Stephen Leather - True Colours

Shepherd and McIntyre walked across the lawn at the rear of the house. It was lunchtime and Jules Lee was taking a break from his second day of conducting the lie detector tests. They had already done four of the new intake of bodyguards — Thomas Lisko, Viktor Alexsandrov, Timofei Domashevich and Yakov Gunter. Lisko had been one of the first to be done the previous day, and Alexsandrov had been tested just before Lee had left at seven o’clock. Both had passed with flying colours. They had done Domashevich and Gunter that morning and they had also passed. Max Barsky and Alina Podolski were pencilled in for later that evening. Lee had agreed to work until late, though he had dropped heavy hints about expecting to be paid overtime once he went beyond six o’clock. That meant that either Barsky or Podolski was the mole or the test just wasn’t working. Or his whole theory was wrong and none of the six was helping the killer.

In a perfect world they would have just questioned the six suspects but that would have tipped off the mole that it wasn’t about a missing watch so Lee had to interrogate the bewildered kitchen and housekeeping staff with the same intensity that he questioned the suspects.

‘This is money for old rope, isn’t it?’ said McIntyre, taking a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum from his pocket and slotting a piece into his mouth.

‘Bodyguarding?’ Shepherd shrugged. ‘It’s all good up until the moment you have to throw yourself in front of a bullet.’

‘Yeah, but the pay’s good and that cook is brilliant. Her club sandwiches are out of this world. Chicken, egg, ham, cheese and I don’t know what else. And those chips. How does she make them taste that good?’

‘She fries them twice,’ said Shepherd. ‘She explained how it works, something about cooks them inside and keeps them crispy. Jock, you know this isn’t a real job, right?’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said McIntyre.

‘You know what I mean. I’m here to catch the guy that’s trying to kill Grechko. Once that’s done, I’m off.’

‘And what about me?’

‘Jock, you’re here to help me. When I go, you go. You’re not even here under your own name, remember? You’re Alastair McEwan.’

‘I get that, but a job’s a job, right? I can do this standing on my head, and it pays a hell of a lot better than babysitting an empty office building.’ He grabbed Shepherd’s elbow. ‘I’m serious, Spider. I want to give this a shot.’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘Go for it, then. Your CV’s good enough.’

‘Dmitry was saying that he’s got mates out in Cyprus who work with former SAS guys.’

‘Yeah, I heard that. I didn’t get any names, but there are some principals who prefer SAS protection.’

‘And I can do the old Sean Connery impersonation a treat, that’ll go down well.’ He grinned. ‘The name’s McIntyre,’ he said in a passable impersonation of the Scottish actor. ‘Jock McIntyre. Licensed to kill.’

‘Licensed to bullshit, more like,’ said Shepherd. ‘But yeah, seriously, go for it. Now to get to the point, we’re doing it tonight.’

McIntyre nodded, suddenly serious. ‘OK.’

‘You need to meet up with Jimbo this afternoon and get the suppressors sorted. Lex will pick you and Jimbo up in the van and I’ll meet up with you in Bayswater.’

‘How do I get to Wembley?’

‘I’ll call you a minicab. Get it to drop you at Paddington and then catch a black cab from there to Wembley but get out a few hundred yards from Jimbo’s house and walk the rest of the way. I’ll tell Popov you have to collect some things from Reading. Remember to leave your mobile here.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m tied up here with the lie detector test but I’m only interested in one and when that’s done I’ll drive over in my X5. We’ll use the van out to the New Forest then when it’s done we’ll shower and do laundry at my place and then drive back here.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.’

‘Has to be that way, Jock. We’ll only get one go at this and it has to be done right.’

Podolski pressed the doorbell and tidied her hair, her crash helmet tucked under her arm. The door opened and Max Barsky grinned at her like a lovesick schoolboy. It was clear from the moment he’d first seen her that he fancied her, especially as they were both from the Ukraine. He was a nice enough boy, but at twenty-three, that was what he was, a boy. And Podolski preferred men. ‘Alina, come in,’ he said, stepping to the side. ‘The place is a bit of a mess, I had hardly any time to tidy up.’

‘You need a woman to take care of you,’ she said, patting him on the arm as she walked by him.

‘So what was so urgent that you needed to see me before the shift?’ he asked.

She put her crash helmet on a table in the hallway and turned to face him. ‘What do you think?’ she said, and smiled.

Barsky frowned, not understanding, but as Podolski unzipped her leather motorcycle jacket, a smile slowly spread across his face. ‘Are you serious?’ he asked, unable to believe his luck.

He took a step towards her, forgetting that the door behind him was still open. Monotok stepped into the hallway and brought the butt of his gun down on the back of Barsky’s head. He fell to the ground without a sound. Monotok put the gun away and closed the door, before dragging Barsky into a cramped sitting room that stank of stale pizza and sweat.

He took a handful of long plastic ties from a backpack and gave them to Podolski. ‘Do his ankles,’ he said. ‘One’s enough but use three or four. Then find something to gag him with.’

As Podolski began to bind Barsky’s ankles with the plastic ties, Monotok reached into the backpack again and pulled out a pair of rubber-handled secateurs. Podolski grimaced. ‘Is there no other way?’ she asked.

Monotok grinned cruelly. ‘It’s a bit late to worry about that now, my love,’ he said. He knelt down next to the unconscious man and lifted up his right hand. Podolski turned her head and closed her eyes as Monotok slotted the blades of the pruning shears either side of the thumb. He pressed hard and there was a crunch like a stick of celery being broken and blood spurted across the carpet. ‘See,’ said Monotok as the severed thumb fell away. ‘It didn’t hurt a bit.’

‘There you go,’ said McIntyre, placing the two home-made suppressors on the kitchen table. He’d made the two suppressors from plastic Evian bottles packed with Brillo pads. A clear tube made from the tops of bottles formed a passage for the bullets through the bottle, and the wire wool would absorb most of the sound of the round firing.

Shortt picked one of them up and nodded appreciatively. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘I hope you cleaned up after yourself?’

‘All the waste is in a carrier bag in your garage,’ he said. ‘We can burn it with the rest of the stuff.’

Shortt gestured at the two Makarov pistols on the table. ‘And we use duct tape to fasten them to the guns?’

‘Duct tape works just fine. It’ll be good for two or three shots and that’s all we’ll need.’

The doorbell rang and both men jumped. Shortt grinned shamefacedly. ‘If it was the wife, she wouldn’t ring the bell,’ he said. He went to open the front door. It was Harper. The white van was parked in the street outside.

‘Hey, hey, the gang’s all here,’ said Harper.

‘Come on in, mate,’ said Shortt. ‘We’ve got time for a coffee before we head off to meet Spider.’

The gate opened and Podolski waved at Thomas Lisko in the guardhouse. He waved back. She looked to her left, where Monotok was at the wheel of Barsky’s car. Because she had stopped the bike close to the driver’s door Barsky wasn’t able to see who was driving. As the car moved forward, Podolski matched its speed, keeping herself between the car and the guardhouse.