The Accident Man (28 page)

“Come here, son.”

There was a scurrying of footsteps down a staircase, then a small bundle of energy rocketed into the room, saw Carver, and shrieked, “Pablo!”

His father glowered at him, trying to look stern. “Tell Monsieur Pablo what you saw this afternoon. You know, the funny men.”

“The ones the English lady asked me about?”

“Yes, them.”

“There were three of them, or maybe four. They looked funny. They had big coats on, even though it was nice and warm outside.”

Carver got down on his haunches to look Jean-Louis in the eye. “Could you see if they were carrying anything under their coats?”

“No, they were all buttoned up. They must have been boiling.”

“Yes, they must. But thank you, that’s very useful. Now, did you see where they went?”

The child nodded. “Some went toward your house. But some didn’t. I don’t know what happened to them. I had to come in because
Maman
said it was time for my dinner.”

“Well, don’t you worry. You did very well. I think you could become a famous detective one day. Don’t you agree, Freddy?”

Freddy looked shocked. “My son? A
flic
? That’s not funny, Pablo.” He crossed himself in mock horror, then turned to his son. “Okay, now, back up to bed. Come on, up you go. I’ll be up soon to read you a story. Go!”

Carver watched the boy scamper from the room, then turned back to Freddy.

“There’s a Swisscom van up the street, on the other side of the road. How long has that been here?”

Freddy gave an exasperated sigh. “
Merde
! How would I know that? Truly, Pablo, you are no better than a cop yourself.”

“I’m sorry, but this could be important. Just try to remember back earlier in the day, when you went out to serve people at the tables. Was the van there this morning? Were there telephone engineers doing work anywhere?”

Freddy thought for a moment, his eyes closed. “No, there was no van there, no engineers. It must have arrived late in the day.”

“So either there’s been some last-minute phone crisis, or it’s got nothing to do with Swisscom. We’ve got to assume it’s the latter. So now we’ve got the Frenchman, the English-woman and her pal in the car, and a gang of men in big coats who used to have a black car that’s now disappeared, and a van’s arrived. And it doesn’t look like any of them have got anything to do with the others. Jesus…”

Alix looked at him. “So now what?”

“You stay here while I go and work out what the bloody hell’s going on.”

“Oh, you’re going to leave me, the helpless woman?”

“No, I just don’t want to fight anyone else if I’m busy fighting with you at the same time. That would be a distraction. I’m going to find out who’s out there, deal with them, then we can carry on with whatever it is we’re doing. If that’s what you want.”

Freddy rolled his eyes and left the room. “I’ll just go and, er, finish cleaning up the kitchen,” he said over his departing shoulder.

Carver and Alix glowered at each other for a moment, neither wanting to give way. Then she gave a quick shrug of concession. “Go. Freddy can look after me.”

Carver said nothing, just looked at her. Then he turned and walked toward the kitchen.

“Hey, Freddy!” he called out. “Is there a back way out of this place?”

Carver went the long way around three sides of the block until he worked his way up to the far end of the street. Now he was looking back down the road toward the van, the café, and the blue Opel. Malone’s pub was just in front of him. If anyone had been asking questions in the café, chances were they’d gone in there too. He might as well do the same.

Carver pushed open the door and walked into a reek of cigarettes and old Guinness. They had the usual crowd in, office workers from the UN and the local banks trying to prove they were flesh-and-blood humans beneath their gray and blue suits. Carver gave a quick wave of recognition to the hefty man in a green Ireland rugby shirt standing behind the bar, then looked casually around the room, just like any other patron, checking out the evening’s action.

It didn’t take much effort to spot the man in the coat. He was perched on a stool by the window, looking straight at Carver and jabbering into a phone. That was a giveaway to start with. He snapped the phone shut the moment he caught Carver’s eye. That was the clincher. Carver walked up to the bar, shaking his head at the idiocy of a man who didn’t even have the brains to feign a lack of interest.

“Pint, please, Stu.”

The man in the rugby shirt replied, “No worries, mate,” in a broad Aussie accent, and stood by the pump as the foaming, creamy beer slowly settled and darkened in the half-liter glass in front of him.

Carver leaned on the counter. “That bloke by the window, the ugly bugger in the black coat, he been here long?”

Stu looked across the room. “Dunno, couple of hours, maybe. Hasn’t drunk much, the tight bastard. Had a mate in earlier, but the other bloke left.”

Carver paid for his drink. He was about to carry it away when he seemed to be struck by a sudden thought.

“Tell you what, Stu, you might want to ring for a doctor. I’ve got a premonition. There might be a bit of an accident.”

“Strewth, Pablo, I don’t want any fighting in here. Take it outside if you want to have a ruckus.”

Carver patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry. It won’t take a second.”

He strolled back across the pub to the seats by the window, nice and casual, exchanging smiles with pretty girls he bumped into along the way. The Russian was only a few feet away now, watching him, uncertain how to react to his target approaching him as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Between Carver and the Russian, three young office babes were clustered around a bottle of wine, swapping giggly, high-pitched gossip. One of them had left her handbag on the floor.

The women flicked glances at Carver as he walked by. He turned his head and grinned cheekily back at them, giving the prettiest of the trio a saucy wink as he went by.

He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. That’s why he tripped on the handbag and fell forward, his glass flying from his hand and sending a spray of Guinness arcing through the air toward the girls, who shrieked and leaped out of the way as the foaming black liquid splashed their clothes.

Carver’s hands flailed for something to grab onto and landed on the man in the coat, who staggered backward as Carver plowed into him.

Bodies went flying, chairs were knocked across the floor, the excited, outraged squeals of the women echoed around the room. No one noticed the way Carver’s fists tightened their grip on the fabric of the man’s coat, or the sudden jerk of the neck that sent Carver’s forehead smashing into the bridge of his nose as the two men fell helplessly to the floor.

Within a couple of seconds, the chaos had subsided. Carver pulled himself to his feet with a dazed expression on his face and looked down in anguish at the bloodstained wreck lying unconscious on the floor. “Oh God! I’m so sorry! Are you all right?” he said helplessly.

He looked around at the gawking drinkers. “Someone call an ambulance, quick!” There was a pause, then his eyes widened. “Where’s the men’s room?” he gasped. “I think I’m going to be sick.” He bent over, put his hands to his mouth and puffed out his cheeks, staggering toward the back of the pub as nervous drinkers stepped back to let him pass.

It wasn’t until he was through the swinging door, down the hallway beyond it, and into the men’s room that Carver straightened, wiped a trace of blood off his forehead, and permitted himself a smile. That was one down. But how many more still to go?

Then the door behind him opened. He looked in the mirror. And he got an answer.

Grigori Kursk had a decision to make. He’d hoped Carver and Petrova would return to the apartment. He’d planned to capture them and the computer there, but now it looked as though they’d split up. Dimitrov had spotted Carver in the pub, but he was alone. Petrova was nowhere in sight. She must still be in the café. Kursk sent his other two men down to reinforce Dimitrov. But now should he join them, or should he go after the girl?

He considered the situation. Carver was good, there was no doubt about that. But Kursk trusted his men. They might not be rocket scientists, but they were ex-Spetsnatz troopers, trained in one of the world’s toughest special-forces regimes.

He, meanwhile, could deal with Petrova alone. He knew where to find her. He’d bet money Carver had played it the same way he would have done: Keep the bitch safely out of the way, then do a man’s job by himself.

He got out of the van and stretched his back, ridding his spine of the stiffness brought on by two hours cooped up in a car, then walked down the road toward the café.

MI6 agent number D/813318, Grade 5 Officer Tom Johnsen was using his time on surveillance to get to know Jennifer Stock a little better. She hadn’t struck him as anything special at first glance. Her face was handsome rather than pretty. Her manner was friendly, but businesslike, designed to underline the fact that, during working hours at least, she was an agent first and a woman second. He respected that, and he liked the fact that she hadn’t let a desire to be taken seriously kill her sense of humor. The longer he spent in the car with Jennifer Stock, the more interested Johnsen became in the woman, rather than the agent.

He was intrigued by the way she underplayed her attraction. She wore no makeup that he could see, and her hair was cut for convenience rather than glamor. She also seemed oblivious of her figure. That might be why it had taken him longer than usual to notice that she had amazing legs and fantastic breasts — not too big, but so round and pert and generally pleased-to-see-you that it was all he could do to look her in the eye. She’d given him a bit of flak about that, but he reckoned he’d got away with it. And it had been Jennifer’s idea to act like lovebirds if anyone started looking suspiciously at two people sitting in a car. That had to be encouraging.

They were swapping horror stories about trying to find a decent home in Switzerland on a measly MI6 allowance when Johnsen saw a man get out of the Swisscom van and head toward the café.

“Hang on a minute, we’ve got company,” he said, reaching for his camera and firing off a few frames.

“I know that man,” said Jennifer. “He was hanging around this afternoon, but he was driving a black BMW then. Oh, now this could be interesting….”

They watched as he went into the café.

“The other two are still in there, right?” asked Johnsen. “So, do we follow him in, try to get a closer look?”

Jennifer shook her head. “That could be tricky. It’s tiny in there. If I go in, the guy who runs it is bound to recognize me. And if there’s any trouble, we’d have a hard time staying out of the way.”

“Yeah, but we’re supposed to find out what’s going on with these clowns. And whatever’s happening, it’s happening in there. Tell you what, I’ll take a little recce. Just stand at the door, cast an eye inside. Then I’ll come back here, tell you what they’re up to, and we’ll decide our next move. Okay?”

By the time Jennifer said “Okay” back to him, Johnsen had thrown his camera carelessly into the backseat and was out of the car, walking toward the café.

They walked into the narrow men’s room one at a time. The first man had spiked, dyed red hair, with a straggle of punk rats’ tails flopping on the collar of his black overcoat. He must have pushed the door open with his back because he was spinning around as he came in and there was a MAC–10 submachine gun in his hands, another being held by the man behind him. The guns were fitted with Sionics noise suppressors that would make them virtually silent and far more accurate than the regular short-barreled MAC. That was the first thing Carver noticed, right about the time he was reaching into his jacket for his SIG. By the time he had his pistol out in front of him, swinging from one man to the next, he’d noticed something else: They weren’t firing at him.

If this had been a hit, they’d have come in blasting and he’d have been blown to smithereens long before he’d had a chance to draw. But they were just standing there, looking professionally mean and surly, but also pissed off, like they’d really have enjoyed the opportunity to kill him but were being prevented from doing so. That made sense. Whoever had sent them needed Carver alive. As long as Alix and the computer were out there, it wasn’t enough just to take him out. They needed the full set.

So now Carver had another piece of information to factor into his calculations. He wasn’t going to die within the next few seconds. They might be pointing guns at him, but no one was going to start shooting just yet.

The bozos didn’t seem to speak English. They just stood there, glowering. The redhead kept blinking. He had a speed freak’s dilated pupils and gray white pallor, the flesh of his face burned away till his cheekbones, brow, and Adam’s apple stood out in unnatural relief. Carver could almost hear the humming of his overstimulated nerve endings and feel the effort it was taking him to maintain even the semblance of restraint or rationality.

Nothing happened for a few seconds, no one knowing what the next move should be. Carver had no intention of making any provocative movements, not when a cranked-up crazy with a gun was standing six feet away. Then the other gunman started to move along the gap between the urinals on one wall and the sinks on the other. He eased by Carver, staying just out of reach, and took up a position beyond him, making sure Carver couldn’t cover both men with just one gun.

The man pointed at Carver’s gun and flicked his finger as if to say, “Hand it over.”

Carver looked at him dumbly. The man had a fleshy face, as smooth and stolid as a potato, with small eyes and a bully’s full, sulky lips. He gestured again, this time more forcefully, with a greater degree of irritation. “Oh,” said Carver, all wide-eyed and innocent, “you want my gun? Well, here it is….”

He threw the SIG-Sauer hard at the potato-man’s feet, sending it clattering onto the tiled floor and skittering into his ankles. The piggy eyes looked down for a fraction of a second and that was long enough for Carver to swivel on his left foot and send his right crashing into the man’s fleshy jaw. He staggered backward, absorbing the blow, and Carver moved with him, grabbing the man’s right arm and using it as a lever to swing him around, like a dancer twirling his partner, sending him careering across the floor toward his pal with the red hair.