left DNA or prints on the kit, that was up to them, but I wanted it to remain sterile of Charlie and me.
‘Come on then, old man. How did it go?’
‘I told him I wouldn’t do the job unless I knew what was happening. So he talked me through it while I gloved up and pulled out the bits of kit one by one in front of him.’
There was everything a budding burglar could wish for, from lock picks, rakes and tension wrenches to mini-Maglites, a keyring torch, and rubber door wedges, but one particular bit of kit was missing. ‘Where’s the weapon, mate? Every man and his dog here has got one.’
‘Not needed. Like I said — in and out without leaving a fart print.’
He picked up the fibre-optic gear and worked the cable so that the end of it wriggled like a worm. ‘Seems our man Baz has got his grubby little fingers in just about every pie within reach. He’s in with the militants up north, and he’s taking backhanders from the Russians. Both groups want to sabotage the pipeline, which not only fucks up the supply but also puts the lives of Yank and Brit construction workers at risk.
‘Whitewall wants to knock all that firmly on the head, but first he needs to know what Baz has got tucked away in that safe of his — you know the sort of thing: who’s on the take; who’s got the Semtex hidden under their bed, and so on. Once he’s got all that int in his hot little hand, he — and I guess that means the US government, meaning the oil companies, now you got me thinking — can go to the Georgians’ top bollocks and bubble him. The appropriate authorities can swing into action and bingo, everyone can have a love fest.’
He turned and looked me in the eye. This time he wasn’t smiling. ‘Now, you happy with that? You can see the tape if you want.’
I shook my head. No need. ‘Not if you believe him.’
‘Makes sense to me. Not that it matters, either way. As I said, lad, I’m still going to do it. If those hairy- arsed militants start hitting the pipeline, people will get killed. The contractors know the risks; they’re well paid for it. But the other poor bastards don’t — the ones who’ll be guarding the fucking thing…’
I remembered the fresh-faced kids from the recruiting commercial. And then I understood. ‘I guess they’d be about Steven’s age…’
‘You’re not wrong, mate. Good lads getting fucked over; it’s the same in any language. Who knows? Maybe I can save some other parents from the nightmare Hazel and I have been through. It’s not why I’m doing this, but it would be a fuck of a bonus.’
His face lost all expression as he thought for a moment about his boy, but he managed to cut away from the feeling almost as quickly as it had come. I knew that process all too well. I always hoped it would get better with practice.
The creases in his face returned. ‘Actually, fuck the money, I should be getting a Georgian MBE for this! You want one?’
‘Whatever’s going,’ I said. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Two options. Whitewall says Baz’ll be out the house until Sunday morning. He’s off to some national park to kiss babies, or whatever the fuck you do to win votes in this neck of the woods. So we have to go in as soon as we can tonight, and find and attack the safe. We lift whatever’s inside, close up again behind us, and go and catch the morning flight.’
‘What about the DLB? Where are we dropping the stuff?’
He’d forgotten about the DLB, I could see it. ‘Didn’t I tell you? A cemetery, about ten minutes from the house. Whatever we find goes into a plastic bag and inside a stone bench, next to someone called Tengiz. It’s no problem, he’s buried just past the main gate.’ His look changed from silly grin to friendly smile. ‘Lighten up! Just because I’m not frowning as hard as you are, doesn’t mean I’m not working.’
He opened up the map.
‘Anything else you might have forgotten to tell me, you silly old fucker? What about Plan B? You said you had two options.’
He looked slightly sheepish. ‘Plan B doesn’t exist, lad. I thought it’d sound better if we seemed to have a few options to play with.’ He liked that one. His smile was as wide as the Mtkvari, but it was clear he was still trying to recover from his fuck-up.
‘Tell you what, Charlie. Why don’t I go and do my walk-past now? You can spend some time sorting yourself out with this shit.’ It was a gentle reminder that he needed to check everything on the bed was working before his walk-past. ‘We’ll RV in the cemetery and find this DLB. Then we’ll split, and come back here for the brief.’
I nodded at the tape next to the TV. ‘What’s the plan with that? Tell you what’ — I picked up the tape and shoved it inside my jacket — ‘I’ll take it. You’ve got enough shit to carry.’
I did up my jacket. ‘You positive you want to go through with this?’
The smile vanished. He was going to give me a bollocking. I put my hands up. ‘I know, I know. This will be the last time, promise. I just want to make sure your senile fucking brain has taken all the risks on board.’
He toyed with the pick set. ‘It’s got to be done.’ He tried to extract one of the picks from its retainer but seemed to find it difficult. He dumped it quickly on the bed before he thought I’d had a chance to notice.
I turned to go, but got called back. ‘Oi, shit for brains — let’s see if anything’s rubbed off during my years of painstaking tuition. One: Whitewall couldn’t find out Baz’s date of birth — can you? And two: we need five or six towels and a couple of extinguisher inners for tonight…’
I nodded and turned back towards the door.
‘And make sure you nick them from the penthouse floor. If there’s a fire, the posh fuckers can burn…’
PART FIVE
1
I came out of the hotel and turned right along the main drag, checking the town map I’d got from the front desk. Everyone else on the street was either a local draped in black or a Westerner in regulation Gore-Tex jacket, polo shirt and Rohan trousers. It had certainly been dress of the day in the Marriott. The reception was full of them emerging for breakfast; the cafe was a sea of Outward Bound.
I followed the main drag, paralleling the river somewhere to my right. It was 11.26 and a lot busier now as I passed the spruced-up opera house, theatres, museums and parliament. They were beautiful buildings, hailing from an era before Joe Stalin turned up with a few million truckloads of ready-mix. I couldn’t understand it: from what I’d read there were still a few statues to him left standing, and plenty of old Soviets who rated him their greatest ever leader — pretty scary considering he’d massacred a million or so of his devoted comrades.
Above me, just before the cloud cut off the sky, was a telecoms mast the size of the Eiffel Tower, beaming out pictures of US flags and smiling Russian housewives 24/7.
There were quite a few locals out and about at this time of the day, and I definitely wasn’t the grey man. I didn’t have the sort of skin that tanned in five seconds like theirs did, my hair wasn’t black and my eyes were blue. I was blending in like Santa in the Congo. People were looking at me as if they all had come to the conclusion that I must be a spy, or there to do any number of bad things to them.
A police blue and white Passat cruised past. The two guys inside had AKs on the back seat. They both looked me up and down before the driver gobbed off to his mate about the weirdo. Fuck ’em, I’d be out of here soon enough. Besides, they were probably just jealous of my jumper.
All the same, I was beginning to feel more worried about this job — or, more truthfully, about Charlie. Which probably meant I was a little worried about me, for being stupid enough to go along with him. I couldn’t quite work out how he could rattle off the kit list, yet forget about the DLB…
Then I thought, fuck it, so what? I’d see this through. Charlie needed me. He was all that mattered. He might have disco hands and have difficulty remembering what the fuck he was up to, but at least he was still here. Every other friend I’d ever had, whether we’d still been at the embryonic stage or reached the point where we were wearing each other’s clothes, was dead.
