by Chris Ryan
'Bridge is a far superior game to chess, naturally,' said Ivan. 'People think of chess as an intellectual sport. They're wrong. You need to be good at maths, and have a lot of processing power, but that's about it. Not much in the way of guile, or cunning, or assessing your opponent. No emotional intelligence. That's why computers are good at chess.'
'Bridge?' snorted Orlena. 'A game for grannies. And for a few greasy Arabs.' She started walking more quickly down the street. 'Chess is the greatest intellectual pursuit man has ever devised. What was it Pascal once said? "Chess is the gymnasium of the mind." '
'No, no,' said Ivan, laughing. 'Chess is just chequers, with better PR. The only really great mind in chess was the 1920s world champion José Raúl Capablanca. "In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame." That was his great saying.' He turned towards Matt, his tone turning sly. 'Study the endgame. Good advice, don't you think?'
'Are we ever going to get a drink?' asked Matt.
Orlena looked at him. 'First we settle the argument, then we drink.'
Great, thought Matt. Stuck with a chess fanatic and a bridge fanatic. And Ivan seems to be getting pretty close to Orlena – too close, maybe, despite his misgivings. Looks like a fun time ahead.
Matram looked down at the body. Ben Weston was curled up like a baby, with his arms neatly folded around his chest, and his feet tucked up to his body. A thin line of blood stretched down from the incision cut carefully into his throat, but a scarf had been tightly tied around his neck to staunch the bleeding as much as possible, and his eyes had been closed. He looked at rest.
'A good kill,' he said, looking up towards Turnton and Snaddon.
Both soldiers remained silent. Matram always taught his assassins to say as little as possible, but he could see from their faces they were pleased with the compliment. He drove the Increment hard, and never hesitated to hand out punishments: always when they were merited, sometimes when they weren't, just to remind everyone who was the boss. Every man and woman in the unit had felt the force of his fist against their skin at some point during their tour of duty. Each of them had been threatened with a dishonourable discharge from the regiment. He had told them he would break their careers. But, when it was deserved, he liked to congratulate them on a job well done.
Soldiers are like dogs, Matram sometimes reflected. You have to punish them hard, but it doesn't hurt to praise them occasionally as well. The tougher the punishment, the more they appreciate the praise.
He reached down, holding the wrist of the corpse, just to make sure there was no pulse there. Then he shut the boot of the car. 'Packington landfill site, in Warwickshire, just south of Birmingham,' he said. 'You are to take the body there, and dump it.' He handed them two sheets of paper. 'These are Department of Environment passes. They get you through the guards at the site. They'll think you're there to check for methane emissions. They'll keep out of your way, and you just need to go down to the main dump and chuck the body in.'
Turnton and Snaddon took the passes, tucking them into their jacket pockets.
'Packington is the biggest landfill site in Europe,' continued Matram. 'Nobody will ever find a body there.'
'Who's next?' asked Turnton.
'Something more challenging, maybe?' said Snaddon, her hard green eyes shining brightly. 'These kills are practically civilians. There's nothing to get our teeth into.'
'Don't worry,' said Matram softly. 'I'll have some harder game for you to track down in the next few days.'
The mobile rang six times before Matt answered it. He rolled over in bed and picked up the Nokia. He glanced down at the Caller ID screen. Nothing. It didn't work in the Ukraine. No way of telling whether it was Gill finally calling or not.
'Matt, I'm sorry, I hope it's not too late there.'
He recognised the tone. Urgent, sometimes tearful, always tense.
'Eleanor.'
He sat up in bed, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. They'd only been out for a couple of hours, hitting one bar for a beer, then grabbing a pizza at Vesuvio Pizza on Vulitsya Reytarska, one of the new American-style restaurants that had opened in the city in the past few years. Beer, food, and then bed. That would be the routine until they could get this mission behind them.
'Yes,' she replied. 'It's just that I couldn't think who else to call.'
'What's happened?'
'There's been another one.'
Matt rubbed the back of his palm across his forehead. Another one? Somehow he knew he didn't need to ask another what. 'Tell me about it.'
There was a pause on the line, enough time for Matt to form a picture of her in his mind. Sitting by the phone, alone, maybe in a dim light, with her hair tied up around her head, and that intense, determined expression written into the skin on her face. For a moment Matt wished he could be there next to her, able to reach out and put a comforting arm around her shoulders.
'A man called Simon Turnbull, down in Esher in Surrey,' she started, her voice gaining in strength as the sentences progressed. 'A year or so out of the forces. A paratrooper. He'd drifted from job to job since he got out, never settling down to anything, living in bedsits and hostels. He was working at Burger King, he'd been there about a month. He arrived at work yesterday morning, same as usual, worked for about an hour, then lost it.'
'What did he do?' asked Matt.
'Took one of the giant vats of fat they use to fry the chips in, and started throwing it over the staff and customers, causing horrible burns. He killed three people, including a child. Then he stood in the centre of the restaurant, poured the rest of the fat over himself and set himself alight.'
We flame-griddle our burgers, thought Matt, stopping himself from saying it when he realised how inappropriate the joke was.
'He went up like a bomb. Caused more damage, and badly injured one of the chefs. By the time they put the fire out, he was burnt to a cinder.'
'That makes four then,' said Matt. 'First two, then Ken, then this guy.'
'In a month, Matt,' said Eleanor, stressing the words. 'All ex-soldiers, all gone crazy.'
'Any link between Turnbull and the other guys?'
'I've got no idea, but I shouldn't think so. Burger King are playing down the whole incident. No surprise there. But so are the local police, apparently. The only reason it came through to the register of psychological incidents is because some of the families of the victims are being treated for post-traumatic stress.'
Matt looked around the room. It was completely silent, and outside the window he could just see the dim glow of a street lamp. 'Another soldier goes crazy, and nobody wants to investigate.'
'It's scary, Matt.'
'I'm going to ask around. If these are the four we know about, then, well, there may be more of them out there.' He put the phone down, then checked his watch. Almost one a.m., they had an early start in the morning. He rolled over and closed his eyes. He would try to sleep, but he knew that it would be tough. Too much was happening for his mind to switch itself off.
I can't see how the pieces fit together.
NINE
Sergei Malenkov was a broad man, with thick shoulders and a short, closely cropped beard that covered his chin and his neck. He was wearing dark canvas trousers and a long grey sweater, and was carrying a small black bag slung over his shoulder.
In the last twenty-four hours, Matt had noticed the streets were full of them. Hard, strong-looking men, drifting around the town, desperately poor, looking for any kind of work they could sign up for. You needed some weapons, you just had to ask.
Kiev was the crime world's car-boot sale.
More like a sailor than a soldier, reflected Matt as he shook the man by the hand. His skin had the tanned, deep grooves of someone who has spent years facing the winds and rains of the ocean, and his eyes had the brightness of a man who has spent a lot of his life peering out into the murky, foggy expanses of the sea.
'SAS,' he said, looking sharply at Matt.
Matt nodded. '
Ten years.'
'And your friend,' he said, glancing towards Ivan.
'A different kind of regiment,' answered Ivan. 'Republican Army, Ireland. I specialised in explosives.'
'And you?' said Matt.
He looked hard at the man, waiting for the answer. I'm going to put my life in this man's hands. He better know how to handle himself.
Malenkov looked towards Orlena, then back at Matt. 'Soviet Navy, then the Ukrainian Navy after the break-up. Marine amphibious assault units. I served for twenty years. My main posting was on board the Hetman Petro Sahaydachny. That's the flagship of the Ukrainian Navy. You probably haven't heard of the Cossack Hetman. He was the man who liberated the Ukraine in the seventeenth century. Our national hero.'
Orlena sat down, gesturing to the rest of them to take their seats. They were meeting in the apartment, at just after eight in the morning. Ivan put a jug of coffee between them. 'Sergei has been out of the navy for two years,' she said. 'Now he helps to provide security for Western companies investing in the region. Tell him what you need, he'll supply it.'
'Men and kit. Just give me the list,' said Malenkov, a broad grin on his face. 'The men will be cheap, and the weapons expensive, that's the way it is out here.'
'We've only seen some pictures from the sky,' said Matt.
'The surveillance plane tells you everything you need to know,' said Orlena sharply. 'We can plan the mission from that.'
Matt looked upwards, meeting her eyes. 'And how many jobs have you been on, exactly?'
A frosty expression descended on Orlena's face. 'Can we just get on with this?'
'I'll tell you what we're going to do,' answered Matt, controlling the irritation in his voice. 'I want Sergei here to come with me and Ivan, and I want to get up there and take a look at the factory. We don't attack anything until we've had a good hard look at it.'
He glanced sideways, first to Ivan, then to Malenkov. 'Right?'
Both men nodded.
'We can get the plane back,' said Orlena. 'It can be arranged for later today if necessary. Just speak to the pilot. He'll get any photographs you want, any angle.'
'Nice idea,' said Ivan. 'A spotter plane swooping across the factory all afternoon. That's not going to alert anyone, is it?'
Matt tapped the side of his left eyeball. 'There's only one type of surveillance you need for this job. It's called going to have a bloody look. And we're going to do it tomorrow.'
At one a.m., alone in the small bedroom, Matt pressed the end-call button, killing the line. He paused, taking a sip of water before making the next call. Then he punched in the number. Right now, this was just like any military job. A lot of hanging around waiting for the action to start.
Four calls so far, yielding precisely nothing. Nobody knows anything.
'Keith there?' he said into the phone as soon as it was answered.
'Maybe,' replied a man with a West Country accent. 'Who's calling?'
'Matt. Matt Browning.'
In the distance, he could hear the man shouting, phone, phone. Keith Picton was an ex-regiment sergeant, now in his fifties, who ran an Outward Bound centre near Barnstaple in north Devon. Lots of ex-forces guys drifted through the place: there was always work there for fit young men who knew how to teach rock climbing or kayaking to a bunch of marketing executives from Staines. Picton took them all in, gave them somewhere to kip down, some food to eat, and paid them only a bit less than the minimum wage for the work. It was hard to tell sometimes if he was running a business, or a charity for old soldiers temporarily at a loose end. Doesn't matter, everyone agreed: he was a diamond, no matter how rough his manner, and everyone knew and respected him.
He's better plugged into the network than any man I know.
'Browning, you old bastard,' said Picton. 'What the hell are you up to now?'
'Same old stuff.'
'Really?' said Picton. 'I heard you were Mr Easy out in Marbella. Big pay day from some dodgy-sounding job for the Firm, nice place by the sea, gorgeous totty hanging off your arm, and about to ruin the whole marvellous thing by getting married to your childhood sweetheart.'
Even though I haven't spoken to him in more than a year he knows everything about me.
'Well, you know how it is, Keith. Roll the dice, and you go up a ladder. Roll it again, you go down a snake.'
'Right. How can I help?'
Matt was hoping this, his fifth call, would reveal something. He'd started out with a couple of the private security firms that operated out of London: they were always hiring guys out of the army, and had a good feel for what was going on. Nothing. Next he'd tried a friend who worked in recruitment, helping forces men find new jobs. He tried Bob Crowden, his first sergeant when he signed up more than a decade ago, and a man who kept in touch with all the men who'd passed through his barracks. Nothing there either.
So far as anyone knew, nothing suspicious was happening to ex-army men anywhere.
'I was just wondering if you'd heard anything, Keith,' started Matt. 'Stories about soldiers going crazy, injuring themselves or other people. Do you think there could be any connection? Anything out of the ordinary?'
'Like what?' Picton replied, eventually. 'A bloke running out on his family, or quitting his job, or getting into a fight after a skinful? Can you be more specific?'
'No, just acting weird. And violent.'
Another pause. 'Nothing that I've heard of,' said Picton, sounding more definite. 'Tell you what, I'll ask around some of the lads in the centre. We hear anything, we'll let you know.'
'Thanks.'
'What's it about, Matt? Why do you want to know?'
'Just chasing down a theory for a friend,' said Matt. 'If you hear something, call me.'
'You ready?' shouted Orlena from down the hallway. 'The car's here.'
Matt slipped the phone into his pocket.
Nobody knows anything, he reflected as he slung his kitbag over his shoulder. But maybe that's because there's nothing to know.
The Land Rover must have been two decades old. One of the old models, Matt noted, back from when it was a military vehicle adapted for farmers, not a yuppie-mobile, running the kids to school and back. The paint looked as if it had been retouched a hundred times, with no thought for its appearance: it had turned the car into a patchwork of dark blues, greens, blacks, with the occasional dash of silver streaked along the underside to cover up spots of rust.
'British car,' said Malenkov approvingly. He slapped the bonnet as if he were patting a favourite horse. 'If you think the Ukrainian roads are bad, wait until you see Belorussia.' A laugh peeled out of his throat. 'You'll get a smoother ride in a washing machine.'
'You take the passenger seat,' said Matt, looking towards Orlena. 'Ivan and I can kip down in the back. We're used to it.'
He tossed his kitbag into the back of the car, and climbed aboard. There were no seats in the back, just an old mattress slung down on the metal surface. It was a long drive, and he knew he would have to make himself as comfortable as possible. Matt put his bag at the top of the mattress, lying down flat on his back, with his head resting on his kit. At his side, he could see Ivan doing the same.
'Funny smell,' said Matt, sitting up.
'Poppies,' said Ivan. 'I think they grow them in southern Ukraine, down near the Black Sea coast, around Odessa. Then process them into heroin. I reckon our friend Mr Malenkov is into lots of different businesses.'