One Damn Thing After Another

by Dan Latus

‘I understand.’

  He pushed his plate aside and studied me for a moment, wearing a serious face now underneath the bruises. ‘What I would like to know, Frank, is who you are working for right now.’

  ‘No-one,’ I said with a shrug. ‘I’m here on holiday.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said with a knowing smile.

  ‘No, really.’

  He poured more wine for us both. I decided I was finished with my plate, too, if we were going to get serious. I pushed it aside. Then I raised my glass and met his eye.

  ‘To victory?’ I suggested.

  ‘To victory!’ he responded with great enthusiasm and a bellow of laughter.

  I wondered how much he knew about me. How well had he used the time he’d had?

  ‘You can fight,’ he said abruptly. ‘Where did you learn that skill?’

  ‘I’ve always had it,’ I told him. ‘And much practice over the years has made me better at it. How about you?’

  ‘Special forces,’ he said with a shrug. ‘That was my first career.’

  ‘Russian special forces? Spetsnaz?’

  He nodded. Then he grinned and added, ‘You and me. We did well together!’

  I smiled, even though it hurt my face to do so, and happily agreed.

  ‘The question now, Englishman,’ he continued, ‘is whether we can extend our relationship. You say you are working for nobody at the moment. Very well. I accept that. You are here only by accident.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I can offer you work – if you want it?’

  My interest was piqued, I have to admit. The offer came out of nowhere, but I was interested enough to want to hear more from him.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ I suggested.

  He was an honest businessman, he said. Of course he was. What else could he be? Lots of honest businessmen fight for their lives on city pavements. It happens all the time. Every day. Especially if they are Russian businessmen.

  ‘I own this hotel, for example,’ he said with a modest shrug. ‘You like it here?’

  ‘I do, actually. It’s very comfortable.’

  ‘Also, I have other businesses – many other businesses.’

  ‘In this country?’

  ‘In this country,’ he agreed with a judicious nod. ‘And also in other countries.’

  ‘Russia?’

  ‘I am Russian,’ he said with a shrug. ‘So, yes, I have business projects in Russia. But my interests are global.’

  Oligarchic even, I wondered a little sceptically. It was going to be fun to see where this conversation led. Already I quite fancied doing some investigating in Barbados or Thailand, the Maldives perhaps – or even Cyprus. Lots of Russians in Cyprus these days, owning villas with high security fences around them, shopping for fur coats in Limassol, paying local politicians to look the other way.

  Not really my scene, though. Perhaps I should call a halt now, I thought, and say goodbye. I seriously doubted if Podolsky and I could make a match.

  ‘I have interests in your country, too, Frank.’

  ‘The UK?’

  He nodded. ‘One project there at the moment might appeal to you.’

  I doubted that, but it seemed polite to hear him out.

  ‘I have bought a house in Northumberland. Do you know that area?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But I live further south, in North Yorkshire.’

  ‘I know that. I have had you checked out.’

  ‘Really? That was rather presumptuous of you.’

  It was also no more than I had expected.

  He laughed and wagged a finger at me. ‘Frank, please! Do not play games with me. We are both old enough, and experienced enough, to know that no-one makes an offer to another man without knowing something about him first. Agreed?’

  I smiled and conceded the point. As I said, he had a way with him. Bright guy. Fun. Good company. And interestingly enigmatic. I liked him. He intrigued me.

  ‘It is rather a big house,’ he continued, ‘and rather a ruin. Oh, it has a roof, and the walls are still standing, but many years of neglect by owners who could not afford the upkeep of such a house anymore have taken their toll. Sadly, some of your aristocracy have gone the same way as ours.’

  Not literally, I thought. We didn’t shoot ours and drop them down a well. Actually, I felt like pointing out, there were plenty of the Russian variety still around, although for understandable reasons they tend to live in places like Paris rather than anywhere in Russia.

  ‘So you are renovating a house?’

  ‘Precisely. And I would like you to oversee security while that work is ongoing. Possibly afterwards, too. That is my offer. I will pay you well.’

  Night watchman, it sounded like. Not my cup of tea.

  ‘You don’t need somebody like me, Leon. Surely the contractor will arrange security? Besides, I would get bored. Thank you for the offer, but …’

  ‘Frank, you will not be bored. I can promise you that. If you are lucky, you might even survive the experience.’

  He broke off into raucous laughter.

  I might survive, might I? Some joke.

  ‘What security is needed there? Northumberland isn’t exactly the Wild West, you know,’ I pointed out.

  ‘No, but I come from the Wild East. We Russians have much trouble when we build our businesses, and then we have even more trouble keeping them.’

  The Wild East, eh? The Moscow business world used to be called that years ago, in Yeltsin’s time. I wondered how much it had changed.

  ‘So what’s the problem with restoring an old house?’

  ‘Good question.’ Podolsky frowned and admitted, ‘I don’t know yet. Why don’t we go there, so I can show you the project? Then you can say yes or no, no strings attached.’

  I turned it over in my mind. I was curious. I admit it. Besides, where was the harm? What did I have to lose?

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Right now. My plane is waiting at Havel – the blessed Havel! – Airport. They used to call it Prague Airport, you know. Now it is Václav Havel Airport Prague, by order of the Czech Government.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said, feeling a little dazed by the speed with which things were developing. ‘But I have a return ticket with …’

  ‘I know. For this evening, I believe. But I won’t charge you,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Besides, there is more leg room in my plane. Surely that must count for something?’

  I grinned and folded my objections and reservations. The offer of extra leg room was hard to turn down.

  Chapter Four

  I WAS BACK IN my room, collecting my gear together, and thinking it looked like it might start to snow soon, when any feelings of peace and a sense of returning normality were shattered. I heard the rumble and vibration of a powerful engine outside on the street. Then, extraordinarily, there was the unmistakable sound of a burst of automatic gunfire, followed by the sound of sheets of window glass splintering and crashing to the pavement.

  I hurtled across the room and flattened myself against the wall adjacent to the window. When the gunfire paused, I risked a glance outside. There wasn’t much to see. Just a big pickup truck on massive tyres, and a man holding a machine pistol standing in the back of it.

  The man gestured to people I couldn’t see, who appeared to be under my window and close to the hotel entrance. Then two more men stepped into view, and all three began firing in a concentrated way at what had to be the front door. There were no windows on the ground floor for them to attack.

  The door seemed to be a harder nut to crack than they had anticipated. The ancient timber facing the street would soon have disintegrated but I guessed there must be thick sheet steel behind it. Ordinary bullets wouldn’t penetrate that. Semtex would have been a better option.

  As if coming to the same conclusion, the gunmen gave up on the door and started spraying the upper windows of the hotel again. I flattened myself on the floo
r, arms wrapped around my head, just in time. Shards of glass blasted across the room and tinkled as they fell all around me. Then the door to my room burst open and I feared the worst.

  ‘Mr Doy!’ a voice called between fusillades.

  I looked up and saw the main man from reception, who I now knew was called Charles, beckoning to me. ‘This way, Mr Doy!’

  I did a fast shuffle across the room and through the door, grabbing my bag as I went. Charles slammed the door shut behind me.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked anxiously, picking bits of glass from my jacket.

  I just shook my head. I didn’t bother asking him what was going on. It didn’t seem the right moment for that, and I didn’t suppose he knew any more than I did anyway.

  He grimaced and touched my elbow, a gesture of sympathy, and set off quickly along the corridor. I followed. Once again, I was taken through a maze of corridors and staircases, doors and rooms, until at last we went down, down, down, and emerged into a courtyard at what I assumed was the far end of the street.

  Leon Podolsky was waiting there, holding open the rear door of a big Lexus saloon, ignoring the bitter cold and the snowflakes that were drifting around his head. He ushered me inside, climbed in himself and slammed the door shut. The driver got us moving immediately.

  Two men opened heavy doors that filled the entrance to an archway under a building. We crept forward, under the arch. The doors closed behind us. Another man opened a second pair of doors, looked outside and then waved us through. We emerged onto a cobbled street, turned left and accelerated smoothly away, twisting and turning through narrow lanes and alleys until we hit a main road that seemed to be heading out of town.

  Podolsky turned around, grinned at me and said, ‘Lively, eh?’

  I didn’t feel like grinning back. I just grimaced and nodded. Then I glanced out of the side window and caught sight of a road sign that included the airport in its menu of destinations. I was pleased to see it. It was time I got out of this city, time I went home.

  ‘Another thing I like about you, Frank,’ Podolsky confided, ‘is that you don’t ask stupid questions when people are too busy to answer them. It’s a rare quality.’

  ‘Believe me,’ I said bitterly, ‘I feel like asking them. What the hell was all that about, back there?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he said with a shrug.

  Who, indeed, if not him?

  I was surprised the Russian special forces had ever let him leave their ranks. Panic and fear didn’t seem to afflict him in the way they do ordinary mortals. I even wondered if he was perhaps enjoying all the action, having missed out on epic battles like Stalingrad and Kursk, not to mention the more recent shenanigans in Crimea.

  ‘Well, try this,’ I said with some irritation. ‘Anybody hurt?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He shrugged again. ‘Charles will let me know.’

  Good old Charles! The guy from reception, who seemed to have been left to hold the fort.

  ‘They were coming for you, I take it?’

  He nodded. ‘I think so.’

  Two attempts on him in one day? Unbelievable. This was serious stuff.

  ‘I always think,’ I confided, beginning to relax a little, ‘that a stout front door is a sound investment.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That’s what I tell all my clients. You have obviously taken good advice yourself from someone in the business.’

  He laughed, shook his head and said, ‘Fools! They didn’t have enough firepower to get through that door. Nowhere near enough.’

  My thought, exactly. I was having serious second thoughts about even considering the possibility of working for Leon Podolsky. In fact, I knew I didn’t want to do it. Whatever game he was involved in was too big for me. He needed the French Foreign Legion – the whole of it! – or a Ghurka battalion, not just one man, to protect his house in Northumberland, if this was anything to go by. I decided to tell him before we got any further.

  ‘Leon, I’ve changed my mind. I appreciate your offer but the job you outlined is not one for me to consider. Thanks for the offer of the flight, too, but I’ll leave you at the airport and make my own way home.’

  ‘Too hot for you, eh?’ he said, sounding disappointed.

  ‘Something like that.’

  He sighed. ‘I can’t say I blame you, Frank. It’s a pity, though. We would have done well together.’

  Doing what, exactly, I wondered?

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ he added. ‘You’ve missed your flight now. So you might as well come to Newcastle with me. Otherwise, you may have to wait a few days for the next flight.’

  I glanced at my watch with surprise and realized he was right. I cursed silently. What to do now?

  ‘No strings,’ Leon said. ‘I owe you, not the other way around. So please accept my offer of a flight back to Newcastle. Then feel free to take off to wherever you wish to go.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That probably is best.’

  It would be three days before there was another direct flight to Newcastle. I didn’t want to wait that long. I didn’t want the hassle of finding another way to get home, either. So I decided to travel with Leon, and then try to forget what had happened back here on the last day of my short break holiday.

  ‘It’s a nice city, Prague,’ he said next, as if nothing untoward had happened.

  ‘Until today,’ I said, ‘I thought so, too.’

  He laughed.

  I turned to look out of the side window. The snow that had started as we were leaving the hotel was getting heavier now. All in all, it seemed a good time to be going home.

  Chapter Five

  THE WHITE STUFF STARTED coming down faster and thicker. Suddenly we seemed to be inside a cloud, with great masses of snow swirling around and cascading over us. It was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. The car slowed to a crawl in first gear. Podolsky leant forward to have an urgent word with the driver, who then pulled into the side of the road and stopped. We sat waiting, anxiously, with the engine running.

  Podolsky’s phone went off. He took it out, glanced at the screen and answered it. He listened for a few moments and then, sounding exasperated, started snapping out instructions. It seemed to do him no good. Nor did raising his voice.

  He shut the phone down, grimaced and said something to the driver, who nodded and gave a brief reply before getting us moving again. We turned around in a side street and headed back the way we had come, driving through a thick curtain of snow. The conditions were increasingly slippery. A couple of times the driver lost control in skids that turned us broadside on. It was sheer luck that prevented us slamming into the vehicles parked along the edges of the street.

  I said nothing, but I looked at Podolsky expectantly. He shrugged and said, ‘They’ve closed the airport.’

  ‘Because of the snow?’

  He nodded. ‘They say it’s not safe, and they’re not going to let planes take off any time soon.’

  Great, I thought. Now what?

  Leon’s smile returned. ‘But don’t worry, Frank! We’ll just have to postpone our departure until tomorrow. Nothing is spoiling.’

  I wondered about that. I really did. From now until tomorrow, a hell of a lot of stuff could happen in his life – and mine, as well, if I stayed with him.

  ‘So what now? Back to the hotel?’

  He shook his head. ‘They will be too busy cleaning up and repairing the damage. And maybe the police will be there.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I am not ready for all that. There is somewhere else we can go, over in Vinohrady.’

  I debated getting out at the nearest tram stop or taxi rank and making my own way back into the city centre but I decided not to. For one thing, the way the snow was coming down it looked as if it would soon be a lot more than the airport that was at a standstill.

  The driver dropped us off in a street in a part of town I had not previously visited. It was an elegant street, with six-storey apartment buildi
ngs of old stone on each side that occupied entire blocks. The buildings were all painted in the traditional mustard colour that seemed to be so popular in this country, and the paint-work looked fresh. Newly planted small trees, without leaves at this time of year, were dotted along the pavements at regular intervals. It was a street with money, I decided, and one that had been recently refurbished.

  I shivered and ducked my head against the wind-driven snow as I followed Leon towards a doorway. Although there was no name or sign over the entrance, once I was inside I saw the place seemed to be some sort of medical clinic. As soon as we passed through the double doors, we entered another world, one with bright lights and ultra modern styling. Podolsky called a cheerful greeting to a white-coated woman at the reception desk and led me down a long corridor. We passed a couple of men and another woman, all dressed in white medical garb.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked. ‘A medical centre?’

  ‘Yes. A private medical centre.’

  ‘Another of your businesses?’

  He nodded and stopped outside a lift, where he keyed in a code and pressed buttons. The doors slid open. We stepped inside and were whisked away silently at speed.

  When the doors reopened, we stepped out of the lift straight into the living space of one of those modern, opulent-lifestyle apartments. Marble floors, expensive looking rugs, subdued lighting, and rich furnishings. One wall of the huge room we entered was glass, quite simply an enormously wide floor-to-ceiling window that gave a wonderful view of the falling snow.

  ‘I will show you to your room, Frank,’ Leon announced. ‘Then you must excuse me for a little while. There are things I must do. But make yourself at home. If you want anything you can’t see, just pick up the phone. It will be answered instantly.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, intrigued, if not altogether happy. ‘You will be back soon?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He laughed and led the way down a short corridor. The room he showed me into was almost as opulent as the living room we had just left. I dumped my bag on the floor and turned towards him.

  ‘Better than waiting in the departures lounge at the airport, eh?’ he said, chuckling.