by Chris Ryan
She took Matt by the arm, and started steering him towards the platform. The crowds were thinning out, and Matt could see the security guards starting to pack away their equipment for the night.
'Christ,' said Matt. 'Where are we going?'
'Paris, of course,' answered Orlena.
Matt hesitated. 'The last train left ten minutes ago.'
Orlena looked at him and smiled. 'Lacrierre has his own train, stupid. He doesn't travel by public transport.'
He followed Orlena as she skipped through the one remaining security checkpoint, handed his passport to emigration, and followed her towards Platform 21. 'I've heard of private jets, but not a private train,' said Matt. 'Apart from the Queen's.'
'Why not?' said Orlena with a shrug. 'Eduardo likes to get back to Paris at least once a week. This is the best way for him to travel. Quick and safe.'
The train was waiting for them. Orlena had her own pass, and a key that unlocked the security doors. One Alsthom-built engine, with just two carriages attached, it looked just like a normal international train, only much shorter. His own Eurostar, reflected Matt as he climbed on board. You had to hand it to the guy. He knew how to live.
Lacrierre looked down at the picture. Even from the air, it was clear that the devastation was total. The factory had been burnt to the ground, its structure reduced to a few charred remnants. The other building had been shot to pieces. By the time this picture was taken – at least twenty-four hours after they'd hit the place, Matt judged – someone had been in to clean it up. But it was going to be a long time before they could start manufacturing anything there again.
'There,' said Matt. 'Job done.'
They were in Lacrierre's private carriage. The first carriage contained a kitchen, plus a range of office equipment: a pair of satellite phones, two computers, a Bloomberg terminal to keep him in touch with the financial markets, and a range of fax and copier machines. There were seats for two security guards, and one secretary: enough hired muscle to reassure, but not enough to look threatening. The second carriage was fitted out for Lacrierre himself, with long black leather sofas along the walls, soft lighting, a hi-fi and television.
It suddenly dawned on Matt that the train had started to move forwards. 'What the fuck's happening?' he said.
'We're going on a little trip,' said Lacrierre coldly.
'Let me off now,' shouted Matt.
'Calm down, Matt,' interrupted Orlena. 'We're going to Paris. I bought you a toothbrush.'
'Stop the fucking train!' said Matt, but he knew it was hopeless. He would have to roll with it, for the time being at least.
Right now, they had a prime view of Balham, Matt noticed as the train trundled its way through south London towards the new high-speed link starting halfway through Kent.
In the last thirty-six hours, they had driven back across the border to Kiev, grabbed a few hours sleep, said farewell to Malenkov, then headed straight for the airport. There was no BA flight to London, so they caught the LOT flight to Warsaw, then connected there on to a plane into Heathrow. Ivan had been paid £20,000 in cash by Orlena, and gone back to his family. Matt and Orlena had been summoned to a debriefing.
Lacrierre looked up and smiled triumphantly. The carriage had little furniture, but there were some military prints on the wall and two swords were hanging at the top of the compartment. Both, Matt judged from the fine steelwork around the blades, were the delicately curved sabres carried by Napoleon's Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde, the Imperial Guard that followed him everywhere.
'Did they fight well?'
'Not well enough, obviously,' said Matt quickly.
A stewardess stepped through from the kitchen – a striking blonde, almost as beautiful as the girls in his office – and placed a teapot and biscuits down on the table in front of them. Lacrierre poured tea for Matt and Orlena, and took a bottle of Volvic water for himself. 'A man can die while fighting well, don't you think?' he said. 'It depends on whether the dice roll for or against him.'
'There's no glory in death,' said Matt. 'You've been a soldier, you should know that.'
Lacrierre said nothing. Matt stirred a sugar lump into the delicate china cup, and took a sip of the tea. 'Anyway,' he continued, 'it doesn't matter. The job's done, the factory destroyed. They aren't going to bother you any more.'
Lacrierre leant forward. 'Not quite,' he said softly. 'Think of it like a hive of ants. You can crush all the ants you want to, but unless you deal with the hive, then they just crawl back out again.' He paused, looking directly at Matt. 'I need you to get the hive.'
'The factory's finished,' said Matt. 'That's what I signed up for, and the job's done.'
Lacrierre stood up. He walked towards the window, glancing out on to the passing lawns. From the desk, he removed a single sheet of paper, then walked back across the carriage and laid it down in front of Matt.
'His name is Serik Leshko.'
Matt looked at the picture. It was a single, closely cropped snapshot printed out in black and white. The man was around forty, thin with black hair, and big round but dark eyes. His nose was probably broken, and his jaws were swollen and puffy.
'He is a Belorussian businessman,' continued Lacrierre. 'An old KGB hack, now working for himself in the private sector. He is the man who built the factory, and has been counterfeiting our drugs. We can blow up his factory, but maybe he will just build another one.' Lacrierre shrugged. 'So we blow up the man.' He sat down again, looking across at Orlena, the glimmer of a smile on his face. 'Like I said, crush the hive.'
'I've completed my mission,' said Matt quickly. 'The job's done. Over.'
Lacrierre unscrewed the bottle of Volvic, poured some into a glass and took a sip. 'From Paris you will go back to Minsk,' he continued. 'He should have been at the factory, but unfortunately he wasn't. So now you will go back and kill him. And then your work will be done.'
'It is done,' snapped Matt. 'Three words, one syllable each. Something hard to understand about that?'
Lacrierre looked back at him, puzzled, then amused. 'Your job was to wipe out all traces of the formulas for these counterfeits, so these people will never trouble us again. That means there's still work to do.'
'No,' said Matt, his voice rising. 'I've told you, the Firm leant on me to do this job, and I've done it. No more.'
'Then your Firm will just have to lean on you again,' continued Lacrierre. 'I'll tell you what Napoleon once said: "Victory belongs to the man who perseveres." Well, we want you to persevere until our enemy is completely crushed.'
'Napoleon ended up a prisoner of the English,' said Matt. Then he glanced across at Orlena. 'Unless I fell asleep in my history classes.'
He looked out of the window. He could see the train moving swiftly through Ashford as it approached the Channel Tunnel. Damn you, he thought. If I could jump from this train without killing myself, I would.
'Anyway,' said Lacrierre. 'It will give you a chance to spend more time with Orlena. You two have become such good friends.'
The wind was blowing in hard from the sea, taking some of the edge off the fierce midday sun. Matram sat on the stone sea wall, and slotted his shades down over his eyes. There were a few people along the main road running down into Plymouth Harbour, but the boiling temperatures had persuaded even English tourists to stay inside. It had just hit thirty-eight degrees centigrade, the hottest day ever recorded in Britain, and the heatwave was forecast to last for another fortnight.
Simon Clipper and Frank Trench had just parked the Renault Mégane across the street, and were walk towards him. Both men were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, with shades pulled down over their eyes. To the casual observer, they were just tourists looking for somewhere to have lunch.
'What's the job?' said Clipper, sitting down on the wall next to Matram.
Matram took a can of Coke, pulling it open. 'Two men this time,' he replied. 'A pair of guys called Bob Davidson and Andy Cooper, both local boys. They fish. They've got a little bo
at in the harbour here. This summer they've been going out in the evening because it's so hot.'
'We get them on the boat?' asked Trench.
Matram nodded. 'That's right. I've arranged a dinghy to take us out. I'll be in charge of the boat, you two need to get into the water, then sink them.'
'Can we use any explosives?' asked Clipper.
'Better not,' said Matram. 'We should be quite far out, so there shouldn't be anyone around. But sound travels a long way at sea. An explosion could easily be heard for miles.'
Matram finished the Coke in one swig, crushing the can between his fists. 'Better to drown them, then scuttle the boat. That way they'll never be found, and even if they are it will look like an accident.'
Matt looked out across the Gare du Nord. It was early evening, and the station was streaming with traffic. Backpackers and students were pouring off the last Eurostar of the day, looking for cheap places to stay. Businessmen were rushing through for the last trains out to Brussels and Cologne.
He cupped the phone close to his ear. 'You do this, old fruit, and then even the encores are over,' said Abbott. 'Trust me. You can get straight back to serving sangria and chips out on the Costa del Crime.'
Just the sound of the man's voice was grating on Matt's nerves: every time he had to speak to him, ripples of annoyance ran down his spine. Lacrierre had dropped them at the station, and Orlena was standing a few yards away. The tickets from Charles de Gaulle airport were already in her hands.
'One hit, another hit,' said Matt angrily. 'I need to know how I can get your claws out of my back.'
'I'm telling you,' repeated Abbott. 'This one, then it's over. I've spoken to Lacrierre. He likes you. He likes the way the factory was taken down, and he just needs someone he can rely on to take out the guy who's organising it. Then it's done. Problem solved.'
Matt took a sip on the coffee he'd bought at the station. 'What's Lacrierre got on you?'
'As soon as you get a chance, check your accounts.'
'Which one?'
'The current account, Matt.' Abbott paused. 'The others are still blocked. It's like magic, you see, old fruit. Matt's a good boy, the account opens. Matt's a bad boy, the account closes.'
'I get my own money back, and I'm supposed to be grateful?'
'That one's just a gesture of goodwill. Get back out east and do the hit, and the rest will be open as well. Like I said, the slate will be wiped clean.'
Matt buried his face in his hand. There was always some trouble somewhere, and the Firm always needed men to sort it out for them. It was just as Ivan had said it would be.
'One more hit, Matt,' repeated Abbott. 'What difference can it make to a man with as much blood on his hands as you?'
Matt leant into the phone. 'Where's Gill? I haven't heard from her . . .'
'The sexy playgroup leader?' he said, a giggle playing on his lips. 'Buggered if I know, old fruit. Probably shagging the waiter back at the Last Strumpet.'
Matt paused. 'It's not like her to be out of contact for so long,' he said. 'I want to know if the Firm have anything to do with that.'
'Do the hit, old fruit,' he said. 'Then you can sort out your love life. It's called prioritising. I can lend you a book on it, if you like.'
Matt was about to respond: the fury was building in his chest, searching around for the words to express it. But the mobile had already gone dead in his hand. Orlena slipped her arms around his waist, pointing towards the taxi rank. 'Come on,' she said softly. 'It's time to go.'
Matram could feel the dinghy swaying beneath him. The breeze had dropped since midday, but it was still gusting strongly through the English Channel, whipping up foam on the top of the waves.
The old pirates along the Devon and Cornish coast had the right idea. At sea nobody can see you kill a man.
They had been on the water for almost an hour now, and Matram figured they were about a mile off the coast. Earlier in the day, he had fitted a small electronic tracker to the bottom of the target's boat. It was transmitting a signal up to a GPS satellite, and that was transmitting its precise location back down to him.
We can watch it as if it were right in front of our eyes.
'Another five minutes to impact,' he shouted across the stern of the boat. 'Ready yourselves.'
Clipper and Trench were both kitted out with wetsuits, with only their blacked-up faces visible. On to their backs they had strapped oxygen canisters, and they had flippers on their feet. Both of them had two thick steel hunting knives strapped to their belts, but otherwise they were unarmed. They were sitting calmly at the prow of the boat, looking out to sea as the vessel rocked through the waves.
The moonlight was glancing across the ocean, lighting up the path ahead. No clouds were cluttering up the sky, and Matram judged they would have good visibility for the rest of the night.
He looked down at the GPS display, adjusting the engine to the right to shift the direction of the dinghy. They would take the boat to within a kilometre of the target, then kill the engine.
Matram put a pair of Bushnell 20 × 50 high-powered surveillance binoculars to his eyes. They were designed for birdwatchers, but with a twentyfold magnification, and a thousand-metre range, he found them better than any of the kit the regiment issued. Adjusting the focus, he could see the boat drifting across the horizon. Two men were sitting on its deck, their lines cast out into the water. Like ducks, he thought. Waiting to get shot at.
Turning round, Matram killed the engine. 'Go,' he whispered.
Clipper and Trench broke through the surface of the waves with hardly a ripple, then disappeared below the water. As he watched them disappear, Matram checked his watch. Fifteen minutes past midnight. Within ten minutes both men should be dead.
He rested the binoculars on his lap, looking out into the water. To the naked eye, the boat was just a speck on the surface of the water. It could easily be a trick of the light. I can see them, but they can't see me.
Putting the Bushnell back up to his eyes, Matram counted down the moments. It was the minute before an assault he enjoyed the most. He could feel the anticipation pricking his skin, and the excitement brought out a gentle sweat on his forehead.
You could taste it a thousand times, but every assassination had its own special flavour.
A shadow broke through the surface of the water. Even at this distance, he could see the boat rock and sway as Clipper and Trench punched through the water, and scrambled on board. He increased the magnification, but at this distance it was impossible to make out much of the detail. He could see one of the men standing, and then another bending over, clutching his stomach in agony as a knife plunged into his stomach. The second man jumped backwards, losing his footing, crashing down to the bottom of the boat. Matram could see a knife slashing down at him. Within a minute, the scene had fallen quiet again. Then he could see weights being strapped to the two corpses as they were tossed into the waves. Next, he could see the boat list from side to side, as Clipper and Trench started to cut away at its side, shipping water into its hull.
A burial at sea, reflected Matram as he watched the boat disappear beneath the waves. They were soldiers once. They should be grateful for the death we have delivered them.
FOURTEEN
Malenkov looked at him suspiciously, rubbing his hand into the stubble on his chin. 'The last time I worked with you, my son died,' he said. 'And now you think I should do it again?'
Matt leant across the table. They were back in the apartment in Kiev, having arrived on the flight from Charles de Gaulle less than two hours ago. 'I can't give you a single good reason. If I were you, I wouldn't do it either.' He glanced across to Orlena. 'But she'll give you a lot of money.'