to the team, had been monitoring the lead man’s progress along the back streets. He had been getting a regular commentary by radio about the direction in which the fugitives were moving, but that had ceased, accompanied by some interference and background static. ‘Hello, Preshkin. Come in,’ he barked, as if to prove it.

  ‘Leave it.’ Symenko could read the signs well enough; Preshkin had pushed too far ahead and got jumped. He swore, drawing surprised looks from the men in his car. But he had good reason: they were now running blind with only a vague idea where the fugitives might be. But what if they had a car nearby? Then all his fantasies about catching foreign spies — and one clearly traitorous former FSO officer — would be so much dust.

  He turned and looked into the back of the Mercedes, at a man sitting scrunched between two of his men. All was not yet lost. He had an ace up his sleeve.

  ‘Well, Bronyev,’ he muttered, ‘it looks like you may have an opportunity of redeeming your failure to have spotted the treachery in your colleague, Balenkova.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Bronyev was angry, but powerless to do anything. As an FSO officer, he had a high degree of leeway over other departments. But Symenko outranked him and his own position had been further weakened, as had been pointed out already back at the embassy, by his claim that he had no inkling of Katya Balenkova’s plan to defect. He had tried arguing that it was not so far a proven defection, but that had carried no weight. If anything, it had made his situation worse.

  ‘You worked with Balenkova. She knows you. Trusts you.’ Symenko showed his teeth in a nasty grin. ‘Of course, if I hadn’t been told different just a short while ago, I’d even believe you were shtupping her on the side. But that’s not likely, is it — eh? You know why?’

  Bronyev made no answer, his face blank.

  ‘She doesn’t like men, does she?’ Symenko continued. ‘I bet you didn’t know that, did you?’

  ‘No.’ Bronyev shook his head at a hard elbow in the ribs from the men on his left.

  ‘No. I thought not. It seems your former colleague has a bit of history in that direction. I’m amazed she was allowed to continue serving. Still, we’ll soon have her back. Then she’ll find out what being a minority really means.’ He tossed a mobile phone into Bronyev’s lap. It was Bronyev’s own. ‘Call her. Tell her to come in. We’ll talk. . give her a chance to explain herself. No doubt she was overcome by foreign agents and has had no opportunity to break free. That kind of shit. I’ll leave it to you — you know what to say.’

  ‘She won’t talk to me. Why should she?’

  Another elbow in the ribs from the man on his left made him grunt. In spite of his position, Bronyev turned his head and stared at him. The man was big and solid, with a broken nose. A professional FSB bruiser. ‘You do that again and I promise you your nose will be even less attractive than it is now. I’m an officer of the FSO who has done nothing wrong, so accord me some respect.’

  The man looked back at him and sniggered, his breath sour with the smell of onions. Then he followed it up with another dig of his elbow.

  Symenko opened his mouth to tell his man to back off; he knew just what members of the FSO were capable of, especially at close quarters. He’d seen plenty of their kind in his time, passing through this city with powerful and important men. And Bronyev was right — he had done nothing wrong.

  He was too late.

  Without a flicker of warning, Bronyev rammed his own elbow upwards at an angle, using his torso to gain full torque and pushing his bunched fist with his free hand for maximum effect. The result was catastrophic for his attacker; his nose, already badly abused, took the full force of Bronyev’s blow, which sna
pped his head backwards into the roof of the car. A rush of blood sprayed down the front of the man’s jacket, but he was beyond caring, and lolled loosely in his seat like a stringless puppet.

  Bronyev didn’t stop there. Sensing the man on his right beginning to move, he thrust his hand down between the man’s legs and grasped a handful of his testicles, and squeezed.

  The man froze, eyes going wide.

  ‘Enough,’ said Bronyev softly, eyes on Symenko. The captain looked stunned by the speed of his reactions. ‘This is unnecessary and you know it, captain. I have it within my right to report you and your men for brutality against a fellow officer.’

  Symenko nodded. ‘Yes. Of course. I was about to stop him.’ He glared at the man on Bronyev’s right, who stopped wincing long enough to signal that he was not moving.

  ‘Good.’ Bronyev released the man and picked up the phone. He hit a speed dial number and waited while it rang out.

  FIFTY

  ‘It’s Bronyev, my colleague.’ Katya had switched on her mobile as they approached the end of the street. Seconds later it had buzzed. She had taken it out and was staring at the screen. ‘They’re using him to try to get to me.’

  Harry looked past her and Clare, and saw Rik jogging along the street towards them. He was moving easily and had clearly suffered no damage.

  They were standing beneath some trees on the edge of a small park not far from Riesenradplatz and the giant wheel. Between them lay the dual carriageway that was Ausstellungsstrasse, running east-west and connecting to the Praterstern gyratory. It was wide and too well lit, and still busy with traffic — an enormous gulf if the Russians had men staking out the most obvious points to watch.

  ‘Can you trust him?’ Harry asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I think so, but. .’ She shrugged. ‘He will be under pressure to help them. I’ve put him in a terrible position.’

  ‘Forget it. It’s done. He can’t do anything for you now.’ He was aware that it sounded harsh, but he knew what the situation would have been like had their positions been reversed. The man commanding the pursuers was responding with whatever he had to hand in order to reel them in; and that included leaning on Katya’s former colleague.