1 BUCHAREST, ROMANIA Given the choice, Lea would have dressed more for the weather. The heat had risen steadily over the morning, hitting over ninety degrees in the shade by midday and a hell of a lot more in the fierce sunshine. Which was exactly where she found herself at the cafe table, waiting. Her jeans felt heavy, sticking to her clammy legs. Sweat rolled down her spine, the wet patches on her T-shirt at least hidden from the people around her by the jacket she still wore. Although keeping her dignity wasn’t the only reason she’d leave the jacket on. She again wiped her brow with a napkin, then checked her watch. Nearly twelve-thirty. She’d originally arrived in the area before 7 a.m., which was one of the reasons for her heftier than needed clothing, as she’d expected to be finished and at the train station for eight, out of the country on an air-conditioned carriage before now. Yet here she still was, waiting. She picked her phone up from the table and called Denis. Again. ‘Still no sign?’ she asked.
‘No. But I’m sure he’s near.’ ‘I’ve been sitting here for more than an hour,’ she said, briefly glancing around the other half-dozen tables outside, four of which were taken. No one paid her any attention, but it’d still been too long sitting here, out in the open. ‘Five more minutes and I’m moving somewhere else.’ ‘Please, don’t. Wait there. It’s where he’s headed. We’ve already changed the location three times, weβ —’ ‘Because he’s several hours late.’ ‘He’ll be there soon. Hold out.’ Easy for him to say; he’d been sitting in the cool of his car, air-con probably blasting the whole time. He ended the call before she could say anything more. She wiped her brow again, called the young waitress over and paid cash for the two sparkling waters she’d had. The woman gave her an apologetic look, perhaps noting her hot and flustered demeanour. Perhaps the youngster thought she’d been stood up by a date or something. The waitress glanced curiously – suspiciously – to the helmet on the table for a second before wandering off. Lea reached out and lifted the corner of the helmet just a little to see the edge of the brown envelope underneath. Still there. As if it could have moved itself. Or as if the waitress or anyone else could have snaffled it away without Lea realising. The phone buzzed on the table. ‘He’s nearly there,’ Denis said. ‘Dark grey Range Rover, approaching from your north.’ ‘You have a visual?’ Lea asked. ‘Yes.’ From his drone. In the alley he was parked in, he’d have no natural line of sight of their ‘guest’ or his vehicle at all. Not even when he approached Lea at the cafe. She looked off to her left, the wide road leading north. Above the dense tree-line rose the top of the Casa Presei Libere. House of the Free Press. Once the tallest building in the Romanian capital. The looming structure had been built during the communist era, apparently a close mimic of the main building of the Moscow State University and was intended to house all of the country’s printing presses and news staff. House of the Free Press. A grand misnomer if ever there was one. The sheer size of it only added to the contradiction, indicating just how much effort had gone into controlling propaganda and the minds of the public during the communist era. It had worked, but not for long here before the eventual uprising of the public wanting change. Romania was a very different place post-communism, but even in the modern world governments across the world strived for control of the public discourse for their own benefit. Just look at the reasons why Lea and Denis were there in the first place. ‘You see it yet?’ Denis asked. ‘Yeah, I see it,’ Lea answered, her eyes now on the Range Rover a couple of hundred yards in the distance as it travelled with the other traffic in the two lanes facing her direction. ‘OK. See you soon.’
She put the phone on the table, then moved her hand to her side to feel the bulge under her jacket. Another of the reasons why she’d kept the outer layer on despite the heat. The Range Rover came to a stop across the street from her. Not a parking area. A man got out of the back – forty yards away but she could tell simply from his stature that it wasn’t the man she was expecting. She grabbed the phone and dialled Denis. ‘It’s not him,’ he interjected before she could get a word out. So he’d spotted the obvious from the drone too. ‘No,’ Lea confirmed, a little unnecessarily really, she thought after the word had left her lips. ‘Just stick to the plan.’ The call ended. The Range Rover remained in place at the side of the road, traffic already backing up behind it as the man made his way across the street to her. Lea studied him. He was casually dressed in jeans and a linen shirt, a little under six feet tall with a moderately broad frame. Probably in his forties judging by his greying and receding hair. No sign of him carrying a weapon. Just an ordinary-looking guy in every sense. ‘You’re Lea?’ he asked as he reached her table. ‘Yes,’ she said. She indicated the chair opposite. He scanned the vicinity before pulling it out and taking it. His eyes fell on the helmet. ‘Where’s Yuri?’ she asked. ‘It was supposed to be him meeting me here.’ ‘In the car.’ ‘And Anderson?’ A mischievous smile crept up the man’s face. ‘In the car too. Do you have it?’ he asked. ‘It’s in the car,’ Lea responded with her own smile, and the man’s dropped away. He took out his phone and rattled off something in Romanian. Lea knew the basics, but spoken at speed and with his hand over the receiver to muffle his voice, she could make out next to nothing. Not that she needed to. She understood what he would be relaying. His unhappiness that the swap wouldn’t be anywhere near as simple as it could and should have been, but they’d played their part in that too. All to be expected, really. Although Lea certainly wasn’t trying to screw these people – she just wanted to make sure all parties got what they’d been promised, and hopefully without events going south. She reached out and lifted her helmet from the table. The man looked a little put out when he saw the brown envelope underneath. He quickly slid it towards him and onto his lap. ‘A small gesture,’ Lea said. The man opened the top of the envelope and pulled a few of the papers a couple of inches out before scanning them and then sliding them away again. He pulled the phone to his ear once more. Another muffled conversation followed. ‘Can I speak to him?’ Lea asked, halting the phone conversation. ‘To Yuri. But I want to know you really have Anderson in there too.’
Silence from the man for a few seconds before he was doing the talking again, but a few seconds later he held the device out to Lea. She took it and pressed it to her ear. ‘Yuri?’ she asked. ‘Yes. Look at the car.’ She glanced that way. The car rolled forward, a few yards closer. The passenger window slid down to reveal a man’s face. Lea’s heart thumped her ribs a little harder. Anderson. Behind him a more shadowy face peered over, phone to his ear. Yuri. ‘Satisfied?’ he asked, the window already gliding up. ‘Yes.’ She handed the phone back to the man. He killed the call. ‘Where’s the car?’ he asked her. ‘Too far to walk,’ Lea said. She stood up from the table, helmet at the ready. ‘Follow me.’ She didn’t wait for a response before she turned and headed to her motorbike parked by a bollard not far away. The man had initially stayed put but by the time she had her helmet on and was stepping onto the bike he was at the SUV. As she turned the key he was inside, and the Range Rover pulled out and took a right towards her. She sighed. Long and hard. The heat of the helmet one reason, relief that this hadn’t yet gone awry another. Trepidation that they still had the biggest hurdle to come another. She moved out into the road, took things slow and steady. The reality was that Denis was actually pretty nearby, really. Less than a quarter of a mile in a straight line from the cafe, although the route on the mostly one-way streets was a mile and a half. She soon turned the final corner to the alley and pulled the bike up to the side of the building, Denis’s car ten yards in front. The Range Rover stopped just behind her, blocking the exit that way. The engine remained rumbling. She got off her bike and made her way over to Denis’s car. He stepped out as she reached it, his manner stiff, poised. ‘We good?’ he said to her quietly. She nodded in response, though they both knew this was the most dangerous part of the exchange. He opened the car boot and they stood on either side. The same man emerged from the Range Rover first, but he didn’t come forward. Instead, he pulled Anderson from the back while Yuri got out the other side. An unseen figure still behind the wheel. Yuri walked towards Lea and Denis, hesitant as hell, while his accomplice stood guard with Anderson. Yuri’s head and his gaze shifted left, right, up, down. ‘Just you two?’ he asked. ‘Just us,’ Denis confirmed. The truth. Although Lea didn’t really mind so much if Yuri didn’t believe them. Perhaps it gave them that little bit more security if Yuri thought they had more backup here. ‘This isn’t what we agreed,’ Yuri said. ‘No,’ Lea said, ‘it isn’t. Because you were supposed to be here at seven.’ ‘I explained to him why that wasn’t possible,’ Yuri said, nodding to Denis. ‘Doesn’t matter now,’ Denis said. ‘Let’s just finish things.’ Yuri continued forward, Denis and Lea standing firm. Yuri stopped a couple of yards from the car and looked inside the boot. ‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘The money’s in the holdall,’ Lea said. ‘Everything else you were promised is in the satchel.’ She held the satchel towards him, but he didn’t take it. ‘Count the money if you want,’ Denis said. ‘Take it out for me,’ Yuri said. Lea nodded to Denis and he reached into the boot… Yuri’s hand slipped behind him. ‘Denis!’ Lea shouted. Bang. Not Yuri firing. The guy by the Range Rover. Lea dove for cover at the side of the car. Bang. Bang. A body crumpled down, head smacking onto the ground right by her. She expected to see Denis’s lifeless eyes staring at her. No. Yuri. Although the twisted snarl on his face showed he was still alive. For now. ‘Get out of here!’ Denis yelled, tossing the satchel to her before letting off a volley of gunfire at the Range Rover. But as she got up a bullet sank into her ankle. She gritted her teeth and roared with anger and pain and stumbled to the ground. She rolled over onto her back, lifted her gun out to fire back towards the Range Rover… Except the SUV was already moving. Gunning towards her, Denis, his car. Denis flung himself to the side and Lea could only turn over and cower before the Range Rover ploughed into the back of the car. Metal and plastic crashed and snapped, glass shattered, twisted and broken debris filled the air and splatted down onto her. Lea blinked, blinked, blinked as she lay on the ground, cheek to the concrete, eyes and mind refocusing. She didn’t move her gaze from the satchel a few feet from her grip. A piercing siren filled the air. More than one. Police. A coincidence? No such thing. She bounced to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ankle. Denis, groggy but conscious – was he shot? – looked over at her. ‘Go!’ he shouted. She scooped the satchel from the ground as she moved. Ignored the shouting behind her. Whoever was still alive from the Range Rover. The police too who’d just arrived en masse. She jumped on her bike. The Range Rover backed away from the crumpled car and then gunned for her as she tugged on the throttle. She swung the bike around and sped off back the way she’d come, the SUV’s tyres screeching as the driver tried to follow her move. A quick glance in the side mirror. The Range Rover had turned to follow her out of the alley. A bigger, more powerful, faster machine than hers. On open roads. So she had to do everything she could to avoid them. She took a left, tilting the bike wildly, her knee not far from the road. Sirens multiplied above the whine of her bike and the growl of the Range Rover. She took a right. Backed-up traffic at the next junction forced her left. Not the best choice entering the wide multi lanes of Calea MoΘilor. Busy at least. Which meant she could bob and weave the bike between traffic. A flashing blue light whizzed past on the other side of the divide. More up ahead. On her side of the road. She flung a right onto a narrower road. Hoped to see empty space open up behind her. No. The Range Rover. A motorbike. Not police. Just a regular motorbike. No – not regular. More powerful than hers, and not alone. A second slid into the street behind it and soon both had overtaken the Range Rover. One of the riders pulled a snub weapon – Uzi? – up to fire at her… She skidded around another corner before the rider could unleash, this time a left, aimed to take a quick right after to keep her on the narrower back streets, but a police car, lights flashing, screeched towards her. She tugged the throttle to clear it before a smash and then took the next right instead. Another multi-lane road, the grand fountain at Bulevardul Unirii in the near distance. She was at full pelt, nothing left to give, the two bikes behind her closing in fast. She jerked on the handlebars to move off from the road onto the grassy verge of the park that surrounded the fountain in the centre of the huge junction. Pedestrians shouted and screamed and dove for cover. A police car raced alongside her on the road a few yards away. Up ahead two more headed directly for her. The two motorbikes, the Range Rover behind. All working in unison to get her? It made no sense. She twisted the brake as sharply as she could and the bike violently slowed. She dug her heel into the ground to help it further and to swing the bike around, momentarily forgetting about her injured ankle and she did her best to ignore the agonising pain. The closest of the motorbike chasers sped past, too much speed, braking too late, and from nowhere a police car bounced over a thicket and smacked the tail-end of the bike, sending the rider somersaulting into the water spraying from the fountain. Lea wrenched the throttle and took off again, the road ten yards ahead. She’d head straight across the lanes of traffic. Back into the old town. She had to get away, get some space, call this in, get some help. Five yards to the road. A clearing opened up. She could see right across the lanes to the other side. Went for it. Didn’t see the car until the front tyre was already on the tarmac. It swiped across the wheel, sending her and the bike into a terrifying spin. Lea’s body flopped and skidded along the road, her body bouncing and scraping across the surface for several yards. Dazed, she was barely aware of the chaos around her, the injuries she’d already sustained, the screams of bystanders and the screeching of tyres. The only thing that her brain processed was the satchel on the ground next to her, the papers poking out of the torn fabric, covered in her blood… And the sight of the truck just beyond it, hurtling towards her, so close, so big that it filled her whole world in those final split seconds before it ploughed right into her. ...
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