Free Blood Whispers by John Gordon Sinclair Page A

shoot them in the mouth. ‘I didn’t mean to use an inappropriate tone, I just want to supply you with whatever gear you need for the job and let you get on with it.’
    Engjell still wasn’t happy, but was prepared to let it drop for the moment.
    ‘I need some GSM pinhole cameras and as many GSM microphones as you are happy to lose, but I want quad band so I can monitor it from a phone when I’m out and about. I don’t want to have to sit staring at a computer all day. I’ll also need a tres-eight or a nine-mil with a suppressor, but there is no hurry for that. I can wait until we find the girl.’
    ‘You can take it all with you tonight. Got a nice Beretta, could be the one, and all the surveillance shit you could ever wish for.’
    ‘Doesn’t matter if the nine is clean or dirty, so long as it works. In fact I prefer if it’s been used already: the dirtier the better. A gun like that is a get-out-of-jail-free card: makes it difficult for the cops to tell who fired what, where and when . . . I’m thirsty.’
    Abazi stared back at him for a second. ‘What?’
    ‘I’m thirsty. You have anything to drink?’
    ‘Sure.’ Abazi got up from the sofa. ‘What d’you want?’
    ‘Tea.’
    ‘Tea? I think we got any kind you like so long as it’s English breakfast.’
    ‘No mint?’
    ‘No, we got no mint. You planning to be here long enough for it to get made, then cool down enough for you to drink it?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Much as I’m enjoying your company, I got things to do, Engjell, like get some more sleep. How ’bout I get you some water?’
    Engjell nodded. ‘Water will be fine.’
    Abazi opened the door leading to the hallway.
    ‘Andrej, go get my guest a glass of water. And bring up a Beretta 92f with a snap-on Hush Puppy and a box of shells. Then go get as many GSM cameras and mics as we’ve got.’
    A young guy with his hands clamped behind his back like he was on guard duty replied ‘Yes, Sir,’ and headed off down the hallway.
    ‘A few things you should know,’ said Abazi as he came back into the room. ‘My backers think I should take a holiday until you’ve finished the job, but to me that’s a fucked-up way of thinking and here’s why. I am under surveillance. A lot of badly dressed guys hanging around on street corners get their headsets on every time we pick up a phone: couple of our cars have had fast deploy GPS trackers clamped to the underside; so we know we’re being watched and we know they’re serious. If they are watching my every move and I’m scratching my balls in a bar somewhere when the whore is silenced, they’re going to know straight away it wasn’t me. Funny how these guys think they are the only ones with access to high-end surveillance shit though. From the outside it looks like it’s just the cops, but we have intel that it goes higher up the chain than that: security services. We also got a campfire under our asses from the local dealers unhappy with the way we’re running things: a lot of them going out of business, because we can undercut them every time. The assholes are trying to make trouble for us, passing on info to the cops if they see one of our dealers, but we’ve got eyes and ears in all the main players’ houses – make sure it doesn’t get out of hand. We are not just one step ahead of them, we’re standing at the finish line waiting to start the next race. The whore could give us a fucking headache so we want her killed quick and clean, then you can clear the country fast as you like. When we’re done here Edi Leka will take you to one of our shops, but you got to get in the back of a van with all the groceries. We got a delivery business too. He’s wearing a bandage beret and sporting a couple of black eyes where the whore smacked him across the head with a bottle and tried to stick a glass in his neck. Don’t mention it to him ’cause he gets upset and I don’t want to lose another driver. Once you’re in the