Detonator (23 page)

They had him.

And now they were using him to get me.

Once that was done they would kill us both.

So I wasn’t about to settle down with a Starbucks and wait for them to call. And I wasn’t going to wander around the cathedral hoping that Natasha was playing happy families and the boy was telling her everything he knew about ERVs.

I had to strike first.

The security guard at the cash-and-carry tapped his watch as I came through the revolving door. I signalled that I wouldn’t need more than five. He gave me a smile and held up three fingers. At least it wasn’t two.

I had most of what I wanted from my earlier trip to the neighbouring DIY store, when I’d prepared for the possibility of having to lift Lyubova and take her somewhere quiet. Now I needed something more heavy-duty.

I finished my final shopping spree of the day at warp speed. Fifteen hundred metres of meat-packing-grade cling-film complete with metal wall mounting, a nice big mug and twenty-four 20cl bottles of Cherry Fanta on two shrink-wrapped trays.

I didn’t go for the cans. I needed as much precision as possible, and the bottles had a nice narrow neck. I didn’t take the
zuckerfrei
option either: I wanted this stuff to be as sticky and as fizzy as possible.

I had assumed I could get Lyubova to talk by securing her in my mobile fridge, opening up my clasp knife and threatening to give her some extra plastic surgery. Hesco was going to need a different approach. First I had to catch him. Then I had to get him to tell me where they were keeping Frank’s boy. And what the fuck he and Dijani were up to.

To celebrate barbecue season, they had a rack of bubble-wrapped openers, the kind you fasten to the wall beside the fridge, on special offer by the till. Just what I was looking for. I threw one into my trolley. I also bought a can of WD-40.

I packed the stuff into the front end of the Expert’s no longer refrigerated load space, then climbed in after it. Out came the screwdriver again. I mounted the cling-film holder and the bottle opener low down on the partition that separated it from the cab, making doubly sure they were both within easy reach of my right hand when I was kneeling. I put the degreaser and the Cherry Fanta packs underneath. I needed to be able to rip off those bottle tops with zero effort.

I padlocked all the other shit I’d bought, apart from the cloths and the mug, into the toolbox with my day sack. The only sharp objects I wanted around were the ones I had under my control. The last thing I did was give the handle, rollers and bearings of the sliding door a man-size spray of WD-40.

I checked the Nokia before turning the ignition key, even though there was no reason for there to be any further messages. It was forty-five minutes before the first deadline. I’d be within range of Adler HQ in twenty, as long as the traffic was no worse than it had been during my recce.

But I was still on a tight schedule.

I got to the multi-storey as the streetlights were sparking up. The Adler section on level three was less full than it had been last night, even though it was earlier in the evening.

The Maserati was parked nose out, its rear end against the wall overlooking the street, with a couple of spaces on either side of it. That suited me fine. It meant that if I drove straight in, my sliding door would be exactly where I wanted it – a metre behind his driver’s door. It also meant that the Expert blocked Hesco’s wagon from the CCTV camera.

I rested the Nokia on the ledge beneath the speedometer and rev counter and stayed where I was. The cab was high enough off the ground to let me see straight over the white-painted concrete parapet and into the offices across the way. From this distance I couldn’t see faces with the naked eye, so I brought out the binos and focused on each illuminated window in turn, right to left.

Most of the late staff seemed to be running around in neat business suits, with the odd jacket across the back of a chair if they were really hanging loose. I spotted a pair of security guards doing their rounds but couldn’t catch anyone built or dressed like Hesco. So what? It didn’t have to mean he wasn’t there.

If he’d binned the Maserati for the night, I would have to live with that and do whatever the next call told me to. From there, I’d wing it.

But I still had three advantages.

He’d think I was still in the Polo.

I knew what he looked like.

And I didn’t think he’d yet pinged me.

If he stuck with the Maserati, I’d have a fourth. It would confirm that he was a cocky fucker, and didn’t feel the need to stay out of sight.

I exited the cab and threw back the side door, taking the Nokia with me. I put the phone, face up, at the base of the partition and started to sort myself out.

First, I pulled the door almost all the way shut. It slid along its rails without a squeak. I moved my right eye up close to the two-centimetre gap and checked my field of vision. I could see the headrest of the Maserati’s driver’s seat, and, over its roof, the passageway that led to the lift. The stretch between the two was dead ground.

Leaving the Nokia where it was, I unrolled a metre and a half of cling-film, twisted it into a rope, then knotted it at both ends and a couple of times near the middle. I hung it on a hook to the left of the window that looked through to the front of the van.

Next, I ripped open the bag of disposable cloths and crumpled one into the mug. I poured some of the degreasing solvent over it and sealed the rim with another strip of cling-film. I peeled back the first few centimetres off the roll of gaffer tape. Then I gave each of the cable ties a vigorous tug to make sure they were secure. Lyubova would have been no pushover, but the Albanian was at least twice her size and would put up more of a fight.

The double-barbed staples were going nowhere.

The Nokia’s screen flashed on as I got out.
Unknown number.
I steadied my breathing and pressed the green button.

‘Yup?’

‘Be at the Stadtlounge in exactly two hours.’

‘The
what
?’

‘The City Lounge. Bleichestrasse. In the business centre. You can’t miss it, even at night. It’s red.’

‘I know it.’

I tried not to think of the expression on Stefan’s face as we’d passed the place yesterday evening.

‘Park in one of the spaces in the square. By the blocks. Do not get out of the car.’

‘Put the boy on. I need to know he’s alive.’

He cut the connection.

Hesco had the leverage and he knew it. He had me by the bollocks and could squeeze as much as he wanted. Fair one. I’d have cut the connection too. I wasn’t being ordered to the City Lounge for a kiss and a cuddle. They weren’t just going to hand over the kid and tell us to go and have a nice holiday somewhere warm. They were going to kill us both.

I moved to the parapet. Keeping close to the pillar, I looked across the street. I didn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes before the main entrance of the Adler building swung open. A familiar figure came down the steps and out on to the pavement. He stopped and glanced at his watch. Probably counting down the minutes until I turned up at the lounge.

For a moment I thought Hesco might be waiting for reinforcements. I hoped not. But I’d deal with it if it happened. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be picking up Stefan in full view of Adler HQ.

He clamped a cigarette between his lips. Lit it. Took a couple of drags. Then he walked five paces up the street, away from the entrance to the multi-storey, and took a couple more. Finally he launched what was left of it into the gutter and headed in my direction.

I climbed back into the Expert’s load space, eased the side door into position then reached up and turned off the light. I adjusted the Sphinx in my waistband, flexed my shoulder muscles and controlled my breathing.

I unpeeled the seal on the mug and left it within close reach.

I unhooked the cling-film rope and gripped an end in each hand.

I heard the lift open, then footsteps. A figure appeared at the mouth of the passageway. Thin. Bearded.

Not Hesco.

He turned left and out of sight. A key fob cheeped. An engine fired up. A set of headlamps swept towards me. Then screeched to a halt. Judging by the height of them, they didn’t belong to something low and sleek. They belonged to a chunky 4x4.

This wasn’t good. The wagon completely blocked my line of sight. A Land Cruiser or a Shogun, judging by the silhouette.

If he stayed where he was, I wouldn’t spot my target until he was breathing my oxygen. And my whole performance would be floodlit.

And if he was the guy Hesco had been waiting for, I was comprehensively fucked. There was no way I could exit the Expert without being seen.

He stayed where he was for another three minutes, then took off at speed. But that was all it took for Hesco to come in under the radar. I heard the squeak of boots. A shadow fell across the gap between my door and the frame.

There was another electronic chirrup, and I saw the Maserati boot open. A chunky set of shoulders moved past. Dark, tightly curled hair. An arm. A hand, carrying a suitcase. I shoved back the door and threw the cling film over his head like a skipping rope and heaved it back as my feet touched the ground.

He didn’t only have one case. He had two. A smaller one in his right hand. He dropped them both and raised his fists.

When you’re being garrotted, your natural instinct is to try to get both sets of fingers between your throat and whatever is about to stop you breathing. Hesco didn’t do that. Only his left hand went for the cling-film. He tried to destroy one of my ribs with his right elbow, then swivelled, brought his arm up and, gripping the ignition key like a bayonet, did his best to bury the metal shank in my ear, my eye, my carotid, whatever – he didn’t much care.

I turned with him, keeping him close, fending off more elbow action with my upper arm and getting another loop around his neck. He didn’t just look like a Hesco barrier, he felt like one too. He’d been filled with sand. He was carrying some surplus weight, but there was no give.

I leant back into the Expert’s load space, tightened the noose and clenched both knotted ends of it in my left hand. While Hesco was flailing, trying to win the gravity battle, my arse was firmly on the lip of the plywood floor, my knees bent, the soles of my Timberlands flat on the ground. I heard a clink as his key hit the concrete and my free hand found the ether-soaked cloth, whipped it out of the mug and clamped it on to his nose and mouth.

I kept it in place long enough for his head and neck to go limp, then the rest of him followed. I laid him out alongside my Fanta trays before retrieving his keys, overnight bag and briefcase, and hurling them into the van.

I closed and locked the door behind me, switched on the interior light and hooked my little finger through the keyring. Then I kicked the bags out of the way so I could reach him and stuff three-quarters of the cloth into his mouth. Keeping the rest over his nostrils, I wound gaffer tape around his head until I’d mummified him from the neck up, leaving only his nose and ears unbound. All I needed was for him to be able to hear and breathe.

I lifted his right hand. It was the first time I’d been able to admire his ring up close. Silver double-headed eagle on red enamel.

I fastened his wrists, ankles and neck with the cable ties. Once all eighteen were in place and Hesco was nicely spread-eagled, I listened at the door again, then jumped out and sifted through the Maserati’s boot and glovebox. Nothing more than car shit.

I’d give him and his bags a closer look later. Right now I needed to get the fuck out of there. I had less than two hours before I should be at the meet, and had no control of what would happen when Hesco didn’t show up earlier. But, fuck it, I just had to get on with what I could control. I pressed his padlock button twice and climbed into my cab.

I didn’t try to beat the
Guinness Book of Records
for the time it takes to piss off out of a Swiss multi-storey car park. I needed the CCTV to show there was nothing unusual about my journey to the exit.

When I’d checked out Google Earth at the second cyber café, I’d spotted a massive expanse of forestry at the northern end of Lake Konstanz, stretching almost as far as the German frontier. It would be quiet and dark and that was all I needed.

Lights glimmered in the windows of the converted barns and farmhouses of Chatzerüti, the hamlet at the edge of the forest. A dog barked in the distance, but no one paid me the slightest attention as I drove past. I turned on to gravel tracks and doused my headlamps as soon as I was inside the treeline. The deeper I moved into the forest the quicker it would soak up the lights.

The place was probably crawling with wildlife – wild boar for certain, and possibly the odd bear – but none of them seemed to be carrying torches.

I turned down the dashboard display as low as it would go and moved forwards slowly, keeping the headlamps off.

I hung a right after about a K, and passed a wooden hut with the shutters down and a bunch of those bench-and-table combos you find at every picnic spot in Europe. This would be a great place for a Swiss sausage and a hunk of bread at the end of a day’s hiking, but last orders would have been taken well before sundown.

I kept on going another K, then pulled off the track and got out. There wasn’t much more than a glow from the moon down there. I got half a litre of mineral water down my neck and listened to the night sounds. The odd rustle in the undergrowth. The call of an owl. But I wasn’t about to go into David Attenborough mode. I just needed to be as sure as possible that none of them was human.

Locking the cab, I got into the back with Hesco, closing and locking the door behind me. He was still out for the count as I ran my fingers along his belt, wrists and calves. No weapon.

Then I had a good look through his clothes.

He wasn’t sterile. Why would he be? He hadn’t planned to spend his evening strapped to the floor of my van.

I lifted his wallet, his Adler ID and pass cards, and two mobile phones. One was a cheap Nokia with no call or text history, which must have been the twin of the one he had left on the passenger seat of the Polo. The other was an iPhone with a pass code.