James Barrington - Foxbat

Lenkov shook his head again. ‘No,’ he said loudly. ‘It’s more than that, and you know it.’

Some of the other drinkers in the bar had turned at the sound of Lenkov’s raised voice and were now looking towards the four men.

Ryu registered their interest, and motioned towards the door. ‘We’ll continue this outside,’ he said, then stood up and walked out of the bar, with the other three following.

They crossed the street to the embankment skirting the south side of the river. Ryu there produced a sheet of paper from his pocket and showed it to Lenkov. There were a number of figures scribbled on it, each prefixed by a US dollar sign, but no indication of what these sums were for.

‘That,’ Ryu said, pointing to a figure towards the bottom of the page, ‘is what I’m willing to pay if you agree to join us.’

Lenkov hesitated for a moment. The amount the man was suggesting equated to about five years’ salary for him but there was, the young Russian had already deduced, far more to this than just cash. For one thing, he had no guarantee of ever receiving the money. It’s one thing to be told what you’re going to be paid, but until the sum appears, it’s all just talk. And even if this odd little man did deliver on his promises, Lenkov could foresee other obstacles to prevent him ever spending it, like getting a bullet in the head once his usefulness was over.

There were too many risks involved here, so he shook his head again, decision made. ‘No, I won’t do it,’ he said firmly. ‘And I’ll have to report this to my superiors.’

Ryu’s eyes glittered dangerously in the fading daylight. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you won’t do that,’ he hissed.

‘I’m not taking any orders from you,’ Lenkov snapped, then turned and strode away.

The other two men looked at Ryu, awaiting instructions. ‘Follow him,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll go get the car.’

Fifty yards away, Lenkov glanced behind him. The two other Russians were following him, one on either side of the road, as if ready to anticipate any turn that he made, while Ryu was walking briskly away in the opposite direction. For the first time a feeling of real apprehension crossed the young man’s mind.

He began walking faster towards the centre of the city and away from the relative darkness of the embankment. But his pursuers merely speeded up as well, easily keeping pace with him.

Behind him, he heard a car engine start, its headlights shining across his back as the vehicle turned towards him. Perhaps he could thumb a lift, he considered briefly.

He looked back again but, as the vehicle headed towards him, it passed under a streetlight, and he recognized the sallow features of Ryu Chang-Ho in the driver’s seat.

It was then Lenkov started running, his feet pounding loudly on the pavement as he desperately sought sanctuary. When the lights of another bar beckoned, he skipped across the road, pushed open the door and rushed inside.

But even as he strode across the room, he heard the street door slam open behind him, and a rough voice called out ‘Police! Stay where you are.’

Lenkov turned to see the same two Russians advancing towards him. One of them was holding up a shield that looked remarkably like the double-headed golden eagle of the MVD, the Russian police.

‘Those aren’t cops,’ he shouted desperately, as he backed away towards the smoky rear of the bar. But nobody was listening to him, as the sight of two men claiming to be MVD officers was quite sufficient incentive for them to all mind their own business.

They were on him in a moment, one man pinning him against the polished wood of the bar counter while the other pulled his hands behind his back and snapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists.

Lenkov kept shouting for help as they hustled him towards the door, but nobody in the bar so much as looked at him. Outside, the car waited, Ryu still in the driver’s seat, the engine idling and the rear door already open. The two Russians pushed Lenkov inside, then climbed in after him. The moment the door closed, the car drove away from the kerb.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Lenkov demanded in panic, but none of the three men replied.

As they began heading out of Perm, Lenkov started yelling at the top of his voice and kicking out at the men imprisoning him.

‘Shut him up,’ Ryu instructed briefly. One of the two burly Russians pulled a cosh out of his pocket, as his companion forced the captive’s head forwards.

The cosh swung down in a short, vicious arc, smashing into the back of his skull. It wasn’t sufficient to knock him out, but after the second blow Lenkov collapsed forward, unconscious, into the footwell.

Fifteen minutes later Ryu pulled the car to a halt by some thick woodland on the outskirts of the city. ‘Bring him,’ he instructed, and led the way between the trees.

As they dropped him to the ground, Lenkov was beginning to regain consciousness. The first thing he was aware of was rough hands emptying his pockets, taking his wallet, keys and loose change, and then unstrapping the watch from his wrist. He opened his eyes to see Ryu staring down at him, a semi-automatic pistol in his right hand. The two Russian thugs stood by, watching with disinterest.

‘Wait,’ Lenkov said, desperation in his voice. ‘We can talk. I’ll do what you want.’

Ryu stepped close to him and looked down. ‘The time for talking is over, comrade . You should have taken what we were offering at the time.’

Lenkov lapsed into shocked silence as Ryu cocked his pistol.

The bullet smashed into the young man’s face, just below his right eye, and he toppled backwards, killed instantly. The sound of the shot was shockingly loud in the silence of the wood, and birds flew out of the trees in panic, their wings beating an ironic applause to the execution, while somewhere deeper in the wood a dog started barking.

Ryu stepped forward, rolled the body onto its side and removed the handcuffs from the wrists, then the three men walked away without a backwards glance.

Seventy metres behind them, a middle-aged Russian peered cautiously from behind a tree, a dog lead clutched in his hand. He’d heard, but not seen, the shot being fired, and the sight of the three men walking away had immediately caught his attention. He looped the lead around a branch to stop his trembling dog from following him, then quickly made his way to the edge of the wood. Moments before he got there, he heard a car engine start, so he paused for a few seconds. Then he heard a vehicle moving off, and began to run.

Some fifty metres in front of him, a grey saloon car was driving away, bouncing over the rutted track as it headed towards the main road, but he couldn’t make out the digits on its number plate. As he walked back into the wood to fetch his dog, almost the first thing he came across was the crumpled body of Georgi Lenkov.

Letneozerskiy interceptor base, Karelia, Russia

Yershenko was getting progressively more irritated with the staff at Letneozerskiy. He and his team had been ready to leave for almost two hours, but their aircraft – an Antonov An-28 – still wasn’t ready. The delay, according to their pilot, who seemed almost as frustrated as his passengers, was because of a problem during refuelling.

One of the tanks wasn’t filling properly, and the ground engineers had elected to carry out a visual inspection of its interior and to check the associated fuel lines for blockages and contamination. That had required specialized equipment and a fibre-optic viewing device, and simply assembling this had taken them over an hour. The process, as far as Yershenko could tell, would then take a further thirty minutes, and only then, assuming they found nothing wrong, would they be able to fill the tank.