Chapter 13
The Dorobanți district of Bucharest was pleasant enough, though the heat of the day was dissipating rapidly into the cloudless night sky as he walked along the sodium lit pavement. He took an empty carrier bag from his pocket.
A Mercedes-Benz Viano, bearing the white livery of the Poliția, cruised slowly by then stopped. The body armoured, black overalled front seat passenger, his face covered by a balaclava, got out and beckoned him over. Specialist Officers, known locally as ‘mascați’.
A brief conversation. Nicks raised his arms and was patted down. The driver, similarly dressed, joined them. The side door slid open. Nicks clambered in, followed by the Officer. The passenger stood in the doorway and surveyed the street. A vagrant, sat nearby, got up and shuffled off. After several minutes, they left him standing on the footpath. He quickened his pace and took a side street.
In nearby Strada Dobrota, outside a gated entrance to an elegant house that was clearly reaching its final stage of reconstruction, a man stood, absorbed, staring at his mobile, reading the well-timed and confusing text. Cigarette smoke hung in the air. Casually, he walked over and asked, politely, for the time. The man gave him a dark, aggravated glance but looked at his watch anyway.
It sounded like somebody was tapping a tin can when he shot him twice in the chest. As he lay on the floor, he shot him again, once in the mouth then one to the head. The guy’s mobile crackled underfoot as Nicks strolled away, sliding the Maxim 9 pistol back into the carrier bag.
Right hand to his ear, he muttered something into his sleeve then, when he reached the main road, he calmly stepped into the back of a yellow cab that was waiting for him. He got out at the Old Town and left the bag and weapon on the back seat.