Aggressor Part 27

That figured. The Georgian Times Georgian Times had said that had said that 60 Minutes 60 Minutes and Baz had been due to have a love fest when he presented his affidavit. and Baz had been due to have a love fest when he presented his affidavit.

'We got sensors in the pipes to show up any fractures,' b.a.s.t.a.r.d said. It was as if he hadn't listened to a single word. 'It'd be sealed in days.'

Somehow, she managed to keep her cool. 'By which time the whole area would be contaminated. That's precisely why Zurab got an injunction to stop the pipeline coming this way. But your... friends... got it revoked. Zurab said that the decision came all the way from Washington; that your freedom-loving president intervened.'

b.a.s.t.a.r.d wasn't really listening. His face was boiling up nicely, as if he'd just caught this woman setting fire to the Stars and Stripes. 'Hey, lady, that saint of yours knew you people were getting a good deal out of this. If it weren't for us, you'd still be living in the dark ages. We're bankrolling you. We're giving you independence, freedom and stability and in exchange for what? A few miles of metal tube. My president is even taking time out to come here and show you guys he means business. What more did your f.u.c.king saint Zurab want from us?'

Koba was looking more and more p.i.s.sed off. Nana soothed him with a few mumbled words and shook her head sadly. 'Zurab just couldn't understand why, if you're so devoted to democracy and stability, you support a government whose corruption knows no limits. The people see very little benefit from your so-called altruism, so the people think you are just here for the oil.'

b.a.s.t.a.r.d's face had turned purple. 'You know what, lady? I don't give a f.u.c.k. Bazgadze and his kind make me sick right up to my back teeth complaining about this, complaining about that. Jesus, you were spending all day lining up for bread before we came along, yet all he did was complain about your government, my government, the Russians, the energy corridor. But you know what, lady.' He put his finger to his temple, compressing the veins until they bulged. 'I don't give a s.h.i.t if the Georgian government are driving round in Cadillacs. That was his problem, not mine.'

'I agree, it was his problem. But it is also mine, and Georgia's and make no mistake about this, it's yours as well. Zurab was right. He knew your country was more interested in oil than democracy. Democracy is just an excuse, a convenient flag to wave. You are behaving no differently here than you do in South America, Africa, the Mid-East. You invest in the military, keep corrupt governments happy, and build bases for your own troops to protect your oil interests. Meanwhile, our people, their people, the people who really matter, get nothing.'

I leaned back against the aluminium boxes. Charlie's 'little guy getting f.u.c.ked over' theory was receiving its most articulate airing yet.

'Zurab knew very well that you, America, use the war against terrorism and paranoia about national security to underpin your foreign deployments, while your military becomes the protection force for every oil field, pipeline, refinery and tanker route on the planet. And the price we will all pay is higher than you can possibly imagine. You think it is measured in dollars, but it's not. It's measured in blood.'

There wasn't a whole lot even b.a.s.t.a.r.d could say to that, but he didn't have to. Paata turned and leaned back through the bulkhead. 'We are here.'

5

Seconds later, Charlie poked his head through the hatch. 'Doesn't look much like the centre of the country's number-one export business to me, but there you go.'

I glanced through the windscreen. A few houses were dotted each side of the valley, increasing in number as the road climbed towards a cl.u.s.ter of roofs about 500 away.

The whole area was lush, green, and very wet. The muddy tracks and rough wooden fences and shacks had an almost medieval flavour. Apart from a handful of chickens scuttling about and a few cows mooching around in the fields to our left, the place seemed to be deserted. The torrential rain was keeping the villagers indoors, and I couldn't blame them.

The track ahead of us had been sh.o.r.ed up with broken bricks and lumps of wood. Ominously, I didn't see any sign of a 4x4. I wondered how long it would take us to get to Turkey by horse and cart.

Charlie turned to Paata. 'What now?'

'Back to where Nana did the Kazbegi interview. We need to keep the Mercedes out of sight. Nana isn't everybody's favourite girl around here. She should be, but she isn't. She likes to poke her nose into places people don't want her to.' His jaw tightened. 'The farmer let us sleep here, with the truck. He's a good man. He and his wife are the ones we've come back to see.'

We pa.s.sed a dilapidated farmhouse, and turned right along a track. We pulled up in front of a huge barn, built of unmilled wood with gaps between the planks, and a roof of heavily patched and rusty corrugated-iron sheets. Paata jumped out to open the doors.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d took it as his cue to started b.u.mping his gums again. 'That ID says you gotta help me. I want a truck.'

'I'll ask Eduard,' Nana said sweetly. 'He's waiting inside.'

Paata slid back in and we drove a dozen or so metres into the centre of the barn. It was about three times the height of the wagon, and could easily have taken another six vans each side of us.

The whole place stank of decay and old manure, but at least it was dry. There were no tools or machinery in sight, not even a bale of hay. All I could see was a roughly hewn wooden bench in the far corner, by the remains of a small fire. It looked like it was where this lot had got their heads down.

Nana said something in Paperclip to Koba. He nodded, and took up station a few paces to one side of us. He unzipped his jacket as b.a.s.t.a.r.d fell out of the wagon.

'Where's this Eduard guy? I've got some business to take care of.'

She was trying to keep it light, but I could see she was worried. 'He'll be here. He's not the sort to break a promise.' She glanced uneasily at Paata, then at me and Charlie.

f.u.c.k this; there was too much eye contact going on here. It didn't feel right.

'We've got to get going too,' I said cheerfully. 'Thanks for the lift.'

'Eduard will know if there's transport. I'll call him.'

I followed her line of sight to Paata and Koba, and sensed the tension between them. They were on starting blocks, waiting for something.

I looked back at Nana as she punched the b.u.t.tons on her cell.

For just a second, I had a vision of a peasant farmer trundling along a b.u.mpy track, fighting the wheel of his battered Lada as he scrabbled in his pocket to retrieve his Nokia.

A peasant Georgian farmer, with a cell phone. Who the f.u.c.k did he have to call?

My eyes shot back to Nana. Hers were glued to Koba, and the look between them told me everything.

She knew. She'd known all along. All that heartfelt, rabble-rousing s.h.i.t had just been to keep us busy.

I walked over to Charlie. My eyes were fixed on Koba's feet, between us and the door. I wasn't going to join the eye-contact fest and make things worse. 'C'mon, mate,' I murmured. 'We're off.'

6

Charlie backed me as I took a pace towards the doors, ready to take on Koba if he decided to get in our way. It wasn't something I relished, but we were running out of choices again.

He took a pace towards us. It had gone noisy.

I charged at him, head down. Nana screamed, but Koba's hand moved faster. A split second later, I was staring down a shiny chrome barrel, three or four metres from my face. He covered all three of us, the twitch of the .357 Magnum Desert Eagle's muzzle making it clear that our next sensible move was to get down in the dirt.

I looked up at Nana. The cell was at her ear.

'Nana, what's the matter? What's wrong?'

Koba swung his boot into my side. I shut up and took the pain, which was a lot more comfortable than a round from a Desert Eagle. It was no accident that the ma.s.sive, Israeli-built semi-automatic pistol was weapon of choice for every self-respecting US gang member.

Nana's eyes flashed beams of hatred down at me as she waffled away in Paperclip, and that didn't feel much better.

Paata pulled a couple of aluminium boxes from the van and started dragging them towards us. I heard Baz's name mentioned a few times before she closed the cell down.

'You know very well what's wrong. The police are coming.'

f.u.c.k Koba and that boot of his, it was gob-off-and-play-stupid time.

'But I don't understand... why pull a gun on us? We haven't done anything.' I tightened up for another kick.

She came and knelt down by my head instead.

'Do you think I didn't recognize you? You killed Zurab. I don't just make the news. I watch it too.'

Stupid wasn't going to work.

'Wait, Nana... Yes, I was there. Charlie and I were both there. But we didn't kill him. Akaki did, they were his people.'

She stared at me coldly, her hand up, blocking me off. 'So what? The only difference between you is that Akaki got there a little earlier. Was Zurab making too much noise for you? What does it matter? You all wanted him dead. Why else were you there? And this one' she aimed a toe at b.a.s.t.a.r.d's head 'he carries government ID. What am I to make of that?'

Paata was busy setting up his camera stand and lights just a few metres from us.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been uncharacteristically quiet so far, but being face down in the dirt wasn't going to keep him from his default setting for long. 'You don't lump me in with these two f.u.c.ks, you hear? I'm pipeline security, period. Nothing to do with whatever these f.u.c.ks got up to. That ID says you gotta help me, so do it.'

'I despise you.' Nana glared across at him. 'You are as guilty as if you'd pulled the trigger yourself.'

Paata had rigged up the lights, forward and either side of us, and started running the cables back to the van.

That was it then. Our big moment. Captured on camera by Nana Onani. I wondered what Silky and Hazel would make of it.

Charlie was obviously thinking much the same. 'Don't look now, lad,' he muttered. 'We're about to have a starring role in Nana's answer to I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here...'

'That's got to be worth an Emmy, don't you think?' she said, then barked something to Koba in Paperclip. He nodded obediently. The muzzle of the Desert Eagle didn't waver a millimetre as Nana stood up and hit the cell keys again.

'We didn't kill him, Nana. You must have seen the CCTV. You didn't see me kill him, did you?'

'Save it for the camera. You'll all have your chance.'

She waffled into the cell, was put on hold for a moment, then started talking again.

Paata fired up the Merc's...o...b..ard generator and the arc lights burst into life. I could feel their heat on my face and back. My clothes started to steam.

Nana went into rapid-fire Paperclip mode; she checked her watch and waved her spare arm at Paata and his kit, as if whoever was on the other end could see. I could make out every mention of Baz's name now; I'd heard it far too often these last couple of days not to.

Paata knelt by the van to unpack a sat dish from something resembling a black golf caddie. Nana's exclusive was going to go out live, with us pleading our innocence straight to camera just before the police arrived.

Decision time.

Should we give up the papers now? Maybe we could still get out of this some other way, and hang on to them.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d was going to say f.u.c.k all to her. Why incriminate himself?

But Charlie might...

I decided to hold off just a little longer, until we got ready for filming. Maybe we'd get to sit up; any chance we had to move was a chance to take action.

Nana finished her conversation and her gaze rested for a moment on something just beyond where we were lying. 'That bench?' There was sadness in her voice. 'That is where Zurab sat on Sat.u.r.day, when he took the call that made him go back to Tbilisi. If only... If only he hadn't gone... If only I'd asked him even two or three more questions, who knows how things might have turned out?' Her head jerked back towards me, her eyes full of loathing once more.

Charlie broke the silence that followed.

'Nana, we didn't do it. We can prove it. We have papers. That affidavit everyone's after? I've got it here and a tape of this fat f.u.c.k setting the whole thing up.' He turned to b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Their heads were just a couple of feet from each other. 'Pipeline security, my a.r.s.e.'

7

The tape started to spin in the console.

Koba now had the three of us lying down beside the Merc's open door, but we could see everything we needed to. We had a pretty good view of one of the monitors; Koba and his Desert Eagle had a very good view of us.

To start with, Paata and Nana seemed more interested in what the f.u.c.k had happened to Eduard. I was getting the hang of this Paperclip now. Where was he? But then they went quiet as he concentrated on the screen and she flicked through Baz's papers.

The picture quality was nothing to be ashamed of, given what it had been through. It was a bit gritty and f.u.c.ked up by the mud, but it was clearly and unmistakably Jim Bastendorf coming into Charlie's hotel room at the Marriott.

The little 10x8 screen didn't do full justice to Charlie's disguise, but it still brought a smile to my face. He'd remembered to keep his back to the lens, which was a smart move, given his outfit. He'd draped a towel over his head and shoulders, like a boxer, but no-one was going to confuse him with Muhammad Ali. He'd topped off the whole ensemble with a shower cap.

Somebody said something, but the sound quality was poor. Paata rewound the tape a few frames and turned up the volume.

We all listened to b.a.s.t.a.r.d telling Charlie the reason he needed him to get into the house on Sat.u.r.day night. 'The f.u.c.k's away until Sunday.' He pointed a finger at the bathrobe in front of him. 'So it's got to be Sat.u.r.day night, you got it?'

I flicked my eyes from the screen to the open barn doors. The rain-drenched track was beginning to look more like a duck pond. How long would it take for the police to arrive? And where would they come from? If there was a station in Borjomi itself, we could be seeing blue-and-whites any minute.

Koba was still standing, rock solid, a very professional three metres from our backs. What were the odds of gripping him and that .357 before we heard sirens? We had to be in with a chance. There were three of us, counting b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and I guessed he'd pitch in. He'd gone far too quiet for my liking, but I knew he wouldn't want to be lifted any more than we did.

Nana looked across at me. 'Do you know what this says?'

I shook my head.

I had another go at explaining why we'd been in Baz's house, but she just carried on reading. I wished now that I had taken action when Koba had kicked us to our feet and walked us the dozen or so paces to the van. No matter what, she was going to wait for the police.

But what the f.u.c.k, I told her everything I knew; how b.a.s.t.a.r.d came into the story, why we were at the house and how the tape proved not only that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was part of the operation, but that we didn't even know Baz was going to be there...

'Hey, lady,' b.a.s.t.a.r.d chipped in. 'I just do what I'm told. I knew nothing about that killing s.h.i.t. I didn't know he was gonna come home...'

He was wasting his breath. We both were. Nana's head was down, and less than halfway through the second page she lifted a hand to silence us.

The folder was on her lap. I watched a tear fall from her cheek and land on the page.

'Oh my G.o.d.' She stifled a sob. 'Oh my G.o.d...' Her hand reached out and gently touched Paata's back. 'We must go live with this right now.'