4
Monday, 2 May
The line of taxis outside the terminal hadn’t moved much in the hour since first light. When the odd cab did leave the front of the rank, the drivers behind didn’t start their engines to shuffle forward, they just got out, leaned back in through the window, and pushed.
I had the trigger on the terminal entrance from the other side of the road. I was past the three garden sheds, sitting on the concrete between overflowing rubbish skips and four old abandoned buses in the small, potholed car park. I blended in well; I was wearing a black woollen hat I’d found in the boot of the Lada, that smelled like it had been worn by a wet bloodhound. The big ear flaps made me look like one too, but it helped hide some of my face.
Blue-and-whites had been cruising past every few minutes, and one was static right now by the sheds. The two cops inside drank coffee and smoked.
Charlie and I had come right into the lion’s den, but there was no other way. Our only chance of retrieving the papers and tape was to get into the duty wagon. There were two fixed points where we knew it would be during flying hours – at the camp and at the airport.
We could have tried to wave it down on the road, but SOPs for military vehicles usually precluded them from stopping – and after the stunt we’d pulled yesterday, every driver would be on red alert. A hijack was out of the question; instead of dead ground, you need an open stretch of road, so you can identify the vehicle before you hit it in the dark. Our current plan wasn’t perfect, but it was the only one we had.
I checked Baby-G. It was just after eight. Charlie had hobbled into the terminal ten minutes ago to get into position. He had to take the lead; I couldn’t run the risk of being recognized.
The idea was simple: the wagon turns up to drop off or pick up; Charlie sees it through the glass; walks out, lifts it, heads into the car park behind me; I’d jump in and we’d head for the border. This time he wouldn’t just bark a whole lot of orders, but rely instead on his weapon. He had a little 9mm Makharov, the sort of thing James Bond used to tuck into his dinner jacket.
Assuming there weren’t any delays, all the international flights were gone by midday. If Bastard showed up for one of them it would be one f*ck of a big bonus for us, even if the 110 didn’t show.
We had gone through dozens of what-ifs. What if he turned up before the 110? We had to hold him until it came, and use him to get the gear out. What if he turned up after the 110? Well, we would never know because we’d be gone – unless Charlie managed to find out what flight he was on.
What it boiled down to was that we would have to take the situation as it came – otherwise we’d still be out in the cuds a week on Wednesday, going through thousands of options. F*ck it, let’s just get on with it and get out of here.
My revolver was also Russian, and looked like it had seen action in the Crimea. It still had seven big 7.62 rounds in the cylinder, and that cheered me up a lot. Given that our plan stank worse than the dog blankets, it was the only thing that did.
I slumped down against a skip, sliding my legs under the one in front of me. The guys in the blue-and-white finished their brew and drove off. I craned my neck to look along the building. Two more policemen had taken up position outside the terminal. After yesterday’s nightmare, word had obviously got round.
After dumping the Lada in the city at about five this morning, we’d hidden up and waited for the place to come alive a little before approaching a taxi. Between them, Hari and Kunzru had had exactly 127 lari in their wallets – about $70, as it turned out. The taxi driver had pocketed about ten, and Charlie had custody of the rest. He was going to need it to grease a palm or two at the check-in desks to see if his best mate Jimmy Bastendorf was leaving today. Charlie wanted to arrange a birthday surprise for him when he got home and wasn’t sure when he was flying. Was it today, or maybe tomorrow? In a dirt-poor country, even loose change can get you anything.
A rust- and grime-covered yellow bus pulled up at the stop outside the terminal, its exhaust pumping out diesel fumes you could cut with a knife. Most of those disembarking looked as though they were airport workers, but there were one or two others with suitcases. The airport was coming to life.
Charlie appeared through the fumes, lurching across the road like Long John Silver. His hand had been OK when he left me, just cut and sore, but his ankle had swollen like a balloon, even though I’d tried to strap it up with a couple of strips of blanket.
He had a newspaper in his hand. ‘Bastard’s off to Vienna, we’ve got him.’ He lobbed it in my direction and it fell between the skips as he carried on past. ‘Here’s the bad news.’
He had to do a circuit now, maybe check something out in the car park. Nobody just exits a terminal and crosses the road, only to cross straight back ten seconds later.
I crawled over to the paper, then back to where I could still keep trigger in case there was a drama. If ten blue-and-white Passats screamed up to the terminal and dragged Charlie away, I needed to know.
He’d chucked me a copy of the Georgian Times, the English-language paper. Folded inside was a large bar of chocolate. I ripped the foil off and popped a chunk into my mouth, but when I scanned the front page my throat went dry.
Most of it was covered by a grainy photograph of the yard in front of Baz’s house. The banner headline screamed: ‘SAINT’ SLAIN!
It went on in a similar vein, to bemoan the savage killing of the most honest and incorruptible public servant the country had ever seen. This wasn’t the picture Bastard had painted, but that wasn’t much of a surprise.
A force for all that was good and just has been callously cut down, it cried. Who has perpetrated this evil deed? The finger of suspicion can point in many directions, all of which this country needs to cut out like a cancer.
For weeks, the walls of St Zurab Bazgadze’s house had been daubed with warnings not to pursue his crusade against corruption at all levels of government, the journalist wrote. In our wretched country, many words spell wrongdoing – words like ‘minister’ and ‘militant’, ‘business’ and ‘privatization’, ‘pipeline’ and ‘oil’. It seemed Baz had been a thorn in the side of them all.
Charlie still hadn’t come back from his hobble-past. Blood pulsed in my neck as I read on.
The two other dead bodies found at Baz’s house had been identified as members of the militant gang behind the recent siege in Kazbegi. But who were the other two men caught on CCTV, one masked, one unmasked? Were they now in possession of the affidavit which the Saint had been due to swear in front of the cameras for 60 Minutes, exposing the rampant corruption in Georgian society?
According to a police insider, the safe in Bazgadze’s house had been found open, and the CCTV also showed one of the masked men taking a folder from the body of one of the militants. If this was indeed the affidavit that 60 Minutes claimed to have been waiting to receive, then exposure of its contents would be very embarrassing for the government, as the programme was due to be aired on the eve of President George W. Bush’s forthcoming visit.
I sat and chewed chocolate, my mind spinning. Good guy gets f*cked over – nothing new there – but what had the militants been doing at Baz’s house?
It got worse. The inside pages were teeming with maps and photographs.
TRAIL OF MURDER: SAINT’S CAR FOUND IN TBILISI ALLEYWAY – GRISLY CARGO
If there hadn’t been a perfect artist’s impression of me under the headline I might have laughed.
It was followed by a shot of the Audi up the track, with the boot open. Witnesses had seen two men drive it to the cemetery and load a body into the boot. Beyond that, apparently, was only ‘murky speculation’.
I’d read enough. I refolded the paper and swallowed the last four chunks of chocolate.
That 110 couldn’t arrive a minute too soon.