Al-Hussain shook his head. ‘No.’
‘It’s a shit-hole,’ said Sunny, ‘but that’s where we have to take you.’
Shepherd couldn’t be bothered to arrange a rental car and he didn’t want to be seen driving around in García’s green Lamborghini. Rosenfeld had a Honda CRV parked in the basement of his apartment building so Shepherd took the keys and went down in the lift to the car park. As soon as he was in the vehicle he took out his mobile phone and tapped out a number. Amar Singh, one of MI5’s most able technicians, answered on the third ring. ‘Amar, can you talk?’
‘Give me a second.’
Shepherd heard footsteps then a door opening and closing. ‘Go ahead,’ said Singh.
‘I need a favour. Are you in the office?’
‘For the foreseeable future,’ said Singh. ‘I’m babysitting two bugging teams and overseeing a facial-recognition job that’s gotta be done PDQ.’
‘Can you grab a few seconds to check someone out for me?’ said Shepherd. ‘A Russian by the name of Stefan Bazarov. He’s living in Spain at the moment. I’ve never heard of him so see what you can dig up. From what’s gone down I’m thinking Russian Mafia.’
‘Okay, I’ll sit down at a terminal now. One thing, is this official or on the QT?’
‘You think I’d use you for an off-the-books operation?’
Singh laughed. ‘Do you really want me to answer that, Spider?’
‘I find your lack of faith disconcerting,’ said Shepherd. ‘Joking apart, it’s official but I don’t have time to go through channels. There’ll be no comeback. Willoughby-Brown’s running the operation.’
‘That must be fun for you,’ said Singh.
‘I’m going to be driving for a while. Can you send screenshots to this number?’
‘Not a problem,’ said Singh. ‘Soon as I can.’
It took Shepherd just minutes to leave Gibraltar. The last flight had long left so the barriers across the main road leading to Spain where it cut across the airport runway were up. There was no passport check leaving Gibraltar but he had to show his passport to a black-uniformed Spanish officer, who asked him to open the boot of the CRV. The officer took a quick look inside, presumably checking for cigarettes, which were much cheaper in Gibraltar than Spain, then motioned for Shepherd to be on his way.
The Spanish roads were good and it took Shepherd just over half an hour to get to the hospital where the injured Serbs were being cared for. The Hospital Quirón de Marbella was on the seafront, right next to the fishing port. The Serbs were in three rooms but Shepherd was interested in only one man, the one Rosenfeld had said was the leader, Goran Kolarac. There was one nurse on duty and a fifty euro note and a promise to keep his visit short got him Kolarac’s room number. Kolarac’s room was south-facing with a view over the Mediterranean but as it was now dark there wasn’t much to see. When Shepherd walked in, Kolarac was watching cartoons on a wall-mounted TV. He was a hefty guy with bulging forearms and a square jaw that looked as if it could take a punch or two. His left leg was bandaged and raised in the air on some sort of trapeze device, presumably to keep the pressure off it. There was a drip on a rack at the side of his bed and a tube leading into his left arm.
Kolarac’s eyes widened when he saw Shepherd and he reached over to grab his water jug. Shepherd held up his hands, palms outward. ‘I come in peace, Goran,’ he said.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ growled Kolarac, still ready to throw the jug.
‘I work with Jake Rosenfeld,’ said Shepherd. ‘I want to talk about what happened.’
‘I got shot, that’s what fucking happened,’ said the Serb, putting the water jug back on the bedside table. ‘You tell Rosenfeld I want to talk to him.’
‘He’s been shot, same as you.’
‘Yeah? Serves him right.’
A blonde nurse appeared. ‘Is everything all right, Mr Kolarac?’ she asked.
‘I just brought him some grapes,’ said Shepherd. ‘I won’t keep him long.’
‘It’s all right, Sandra,’ said Kolarac. ‘It’s just a brief visit. He’s going soon.’
‘You need to rest,’ said the nurse. She looked at Shepherd. ‘Mr Kolarac is a very lucky man. He almost lost his leg.’
She smiled at Kolarac and left.
‘Of course, if I’d been really lucky I wouldn’t have been shot in the first place,’ Kolarac growled.
Shepherd reached inside his jacket and Kolarac tensed. Shepherd smiled. ‘Chill, Goran. I’m on your side, remember?’ He pulled the washbag from his pocket and tossed it onto the bed. ‘There’s twenty thousand euros,’ he said. ‘That’s what you’d have been paid if you’d got the money from the Russian.’
Kolarac frowned. ‘You’re paying me?’ He unzipped the washbag and ran a finger over the banknotes.
‘Rosenfeld is.’
‘He should have told me who the Russian was.’
‘He didn’t know.’
‘How could he not?’
‘He was just a client.’
‘He’s a fucking Russian gangster.’
‘You know that for sure?’ asked Shepherd.
‘The son of a gangster, anyway. His father’s a big shot in Moscow. Drugs. Extortion. Prostitution.’
‘What’s the son doing here?’
‘He got into an argument with some hoods in Moscow. His father sent him here until things cool off. That’s what I was told. But that was after they did this to me.’
‘Did Jake know this?’
‘If he did, he didn’t tell me. I found out yesterday.’
‘And what happened? How did you get shot?’
‘I was walking to my car after a night out. Two guys pulled up on a motorbike, both with full-face helmets. The passenger had a gun. One shot. Then off they went.’
‘Did they say anything?’
‘They didn’t have to.’
‘And your other guys?’
‘Two of them. Same. One got shot twice.’ He grinned. ‘Dragan is a big fucker and when they shot him he charged at them. Almost made it but then they shot him in the stomach.’
‘Is he okay?’ asked Shepherd.
‘Like I said, he’s a big guy and the shooter was using a .22. He’ll be fine.’
‘Same shooter, you mean?’
‘No, we were all shot at about the same time. It was coordinated. A professional job.’
‘But no one was killed, right?’
‘It was a warning.’
Shepherd sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You understand why he did what he did, right? You roughed him up for a debt he reckons he didn’t owe.’
‘He had me shot.’
‘True. But not killed. If he’d wanted you killed he could have had it done. You sent him a message and he sent you a message back. The question is, what happens now?’
‘If he wants a war, I can give him one.’
‘I’m sure you can. But what do you think the father will do if you kill the son?’
‘I’m not scared of a Russian gangster.’
‘That’s good to know, but it’s not about who’s scared of whom. It’s about who does what and next time it might not be a few flesh wounds. What happened was an error of judgement on Jake’s part, but he’s learned his lesson. What we need now is for everyone just to take a deep breath and assess where you are. You roughed up the Russian. He fought back. And, let’s be honest, you’d have done the same. If the Russians had burst in and roughed you up, you’d have hit back.’
‘Damn right.’
Shepherd gestured at the washbag. ‘You’ve got your money. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll talk to the Russian and make sure this doesn’t go any further. You and your guys put this down to experience. No one seems too badly hurt.’
‘I’m in fucking hospital,’ said Kolarac.
‘Flesh wounds,’ said Shepherd.
‘I got shot in the thigh. They could have severed an artery – I could’ve died.’
‘Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve,’ said Shepherd. ‘They were obviously pros. They could’ve crippled you if they’d wanted. Or worse. And, if they come back, you won’t be so lucky the second time.’
Kolarac opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He lay down. ‘I hear what you’re saying.’
‘Good,’ said Shepherd.
‘But this hospital isn’t cheap,’ said Kolarac.
‘I’ll make sure it’s taken care of.’
Kolarac frowned. ‘How much did Rosenfeld know about the Russian?’
Shepherd shrugged. ‘Not much. He thought Bazarov was a rich client who’d defaulted and that was all. I doubt Bazarov would broadcast that he was Russian Mafia.’
Kolarac nodded slowly. ‘He’s an idiot, the American.’
‘He should have checked, I agree, but he won’t be making the same mistake again, I can promise you that.’ He pointed at the bag of money. ‘So are we good?’
Kolarac nodded again. ‘Yeah. We’re good.’
Shepherd held out his hand. ‘Always a pleasure dealing with a professional,’ he said.
Kolarac shook it. ‘Likewise.’
Omar took off his helmet and pulled a printed sheet out from inside his green leather racing jacket. ‘We’re looking for number thirty-eight,’ he said to Faisal.
They were in a suburban street in Birmingham, about four miles north of the city centre. It had taken Omar two hours to drive down from Salford, resisting the urge to let the bike rip on the M6. He had kept to the speed limit the whole way, only moving into the outside lane when overtaking.
‘There it is,’ said Faisal. He pointed at a house to their left. It was semi-detached with a path that led to a garage at the rear.
The vehicle they had come to see was parked at the side of the house. It was white, but that wasn’t a problem, and as Omar walked along the pavement, he could see the bodywork was in good condition. He knocked on the front door. It was answered by a man in his thirties, wearing a baggy green pullover and brown corduroy trousers. Omar thought of a walking tree. ‘I phoned you this morning,’ he said.
‘Ah, right, yes,’ said the man. He stepped out of the house.
Faisal was already peering in through the passenger window. ‘It’s not locked!’ called the man. Faisal opened the door and climbed in.
‘Mind if I have a quick look?’ asked Omar.
‘Sure, help yourself,’ said the man. ‘It runs fine – my uncle lived twenty miles away and I drove it over last week. The battery had gone flat but after I charged it she started first time. They run for ever, those things.’
The man stood by the house while Faisal and Omar checked out the vehicle. The engine was sound, the bodywork was pretty much perfect, though the interior had been stripped, presumably in preparation for the conversion to a camper van. ‘Looks good to me,’ Omar said to Faisal.
Faisal nodded in agreement.
Omar got out and walked back to the front door. ‘I’m definitely interested,’ he said to the man, who was now smoking a cigarette. ‘Where did you get it from?’
‘It was my uncle’s. He was always planning to turn it into a camper van but he never got around to it. He passed away last year and my aunt asked me to get rid of it.’
Omar nodded. ‘That’s cool,’ he said. ‘I mean, sorry about your loss and all, but I can definitely take it off your hands. The advert says six. Would you take five for cash?’
‘The advert says six. That’s pretty much what he paid for it.’
‘I know, but cash is king, right?’ said Omar. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and showed the man the hundred fifty-pound notes inside.
The man licked his lips. ‘Let’s say five and a half.’
‘Okay,’ said Omar, handing the man the envelope and pulling out his wallet. ‘But I’ll need a receipt.’ He smiled. ‘Not for tax. I’m buying it for someone else and he’ll want to see how much I paid.’
‘No problem,’ said the man. Omar gave him another five hundred pounds. The man disappeared into the house and reappeared a few minutes later with a handwritten receipt and the keys. Omar took the receipt and tossed the keys to Faisal.
The man gave him the V5C log book. ‘Now, it doesn’t have an MOT,’ he said. ‘And it’s not insured. I took a risk and it was fine, but it’s yours now so it’s up to you. Oh, and I’ll need your details for the DVLA.’
‘No problem,’ said Omar. He gave the man a piece of paper with a fake name, address and telephone number on it. ‘Pleasure doing business with you.’ He put his helmet back on. Five minutes later he was following Faisal on the M6, heading north.
Shepherd’s mobile phone buzzed as he was getting into his car outside the hospital. It was a text message from Amar Singh. Just one word –
Done
– and half a dozen screenshots.
Shepherd flicked through them. Stefan Bazarov was twenty-six years old and had a criminal record going back to his teens, mainly arrests for assault, drug use or motoring offences. None of the cases had ever gone to court, presumably because of the influence of his father, Viktor.
Unlike the son, Viktor Bazarov had served several prison sentences, including twelve years for murder when he was in his twenties. That had been his last conviction, and since his release in the late nineties, he had never returned to prison. It wasn’t because he had turned over a new leaf – a Europol file detailed the rapid growth of Bazarov’s criminal empire and suggested that it had been made possible by the Russian’s paying off high-ranking police officers and judges. Shepherd smiled to himself as he read the Europol report – it seemed that Bazarov had a lot in common with the O’Neill brothers. He was thought to have been behind several dozen murders in Moscow, and his criminal activities spanned extortion, drugs, prostitution and fraud. According to the report, there was little or no chance of him being brought to justice, not without a comprehensive clear-out of the corrupt officials currently running the city.
There was a report in Russian from the Moscow police accompanied by a translation. It detailed a fight in a Moscow nightclub three months earlier in which a young man had been shot. Witnesses had identified Stefan Bazarov as the killer but Bazarov was believed to have left Moscow and his whereabouts were unknown. The victim was named as twenty-three-year-old Timofei Ivakin. He had been shot twice and was dead when he arrived at the Botkin Hospital, close to the Dinamo Metro station. There was more detail in a report filed by an MI6 officer working out of the British Embassy. The intelligence report was a weekly summary written five days after the murder. It identified the victim as the son of another Russian gangster, a former KGB officer, who had turned to crime when the Soviet Union imploded. His name was Leonid Ivakin and, according to the MI6 report, he was in the process of legitimising his empire, moving away from his criminal activities and concentrating on his property and business interests. The death of his son had brought him back into the public eye for all the wrong reasons, and the fact that Ivakin was trying to downplay his criminal connections was the only reason there hadn’t been instant retribution against the Bazarov family. The MI6 officer’s assessment was that at some point Ivakin would be seeking revenge for the death of his son, and if that were to happen it would bring him into conflict with Stefan Bazarov’s father.