pussies that they’d been kicked out of the Middle East in the first place. Nowadays . . . well, if they allowed arms dealers and terrorists to operate out of their capital, they deserved everything they got.
Goya stole a quick glance in the rear-view mirror. He was amazed that Teleki hadn’t run straight for the airport once his brother-in-arms had been eliminated. Hamas must need those weapons badly – or maybe he just had balls of steel. He was a big man, much stronger than Ryan, and doubtless felt that he could look after himself.
Whatever, he had taken a big risk there, and now he was going to pay the price.
Teleki was still talking away on his mobile phone. Ryan’s Arabic wasn’t up to much but he realized this was not a business conversation. Teleki was laughing and joking, talking about a couple of ‘English whores’ he had ordered for later in the evening.
Ain
’
t life funny
, Ryan grinned to himself.
You
’
re lining yourself up a threesome and I
’
m sitting here safe in the knowledge that you
’
ll never get to shoot your load again
. There was the sound of a horn behind him; the car in front had advanced about three feet. Releasing the handbrake, he let the cab roll slowly forward.
The car in front was some kind of Toyota mini-SUV. A young girl, maybe nine or ten, bored with being stuck in the traffic, was staring out of the back window. Catching Ryan’s eye, she pulled a face. Keeping eye-contact, he casually flipped the kid the finger. Laughing, she copied the gesture with both hands, before slipping back into her seat.
Watch out for ricochets
,
little bitch
, Ryan hissed silently.
He watched the clock on the dashboard tick round another thirty seconds. His mouth was dry and his heart-rate elevated. Licking his lips, he again flicked his eyes to the rear-view mirror. Teleki was still gabbling away about the hookers, oblivious to the fact that they had been heading away from his intended destination for the last ten minutes. Not that they had managed to get very far. When they’d decided to steal a taxi, Goya reflected with a sigh, they should have factored in more time to get to
their
intended location, a lock-up garage in the expensive neighbourhood behind Lord’s Cricket Ground. The clock on the dashboard told him that it was now almost three hours since they’d picked up this cab from outside a café in Victoria while the cabbie – a guy called Allan Johnstone according to the licence Ryan had removed from the glass partition between the front and back seats – was munching on a bacon roll and watching a Chelsea game on television.
Ryan knew that the cab must have been reported stolen by now. However, they had been careful to target an independent cabbie; Johnstone was not part of a collective like Radio Taxis or Dial-a-Cab, so there would be no one tracking the vehicle’s whereabouts in an office somewhere. Moreover, with hundreds if not thousands of black cabs on the roads of Central London at any one time, the chance of their being stopped by the police was statistically zero. Still, to be on the safe side, they’d changed the licence-plates and stuck on some decals advertising holidays in Malaysia. If he saw it driving past right now, Allan Johnstone himself wouldn’t recognize it.
Acquiring the cab was the easy bit. The biggest challenge in the whole operation was making sure that Teleki got into the right taxi as he left his hotel. As he came through the lobby of his Park Lane hotel, one of the Mossad team masquerading as a member of the hotel staff ushered him away from the official taxi rank and into the back of Ryan Goya’s vehicle. The click of the door locks confirmed that they had their man safe and secure. Pulling quickly away, Ryan nodded when Teleki gave him an address in Notting Hill. Cutting across a couple of lines of traffic, he skipped through a red light heading north. In less than a minute, he was past Marble Arch and heading up the Edgware Road. Passing a
Goya stole a quick glance in the rear-view mirror. He was amazed that Teleki hadn’t run straight for the airport once his brother-in-arms had been eliminated. Hamas must need those weapons badly – or maybe he just had balls of steel. He was a big man, much stronger than Ryan, and doubtless felt that he could look after himself.
Whatever, he had taken a big risk there, and now he was going to pay the price.
Teleki was still talking away on his mobile phone. Ryan’s Arabic wasn’t up to much but he realized this was not a business conversation. Teleki was laughing and joking, talking about a couple of ‘English whores’ he had ordered for later in the evening.
Ain
’
t life funny
, Ryan grinned to himself.
You
’
re lining yourself up a threesome and I
’
m sitting here safe in the knowledge that you
’
ll never get to shoot your load again
. There was the sound of a horn behind him; the car in front had advanced about three feet. Releasing the handbrake, he let the cab roll slowly forward.
The car in front was some kind of Toyota mini-SUV. A young girl, maybe nine or ten, bored with being stuck in the traffic, was staring out of the back window. Catching Ryan’s eye, she pulled a face. Keeping eye-contact, he casually flipped the kid the finger. Laughing, she copied the gesture with both hands, before slipping back into her seat.
Watch out for ricochets
,
little bitch
, Ryan hissed silently.
He watched the clock on the dashboard tick round another thirty seconds. His mouth was dry and his heart-rate elevated. Licking his lips, he again flicked his eyes to the rear-view mirror. Teleki was still gabbling away about the hookers, oblivious to the fact that they had been heading away from his intended destination for the last ten minutes. Not that they had managed to get very far. When they’d decided to steal a taxi, Goya reflected with a sigh, they should have factored in more time to get to
their
intended location, a lock-up garage in the expensive neighbourhood behind Lord’s Cricket Ground. The clock on the dashboard told him that it was now almost three hours since they’d picked up this cab from outside a café in Victoria while the cabbie – a guy called Allan Johnstone according to the licence Ryan had removed from the glass partition between the front and back seats – was munching on a bacon roll and watching a Chelsea game on television.
Ryan knew that the cab must have been reported stolen by now. However, they had been careful to target an independent cabbie; Johnstone was not part of a collective like Radio Taxis or Dial-a-Cab, so there would be no one tracking the vehicle’s whereabouts in an office somewhere. Moreover, with hundreds if not thousands of black cabs on the roads of Central London at any one time, the chance of their being stopped by the police was statistically zero. Still, to be on the safe side, they’d changed the licence-plates and stuck on some decals advertising holidays in Malaysia. If he saw it driving past right now, Allan Johnstone himself wouldn’t recognize it.
Acquiring the cab was the easy bit. The biggest challenge in the whole operation was making sure that Teleki got into the right taxi as he left his hotel. As he came through the lobby of his Park Lane hotel, one of the Mossad team masquerading as a member of the hotel staff ushered him away from the official taxi rank and into the back of Ryan Goya’s vehicle. The click of the door locks confirmed that they had their man safe and secure. Pulling quickly away, Ryan nodded when Teleki gave him an address in Notting Hill. Cutting across a couple of lines of traffic, he skipped through a red light heading north. In less than a minute, he was past Marble Arch and heading up the Edgware Road. Passing a
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