the rear of the building. The cold took my breath away.
I could hear the odd shout from one or two locals crazy enough to come out of their apartments to see what all the fuss was about.
My breath was like a racehorse's on a winter gallop. I could hear Val moan. His nostrils were working overtime.
There was a stretch of fifty feet or so to the road. All around me steam escaped from pipes and ventilation shafts, and generators hummed like ships' engines. If I got one of the service vehicles, I'd turn left, downhill to the main street, where the drone of traffic was coming from.
After about thirty feet I could see the parking lot and loading bays. The only vehicle in sight was a small Hilux van. Fuck it, that would have to do.
With the security lights exposing me to the spectators at their windows in the apartments across the street, I tried the door. It was locked.
There were no passing vehicles to lift; the construction just up the hill had seen to that. There was no choice but to drag Val up the concrete stairs and onto the loading bay.
Inside was what looked like a rental car office, with a desk, phone, and paperwork in piles. A woman in her mid-twenties was standing talking hysterically in Finnish on the phone, her left hand waving in the air as if beating off a swarm of wasps. At first she didn't recognize what was in front of her, until I shouted and pointed the 88.
'The keys! Give me the vehicle keys. Now!'
She knew what I was saying. She dropped the phone, the other end still talking, and pointed at the desk. I grabbed them and ran back down the stairs to the van, Val clenching his teeth as he took the pain in his neck.
I still didn't bother checking around me. I knew I was being watched, and worrying about it wasn't going to make it stop. By now the woman in the rental car office would be back on the phone telling the world anyway.
I ripped off the cardboard that was keeping the windshield ice-free and opened the passenger door using my left hand. My right was on the weapon, and I needed to keep the exposed trigger finger from making any contact. I might need to move my ass, but not at the expense of leaving prints.
'Get in, get in!'
He might not speak English, but with my pistol stuck into his neck, Val got the drift.
Once I'd finished kicking him in, I climbed over on top of him, keeping the barrel of the pistol into his neck as I moved into the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition. Firing the engine, I threw it into gear.
The tires pounded the cobblestones as I drove downhill to the main street, the defroster on full.
I could see the streetlights ahead, with the traffic cutting across from both directions. I got level with the hotel drive. The Nissan was missing. Maybe Sergei had got away. All the other vehicles were still there.
Christmas lights had fallen off the trees and lay across the pavement, among the scattering of empty brass cases. Bodies were strewn all over the ground. I couldn't tell who was who from this distance, though one of them had to be Jesse or Frank because the whole area was covered by a thin blanket of mist: one of their CS canisters must have got hit and was still spewing its contents into the wind.
One of the drivers had nearly got away. His suited body was slumped by one of the small decorative trees just before the exit. Steam rose from the blood oozing from his gunshot wounds. It looked as if their armor wasn't designed to take AP rounds either.
I passed by, suddenly thinking about the couple in the elevator. Then, stopping at the junction with the main drag, I focused on what to do next. I turned right and merged with the traffic.
3
Flashing blue lights raced toward me as I headed in the direction of the city center, nearly blinding me as they screamed past.
At the second option I turned right, up the road where Sergei and I had waited in the Nissan. The 88 was in my right hand, still rammed into Val's neck, forcing me to change gear with my left and hold the wheel in position with my knees.
The target was amazingly compliant; in fact, unless I was reading it wrong, his body language seemed to be saying, No sweat, I'll just wait and see what happens next.
The DOP was about ten minutes away and should have marked the end of Phase One and the beginning of Phase Two-the change of vehicles and move to the truck service station, from where we would all RV before moving over the border into Russia.
Plan B was in action now. In the event of a gang fuck we'd each make our own way back to the lakeside house where we'd been based for the last two weeks, and wait for twenty-four hours.
I was feeling very vulnerable and exposed without Sergei. I might have the Money curled up in the foot well but without help there was no way I was going to get it over the border. Sergei was the only one squared away with the world's most corrupt border guards, and he had been too switched on to tell anyone else how it was organized. I just knew that we were going in a truck adapted to conceal us all under the floor like Us (illegal immigrants), which Sergei would drive. That was his insurance policy, and the reason I'd given him the least dangerous job on the operation.
The road started to bend right, heading out of the city. I had traveled this route to the DOP, both physically and in my head, dozens of times. It went through residential areas with snow piled neatly at the sides of the wet roads, street lighting and Christmas decorations reflecting off the gleaming cobblestones. From all around me came the sound of sirens, jolting me out of my pissed off-with-all-Russians mode. Blue lights flashed across a junction ahead of me. I took the next right; anything to get off the road and out of sight.
I'd turned into a driveway leading to the rear of an apartment block.
There was no lighting back there as I drove over to the far side and stopped under a covered parking space. Keeping the engine running, I sat with the weapon stuck in Val's neck as sirens screamed from all sides. Now what? No way was I going on foot. If spotted, the only way to escape would be to leave him. That wasn't an option; the Money stayed with me.
Fuck it, there was nothing I could do but tough it out. The longer I stayed there the more police would be in the area looking for the van.
What was more, they'd have time to cordon off the city before we got out.
I needed to get to the DOP as soon as possible and detach myself from the hotel road show. Back on the road I put my foot down. It was risky, but sometimes it's best not to think too much.
Four more minutes and I was level with the chain-link fence of the parking lot. Over to my right, toward the hotel, a low-flying helicopter lit up the sky with its Nightsun. The beam bounced around, searching the park and frozen lake on the other side of the main drag from the Intercontinental. Their reaction time had been excellent, which pissed me off even more. If it wasn't for them being on heightened alert because of the EU conference, they'd have taken a lot longer to get their act together.
I moved toward the parking lot entrance. The streetlights illuminated the edge of the compound, so I could peer through the fence into the semidarkness beyond, looking for anything unusual. Parking lots are always the best place to lose a car; the downsides are that they're often monitored by video cameras and there's a strong chance of finding some attendent at the gate to take your cash. This one was free-no cameras, no staff, and not lit up-which was why Sergei and I had decided to use it. The other four were using a park firewall 25 and ride about seven minutes away. At the moment, however, the slightest suspicious sign, like cars with no lights but engines running, would be enough to keep me driving past.
Carrying on to the intersection, I turned left, crossing streetcar lines, and drove toward the entrance. People had stopped on the street and store owners were standing in their doorways, looking up at the heli with its light and noise, talking excitedly to each other.
I kept my eyes on the parking lot. It looked less than half full; shoppers would have quit for the day, any vehicles that were left were probably there to stay.
I indicated left, relieving Val's neck of my 88 as I needed both hands to maneuver the Hilux across the road and into a parking space. I felt exposed, waiting for a gap in the traffic, yet resisted the temptation to jump across and risk hitting an oncoming car.
A gap appeared, after a while, and as I drove under a height bar it was as if I'd entered a new world, dark and safe.
Driving a circuit to check the area, I ensured that the passenger side of the Hilux would face the row of
