Execution

FIFTY-ONE

Katya was standing outside a small Turkish-run general store, studying the street. She was clutching a plastic bag of groceries in one hand, while the other was inside her jacket, resting on the butt of her gun.

The weapon, a slim-line PSM 6.35mm pistol, issued on arrival by the embassy’s security armourer, was designed to sit snugly beneath the jackets of personnel of both genders. It felt uncomfortably small compared with her usual service weapon, a heavier Viking MP-446 9mm. She had used the PSM before, but never in a hot action, and never out on the street. Right now, it left her feeling vulnerable and exposed. If anyone decided to launch an attack on her out here, she would have felt better prepared with a heavier weapon carrying more punch.

She walked away from the store towards a darker area at the end of the building, and took out her mobile. What she was about to do was crazy, and she knew Tate, the Englishman, would advise her against it. But she had no choice. If she could find out who was ranged against them, and what they knew, it gave her a better chance of getting out of this city with her life, or locked up in a cell awaiting a trial back in Moscow. In aligning herself with Clare and her colleagues, she had already gone too far to turn back now.

The truth was, she didn’t want to go back. Whatever her life had been was over. From here on in, the future would be whatever she could make of it, with Clare, hopefully.

But to do that, she had to live. They all did.

She sent a text message to Bronyev consisting of a single dot. Her number would not show up on his mobile, but he would know it was her. They had once discussed a colleague using it to get a friend to call her back when needing backup or an escape from a clingy or boring companion — a dating SOS. If anyone with Bronyev should see the dot, it would look like an incomplete or blank call from an unknown number.

She waited for him to call back, sinking into the shadows of a doorway and watching the street. There was no way they could trace the call, but she didn’t know how clean of telltale signals Clare and her two friends were. If either one of them used their mobile and the local FSB unit somehow got a trace on it, they would be here within twenty minutes.

Her phone buzzed. A dot and a question mark.

It was Bronyev. He was asking where she was. She smiled. More than that, he hadn’t given her away. If he had, he’d have called her, tried to keep her talking and find out where she was. And every moment she spent on the line would reduce their chances of remaining free. The downside was that in using this brief communication, he was also telling her that his freedom was severely restricted.

At least he was still in one piece and not confined to a locked room in the embassy basement.

She wondered what to do. Ironically, neither of them could communicate freely now. She because whoever was with Bronyev would be waiting for just that event; Bronyev because he would be being watched.

She had to get back to the apartment building. Tate and the others would be getting anxious about how long she had been gone now. She was about to put the mobile back in her pocket when it buzzed again. She checked the screen.

‘888’

She frowned, then went cold. Bronyev had once told her that his mother had studied numerology, and had talked about it often with her son, explaining the importance of numbers in spiritual matters. All numbers meant something, he had explained to Katya, and had gone through a list from 0 to 9 and their repeat sequences. She’d forgotten most of the list because it meant nothing to her. But 888 had stuck because it had once been her mother’s apartment number in the concrete housing block where she had lived and died several years ago. Too lacking in imagination to name the blocks after anyone interesting, such as heroes of the former Soviet Union, the then Cold War authorities had settled instead on the dull conformity of numbers.

Apartment 88 in Block 8. 888.

In spirituality, the three numbers 888 meant a phase in one’s life was about to end — a warning so that one could be prepared. She recalled telling Bronyev at the time that he was being over-imaginative. Numbers were to be added and subtracted, not feared. Anyway, she hadn’t wanted to think about her mother dying alone in that place while she had forged a career in the FSO.

Bronyev hadn’t argued, but had smiled indulgently, something which had made her think he was more spiritual than their superiors might approve of. For a man whose job was to potentially kill in order to protect the lives of others, it could be seen as a sign of weakness.

She swallowed and wondered if she wasn’t now imagining things.

888. The numbers glowed in the poor light.

Then she heard the car engine.

In this part of the city she was pretty certain that 4X4 Mercedes of the type she had seen used by the FSB simply did not exist. The vehicles were highly tuned as a matter of course, with reinforced glass and panels, and she could pick out one of their engines quite easily in a quiet location such as this. The only cars she had seen here so far had been standard road models, small and mostly in poor condition and badly maintained.

But not this one.

It appeared at the end of the street, slowed and stopped, one indicator winking. A gleaming black M-Class vehicle with tinted windows and heavy duty tyres. She knew there would be at least four men inside, all armed.

She stepped back into deeper shadow, her stomach going cold. Somehow they had found her. Worrying about how was a problem for later, if ever. Right now she had to warn the others. Warn Clare.

She began to dial the number, panic for a moment making her forget whose phone she was ringing — Clare’s or Tate’s?

Her own phone started ringing, and she jumped.

At that moment a man stepped out of the Mercedes down the street. She shrank back against the wall, shielding the light from her mobile behind her, and scrabbled at the keyboard to shut it off.

She managed to hit the ‘off’ key and the ringing ceased. But it was too late. The man by the Mercedes had swung round and was looking towards her. She recognised the stance: that of a hunter sniffing the wind. Then he turned and muttered something to the others in the car.

The doors opened and three more men stepped out. One had a gun in his hand, the street lighting glinting off the barrel. The others would be similarly armed.

They weren’t here to take her back, then.

She dropped the bag of groceries and started running.