Hosseini pulled his gun from its holster and took aim.
‘They’re not PLR, Sir. These men are Russians.’
28
Downtown Tehran
Brady drove, with Blackburn in the rear, Campo on the other side, and the Colonel in between, giving directions. He perched on the edge of the seat, head bent forward because of the zap strap which bound his wrists behind him.
‘Jafari? You sure that’s your name?’
‘You shitting us, Colonel, you will surely die. Comprendez?’
Jafari, his pride all that was left, nodded slowly. Brady radioed for an ID check and it came back positive. Pumped with the excitement of snaring the HVT, Campo wouldn’t shut up.
‘Why does Al Bashir hole up in a bank? Does he think he’s going to bribe us with his shitty little rials? I mean if I was him I’d be on the next plane to Saudi or Yemen or some other safe haven.’
‘Can’t see why we don’t just drop a two thousand pounder on it. Smokin’ Bashir would solve a whole heap of trouble, ’stead of having him winding up on trial somewhere shakin’ his dink at us.’
Black turned to the Colonel.
‘How big is this bank?’
He looked at them scornfully.
‘Very. The biggest in Iran.’
‘Great, so we have to search every room and floor. .’
Brady chipped in. ‘Yeah right, Colonel, you gonna narrow it down for us?’
No answer. Brady slammed on the brakes and turned to Black. ‘Use a knife if you have to. Cut his dick off and make him eat it.’
Jafari shook his head, nodding emphatically at the ground.
‘In vault.’
Brady drove on, taking to the sidewalk to avoid a massive rift running across an intersection. It had half swallowed a bus.
‘Sure fucked this place up, Al Bashir or no.’
‘Back in ’03 they had a quake killed forty thousand.’
‘Check out the brain on Campo.’
‘You shits did some reading instead of playing Call of Duty you’d be less dumb too.’
‘Anyone noticed there’s no enemy fire?’
‘Now you mention it.’
Colonel Jafari nodded again as the bank rose up above the surrounding buildings, a marble monolith that appeared to be unmarked by either the bombardment or the earthquake.
‘T-90!’
As they rounded a corner they came face to face with the tank.
‘The fuck. .’
Brady was screaming at the convoy over the radio. ‘Back up, back up.’
The Colonel buried his head in his lap.
Black saw the turret rotate towards them. He jumped out of the vehicle and rolled into a heap of putrid garbage. He felt the air shake as the Humvee took a direct hit, flinging it up into the air and down again on its roof. He rolled over the garbage and on to the sidewalk as a suspension arm with a wheel still attached slammed down inches from his face.
His hearing was shot, just a fine buzzing. He felt a hand on his shoulder, rolling him further away from the blast. Campo.
‘How did you—?’
‘Followed your example, chief.’
Montes was beside him, grinning. Half his sleeve gone and a patch of blood on his shoulder.
‘Brady?’
They only had to look and they knew.
‘Like it came straight though his windscreen.’
It was hard to imagine. Brady behaved like he was bullet-proof.
‘Nothing left of the Colonel either.’
The tank jolted forward in the direction of the reversing convoy. Montes and Campo dropped behind the mound of garbage. As it loosed off another shell they ducked until it rumbled out of view.
Black, on his feet again, ran half-crouched to the opposite side of the road, where a van was parked. The others followed. From there they scanned the building. There were no lights, and there was no sign of movement outside. The tall metal doors were shut, the small windows fortified with thick steel bars. It had been built like a fortress. Blackburn turned to the others. ‘Okay. Let’s finish this. Let’s do this bank.’
29
It must have been a close one. Dima thought he could remember the muzzle flash of Hosseini’s pistol. He definitely recalled thinking that using Gazul as a human shield was probably not going to work. And he was right, inasmuch as the bullet entered Gazul’s forehead and passed straight though his skull, brain and more skull and out the other side, clipping the top off Dima’s left ear as it did so. Why, he wondered, as he lay under the headless body, had Hosseini not simply fired a second shot straight into his target? He could only put it down to Hosseini’s horror at having blown the head off the PLR’s Chief of Intelligence, his own ultimate boss.
Anyone might be forgiven for thinking that Dima too was very much dead, squashed under Gazul’s lifeless corpse, his face covered with the other’s brains. It was hitting the marble floor with such force that had knocked him out.
He awoke to bright light blasting his face and Vladimir peering at him, torch in one hand, a piece of bloodied cloth in the other. There was a powerful smell of antiseptic. The world seemed to be lurching and rolling around him.
‘Hold still.’