Aggressor

1

The Pajero had landed upside down at the river’s edge, five or six metres below us, doors open, windscreen smashed. It bucked and wallowed as water the colour of chocolate pounded against the wreckage. Any second now it would be snatched away and hurled downstream.

Bastard hadn’t been any luckier. The river at this point was around thirty metres wide, and I watched as he floundered, went under, and bobbed up again about halfway across, almost indistinguishable from all the other lumps of debris swirling downstream.

I started ripping off my jacket.

Charlie rolled his eyes. ‘Nothing we can do, lad. Fuck him. Anyway, we got Crazy Dave.’

I shook my head. Later, Bastard could die a slow and painful death, as far as I was concerned, but right now he was here, and Crazy Dave was a million miles away. ‘He’s our route out of this shit! He’s got the contacts; he can get us over the border.’

There was nothing Charlie could do to help. His ankle was fucked, and the rest of him was falling apart. This one was down to me. I pulled my shirt out of my trousers and half jumped, half tumbled down the slope towards the maelstrom.

The water surged past at a fearsome pace, carrying all before it. Huge branches crashed over the rocks ahead of me.

There was a screech of tearing metal as the Pajero finally lost its grip and thundered downstream. I watched it for about a hundred metres, until the river bent sharply to the left and it disappeared.

And that was where I spotted him. The force of the current had carved out the subsoil for a ten-metre stretch along the far bank, exposing a latticework of tree-roots that gleamed white against the mud, like the ribs of a putrefying corpse. Bastard had his arm hooked through one of them.

He didn’t stand the slightest chance of hauling himself up and out of the mud, let alone over the edge of the bank. There was no way I’d be able to either, and I hadn’t spent a lifetime on the Big Mac diet.

I could see he was yelling at me big-time, but I couldn’t hear a thing above the roar of the water.

I scanned the stretch of river between us. He must have fetched up where he was after being catapulted into it midstream. I’d need to enter the water much further up if I was going to have a chance of hitting the bank before I was swept in the wake of the Pajero, and on around the bend.

I scrambled over the mud thirty or forty metres upstream, past the jagged skeleton of a small wooden footbridge that had been unable to withstand the force of the flood.

I plunged in up to my calves and pushed on, fighting the freezing current until I was up to my waist and the sheer weight of the deluge whipped my legs from under me. I kicked and thrashed, but might as well not have bothered. Nothing I could do would stop me going under.

I went with the flow until my lungs threatened to burst and I started taking on water through my nose and mouth, then somehow managed to kick myself back to the surface.

My head spun and my eyes were streaming, but I caught sight of him again as I fought for breath. Like me, he was struggling to keep his head up, clinging to the tree root for dear life.

The water took me under again and I was suddenly more concerned about sucking in air than getting to the other side.

I wrestled my way to the surface once more, and saw that I was now almost at the far side. I could let the current do the rest.

Seconds later, my fingers closed around Bastard’s tree root.

He was cold, disoriented, frightened. He grabbed me, desperate to stay afloat, but only succeeded in pulling me under.

I kicked and jerked my way back up, fighting to keep my grip on the root as the current tore at my legs.

‘No!’ I kicked out at him. ‘Compose yourself, for fuck’s sake! Stop!’ Down at this level, the roar of water was deafening.

I jackknifed away from him, trying to keep him at arm’s length. I knew he was panicking big-time, and there was no way I wanted us to head to the bottom of this vortex together.

The bank was steeper than I’d thought. There was a chance I could heave myself out, but it would take a crane to lift him clear.

‘We’ve got to swim back across! I’ll help you, but no grabbing… We won’t make it if you fucking lose it, OK?’

He stared at me with glazed eyes, his teeth chattering with cold. ‘I can’t swim.’

For fuck’s sake.

I scanned the boiling surface of the water on either side of us. The trunk of a pine tree had lodged itself against a rockslide just short of the bend in the river. Its roots faced slightly upstream, creating a V-shaped breakwater. The aluminium rectangle of Bastard’s carry-on glinted among the debris bobbing in the slower-moving water at its centre.

Bastard was staring at me wild-eyed. He tried to speak but couldn’t.

I let go of the tree root and crashed hard against the fallen pine.

I grabbed the carry-on and flung my free arm over the trunk. I hooked a leg over a branch, but the rest of me still trailed in the river. I let myself be buffeted by the force of the water until I managed to draw breath and heave myself up. I lay there for a moment, my knuckles whitening as I fought to hang on to the handle of the carryon. Then I started to crawl slowly towards the bank.

I hauled myself upright and made my way back upstream.

Bastard saw me coming. ‘Get me out of here, now!’

It was like being accosted by 250 pounds of stranded bull walrus.

‘Hey! I’m here… Here! What the fuck’s keeping you?’

For a split second I toyed with the idea of cracking him on the side of the head with the carry-on and watching him float away. Then I gave myself a reality check. If we lost Bastard, we lost our broker. I began to lower myself down the bank and back into the water.

‘This is our raft,’ I yelled. ‘Grip the fucking thing as tight as you can and don’t let go. I’ll hang on to you. Now kick… Come on, kick!’

He nodded obediently but didn’t move. The carry-on bounced up and down in the swell between us.

Bastard was experiencing Fear Up big-time at first hand. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of his anchor. I punched down hard on his hand to get him to release, and we were away.

I locked my hand on the collar of Bastard’s blazer, kicking to propel us out into the current to clear the fallen tree.

Bastard was putting all his energy into keeping his head above water.

‘Get kicking! Fucking help me here!’

The signal finally made it from his ear to his brain and he kicked. The current grabbed us and we thundered past the pine tree. The further we travelled, the closer we were being thrown towards the far shore. It was only a matter of time before my boots hit the riverbed.

I struggled to my feet and half pulled, half dragged Bastard into the shallows. A few moments later, he was lying beside me on solid ground.

I took off my shirt and T-shirt, and twisted as much water out of them as I could. To make the most of what was left of my body heat, I had to get some air into the fibres. That was what I told myself anyway. The rain soaked them as fast as I could wring them, but somehow the whole process made me feel better.

I put the shirt and T-shirt back on, then knelt to take off my boots. I fumbled to undo the laces with numb, trembling fingers. Finally I wrung out my jeans.

Once I was dressed again, I tucked everything in, trying to minimize the number of ways in which the wind could get to me.

A familiar voice boomed down at us from what was left of the road. ‘That was really big of you, lad, but you needn’t have bothered.’

I looked up at Charlie and shrugged.

His eyes twinkled. ‘I could easily have made do with a carrier bag.’

Bastard lay beside me like a beached whale.

I kicked him. ‘Time to move. Check you’ve still got your ID.’

Bastard dug around and pulled out his wallet.

He gave it a squeeze and fished out the laminated card. ‘You really do need me, don’t you?’ He had the faintest of knowing smiles on his face. ‘Well, fuck you.’

2

The mudslide had demolished the road, leaving little more than a trail of boulders and uprooted trees in its wake. Even if we’d managed to hang on to the Pajero, we couldn’t have gone any further.

I slumped down next to Charlie and fought my way back into my jacket. After my Baywatch experience, the effort of pushing Bastard back up the slope had almost finished me off. He sat a little way away from us. I hoped he might be suffering from a touch of wounded pride, at the very least, but if he was, he wasn’t going to let us see it.

In a completely futile display of defiance against the still-torrential rain, he had fastened all three buttons on his blazer and pulled up the collar. Amazingly, he’d hung on to both his shoes, and apart from a few bruises, seemed little the worse for wear.

‘I’ve no weapon,’ Charlie muttered. ‘You?’

I shook my head. ‘It was a simple choice: the seven-six-two or you. Fuck knows why, but you won out.’

Charlie grinned, but only briefly. ‘Better not hang about, lad. We need to get a move on. Doubt we’ll make the border before tomorrow, in this shit. The road the other side of town won’t be a pretty sight either. So, first stop Borjomi, sort our shit out, hit the local Hertz kiosk, and crack on, eh?’

‘I reckon we’ve done about a hundred and thirty odd K, so it can’t be much more than twenty to tab. Four or five hours maybe, even with you in Hopalong Cassidy mode.’ I got to my feet and grabbed Bastard by the scruff of his neck. ‘I’ll grip him; you just keep that ankle moving.’

Charlie set off and I manhandled Bastard to his feet. Normal service had been resumed; he was complaining about everything in the universe. I didn’t envy him the next few hours though. Charlie and I were soaked, but at least we had a layer of outdoor wear and, more importantly, we had boots. Bastard was going to have to tab in wet loafers, and they weren’t built for it any more than he was. His feet would be blistered to fuck before we’d gone a thousand metres.

‘Time to get going. We’ve got a little brokering to do, remember?’

Bastard didn’t reply, so I gave him a shove. It was like trying to fast-forward a hippo; he didn’t budge an inch.

‘Time to go, Big Boy.’

‘Fuck you!’ He obviously liked that phrase. It was his default reply.

‘I’m doing you a favour, mate. You’re not going to last five minutes out here on your own in that gear, are you?’

We kept on the road, or what we could see of it. Large cracks had opened across it, and water sluiced through them like they were storm drains. We had to move as fast as we could: not only to get to Borjomi as quickly as possible, but also to keep our drenched bodies warm.

I looked ahead of us. Charlie might have been the cripple, but he was doing a whole lot better than Bastard. His body swung from side to side as he tried to compensate for his swollen ankle, but he’d been in this kind of situation more times than he could count. On a tab, you’ve got to get from A to B, so you just crack on with it. It’s pointless worrying about the weather, your physical condition, or how pissed off you feel. It doesn’t help you make the distance any quicker.

Bastard didn’t get it. I guessed I couldn’t blame him for feeling sorry for himself, but now wasn’t the time or the place. I laid a hand on each of his shoulder blades and pushed.

He was grumbling big-time, but it wasn’t helping him much. Bumping your gums doesn’t get you to where you need to be. The only way you’re going to do that is by putting one foot in front of the other as quickly as you can, and if it’s not fast enough, then someone needs to come behind you with a cattle prod.

It was like being back in the infantry; I had been pushing or pulling flaking bodies since I was a sixteen-year-old boy soldier, trying to keep the slower guys up with the squad. It was all part of the deal. You moved as fast as the slowest man, but you had to make him as fast as you could. You carried his weapon, carried his kit, encouraged him, took the piss out of him — fucking well slung him over your shoulder and carried him if need be, not that I was in any hurry to try that with Bastard.

We’d been going for about an hour, and covered maybe four or five Ks, when Charlie limped off the road and heaved himself under a low fir tree. He lay back on the grass and stretched out his leg.

Bastard and I closed up on him.

‘Thought I’d better hang around for you two lardasses.’ He took a series of short, painful breaths.

Bastard couldn’t even marshal the strength to move off the road; he just fell to his knees instead, and slid towards Charlie in the mud. It was probably the furthest he’d ever walked in his life, certainly in monsoon conditions and dressed in a blazer and loafers. His head slumped forward, displaying a very nice crocodile-clipshaped bruise.

I left him where he was and went over to the tree.

Charlie was resting the sole of his boot against the trunk, in order to ease his damaged ankle.

I collapsed alongside him. I wasn’t going to ask him if he was OK. If the time approached when he couldn’t take any more, he’d give me plenty of warning.

Charlie grunted. ‘We’d better step up the pace or we’ll be stuck out here all night. If he could tab as energetically as he gobs off, we’d be there by now.’ His face was lit briefly by one of his stupid grins. ‘He’s a bit like you, lad; he can talk the talk, but he certainly can’t walk the walk.’ He liked it so much he shouted a repeat for Bastard’s benefit.

Bastard looked up, but either couldn’t or didn’t want to hear.

I wasn’t looking forward to trying to keep Bastard on the move all night. If he couldn’t shift his arse in daylight, he’d be ten times worse after dark. People like him become uncoordinated; they stumble, they injure themselves.

Bastard looked the part inside a Pod with a coffee machine at his elbow and a wad of tobacco in his hip pocket, but that was about it. He’d boast a good night out, but I didn’t want to have to nurse him through one.

I doubted he’d ever gone more than a couple of hours between doughnuts.

I checked Baby-G, which was still chugging along after its dip in the river. It was 3.27, which meant only about another four hours before dark. At this rate, it wouldn’t be enough.

Charlie moved his foot off the trunk of the tree and onto my shoulder. Bastard watched, and maybe it made him feel even more like Nobby Nomates. He sounded pretty sorry for himself. ‘How much fucking longer in this goddam shit country, man? How far we gotta go?’

‘What’s the matter, Big Boy?’ Charlie watched him fiddle with his soaking wet loafers. ‘Never been cold, wet and hungry before?’

I broke into a smile. ‘Cold and wet, maybe. Hungry? I don’t think so!’

Charlie almost choked with laughter.

‘You fucks think we’ll get there before dark?’ Bastard scowled at us as he wiped the rain from his face. ‘I don’t want to be out in this shit all night long, that’s for sure. And don’t even think about leaving me out here. Nothing’s changed. You fucks can’t get out of here without me. Don’t forget it.’

Charlie grimaced as his foot made contact with the ground again. ‘Don’t fret, Big Boy. We’ll push your fat arse all the way to Turkey if we have to.’

He hobbled off up the road. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew it would be contorting with pain with every step.

I’d have offered myself as a crutch, but he would only have fucked me off. He knew as well as I did that he wasn’t the priority right now, whatever Hazel might think.

3

I pushed and shoved Bastard for another hour. He was slowing down, without a doubt. It couldn’t have been easy shifting that bulk of his; I could almost hear those big wobbly thighs chafing together with every step he took.

We were still following the pipeline scar to the left of the road. The rain was a solid grey curtain.

As we rounded a sweeping bend into high ground, I saw a splash of white about 150 metres ahead of us. I wiped the rain from my eyes and looked again. It was the arse end of a van, static beside the road.

Bastard and I drew level with Charlie.

Charlie rested his arm on my shoulder to take the weight off his injury. ‘Looks like our luck’s in, lad.’

Bastard began sounding off as if he’d spotted an empty cab at theatre time and we were about to let it go. ‘Hey, what’re you fucks waiting for?’ He shambled off up the road, trying desperately to make his legs move as fast as his instinct for self-preservation.

As we got closer, the white blur became a Mercedes van, up to its axles in the mud. Both sets of rear wheels were spinning, but the driver was only burying them deeper.

I dodged the spray coming off the tyres and made my way round the passenger side. I saw two shapes in the front seats, but they were too intent on working the steering wheel and gear-stick to notice me.

I tapped on the glass.

The figure in the passenger seat spun around, clearly startled. I could see her dark eyes, as wide as saucers, through the rain-blurred window. She stared at me for several seconds then switched her gaze to Charlie and Bastard as they closed up behind me. I could understand her concern. We were in the middle of nowhere, in a torrential storm; we must have looked as though we’d just crawled out of a primeval swamp.

I unzipped my jacket, lifted it up, and turned from side to side. ‘No weapons,’ I mouthed. ‘We… are… unarmed.’

I let my jacket fall as the others followed suit, but kept my hands up.

She wound the window down about six inches, but her expression made it clear that she still wasn’t exactly delighted to see us.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK…’ I smiled. ‘Speak English?’

She turned to the driver and said something in rapid-fire Paperclip. He took his foot off the gas and bent forward to see round her. He had a very short, just grown-out crew cut, and hadn’t shaved for a day or two.

I kept my smile so wide my face was starting to hurt. ‘English? Speak… English?’

The girl faced me again, her brow still furrowed. ‘Who are you?’ The accent was Eastern European, but with an American TV twang.

I spoke very slowly. ‘Our car… It got hit…’ I mimed a collision. ‘The mud…’

The driver leaned forward again. ‘We understand.’

Bastard appeared at my shoulder and pushed me aside. He pulled his accreditation from his soaked leather wallet and thrust it through the gap. ‘Borjomi,’ he barked. ‘Take us to Borjomi.’

If that was his idea of a charm offensive, our tab was far from over.

The woman took the ID.

Bastard didn’t waste any time. ‘We wanna get to Borjomi. See that ID? That says you take us.’

The two inside the Mercedes had another exchange in Paperclip, glancing at each of us in turn. I never liked not knowing what was being said in situations like this, particularly when I appeared to be the subject of the conversation, and the outlook didn’t sound good.

Eventually she shrugged. ‘Sure… It’s not so far. No more than thirty minutes. We’re going there ourselves, if we can get out of this mess.’

She passed the ID back and Bastard tucked it into his wallet. In the state he was in, I doubted she’d been able to match him with the photograph. I hoped she wouldn’t recognize me.

Bastard reached for the handle to the sliding door halfway down the wagon, as if he already owned it, but she waved him away. ‘You will have to dig us out first.’

She slid across into the driver’s seat, and he climbed out. He was tall and lanky, maybe mid-twenties, and wore a black Gore-Tex jacket. He came round the front of the vehicle and thrust out a hand. ‘I’m Paata.’ He nodded towards his companion. ‘And she’s Nana.’

Charlie and I both introduced ourselves. I hoped that our expressions would help distance us from the tub of lard still wrestling with the sliding door.

Bastard glanced in our direction. ‘Hey, this goddam thing’s stuck.’

Paata shook his head. ‘It’s locked on the inside. Security. We’ll undo it in a minute.’

Bastard pulled up his collar and went to lean against one of the few trees to have been left unscathed by the side of the road. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, resting his huge buttocks against the trunk. I tried not to laugh; he looked like a bear trying to scratch its arse.

Charlie and I grabbed the rear bumper and started to push and lift, trying to free the wheels from the ruts they’d created. Paata shouted out to Nana to keep them turning, then came to join us. He unzipped his jacket, to stop himself overheating. Me, I was looking forward to it. Mud flew like muck from a spreader as Nana floored the accelerator.

Paata yelled more instructions and Nana hit the pedal again. This time the wheels spun more gently.

Charlie and I leaned against the back door and tried to lift, then let go so it rocked back into the rut. I wasn’t sure how much good we were doing. His hands were starting to shake like a demented percussionist.

‘Paata,’ Charlie called out. ‘Have you had to get out of this stuff before?’

‘Sure. I am an expert!’ Paata gave us a beaming smile. ‘Every time, I call a tow truck.’

‘Good thinking.’ I laughed. ‘But not this time?’

‘Cells don’t work this far out. Not until Borjomi.’

Charlie tapped him on the arm. ‘Thing is, lad, I’ve dug a few vehicles out of snowdrifts in my time. It’s not as bad as mud, but the principle’s the same.’

Charlie bent to inspect the axle. ‘The mud clings to the undercarriage until there’s no way to get any traction, and spinning the wheels only drives them deeper. Us three strong lads need to stay here, at the back, but Nana must help us rock the wagon back and forth. She needs to keep the wheels as straight as she can, shift quickly from first gear to reverse, and we’ll get a nice rhythm going. When we manage to jump this thing free, she should keep it moving until it’s on firm ground. And she should try not to spin the wheels if she can help it.’

Paata headed up front to pass on Charlie’s instructions.

‘Hey, driver,’ Bastard shouted from under his tree. ‘What about getting me a hot drink?’ He was well and truly back to his old gobshite self.

Paata sensibly ignored him.

The engine revved and the three of us started to push and shove. I wondered how much more of this Charlie could take.

Nana threw the Merc into reverse and Paata wiped a fistful of mud off his face.

‘Open up the back,’ Bastard yelled. ‘I’ll make the coffee myself.’

Paata muttered something under his breath. I thought I’d probably just learned the Paperclip for ‘fuck off’.

Charlie took a step back. His ankle looked as though it was about to give way beneath him. ‘Listen, Paata, this isn’t going to work. You got a shovel?’

‘I wish,’ Paata said. His expression told me that if he had, he’d use it across the back of Bastard’s head.

Charlie opened the front passenger door and burrowed inside. He emerged with the rubber mat from the foot well and handed it to me. ‘You might be able to scrape enough mud away from the wheels with this to get some traction, lad.’ He turned back to Paata. ‘What about snow chains?’

Paata rattled off another sentence or two of Paperclip to Nana, and I heard the side door slide open and close. He reappeared with two sets. Charlie dropped one into each of the furrows I’d scooped behind the tyres and threw in the rubber mat for good measure.

At Charlie’s signal, Nana revved the engine once more and dropped the clutch. The wheels spun for a second and the Merc rolled straight out of the ruts and back onto firmer ground.

Bastard didn’t waste any time getting his arse off the tree.

Nana climbed out. She was dressed in walking boots, waterproof trousers and an expensive black Gore-Tex jacket like Paata’s. She couldn’t have been more than about five foot six, and her features were almost elfin, but there was nothing fluffy about her demeanour. As she headed round the side of the vehicle, she looked as purposeful as a heat-seeking missile.

She gave the side door a quick double tap. There was a click and it slid open to reveal a bank of TV monitors set in an alloy frame which acted as a bulkhead to the cab, a stack of aluminium boxes, and an even more purposeful man with a huge beard and biceps the size of Bastard’s thighs.

‘This is Koba,’ Nana said. ‘I regret we live in dangerous times. Koba makes sure we come to no harm.’

She wasn’t kidding. Koba wouldn’t have looked out of place wielding a gollock in a Tbilisi graveyard. He studied us silently with dark, hooded eyes, as if trying to decide which of us to headbutt first.

‘There’s only room for another three of us here in the back.’ Nana pointed at Charlie. ‘Why don’t you get in the front with Paata and stretch out your leg? It looks painful.’

Bastard didn’t need a second invitation. He heaved himself inside and I followed. It was obviously an outside broadcast set-up. I put two and two together, and suddenly wished I’d hung on to my stupid hat.

I’d thought Nana seemed familiar. She’d fronted the camera in the broadcast from the Kazbegi siege.

4

I shifted a couple of cables out of the way to make room for my feet. I could see Paata and Charlie through the hatch, framed by the TV monitors, as we set off. Beside them, someone had taped a montage of images from Nana’s recent past.

One of them showed her in Fiona Bruce mode, posing at a news desk, wearing make-up and an earnest smile. Captions in Paperclip, Russian and English promoted her for some kind of award. She had certainly kept herself busy. She had exposed corruption in all sections of government, ‘unearthing entanglements of network and patronage at all levels’.

Another shot showed her alongside the Georgian army, covering the siege by Islamic militants in Kazbegi, on the Russian border, not even two weeks ago. According to the cutting, she’d been the first journalist at the scene, and reported live for CNN.

Nobody talked. Nana was very tense and edgy, and it set the tone. The soundproofing in the cab did a perfect job of muting the rain, and it accentuated the awkward silence.

Bastard, true to form, remained oblivious. ‘Now where the fuck’s that coffee?’

Nana reached into one of the large nylon zip bags on the floor and handed him a stainless steel thermos.

As Bastard unscrewed the top, Koba watched his every move.

‘Do you guys work on the pipeline?’ Nana asked. ‘What are you, surveyors? Engineers?’

Bastard poured himself a generous mug, and the smell of coffee filled the van. ‘Security.’

She turned to me. ‘You security too? Do you have any ID? Koba likes to be sure about people.’

‘It was in my bag, in our Pajero.’ I did my best to look apologetic. ‘We lost everything.’

She switched her attention back to Bastard. ‘We’re planning a documentary about the pipeline. Maybe we could do business one day.’

Bastard was getting the brew down him. It hadn’t occurred to him to offer some to anyone else. ‘Anti, I guess?’

‘Excuse me? Oh, I see.’ She flexed her fingers. ‘Well, don’t you think it’s crazy for an oil pipeline to cut straight through a national park?’

Bastard took a deep breath. We were about to be treated to his state-of-the-nation speech. ‘Listen, lady, you ain’t getting the big picture. It had to come this way, to avoid the Russians down south. That place of theirs ain’t called Military City Number One for nothing. Hey, it’s you people who call them the aggressive neighbour, not us.’

It was clear Koba didn’t like Bastard’s tone and Bastard knew it. ‘What the fuck you looking at, Lurch?’

Koba’s deep-set eyes didn’t even blink.

Bastard sank the last of the brew and I jumped in to try and stop things escalating.

‘And you, Nana? Why are you going to Borjomi?’

Her eyes narrowed. I knew she didn’t like me; I just hoped I didn’t know the reason why. ‘You probably won’t have heard because it’s just a little local matter, not part of the big picture…’ She glanced at Bastard, but her irony was clearly lost on him. ‘Just over a week ago, militant rebels massacred more than sixty women and children in a village called Kazbegi..’

I’d seen that look on her face before. Hazel and Julie had used it too. She tried to compose herself.

‘A farming family in Borjomi lost their only child in the massacre. A little girl. She was seven years old…’

She paused again.

‘We were with them on Saturday. We’re going back because they are willing to go live and tell us what it is like to live under the tyranny of Akaki, the militant leader. He is no freedom fighter; he’s a self-seeking, dictatorial thug. These poor people live in fear. But this couple, well — they have had enough.’

Bastard just started laughing. ‘What the fuck are momma and papa gonna do? They think that’s gonna change the world? They think that’s gonna make Akaki drop his pants and run away? Shit, they’ll just get themselves dead. Fucking dumb-asses.’ He nodded at Koba. ‘Ain’t that a fact, Lurch?’

Koba shifted in his seat. He clearly recognized Akaki’s name, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Bastard couldn’t contain himself now. He was on a roll. ‘That Akaki… boy, he’s caused us all a few headaches, over the years.’

‘Headaches? Headaches?’ Nana shook her head in disbelief. ‘Yes, I suppose you could call them that… Did you hear of the murder of Zurab Bazgadze?’

She was talking to him, but I had a nasty feeling she was addressing me.

‘The saint guy, right? The one who tried to get in the way of the pipeline?’

‘With very good reason.’ She glanced at Koba too. Her expression seemed to tell him that he needn’t worry about ripping Bastard’s head off. Any minute now, she’d do the job herself. ‘As you may have spotted, the soil structure around here is extremely unstable. It’s an area of considerable geological complexity, particularly vulnerable to landslides and earthquakes. In the event of pipeline rupture, there’s a risk of catastrophic environmental damage.

‘Zurab knew it would devastate the natural springs. Bottled water is Georgia’s number-one export. The people round here, their livelihoods depend on it. No-one championed their cause more vigorously than he did.’

‘Zurab, eh? He a friend of yours, missy?’

‘He became so. I interviewed him many times over the years; most recently, just before he died. He was here on Saturday, visiting the bereaved family. He was very good like that. A man of the people. We were to film him at length on Sunday morning, but he had to return to Tbilisi at short notice, so we were only able to grab a few minutes with him…’

Her look was defiant, but I thought I could see tears in her eyes.

‘Now, of course, I wish we’d tried harder to persuade him to stay.’

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. ‘You’re 60 Minutes, right?’

She nodded.

That figured. The Georgian Times had said that 60 Minutes and Baz had been due to have a love fest when he presented his affidavit.

‘We got sensors in the pipes to show up any fractures,’ Bastard said. It was as if he hadn’t listened to a single word. ‘It’d be sealed in days.’

Somehow, she managed to keep her cool. ‘By which time the whole area would be contaminated. That’s precisely why Zurab got an injunction to stop the pipeline coming this way. But your… friends… got it revoked. Zurab said that the decision came all the way from Washington; that your freedom-loving president intervened.’

Bastard wasn’t really listening. His face was boiling up nicely, as if he’d just caught this woman setting fire to the Stars and Stripes. ‘Hey, lady, that saint of yours knew you people were getting a good deal out of this. If it weren’t for us, you’d still be living in the dark ages. We’re bankrolling you. We’re giving you independence, freedom and stability — and in exchange for what? A few miles of metal tube. My president is even taking time out to come here and show you guys he means business. What more did your fucking saint Zurab want from us?’

Koba was looking more and more pissed off. Nana soothed him with a few mumbled words and shook her head sadly. ‘Zurab just couldn’t understand why, if you’re so devoted to democracy and stability, you support a government whose corruption knows no limits. The people see very little benefit from your so-called altruism, so the people think you are just here for the oil.’

Bastard’s face had turned purple. ‘You know what, lady? I don’t give a fuck. Bazgadze and his kind make me sick right up to my back teeth — complaining about this, complaining about that. Jesus, you were spending all day lining up for bread before we came along, yet all he did was complain about your government, my government, the Russians, the energy corridor. But you know what, lady.’ He put his finger to his temple, compressing the veins until they bulged. ‘I don’t give a shit if the Georgian government are driving round in Cadillacs. That was his problem, not mine.’

‘I agree, it was his problem. But it is also mine, and Georgia’s — and make no mistake about this, it’s yours as well. Zurab was right. He knew your country was more interested in oil than democracy. Democracy is just an excuse, a convenient flag to wave. You are behaving no differently here than you do in South America, Africa, the Mid-East. You invest in the military, keep corrupt governments happy, and build bases for your own troops to protect your oil interests. Meanwhile, our people, their people, the people who really matter, get nothing.’

I leaned back against the aluminium boxes. Charlie’s ‘little guy getting fucked over’ theory was receiving its most articulate airing yet.

‘Zurab knew very well that you, America, use the war against terrorism and paranoia about national security to underpin your foreign deployments, while your military becomes the protection force for every oil field, pipeline, refinery and tanker route on the planet. And the price we will all pay is higher than you can possibly imagine. You think it is measured in dollars, but it’s not. It’s measured in blood.’

There wasn’t a whole lot even Bastard could say to that, but he didn’t have to. Paata turned and leaned back through the bulkhead. ‘We are here.’

5

Seconds later, Charlie poked his head through the hatch. ‘Doesn’t look much like the centre of the country’s number-one export business to me, but there you go.’

I glanced through the windscreen. A few houses were dotted each side of the valley, increasing in number as the road climbed towards a cluster of roofs about 500 away.

The whole area was lush, green, and very wet. The muddy tracks and rough wooden fences and shacks had an almost medieval flavour. Apart from a handful of chickens scuttling about and a few cows mooching around in the fields to our left, the place seemed to be deserted. The torrential rain was keeping the villagers indoors, and I couldn’t blame them.

The track ahead of us had been shored up with broken bricks and lumps of wood. Ominously, I didn’t see any sign of a 4x4. I wondered how long it would take us to get to Turkey by horse and cart.

Charlie turned to Paata. ‘What now?’

‘Back to where Nana did the Kazbegi interview. We need to keep the Mercedes out of sight. Nana isn’t everybody’s favourite girl around here. She should be, but she isn’t. She likes to poke her nose into places people don’t want her to.’ His jaw tightened. ‘The farmer let us sleep here, with the truck. He’s a good man. He and his wife are the ones we’ve come back to see.’

We passed a dilapidated farmhouse, and turned right along a track. We pulled up in front of a huge barn, built of unmilled wood with gaps between the planks, and a roof of heavily patched and rusty corrugated-iron sheets. Paata jumped out to open the doors.

Bastard took it as his cue to started bumping his gums again. ‘That ID says you gotta help me. I want a truck.’

‘I’ll ask Eduard,’ Nana said sweetly. ‘He’s waiting inside.’

Paata slid back in and we drove a dozen or so metres into the centre of the barn. It was about three times the height of the wagon, and could easily have taken another six vans each side of us.

The whole place stank of decay and old manure, but at least it was dry. There were no tools or machinery in sight, not even a bale of hay. All I could see was a roughly hewn wooden bench in the far corner, by the remains of a small fire. It looked like it was where this lot had got their heads down.

Nana said something in Paperclip to Koba. He nodded, and took up station a few paces to one side of us. He unzipped his jacket as Bastard fell out of the wagon.

‘Where’s this Eduard guy? I’ve got some business to take care of.’

She was trying to keep it light, but I could see she was worried. ‘He’ll be here. He’s not the sort to break a promise.’ She glanced uneasily at Paata, then at me and Charlie.

Fuck this; there was too much eye contact going on here. It didn’t feel right.

‘We’ve got to get going too,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘Eduard will know if there’s transport. I’ll call him.’

I followed her line of sight to Paata and Koba, and sensed the tension between them. They were on starting blocks, waiting for something.

I looked back at Nana as she punched the buttons on her cell.

For just a second, I had a vision of a peasant farmer trundling along a bumpy track, fighting the wheel of his battered Lada as he scrabbled in his pocket to retrieve his Nokia.

A peasant Georgian farmer, with a cell phone. Who the fuck did he have to call?

My eyes shot back to Nana. Hers were glued to Koba, and the look between them told me everything.

She knew. She’d known all along. All that heartfelt, rabble-rousing shit had just been to keep us busy.

I walked over to Charlie. My eyes were fixed on Koba’s feet, between us and the door. I wasn’t going to join the eye-contact fest and make things worse. ‘C’mon, mate,’ I murmured. ‘We’re off.’

6

Charlie backed me as I took a pace towards the doors, ready to take on Koba if he decided to get in our way. It wasn’t something I relished, but we were running out of choices again.

He took a pace towards us. It had gone noisy.

I charged at him, head down. Nana screamed, but Koba’s hand moved faster. A split second later, I was staring down a shiny chrome barrel, three or four metres from my face. He covered all three of us, the twitch of the.357 Magnum Desert Eagle’s muzzle making it clear that our next sensible move was to get down in the dirt.

I looked up at Nana. The cell was at her ear.

‘Nana, what’s the matter? What’s wrong?’

Koba swung his boot into my side. I shut up and took the pain, which was a lot more comfortable than a round from a Desert Eagle. It was no accident that the massive, Israeli-built semi-automatic pistol was weapon of choice for every self-respecting US gang member.

Nana’s eyes flashed beams of hatred down at me as she waffled away in Paperclip, and that didn’t feel much better.

Paata pulled a couple of aluminium boxes from the van and started dragging them towards us. I heard Baz’s name mentioned a few times before she closed the cell down.

‘You know very well what’s wrong. The police are coming.’

Fuck Koba and that boot of his, it was gob-off-and-play-stupid time.

‘But I don’t understand… why pull a gun on us? We haven’t done anything.’ I tightened up for another kick.

She came and knelt down by my head instead.

‘Do you think I didn’t recognize you? You killed Zurab. I don’t just make the news. I watch it too.’

Stupid wasn’t going to work.

‘Wait, Nana… Yes, I was there. Charlie and I were both there. But we didn’t kill him. Akaki did, they were his people.’

She stared at me coldly, her hand up, blocking me off. ‘So what? The only difference between you is that Akaki got there a little earlier. Was Zurab making too much noise for you? What does it matter? You all wanted him dead. Why else were you there? And this one’ — she aimed a toe at Bastard’s head — ‘he carries government ID. What am I to make of that?’

Paata was busy setting up his camera stand and lights just a few metres from us.

Bastard had been uncharacteristically quiet so far, but being face down in the dirt wasn’t going to keep him from his default setting for long. ‘You don’t lump me in with these two fucks, you hear? I’m pipeline security, period. Nothing to do with whatever these fucks got up to. That ID says you gotta help me, so do it.’

‘I despise you.’ Nana glared across at him. ‘You are as guilty as if you’d pulled the trigger yourself.’

Paata had rigged up the lights, forward and either side of us, and started running the cables back to the van.

That was it then. Our big moment. Captured on camera by Nana Onani. I wondered what Silky and Hazel would make of it.

Charlie was obviously thinking much the same. ‘Don’t look now, lad,’ he muttered. ‘We’re about to have a starring role in Nana’s answer to I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here…’

‘That’s got to be worth an Emmy, don’t you think?’ she said, then barked something to Koba in Paperclip. He nodded obediently. The muzzle of the Desert Eagle didn’t waver a millimetre as Nana stood up and hit the cell keys again.

‘We didn’t kill him, Nana. You must have seen the CCTV. You didn’t see me kill him, did you?’

‘Save it for the camera. You’ll all have your chance.’

She waffled into the cell, was put on hold for a moment, then started talking again.

Paata fired up the Merc’s onboard generator and the arc lights burst into life. I could feel their heat on my face and back. My clothes started to steam.

Nana went into rapid-fire Paperclip mode; she checked her watch and waved her spare arm at Paata and his kit, as if whoever was on the other end could see. I could make out every mention of Baz’s name now; I’d heard it far too often these last couple of days not to.

Paata knelt by the van to unpack a sat dish from something resembling a black golf caddie. Nana’s exclusive was going to go out live, with us pleading our innocence straight to camera just before the police arrived.

Decision time.

Should we give up the papers now? Maybe we could still get out of this some other way, and hang on to them.

Bastard was going to say fuck all to her. Why incriminate himself?

But Charlie might…

I decided to hold off just a little longer, until we got ready for filming. Maybe we’d get to sit up; any chance we had to move was a chance to take action.

Nana finished her conversation and her gaze rested for a moment on something just beyond where we were lying. ‘That bench?’ There was sadness in her voice. ‘That is where Zurab sat on Saturday, when he took the call that made him go back to Tbilisi. If only… If only he hadn’t gone… If only I’d asked him even two or three more questions, who knows how things might have turned out?’ Her head jerked back towards me, her eyes full of loathing once more.

Charlie broke the silence that followed.

‘Nana, we didn’t do it. We can prove it. We have papers. That affidavit everyone’s after? I’ve got it here — and a tape of this fat fuck setting the whole thing up.’ He turned to Bastard. Their heads were just a couple of feet from each other. ‘Pipeline security, my arse.’

7

The tape started to spin in the console.

Koba now had the three of us lying down beside the Merc’s open door, but we could see everything we needed to. We had a pretty good view of one of the monitors; Koba and his Desert Eagle had a very good view of us.

To start with, Paata and Nana seemed more interested in what the fuck had happened to Eduard. I was getting the hang of this Paperclip now. Where was he? But then they went quiet as he concentrated on the screen and she flicked through Baz’s papers.

The picture quality was nothing to be ashamed of, given what it had been through. It was a bit gritty and fucked up by the mud, but it was clearly and unmistakably Jim Bastendorf coming into Charlie’s hotel room at the Marriott.

The little 10x8 screen didn’t do full justice to Charlie’s disguise, but it still brought a smile to my face. He’d remembered to keep his back to the lens, which was a smart move, given his outfit. He’d draped a towel over his head and shoulders, like a boxer, but no-one was going to confuse him with Muhammad Ali. He’d topped off the whole ensemble with a shower cap.

Somebody said something, but the sound quality was poor. Paata rewound the tape a few frames and turned up the volume.

We all listened to Bastard telling Charlie the reason he needed him to get into the house on Saturday night. ‘The fuck’s away until Sunday.’ He pointed a finger at the bathrobe in front of him. ‘So it’s got to be Saturday night, you got it?’

I flicked my eyes from the screen to the open barn doors. The rain-drenched track was beginning to look more like a duck pond. How long would it take for the police to arrive? And where would they come from? If there was a station in Borjomi itself, we could be seeing blue-and-whites any minute.

Koba was still standing, rock solid, a very professional three metres from our backs. What were the odds of gripping him and that.357 before we heard sirens? We had to be in with a chance. There were three of us, counting Bastard, and I guessed he’d pitch in. He’d gone far too quiet for my liking, but I knew he wouldn’t want to be lifted any more than we did.

Nana looked across at me. ‘Do you know what this says?’

I shook my head.

I had another go at explaining why we’d been in Baz’s house, but she just carried on reading. I wished now that I had taken action when Koba had kicked us to our feet and walked us the dozen or so paces to the van. No matter what, she was going to wait for the police.

But what the fuck, I told her everything I knew; how Bastard came into the story, why we were at the house — and how the tape proved not only that Bastard was part of the operation, but that we didn’t even know Baz was going to be there…

‘Hey, lady,’ Bastard chipped in. ‘I just do what I’m told. I knew nothing about that killing shit. I didn’t know he was gonna come home…’

He was wasting his breath. We both were. Nana’s head was down, and less than halfway through the second page she lifted a hand to silence us.

The folder was on her lap. I watched a tear fall from her cheek and land on the page.

‘Oh my God.’ She stifled a sob. ‘Oh my God…’ Her hand reached out and gently touched Paata’s back. ‘We must go live with this — right now.’

8

Nana’s eyes devoured the remaining pages, and she had to keep wiping her face with the back of her hand to stop more tears from falling and smudging the ink.

Colour bars flickered to life on all three screens as Paata rigged up the dish just outside the barn doors. Koba sparked up behind us. I guessed he wanted to know the same things as the rest of us — what was wrong, what did it say?

The screens flickered. A woman in a blue jacket materialized in front of us, sitting at a desk in an empty studio. She pulled on her set of headphones and the speakers crackled. Sure enough, we were going live. ‘Nana? Nana?’

Nana cut the sound and pulled on her own set of earphones and boom mike. She took a moment to compose herself, then started talking in low, urgent tones. Baz’s name came up again and again as she looked down and quoted long chunks from the document. The woman in the studio looked horrified. Behind us, Koba was building himself into a rage. This wasn’t good; Baz’s text was supposed to help us.

When she reached the bottom of the last page, she closed the folder with a snap and shoved it into the side pocket of her Gore-Tex.

She exchanged a closing word or two with her colleague in the studio, who got up from the desk and disappeared off-screen.

Nana’s eyes were still full as she removed her headphones. ‘We planned to address parliament with Zurab tomorrow.’ She was trying hard not to break down. ‘We were going to film him presenting the contents of this document to us in front of his government colleagues, in front of the very men he was going to expose.’ Her head shook slowly from side to side. ‘But none of us had any idea… no idea that these revelations would be so… so…’ She really had to search for the word. ‘Abominable’ was what she came up with, but I could see from her expression it still didn’t fit the bill.

The word seemed to hang in the air, then her hand came up to her mouth again. I didn’t know what to say — how could I? I hadn’t a clue what it was she’d just been reading. All I knew was that Nana was a tough one, but Baz’s stuff had turned her into a mess. And that it didn’t look as though the document was going to help us get off the dirt and away from here.

‘Nana, you believe us now? You need to let us go before the police come. Nana?’

She still wasn’t listening. ‘He wouldn’t tell me… He thought it would put me in too much danger…’ She turned to face us again, with red, hate-filled eyes. ‘Believe you? Why? Why should I believe you? Explain it to the police. See if you can persuade them.’

‘Listen, lady. I wasn’t there. I just got told to deliver the bag. Don’t you lump me in with these murdering fucks.’ Bastard was nothing if not persistent. I almost found myself starting to admire him.

‘You! Shut the fuck up.’ Charlie clearly didn’t feel the same.

We had to try to convince her before the uniforms arrived. It was unlikely they’d be speaking our language. ‘Nana. Why would we give you this stuff? We’ve told you what happened. Did you see me kill him? No. All we were there for was the papers. If we were part of it, why would we tape this fat bastard?’

It wasn’t working. She turned back to the monitors. They were rerunning the bulletin. The girl in the studio was talking, but there was no sound. At least, not from the screen. But we’d all heard the noise outside.

‘Police.’ Nana sounded relieved.

Paata came running back into the barn, screaming in Paperclip. I only managed to pick up one word, and it didn’t sound good news to me.

I turned my head. Koba was still behind us. He looked like he hadn’t enjoyed hearing Akaki mentioned any more than I had.

The scream of engines got louder. Koba got more and more agitated. Three or four wagonloads of militants, by the sound of it, and only one of him. I could see his dilemma.

Nana tried to calm him down, but it wasn’t happening. The Desert Eagle was still pointed at us, safety off, and the muzzle waved alarmingly from side to side. His eyes brimmed with tears of rage.

Bastard just lay there. He seemed to be almost enjoying it. What the fuck was the matter with him?

Charlie turned onto his back.

‘Calm down, Koba lad. Or point that fucking thing somewhere else…’

I double-checked under the van, along the rear wall. No sign of a back door.

The vehicles were on top of us now. Charlie was the first to see them. ‘Taliban wagons!’

I glanced back towards the doors.

Guys in black masks and green combat jackets, some with ponchos, swarmed out of Toyota pickups, laden with AKs, light machine guns and belts of 7.62 short.

Koba ran straight for them, screaming, sobbing, going ballistic.

I leaped up and grabbed Charlie. ‘Let’s go, go, go!’

The heavy-calibre.357 kicked in Koba’s hands. I heard screams from both sides of the barn doors.

Charlie and I ducked down behind the van. Fuck knows where the other three had got to; I didn’t care.

Bastard materialized behind us as two bursts of AK put an end to the Desert Eagle. Angry shouts echoed round the barn.

I looked under the van. Koba was writhing in the mud beside one of the wagons. Blood pumped from the holes drilled into his torso.

A big guy with wild hair and an Osama-style beard walked across to him, the butt of an AK in his poncho-draped shoulder. He leaned in and squeezed the trigger. The weapon kicked, and Koba’s head exploded like a melon.