The path Sedgwick and Baldy were on had taken a turn away from the lake, where a vast pile of ice-age boulders had been thrown up, making access to the water impossible. From my elevated angle I could see the path narrowed here, too, twisting and turning through a jumble of rocks and clumps of vegetation. It was a great place for an ambush.
Even as I thought it, the pilot took his phone away from his ear and reached into his flying jacket. When he took out his hand he was holding a gun. He began to walk faster, then shouted something I couldn’t pick up, before breaking into a run. Baldy, who was now even further ahead, heard him and also began to run, disappearing after Sedgwick down a slope in the path behind a clump of trees.
The situation was easy to read: it had gone critical. They’d been given the order to move in and dispose of the problem.
I covered the ground on the run, aiming for an interception point along the path. I was trying to avoid the tangle of brushwood and fallen branches as much as I could, thus alerting the pilot to my approach. But he was so intent on following orders he didn’t hear me coming.
When he finally did cotton on, alerted by the loud crack of a branch I didn’t see, it was too late. He turned his head and slowed, his mouth forming a surprised ‘O’, and tried to bring up the gun and run at the same time. It didn’t work. I slammed into him broadside before he could aim, taking him off the path and over the edge into a gulley. He gave a yelp on the way down but it was muffled by his body spinning over and over.
I skidded down after him, hitting roots and fallen branches on the way, and jumped down the last few feet to the bottom of the gulley. The pilot had lost the gun but came up fast, his face covered in dirt and looking murderous. He opened his mouth to shout a warning to Baldy, so I moved in and hit him hard in the side of the neck. He staggered back and tried to shout again, but all he could manage was a croak. It was obvious I’d hurt him. I dropped my arms and waited for him to come at me. He took the bait and rushed in, piling onto me with a flurry of punches and strikes that were a blur but ineffective, apart from one that made my ear sting.
I waited for him to take a breath, then grabbed the front of his flying jacket and pulled hard. It wasn’t what he was expecting; fighters usually try to keep a distance and throw punches, as he’d been doing. Getting in close was counter-intuitive. As he came towards me I ducked my head and smashed his nose, then followed up with a piledriver to his midsection.
He went down and lay gasping, his face covered in blood, then gave a shiver and lay still. When I checked closer I found a pool of blood spreading out from the back of his head. He’d hit it on a sharp rock and was dead.
I went through his jacket and came up with a wallet. I stuffed it in my pocket. Right now wasn’t the time to check out his credentials; I had to see where Baldy had got to and stop whatever he was planning to do.
When I came up out of the gulley, there was no sign of him or Sedgwick. The path here was like a rollercoaster, ducking and diving as it followed the contours of the land around the lakeside. I started to run, hoping Baldy hadn’t anticipated his orders and gone in hard after Sedgwick. It was tough going, mostly stubby grass with an underlay of hard rock and tangled tree roots, but beaten to a solid base over the years by the passage of many feet.
As I rounded a corner I saw Sedgwick. He was kneeling in the middle of the path with Baldy standing over him, a gun pointed at his head. Sedgwick looked sick.
There are times when the only reaction is action. No talking, no negotiating and no trying to go for the man. In any case I knew I’d never make it. All he had to do was pull the trigger. He couldn’t miss.
Without breaking stride I brought up my gun and shot him.
He was punched backwards off the path and rolled away into the long grass. I kept my momentum going, my gun aimed ready to make a follow-up shot if he came up fighting.
But he was dead. My bullet had taken him in the throat.
I did a couple of deep bends to catch my breath, then checked the body and came up with another wallet. I turned to see how Sedgwick was doing. He was sitting on the ground and shaking his head.
‘Good morning,’ he said, then promptly threw up.
I let him recover. Some events take you like that.
When he was ready he stared at the man and said, ‘Who was he? What the hell is going on?’
I checked Baldy’s wallet. It held cash, a credit card and a photo ID with a federal agency name and logo I’d never seen before. Jesus, had I just killed a cop?
I tossed the wallet to Sedgwick and checked the one from the pilot. Same ID, same logo.
‘What is that logo?’ I said. ‘Is it official?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s a fake. I’ve seen it before. The logo says they’re the Federal Security Division for the Safety of the State. It’s meaningless. They’re actually a security contractor based in Saint Petersburg. They’ve done work in Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly using Russian veterans but pulling in others, too.’ He handed back the wallet. ‘They’ve been under investigation twice by the authorities but so far have been given a clean bill of health.’
‘Investigation for what?’
He brushed some leaf mould off the front of his coat where he’d fallen over and picked up his briefcase. ‘The usual stuff: mafiya dealings, extortion and other criminal activity, some connected with certain government ministers and others.’ He wiped his face with a handkerchief and turned to spit into the grass. ‘Excuse me.’
‘Oligarchs?’
‘That’s the old term now largely regarded as pejorative. The new ones especially are sensitive on the issue and like to think of themselves as serious businessmen.’ He pulled a face. ‘I believe the American mafia took the same approach.’
At least it meant the two men weren’t FSB. But it begged the question how and why they came to be here in the first place. ‘Are you being watched for any reason?’
‘I’m always being watched. We all are. But I don’t fit the traditional mould of a British diplomat because I travel around a lot and meet a lot of ordinary people. I think it bothers them because they can’t explain it.’
‘Perhaps they think you’re a spy.’
He shook his head. After a moment he said, ‘It’s not that. I have a local girlfriend.’ He shrugged. ‘To some that’s a lot worse than spying – it’s subversive.’
‘Well, good for you. But why these two and not the usual embassy watchers?’
‘Two? There’s another one?’ He looked around.
‘Your pilot was in on it.’ I jerked a thumb behind me. ‘He’s back there. He lost interest.’
Sedgwick looked confused. ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on. Really.’ He scowled. ‘Although there was something odd this morning, at the airfield.’
‘What?’
‘The usual taxi pilot, Andrei, didn’t turn up. The other man did and said Andrei was sick. Yet he was fine last night when I spoke to him, and he never misses the opportunity for a fare.’
‘And this one?’ I pointed at Baldy.
‘He acted like another passenger. It’s not unusual here to find yourself sharing rides. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, although he didn’t seem exactly friendly. Most Russians are, believe it or not.’
‘I hear you.’
I decided to get Lindsay onto it. It was a remote possibility, but if she could track down one of the names it might point to whoever had sent the men after Sedgwick.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we’d better get out of here. You can show me the lake.’
We covered up both men as best we could, using brushwood and handfuls of pine needles, then hiked back to the car. On the way, Sedgwick kept looking at me as if he wanted to say something. In the end I said, ‘It would be good if you said what’s on your mind, otherwise the tension will kill us both.’
‘Sorry. It’s just that I’m not used to this kind of … situation.’
‘Lucky for you. What is it?’
‘The men back there. Did you have to kill them both? I know the one with me was going to shoot – and I’m grateful, so please don’t misunderstand me. But was it strictly necessary with the other one?’
‘If it’s any consolation, I didn’t set out to kill anybody. But there’s no point taking a bible to church if you don’t intend using it.’
He gave a weak grin. ‘Is that an example of American home-spun wisdom?’
‘No. It is what it is. They weren’t going to take you back alive, and would have shot me without a second thought for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ I described seeing the pilot talking on the phone. ‘Just before I got to you he received orders from somebody which made him reach for his gun. He was also looking around a lot – and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to be followed; he was expecting you to meet someone. He didn’t know I even existed, so when nobody showed up he was told to dispose of you. There was no going back from that.’
He stopped in his tracks. ‘But why me? I’m nobody. What the hell could they have against me?’
I really didn’t want to tell him what I thought. Being in the same stretch of woods as Tzorekov and Gurov and the kill team in the helicopter was all a bit too close. It made me think that Sedgwick taking off in this direction had rung alarm bells somewhere, and whoever it was who was trying to stop the meeting had decided to latch onto anybody even remotely connected with the British embassy who showed a sudden interest in the area. The same would have applied to US embassy personnel.
‘Is there a connection?’ he said.
‘With what?’ I urged him to carry on walking until we reached the parking lot. The sooner we were away from here the less danger there was of being tied in with the two dead men when they were found.
‘With the reason that brings you here. The location for a meeting.’
‘What did Vale tell you?’
‘He didn’t. He said he wanted possible locations for a high-level meeting in the area; somewhere secret. I said there was only one place I could think of, about ten miles from here.’ He stopped again. ‘Does this involve Putin?’