Silencer by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online

I started to laugh. It was the first time I’d done so all day.

8
South-west Moscow
    I pressed the button for the old guy to open the door but didn’t hear a buzz. Cupping my hands against the wired glass, I peered into the dimly lit foyer. The little fucker had gone AWOL again. He seemed to spend most of his time tucked away in his back room, and judging by the smell, he didn’t just knock back his own vodka, he brewed it as well.
    I gave the door a shove and it swung back on its hinges. Katya’s fellow residents didn’t want to hang around outside for longer than they had to. I walked into the lobby. Harsh white light from the overhead fluorescents was doing the concierge no favours. He was supposed to keep the public areas clean, but the swirls of dirty water where he’d lost interest in mopping up the trail of rain-sodden footprints were plain as day.
    There was no lift: the management company had gone out of business before it could be installed. I headed up the stairs to the second floor. It was a boring four-storey block, built of glass and a strange yellow brick, probably a job lot from a factory demo lition. These places had been thrown together in the nineties to cater for the new professionals spreading out of the city centre, with more of an eye on the developer’s margin than the design awards. Any gleam had long gone, and lack of maintenance and bad workmanship had taken its toll. The NewRussia was just like everywhere else: sell ’em dreams, ship ’em shit.
    As I walked along the thinly carpeted corridor, my nostrils were assaulted by the stench of the flowery disinfectant Russians love to spray around their houses. Maybe it’s the only way they’ve found to disguise the lingering aroma of boiled cabbage.
    I rounded the corner and nearly got knocked off my feet by two big guys in leather jackets. They glanced back at me as I rebounded off the wall, close-mouthed, no smiles, eyes fixed on mine. I got the message: it was my fucking fault.
    I raised my hands to shoulder height. ‘ Izvinite, izvinite …’ I might not know much Russian, but being able to apologize your way out of a difficult situation was useful in any language.
    The door to 211 was half open. I knocked. No answer.
    ‘Katya?’
    I stepped inside, to be greeted by four bare walls and the kind of shiny, IKEA-type furniture that looked as though it had just been unwrapped. The only remotely personal touch in the whole place was a photo of her and Anna pinned to a bulletin board above her telephone. I think Sasha must have taken it in the clinic canteen. I was just visible in the background, sorting out a brew. I wasn’t comfortable with it, but Anna liked it, and the two girls looked happier in it than I’d seen either of them for quite a while. Katya was in full Jennifer Lopez mode, hair scraped back in a jet-black bun.
    She’d thrown her coat over a nearby chair. Beside it was a mug of coffee.
    She appeared from her bedroom, looking flustered, scrambling to throw on a pair of sunglasses.
    ‘Nick! What are you …? I’ve only just got back.’ She did her best to treat me to a welcome grin. ‘I think I have an eye infection, maybe. I—’
    I didn’t have time to fuck around. ‘Didn’t you get my messages? Anna’s had the baby. She’s in Seventy. It’s not good – the baby’s sick and the place is like a gulag . They need your help.’
    She stared at me, blank-faced, like none of this made sense. Maybe the Jackie Kennedy look was to hide a hangover.
    ‘Hospital Seventy?’ She jerked herself back to something approaching reality. ‘Is Anna OK?’
    ‘I don’t know. I only saw her through an upstairs window. They won’t let me go anywhere near either of them. We’ve got to get her out of there. You make the call – do whatever you have to do. She needs you. They both need you.’
    I grabbed her coat and handed her the phone, answering-machine light still blinking. ‘You need to sort an ambulance, or we pick them up.