by RJ Bailey
I grunted. Saban had given me decent stuff all right, but leverage was only worthwhile if you lived to use it.
I was looking down at the rusty skeleton of a bus nestled among the spindly spruce on the slope below us – always a reassuring sight when driving mountain passes – when a real, live one came barrelling around the bend in the middle of the road. It honked a horn so loud it might have been signalling Armageddon was on the way, and it almost was. I swerved, but the Dacia decided I hadn’t swerved enough. I lost grip and we clipped the cliff face to my right. The side panel gave a squeal of protest as I scored a gouge in the rock, and then, with a final punch of air, the bus was past us and carried on up the mountain road.
‘We’re not going to get that deposit back at this rate,’ said Freddie, as I managed to pull us away from the cliff edge. I felt the snag in my shoulder from a damaged muscle or tendon, but ignored it.
A six-hundred-Euro deposit was the least of my worries.
‘Look, I’m sorry I’ve got you into this. You still think someone told them I was here?’ Adam asked.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. The stringer you were waiting for is still the best bet.’
Freddie threw me a glance that suggested she disagreed. She thought the answer was closer to Adam’s home. Someone wanted him out of the way.
The Sayonara Syndrome.
Unlike Freddie, I was never certain that was true of Captain Dawson. The marriage to the widow of the man he sent out to be blown up by an IED didn’t prove the captain was putting the lieutenant in harm’s way. But then, human nature – and lust – was pretty unpredictable at the best of times. I just didn’t buy it in this case.
Adam’s phone pinged.
I hoped he had the Seventh Cavalry on speed dial but somehow doubted it.
‘Voicemail. Hold on.’
I was still negotiating a long series of switchbacks that had taken us around the sides of the mountain and down towards the valley below. I could see part of the road we had already traversed above us, the bus that had nearly sideswiped the Dacia climbing at stillindecent speed and, just passing it on the way down, a black four-door saloon.
‘They might not be waiting for us down below,’ I said.
Adam sounded distracted. ‘Great. Hold on, I’ll just listen to this.’
Freddie knew I wasn’t talking to Adam. She followed the direction of my gaze, and probably caught a flash of dark paint before it disappeared from our view. She shifted in her seat, as if ungluing herself from it. ‘You could be right.’
I looked in the mirror. Adam was sitting up, holding his phone to his ear, his face furrowed in concentration as he tried to hear the message. ‘Adam, get down,’ I said.
‘It’s Kath.’
Phone addiction. It’ll kill you. I knew it still hadn’t got through to him just what danger he was in. Correction: we were in.
Status: glowing red-hot.
‘Adam, for fuck’s sake. It’ll wait. Get your fuckin’ head down.’
Freddie swivelled. ‘This is what we do, remember? Do as she says.’
He gave a petulant huff and slid down behind the screen of cement. I now had a half-decent view out of the rear window, enough to see that the saloon, as it rounded the bend immediately behind us, was one of the bigger-model Peugeots. I could hear the smooth, low growl of its engine over the bag-of-nails rattle of ours. I pressed the accelerator, knowing I couldn’t outrun him. Or her. But this was Albania; him was a good guess. I couldn’t keep my eyes on the mirror long enough to ID who was in the car, not now that the Dacia was acting like a toboggan on sheet ice, slithering into the bends and rolling so much it felt like we’d be up on two wheels at any moment.
I was right on the edge, in more ways than one.
‘Two of them,’ said Freddie, who had twisted to take a look. ‘Two blokes.’
The Peugeot’s horn blared – not as loud as the bus’s, but in three impatient bursts. I risked another few millimetres on the pedal, pulling away by a couple of extra yards. My hands were gripping the wheel hard now. I’d have to do some serious steering if I lost it on any of the shallow curves I could see ahead.
‘Impatient driver or persons of interest?’ I asked.
The shattering of the rear window into ice crystals answered my question.
I heard Adam shout in alarm as he was showered with fragments of glass. I reckoned it was just shock, but asked, ‘You OK?’
‘They’re shooting at us.’
I couldn’t quite figure out whether that was a question or not. But the quiver in his voice told me that something about our predicament had finally got through his thick skull.
‘Ya reckon?’ Freddie offered as she clambered into the back, over the cement sacks and into the well we had created in the rear. I heard a thump, like the sound of a glove on a punch bag. A gritty dust filled the cabin of the car as the bags puffed out their contents through the bullet holes.
‘Not AKs, then,’ said Freddie, with something akin to relief. Me, I think any old bullet can kill you if the shooter gets lucky, but she meant they weren’t penetrating our defensive shield.
I checked my wing mirror and the car weaved into view. The Peugeot’s passenger was leaning out of his side window holding something small, which we both knew wouldn’t have the penetrating power of an AK, but, if it had an automatic selection, could still spray us with bullets. On our side was the fact that I was a slippery target – not all of which was deliberate – and that aiming one of those Skorpions or Uzis, even while stationary, is no easy option. He could waste a whole magazine before he got a bead on us.
‘Brake.’
I didn’t need to be asked twice. I stomped. The Dacia fishtailed as we took the bend and slowed dramatically. The Peugeot didn’t have much time to react and was almost at our bumper when Freddie shouted: ‘Ears.’
I got a finger in my right ear before she discharged the shotgun. In my mirror, I watched the windscreen of the Peugeot turn opaque and the car dance across the road. Its tyres bounced over the stones that marked the road edge and, for a second, I hoped it would flip, but already the driver had punched a jagged hole in the screen and he recovered nicely.
Bastard.
‘Incoming!’ Freddie yelled, and then I felt as much as heard rounds sparking off the rear door. There was a clunk as the metal was pierced. More dust rose and I heard Adam coughing.
I watched as the sole of a boot stomped at the Peugeot’s damaged windscreen repeatedly until it peeled away and spun backwards. It twisted through the air and into the valley, glinting as it cartwheeled down to the trees.
Christ, now they could fire straight through the space where the windscreen had been, which would make for far more accurate fire than leaning out of the door. Freddie clearly thought the same thing, as she said: ‘Oops.’
I began to yank the wheel back and forth, setting up an oscillation that was at the very brink of the car’s stability.
‘Ears!’ Freddie fired three quick rounds from the Beretta before it jammed. ‘Fuck.’
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
The road was opening out as we reached the last section of the hairpin. Ahead of us, it entered a long straight section where the cliff, now more of a low bluff, and the road edge, were hundreds of metres apart. It’s not the place I would have chosen for a roadblock – too wide – but they had made a good fist of it. They had positioned two big white vans facing each other about three metres apart and then a number of what were probably concrete- or water-filled barrels to take care of any gaps in the blockade that I might try to drive through. There was no way I could force my way past without totalling our vehicle.
‘Hold on!’ I yanked the Dacia to the right and spun it, and this time it really did lift onto two wheels. As it thumped back down, I put it in reverse and drove us back towards what was left of the diminished cliff face where I had spotted a fissure or crevice – an indentation, anyway. As I approached, I realised it was larger than
I had first thought and I pulled on the wheel so that the car, now parked sideways, blocked the entrance. It was the closest I could get to circling the wagons.
‘Out! Out!’
I went through the passenger door as Freddie and Adam came out of the back over the cement sacks. Freddie tossed me the pistol.
I pulled the slide back. The chamber was empty. But it had been a full mag and she had only fired three shots.
I could hear Pavol’s voice in my head: Misfeed! You know what to do. I hoped I remembered correctly. I slammed the palm of my left hand into the base of the butt, then racked the slide back to its full extent in the smoothest movement I could manage with shaking hands.
I felt the round chamber: sticky bullets, bad spring – who knew? I took a breath and shook my head. My ears were whistling from the gunshots.
I gave Freddie and Adam a quick once-over. Adam looked like he had aged three decades, but that might have been because he was covered in grey cement dust. Freddie was similarly coated, but she just looked pissed off that someone had spoiled her top.
Her eyes told a different story, though. She knew we were not in a good place.
This might be where it ends.
I stifled that voice and peeked over the bonnet. The Peugeot had stopped some way short of the barricade. The two men had exited from it and were walking towards another group of four – the ones who had set up the roadblock.
The Peugeot guys were unharmed by the looks of it.
Damn.
The passenger had the Skorpion pistol held in his right hand; the other had a hefty-looking handgun. The roadblock men were carrying an assortment of shotguns and rifles, one of which looked like an Armalite. Not an AK, perhaps, but trouble all the same.
The two parties met up, shook hands and slapped backs, as if they were long-lost friends meeting for a drink. We barely merited a glance as they jabbered and gesticulated. But then they knew we weren’t going anywhere. The indent in the cliff was a dead end. And if we tried to climb . . . well, that would count as sport to these guys.
Now, finally, they all turned towards us. They carried on talking and it was clear they were discussing what to do about us. I aimed down the barrel of the pistol, knowing they were too far away for me to able to count on even one of the three bullets finding a target.
Fifty metres was the claimed effective range, but that was in the hands of someone at the top of their game. Truth be told, I was rusty with a handgun at anything other than close range.
‘I can’t do anything with this thing from here,’ said Freddie, echoing my thoughts as she popped her head up next to mine. She meant the shotgun. ‘I was hoping it was loaded for bear, but I think I got bunnies. That windscreen didn’t cave the way I’d hoped.’
I became aware of our ad hoc Principal breathing down my neck. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Adam,’ I instructed. ‘Sit behind that tyre with your back to it, crouched down, arms over your head.’
‘I can’t do that,’ he protested. ‘Not with you up here.’
‘Don’t give me that wounded male pride bullshit again. Get over there.’
I yelled the last part as the first of the bullets snapped over my head and hit the cliff. Rock fragments rained down and I crouched behind the front wheel, with the engine block between me and the fusillade. Another batch, from the Armalite by the sound of it, sprayed the bodywork, sparking across the metal and shattering glass. The Dacia rocked and twitched under the impact.
Freddie was right. We wouldn’t be getting our six hundred Euros back.
‘You OK?’ I asked Freddie.
She inclined her head to one side and raised her eyebrows. I translated it as: Yeah, I’m stuck in a dead end behind a piece of shit car about to be murdered by Albanians with big guns. What’s not to like?
I felt a wobble, a surge of panic, and I closed my eyes for a second. I pushed the tide away. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ I said. ‘Even if you aren’t so keen.’
‘All things considered—’
She never finished the sentence. The wall behind us was disappearing under a layer of dust as stray rounds pulverised the stone. I felt something sharp and hot sting my cheek. I didn’t have to poke my head up to know what was happening. They were walking towards us, line abreast, firing just enough to keep us cowed.
As the unfortunate Dacia disintegrated into iron filings along one side, I reckoned the situation couldn’t be much worse.
That’s when the AKs opened up.
EIGHT
I called Colonel d’Arcy from the airside at Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza, once I was sure we were going to get on the plane.
That’s never a given when you’ve left six dead bodies on a mountain.
Well, we didn’t actually kill them, but we did act as the magnet that brought them to the spot where the men standing above us with AKs could mow them down, like skittles all in a row. Those guys up there on the bluff must have realised where the roadblock would be and taken advantage of our situation to improvise a little score-settling of their own.
Our saviours didn’t say anything to us. The three men from the café were there; the ones I thought might be the Sigurimi. I doubted that now. They waved their smoking barrels from their vantage point, indicating we should get out of there.
They allowed us to take one of the vans – the Dacia now only good for use as a pepper pot – and drive off. We had been caught in the crossfire of a turf war between the black car/white van guys who wanted Adam and a group who didn’t care about us, just wanted to take out their rivals. Whatever the truth of the matter, I certainly didn’t want to hang around while the victors wondered whether it was wise to let three witnesses leave the scene of the crime. Especially as we didn’t know whether this incident was a case of good guys vs bad guys, or, the more likely scenario, bad guys vs more bad guys.
‘Colonel?’ I asked when someone picked up without identifying themselves. ‘It’s Sam, Sam Wylde.’
‘Sam,’ he said in his strange pan-European accent. ‘Where are you?’
‘Albania.’
‘Albania? I’m hearing some strange things coming out of Albania. Anything to do with you, Sam?’
The old bastard was still able to pull rabbits out of the hat. How did he know there had been trouble? ‘It’s possible. But why would you care? I thought you’d retired.’
‘My hearing is still good, though.’ He gave his dry-leaves-rustling laugh. ‘Can’t turn that off.’
Colonel d’Arcy had been at the epicentre of the personal protection racket in Europe for decades. He trained me in the basics, sent me to Slovakia to get firearms training from Pavol and found me my early assignments looking after pop stars and princesses.
He had given me a job when I needed one to fund my search for Jess. It wasn’t his fault that the latter went sour. It was his son’s. And when that son took a leap/was pushed off a high building – delete as you think most likely: even the cops couldn’t decide – the Colonel jacked it all in. But I knew he still kept those jug-handle ears of his close to the ground.
‘Nothing to see here, Colonel. Move along.’
Another chortle. ‘I miss you, Sam. Miss all of you; my boys and girls.’ It wasn’t like the Colonel to be sentimental. All he cared about was whether the wind was going to blow him some hard cash. Maybe retirement had made him soft. That or losing a son, I added to myself with a pang of guilt.
‘You can always go back into the game,’ I said. ‘Pick up where you left off.’ Even at one hundred and fifty, or however old the man was. Maybe you had to count the wrinkles on his face, like the rings on a tree, to be certain of his age. It would take quite a while.
‘I can’t go back, Sam. Sold all my files and contacts to someone forty years younger.’
‘What, some pensioner?’
‘Don’t be cheeky.’
I looked across the cramped waiting area in front of the airport gates. Adam was on his feet, shaking hands with Fr
eddie. We had all cleaned up at the Tirana International Hotel, which wasn’t fussy enough to object to three apparent tin miners fresh off shift, still covered in tailings, asking for a day room and directions to the nearest clothes shops. From the room, I had called Hertz to report the Dacia stolen. They weren’t happy. I suspected I’d be hearing a lot more from them.
‘You sold all your files?’ I asked, surprised. Shame, because they might have been useful to me.
‘Most of them. I hung on to a few.’ This was good. It meant he’d kept those most valuable; the ones he felt someone forty years his junior didn’t deserve.
Adam was heading for me. I made various hand signals that tried to convey: Just wait. I won’t be long. He pointed to the Departures display and the flashing ‘boarding’ sign next to his flight to London and did his own hand-dance to convey I’d better be quick.
Could I trust this man at the other end of the phone? I ran through my options and came to the conclusion that I had no choice. I took a breath. ‘Colonel, I need to know how I can get a police document saying I reported a vehicle stolen, dated yesterday.’ As well as bodyguards and information, the Colonel once offered a comprehensive service in fine forgeries.
‘Stolen where?’
‘A town called Pulana here in Albania.’ It was a jumble of buildings we had driven through after the ambush, so small it couldn’t afford the one horse that would put it on the map. But I didn’t want anyone to trace us to that mountain if I could help it. The story had to be it was stolen and then, unbeknown to us, used as a shield in a gun battle between rival trafficking gangs. It was almost the truth.
‘Send me the full details. Same email as ever. I’ll see what I can do. No promises.’
‘Of course not.’ But I could sense a little frisson in his voice, like an old racehorse being taken out on the gallops one more time, just to stretch its legs.
‘And?’
I stepped away out of Adam’s earshot and gabbled what I had in mind. There was silence on the line and for a second I thought he had hung up on me. ‘Colonel?’
‘I can send you a scenario or two for that.’