Firewall Read Free

Things had got so bad that I'd even taken to sleeping with my door barred and my weapon ready. If the team wasn't complaining to him about my planning, Sergei said, they were moaning about who was earning what and how they might get ripped off when it came to payday.
    Carpenter was so homophobic he made Hitler look like a wet liberal, and it had taken as much effort keeping the two pairs away from each other as it had preparing for the job. I did my best to keep out of their way and concentrated on dealing exclusively with Sergei; he was the one I had to keep happy, because he was the only one who could help me get the target into Russia. But they'd got me nervous; people were going to die today, and I didn't want to be one of them.
    I was with a scary crew, against a scary target, with the whole of Western Europe's leadership due in town, bringing along enough security to take on China. This wasn't a good day out but, fuck it, desperation makes people do desperate things.
    I blew out another cloud of breath. The digital display on the dashboard told me another twenty minutes had passed-time for a radio check. Reaching into my inside jacket pocket, I felt for the send button of my very yellow Motorola handset, the sort that parents use to keep tabs on their kids on the ski slopes or in the shopping mall. All six of us had one, each connected to an earpiece which was hooked in place. With so many people using headphones on their mobile phones, we wouldn't be conspicuous wandering around with them in.
    I pressed twice, the squelch sounding off in my ear, then checked with Sergei. He nodded; I was sending. Jesse and Frank replied with two squelches, then Carpenter and Nightmare followed with three. If I'd hit the send button and there was nothing from the Jameses, Carpenter and Nightmare would have waited thirty seconds and replied anyway. We would have no option then but to close in on the target and wait for the Meres to arrive not good, as it exposed us three in the hotel and messed up coordination. There was radio silence for two reasons. One, I couldn't speak the language, and two, EU land security would be listening in. With any luck, a few clicks here and there wouldn't mean a thing. There were many other standby com ms I could have used, mobile phones for instance, but everything had to be kept pretty basic for Nightmare and Carpenter. Anything else to remember and they would have blown up. The old principle of planning keep it simple, stupid rang true yet again.
    While Sergei had gone for the Michelin man look, I was very much the businessman: single-breasted suit, jacket one size up, dark-gray overcoat, black woolen scarf and thin leather gloves, and the stress to match. Nightmare and Carpenter were dressed in the same style. All three of us were clean shaven, hair washed, and well groomed. Detail counts; we had to move about the hotel without anyone giving us a second glance, looking as if we were part of the all-expenses-paid, outrageously salaried Brussels freeloaders. Across my lap I even had today's edition of the Herald Tribune.
    My overcoat was doing a good job of concealing the body armor under my shirt. Sergei's might be as thick as the paving slabs outside the Kremlin, but mine consisted of just twelve paper-thin sheets of Kevlar not enough to stop one of Sergei's AP rounds, but enough to see off the mini-Uzis that might soon be trying to hose me down. There was a pocket in the body armor for a ceramic plate to cover my chest area, but unlike Sergei I couldn't wear one as it was far too bulky.
    Carpenter had refused to wear any at all because it wasn't manly, and Nightmare had followed suit. Fucking mad; if I could have, I'd have covered myself from head to toe in the stuff. My feet were in all sorts of shit; with nothing on but thin socks and a pair of lace-up shoes, they were as cold as bags of frozen peas. I could no longer feel anything below my ankles, and had given up moving them around to generate