Andy McNab - Agressor

He fixed his eyes on mine. 'You want to come along as shotgun?' He brought the can of water up to his mouth and tilted his head to drink. His eyes swivelled so they kept contact with mine. 'No pay, mind – that's all for Hazel. But I'll pick up the costs and get you back to your German, Club Class.'

I couldn't help but smile; it almost turned into a laugh because the situation was so ridiculous. I'd never worked for nothing in my entire life. I'd even charged my mum twenty pence to go to the corner shop for a pack of Embassy Gold. 'But you haven't even told me the job.'

Charlie detected the flicker of interest. He fished a USB memory stick out of his jeans and plugged it into his laptop. A dialogue box asked if he wanted to carry on with the movie clip from where he'd left off, or go back to the beginning. He tapped the keyboard and we got a jerky picture of a ten-foot brick wall with broken glass cemented into its top. A succession of Ladas trundled down the potholed road alongside it. I could see only the top two floors of the worn-out and pitted brick cube the other side of the wall, but every window was protected by a heavy grille that sat proud of the building so it could be opened outwards. The camera passed the graffiti-sprayed gates. Two wall-high metal plates closed the house off to the public. They looked as if they had been there as long as the house, rusting and battered, held together in the centre by a lever lock.

The picture curled as Charlie poked the screen. 'Fucking amateur bag fit.' The camera had been concealed in a bag of some kind, with just a small hole cut into it. If the lens had been pressed right up against it they might have got a full picture, but they'd done it so badly it was blurred round the edges.

'What are we looking at?'

'This, my lad, is the home of a government minister, in that most upright and enlightened of landscapes, the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He goes by the name of Zurab Bazgadze – though I like to think of him as plain old Baz.'

'Great. And?'

'I'm going to pop in there and do a little job.'

'No job's that little, for that sort of cash. You covering your back?'

He grinned. 'That's why I'm thinking you should come along and help me.' He pulled at his jumper. 'This wasn't the only thing I bought duty free.' He stood up, walked over to his carry-on, and extracted a small digital camcorder. Its red light glowed. 'I thought it was him at the door again…' He powered down the device. 'I'm building up as much of a security blanket as I can lay my hands on. If I get stitched up, he'll go down with me.'

'Who the fuck are you on about?'

'The world's fattest American, with one of those fuck-off whitewall haircuts.'

Charlie came back to join me at the laptop. He pulled out the memory stick and waved it at me before it disappeared into his pocket. 'He dropped this off, and the laptop – and before you ask, don't.'

He was right. I didn't need to know who this man was. If I did go with Charlie and Whitewall found out I was also on the ground, Charlie could say that I knew nothing about anything. He wouldn't have shown me the tape now anyway. I had nothing to do with the job.

'I don't want to know. I'm more worried about you getting caught. Those shaky old hands of yours will see out their days with thumbscrews attached to them. They don't fuck about in Georgia, mate.'

'Piece of piss getting into that target, lad. Who d'you think did all those banks in Bosnia?'

'I thought about you when I read the story.'

Towards the end of the Bosnian War, the Firm needed to get their hands on the financial records of certain government officials and high-ranking army officers who were taking bribes from the drug and prostitution barons. MOE guys from the Regiment hit a whole lot of banks. The idea was that when the new country was formed, we could make sure we kept the dodgy ones out of the picture, and got the good guys in. Not that it had worked, of course. It never does.

'Yeah – should've skimmed off a few bob for myself while I was at it, shouldn't I? Wouldn't be here now…'

'What is this little job you're doing, then?'

The screen went blank and Charlie looked up at me. 'Can't tell you just yet. But come along as shotgun, and I'll tell you in-country. I've got to hit the place this Saturday, leaving here at dark o'clock tonight.'

'Why Saturday?'

'Baz is away, but he'll be back Sunday. So I can't hang around chatting; it's make-your-mind-up time, lad.'

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for a reply.

'Read my lips, Nick. It's decision time.' He locked his eyes on mine. 'Which means you've got to dig deep, and ask yourself a big question.'

'How big?'

'None bigger, lad.' He took a deep breath, and adopted the kind of intense expression you use when grappling with the mysteries of the universe. 'I mean, it's the twenty-first century. So answer me this: just what kind of sad fuck goes round with a whitewall any more?'

He laughed like a drain.

He laughed so hard he had to hold his sides.

'Tell you what, Charlie,' I said wearily, 'you call Hazel and tell her you're OK and I'm here, and I'll think about it.'

Tbilisi, Georgia Saturday, 30 April My sleep was broken by an announcement from the flight deck I didn't understand a word of, and the plane began its descent. I looked out of the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the city, but the cloud cover was too low and it was still pitch dark. Baby-G told me it was nearly 5.30 a.m. I just loved red-eye flights, they really set you up for a good day out.

I dug around in the seat pocket for the printouts I'd done at the internet cafe in Istanbul. I'd had a day to kill after Charlie had left the city, and I always tried to find out as much as I could about any alien environment I was about to go into. Apart from anything else, if I had to get out quick time, I'd need all the help I could get.

I tended to hit the CIA's world report website for facts and figures, and backpacker chat-rooms for real-time information; it paid to get the view from both ends of the food chain. If I needed more, I'd log on to Google.

The Russian Federation, referred to in the local press as 'the aggressive neighbour', loomed over Georgia to the north, and the two weren't exactly cosying up at the moment. Since the fall of communism, Georgia, always a predominantly Christian country, had become an independent state, very pro-West, very pro-Bush. Pro-Bush meant anti-Putin, whichever way you looked at it, and that definitely put the main man at the Kremlin's nose out of joint.

What pissed him off even more was the fact that America and the UK had already given millions of dollars in arms and equipment to the Georgian military. It was the last thing he wanted happening in his backyard – which was why he hadn't pulled out his troops, armour and artillery, which were officially still there as 'peacekeepers'.

To the east lay Azerbaijan, one of the countries lucky enough to have a shoreline bordering the oil-rich Caspian Sea. Despite being Muslim, it too was backed big-time by the US, for reasons that weren't hard to see. The BTC pipeline, built by a consortium headed by BP and on the brink of coming on-line, stretched a thousand miles from Baku and passed just south of Tbilisi as it made its way through Georgia towards the Mediterranean coast.

To the south-west was Armenia, a country I'd always reckoned must be completely devoid of any men between the ages of twenty and forty. They were all busy elsewhere, running drugs, prostitution and extortion in every city in the West, as well as every other racket that used to be Mafia copyright until these guys muscled in.

Also to the south-west lay the all-important Turkey, feeling pretty pleased with itself these days for owning the business end of the pipeline at Cheyhan, where fleets of supertankers would soon be waiting to ferry enough of the black stuff to keep the 4x4s of the UK and the east coast of America on the road for the foreseeable future. It probably felt very secure, too; the huge US air base at Incirlik was right on its doorstep.