The Hit List (37 page)

several things greatly impressed him. Their craft and surveillance skills -- in particular those of and Terry - were superior to any he had ever antered. Their professional discipline was it, and perhaps because there was nowhere for

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them to be promoted to, there was none of the competitiveness, jockeying for position and general macho bollocks that had been such a prominent feature of Regimental life. In MI9, whoever was best situated to take charge of a particular task at a particular time did so, and everyone else fell into line. They were good people, he decided, and there was much to be learnt from the way they operated.

By 11.30 Slater, Leon, Andreas and Chris were reassembled at the Hotel Aissa. Terry had just called in to say that he had counted five males out of number 30 Rue de Coude at various times during the evening, and that all had now returned. Branca Nikolic was also on thapremises.

A call to Manderson had confirmed that the call would be going through to Branca's phone in thirty minutes. Its content would be that one of the RDB men with her was an MI6 spy, and planned to steal the disc as soon as it was in her hands. She was to find an excuse to leave the flat immediately and make her way to the all-night Bar Suez in Rue de Laghouat, where she would be briefed by a controller from Belgrade.

Outside, the nearby church of St Bernard de la Chapelle struck the half hour.

On the bed, cigarette in hand, Andreas stretched and grinned.

At the table, Leon stared with unseeing eyes at an old copy ofPariscope.

At the window, his heart pounding at his chest, Slater forced himself to breathe normally.

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Chris Ryan

the wall, Chris uncoiled herself from the sition in which, motionless, she had spent the minutes, as time to stand by.

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The plan was to allow Branca to get well clear of the Passage de Coude and any patrolling RDB sentries, and take her a couple of streets away on the corner of the Rue de Laghouat and the Passage des Ouled-Nail.

From where he and Chris lounged in an unlit doorway* -Slater looked across towards Andreas, invisible in a covered entrance-way where vegetables were sold during the day. There were street lights and a waning moon, but neither reached the Passage des j Ouled-Nail. A Moorish archway marked the entrance j to the alleyway, and the star-shaped windows of a 1 mosque showed half-way down its length. From some! nearby source came the muted rise and fall of North 1 African rat music played on a transistor. There was a| smell of cloves, cardamom, trodden vegetables and! fried merguez sausages. They could have been in the! outskirts of a city in Morocco or Tunisia rather than ia| Paris.

Slater was wearing hiking boots, jeans and a loc green windshirt over his flak-vest. His Uzi and spare clips of ammunition were slung in a black nylc satchel over his shoulder and the Sig Sauer was stuc

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Chris Ryan

*the waistband of his trousers. Next to him Chris in black, with her weapon and ammunition rly stowed. As far as Slater could tell, they were Jy people on the street. Met checked his watch. It was midnight, and the lould be coming through right now. All being they could expect her within three or four lutes.

stations. Stand-by . . . Go!' Ithout anything being said, it had been agreed that should lead the operation. In part this was of his extensive CQB experience with the |fcut in part, Slater sensed, it was because Eve was

ge.

|ten Andreas had questioned him about the night in Uter-Lux, Slater had shrugged his shoulders and about sleeping the night wrapped in a duvet floor. He doubted that Andreas completely I him, though, because in the short time that he en with the department he had clearly hit it off we in a way that the others hadn't. The fact that [ saved his life was part of it, but there was some too. An affinity. An unlikely affinity given r different backgrounds, but an affinity no less, i sensed it, he knew, and so almost certainly did . group as tightly interdependent as theirs could to be aware of the subtle dynamic shifts that ace within it. Did it lock him into the group, irondered, or did it serve to distance him from ers? Time would tell.

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'Terry to all players. Target has left the building. ETA you one minute, repeat one minute. Over.'

'Neil to Terry. Understood. Over.'

As he pulled the Uzi from its satchel, Slater felt the familiar adrenaline rush that preceded action. At his side he felt Chris tauten. The seconds thudded past, and then Slater heard the fast clip of heels on the pavement.

Branca Nikolic would have walked straight past them had not Slater reached out and grabbed her. She half-gasped in shock, and in less than a second Slater's hand was clamped tight across her mouth. Branca writhed furiously and tried to bite, but with a hissed 'Shut up, cunt!' Chris drew back the heavy butt of her Uzi and slammed it into the other woman's ribs.

Dragging the groaning Branca into the doorway where Andreas was waiting, Chris grabbed her hard by the windpipe. Branca's face contorted in agony as she struggled to breathe -- the writhing defiance continued for a few more seconds, and then sensing the racing; approach of death, she went limp.

Quickly, Chris released the Serbian to the ground j and felt inside her shirt for a wire or throat mike. There j was none, but she was carrying a Mini-Clock 26 in the j inside pocket of her jacket, which Chris pushed into 1 her own waistband.

As Chris backed away, Slater took over. Defeated! but furious tear-streaked eyes looked up at him. NextJ to him, Andreas levelled his Uzi at Branca's face.

'No noise,' Slater whispered. 'Silence. OK?'

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Jranca nodded sullenly. Fear, pain and fury at ig been deceived battled it out behind her eyes. It want the woman. You understand?' ic nodded again.

ly noise,' Slater continued, 'and we . ..' Taking |Uzi from Andreas, he mimed bringing it down on her face.

i, closing her eyes, Branca nodded, low many men have you got there?'

held up the fingers of one hand, id where is the woman?' ley questioned her intensively for five minutes, all of them were certain that they were familiar iS-'the layout of number 30 Rue de Coude. From atchel, when they had finished, Chris took a pre ection of zinc-oxide tape and pressed it over lea's mouth. Over her face, so that they would ) like party-goers if they encountered anyone on return journey, she slipped a child's elasticated mask. Re-packing their weapons, the three of i then turned Branca around, linked arms so that to men were on either side of her, and marched ck in the direction she had come, j^they approached the Rue de Coude, Chris darted I to recce. A minute later she returned. The RDB was in front of the building. er nodded to Andreas, who quietly detached f. As he did so, Slater and Chris sat Branca down light of steps, reas returned five minutes later and they

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continued on their way. When they passed the sentry he was barely visible, lying in a shadowed entranceway as if drunk. To hide the zinc-oxide tape over his mouth, Andreas had pulled the man's leather jacket around his head, as tramps often did to provide themselves with a makeshift pillow.

'Alive?' whispered Slater.

'Yeah, but shouldn't wake for half an hour or so,' replied Andreas. 'And I took his keys in case he does. He had a comms-set but it was switched to receive when I bumped him -- from the fat grin on his face I think one of his mates was telling him a dirty joke.'

'Does that mean to say they're expecting an answer from him?'

'Well, I switched it on and offa couple of times after I whacked him and then left it on transmit. Hopefully they'll just think he's fucked up his procedure.'

'OK. We'd better move it though, in case they send someone down to check.'

Andreas nodded, and all but lifting Branca off her feet, he and Slater ran Tier to the walk-up entrance above the stencilled red demon. Chris had Branca's keys ready, and a moment later the four of them were inside the small foyer.

Quickly, Slater plasticuffed Branca and they prepared their weapons, extending the Uzis' telescopic butts. 'Neil to players, we have our bunny and are entering building. Over.'

'Understood, Neil. Over.'

'Terry, do you copy? Over.'

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sen and copied. Over.'

ic building was probably built in the late forties, was a lift, but it looked old and wheezy and did not want to risk the advantage that surprise rid give them. Instead, .they went up on foot. A �-banistered staircase climbed between walls of marble composite, with warehouse units ading to right and left at each level. From the >no lights had been visible in any of these units, ;ing by the rubbish accumulated outside them, i were untenanted.

jfeil to players, we are entering hostage-location |i Flopsy. Starting ten-second countdown now.

reas pulled offBranca's rabbit-mask but left the

ixide tape in place.

ris unlocked the heavy armour-plated door. per and Andreas marched Branca into the unit, Iwith an Uzi to her head.

V

ley were in a long, low loft-unit containing three sks, a couple of battered filing cabinets, and a szen stackable chairs. There were three RDB sible.

of these were lounging twenty feet away on eadbare carpet with an ashtray and a bottle of between them and their MP5 submachine their sides, and a third sat a little further away i feet on one of the desks and his weapon in his appended in the act of paging through a copy of u/05. They were fit-looking military types with

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cropped hair and hard, watchful faces. For a moment all three remained frozen in shock.

Slater digested the scene at a glance, noting the state of-the-art laptops, cyber-phones and zip-files which lay around on the desk. Where was Eve? According to Branca, she was in a 'sleeping-room' at the far end of the unit.

There was the sound of a flushing toilet, and a fourth RDB man entered the tableau, wiping his hands on his trousers. After two paces he stopped dead, looking from his colleagues to Branca and her escorts. In his mind, Slater knew, was the knowledge that he had committed the special forces operative's cardinal vsin: he had separated himself from his personal weapon. It was lying half a dozen paces away in the middle of the carpet, next to a smoking ashtray, a packet of Bastos, and a bottle of Chimay beer.

Slater shook his head and the standing RDB man froze like his colleagues.

Stepping forward, Chris ripped the tape from Branca's face.

'Tell them what I said,' he ordered her. 'Tell them that if any of them makes a move for his weapon, he will be shot. And so will you.' The adrenaline had fully kicked in now, and he felt the familiar lightheadedness and slow-motion clarity.

Branca spoke in Serbian. The men didn't move but Slater saw that the shock in their faces had been replaced by alertness. He would have liked to have

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red them to hand the weapons over, but he didn't them even touching them. The Cadre team had advantage of surprise, but that advantage was ; with every moment. Beside him, he was aware ris thumbing the selector of her Uzi to single

them to get their fucking hands up,' Slater jed.

ica spoke, and the RDB men slowly obeyed, ing from face to face, however, Slater saw only aess and battle-readiness. Beyond them, less than aty yards away, was Eve. His heart pounded against

St.

you want one of them to get the woman?' asked.

3, one of us will go. Is she still where you said?' ica nodded.

; that moment, to his left, Chris threw her Uzi to iioulder and fired a fast double-tap. On the other the room the head of the man at the desk I to twitch before exploding in a spray of scarlet, blast of brain and bone spattered the vertical and the MP5 that the dead man was about to it the threadbare carpet with a thump. 5 Slater kicked down the desk in front of him and ed Branca to the floor, he saw a flurry of it as the RDB team scrambled for their ans. He just made it behind the cover of the desk with a rapid-fire staccato coughing, three ed MP5s opened up straight at them.

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The Hit Ust

From a crouching position Andreas snapped off a pair of fast shots with his Uzi and then crammed in behind the desk next to Slater. To his left Chris acted identically, but finding Branca there bundled the handcuffed woman out into the open where a fast reaction shot from one of the Serbs smacked into her thigh, tumbled through six inches of gym-toned tissue, and exited gapingly and bloodily beside the copper buttons of her Levi 501 jeans. Gasping in disbelief, shaking as if electrocuted, Branca Nikolic went into immediate and massive shock.

Another volley of rounds hammered into the steel desk. For the three of them to stay there, Slater knew, would be suicide. They had to split up and divide the RDB fire.

It was clear that the Cadre had lost the initiative but it would have been a miracle if things had turned out any other way. From the moment that Manderson fuck him - had refused to let them buy Eve's safety with the tape, a shoot-out had been a dangerous probability. Grabbing Branca had been their best chance of avoiding a blood-bath, but the gamble had failed.

A half-second glance confirmed the general picture for Slater. Ahead of them, some fifteen metres away, was a concrete roof-support pillar. Ten metres to its I right was its twin. Two steel desks and a steel filing ; cabinet were grouped around the right-hand pillar, and these were providing cover for the three Serbs.1. The fourth, dead, lay between one of the desks and the j right-hand window.

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Chris Ryan

Slater could get behind the left-hand pillar he draw the enemy fire and perhaps snipe at the team from the side.

Swap places,' he whispered to Chris, and she ttbered over him so that she was next to Andreas. )K, cover me.'

aping over the still-shaking form of Branca he ftted for the pillar, wrenching down the blinds I the window as he went. Behind him he heard the e-cough of aimed shots from Andreas and Chris r bursts from the Serbs. With all of the pons silenced the smack of impact and the scream cochet was made hideously evident. Brick and chips careened from the walls and pattered to jet. The air was thick with dust.