Aggressor Part 24

He picked himself off the ground, his face a mask of fear and indignation. 'It wasn't me who gave the order. That was way above my pay scale.'

I followed him out while Charlie rummaged in the back of the wagon.

'I thought you'd got the message about that worker bee s.h.i.t,' I yelled through the rain. 'None of those kids stood a chance, and you enjoyed every f.u.c.king minute!'

'Bingo!' Charlie gave me the thumbs-up, slammed the rear door and headed for the Pajero's bonnet.

'Wait until I've climbed aboard him.' I brought my pistol up. 'I'm going to have this f.u.c.ker.'

b.a.s.t.a.r.d backed away until he was pressing against the front wing. 'Hey, I knew it wasn't right. I knew it was wrong to kill those people.' He raised his hands, half pleading, half trying to make me keep my distance. 'Those were American citizens... my own people...' He pointed at me. 'Our people.'

'Down! In the mud! Now!'

He slid down the side of the vehicle and slumped against the wheel. The rain kicked up the puddles all around him. We were both soaked to the skin. My sleeve weighed heavily on my arm as I raised my pistol to his head.

'Who are you working for?' My first kick caught him square in the ribs. 'Who gave the order to drop Charlie?' My second disappeared into the mountain of flesh that spilled over his waistband. 'What's in those doc.u.ments? What the f.u.c.k happened at the house?'

Charlie had released the bonnet and was now standing on the other side of him.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d heaved air into his lungs and his face tilted up towards me, eyes screwed up against the rain. 'What you gonna do, son? Pull that trigger? f.u.c.k you, then. Just get on with it. '

Charlie shook his head, then leaned down and clipped one of the Pajero's jump leads onto the roll of fat above b.a.s.t.a.r.d's collar and held the second against his ear.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d screamed and his whole body shuddered. He collapsed like a rag doll, legs splayed out in the mud.

The jump lead was still clamped to his neck. Charlie handed me the other and slid into the driver's seat.

I gave b.a.s.t.a.r.d another kick, just because I wanted to.

Charlie fired up the ignition, and gave the pedal a squeeze.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d said nothing, just lay there whimpering, listening to the steady throb of the Pajero's engine, staring down at the mud. He was starting to get the message.

8

'Look at me.'

He kept his eyes down.

I jammed my clip against the top of his ear.

He squealed, arched his back and collapsed again.

I leaned over him. 'Look at me...'

He stayed where he was, but this time his eyes came up to meet mine. Rain streamed off my chin and onto his face.

'This is very simple.' I waved the jump lead in his face. 'You talk, and I keep this away from you.'

He jerked his head to dislodge the crocodile clip from his neck, but it stayed right where it was.

I kicked his hand away as he tried to reach up and grab it.

When he started to talk, I could hardly hear him above the sound of the rain. 'It was a simple operation that got f.u.c.ked up. We just needed those papers, no ha.s.sle, everything clean.' He scrabbled in the mud and hauled himself back up against the wheel. 'It's out of my hands now. That's why I was getting out of this s.h.i.thole.' He stared into the trees.

I moved the clip back into his line of sight, and held it no more than a centimetre away from his nose. 'You're not answering the questions. Who the f.u.c.k are you working for? Who are these powerful friends of yours you said can make things happen?'

'The politicos, man. Same old story. The guys Bazgadze was gunning for. That's why they wanted what was in his safe. That's all I know.' He glanced up at me. 'And all I wanna know.'

'You still with the Bureau? Is this some covert FBI f.u.c.kabout we've been sucked into here?'

He shook his head slowly and his gaze dropped back towards the mud. 'Those f.u.c.kers spat me out four years ago. Chewed me up and spat me out, with just enough of an annuity to buy myself a cigar every Fourth of July. Why do you think I ended up in this G.o.ddam s.h.i.thole?'

I wasn't buying the sympathy card, and brought the clip a fraction closer to let him know.

'I was in the job thirty years, and for what? Jack s.h.i.t, man. So when these guys step in and offer me a retirement plan-'

'What happened at the house?'

'The guys I work for, there are six of them, OK? Partnership for Peace isn't high on their list of priorities; well, partnership gets their vote, but peace can go take a dump. They want to keep things exactly the way they are. US dollars are flying in by the planeload, and a lot of them get diverted their way. They pay the militants to threaten the pipeline, just to keep things on the boil. Nothing bad, nothing physical just the occasional firework display. n.o.body gets hurt. It's just good, old-fashioned commerce. I'm just there to-'

'Yeah, we know,' Charlie said. 'You're just there to smooth the way...'

b.a.s.t.a.r.d looked up at him and risked a smile.

I kicked him. 'Get on with it.'

He slid his legs up as close to his chest as his gut would allow. 'This Bazgadze guy, he'd been getting more and more of a problem. The whole sainthood thing wasn't good for business. And neither was getting found out just before Bush arrives to rally the troops for the war on terror. So the plan was, steal the papers, find out what he knows. Lean on the guy. Warn him off...'

He raised a hand to the jump lead still clamped onto his neck. 'Can I take this thing off? I'm f.u.c.king helping you here.'

I shook my head. 'You're helping yourself. That still doesn't explain what happened at the house, or at the cemetery. Who the f.u.c.k were those guys?'

'Bazgadze wasn't any more popular with the militants than he was with my politicos. There's this f.u.c.k, Akaki, he runs them. He just couldn't wait. If Bazgadze had proof he was on the take, he wanted him dead. He's a f.u.c.king psycho, he's out of control. It's not the way to deal with guys like Bazgadze he's a f.u.c.king G.o.d around here.

It's gotta be subtle.'

'What, like you?'

The rain was so hard it felt like a madman with a staple gun was attacking the back of my neck.

Charlie wasn't happy and not just with b.a.s.t.a.r.d's explanation. 'We better start getting a move on.' He pointed beyond the trees, where mud and loose debris were breaking away from the side of the hill and gravity was doing the rest. 'The road's taking a pounding.'

I kicked b.a.s.t.a.r.d to his feet.

'So what happens now?' he said.

'What happens now is you shut the f.u.c.k up, or we connect those jump leads to your b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. You're coming with us, and later on, when we're in Turkey and out of this s.h.i.t, you're going to call a few of your high-powered mates. We're going to make a little deal, and this time you're going to be the broker.'

9

The curtain of water in front of us was now so solid I had to slow the Pajero to a crawl.

The noise was horrendous. We'd had to open all the windows, to try to deal with the condensation from our soaking clothes. The heater was going full blast, but it didn't stand a chance.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d was trying without success to shift some of the mud off his clothes and skin. He looked like he'd just crawled out of the black lagoon. He paused mid-sc.r.a.pe and had a crack at getting back into the good lads' club. 'Hey, Nick, believe me, I'm sorry about that Anthony guy. I'm sorry about the whole G.o.ddam thing. It was a really heavy time.'

'But it didn't have to be, did it?'

b.a.s.t.a.r.d fidgeted some more. 'It wasn't like that. Just think what would have happened if Koresh and his buddies had gotten away with giving the finger to the ATF. Law and order would've lost all credibility. A thing like that couldn't go unpunished. Anarchy, lawlessness gotta be nipped in the bud, or you end up like this s.h.i.thole.'

Rain crashed onto the car like breaking waves. The wipers were on full power, and still I couldn't see a thing.

Charlie had arranged himself across the back seat, weapon tucked under his a.r.s.e, legs draped over the carry-on. It was one of those airtight, fireproof, everything-proof aluminium things that come with a lifetime guarantee and a thousand-dollar price tag.

I got to thinking about what b.a.s.t.a.r.d had said when he was plugged into the mains, and it didn't stack up. When it came to being f.u.c.ked over, I was the world's leading expert, and the smart money didn't say anything like b.a.s.t.a.r.d wanted us to think it did. There was something a whole lot more serious going on here than a little light spring-cleaning before the US President arrived.

I kept an eye on the pipeline scar to our left; more often than not, now, it was the only way of telling we were still on the road. The river had burst its banks an hour or two ago, and raged along the bottom of the gradient to our right.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d glanced over his shoulder and leaned towards me, as if he had a secret to share with his best mate. 'Nick, listen. What about you and me making a deal? Let me go with the papers and tapes when we get to Borjomi; I'll call my guys, see to it you're off the wanted list, and make everything cool once you two get into Turkey. We've had enough of this s.h.i.t, don't you think?'

He nodded at Charlie, whose head was wobbling from side to side as I bounced the wagon along the track.

'Just tell him I got out for a dump and made a run for it. Hey, how's he to know...'

Things weren't looking good out there. Brown slurry cascaded off the high ground to our left, carrying rocks and broken branches across our path.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d wasn't giving up. 'You and me, Nick, we're both really in deep s.h.i.t. We're singing off the same hymn sheet here.'

'Why don't we start with Swan Lake Swan Lake, lad?' Charlie sparked up from the back. 'We'll hum it, you go jump in it.'

I glanced in the rear-view. He'd turned onto his side, knees bunched up, and was chuckling quietly to himself. 'You've got two problems with your plan, Fat Boy. One' he tapped the top pocket of his jacket 'it's all in here. Two, running isn't exactly your strong suit. You couldn't even bend over to run a bath, for f.u.c.k's sake.'

There wasn't time to laugh.

Ariver of mud ten metres wide sluiced off the hill and hit the wagon broadside, pushing us to where the road fell away to the river below.

I swung the wheel to steer us into the skid, but nothing happened.

'Charlie, out the wagon!'

The mudslide gathered weight and momentum, and started to spill in through the open windows.

I grabbed the edge of the roof and hauled myself out of the gap.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d was sliding his fat a.r.s.e towards the pa.s.senger door. He could look after himself.

The Pajero was beginning to tip. I wrestled the rear door open and dragged Charlie clear by the shoulders.

He tumbled out on top of me as the vehicle slewed another couple of metres, then finally succ.u.mbed to the sheer weight of mud and cart-wheeled down towards the river.

A dozen or so metres away, b.a.s.t.a.r.d struggled to get himself upright.

Charlie blinked as the rain lashed his mud-caked face.

'Papers and tape?'

Charlie tapped his pocket and nodded.

We both heard a sound like an approaching train.

I looked up, but before I could shout a warning the knee-high surge of mud and debris had gathered b.a.s.t.a.r.d up and swept him over the edge.

PART TEN

1

The Pajero had landed upside down at the river's edge, five or six metres below us, doors open, windscreen smashed. It bucked and wallowed as water the colour of chocolate pounded against the wreckage. Any second now it would be s.n.a.t.c.hed away and hurled downstream.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d hadn't been any luckier. The river at this point was around thirty metres wide, and I watched as he floundered, went under, and bobbed up again about halfway across, almost indistinguishable from all the other lumps of debris swirling downstream.

I started ripping off my jacket.

Charlie rolled his eyes. 'Nothing we can do, lad. f.u.c.k him. Anyway, we got Crazy Dave.'