Aggressor Read online

  As we reached the outskirts of the city, drab concrete apartment blocks sprang up on each side of the road. They’d been given a recent lick of paint, but not in any colour you’d have chosen sober. Some of the giant cubes were green, some purple. One was yellow.

  This wasn’t what I’d been expecting, good roads and fresh paint. To cap it all, even at this time of the morning, in the dark, there were women out sweeping the road with the sort of brooms that Harry Potter played Quidditch on.

  A convoy of olive-green military trucks towing artillery pieces passed us, going the other way, as we came into the city proper. I knew Tbilisi lay at the foot of three massive, steeply inclined hills. The river Mtkvari ran through it, north to south. We were entering from the flatter ground to the east.

  As it became more built up, so did the number of dogs. They were everywhere, if not loose and pissing against every car within reach, then on a leash and being treated to their early morning walkies.

  A blue-and-white was blocking the way. The two guys inside the shiny new VW Passat had their heads down for a nap; by the look of things, they’d got a bit tired running stripy police tape from each wing mirror to the wall on either side. My grey-haired friend peered through his screen, cursed and hung a right.

  The smoothly surfaced road immediately gave way to a minefield of water-filled potholes big enough to hide a bus in. My driver joined all the others slaloming from side to side to avoid them. I wasn’t sure how some of them managed it, without any headlights.

  This was more like the Georgia I’d been expecting. Maybe the tourist board didn’t want to deprive the punters of the authentic gulag experience, and the police were there to make sure there was no chance of us missing it. At least there were a few road signs now, in Russian Cyrillic and a language I supposed was Georgian, though the words looked more like rows of twisted paperclips.

  The taxi driver crossed himself every time we passed a church. I couldn’t tell if it was out of respect, or alongside a prayer of thanks for surviving the manic driving of his fellow countrymen and the Jurassic-scale potholes.

  We crossed the Mtkvari, the fastest – and brownest – river I’d ever seen, to the west bank and the city centre. The Marriott was on the main drag, another stretch of flat, freshly laid tarmac that paralleled the river. It looked every bit as big and impersonal as any I’d stayed in, though I could see it was one of the newest and smartest in the chain before I’d even got out of the cab.

  Chandeliers the size of hot-air balloons hung from the ceiling of an atrium eighty feet high. Everyone inside looked as though they’d just stepped out of an Armani ad before heading for their early morning breakfast meetings; all of them, both reception staff and guests, were dressed in varying shades of black.

  According to the bulletin board in reception, it was the Marriott’s honour to welcome the BP Georgia conference, and they looked forward to welcoming all delegates at 2 p.m. in the St David Room. Capitalism wasn’t just being embraced in this neck of the woods; it was being bear-hugged, then having its contact details Bluetoothed into every Blackberry in sight.

  4

  ‘Room 258, sir.’ The concierge handed me my room card.

  I thanked him and turned away, but he hadn’t finished.

  ‘One moment.’ He searched under the counter top. ‘This is for you.’

  I took the bulky envelope. On the back was written: ‘From C.T.’

  I bent to pick up my carry-on, but a young bellboy beat me to it. He guided me the four paces to the lift. I hardly needed the help, but I didn’t want to upset hotel protocol and get myself noticed. Besides, there was no way he was going to let go of the bag, or the tip.

  He pressed the call button. ‘You have travelled to Tbilisi before, sir?’ The accent probably came from watching American TV shows. So did the grooming; he had hair so clean and sculpted he could have auditioned for The OC, and there wasn’t a zit or hint of stubble on his cheek.

  I smiled and made all the right noises as we let a briefcase-toting American major in BDUs get out of the lift before taking it to the third floor. ‘No, but it looks very nice to me.’

  He nodded and agreed, but treated me to the sort of look that said he doubted I was in any position to judge, if my choice of outfit was anything to go by.

  When we got to the room, he showed me how to work the air conditioning and TV, and even took the trouble to explain that the two-litre bottles of Georgian mineral water beside it were complimentary. I knew, but I didn’t interrupt his patter. I wanted to be the grey man; or as much of one as I could be in an orange-, green-, brown- and blue-patterned jumper.

  After he had completed his routine, he took a bow and gave me a very big smile. I pushed a five-dollar bill into his hand before he had a chance to go for an encore. I didn’t have a clue how much that was in local hertigrats or whatever they were called, but he left a very happy bunny. Like almost anywhere, in Georgia the US dollar was king.

  I took in the thick plush curtains, furniture and fittings. It made a welcome change from the shitholes I’d normally had to put up with when I was on a job. Then I peeled open Charlie’s envelope.

  The Motorola pay-as-you-go cell phone was fresh from its packaging. It would have been the first thing he bought after arriving. I sparked it up; there was only one phone number in the display for me to ring, so I pressed it at the same time as I hit the TV remote. I always liked seeing if other countries had to suffer their way through the same shit programmes that I watched.

  Charlie answered immediately, tearing the arse out of his Yorkshire vowels like one of the Tetley tea folk. ‘’Eh oop, how art thou, lad?’ He sounded as though he’d swallowed a fistful of happy pills.

  ‘Shut up, you nugget. I’m in 258. You?’

  ‘One-oh-six.’

  ‘I’m going to sort my shit out – see you in about thirty?’

  ‘Okey-dokey.’ He killed his phone.

  RTV1 was the default channel. It was good to see that today’s Russian housewife wore the same gently exasperated expression as her Midlands cousin when she watched her boys covering themselves with mud on the footie pitch, and that Tide washed away all her problems too.

  I shoved the two-pin charger plug into a socket and checked the bars. Charlie would already have done it but there was no harm in a top-up, especially in the power-cut capital of the world.

  I flicked channels again. Russia’s Weakest Link looked exactly the same as the American show (which looked exactly the same as the Brit version) except that the woman asking the questions had brown hair and no facial tics.

  I checked out the room safe, though I had nothing to put in it. All the US dollars I’d drawn from an ATM in Istanbul, about fifteen hundred of them in fives and tens, would stay with me. My passport would stay with me too. I only did it out of habit, in case the last guest had left me some valuables. I had probably been doing it since I was a kid checking out the coin return in phone boxes and cigarette machines. I’d never found anything then either, but you never know.

  I scanned the minibar too. All the normal miniatures, but not as much vodka as I’d have thought. Coke. Fanta. A local beer covered in paperclip writing and a bit of Russian. A couple of small mineral waters with the same label, Borjomi, as the litre bottles by the TV, but without the nice little card telling me it was the pride of Georgia, and an arrow on a map pointing to a town somewhere to the west of the city. The rest were berry and fruit drinks.

  I settled for a can of apple juice.

  Sitting on the bed and feeling totally exhausted, I flicked through the remaining twenty-two channels. Most were Russian; a couple seemed to carry local news, and of course there were CNN and BBC. I left it on a Paperclip channel and glanced outside as I headed for the shower.

  The weather was still miserable. It had stopped raining, but it was a gloomy, cloud-ridden dawn. The street directly below me was already clogged with a mixture of Western cars and trucks, and old square Ladas straining under the weight of too ma
ny sacks of spuds lashed onto their roof racks.

  Beyond it were a lot of grand buildings a couple of hundred years old, which I knew from my map housed the government. A few museums, domes and church spires from even further back rubbed shoulders with the tightly packed brick cubes that lined the narrow, steeply climbing streets.

  At least the communist planners had had a stab at preserving the grandeur of the centre, and built most of the crap far enough away from city hall that they didn’t have to see it. By the look of things, when their work was done here, they’d probably gone and had a crack at Hereford.

  The green hills that surrounded the city soared above the rooftops, and seemed close enough to reach out and touch.

  I put my fluorescent nylon socks over my hands, jumped into the shower, and used them as flannels to give both them and me a wash.

  My first glimpse of the foyer had told me I should have hit some local fashion websites before I came; market gear just didn’t cut it here. But fuck it, Charlie’s job was tonight, so I’d be out of here by tomorrow . . .

  Well, that was if I did it.

  I wanted to know exactly what it was first.

  And coming here was the only way I’d find out.

  5

  Who was I trying to kid?

  I knew I had to save old Disco Hands from himself, otherwise why would I be here?

  But I wasn’t going to tell the old fucker yet. He’d have to work for it.

  I had a few concerns. It felt like too much of a rush. I would have preferred time to tune in to this place, but that wasn’t going to happen. And besides, it was why Charlie was getting paid big bucks.

  He’d have to think on his feet. And if they started to wobble, I’d be there to hold him up.

  Five minutes later I dried myself, watching what had to be the best recruiting ad for any army in the known universe. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t a Colgate commercial. Every trooper in sight had the sort of clean-cut, sharply chiselled smile your average Georgian mum would die for; quite a few of them were busy swooning in the audience as the parade moved past them. I was expecting to see the bellboy any minute.

  The music oozed serenity as the camera lingered on envious younger brothers who couldn’t wait to join up, and older sisters who only had eyes for their older brothers’ new mates. And all the while, Richard the Lionheart’s flag fluttered alongside the Stars and Stripes, the two occasionally entwining in the breeze.

  It was all very moving. I had half a mind to sign up myself. And as Charlie often used to say, that was all you needed . . .

  Leaving the defenders of the motherland saluting the flags, I headed downstairs with money, passport, phone and wet hair.

  I needed a brief. After that, our plan was to be seen together in public as little as we could. We’d do our own recces, only get together for the job, whatever that was, then leave separately for the airport the next day.

  Our return flight to Istanbul was at 10 a.m., but it didn’t matter if we missed it. There were flights within the following couple of hours to Vienna or Moscow. That at least guaranteed an exit from Georgia, and once we were clear, we could sort ourselves out for a plane back to Australia.

  I could see if Silky was still talking to me, and he could go and die.

  Room 106 had a Do Not Disturb sign on the door handle, in Russian, English and Paperclip. I gave a knock and stepped back so the silly old fucker could see me through the spyhole.

  The door opened and a very smiley Charlie let me in. He’d gone for the oilman look, complete with a scuffed-up pair of US desert combat boots. The only thing missing was the green flowery logo.

  He looked me up and down. ‘Making an effort to blend in, I see? You look like those blocks of flats on the way in.’

  The curtains were drawn; all the lights were on. The laptop was rigged up on the small desk by the window. A town map was spread out on the bed, unmarked. Alongside was a collection of improvised picks and tension wrenches. I sat on the edge of the mattress and picked up one of the lengths of coat-hanger wire. It had a two-inch shaft, then a right-angle bend; the other end had been twisted into a circle.

  ‘You already done the locks recce for this little job of yours?’

  ‘I could see everything from the video.’ He went and sat in front of the laptop and pushed the memory stick into the USB port. ‘Have a look.’ He freeze-framed on a shot of the large double steel gates. ‘See? Piece of piss. It’ll take me about ten seconds.’

  He was right. It was just a lever lock. It would be easy to defeat, even without a recce. At least that would get us into the yard and out of view.

  ‘What happens when you’re inside? You still haven’t told me.’

  He flipped down the screen and looked at me. ‘It’s a covert CTR [close target recce]. I – hopefully we – have to open a safe and nick whatever documents are there, lock everything up again, and drop the stuff in a dead letter box. Old Baz will never know; we’ll be in and out without leaving a fart print.’

  He paused.

  ‘It’ll be like being over the water again, eh?’

  True; we’d done enough covert CTRs of PIRA houses, looking for weapons or explosives, or putting in listening devices, to fill the housebreaker’s handbook. But this was different. ‘It sounds like a lot of cash for just a bit of nicking. You know where – and what sort – the safe is?’

  Charlie couldn’t help smiling. ‘Nope, and it doesn’t matter. Even a dickhead like you knows that locks are designed to be opened. Besides, why do you think I’m being paid so much?’

  I stood up. ‘Do you know what you’re lifting?’

  ‘Nope. Just anything inside the safe, handwritten or printed.’

  ‘You know why it has to be lifted covertly? Why not just get a local lad to blow the thing up?’

  ‘Don’t know, don’t care. Could be one of a thousand reasons.’

  ‘He live alone?’

  ‘Yep, all on his lonesome, in that big old house. What a waste.’

  ‘You know what this Baz guy has done, or what he’s about to do?’

  Charlie knew I’d be hitting him with questions like this for hours if he didn’t shut me up. ‘Take a breath, lad. Everything’s in hand. I’ll be finding out all I need to when old Whitewall turns up at nine. He’ll have to tell me; it’s too near the witching hour for him to fuck me about, and I won’t do the job if he doesn’t tell me the reason why.’

  ‘What’s he coming here for?’

  ‘I gave him a kit list in Istanbul.’

  Charlie went through it all: fibre-optic equipment; big holdall of pick gear to cover all the safe options; all the other tiny details that never leave the expert’s mind.

  Charlie was grinning like an idiot. He loved talking work stuff; it was like he’d been let out of the paddock. ‘Why the long face, lad? I know it’s about two donkeys’ worth of kit, but we need it to cover all eventualities, not to mention our arse.’

  I was listening, but just now the kit was unimportant. ‘It’s your arse I’m worried about. And mine. Charlie, you know fuck all. You could land up in a world of shit, mate. You could get thrown away with the rubbish once this job’s done.’

  6

  ‘I know it’s risky. That’s why I want you to come. I’m thinking if the wheels start to fall off you’ll be there to help put them back on. But I’ll know more about the job after nine . . .’

  I didn’t answer; I wanted him to work and I wanted to know more about Whitewall and Baz, and why he needed to steal documents from a safe.

  ‘Look, I’ve already started to protect myself, and FedEx’d the first tape of the fat one to Hazel. I told her not to open it, just keep it safe. There’s fuck all on it, but at least it’s a start.’ He got up and headed for the brew kit above the minibar. ‘It’s all right, Nick, really.’ He pointed at the bed. ‘Park your arse and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.’ He sounded like somebody’s granddad. Which of course he was.

  I moved the map out
of the way and sat down again. My face felt hot. What was I so worried about – the job, or his safety? I couldn’t work it out.

  The little plastic kettle started to bubble. Charlie had his back to me. ‘So, lad. You with me?’

  He ripped open a couple of sachets and dropped the teabags into two tiny coffee cups. We weren’t going to get much of a brew out of them. ‘Just like old times, eh?’

  ‘No, Charlie, it’s not like old times. We’re using our own passports. We don’t know what the fuck we’re heading into. We are not in control of the job.’ I stared at his back. ‘I’m not doing it unless we know more . . .’

  I tailed off, exasperated. ‘What the fuck am I saying we for?’

  Charlie liked that one. His shoulders shook so much it looked like he was chuckling with his whole body.

  He calmed down after a minute or two and had another go at digging into the milk tubs with the back of a spoon. ‘You think I don’t know all that stuff? It’s why I need you here, lad, like I said. To ride shotgun.’

  He turned and handed me the brew.

  ‘What do you say?’ His eyes had turned a bit liquid, and I wasn’t sure it was just because of the laughter. ‘Piece of piss if we’re two up . . .’

  I took a sip of the weakest tea I’d ever tasted. ‘What’s his name again?’

  ‘Zurab Baz-your-father. Something like that.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, you don’t even know his name. You on drugs or something?’

  ‘Hang on, I remember. It’s Bazgadze. But his name doesn’t matter, does it? I know where he lives and it’s not as if we’re going to see him. We do the recces today and get on with it tonight. Then we’re gone. I’ll even pick up a nice bottle of duty-free, to take home for Hazel. Do you know this country invented wine?’

  I moved the map so I could stretch out, and dumped the tea on the bedside table. ‘How was she?’