Two paramedics carrying a backboard and wearing large red backpacks entered the room. They opened their packs, prepared their equipment, took over from me. I slumped back next to the bed, watched as they intubated her - pushing a long plastic tube into her mouth and down her throat. While one ventilated her, squeezing air and oxygen into her lungs with a bag and mask, the other inserted a drip and attached electrodes to monitor her heart.
When they were finished I helped lift her onto the backboard, cover her nakedness with a blanket, secured her to the board. They carried her out to the lift and down to the waiting ambulance. I walked next to her, holding her hand, talking to her constantly, telling her how much I loved her, urging her to hang on. She must have heard because she stayed with me, stayed in the world.
I persuaded the paramedics to allow me to ride in the ambulance. We pushed through the midday traffic. The siren wailed mournfully.
When we arrived at the hospital they wouldn’t let me stay with her. They left me alone in the waiting room: waiting. There were others there too, faces lined with worry, also waiting. A doctor emerged through pale green swing doors. I could tell by his face and from the way he walked that he carried bad news. My heart stopped.
But he didn’t come to me. He stopped next to a bent old woman, placed a consoling hand on her shoulder. She knew. She didn’t look up. Her body began to shake, grief consumed her.
I was relieved that the pain was hers and not mine. Better her loved one than mine. Better anyone than Martina.
My turn came not long after. I couldn’t tell from the doctor’s face if it was good news or bad. He spoke good English, explained that she had been poisoned.
Then he told me that she would live. That was all I needed to hear. He was trying to explain that they did not know what poison it was or how it had been administered, that they would investigate, that it would take days – perhaps weeks. But I wasn’t listening, all I could think was that she would live, she would live…
Some time later (I don’t remember how long) they escorted me through to see her. She had been moved to a ward with seven other women. It was visiting hour and quiet little knots of people gathered around the other beds. Martina lay pale and alone in a bed next to the door. She was breathing. A monitor next to the bed played the music of her heart.
I pulled up a chair, sat down next to her, held her hand. Her eyes fluttered open; she looked at me, squeezed my hand. I cried. She lay quietly, not saying anything, her eyes closed most of the time. Now and then they flickered open and she looked at me. My presence seemed to reassure her; each time she smiled weakly and then closed her eyes again.
When I was satisfied that she was going to be okay, I began trying to work out what had happened.
The doctor mentioned poison; but what poison? Was it food poisoning from the French Restaurant? But then if it was, she would have been vomiting. Didn’t food poison make you vomit? We had drinks in the casino. Did someone spike her drink? But then why hers and not mine? That didn’t make sense. The shooting… That couldn’t have anything to do with it… Or could it?
I ran through the events of the evening, concentrating on the unusual. The man watching us from across the road, the shooting in the casino, the footsteps we’d heard behind us, the old man: the blind beggar. His stick had scratched Martina. He’d behaved strangely, thrashing about with his stick, nearly hitting me. There was something bothering me about that beggar, something that had been gnawing at me since. And suddenly I knew what it was. I’d bumped into him, been as close as I ever want to be – closer – and there hadn’t been any smell. The tramps in the square are normally enveloped in a zone of acrid body odour. He wasn’t a tramp at all, probably wasn’t blind either.
A possible scenario began forming in my mind. It was all part of the same thing. What if the gunman had been doing a reconnaissance, followed us from the restaurant to the casino, become impatient, checked to see if we were there; perhaps he was supposed to signal when we were leaving? Zdeněk had spotted the gun and the operation had started to go wrong for them.
Our sudden departure had further messed up their plans. The person waiting outside was unprepared and had followed us – the footfalls. He and the man from the casino were the muscle. The blind man was the doer. They knew that at that time of night we would take a cab - and the nearest taxi rank was on Václavské náměstí. So he waited around the corner for us. There’d been no one to warn him. We had surprised him. Was the stick tipped with poison? Was it meant for me?
I remembered a story about a Bulgarian émigré being murdered in London in the seventies, he had been shot in the leg by an ‘umbrella gun.’ The small pellet used contained ricin. He died.
Martina was going to make it, but I had to be sure that she could not be got at again, had to send her somewhere safe.
Visiting hours ended and the other families went home. The staff asked me to leave, told me to come back the following morning. I refused; made a fuss. Eventually they moved her to a private ward and I was allowed to stay.
I spent that night in a chair next to her bed, hardly slept; I was scared that if I stopped watching her for a moment she might stop breathing.
I was in that ethereal twilight zone between wakefulness and dream when my phone rang. It startled me. The first rays of sun were just beginning to peek into the room. ‘Hello?’
‘Meet me at the Astronomical Clock at twelve o’clock.’ And the line went dead. It was Jahangir. The ball was rolling again; but I couldn’t just leave Martina. I needed protection for her in the hospital and still had to find a safe place for her when she was released. I thought of calling Radka, asking her to help, but rejected that idea immediately; it would just put her in danger too. In the end I decided to ask Zdeněk. With his connections he would be able to look after her.
I called him, explained my problem. An hour later two dangerous looking Kosovars arrived, introduced themselves as Daijko and Isuf. They convinced me to leave Martina with them. I felt sorry for anyone picking a fight with those two; they looked like the sort of guys that could peel the bark off a tree with their bare hands. Martina would be as safe as she could be with them looking after her.
She was awake when I left her, but still very weak. I kissed her, told her I loved her and then went to find Jahangir.
Chapter 31
I needed to shower and get out of my smeggy clothes. The hospital was in Prague 5, near the airport. I had time to kill, so I took a taxi back to the hotel.
I was hoping to get to my room without being seen by the staff. No such luck. The hotel manager saw me waiting at the lift. He was one of those obsequious toadies that gravitate towards the profession. He made my skin crawl.
‘Mister Wayne!’ the concern oozed from him. ‘I hear about last night. Your wife is well?’
There was something about the way he said the word ‘wife’ that made me want to punch him on the nose. ‘She’s not my wife; and she is recovering. Thank you.’ The last words were wrung from me. I was struggling to stay polite.
I didn’t want to hang around in the foyer while there were dodgy Russians about trying to kill me so when the lift doors opened I slipped through them, selected my floor and firmly pressed the button to close them again. The oily manager was bowing at the time and almost caught his head between the closing doors.
Checking in as John Wayne hadn’t fooled anyone. It wouldn’t be long before the airwaves were broadcasting my position to whoever paid enough for the information. It was time to move on.
The room had been made up. All our laundry was neatly laid out on the bed. I quickly stripped, showered, shaved, dressed in clean clothes for the first time in days. It felt good.
I packed only the essentials into the Louis Vuitton, got the money from the safe, stuffed that in there too. I shoved the rest of our kit into the other suitcases and dragged it all downstairs to check out.
I paid cash and left our suitcases at the porter’s desk, saying I would collect them lat
er. They’re probably still there.
I didn’t have any idea where I was going. I had to avoid contact with all my friends, couldn’t stay with any of them. I needed to find a small pension where they didn’t ask too many questions and make sure I was not followed on the way there.
The manager was hovering in the foyer. I avoided him, headed for the door. It was still freezing outside. I was wearing a heavy jacket, had Martina’s Louis V slung over my left shoulder; my right hand in my pocket gripped the Bulldog. I avoided the taxis parked outside. If someone wanted me, then setting me up with a taxi in front of the hotel would be the easiest way of getting me. I ignored the touting drivers and set off on foot.
I walked away from the Old Town, trying to take the least obvious route, looking out for blind men with sharp sticks. I struggled up Na Poříčí against the flow of pedestrians. The bag was like a magnet for taxi drivers; they pulled up next to me, trying to entice me. I blanked them. After about two hundred metres I turned left into Biskupská, fought up the narrow pavement. Another two hundred meters brought me to a small square overshadowed by a Gothic Cathedral. It wasn’t far from my flat. There was a taxi parked outside the cathedral. It looked like it had been there for a while. It couldn’t possibly have followed me.
I opened the door, startling the sleeping driver. I asked him for a good place to stay.
He took me to a small pension on Smetanovo nábřeží, meters away from Charles Bridge. Martina would be disappointed that she was not with me. It was a tenth the price of the Marriott and they checked me in under the name Pavel Kalik without batting an eye – the John Wayne was spur of the moment and really stupid: it attracted attention.
The room had sharply sloping walls, exposed rafters: an attic. It was small, sparse; an iron double bedstead took up most of the space. A small desk and chair completed the furniture. The room was brightly painted, clean and had some of the best views in the city. (That is if you didn’t mind standing on the chair to see them.)
The high window overlooked the Vltava, Charles Bridge and Hradčany Castle on the other side of the river. But I didn’t have time for the view. My watch told me that I had less than fifteen minutes to get to the Astronomical Clock. Fortunately it wasn’t far away. My shower had gone to waste. I sniff-checked my armpits; after lugging the bag through the city and up the three flights of stairs to my room, they smelled like a bricklayer’s crotch. There wasn’t time for another shower; Jahangir would just have to suck it in.
Although I was in a hurry, I watched the street below for a few minutes before leaving the room. There was the usual midday bustle: no lurkers or loiterers. I stuffed the money into the voluminous pockets of the jacket, leaving just the one pocket for the Bulldog. I looked like I was wearing a fat suit, but I couldn’t leave the money in the room – it might not be there when I returned. There wasn’t much room for the revolver; I would not be able to get it out in a hurry. But it wasn’t do and die. If I saw any bad guys I was planning to run like hell.
The street outside the pension was quiet. The crowds swelled as I approached the old Gothic tower guarding Charles Bridge. The bridge is the epicentre of the city’s tourist onslaught. Saintly statues line its walls, presiding over the painters and postcard salesmen that satiate the tourists’ need for mementoes.
I headed away from the bridge, up Karlova, towards the Old Town Square. Winter hadn’t dulled the tourists’ enthusiasm. I was a salmon swimming up the rapids, fighting the torrent that threatened to push me all the way back to the bridge. The narrow road didn’t help.
A glance at my watch told me that I had eight minutes to go before midday. I put my head down, hunched my shoulders and fought the crowd. I bumped into a few people, received oaths and grunts of surprise in a rainbow of languages in return. Most saw my intent and moved out of the way, making a path for me.
I reached the astronomical clock just as Death pulled the chord to signal the hour. I instinctively looked up as the apostles’ procession began, caught myself, looked around for Jahangir.
I saw him immediately. He was dressed to blend in: a guidebook in one hand and a camera slung around his neck. Amidst the throng of Japanese shutterbugs, all burning pixels at the speed of light, he just stood there staring at the procession of statues, his camera hanging limply from his neck. Perhaps the solemn line of Christian apostles had spooked him because he nearly wet his pants when I grabbed his shoulder.
He calmed down when he recognised me. I didn’t want to hang around there. I knew that I hadn’t been followed, but he might have been. We couldn’t stay pressed in the middle of a crowd where it would be easy for someone to slip a blade between my ribs without being seen.
I gripped an elbow and led him away from the clock. When we were free of the crowd I let him go and guided him to Kamenný stůl, a restaurant on one side of the square. Outside stood a solitary stone table and bench that nobody had the strength to move. We sat facing the square with the protection of a solid wall behind us.
We brushed the snow from the chairs, sat down. It didn’t take long to get a Kozel for me and a glass of water for Jahangir.
I noticed for the first time that he was carrying a small folder. He put it on the table between us. He didn’t waste time with pleasantries.
‘My people are very happy with the work you have done for us.’
‘Good.’ I wasn’t planning to give anything away.
‘We have need of the uranium urgently. We have recently encountered problems with our usual supplier.’
I raised my eyebrows, said nothing, forced him to continue.
‘Do you have a source for uranium?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘Africa.’ I couldn’t afford to be more specific.
‘Not Niger?’ He looked alarmed.
‘No. Not Niger.’
He relaxed, pushed the folder across the table to me. ‘The specifications are there. It is nothing unusual, just standard yellowcake. When can you deliver?’
‘It depends how much you need, when you need it and how much you’re prepared to pay.’
‘We need it immediately of course. Because of the interruption in the supply, manufacturing is delayed. An initial amount of five-hundred tons is required with a possible order for more later.’
Five hundred tons! That sounded like a shipload. ‘Transport could pose problems.’
‘We will take care of that. All you have to do is deliver it to the nearest airport.’
I nodded. ‘How much are you offering?’
‘The current market price is twenty-one thousand dollars a ton. We are prepared to pay up to forty; but the first delivery must take place within one week.’
I looked at my watch. Stupid I know, but the urgency took me by surprise. I made a show of looking at the date. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem.’ I should have been a politician: making promises I probably couldn’t keep without any knowledge of the complexity of the task.
‘Good.’ He pushed the folder across to me and stood. ‘Call me when you are ready for the first delivery.’
Jahangir walked off across the square in the direction of the Astronomical Clock. I watched him go; I hadn’t finished my beer yet. I also wanted to see if he was followed. He wasn’t, so I looked around the square, searching for anyone taking an undue interest in me. The group of Japanese were moving towards me like a Roman tortoise, pointing their cameras in all directions, snapping everything that moved and most things that didn’t.
Something about them wasn’t right. I watched them carefully for a while, trying to work out what it was that bothered me.
I eventually sussed the problem: there was an odd one out - a square peg. The group was aware of him, knew that he was an outsider, but were too polite to tell him to piss off. I watched him carefully. He was the only one without a camera, didn’t look Japanese either. He was oriental, but his hair was different, his face a bit rounder, his nose flatter. He saw that I had spotted him, kept stealing
furtive glances in my direction.
I finished the beer, picked up the folder, left some crowns under the glass and set off for the hospital.
As I cut back towards Železná I saw out of the corner of my eye that Tojo - or Tolstoy or whatever his name was - had broken away from the group, angling towards me.
Chapter 32
I walked as fast as I could without breaking into a run. I guessed that he knew I’d sussed him. But I wanted to draw him out – see if there were others. Železná was free of the normal tourist crush so I could maintain a brisk pace. My tail would have to run to catch me and I guessed that he wouldn’t want to give himself away by doing that.
I also figured that he wouldn’t start a gunfight in public. I guessed wrong. Bloody Russians: no finesse. At least he was using a silencer. I felt rather than heard the bullet hiss past me, saw the puff of stone fragments as it struck the wall ahead.
For a moment I was dumbstruck. I turned. He was in the middle of the alley, one arm behind him; the other was stretched out towards me - punctuated by a pistol. He was standing there like a shottist on the range. He looked so ridiculous, so unthreatening, that the people passing by ignored him, probably taking him for a street performer or some random nutter. They were right about that. The gun recoiled and another shot hissed past. For all his appearance of being a marksman, he was a crap shot.
Fight or flee? There was still a long way to go to the end of the alley. Even with his crap shooting he might get lucky, hit me before I could find cover.
I ducked down and left, put myself against the wall: a small target. As I went down I drew the Bulldog, cocked and held it in front of me in both hands. He didn’t have time to get in another shot. I squeezed the trigger the moment he appeared in the sights.
That got everyone’s attention. My gun wasn’t silenced – you can’t silence a revolver no matter what anyone tells you. The short barrel makes it even louder. Through the orange bloom of the muzzle flash I saw three people in the alley drop to the pavement. One of them was the shooter.
Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller Page 15