by WOOD TOM
‘I don’t believe you.’
Burliuk took out his cell phone. ‘Then call Vladimir now and roll the dice with your life.’
Petrenko thought for a minute and waved his hands. He said, ‘Okay, you win, Tomasz. Put your damn phone away. Well played, as always. I do hope for your sake you can play Yamout as well.’
‘I have no need to play him. Yamout does not know who I am and Kasakov will have him killed soon enough.’
‘I’m delighted that you have nothing to worry about,’ Petrenko sneered. ‘So let’s turn our attentions back to my concerns. I still have my rivals to consider. I need to show there is a price to be paid for striking against me.’
‘Then tell me, what have you learned so far about your attackers?’
Petrenko shrugged. ‘Nothing as yet.’
‘This happened over three hours ago.’
Petrenko shrugged again. ‘My people are doing everything they can. Every thug in this city is being smacked around to see what he knows.’
‘So you know who you are looking for?’
‘No, but …’
‘Did you see any of the gunmen?’
‘No.’
Burliuk paced the room. ‘Did you hear anything? Anything at all? Voices, maybe?’
‘No,’ Petrenko said again.
‘Did anything happen before Yamout arrived?’
‘Before? Why?’
‘Because they didn’t just turn up and start shooting. They must have staked out the hotel first. They were there before Yamout arrived, maybe even before you arrived. They must have been watching for him. Did you see anyone?’
Petrenko shook his head. ‘No.’
‘And your man who escaped?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then find out.’
Petrenko shouted for his man, who entered the room. He looked nervous.
‘Today,’ Burliuk said immediately, ‘did you see anyone who didn’t fit in at the hotel. Foreigners, perhaps. They might have dressed differently. Did anyone seem to be watching you, however casual that watching might have been? Perhaps someone looked at you for more than a second …’
The man shook his head. ‘I didn’t see anyone suspicious or foreign. The only person I even remember seeing at all was from the hotel management.’
‘When was that?’ Burliuk asked.
Petrenko added, ‘Yeah, when?’
‘While you were out for food. Just a few minutes after you had gone.’
Burliuk said, ‘What did he want?’
‘I don’t really know. He just checked the suite.’
‘What was his name?’ Petrenko asked. ‘The management know not to interfere with my dealings there.’
‘He didn’t give it.’
‘Describe him,’ Burliuk said.
‘He was my height, but skinnier. Same sort of age. Short dark hair.’
Petrenko’s eyes narrowed. ‘You idiot. No one who works at the hotel looks like that. He was one of them. I should have your eyes for this.’
‘Tell me you got a good look at him,’ Burliuk said quietly.
‘Yes,’ Petrenko’s man was quick to assure.
‘Good,’ Petrenko said, pointing. ‘You just saved your life.’
Burliuk said, ‘Picture him in your head. Think of the shape of his nose, the colour of his eyes, how far apart they were. Everything, every little detail.’ He turned to Petrenko. ‘You have cops on your payroll?’
‘Of course.’
‘Call them and get a sketch artist over here immediately. When the picture is ready, every one of your men needs a copy. Have them check hotels and guesthouses, ask every receptionist and maid if they have seen him. Put people in the airport and train stations. Speak to taxi drivers, bartenders, everyone. Spread money around, offer a reward for information. Give the picture to men you can trust. Saturate the city. Someone will have seen him, or will see him. With luck, he and his friends are still here. If not, there will be a trail to follow to those who sent them.’
Petrenko was quiet for a moment while he decided how best to make his point. ‘But what if we do find them?’ he asked eventually. ‘What then? Last time they wiped out both mine and Yamout’s bodyguards in seconds. They are ruthless killers. My men are thieves and thugs. They are not soldiers.’
Burliuk waved a hand dismissively. ‘I will help you on this matter, and in return you will forget the part I played in your deal with Yamout. Agreed?’ Petrenko nodded. ‘I’ll make a call and bring in some professionals. They will handle it. All you have to do is find him.’
CHAPTER 28
Dark clouds hung in the sky over Minsk. Victor walked on the left side of the street, along the kerb so that inconsiderate or clumsy pedestrians couldn’t brush or bang into his wounded arm. It throbbed continuously. In the morning, he’d visited several pharmacies to buy first-aid supplies, cleaned and dressed the wound before resting and sleeping through the rest of the day. He was waiting until rush hour before getting out of the city. It was the best time for making an exit. Maximum people. Maximum cover.
After the killings of the previous night Victor had plenty of enemies to concern himself with. He doubted Yamout would still be in the city, let alone hunting for him with all his bodyguards dead, but that left Petrenko’s people, whoever the surveillance team worked for, and the authorities.
The police wouldn’t be on to him without an eye witness, but they would be hunting for anyone suspicious. With cameras covering the Presidential Suite, the surveillance team would have captured his face when he surveyed the suite earlier in the day before his attack. He’d destroyed the computer, but if recordings had been backed up elsewhere he had a real problem. As for Petrenko, one of his men had survived, along with Petrenko himself, but in the frenzy of combat Victor couldn’t be sure which one. If that man happened to be Jerkov, whom Victor had briefly conversed with, they might have worked out the significance of that particular visit and would also know what he looked like.
Victor wore cheap shoes, cheap jeans and a cheap jacket, all purchased from a thrift store. A similarly cheap ball cap was pulled down tight over his head. He walked with a slight stoop to disguise his height. He was a block away from the Europe, keeping pace with a group of Russian tourists, walking a step behind as though he was one of them, occasionally nodding and smiling like he was part of their conversation while he looked for the car that matched the keys he’d taken from one of the surveillance team.
They had been smart operators. Aside from their Belarusian IDs carried in case they encountered the authorities, they’d been operating sterile. They wouldn’t have parked their car in the spaces opposite the hotel, or anywhere else too close. They would have parked a tactical distance away where they wouldn’t have been noticed by Petrenko or Yamout, but close enough to be practical.
From his previous reconnaissance Victor knew all the likely parking spaces in the vicinity, and mentally narrowed the list down to two: either at a small parking lot to the north-east behind a row of stores, or the long line of parking spaces that ran along the west side of Oktyabrskaya Square. The first lot was the more discreet of the two, but was harder to get to, and hence slower to leave with haste. Smart operators wouldn’t have boxed themselves in if another option was available. He’d checked it anyway, because he was thorough, but hadn’t found the car.
Victor was now at the second option, walking south. To his left, at the centre of the huge square, stood the Palace of the Republic. The rectangular building had sharp Stalinist columns set along every wall, a plate-glass façade, and was used for political ceremonies, concerts, summits, and exhibitions. The nearby parking was predictably busy and anonymous, and connected to two main thoroughfares. Had their roles been reversed, Victor would have parked here.
He saw fifty-one vehicles parked in a long row along the square’s west side. If the keys had included a radio fob, Victor could have just pressed it until the indicators flashed. There was no maker’s badge on the key ring
either. Both had likely been removed by the team as a security precaution. Smart operators.
As they had numbered four, their car would have to be big enough to carry them all, so it would be a four-door sedan or SUV. Discounting the small sedans and coupes left thirty-six potentials. An SUV would stand out too much during mobile surveillance, so he dismissed those to bring the pool down another three. The team’s sedan would be a mid-range vehicle, again for anonymity’s sake, so Victor ignored those that were more than ten years old and those less than two, as well as the odd luxury BMW or Merc. Sixteen cars remained. The colour would be a muted tone, something that wouldn’t catch the eye. No red, white or black. Seven remaining. As the team were not native to Belarus and Minsk their car would most likely be a rental with a company sticker and Belarusian plates. Three left. As it had been parked since at least the previous evening, it would have picked up a parking ticket. Two left. Finally, smart operators always reverse-parked to facilitate a faster exit.
One left.
It was a dark grey Saab, four years old, with a Europcar sticker on the windshield. Victor folded the parking ticket into a pocket and inserted the key into the driver’s door. It unlocked, and he climbed inside. The door closed with a reassuring thunk. The interior was clean and unremarkable and Victor sat for a moment with his hands resting on the steering wheel, listening to the sound of traffic passing, and people walking by. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
The glove box contained nothing apart from the smell of greasy food, no doubt from the remains of a takeout stashed inside. He found a packet of soft mints in the driver’s door pocket and chewed one while he turned the ignition. The Saab’s inbuilt satnav powered on and Victor navigated to the most recent entries. He wasn’t surprised to find the log empty. The rental company would have wiped it after the previous client had dropped it off, and the surveillance team had been cautious enough not to use it and risk leaving an electronic map of their movements.
He thumbed the trunk release and climbed out. A young woman with long blonde hair tied into a ponytail stood on the other side of the flowerbeds that lay between the parking spaces and October Square. She used a small camera to take shots of the Palace of the Republic before she looked his way and smiled in the polite way polite people did to strangers they took to also be polite. Rude people tended to be remembered more acutely than those who were polite, so Victor smiled back.
He sensed she wanted to engage with him, perhaps to chat about the architecture of the Palace of the Republic, maybe to share some of the facts she’d learned from a tourist brochure. He looked away, as if he was too distracted to talk, and she went back to her photographs. He waited until she had walked away before opening the Saab’s trunk.
Two large black sports bags lay inside. One was empty except for a few electronic cables. The second contained tiny cameras and microphones, likely identical to the ones hidden throughout the Presidential Suite of the Hotel Europe. They were battery-powered with wireless transmitters, very small, very concealable, and very high tech. There were more cables, tools and other surveillance paraphernalia.
Victor took the bag and climbed back into the driver’s seat. The odometer read 91,000 kilometres travelled. Beneath the odometer, the trip meter read 49 kilometres. If the rental company had reset the satnav’s trip log, it would have reset the trip meter too. Europcar rented vehicles out from Minsk National Airport, which was approximately 41 kilometres from central Minsk. That left about 8 kilometres unaccounted for. Either they had got significantly lost on their way into the city, which Victor doubted, or they had been somewhere beyond the hotel.
It was unlikely they had all travelled together on the same flight to avoid attracting undue attention. As there were four, he expected two might have flown in, and the other two arrived in Minsk by some other form of transport, probably train as they would have had to bring the surveillance equipment, which wouldn’t get through airport security without difficult questions being asked. The two who had flown in had arrived second, otherwise the Saab’s trip meter would have read at least 82 kilometres. The suite next to the Presidential had two double beds, so only two would have checked in, again to keep a low profile. The other two team members had to sleep somewhere.
So, 8 spare kilometres, assuming they’d made no mistakes on the drive. If they’d only completed one journey between the hotel and the safe house, that was a radius of 4 kilometres in a straight line. In a city, where there were few straight routes, that reduced down to maybe a 2.5 kilometre radius, or a circular area of 18 square kilometres. The centre of Minsk. Somewhere in that area was another hotel or even safe house used by the two team members who hadn’t stayed at the Europe. Such a distance could have been covered on foot or on public transport, but with the surveillance equipment to move, a car had been necessary. Plus maybe they’d intended to follow Yamout or Petrenko after the deal was completed and they went their separate ways.
Victor circled the Saab, examining the bodywork. It was mostly clean – recently waxed by the rental company – but on the windshield, outside the swathe of clear glass from the wipers, was a thin layer of pale grime. Victor ran a finger over it. The substance on his fingertip was slightly moist. He rubbed it dry with his thumb until he was left with a fine grey powder the consistency of talc. He re-examined the bodywork, finding no evidence of the powder except for a few thin pale streaks on the front bumper and residue in the grooves on the bonnet and grille.
Victor took the bag of surveillance equipment, but left the car. If the police weren’t looking for it yet, they would be soon. At an internet café he compiled a list of hotels in central Minsk within a 2.5 kilometre radius of October Square, then used a payphone to dial each one, asking for the names he had from the Belarusian driver’s licences he’d procured from the team, but no hotel he called had any guests matching those names. He checked hotels further out but with no result.
If they hadn’t stayed at a hotel they must have used some other kind of establishment. That wouldn’t be a hostel, as they would have required more privacy, but it could be a private residence.
He thought about the grey powder. Had time allowed, Victor would have set off on foot, but with an 18-square kilometre area to cover he couldn’t hope to complete the task before he needed to leave. He had to find the location before the cops did, if they hadn’t yet. He hailed a taxi.
The driver was a plump Belarusian woman with glasses and the biggest smile he’d seen in a long time.
In Russian, pretending not to speak the language well, he asked her, ‘Do you know where the, uh … build site is near here, on …’ He trailed off, as though he couldn’t remember or pronounce the name of the street.
‘Kirova … Nemiga?’ she offered slowly, helpful and smiling.
‘Kirova,’ he said, with a smile of his own.
She dropped him off at the east end of the street and he walked west, quickly realising that she’d misunderstood him, or he hadn’t made himself clear. Roadworks were taking place. It looked like they were fixing a water main. He hailed another taxi.
‘Nemiga,’ he said to the driver.
As they turned into the street, Victor saw scaffolding framing a building halfway down the block. He had the driver pull over. Nemiga was in a rundown neighbourhood approximately half a mile from October Square. The street was lined with narrow-fronted townhouses painted in pastel shades. Victor approached the building with the scaffolding. He heard the sounds of busy work emanating from the property – shouting, banging, and the rumble and whine of power tools. A cement mixer was set on the sidewalk outside.
The Saab didn’t have to be parked near the mixer to get cement dust on its windshield, depending on the wind that day. Not that where the car was parked helped him much. The team would have taken a spot wherever it was available, if the space outside whatever building they’d used wasn’t free. There were maybe twenty houses on each side of the street, forty in total, thirty-nine potentials after discounting the house
being worked on. He could knock on every door, and further reduce the potentials by crossing off any house where someone answered, but even then he could be left with twenty-five or more properties to break into. But there was a simpler way of narrowing down his selection.
He looked at the sky. The clouds were dark and had been all morning. The ambient light was limited. Victor walked along the sidewalk until he found the only house with all of its drapes closed.
It had a good deadbolt, but Victor had been picking locks for fifteen years. He closed the front door behind him and dropped the lock picks back into a pocket. He stood in the hallway and listened. There was no alarm, but Victor hadn’t expected to find one. If someone broke in the team hadn’t wanted the police to show up and start asking questions they didn’t want to answer. In the days when Victor had his own house he’d gone with the same philosophy.
He didn’t know if this was a safe house owned by whoever they worked for or somewhere that had been rented just for this job. It was dark. The hallway was narrow with a threadbare carpet and flaking paint on the walls. The ceiling light had no shade. A set of stairs led up. A door stood in the wall to his right. The hallway opened up into a kitchen ahead of him. He opened the door first, finding himself in a small lounge with a two-seater sofa, armchair, TV and little else to suggest it was anyone’s home. A camp bed was set up in one corner with a small suitcase opened out next to it. The bed hadn’t been made. The suitcase contained clothes and toiletries and nothing else. A side pocket was open, but empty.
Victor tried the kitchen next. The fridge was a quarter full with milk, cheese, sliced meats, some vegetables and orange juice. The cupboards were mostly empty, except one contained bread and canned goods. Plastic knives, forks and spoons were mixed together loose in a drawer. The kitchen led to a bathroom. Several damp towels competed for space on the rail.