by Dan Latus
‘Who is the guy with Bobrik?’ I asked. ‘Do you know?’
Olga shook her head.
‘You said again?’ I queried, picking up on what she’d said a minute ago. ‘Did you once live close to the sea?’
‘Oh, yes! Our family did. We grew up in Odessa.’
‘Nice.’
‘You have been there?’
I shook my head.
‘It is lovely there, and also very historic.’ She paused. ‘Frank, two more men have entered the restaurant. They are coming this way.’
That didn’t sound good. I steeled myself.
Chapter Seventeen
AS THEY SWEPT PAST I could see they meant business, but they weren’t interested in us. They were heading for the terrace.
I stood up fast and closed in behind them in the doorway. The guns were out by then, theirs and mine. Beyond, out on the terrace, I saw that the meeting was over already. Leon and Lenka were both on their feet and turning away from the table. Bobrik had summoned his men. It was not a time to mess about.
I swept my foot around the leg of the guy immediately in front of me. He lost his balance and fell forward, instinctively clutching at the lead guy as he went down, and unbalancing him. I jumped heavily on the hand holding the gun and felt it break beneath my boot.
Then I reached out, grabbed the lead guy by the collar of his jacket and jammed the Glock into his back. ‘Drop the gun!’
It was really too late to be issuing a warning, even if he understood what I’d said. He was swinging round at me, his gun searching for the target, and he wasn’t going to stop now. I pulled the trigger and shot him. He staggered away a couple of paces and brought his gun up again, aiming at me. I shot him a second time and took the gun from him. Then he went down for good.
‘Frank!’ Olga screamed.
I spun round. The man with the crushed gun hand was back on his feet, the gun held in his other hand. He was slow, uncertain, unfamiliar with left-handedness. I pointed the Glock at him, willing him to be sensible. He stared at me a moment and then lowered his gun.
I pointed again, ordering him to drop the gun. Reluctantly, he did so. Then I told him to get down on the floor. He did that, too, probably bringing his career with Bobrik to an end. As Leon and Lenka came past, Lenka picked up his gun and kicked him in the face for good measure. She didn’t bother with the other one. He was dead.
A woman somewhere in the restaurant screamed. It broke the paralysis that had descended on everyone. Crockery crashed to the floor. Chairs scraped. Men shouted.
‘Let’s go!’ Leon called, pressing his arm behind my back to hurry me up, and grabbing Olga by the arm.
I glanced back at Bobrik and colleague, who had got to their feet but were not coming after us. Then I turned and followed the others.
We encountered no opposition on our way out. But we did find the man Leon had delegated to do the body search on his behalf. He was in a heap near the entrance, shot, and dead. Leon checked him quickly and then urged us onwards again. We hit the street a second or two later.
But it wasn’t over yet, not by a long way. To my surprise, we didn’t head for the quayside and the yacht. We turned in the opposite direction.
‘Leon?’ I managed.
‘It’s not safe,’ he shouted. ‘This way!’
Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, a huge explosion ripped through the night sky. I ducked automatically and then paused momentarily to look back.
‘Frank!’ Leon called.
I guessed what it must be.
‘Samarkand?’
Leon nodded grimly. Then all four of us were running hard away from the harbour, the sound of our racing feet echoing back to us from the medieval walls lining the narrow streets.
I assumed we would make for the apartment where Leon and I had met Olga. We didn’t. After a couple of minutes, we turned a corner and stopped running. Then we walked quickly on, threading our way through the ancient streets and alleys until we came to another gate in the town wall. On the far side a Range Rover was waiting, its engine quietly murmuring. It might have been the same vehicle, and the same driver, that had brought us to Kotor, but I couldn’t be sure.
We got inside and Leon rapped out instructions to the driver, who nodded and got us moving immediately. I wondered what would happen now. I had no idea, and for the moment I didn’t care, either. I just wanted to get the hell out of Kotor.
‘You did well, Frank,’ Leon said. ‘Thank you once again.’
I grimaced, thinking I wasn’t so sure about that. Shooting people wasn’t my usual style.
‘I nearly left it too late,’ I said. ‘It all happened so fast at the end. What was going on?’
‘I refused to give Bobrik what he wanted. So he said that was the end of the discussion, and we would be dead before we got out of the building.’
Nice guy, Bobrik.
‘And he also told you what would happen to the yacht?’
Leon grimaced. ‘I guessed that part. It is how he is. Now you must excuse me, Frank. I have phone calls to make. There is much for me to do.’
‘OK. But first tell me where we’re going.’
‘The airport. We will leave immediately.’
If we still could, I thought. Maybe we would find our plane surrounded by tanks and machine guns. Then what? But trying to get out was obviously the right thing to do.
‘If it is not possible to leave from there,’ Leon added, reading my mind, ‘we will turn around and head for Croatia. It is not far along the coast, and there they don’t like Serbs like Bobrik so much.’
Another ex-Yugoslav country, one with a different history. Hopefully, more welcoming, too.
Leon pulled out his phone then and made the first of many calls. I guessed he was checking on his people, and on his businesses. His world had just fallen apart a little more, and he was doing his best to cope with the aftermath.
I switched off and let the adrenaline die down. I didn’t feel good about what had happened back there, but I wasn’t going to dwell on it. Not now, not yet. The guy I had shot would have shot me a moment later, and if I hadn’t stopped the pair of them right there and then, Leon and Lenka would no longer have been with us. There wasn’t much doubt about that.
Losing the yacht didn’t bother me too much, either. Leon could probably just buy another one, if he wanted to. The people aboard at the time were a different matter. There must have been quite a few casualties, but there was nothing I could have done to avert that. So there was no point me worrying there, either.
Even so, I wasn’t happy. Far from it. Our visit to Montenegro had been a disaster, yet another one to strike the Podolsky empire.
I concentrated on what was happening now. Not in the spirit of mindfulness, exactly. More because now and the very near future might be all the time we had left.
The cloud had lifted and the land was bathed in moonlight. I could see now how extraordinarily mountainous the country was that we were driving through. In the eerie light, we climbed and corkscrewed our way through a bleak, rocky landscape, until finally we crested a ridge and began the long descent down the other side of the mountain.
Lights began to appear in the distance. Civilization? I fervently hoped so. But what else might we find? An army road block and men looking for us with machine guns seemed a strong possibility.
It didn’t happen. The army wasn’t there. Maybe Montenegro didn’t have one, I couldn’t help thinking with relief. There was no special police presence, either. And Leon’s plane was ready, engines running, waiting for us.
I was very happy to climb out of the Range Rover and get into the plane. The drive through the mountains had been a bit hair raising, especially given that I was anticipating a road block around every corner. But Leon had done well, and got us out of there before anyone could organize to stop us.
‘Will Bobrik be looking for us in Kotor?’ I asked as the plane rose above the lights and headed for the safety of the cloud ce
iling.
‘I think so,’ Leon said, nodding. ‘We needed to get out fast.’
We had certainly done that, and now we could relax a little and count the cost of our expedition to Montenegro.
‘So what’s the damage?’ I asked, nodding at the phone still in his hand, which must have been red hot by then.
He shrugged. ‘It is not yet certain. The crew and captain were ordered off the boat before the explosion. So maybe they are all OK. But I don’t know for sure. They will tell me later.’
That was something. We were badly in need of some good news.
‘So what now, Leon?’
‘I have been sending out instructions to my people to close most of our businesses down for the moment. Put them into suspension. We must sort out this problem with Bobrik before any more lives are lost.’
Amen to that. I couldn’t have agreed more. It was a relief to hear him say it.
‘And us?’
‘Us? I think Lenka and me will return to Prague for the moment. You will go to join Olga in England, to the house in Northumberland. Work there should begin now. Maybe, also, you can visit our IT centre in England.’
‘Oh? I didn’t know you had one.’
‘There is much you don’t know, Frank,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘And the time is coming when I must tell you more.’
That would be nice, I couldn’t help thinking.
Chapter Eighteen
WHEN OLGA AND I left the plane at Newcastle Airport in the middle of the night, we were met by a man I hadn’t seen before and ushered into a waiting vehicle for the journey north. Olga introduced the man as Dag. She began talking to him in Russian immediately, and I let them get on with it. There would be plenty for her to tell him – though not, perhaps, everything – and I needed to rest and think. A lot had been happening lately.
It bothered me that I didn’t really know what was happening. Two powerful Russian businessmen were engaged, literally, in a deadly conflict. The one I was helping seemed to be the innocent party. Perhaps I should just focus on that. But it would have been nice to know what the other side, “the enemy”, wanted out of all this.
Whatever it was, Bobrik was waging a pretty determined and bloody campaign to get it. My feeling was that it couldn’t just be about a small hotel in Prague, or property in Montenegro, either. It was more likely that it was about something to do with Russia itself. I had no idea what. I would just have to wait for Leon to tell me. But when?
Olga turned to me at last. ‘Dag says we will be there in about an hour. Maybe less.’
I nodded. ‘Fine.’
‘It will be good to see the old house again.’
‘Yes,’ I said after a moment’s hesitation.
‘What?’ she said with a chuckle. ‘You don’t like it?’
‘Olga, at this moment, I would like anywhere that could offer me a hot bath and a comfortable bed – even that falling-down old house!’
‘Poor Frank!’ she said, giggling. ‘We have made you so tired.’
I smiled, but I didn’t really feel like it. Too much had happened, none of it good, since I had last slept. My wounded body was stretched, and aching and sore. My spirits weren’t too good, either. I had killed a man just a few hours earlier. Admittedly, it had been him or me, but still….
So I wasn’t in a celebratory mood. I would rather have been going home to my cottage at Risky Point, in Cleveland, than to a mouldering old dump in north Northumberland. That was how I felt just then.
Several of Leon’s staff were in occupation at The Chesters, as I learned the house was called. They seemed to be a sort of advance guard, there to protect and help Olga, as well as to look after the property. One man seemed to be the specialist renovation man. Others were perhaps security guards, labourers, general dogsbodies. Men who were trusted, anyway, and part of Team Podolsky. They were a quiet, friendly bunch, and seemed pleased to see us return. I could get along with them, I soon decided.
The part of the house that was habitable was actually quite comfortable, probably because the original owners had lived in it themselves until very recently. Then Leon had made them an offer that had caused them to drop whatever it was they had been doing, grab the money and flee – no doubt to somewhere warm and dry, where the wine was inexpensive, and where olives and oranges grew on trees. No doubt they had had enough of living in penury in a stately home that had seen far better days. Not everyone can afford to keep an ancient pile in the condition it deserves, and that English Heritage require.
Olga herself showed me to a bedroom, and then asked if I was hungry.
‘Tell you what, Olga. I’m going to get some sleep, and then in an hour or two’s time – say about eight o’clock – how about we have breakfast together?’
‘You’re tired,’ she said, nodding appreciatively.
‘And so must you be. Let’s both get some sleep before we talk or eat. OK?’
‘That’s very wise, Frank.’
I didn’t know about wise, but it seemed a sensible thing to do. It was also about all I was capable of doing anyway.
Far too soon, I woke to the sound of the wind rattling the big sash window in my room. It sounded like a noisy little storm was approaching. I lay still and listened for a couple of minutes, luxuriating in the warmth and softness of the bed, and with no inclination at all to bring my time in it to an end. I could have done with a lot more sleep.
This wouldn’t do, I decided reluctantly, having glanced at my watch. Just about eight already. I pushed the quilt aside and got myself upright. There was a bathroom a couple of doors along the corridor from my room. So I collected a towel and cautiously opened the door, ready to see if a hot shower was a possibility.
As soon as I got into the corridor, I realized that everyone else was probably up and about already. I could hear happy, comforting sounds from the kitchen. People were rattling pots and laughing indecently loud at such an hour. I was in danger of missing out on whatever was going on.
I frowned and decided there wasn’t time for a shower. A splashed face would have to do for now. Anything more than that could wait until I’d found some clean clothes. The ones I was wearing looked as if they had been stolen from corpses on a battlefield.
‘Here you are, Frank!’ Olga exclaimed. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘For two hours, yes, thank you.’
I stared at her. She was suspiciously fresh and relaxed looking. ‘How do you do it, Olga? You’ve had no more sleep than me, and just look at you!’
She shrugged. ‘It was enough. I am too excited to sleep anyway. I can’t wait to get started with our project. This old house has waited so long for someone like me to come along.’
I had to smile. Her enthusiasm and good spirits were infectious.
‘For now, Frank, Petr is our cook. What would you like for breakfast?’
I settled for scrambled eggs, toast and coffee. Petr, who spoke a little English, was happy to oblige. In fact, he seemed happy to have another customer. Perhaps cooking was the best part of his day.
As I tucked in, Andrei, another of the Russians arrived. This one was the architectural expert. He spoke excellent English, and admitted to having earned professional qualifications in London. We spoke briefly. Then he dragged Olga away to look at some plans and drawings. He seemed to have been around for a while, no doubt nursing the project along until a Podolsky arrived on the scene.
I met two other resident Russians. They seemed to be there to operate as general help, which designation no doubt included a security brief. One, Dag, had been our driver to and from the airport. Milan I hadn’t seen before. They both looked fit and capable men. No doubt, they wouldn’t have been there otherwise.
Leon must have had a word with them about me, because they seemed to accept implicitly that I was their boss when it came to security. They nodded gravely when I told them to continue doing what they had been doing until now, and that I would speak to them again when I had had a look around and decided
what else needed to be done.
That done, and breakfast out of the way, I took myself off on a tour of the house and grounds. I needed to see what I had let myself in for. I suspected strongly that it would turn out to be more than I had realized when I accepted the job. The Podolsky world, I had come to understand, was like that: complicated.
Chapter Nineteen
IT HAD ONCE BEEN an imposing house, The Chesters. Horse-drawn carriages ferrying wealthy and important people would have raced up the gravel drive, and come to a halt on the gravelled circle in front of the impressive entrance. Liveried servants would have rushed out to greet the new arrivals and usher them indoors to the warmth of the great hall, where a log fire would have been blazing halfway up the chimney. Furs and hats, and full-length coats, would have been shed and warming drinks served. (Mulled wine, perhaps?) Then they would have been whisked away to the many rooms in the vast stone edifice that had defied Northumbrian winters for the best part of 1,000 years.
It wasn’t like that now. When I first inspected it, the house had a roof still to cover most of the main section and one of the two wings, and the walls were upstanding. Some of the windows had glass in them, too. But the good news stopped right there.
Apart from the wing we were using, much of the interior had deteriorated to such an extent that the house was pretty well a ruin. Ceilings had collapsed, staircases come away from walls, floors had buckled, and doors sagged on broken hinges. Overall, the building was damp, decidedly wet even, in places, and it smelled of mould and decay. It was really depressing.
Only the west wing, where we were installed, was at least partly habitable. The rooms I had seen there so far were fine, to be fair, but they numbered a mere dozen or so. The house’s other ninety-odd rooms had long ago been abandoned.
Having made a quick overall tour, I stood in the disused main entrance hall and considered what I had learned and seen. I wondered what Leon had paid for the place – and why he had. What on earth was he doing here? Was it a bolthole, some sort of safe refuge for if, or when, things got too hot for the Podolsky clan in Europe? I recalled him suggesting as much to Lenka at one point.