Matt Browning 2 - The Increment by Chris Ryan

Author:Chris Ryan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

'Here you are,' said Orlena, handing the weapon across the car seat.

Matt glanced down at the gun: a .38-calibre Russian-manufactured Marakov, it was a precisely tooled gun that would fit neatly just below the belt of his jeans.

'Makes a change from unloading my pistol, I suppose.'

Orlena didn't smile. She had spent an hour this morning trying to persuade Matt to go straight back to London with her. After speaking with Eleanor, Matt had told Orlena he was cancelling his flight back to London. He needed to follow up what Leshko had told him about the bravery drug: it was a personal matter, he explained. Nothing to do with Lacrierre or Tocah. She'd been incredibly angry, trying to insist again they had to get back to London to debrief Lacrierre. You do what you like, Matt had told her: I'm staying here. As his determination became clear, her tone changed. She'd offered to come with him. You'll need someone to speak Ukrainian, she said. And to help you find his address.

Now Matt looked back up at the tower block. They were on the outskirts of Kiev, where the Dnieper River started to twist eastwards, away from the factories, and out into the clear, flat countryside stretching down to the Black Sea coastline. The estate looked of late sixties, early seventies vintage, with twelve tall towers grouped in a semicircle around what might have once been a park but was now just a dump for broken furniture and smashed-up cars. Half the windows in each tower were boarded up, another quarter were broken.

'Nice spot,' said Matt.

'Worker's paradise,' said Orlena. 'Anyone gets nostalgic for the old days, they come here. It reminds them that however bad things might get sometimes, anything is better than socialism.'

Matt climbed out of the car – a Fiat Punto, rented from the local Hertz office – and started walking out across the empty ground. 'This way,' said Orlena, walking quickly past Matt.

To his right, Matt could see a pair of teenage boys taking the engine from an abandoned car. He followed Orlena across the waste ground, towards the back of the last of the tower blocks. There was a row of twenty identical two-storey houses, with a flat on each level. They had been white originally, but were now stained, and covered with the patches of a hundred cheap repairs. But the windows were mostly intact, and a few flowers had been planted along the communal front garden. Compared with the rest of the estate, it looked like a palace.

Orlena stopped outside Number Twelve, ringing the bell. It didn't work. She banged twice, loudly, making the door creak beneath her fist. From inside, Matt could hear a man shouting, then the sound of a series of locks being slowly unfastened.

Three locks, counted Matt. Maybe he doesn't trust the neighbours.

Leonid Petor was eighty-five and thin, but still sprightly. His skin was stretched tight over the bones in his face, and his eyes shone brightly across the room. He glanced first at Orlena, then at Matt, his expression wary.

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