Outlaw, page 26
‘Some things are more important than trophies,’ he replied, and he followed his assistant away, back towards the hotel proper.
Grace saw another face she recognised in there, waiting for Da Silvio to join him – a cold-eyed man with a neatly trimmed beard and granite features.
‘Listen up. The Russian’s here,’ she whispered, tapping her earring. ‘Both our boys are on the move.’
*
‘There.’
Malte pointed over the steering wheel with his index finger, and Marc looked out across the Hunter’s bonnet.
‘Targets acquired,’ Marc reported, pressing his mike pickup. ‘Glovkonin and Da Silvio entering vehicles at the front entrance of the Marine Luxe. Two cars, black BMWs, one in each.’
‘Low on the shocks,’ noted the Finn, pointing out the stance of both vehicles close to the road. An obvious sign that the BMWs had internal armour plating and bulletproof windows.
‘We’re going to tail them, not intercept them,’ Marc noted. ‘Well, hopefully not,’ he added.
In the Hunter’s boot sat a bag of gear and weapons, but nothing that would have much impact on vehicles rated for combat zones.
‘Overwatch copies,’ said Kara. ‘Marc, be advised, I have minimal tracking beyond this immediate area.’
‘We’ll manage,’ he replied, as Malte started up the 4 × 4. Marc threw a glance back at the race line on the far side of the marina. ‘Lucy? Be careful out there.’
‘Just a walk in the park,’ she replied, her voice pitched up over the rumble of the powerboat’s engines. ‘Don’t go picking any fights without me to cover your ass.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind . . .’
The first BMW, carrying Da Silvio and his assistant, pulled away from the kerb. Marc saw someone open the door of the second car so Glovkonin could climb inside.
Saito.
‘Well now,’ said Marc, thinking aloud. ‘How’s this going to shake out?’
Malte gave him a quizzical look.
‘You know the drill,’ he told the other man. ‘Drive casual.’
The Finn grunted and they set off, easing into the sparse traffic.
*
A spidery quadrotor drone floated over the water, ahead of the prows of the powerboats on the starting line. A trio of bright indicator lights beneath it illuminated one by one.
One red.
Two reds.
Lucy kept her eyes on the horizon, the drone at the edge of her vision. She tightened her hand around the throttle bar and pressed herself into the racer’s acceleration chair, feeling the four-point harness around her body cinched in good and tight. Her pulse rumbled in her ears and, despite the situation, her lip twisted in a crooked smirk. She wasn’t supposed to be enjoying this, but she was.
Three reds.
Three greens.
Go!
She resisted the urge to red-line the throttle off the mark, and instead applied steady forward pressure, accelerating evenly.
But the boat had other ideas. Number 7 rocketed off the line like a top fuel dragster, much faster than she’d expected, and Lucy’s gut clenched as she felt the bow lift off the water.
‘Whoa, easy, boy,’ she told it, drawing back on the power before she went too far. Too fast, too soon, and the boat’s leading edge would rise away from the wave tops and catch air.
The sleek hull was the love child of a jet fighter and a speedboat, and given enough freedom it would make a bid to get airborne. If that happened, Lucy’s ride would flip up and stall, coming back down inverted. If the impact didn’t crack it open like an egg and kill her with the shock trauma, it would hold her upside down as the cockpit filled with seawater.
‘How hard can it be?’ she said aloud, mocking her earlier statement.
‘Say again?’
She could barely register Kara’s voice over the growl of the outboard.
‘Disregard,’ Lucy replied.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a crimson mass moving past out to starboard and she chanced a glance in its direction. The Da Silvio Ingegneria boat took the lead, and from Lucy’s perspective, less than half the vessel’s hull actually touched the water, the rest of it skimming just centimetres over the waves.
The red and black boat hummed past, a shimmering vertical fin of white spray trailing behind it as the racers settled into a rough cluster. Up ahead, Lucy spotted the orange inflatable cylinder that marked the location of the first turn. In her rear-view, she could see the other boats positioning themselves, and she pictured the course in her mind’s eye. Lucy and number 7 were already well outside the optimum point for the perfect race line, but that was okay. She aimed to stay in the middle of the pack, not to get the gold.
The first turn was deceptively smooth, but still Lucy lost speed as she took it too wide, allowing the Akula-X and Riverine Tech boats to thunder by. Easing the steering yoke over, she felt number 7 shudder as it skipped across their wakes. Out through the water-streaked canopy, the Da Silvio boat became a blurry dot, busy jockeying for position with Koastwell’s vessel for the race lead.
The next turn was a hard 4 g hook, and it shoved Lucy back and forth against the restraints as they shot by the crowd-line beneath the Olympic stadium. She found herself among the trailing boats – a second in Da Silvio crimson and three more that jostled each other, deliberately cutting back and forth as the straightaways took them out of sight of the spectators.
Two of the other powerboats scraped hulls as they tried to pass one another, trading paint and chips of fibreglass, and Lucy gave them a wide berth. She’d been expecting something like the Indy 500 out here, but the aggressive way the drivers pushed their vessels made her wonder if it was more of an endurance race, with a little demolition derby thrown in for good measure.
She thought back to the rumours about the Veloce Cup’s slack attitude towards driver safety, chewing it over.
‘How are you doing out there?’ said Kara over the radio, a note of genuine concern in her voice. ‘We’ll lose line of sight in a few seconds.’
‘Walk in the park,’ Lucy repeated, as much for herself as for the other woman.
*
The airport was close to the race site, so the journey was a short one.
Saito sat in the back of the BMW at Glovkonin’s side, while his bodyguards sat up front. The Russian’s attention remained on the Italian’s car ahead of them, and he had not picked up on the 4 × 4 tailing them from three vehicles back.
He couldn’t see who was in the vehicle, but he didn’t need to. Solomon’s people were good, but they didn’t have the resources to mount the sort of multi-car team required to run a seamless, undetectable follow.
Saito should have raised the alarm the moment he spotted any such possibility, but these were different days. He dwelled on the calls he had received from Rumiko, the most recent one coming just before the convoy left the hotel.
She was safe. She was free of the Combine.
A gargantuan, invisible weight slipped gently from Saito’s shoulders. He had been carrying it for so long – the dread and the guilt – that he had internalised it, until he no longer noticed the burden. Now it was gone, everything seemed strange and new.
He tamped down the mix of emotions rising in him. It would be foolish to pretend that his fear had completely gone, now that his daughter was beyond Glovkonin’s reach. Saito did not doubt that Ekko Solomon would do his best to keep his word – the man had honour – but there were other factors at play, other variables to contend with.
Until Glovkonin, Da Silvio and the other men who ran the Combine were neutralised, no one was truly safe.
The two cars left the highway and crossed into the airport grounds through a secondary entrance, away from the public terminal building and any prying eyes. Saito saw the 4 × 4 whip by, as if it were heading into the airport. It slowed, and he knew the men inside would be formulating a way to keep the convoy in sight.
‘At last,’ muttered Glovkonin, as the cars followed a service road across the main runway. The driver made for a series of low, wide hangars on the far side from the terminals, where commercial airliners lined up for flights to Moscow, Dubai and as far north as Murmansk. ‘Be ready,’ continued the Russian. ‘I want you prepared.’
Off that, the bodyguard called Gregor gave a quick nod and made a show of checking the CZ 75 pistol in his holster.
Saito did the same with his weapon, not because he needed to, but because the Russian expected it of him.
He studied the terrain as the cars angled towards the largest of the hangars. Close to the coastline, Sochi International Airport was constructed around two runways that crossed at their northern ends, forming a V shape. The primary landing strip faced directly towards the Black Sea, while the secondary followed the path of a river inlet. Nestled in the middle of the two runways, the hangar complex provided something approaching isolation – exactly what this transaction required.
In front of the hangar, a Gulfstream G500 executive jet sat waiting. Saito recognised the aircraft as one from G-Kor’s private fleet, in service to the energy conglomerate that was Pytor Glovkonin’s personal fiefdom. Behind it, inside the cavernous hangar, a twin-engine Boeing 777 cargo aircraft was parked with its loading bays open. Beneath its wings, loading teams worked at flatbed trucks, guiding angular containers to be ferried up and on board. Saito noted that the 777 had no identifying livery other than a red and black stripe down its fuselage, but the tail number gave away its origins: the code started with the letter ‘I’, indicating an Italian registration. The bigger jet had to belong to one of Da Silvio’s transportation concerns.
The BMWs drove around the loading operations to the rear of the hangar and halted beside a pair of Volga saloons, before which stood an unsmiling cohort of thuggish men in dark suits.
The cars halted and Saito was the first out, with Glovkonin’s security at his heels. The men around the cars gave the assassin a collective sneer of disdain, and one of them opened the saloon’s rear door.
A cloud of cigar smoke billowed out, and through it emerged the criminal known as the Salt Seller. His scowl remained unchanged.
‘They tell me I cannot smoke in here,’ said Chumak, addressing the grievance to anyone in earshot. ‘I could fucking buy this tin shack and smoke wherever I want.’
‘It is for safety.’ Glovkonin stepped out, keeping his tone level. ‘There is aviation fuel stored here. A single stray ember and . . .’ He spread his hands.
Chumak spat on the hangar floor, and then ground out the glowing tip of the pungent cigar in his palm.
Da Silvio and his assistant approached from the other vehicle. The Italian was dismayed by Chumak’s presence.
‘I wasn’t aware you would be here,’ he began. ‘I hope nothing is amiss.’
‘A lot of money changed hands for this thing,’ said Chumak, sniffing loudly. ‘I like to keep a close eye on deals like this.’
‘Of course.’
Da Silvio glanced at the Russian, and Saito saw the brief flash of irritation on his face. Rightly, he blamed Chumak’s presence on Glovkonin.
The Russian’s careful manipulation had brought the gangster to this exchange by making it a challenge to the other man. In Chumak’s violent world, he had to react. Failing to do so would look like an act of weakness to his subordinates. The posturing was so juvenile and pointless to Saito. He had seen it before, among the yakuza in the country of his birth. Men like the Salt Seller dressed up their brutality with words like ‘honour’, but those were just ways to legitimise their own lack of impulse control.
One of the 777’s ground crew spoke to Da Silvio’s assistant, and the woman relayed the details to her patron.
‘The advance gear for the race in New York has been fully loaded, signor, as per instructions. If we remain on schedule, the aircraft can depart within the next ninety minutes.’
‘You in a hurry?’ snapped Chumak.
The woman gave the criminal a brief, withering look.
‘A severe weather front is forecast to strike the east coast of the United States in the next twenty-four hours. If we delay take-off, the flight may be caught up in it.’
‘We can’t have that,’ Da Silvio said smoothly, and he made a show of looking around. ‘Where is the equipment we purchased?’
Chumak pulled up his cuff and peered at a huge gold watch clamped around his wrist.
‘Don’t piss yourself. It’ll be here soon, and then we can go on with our business.’
Every word he said to the Italian came out like a profanity, daring him to respond to it.
Da Silvio didn’t take the bait, but Saito could sense the tension in the hangar pulling tighter, and again he scanned the men arrayed around Chumak’s cars. They were armed – he could tell by the cuts of their baggy jackets – and their faces were uniformly expectant.
He knew exactly what Glovkonin intended this day’s outcome to be, but bitter experience told the assassin that dealings with men like Pavlo Chumak did not always follow the script set out for them.
Saito let his hand fall close to the CZ 75 holstered in the small of his back.
*
They lost vital minutes finding a space for the 4 × 4 in the airport’s parking structure, and Marc and Malte made it up by jogging across into the terminal, looking for all the world like two men late for their flight.
Marc had his daypack over one shoulder, the gear inside thudding against him as they ran. They slowed on the concourse, casting around for a way to bypass security and get after Glovkonin’s convoy.
‘Overwatch? Mobile two, you read me?’ Marc touched the throat mike under his collar.
‘Overwatch has good copy,’ said Kara. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Targets inside the airport perimeter.’
Through the open spaces of the terminal building, Marc could see out through the windowed facade and on to the runway. The hangar complex was visible on the far side, and he spotted the Gulfstream on the turning apron.
‘Do they have transport here?’
‘Confirmed,’ she replied. ‘G-Kor flew in a jet yesterday.’
‘I see it.’
Marc fell in after Malte, as the Finn indicated for him to follow, leading the other man towards a set of service doors.
‘I’ll check for flight plans,’ Kara offered. ‘If he is leaving today, they’ll have to log the departure.’
She didn’t have to specify that he meant Glovkonin.
‘Let me know what you find.’ Marc paused, then added another question. ‘How’s Lucy doing?’
‘Holding her own in seventh place,’ said the hacker. ‘Could be better.’
‘Right.’
Among the flat screen monitors showing departure and arrival times, there were a couple of screens set to local television channels, and on one Marc saw a helicopter’s-eye view of the unfolding powerboat race. Of the green Horizon Integral boat, there was no sign.
Marc began to wonder how they were going to get airside without raising any alarms. For starters, the kit in his daypack would not get through security untouched, and both of the men were carrying firearms in their shoulder holsters. What ID documents Marc and Malte had were cursory snap covers, and they wouldn’t stand up to any serious examination.
He was running through possible angles of approach when Malte stepped up to the service doors as they opened. Two older women in staff uniforms, caught in the middle of an animated conversation, bustled through and nearly ran straight into the Finn. Malte made a performance out of stepping aside, gesturing after-you with one hand like some courtly gentleman, smiling widely and raising a suggestive eyebrow.
Marc had never seen that expression – or indeed, hardly any expression – on the taciturn ex-cop’s face in all the years he’d known him.
The two ladies shared a double take and then a dirty laugh, their gazes lingering on the rugged Finn as they passed on into the terminal. Neither of them noticed that Malte had caught the service door with the tip of his boot, stopping it from closing automatically.
Marc couldn’t read the Cyrillic characters on the door, but it was clear they were some variation on Authorised Staff Only. He knew the drill, though, and wandered in after Malte in a nonchalant fashion, as if this was something he did every day.
The moment the doors clicked shut behind them, they took in the corridor ahead and the nondescript rooms leading off it. Away from the shiny, well-maintained passenger areas of the terminal, the working sections of the complex were basic and scruffy. Marc found a vacant break room and searched the lockers along one wall.
‘Jackpot.’ Inside them were hazard vests in eye-searing orange, and Marc tossed one of them to Malte. ‘These are perfect camouflage. It’s the international uniform of the working stiff.’
Malte shrugged and donned his. With the vests over their dark, lightweight jackets, they could blend with anyone busy on the tarmac.
Staying clear of other airport staff, they made their way out on to the apron, beneath the angular jet-ways waiting to connect to arriving airliners. Marc strode over to the low-slung shape of a pushback tug, a battered ingot of white-painted metal on four fat truck tyres. Vehicles like it were used to tow aircraft around the complex, and they were ubiquitous enough that no one would question one driving along the airport perimeter.
Marc called on some old skills he’d learned growing up on a south London council estate, and hot-wired the tug’s simple ignition system. Soon they were rumbling along over the apron, past the helicopter pads and away from the terminal.
Malte used a pair of compact mil-spec binoculars to survey the cargo hangar across the runway.
‘They’re in there,’ he noted.
‘We can’t risk crossing over.’ Marc jutted his chin upwards as an outgoing Aeroflot departure shot past and left the tarmac in a howl of jet noise. ‘This is an active runway, and we’d be seen from the tower. They’ll be on to us in a hot second . . .’
He spotted a blockhouse close by and parked the tug alongside it, before scrambling out.
‘Stopping here?’
Malte gave him a wary look from the tug’s cab.
Marc didn’t answer, instead pulling a flat rig like a laptop computer from inside his daypack. He strapped it on around his torso so the rig hung horizontally in front of him. A screen flickered on and he pulled a hand-held control unit from a mount on the side. The unit had rudimentary controls and a tiny thumb-stick, little different from the sort found on a video game controller.
