The sun was no longer out, but the snow was holding off. The temperature was well below freezing and so was I. The brandy had limited calorific effect, aside from which I needed to be sober.

  Every ten minutes I left my base and stomped around. Under the trees the snow lay thinly, and I was able to jog in circles. Every few seconds I paused to cock an ear towards the road. Because of the stillness, the sound of a vehicle on the road carried a long way, and on the few occasions when I heard one, I was able to scurry back to my base with a minute or more to spare. Long enough for me to lift the already cocked rifle and line it up on my chosen point for taking out a tyre.

  The skies stayed grey. Early afternoon, a wolf padded along the tree line and stood and gazed at me. I gazed back, my hand on the rifle grip. I had no desire to shoot him/her. I only hunted the guilty and the wicked, which didn’t include animals. Thankfully, his curiosity sated, he turned and merged with the shadows of the woods. I kept my hand on the gun for a while afterwards, in case he had been sizing me up for lunch.

  Nightfall descended promptly at 2.30pm. How could people live in a climate where darkness lasted three-quarters of the day? No wonder they looked so miserable.

  By four o’clock I was ready to quit. My extremities were without feeling. I wasn’t even sure I could work the trigger any more. But quitting would mean going through the same or some alternative process tomorrow.

  Resolved to stick it out, I rose and shambled down the incline to the road. Being dark, and the road fairly straight at this point, I would spot a car’s headlights before I was myself spotted. I started running, pumping my arms to get some circulation to my hands. A hundred paces in each direction from my starting point. Stiff at first, my gait was more of a stagger than a sprint. In time though, as my joints and muscles unclenched, even in my heavy garb I was managing the hundred paces in twenty seconds. I began to warm up. Even my fingertips were tingling by the time a pair of headlights sparkled in the distance, in the east, towards Russia.

  In seconds I was back on my ground sheet, on my belly, peering through the infra-red enhanced scope. The vehicle filled the lens. It was big, it was dark, it carried the licence plate JZC 991 with the EU twelve-star logo in the top left corner. It was them.

  They were travelling fast for the state of the road, about ninety kph, I estimated. I had already determined my aiming point: alongside a bush that overhung the roadside, about twenty metres from my position. Being at an acute angle to my firing position it wouldn’t present much of a challenge. In the past I had punctured tyres shooting from the side, an infinitely tougher task.

  The circular sight was full of car. I targeted the front nearside wheel. I breathed in. I held the icy air in my lungs. The rifle was steady on its bipod. All I had to do was let the wheel come to the flash-dot …

  With the sound mediator the gunshot was no louder than a slammed door. The mediator also hid the flash that would otherwise have been a giveaway if spotted.

  The MPV swerved, mounted the verge, returned to the road amid spraying snow as the brakes were applied. It finally came to rest more or less where I would have chosen to place it – opposite where I lay. Before anyone emerged I had re-aligned myself to face the road at right angles.

  The driver’s door was flung open, and a second later the passenger door slid back. Three of their number got out. Two went to examine the wheel, the third hung back to speak to those remaining inside.

  ‘You old guys stay in the warm.’ American accent. ‘Three of us is enough.’

  The front passenger door opened and a slight figure stepped out. Ms Perkins.

  ‘I’m not old, nor am I a guy. I can do my bit.’ Also American.

  ‘Vanessa, we’re only going to be changing a wheel,’ her fellow countryman protested. ‘The three of us can handle it.’

  ‘I’ll watch then. If you don’t mind, that is.’ She lit a cigarette and jetted a plume of smoke at her colleague.

  ‘Okay, watch. Make sure we do it right, huh?’

  I watched too, and waited in hopes of Ivor Wharfe getting out to join Vanessa.

  ‘What do you think caused it to blow out like that?’ British accent. Besides Wharfe, Bob Marriot was the only Brit present.

  ‘These country roads are very bad.’ This came from the guy who had interrogated me at breakfast. ‘Could be anything.’

  They got on with the job. If Wharfe was going to present himself it had to be in the next minute or so. Once the spare wheel was bolted on, it would be too late. They would be mobile again, and able to outrun me when I returned to the Audi.

  The Finnish guy was examining the flat tyre in the headlight beam. A bullet hole in a tyre is not obvious, being usually more of a tear, such as that caused by a nail or shard of metal. They would need forensic facilities to be able to make a reliable diagnosis.

  While Marriot was placing the nuts on the studs preparatory to tightening up, the Finn called the American guy over. They examined the tyre together. Mumbled to each other.

  The middle side window of the MPV slid down and Wharfe’s head poked out.

  ‘What caused it?’ he enquired.

  ‘Can’t really say, it’s just a split.’

  I tucked the rifle into my shoulder, sighted on Wharfe’s head. Through the infra-red adaptor it was all green, but definition was excellent. I was about to squeeze the trigger when the woman went and stood in front of him, obscuring my sight line. They exchanged words. Wharfe ducked back inside, raised the window.

  I swore under my breath. The other window, that of opportunity, was fast closing, as Marriot had almost finished tightening the nuts. To shoot, leaving the other five alive to pursue me in the MPV, was not a good idea. To attempt to take them all out, was high risk as some or all of them might be armed. Plus, it would amount to mass murder. It wasn’t my style.

  The Finnish guy was slinging the wheel with the flat in the rear cargo space; the rest of them scrambled back into the MPV, Vanessa taking a last suck at her cigarette, which she flipped away into the scrub. Doors slammed. The MPV moved on, skidding a little until it hit firm asphalt. The tail lights dwindled down the road, leaving me alone and semi-frozen, and frustrated. I got to my feet, stiff as a statue. Jacked the round out of the breech and transferred it to a pocket in my parka.

  The failed attempt wasn’t on its own a disaster, but I couldn’t use the puncture ploy again. With only one full day remaining before Tony Dimeloe’s deadline expired, I was in a tight corner, and badly in need of inspiration.

  I started off down the track to the Audi’s hiding place, the rifle at the ready in case of wandering bears and wolves. The ride back to the Wilderness was bumpy but I made in less than an hour. The MPV was back. I parked beside it like a man with nothing to hide.

  When I passed through the lobby, I was shocked to see Maura and Rocky in the bar-restaurant. They didn’t notice me, and even if they had they arguably shouldn’t have recognised me in my respectable travel researcher mode.

  From my room I called Rocky’s cell phone.

  ‘What are you doing here with Maura?’ I snapped at him.

  ‘Mark? Hi, where are you?’

  ‘Here, you moron. But I’m in a disguise which, for security reasons, I don’t want you to see.’

  ‘Is that … er, Mark?’ I heard Maura say.

  Next second she was on the line.

  ‘Are you here, darling?’

  ‘Yes, for Christ’s sake, and so, I see, are you. What are you playing at?’

  She ignored the question. ‘What’s your room number?’

  I told her. The connection closed. I ripped off the moustache, and shoved it and the glasses in a drawer. I was hanging my parka behind the door when her knock came.

  ‘It’s me,’ she announced through the door.

  I let her in. Furious as I was at her, I didn’t reject her kiss, which lasted longer than it should, and ended on my bed. From there events followed a natural course. Clothes were discarded and love was made. I needed urgently to talk to her about matters serious but they had to go on the back burner until our bodily needs were satisfied.

  When they were, we sat on the bed, naked, grinning at each other, though my grin was tempered with frustration at her inability to stay on the legal side of the fence.

  ‘You’re stark, staring crazy,’ I said, my eyes of their own volition roving over her lean, smooth body, with the boobs she derided distracting the hell out of me.

  ‘Yes, but you love me more than ever. Go on, admit it.’

  ‘Oh, I admit it, but you also drive me slightly mad. You can’t get involved in my shit, don’t you see that?’

  ‘I’m not sure I go for you as a brunette,’ she retorted, no doubt hoping to distract me.

  ‘It washes out.’ My tone was testy and her mouth twitched in empathy.

  She said, ‘You didn’t do the job today, am I right?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. It’s set for tomorrow, and it can’t be later because the target will be on a plane back to the UK the day after.’

  Touchy-feely as ever, she stroked my cheek, the lapis-lazuli eyes hypnotising me into submission.

  ‘Where will it be?’

  Reluctant though I was to draw her deeper into the mire, I told her, keeping it vague.

  ‘On the road somewhere.’

  She nodded to herself. ‘That’s what I figured. I’m going with you.’

  ‘Oh no, you’re not. You’re staying here. Better still, you’re going back to Ivalo with Rocky, and keeping your head down.’

  ‘Forget it. I’m going with you, I told you.’

  ‘No, you’re not!’

  ‘Don’t give me orders, you bastard. You think I’m going to sit on my butt while you put your life on the line?’

  ‘It’s my life, not yours. Stay out of it – that’s final.’

  Her lips set in a line. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam jetting from her ears.

  ‘I’m in it,’ she said through her teeth, ‘with or without your cooperation. And that’s even more final.’

  We glared at each other. I succumbed first. When she was pissed she was ravishing, and when she was ravishing she was irresistible.

  ‘I love you.’ We spoke as one, and laughed as one.

  ‘You mad broad,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what you’re getting into.’

  She tilted towards me, and we hugged. And things.

  ‘From here on, as long as we’re together, whatever you do, I’ll be right there with you. If I have to, I’ll follow you and you won’t be able to prevent me.’

  ‘Just as long as you know it’s a lousy idea. Keeping you from harm will distract me.’

  ‘Two pairs of eyes beat one.’ She landed a kiss on my cheek. ‘I understand the risks, and I can use a gun – if you have a spare. I won’t just be an onlooker.’

  I snorted. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  ‘Have you got another gun?’

  I sighed at my weakness, nodded. If I didn’t keep her under my wing there was no telling what craziness she would get up to.

  I dressed quickly. ‘Wait here,’ I said.

  I called Rocky and told him to return to Ivalo. I allowed him fifteen minutes to get moving, during which I restored my other identity.

  ‘I have to go to the car,’ I explained to Maura.

  Maura was scathing about the full disguise, the glasses especially.

  ‘When you’re wearing them you look like a geek.’

  ‘Bloody great. You think I should try to look like a hit man?’

  She saw my point. I deposited a light kiss on her willing lips, pulling back fast before she could convert it into a real kiss and the rest. I had experience of her cunning.

  ‘Shan’t be a minute,’ I said.

  When I crossed the lobby, I noticed two of the Wharfe brigade sharing a table. They were facing the fireplace, their backs to me, and I was able to transfer the box of weaponry from the Audi to my room unseen. I dumped the box on the bed, ripped it open.

  ‘Here.’ I imprisoned Maura’s wrist and placed the grip of the Beretta in her palm. The Storm isn’t a bulky weapon, but in her delicate hand it was plain ugly. She was still naked, which made it even uglier. But excruciatingly sexy.

  She folded her fingers around the grip then looked up at me.

  ‘Your point being?’

  ‘You have to be prepared to fire it. Maybe to kill.’ She blinked, that was all. No flinching. She wasn’t scared by the prospect of killing another human being. It wouldn’t be the first time. ‘Maybe more than one person,’ I added, to rub salt in the wound.

  ‘I know that!’ she snarled back at me. ‘Don’t lecture me, Drew. For you, for us, I’ll kill if I have to. I’ve had eight months without you to think about what it means to be in love with a professional killer. I don’t like it, but unless you stop, I can’t do anything about it.’ Her shoulders slumped; the Beretta slithered from her grasp onto the bed. ‘And I can’t fight it anymore.’

  ‘And Lindy?’

  ‘We had this conversation once before. She’s safe, she’s with people who love and will take care of her if anything happens to me.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  She nodded. I loved her, and admired and respected her. Apart from physical strength she was in all essentials my equal. Morally, my superior. But I was appalled by the strength of her resolve to fight alongside me.

  ‘You worry too much, darling. Nothing will happen to me. I’m in the safest hands on the planet.’ She leaned back on the pillow, locked her fingers behind her head, and made her breasts do that shivery thing. ‘Can we do it again, then get something to eat.’

  I looked at my watch. ‘It’s late. We’ll have to settle for a sandwich.’

  ‘Mm, yes. Why don’t you call the desk and order something? In case we take longer than expected.’

  She thought of everything.

  * * * * *

  Sleep was slow in coming that night. Maura dropped off the minute we crashed down, her breathing deep and even, an outstretched arm bridging my chest. In the dark, without the distraction of her animated beauty, I could think straighter. I despised my weakness for involving her. Could I have done anything else? Before she hopped on a plane to Ivalo, yes. After she arrived, no, she wouldn’t be deterred and trying to fend her off would have fouled up my own plans.

  Like it or not, we were in it together. She knew how to handle a gun. It might make sense to exploit that skill to improve the chance of a successful outcome.

  27th November dawned in darkness as usual. I got up early without disturbing my sleeping beauty, exercised until she woke up, twenty minutes later. We shared the shower, a dangerous thing to do, but I fended her off and she accepted the rejection.

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘You must be stressed out of your mind.’

  ‘Don’t imagine because I’ve killed people before that I actually gain pleasure from the experience.’

  ‘Let me kill him then,’ she said.

  I was so stunned I dropped my fake moustache in the wash bowl.

  ‘Thanks for the offer, honey. I can manage.’

  ‘It’ll be less blood on your hands.’

  My laugh was harsh, without humour.

  ‘Better on mine than on yours.’

  ‘Funny though it might seem, I could live with that better. The blood on mine would come from love not money.’

  ‘It so happens,’ I said, my voice heavy, as I attached the moustache to my top lip, ‘that I’m not doing it for the money, which is peanuts. I’m doing it mostly as a favour to an old friend. At least, that’s how it started out.’

  She frowned. ‘How it started out? How has it finished up then?’

  ‘Leave it for now. Let’s stay focused, shall we?’

  ‘If you say so,’ she said with a little frown. She didn’t like being kept in the dark.

  She drew a lot of attention from the other breakfasting guests, in particular Wharfe’s younger colleagues. Even Wharfe himself, sexless though he appeared, kept shooting surreptitious glances in her direction. In another of her rib-hugging silky sweaters and leather pants she was a vision in black.

  ‘Which one is Wharfe?’ she whispered, her lips up against my ear.

  ‘The one with the haystack of black hair.’

  As she pretended not to look, the Supo guy, Stefan, drifted over, a slight leer adorning his face.

  ‘You have a new friend,’ he observed, grinning at Maura, who affected not to see him, and carried on spooning her yoghourt with great precision.

  ‘Old friend,’ I corrected. ‘We’re married.’

  Maura didn’t react, except to suspend the spooning process for a microsecond.

  The leer became a sneer.

  ‘Really? Why is she is not registered as your wife?’

  ‘She forgets. We only got married yesterday.’

  The splutter from Maura was enough for Stefan. Even in English, he knew when he was being ribbed.

  He pulled an ID wallet from inside his blouson, flashed it at me. ‘Finnish security police. I wish to search your car.’

  My heart flipped. Until I remembered the guns were in my room.

  ‘Not a problem. I always cooperate with the police. Afterwards you can search my room, if you like.’ I hoped I wasn’t being too provocative.

  He beckoned the other Finn, and the three of us tramped out of the breakfast room. I was counting heavily on Maura to take my dropped hint and take off to my room to remove the box and its contents.

  The car search proved fruitless of course, which didn’t improve the first guy’s temper.

  ‘Now your room,’ he snapped. His partner looked embarrassed at this obvious overkill.

  I led them back through the lobby, catching a glimpse of Maura still at the table. The room search, thorough as it was, proved equally unrewarding. They didn’t thank me, just left me to tidy up after them. I wondered where Maura had stashed the box.

  ‘In the laundry room,’ she said, when asked. ‘It’s next door but one to your room. There was a mountain of dirty linen and I hid it underneath. Let’s go now and fetch it.’

  Our luck held. The dirty linen was undisturbed and we transferred the box back to my room unnoticed.

 

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