Silencer by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online Page A

I don’t want them stuck in that shit-hole.’
    She tapped out some numbers and was soon waffling away in Russian as I got the rest of her brew down my neck.
    She finished the call and reached for her coat. ‘There’s no guarantee we can move her, I’m afraid. Pre-term, there are always problems.’ Her expression softened. ‘I never asked: girl or boy?’
    I gave her a grin. ‘Boy.’
    ‘What will you call him?’
    ‘I was thinking Dostoevsky, but I reckon Anna prefers Tolstoy.’

9
    She didn’t have much to say as we headed through the old industrial zone towards Proletarskaya Metro. The sun-gigs were still firmly in place.
    I led her past State Ball-bearing Plant Number One, now a memorial to the dead who’d worked there during the Great Patriotic War against the Germans. Historic-monument status hadn’t stopped the factory walls decaying. Rusty steel rods stuck out of crumbling concrete, like rotten teeth. The whole area had been earmarked for redevelopment, but I guessed they were still waiting for the right oligarch to come along and make a killing.
    We crossed the car park alongside what was left of the Dubrovka Theatre – just one more featureless concrete mess, but the scene of a terrorist gangfuck in 2002, when forty or fifty Chechens had taken control of an 850-strong audience and demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from their homeland and an end to the Second Chechen War. The message from the Kremlin was, ‘Dream on.’ After a two-and-a-half-day siege Spetsnaz pumped a chemical agent through the ventilation system, then stormed the building. Thirty-nine of the kidnappers and at least 129 hostages were killed. The Russian authorities didn’t turn a hair. While the West’s stated objective would have been to rescue the hostage, theirs was: kill the terrorist.
    The Metro station was a riot of shiny granite pillars, black-and-white ceramic tiles and anodized aluminium hammer-and-sicklemotifs. The train was almost deserted: everybody was heading in the opposite direction at the end of the working day.
    We drew a few quizzical glances from some of the older women. They were clearly trying to work out if the tall olive-skinned woman in the shades was my girlfriend or a whore. And if she was a whore, why would I want a foreign one when there were thousands of beautiful porcelain-white Russians to choose from? That was how the older generation here thought. And why was she wearing sunglasses on the Metro? To hide her identity? Or had I been giving her a good slapping?
    We sat in silence, rocking with the train. Katya held her arms rigid on her thighs. I could feel the tension coming off her like nerve gas, fuck knew why. I’d leave her to deal with whatever was going on in her little world. Right now I just needed her to sort out what was going wrong in mine.
    The doors opened to let a group of office workers on board. They took a sneaky look at Katya and gave me the stink-eye. I couldn’t tell if they were sneering at me or simply jealous of the way she looked.
    I checked the map above their heads. Two more stops to Novogireevo.

10
    I cupped my hands around my mouth, as if that was going to help me be heard above the din of the other long-range conversations. ‘Anna! Anna!’ It was like being a little kid again, calling up from the square in my housing estate to see if a mate would come out to play.
    There was no sign of movement at her window. We both hollered in unison. Then I let Katya have a go on her own: maybe a woman’s voice would pierce the male chorus.
    Eventually, a shadow crossed the window and Anna leaned out. The colour of her skin echoed the strange green apron she now wore, but at least she was up, she was standing, she was breathing.
    I part yelled, part mimed: ‘You seen the boy?’
    I hoped she could lip-read, because a volley of shouts drowned me out.
    Anna shook her head. ‘Intensive Care …’
    Katya gave her a wave. ‘Sasha’s told them you’re one of our patients