I took a long while to say my goodbyes to Sarah and Emma. I didn’t want to go but knew I had to, for their sakes. Picking up my daughter and holding her to me so I could kiss her goodbye was the hardest thing I have ever done. Sarah stood in the doorway with Emma in her arms as I drove away.
I couldn’t take Palmer or Kinane with me on this journey so I left on my own. Before I drove to the airport, I took a drive through Newcastle, so I could have one last look at the streets I had known all my life, because I knew I wouldn’t be coming back.
There was no private jet to transport me to Vasnetsov’s property near Helsinki. Instead, I was instructed to take a scheduled flight from Heathrow to Vantaa airport in the Finnish capital. I was met there by one of Vasnetsov’s men, a tall, corporate type in a suit who recognised me but did not bother to introduce himself. He walked me to a large Audi and gave me the keys.
‘Use the sat nav,’ he ordered, ‘it’s programmed to take you to a house in Anjalankoski Kouvola.’
This meant nothing to me, but when I climbed into the car the display told me I had a hundred and thirty kilometres to go. Vasnetsov’s man tapped on the window and I wound it down. ‘Don’t stop,’ he warned me, ‘or we will know.’ And I had no reason to doubt that.
The sat nav guided me away from Vantaa and down a wide, tree-lined road that took me past apartment blocks, then houses, until we reached the suburbs which were lightly dusted with snow. Finally I joined the main highway and made steady progress — the traffic was light compared to the UK. I found myself subconsciously slowing down, as if I was trying to delay the inevitable. I felt like a condemned man being dragged to the gallows.
I passed mile after mile of woodland, huge conifers either side of me, with nothing to break the tree lines apart from a succession of bridges that spanned the road I was on. It was getting dark when I finally left the main highway and took a minor road with no destination sign or lighting. I had to rely on the sat nav to ensure I was headed the right way and my headlights to guide me, along a road which seemed to be narrowing progressively as I neared my final destination. I was glad of the snow, because it reflected the beams and helped to light my way. I’d gone nearly two miles down this winding excuse for a road when I turned a corner and the house came into view. It wasn’t quite the gothic monstrosity of his English home but the faded, white-stone mansion had clearly been here for a very long time before Vasnetsov added it to his portfolio.
A reception committee of half a dozen guards awaited me. They carried weapons openly; pistols in holsters, submachine guns slung over their shoulders. Lights burned in the house and there was a tense atmosphere.
Evgeny Gorshkov came out of the house to meet me, just as one of his men had finished patting me down.
‘He is clean,’ the man said.
‘Of course he is,’ answered Vasnetsov’s head of security, ‘he is not so stupid as to bring a weapon, a wire or a tracker to a meeting with us. Blake knows that, if he did, we would bury him out here,’ and he glanced towards the forests.
Evgeny took me inside. We went into a large room at the front of the building that had a huge open fireplace with logs burning ferociously in the grate. Vasnetsov was sitting there with Mikhail Datsik, his banker, along with another three bodyguards.
‘I am glad you did not miss your flight,’ said Vasnetsov dryly by way of greeting, ‘so much easier this way.’
‘I’m here,’ I admitted, ‘but I still don’t see how I can help you.’
Vasnetsov frowned at me. ‘You will help me by carrying out my instructions. Soon you will meet my Joe. He has been in training for two years and you will provide his route in to my homeland. That much I have already explained,’ and he shook his head. ‘You should be happy, Blake. When you leave here in the morning you will take my Joe and your fee. I promised you two million US dollars and it’s yours.’
‘So I get to stay the night here?’ I asked.
‘Your flight to Amsterdam leaves in the morning. Tonight you eat and sleep. In the morning you leave here a wealthier man,’ and he shrugged as if it couldn’t be easier. ‘Once you arrive in Amsterdam you send my agent down the line. It really is very simple.’
‘And if I refuse?’
His face hardened, ‘I already told you that I do not forgive.’
‘You did,’ I conceded, ‘so tonight I will eat and sleep and tomorrow…’ I shrugged, as if I would likely go along with his plan but I was stalling, buying myself some precious time before I made him my enemy with a refusal.
‘Good,’ he said but abruptly the lights in the house went out and we were plunged into darkness. I could only dimly make out shapes in the room. There was some shouting in Russian, a panicked question and an authoritative reply, then people began moving in and out of the building.
Vasnetsov barked something in Russian and waved an arm. I was willing to bet it was something like, ‘Get out there, find out what’s happening!’
Someone activated a hand-held flare. One of the bodyguards held it and three of them started towards the main door. They didn’t get very far. The weapons must have had suppressors because I never even heard the shots. All three bodyguards were dropped in the hallway with ruthless efficiency. I instinctively threw myself to the floor.
‘Evgeny!’ Vasnetsov had panic in his voice as he called for his personal bodyguard who drew a pistol, dropped to one knee and aimed his weapon at the window, then at the door, then back at the window again, as if unsure where the attack would come from. I could hear shouting and the sound of boots running along wooden floors. The sound of gunfire that followed was deafening. Vasnetsov’s bodyguards were determined not just to combat the threat outside but to obliterate it.
After the initial bursts of machinegun fire there was a brief pause and I heard orders being shouted in Russian. I could also hear the screams of dying men then further gunfire but the bursts were more focussed now, as if they were trying to pick out individual targets. Evgeny was chattering away into a tiny hand-held radio, trying to work out what was going on. I didn’t speak a word of Russian but I knew panic when I heard it. The men he was communicating with were trying to brief him, while at the same time fighting for their lives. I lay on the wooden floor praying they had bigger problems to worry about right now than me.
This pattern was repeated for a while; short bursts of gunfire from Vasnetsov’s bodyguards, then return fire that held an eerie quality because it was silent, but we knew about it because bullets were hitting the front of the house, shattering windows and thudding into the brickwork. It sounded like there was a whole bloody army out there. The shouting continued, but it was getting less and less regular. Evgeny was still calling out his list of names, ‘Lev!.. Ivan!.. Oleg!.. Pyotr!’ and I could see by the light from the flickering flames of the fire that he was sweating. I realised they were losing.
I didn’t know how long the firing lasted but it seemed like hours. Eventually, as abruptly as it started, the shooting ceased and there was an incredibly tense silence. There were only Vasnetsov, Evgeny, Mikhail and me left in the room and we all held our breath as we waited for something to happen. I was looking at them and they were staring at the door.
Just as I turned my head it happened, the window exploded, the glass bursting inwards and showering us, then there was an enormous bang and a cloud of smoke and my ears began to ring from the stun grenade. I was dimly aware of figures somehow swinging themselves through the shattered window and bursting into the room.