Detonator (27 page)

As fingers of light began to scrape across the sky I pulled into a service station and topped up the tank with diesel. I also bought a five-litre container and filled it with unleaded.

I threw two boxes of matches, an energy bar, a couple of cans of Monster and a two-litre bottle of water into my shopping basket, then ordered a strong black coffee, a bread roll and a sausage the size of a fire hose to go. I parked up between two artics and took a bite. It had absolutely no nutritional value, but who gives a fuck?

I necked half the water before switching on Hesco’s HP.

The photograph of the Maserati kicked in as soon as I’d typed in the password, and was then overlaid by file and document icons, some with Russian labels, some with English. My first objective was to find out how many of them had been downloaded from Frank’s laptop. Every time I looked at the thing I pictured him turning his screen towards me in the green room, and showing me something that came close to sending him into meltdown.

I double-clicked on each of the top row, then a random selection, and got nowhere. Every single one had its own access code. I don’t know what I expected, but I probably should have guessed that nothing Hesco volunteered would ever come for free.

I tried his calendar, hoping it might give me a lead on Dijani’s whereabouts over the next few days, but that was also locked. Even the name of the second gate of Paradise failed to work its magic. I let my mind wander back to the Iraq prison and managed to remember the names of four or five others.

baabassalaat

baabassadaqah

baabalhajj

baabarrayyaan

None of them let me in.

There was another gate whose name I could never get my head around. But it was an eight-word sequence, and was reserved for those who hugged trees and were big on forgiveness, so that wasn’t going to be one of his favourites.

I powered down again and slid the thing back into its sleeve. I needed a computer geek to sort it out for me, and I wasn’t going to find one here.

I tried to gain access to Hesco’s iPhone. The second gate didn’t sort it. Nor did any of the others I could remember.

I slotted a SIM card and battery into one of the Nokias and texted Moscow instead. Pasha called back when I had the brew halfway to my lips. I put the cup down on the dash and thumbed the green button.

‘OK. The first thing you need to know: the president had no love for Frank, but there’s no evidence to suggest that Dijani and Uran work for the Kremlin.’

So Zac hadn’t been talking bollocks about that, at least. If a solid Putin connection didn’t surface in the next couple of days, I’d tell Pasha to give Anna the all-clear. Maybe she’d start liking me again when she and Nicholai were back in Moscow.

‘Who
do
they work for?’

‘Good question. You were right about Dijani. The Lebanese bit, anyway. Once-strong affiliations with the Saudi political elite. Educated in America. MIT. But no criminal connections, as far as we know. Until four months ago.’

‘What happened four months ago?’

‘He chose Uran as his security chief.’

‘And Uran isn’t a completely law-abiding citizen?’

‘To put it mildly. Born in Lushnja. One of three brothers.’

I knew about Lushnja. It made Palermo look like Pleasantville. ‘Albanian Mafia?’

‘Albanian Mafia. Into everything. Prostitution. People-trafficking. Drug-trafficking. Brutal. Even Cosa Nostra are scared of them.’

‘Zac was on his way to Naples. So that’s where I’m going. Do you have people on the ground there?’

‘No. But I have a good contact. He writes mostly for
Il Diavolo
– tough, investigative stuff – but does the occasional piece for us. Luca. Luca Cazale. We Skyped this morning. He’s been on the trafficking story since the Balkan wars. It’s out of control.’

‘Sounds like Luca could use some good news. Tell him Zac is staying in Switzerland, after all.’

There was a silence at Pasha’s end of the line.

‘How long for?’

‘For good. His jet-setting days are over.’ I paused long enough for Pasha to take on board what I’d just said. ‘Mate, could you keep digging for stuff about Frank’s southern European business network? And about Dijani? He’s the key to this thing. He keeps turning up in all the wrong places. I’d also like everything you can get me on the other Uran brothers. Including imagery. Zac seems to think I’m not on their Christmas-card list.’

‘They’re Muslims, my friend. They don’t send Christmas cards.’

‘It’s a Brit expression. A joke. Kind of.’

‘Ah.’ He wasn’t laughing.

Nor was I. There wasn’t much to laugh about.

‘Do me a favour, will you? Get hold of Luca. Tell him I’ll be in touch, and soon.’

‘So you can share your English jokes with him?’

‘Something like that.’

I cut the call. Then I dialled the number Laffont had given me. I didn’t care how early it was. Frank had paid him a fortune, and he’d reversed away from Stefan at warp speed. It was time for him to get the fuck out of bed and step up.

It rang eight times before his recorded voice invited me in three languages to leave a message.

I didn’t.

I took the Nokia into the back of the van, cut the SIM into slivers that were small enough to swallow and smashed the rest of it to bits with my hammer.

The coffee and Monster had done nothing to fight the fatigue. I couldn’t afford to mess up. I needed to get my head down. Even an hour would be better than nothing. I curled up in the far corner; the only bit that wasn’t completely soaked with blood or Fanta.

‘Nick …’

‘Stefan?’

I heard my own voice echo in the load space.

‘Maybe you could be my
actual
dad … Would that work for you?’

‘Go to sleep, mate. I am.’

I wasn’t, though. I was caught in a place where the dead walked and talked.

‘
Hard routine, Nick
…’

‘
This shit is for real
…’

Did he say that, or was it me?

Fuck …

My head was pounding like a jackhammer. My back was on fire.

I’d had the night sweats before. It was just part of the shit I had to live with.

But I’d never had a problem snatching twenty minutes of oblivion to recoup and regroup.

Wherever.

Whenever.

It made no difference.

Halfway up an Arctic ice wall.

At the edge of a
wadi
.

In the tropical rainforest, with humidity so severe you didn’t know if you were breathing or drowning.

I’d done it with artillery fire overhead. With the wind chill blackening my cheeks and freezing my bollocks off.

So why not now?

Instead of tossing and turning and speaking aloud to the ghost of a half-Ukrainian seven-year-old.

Maybe it was the coffee and Monster cocktail.

It wasn’t.

Thin grey light spilt through the partition window. I cranked myself up and rubbed my eyes, then slid open the door and went back to the driver’s seat. My forehead was sticky with grease, sweat and Fanta.

I tried to swallow, but my throat was coated with sandpaper.

I scrabbled around for the water bottle, first on the seat and then in the foot well. I found it underneath my feet, crumpled but intact. I unscrewed the cap and took five or six mouthfuls, then splashed my hands and face. I pulled a small towel out of my day sack and dried myself.

Stefan’s towel.

What the fuck did it matter? He wasn’t going to need it again.

I took a long, slow breath, then another, and wiped more water over my face. My eyes stopped stinging.

I gave the final Monster a good shake, pulled back the ring a fraction and gunned it before it sprayed everywhere. I could almost feel the caffeine blasting its way into my bloodstream as I fired the van up and moved off. Troop drivers in Afghan were restricted to two cans of this stuff a day because it made them so hyper.

The boy might be dead but I wasn’t. And I planned to keep it that way.

Nothing had changed.

Find out what’s happening. Stop it. Kill it. Do whatever’s necessary to get me out of this shit now I’m the only one left.

I steered around the northern edge of Zürich.

The Üetliberg – the eight-hundred-metre mountain on its western flank – seemed a good place to aim for. Densely wooded and crisscrossed with hiking trails, which turned into toboggan runs in the winter, it was easily accessible and had plenty of cover. And a small train station connected it directly to the centre of town.

A viewing tower and a bunch of platforms overlooked the city, catering for people admiring the spires and the bridges at its centre, and the lake beyond it. They wouldn’t be looking the other way. So as long as I stayed clear of early-morning cyclists, sightseers and bearded tree-huggers in socks and open-toed sandals, I should be sorted.

I found a secluded spot at the far side of the hill, off the road, on the lower slopes, and replaced the SIG with the Sphinx in my waistband. Once I was certain that I didn’t have any spectators, I dug Hesco’s bags out of the toolbox and opened them over the Fanta-soaked wooden floor. The huge pool of crimson that had gathered around his head had also been sucked up by the plywood, but it wasn’t yet dry.

I pulled Stefan’s towel out of my day sack and added it to the pile, along with the Moleskine. I hadn’t needed to scribble in it for a while now, and I’d never liked it as much as they claimed Hemingway did. The deeds to the chateau, the Adler invite, Hesco’s passport and his Adler pass went on too.

I’d toyed with the idea of trying to use it to access the St Gallen HQ and have a look around, but now reckoned that the risk outweighed the potential reward. I glanced at the boarding pass for the Naples flight and wondered whether Dijani would be on the plane. Then I crumpled it into a ball and chucked it on as well.

I hesitated before binning Stefan’s passports. Fuck knew why. He wasn’t going anywhere, thanks to me.

Before I stepped out into the open again, I pulled the last two disposable cloths out of their bag. Then I removed the vehicle’s fuel cap and rammed them down the spout, leaving a nice long tail.

I slit the front seats with my knife and soaked their stuffing and the cloth bung with unleaded, then emptied the jerry-can all over the contents of the load space.

Finally, I threw a lighted match through the cab window and the sliding door, ignited the cloth, and legged it. It was burning front and back as I disappeared into the trees. Mr Molotov would have been proud of me. The diesel wasn’t going to explode when the flames reached into the tank, but the heat it generated would be intense. It would finish the job very nicely.

By the time I’d got halfway up the hill, black smoke was billowing up through the canopy. I hooked my thumbs through the straps of the day sack and carried on walking.

The sirens began to kick in as I crossed the crest and the cityscape spread out below me. I didn’t bother with the train. There were only two an hour and I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and be pinged.

As I stretched my legs on the downward path, I assembled the components of another Nokia and punched out Laffont’s number. As before. Eight rings, then his recorded voice in three languages. Maybe he was being guarded about an unknown number.

I called him again half an hour later, before I hit the outskirts. With the same result.

So I called Adler HQ in St Gallen instead. The receptionist on the main switchboard picked up immediately. I asked if I could talk to Mr Dijani. I had no idea how I was going to play things if I got through, but it didn’t come to that.

‘I’m sorry, sir. Mr Dijani is currently away on business. He won’t be returning until the middle of next week.’ She had one of those voices that made whatever she said sound like I’d just won the lottery.

‘Ah, he’s already left, has he? I was hoping to catch him before we get together in Italy …’

‘If you’d like to leave your name and number, sir, I’d be very happy to pass on your message.’

I believed her. The happiness was coming off her in waves.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll ring him on his mobile.’

I thanked her and she thanked me, and she very much hoped I’d enjoy the rest of my day.

Obliging was obviously her default position. But I was glad I hadn’t pushed too hard. I hadn’t wanted my call to be memorable for the wrong reasons. She hadn’t confirmed Dijani’s whereabouts, but she’d done the next best thing when I mentioned Italy. She hadn’t reacted at all.

I dismantled the phone and lobbed the bits into the first stretch of deep water I came to, the canal that ran past the main train station.

I didn’t have to hunt around for a cyber café here. I headed straight along the river Limmat to the one in Uraniastrasse which boasted fine food and fast Internet. It was surrounded by the solid architecture that must have been all the rage in this part of town during the nineteenth century, but had gone for the vibe of an airport departure lounge. It must have been a cool place to be, though: a bunch of very shiny, raked Harley Davidsons were parked nearby, alongside an underground car park that looked like Hitler’s bunker.

I bought a frothy coffee and the Swiss version of a sticky bun, then selected a monitor at the end of a row with my back to a wall the colour of Hesco’s favourite brand of Fanta. I ate and sipped and played catch-up on the news channel.

There had been another jihadist gangfuck, not in Lyon this time, in Marseille. A nightclub. Hostages. The GIGN had sorted it, but with five civilian casualties.

An Italian security expert was being given some serious shit for warning anyone who would listen that Italy – the cradle of global Christianity – would be the next on the extremist hit list. It wasn’t just the people-traffickers who had worked out that Sicily was only a hundred and seventy Ks north of Libya.

The French police had enlisted the support of Interpol in their search for the killer of Ukrainian billionaire Frank Timis and his missing son. A lad in a quilted jacket waffled into a big fat microphone outside the gates of Lyubova’s smouldering chateau as the police and fire crews did urgent stuff behind him. He was doing his best to report the next chapter of the unfolding family drama with the seriousness it deserved, but his eyes shone with excitement. Stories like this didn’t come by every day on the shores of Lake Konstanz.