Andy McNab: Agressor

The track ahead of us had been shored 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 passed 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.

Bastard took it as his cue to started bumping 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 Bastard 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.

Fuck 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 buttons on her cell.

For just a second, I had a vision of a peasant farmer trundling along a bumpy 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 fuck 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 shit 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.'

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 massive, 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.'

Fuck 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 Bastard'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.

Bastard 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 fucks, you hear? I'm pipeline security, period. Nothing to do with whatever these fucks 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…'

'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 onboard 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.

Bastard was going to say fuck 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 Saturday, 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.