They left. Mikki murmured ‘Those fucking bastards’, and Boris muttered that ‘He should be hung up by his balls, she by her tits’. They clattered out and closed the door noisily behind them. And agreed that an audit of the major’s recent work, and at the village in Syria, would be a killer blow to the brigadier to whom both owed unquestioning loyalty.
Mikki said, “We do it ourselves.”
Boris said, “For his father, not for the little shit himself.”
Down into the bowels of the building and along a corridor running parallel to the cell block. A room where the noise of the adjacent heating boilers in winter could deafen a man. In the room, housing the computer’s heart and backed up by a considerable archive library, were the recordings from the cameras surrounding the building’s perimeter. Neither had the authority to have the clerks run through recorded footage, but it was demanded. There had been a drunk at the gate. Accusations slurred. A demand for an officer. Yelling about denouncing criminals. A young man coming from across the road, and speaking with respect and politeness, carting the man away. And a similar young man at a bar, and… the picture was found. A blown-up print of his face was made.
Also in the basement area was the armoury. Two assault rifles, 100 rounds for each, two pistols with belt holsters and fifty rounds of ammunition for each, a pair of smoke grenades and also the flash-and-bang type, two bulletproof vests, a set of field dressings. They possessed identification cards, and were well known in the armoury because of their trips to firing ranges – anything to break the boredom. They should have had additional authorisation, at least the signature of Major Lavrenti Volkov… but it was a matter of urgency and they were persuasive, and there was talk of ‘someone coming within the hour to provide the necessary confirmation’. They were gone. The weapons went into the BMW’s boot.
They went back to the bar where the little shit had insisted on going for a drink. They wore their ID cards hanging on lanyards, and their FSB caps and armbands and had the holsters on their belts, and Boris had loaded the magazines while Mikki had driven. The bar was not yet open, and the owner was deep in paperwork, and they started to kick the door in. Had demanded the recording from the camera behind the bar. Prevarication at first and claim that there was no camera, so Boris had gone behind the counter and had seen the lens wink at him and had cleared half a shelf of bottles onto the floor where they broke, and would have started on the second half, but the manager had darted into his office and had set up the recorder and the link to the screen. They saw the film, froze it on the kid who had come in to buy vodka, then had the image printed… and kept going until they had a decent shot of the stranger who had walked in with the kid. Had that printed also… and they were gone.
Police headquarters was next on their list of destinations, time running, and no loitering. Police were secondary in Murmansk, or anywhere in the Federation, to FSB. Only showed the picture of the boy: keen eyes that were set deep, fair hair cut short and pushed forward, a strong nose and thin lips and a jaw that seemed to show a lack of compromise, a show of defiance – similar to 1001 boys in the city who were addicted to small-time robbery, pickpocketing, narcotics dealing. Always, in a criminal records archive, there was a keen little beggar who had no value other than being able to match printouts of faces to files. All done fast, and either of them might have given the guy a kiss on each cheek if it had not been for his acne. He was Timofey and there was a family name… and a bonus: a secondary file was produced and a photograph and name. Natacha, pretty little thing and familiar in a vague way, and then a larger bonus. There had been a robbery the previous night. A girl had ‘deceived’ a police officer in his patrol car, a firearm had been stolen, but the girl’s hair was not blonde. ‘‘Try a fucking wig,’’ Boris had said. Mikki had said, ‘‘It’s a good word that, ‘deceived’. Tell him to keep his bits inside his trousers.’’ Gone again. An address poached from criminal intelligence, that of a small-time drugs dealer and his girl.
They found an old man lying in his own vomit. Would have smacked him around had it been necessary. It was not. Behind them the door hung at an angle from one hinge.
Shown the chair where the shit had been tied. The identity of the foreigner confirmed, and talk of the man coming in through the border and being met… and the pleading that he, the old man, be treated with clemency. And he told them how far ahead of them were the fugitives… They were going to kill the major, that too was thrown at them in the hope of additional clemency. They did not do arguments, nor debates, did not dispute. Could they handle it? Could handle anything, and Boris had heard the brigadier’s shock when Syria and disgrace were spoken of… and investigators would be crawling over his history, maggots on old meat.
“Can we do it?”
“Why not?”
“You happy?” Mikki asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Boris said and slapped his colleague’s shoulder.
They drove, blue light on the roof, and would jump traffic lights and overtake crazily, and took the one road that led towards the Norwegian border.
He recognised that the Fiat was approaching the garrison camp at Titovka, where the roadblock was. He had not answered Natacha, no explanations given.
Broke his silence. “We have a misunderstanding…”
A dilemma had faced him, one that he had not before been asked to confront.
He said quietly, “The misunderstanding is because of what I said to you before…”
There was a track off the road. Further up, above the tree line, were the higher chimneys of the camp and a watch-tower on stilts. Timofey was leaning back in his seat, yawning, but Natacha was out of the car, gripping her spade. A thought sprinted in Gaz’s mind: what about these kids, their future, the danger he propelled them towards, the retribution lining up to sledgehammer them? Considered: Knacker would have said, ‘Not your problem, lad, leave the conscience bit outside your knapsack, and I’ll take care of it.’ Only a fast thought, and other issues chased it away, took precedence. They’d suffer… he shrugged, started to explain.
Gaz spoke with no rancour and no emotion. “What I said to you was ‘take him out’, and that refers to him, to Major Volkov. But we do not need a spade to ‘take him out’…”
There were no recent tyre marks on the track surface and the sound of vehicles was behind them on the E105 highway and was muffled by the dense birch copse. The major now seemed to breathe faster: in the final stage of this journey the movement of his chest had been slower and regular, and Gaz thought the man had prepared himself for the moment of execution-kneeling, eyes closed and a final intake of breath and the click of the safety being moved. Now he was listening, and so were the kids in front.
“ ‘Take him out’ was what I said and what I meant. But not shoot him dead. Could have done that on the step of his apartment block, or could have gone up the staircase in the night, tapped on his door, got him there, shot him. Did not have to take him this far out of the city and shoot him. ‘Take him out’ was what I said and what I intend. I will take him out of the jurisdiction of the Russian state. I will take him over the border. Will take him if I have to carry him there and he kicks and screams and wakes the dead.”
In their own styles, all of them reacted. Timofey’s mouth gaped. Natacha blinked. And the officer gulped.
Gaz spoke, had to. “I was once a soldier, but never a killer. I lay in ditches, in holes, and I watched men and saw them play with their kids and kiss their girls and do their functions, and saw them clean their weapons and had the lenses on them when they had a map and planned where to lay the next anti-personnel bomb. Watched, reported, and moved on and was somewhere else when the heavy men moved into position, lined up the long-range weapon and waited for the schedule to be enacted that I’d told them to look for. Was not a part of it.”