Dead Centre - Andy McNab [42]
The phone only rang a couple of times before she picked up.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Better than yesterday. Where are you?’ She was inside this time. I could hear Arabic TV in the background and no gunfire.
‘Back in the UK, in Hereford. You OK to talk?’
‘You took the job?’
‘Maybe.’ I explained. ‘I’m banking on BB keeping them alive long enough for me to find out where they are. Any luck with Frank?’
‘All I can tell you is that he was originally called Vepkhiat Avdgiridze. He’s not Ukrainian. He’s Georgian, from South Ossetia. It’s been fighting for independence for decades.’
‘I know. I was there a year or two before Putin went in.’
North Ossetia was part of Russia, but South Ossetia had always been disputed territory. Most South Ossetians carried Russian passports and wanted to break away from Tbilisi. They had declared it a republic in 1990 and the Georgian government had sent in tanks. A series of wars followed, until the Russians finally invaded ‘to protect their citizens’ in 2008. Well, that was one of the versions. Since then, it had been recognized as an independent republic by Venezuela and a handful of other countries that sucked up to Moscow, but the Georgian government still saw it as occupied territory.
‘Where does Frank fit in?’
‘He finances the South Ossetian independence movement. He helps them attack Tbilisi in any way they can. He’s not short of cash. It looks like he has fingers in every pie. Oil, gas, real estate. He backed Putin when he reorganized things. He’s no good guy, but he has class. He doesn’t own a football club or run for provincial governor. He keeps himself to himself. For him, it’s all about business, all about the deal.’
‘Are you sure he’s the one?’
‘I’ll send a picture.’
‘What about you, Anna? You OK?’
‘I’m fine. But, you know, I’ve been thinking … Maybe … Maybe I should stay a while longer. If Gaddafi retakes Benghazi, I should be here.’
‘And maybe Bahrain, maybe Syria?’
I kept it light, but we both went quiet for a while.
‘So when will you be coming home, Nicholas?’
‘If they’re alive, I’m going to have to go and get them.’
I heard an intake of breath. ‘Yes … Of course.’
There was a pause.
‘Nicholas, I have to go.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow. But I won’t have a clue what you’ve been up to because pointy-head TV doesn’t show RT.’
She’d have no idea what pointy-head meant, but she started to laugh. I liked it when she did that.
‘Be safe, Anna.’
‘And you, Nicholas.’
The line went dead.
I sat on the bed, trying to make sense of our non-conversation.
My iPhone alerted me to the arrival of Anna’s MMS. I opened it up. The photo was slightly fuzzy and taken from a distance as he got into a limo, but it was Francis Timis all right.
I juggled tubes of instant coffee, fired up the small plastic kettle and worried about Anna. It was becoming a bit of a habit. It wasn’t just the danger she put herself in. I missed her. She was too busy saving the world for us to spend much time together. But I couldn’t blame her. Whoever said war is a drug was right on the money.
I called Crazy Dave on the room phone. I was pretty sure he’d ignore a withheld number or one he didn’t know, but pick up on a local call. I wasn’t wrong.
‘Dave …’
‘What?’
‘You about for a brew in, say, an hour?’
‘If you want work, you can shove it up your arse. As of sixteen hundred hours today I’m retired.’
‘Then get the kettle on for half three. You can still present yourself with a gold clock at four.’
‘Yeah, funny. What do you want?’
‘I’ll explain when I get there.’
I was glad I’d caught him in a good mood.
5
THE GREEN DRAGON’S car park was at the rear of the building. The garaging had probably once been filled with horse-drawn carriages. I checked out and drove my grime-covered 911 past Ascari