The epaulette, the stars on his knees, the crucifix on his chest, the church with the onion domes, and the dagger in his neck and the drops of blood falling from it, they all meant something.
But maybe the most telling of all were the two eyes concealed below the roll of flab hanging over where his waistline had once time been.
All was not what it seemed with Oleg Karpov.
Giles hated fast driving, always had since a drunken accident with his father when he was twelve. He didn’t tolerate it from friends, family or business associates and especially not Sophie, his pseudo girlfriend, who had all the deft perception of a mole and worse coordination. She claimed the shouting made her worse, but he felt it was character building. It was the way his father had built him up.
On this occasion he was rather enjoying being hurled around the back seat of the Ford S-Max as it accelerated, braked and was thrown into corners this way and that. Trust; that was the thing. You trusted hired, what was the word, mercenaries? Henchmen? He liked the idea of henchmen. Whatever, you trusted the fact they had certificates in shooting people in the face while being kicked in the legs, surviving ambushes and driving at the limit. It was entertaining watching a professional at work. Perhaps most of all this was because it was at his bidding. He was effectively running the show right now. He was capo-di-tutti-capo as the Italians would say, boss of all bosses. Admittedly this wouldn’t be for long, depending on how good he was at his job, and he was good at his job, but for now he had the wheel.
Law, he reflected, had been a good choice; another good decision in a long line. Some may say it was easy when you had a head start in life but he’d happily counter that it did in fact largely come down to breeding. He was a subscriber to the theory of genetic memory and so in a roundabout way, he felt he should congratulate himself all the more. Not that he had blind faith in his abilities. That would be a tad remiss but a realistic belief in ones innate abilities and intellectual superiority in most situations wasn’t too much in the way of confidence.
Looking at the two knuckleheads in the front he had to admit he’d be unlikely to last long if the clock suddenly went back to zero and they were all cavemen again. Physically they could undoubtedly wield a club with more finesse than he’d manage if it came down to it. He’d even concede that given such re-allotment of historical period he’d probably wind up being their bitch but then he’d probably also discover fire or the secret thereof thus turning the tables. His genes had lasted this long and it wasn’t for nothing. The ancestors must have had something going for them and now, at the turn of this new millennium, his genes were having their time. They were the master race. Love it or hate it, these Neanderthals had more or less had their time. Still, they were here to do his bidding. That was the crucial thing. He was in charge and the power was something.
The booze was taking its time in wearing off and he knew he would have to sober up quickly. They sped down the track to the airfield. A small twin-engine Cessna was visible on the left, its navigation lights on, ready for the off, as they headed for the gate to the complex. He wasn’t fond of being in the actual buildings themselves. It brought everything home a bit too much, sent a shiver down the spine. Not that he was directly involved normally. He liked to keep a safe distance.
As they entered the main gate, he thought better of it. “The plane’s over there. I’ll walk,” he said willing them to stop the car.
From his position in the passenger seat, Alexei turned round, his menacing bulk intensified by a lack of hair. “There’s something else,” he said and Giles realised he was having problems with his T’s, and that he was now missing some of his front teeth, at least two, but he didn’t like to count too obviously.
“Yes?” Giles replied in a tone reminding the goon who was in charge.
The driver eyed Giles in the mirror with a look of trepidation. “We have a bit of a situation you might say.”
18
Burke sat at his desk, enjoying -if he could be enjoying anything this week- an early morning stare. There wasn’t much to look at through the window, only a wall in fact, but there was a certain joy to be had in just defocusing the eyes and letting them do whatever the hell they wanted.
It had been an eventful evening’s work and he had a good few nuggets of info to dispense to the team at this morning’s briefing. He could also pass some of this on to Gray. He was probably overdue for a good ear bending session about how much pressure the boss was under. At times Burke wished he was more the old school shouty superior officer, rather than one who like to nag and appeal to your better nature. His first headmaster had been a shouter and admittedly he got results, whereas his secondary head had been one of these modern types, and truth be told, merely got on everyone’s tits. It was hard to respect anyone who regularly told you about the hard time they were getting and that they hoped you would live up to the faith they’d put in you with doe eyes.
He stared at the frost patterns on his window, the one no one had wanted so he’d accepted. Anything for a quiet life really. Not that he’d had much choice in the matter, he’d been the new boy when they were rearranging.
And now they were rearranging again. Lothian and Borders Police was to become just a small cog in the larger machine called Police Scotland, rebranding, repackaging, consolidating power in one place. A government intent on independence and decentralisation of power centralising the police force and fire brigade. Decentralisation was all well and good, as long as it was flowing your way he supposed. Now there was a bit if nervousness about the whole place, people jostled for position, not wanting to get left behind, wanting to be part of this brave new world. Redundancies would follow he supposed, cuts in the smaller areas people didn’t think about. Now all the village bobbys were gone and the local cop shops were just cheap property for investors and first time buyers. No more knowing the name of your local beat cop. Not that he was a Luddite, he had no desire to see things stay the same. There was always room for improvement, just there was always room for someone to fuck it up too.
His phone went off with a volume that nearly emptied his coffee over his leg as the surprise made him squeeze the plastic cup.
“Good morning James,” he heard the confident tones of Mike Edwards chime. “Good to see you’re up and on the case so to speak.”
“Always,” Burke replied in a way that suggested the opposite. He wasn’t really in the mood for Edwards this early on. He’d only met the man once and his forced enthusiasm was starting to grate. “What can I do for you?” He asked envisaging several scenarios whereby he did various things to him with an axe.
“Oh I’m sure you know what I’m after.”
He was stumped. “I’d suggest a big bust relating to the drug trade,” he replied, nothing like giving a deliberately vague answer on the off chance people thought you might actually know what you are talking about.
“You don’t have a clue do you?” Edwards concluded.
“None at all,” he confirmed.
There was a pause at the end of the line as Edwards clearly enjoying this to some degree. He seemed the type. Smug bastard. “Should you have the time to check in your custody suite, you will find that you have residing in one of your room, one Victor Andreyevich.”
“Really?”
“Indeed, I’ll pretend you don’t know who he is to refresh your memory. Lithuanian business man, interests in several firms around the globe, many of them shell companies, others encompassing mining, construction, property, and more problematic we believe, pharmaceuticals of the type not approved for prescriptions or over the counter sales.