‘What are you having?’
Solomon lurked by the doorway.
‘Just water.’
‘You have any vices at all?’
Solomon gave him a blank glare that seemed to say, ‘Does it look like it?’, and again Dima felt uneasy.
On a shelf above the bar was a small black and white TV. An image of Gorbachev, released from house arrest, but neutered, humiliated. The great hope — now hopeless as the Soviet Union crumbled around him, the revolution he had started careering out of control. Where would it end? All Dima could envisage was chaos. Hardly the great socialist dream he had promised Solomon he was signing up for.
‘Maybe Khalaji will help put us back on top.’ Dima tapped the bulge under his jacket. ‘Think about it: portable nuclear capability.’
Dima’s irony was lost on Solomon. For the first time that day, the boy’s eyes lit up. The idea had caught his imagination as it had fired up Paliov and the rest of their masters back in Moscow. Dima slapped down another five dollar bill and ordered the same again.
He’d warned Paliov there’d be a problem, and now, as the Peugeot came into view, he saw what it was. Coming slowly up the street, it almost ground to a halt as a wheel hit one of the many potholes. The car was more than fully laden.
‘Fuck. He’s got his whole family in there.’
There was a fresh scrape all down the side, exposing bright metal, and the offside end of the front bumper was bent forward as if it had got entangled with another vehicle. The car swerved erratically before bottoming as it mounted the curb.
‘Wait,’ Dima hissed at Solomon, who was starting to cross the street. ‘We need to check if he’s being followed.’
That second vodka didn’t feel so great now.
From the other side of the road they could see Khalaji at the wheel, his wife beside him, heads twisting round, looking, panicking.
That’s Plan A out of the window, thought Dima. What the hell was Plan B?
Nothing else came up the street behind them. Dima and Solomon walked towards the car. As soon as Khalaji saw them he leapt out. A wiry man, his shirt collar way too big for his scrawny neck.
‘Hi, hi. Over here!’
This guy has no idea! Dima motioned to him to cool it, get back in the Peugeot. As they got nearer they could see the back seat was full of children.
Dima felt the contents of his stomach rearrange themselves.
‘We’ll have to kill them,’ said Solomon. ‘Sedate him first. Then get them out of the car. He’ll never know what happened.’
Another fucking fiasco. Blame Paliov as he might, in the end Dima knew it was his own fault for agreeing to the mission. It just wasn’t in his nature to say no — especially these days with all the old guarantees of employment being torn up.
Khalaji was back in the car, window down, eyes bulging with expectation. One of the children in the back was wailing.
‘Mr Khalaji, I’m Dave,’ said Dima.
‘Dave. .’ repeated Khalaji, frowning, as if he was trying out the name. ‘The message said Dean.’
Shit, thought Dima. What had they agreed? Dave, Dean, Dima, not a lot of difference. He felt his head clouding. Maybe the vodka hadn’t been such a good idea. Or maybe he should have had a third.
The wife leaned across her husband, frowned at Dima from under her veil, snapped at Khalaji in Farsi. ‘I can smell liquor on his breath.’
Suddenly Solomon was at Dima’s side, edging him away from the car window, wearing a broad grin like he had never seen on his face before.
‘Hey folks, how y’all doin’ today? My name’s Dean and we’ll be taking you from here on to your destination. Ma’am, if you’d step out of the car please, and your little ones.’
If there was anymore to Solomon’s sales patter Dima wasn’t going to hear it, nor were the Khalajis, because what happened next rendered their feeble cover story redundant. A pair of new but dusty Chevy Suburbans swung into view and slewed to a halt in the middle of the street. Eight doors swung open and eight Caucasian men in T-shirts, shorts and shades stepped out, all armed. Four covered, four approached. Two of those covering took aim at Dima. Khalaji’s wife screamed so loud Dima’s ears sang.
Solomon was no longer at his side. At the first sign of trouble he had made himself invisible among the parked vehicles.
‘Hands in the air, cowboy,’ one of the shaded ones shouted, repeating the order in Arabic for good measure. Dima fumbled for his 45, aimed, squeezed, missed, aimed again — and it jammed. A fraction of a second later and the gun was gone from his hand — which was now spurting blood. The Yank had shot it clean out of his grip. Dima dropped to the ground as the Americans got to the other side of the car, opening the doors, reaching in and scooping up the Khalaji family into the bosom of democracy. Dima cursed Paliov for his stupid, ill-planned, under-resourced missions, he cursed the 45, the one or two too many vodkas and pretty much everything else about his shitty life so far.
A flicker of movement between a parked Datsun and a Mercedes — Solomon, behind the cars, choosing a position. And from under the Peugeot he saw one of the Americans inching towards him round the car, taking no chances. With his good right hand, Dima wrestled the Beretta from the left pocket of his chinos and fired at one of the American’s feet — just as he lifted it.
He heard doors slamming, the Americans retreating.
‘Family secured. Good to go. Go now!’
Better dead than the Americans get their hands on him. Dima hadn’t shared that with Solomon. Didn’t need to. Solomon would know. The bullets, that family. . The American whose foot Dima had just missed swung into view, big jaw, Zapata moustache, mirror shades.
‘You Commie cunt.’ The American lifted hisM9, took aim. The air between them exploded.
The American sank to his knees, his forehead cratered by the bullet that had entered the back of his head and chewed its way out front. His mouth had turned into a perfect O as if preparing to sing. He hovered there a second, then he slumped on top of Dima, pinning him down, the contents of his smashed head emptying out over his face.
There were more shots from Solomon’s position. More screams and shrieks –
‘fuckoutahererightnow!’ Doors slamming and furious wheelspin — and then silence.
Solomon lifted the corpse off Dima, wiping his face with the fake polo shirt.
Dima breathed out.
‘You got Khalaji? You stopped them taking him, didn’t you?’
Solomon shook his head slowly.
‘How come?’
He prodded the American corpse with his toe.
‘It was either shoot Khalaji or him.’
Dima let a couple of seconds pass while the meaning of what Solomon was saying sank in.
‘You saved my life.’
No comment from Solomon, just a glare of contempt. Eventually he nodded.