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. 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 gla.s.s 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.u.c.k 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 cuc.u.mber. 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.

7

I went straight to the gates. f.u.c.k checking outside, I just slammed them shut and got the bolts down, then carried on struggling to put on the mask. I only had one eye uncovered. I must have looked like the phantom of the f.u.c.king opera.

There was a big drum roll and a clash of cymbals from the Primorski, followed by a round of applause. If I hadn't been so knackered, I'd have taken a bow.

Broken gla.s.s, spent bra.s.s cases, wet concrete and two pools of blood glinted in the courtyard lights. Fighting to get my breath back, I ran over to the car.

It looked like someone had thrown a bucket of red paint across the car's interior. The driver's body was slumped, face sideways, over the central console. It was Baz all right, and he didn't look good. He'd taken rounds in the head, neck and shoulder, and his once-grey hair was crimson.

I checked the front end. The b.u.mper had absorbed most of the punishment, and one of the headlamps was cracked, but I reckoned the Technik was still Vorsprung. I pulled the door open, grabbed hold of Baz's arm and dragged him clear.

By the time I returned to the house, my throat was as dry as sandpaper.

'Charlie!'

'Up here.' His voice came from the landing.

'Dead body. Bring some bedcovers down, anything. Got to cover the car seats.'

I ran into the office and grabbed my boots. No time to do them up properly; I shoved the laces under the tongue so I didn't trip up. Speed was everything; we had to get out of here.

Back in the yard, I rolled Red Eyes over and pulled the folder from his jacket. Charlie jumped down the steps with two multicoloured bedspreads dragging behind him.

'Any luck with the CCTV?'

He shook his head. 'Could be anywhere on that PC, for all we know. Let's just f.u.c.k off and get on the flight. You OK with that? Or stay and look some more? I'm up for it if you are.'

I stood by the car. He was right. Why waste time on a blood-filled target, with three dead bodies for company? 'Let's go.'

We threw the bedspreads over the front seats.

Charlie dumped the satchel in the back and I jumped into the driver's side. I knocked the remaining shards of gla.s.s out of the window frame while Charlie checked the road.

The moment the gates were open, I hit reverse. Charlie secured the gates as well as he could, and jumped in beside me, lodging his pistol under his thigh. We started uphill, towards the blinking red lights of the telecoms mast.

As we pa.s.sed the left to the Primorski, two stretch Mercs were picking up a crowd of very young women and very old men.

At last we were able to pull off our masks, and Charlie started to giggle. 'Well, you f.u.c.ked up there, didn't you, lad?'

'Heads up, we got police.'

Ablue-and-white had turned into our road, heading downhill towards us. It was slow, taking its time. I checked Charlie did he have blood on his face? He checked me if I had, it was too late. We pa.s.sed them; they looked over and two red spots of heat between their lips got brighter as they sucked.

Charlie nodded at them. 'Evening.'

They pa.s.sed Baz's house without stopping.

'Evening? If they'd heard you they'd've stopped us just to investigate that accent.' I couldn't stop myself from laughing. It wasn't the joke, it was pure relief.

Wind gusted through the driver's window. I took a hand off the wheel and slid the folder out of my jacket. It was looking a bit the worse for wear but at least there were no bullet holes in it.

Charlie scanned the streets for blue-and-whites. 'They must already have been in the house, waiting for Baz to come home, make him open the safe, get whatever it was we've got here, then drop him.'

'I thought Whitewall said he was away at some national park or something, till the morning? And since that was b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, where does it leave us with everything else?'

I swung the wheel right and left, weaving between the potholes. 'Maybe they were waiting for him to turn up in the morning. They'd have seen us coming into the yard. That must have been what we heard those f.u.c.kers in the front room. When we opened the safe for them, they must have thought it was Christmas.'

I took a left, up towards the cemetery. 'I knew I should have looked in the larder...'

'If you had, they might have just dropped us.' He started to laugh again. 'But hey, we're still here, aren't we? A quick trip to the DLB and then it's bye-bye Georgia.'

We bounced over the open ground opposite the cemetery. There were still quite a few cars parked around the place, and Charlie pointed under a tree, where the ambient light from the petrol station finally gave up trying to penetrate the darkness.

I switched the engine off and killed the lights. I sat there, just looking and listening. 'You OK?'

'I'm fine. But the old hands are wobbling a bit. Maybe you should do the drop-off at the DLB. I'm not sure I'm in the slab-moving business any more.'

'Done.' I smiled. 'Then it's back to the hotel for a s.h.i.t, shave and shower. Thank f.u.c.k it's Sunday. With luck, Baz won't be missed till tomorrow.'

8

Charlie wrapped the batch of paper in a plastic bag. 'Every page is numbered, mate, there's a signature block on the last one, and anything that's been crossed out has been initialled. I reckon it's a statement.'

'So who were Red Eyes and Stubbly?'

'f.u.c.k it, who cares? Let's just dump the gear and get out of here.'

'You got any rounds left?'

He pulled the pistol from under his thigh and pressed the magazine release on the left of the grip. 'Two in here.' He pulled back the top slide. 'One in the chamber.' He let the slide go again, replaced the mag, set the safety catch and pa.s.sed it to me. 'That's made ready, safety on.'

I double-checked the safety catch before shoving the pistol down the front of my jeans and the plastic bag into my bomber pocket. As I got out of the Audi I gave myself the once-over. We still had to make it back to the hotel tonight, and pa.s.s muster with the night staff. Even in Tbilisi, they didn't like their guests covered in other people's blood.

I pulled out my phone and switched it on. 'I'll call when I'm done. If you see any dramas coming in, just give us a call, OK?'

Charlie nodded as he slid into the driver's seat. His job was to keep the trigger on the entrance.

'I'll need your torch as well.'

He handed it over.

'See you in a bit.' I headed straight for the open gate. There was no time to lurk about in the shadows. It was just a case of straight in, get it done, and back to the hotel before first light.

I checked the phone for a signal as I hit the main path between the burial plots. The glow from the petrol station was doing its best to bathe everything headstones, benches, tree trunks in BP green. I had no complaints; it meant I could see where I was going.

Acar drove past the entrance, sounding like its exhaust was bouncing along the road behind it. Apart from that it was quiet. Even the knitting circle had called it a day.

My marker bin loomed out of the shadows. The four guys on Tengiz's headstone were still gazing at the heavens. I couldn't make up my mind whether they were doing it out of sheer admiration, or just waiting for an answer that never came. I shone the beam along the wrought-iron fence to get my bearings, and then picked out the bench. I moved across the plot and tried to slide the top slab away from the base. I only needed a one-inch gap, but this was one chunk of marble that looked as though it wasn't going anywhere tonight.

I bent down and gave it a second shove, this time with my shoulder. There was a low, grinding noise as it moved, and a quick flash of the torch confirmed I had the gap I needed. In went the bag of papers, the torch went back in my pocket, and I started to pull back the slab.

There was a crunch of feet on gravel behind me.

I spun round. A figure closed in on me, arms raised, blocking out every shred of ambient light. This boy was huge.

I stepped to my left as the arm came down, trying to check it in mid-stride. I was lucky. Steel clattered against stone as something very unfriendly fell from his hands.

I grabbed the bottom of my bomber jacket with my left hand and pulled it up, trying to grab the pistol grip with my right. But he was ahead of me. He yelled and lunged, hands the size of grappling irons gripping my arms and trying to wrench them from their sockets. I stumbled backwards over the low fence and we crashed onto the pathway.

My shoulder hit the kerb and my attacker fell on top of me, crushing the air from my lungs. I arched my back, kicking, bucking, struggling to get my hands down, trying to get him away from me so I could draw down.

The top of his head pushed hard against my chin. My teeth weren't clenched and I bit my tongue.

Eighteen, maybe nineteen stone of him pressed down on me, keeping my arms pinioned above my head.

'Charlie!'

I could feel the blood spurting from my mouth as I shouted. I bucked and kicked, but his body was still moulded to mine, pressing against the weapon.

'CHARLIE!'

He let go of my arms and decided to throttle me instead. Ma.s.sive fingers closed around my throat and I felt his saliva spray across my face as he strained to push my Adam's apple out through the back of my neck. My head felt like it was going to explode.

There was nothing I could do but kick and writhe like a madman. I managed to get my hands round his neck as well, but his muscles simply tensed like steel hawsers under my fingers. I shifted them down to grip the lapels of his jacket, using them as leverage to dig my thumbs into the soft, fleshy area between the collar bones, at the base of his throat.

He was going to have to use his hands to deal with mine. If he didn't, he'd choke to death. Unless I did first.

My face swelled to bursting point under the pressure of his grip.

He pushed down his chin, tensing his neck even more. f.u.c.k, he was big. His stubble took two layers of skin off my hands.

My head pumped, my eyes blurred.

I dug harder and he lifted his head.

His hair flicked against my face. I felt his bristles rasp across my cheek and smelt his sourly alcoholic breath. I knew he was going to try and finish this with his teeth.

9

I shook my head, trying to keep it moving, hoping I'd have a chance to get in there first.

When his nose was only inches away from mine, I got my chance. I lunged, and my teeth caught him just on the bridge. I bit down on the hard bone above the cartilage and kept on going. He flung his head from side to side in an attempt to shake me off, but I was like a terrier hanging on to a stick.

At last his grip slackened on my neck and his hands moved up my face. I managed to screw up my eyes before he got there with his thumbs. He pressed them into my sockets, but I just bit harder. Blood spurted over my face.

He went berserk with pain, thrashing about like a game fish under a harpoon.