6
There were two of them, hollering at us in Russian or Paperclip. They were both carrying suppressed pistols with big, bulky barrels; we raised our hands very slowly, so they couldn’t fail to notice that, unfortunately, we weren’t. I kept my left elbow slightly bent, to try and hold the CO2 canister in place.
They were in their early thirties; short black hair, jeans and leather jackets, lots of gold rings and bracelets, and both looking confused about the situation.
Their faces weren’t masked, and that was bad news. They didn’t care about being identified. One was dark with stubble; the other had bloodshot eyes. I wondered if he’d stopped by the Primorski on the way over.
Their yells increased in volume, and reverberated around the room. Just having our hands up obviously wasn’t enough.
It looked like the one with the bloodshot eyes was in charge. He glared at me and opened his leather jacket repeatedly with his spare hand. I got the message. Keeping my right hand up, I unzipped my bomber very slowly with my left. My boots dropped onto the carpet. Charlie followed suit.
They now knew that neither of us was carrying, but that didn’t stop the shouting. I didn’t know what else they wanted, and I wasn’t going to ask. I didn’t want them to know we were Brits. I shrugged my shoulders and twisted my hands.
They gobbed off at each other, very quickly and aggressively, then Red Eyes moved towards Charlie, pistol steady, while Stubbly covered him. He waved his free hand again, shouted, gesticulated at the floor.
Charlie got it: the boy was after the folder.
He reached down and picked it up with his left hand, keeping his right in the air. Red Eyes took a step forward, grabbed it, and jammed his weapon into Charlie’s neck. I could see Chinese characters engraved along the barrel. It was old and really well worn, but that didn’t matter. It would still f*ck Charlie up if he pulled that trigger.
Keeping the muzzle right where it was, Red Eyes bent down and reached into the safe. The jewellery found its way into his jacket pocket with the speed and precision of a conjuring trick. For a finale, he yanked off Charlie’s mask, then gave me the same treatment.
He took a couple of steps back to survey his handiwork. They both stood there for several seconds, one each side of the doorway. Red Eyes muttered something to his unshaven friend, placed the folder on the desk and started to flick through its contents. Stubbly kept moving the muzzle of his weapon from my head to Charlie’s and back, just in case we hadn’t got the message.
They barked stuff at each other as Red Eyes turned the pages. I didn’t know what to do next. I had been in the situation enough times myself to recognize the look and sound of uncertainty. Finally he looked up, glowered at the two of us, and pulled out a cell phone.
I glanced over at Charlie, who was studying the floor so closely he appeared to be trying to memorize every fibre of the carpet. I knew that look. He was wondering how the f*ck to get us out of here. I hoped the silly old f*cker would come up with something before these boys got permission to top us.
There was a series of rapid beeps as Red Eyes punched in the number. Whoever was at the other end answered immediately. Red Eyes studied each of us in turn, giving what sounded like a description, then picked up the document and quoted a couple of chunks from it. Then he looked at us again. I didn’t understand what he was saying, but I got the drift. Whatever problems they’d expected to have to deal with in the house, they now had two extra ones, and they were less than happy workers. As if I was.
There was nothing we could do to help ourselves immediately, so I studied Stubbly’s weapon instead so I’d know what to do with it when I got my hands around the pistol grip. The power of positive thinking.
His finger was on the trigger and the safety was off; the lever on the left-hand side of the grip was down. These kinds of suppressed weapons normally had both a single-shot and semi-automatic capability. With the one, you loaded manually, pulling back the top slide and letting it go forward to pick up a new round from the magazine each time you fired. With the other, the top slide wasn’t locked in position, so you just kept firing until the magazine was empty.
I didn’t know what setting Stubbly had gone for, but something told me it wasn’t single shot.
Red Eyes was still waffling into the phone and riffling through the papers when we heard a metallic rattle from the direction of the street. He stopped in mid-sentence. There was a loud creak as the front gates swung open.
Red Eyes closed down the conversation by running out into the hall.
He was back in less than ten seconds, and not at all happy. He rolled up the folder, thrust it into his jacket, yelled a couple of instructions at Stubbly and disappeared again.
Stubbly stood his ground and raised his weapon a few inches.
There was no time to think.
I lunged at him, aiming my shoulder at his gut. He tottered backwards under the impact, hit the wall, and before he could recover I dragged him down with me, my hands flailing. I didn’t really care if they made contact, as long as they got in the way of him controlling the weapon. With any luck I’d bang against it myself.
I felt Charlie’s legs pushing against me, then heard a sound like a watermelon hitting a pavement. He’d given Stubbly’s skull the good news with his CO2 cosh.
I let go and kicked myself away. It was Charlie’s call; he could climb aboard him if he needed to.
I scanned the floor for the weapon, but couldn’t see it immediately, and didn’t have time to search.
I ran out of the room, shoving my right hand into the left sleeve of my bomber jacket as I went. Red Eyes was ahead of me, throwing out the stops. The door swung back and the hall was flooded with light.
The gates into the street were open.
Baz’s Audi swept into the courtyard.
I sprinted along the carpet as Red Eyes half ran, half tumbled down the porch steps.
There was a shower of glass as he emptied his magazine into the driver’s window and he pirouetted like a matador as the vehicle coasted past him, into the wall.
I took the steps in one, canister in hand. Leaping up before he had a chance to collect himself, I swung the heavy metal tube down onto the top of his head. The weight of my body coming back down to the ground gave the hit enough force for me to hear his skull crunch.
He dropped like a cow under a stun gun and I followed suit, brought down by my own momentum. His weapon skidded across the wet concrete. I grabbed it, turned and fired into his skull. The third time I squeezed the trigger, nothing happened. The top slide stayed back, waiting for a fresh mag to reload.
F*ck closing the gate. I dropped the empty weapon and ran back into the house in case my disco-dancing mate needed a hand.
There were gunshot wounds in Stubbly’s chest and just below his right cheekbone, and a pool of dark, deoxygenated blood spreading across the carpet. Charlie was as cool as a cucumber. He’d slipped his mask back on, and was hoisting the satchel over his shoulder. ‘Give me five,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and find the CCTV monitors. There might be tapes.’
I grabbed my own mask off the floor and pulled it over my head as I legged it back to the front door.