Read Online Silencer by Andy McNab - Free Book Online Page B

man-mountain with nostrils like the Mont Blanc Tunnel. He always looked like he was about to inflict pain, and was probably the only black man in Moscow the right-wing gangs crossed the street to avoid. When I’d last seen him, there were blue and red beads tying off each braid of his cornrows, and a patch under his chin was pebble-dashed with shaving rash. The beads were all bright red now, and the zits had been replaced by a thin scar running up his left cheek.
    The guy beside him was only fractionally shorter and had come straight from the steppes. He looked like a painting I’d seen of Genghis Khan, but with a number-one haircut and wispygoatee. He could have been a direct descendant of the great tyrant for all I knew, but I wasn’t going to ask.
    These two weren’t big on chat, even though we had plenty to talk about. We’d flown out of Somalia together after I’d rescued Frank’s son from kidnappers. But that was then. Time flies; things change.
    Maybe that was why they stared at me now like we’d never set eyes on each other.

19
    I slid out of Anna’s room and closed the door gently behind me.
    Frank’s men stood like statues as I put out my hand. I got noncommittal shakes back, but so what? They were there, and that was all that mattered.
    I gave Mr Lover Man my keys and the penthouse address. He studied them both for a moment, then passed them to the Guardsman. I could see Anna watching us through the blinds. Her eyes followed me back into the room.
    ‘What’s happening, Nicholas?’ Her voice was low. It was like the dim lighting toned everything down. ‘They’re not here to wet the baby’s head, are they?’
    I closed the door and took the HK from my waistband. Anna watched as I sat back down and slid the weapon under my thigh. I knew she wasn’t happy. The oxygen machine gave a sigh. I knew exactly how it felt. ‘They’ve come here because I asked Frank for help. We need his help. So does Katya.’
    I gave her the headlines. Anna showed no reaction, just con centrated on the details, until I got to the part about the body. She lifted a hand. ‘Is he still there?’
    I nodded. ‘Frank’s lad is sorting it out.’ I hesitated. ‘But we’ve got a bigger problem than that.’
    I told her I’d been back to Katya’s flat. ‘Her coat was still there, but she wasn’t. The picture was gone too.’
    Anna’s jaw muscles tightened. She got it straight away. ‘That’swhy they came to our apartment?’ Her look of concern wasn’t for herself or for me. She glanced towards the incubator. ‘What now?’
    ‘You know anything? Anyone who wants to hurt her? Anything she’s said or done that you think was a bit … unusual … or out of character?’
    She took a deep breath and the sigh that followed was more about being pissed off with me than wondering what might have happened to Katya. ‘You know what she’s like. She never told me much about herself, even in Mexico.’
    ‘She have man trouble, cash problems, drugs?’
    Anna shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that – and if she did, she’d never have told me. She had a boyfriend in Mexico I didn’t know about until she let slip that things weren’t working out. I know you’ve never really liked her, but you know what? Not everybody lives in your shadowy, duplicitous little world.’
    She was wrong about that, actually, but now wasn’t the time to tell her. I hadn’t made up my mind about Katya. I just knew that she’d been lying through her teeth ever since I’d picked her up at her apartment.
    ‘I’ve got to go away for a while.’ I leaned over her, not sure whether I should kiss the top of her head. Not so long ago I’d have done it without thinking. I tucked the HK under her pillow. ‘It’s loaded, with a full mag, and made ready.’
    Anna had worked in a lot of hostile terrain and knew her way around a weapon. She knew ‘loaded’ meant the mag was inserted, even if it was empty. Made ready meant there was a round in the