Candleburn (32 page)

Blake
saw another shape. Definitely a man. He released three rounds. The shape twisted and collapsed.

In
the madness of gunfire and monkeys, the lion began to roar.

Blake
tried to get to his feet but his leg was grabbed from under him and he tumbled.

More
snarling.

He
rolled onto his back and stared directly into the snarling silhouette of an Arabian Gray Wolf, inches from his nose. He felt the hot and heavy hiss of its breath on his face.

There was a
glint of white as the moon reflected off its teeth.

61

The wolf, gaping jaws, snapped for Blake’s throat.

Blake
reflexively fired his rifle into the air.

The
blast startled the beast.

The
bullet bounced off the metal roof of the zoo.

He
fired again.

The
gunshot, so close to the wolf’s sensitive ears, caused a yelp.

The
grip was released on his leg.

In
a blur of motion the two canines disappeared.

Blake
laid his head on the gravel.

He
breathed deeply until his racing heart came back under control. The monkeys continued to shout and holler, banging their plates on any surface they could find. For the wolves to attack a person they must be ravenous – Blake wondered just how badly mistreated all the animals were in this zoo.

Cautiously,
he got to his feet, wary of a second strike by the animals or flanking from one of Aarez’s men.

“I
can’t believe I shot an endangered species,” he thought as he stepped over the wolf's carcass.

A
few paces on lay the unmoving Russian. Blake patted the body down to see how he was armed. An automatic handgun. Nothing exciting. He’d hoped for a grenade or some other tactical advantage. The monkeys continued their chorus, loud as a prison riot.

Blake
hurried towards the falconry entrance.

He
stopped short of the doorway. Aarez had to have at least one Russian stationed inside. He checked his watch. Human pupils take almost 40 minutes to adapt fully to the dark. He was beginning to reach his peak potential for night vision.

He
needed an advantage.

Stealthy,
he criss-crossed back between the cages. He considered briefly giving the defenders a taste of their own medicine and unleashing the two hungry looking tigers into the bird mews. He immediately discounted the plan – if there were no Russians in the falconry, he would quickly find himself dealing with a new threat.

Then,
he spotted it: holding the drink tray of one of the gazelle pens in place was a long piece of string.

He
removed the cord and tied it to the latch of the falconry door.

He
trailed it through the grill of the monkey cage to hold it high and looped it back so that he could open the handle from any position of his choosing. Taking cover, he pulled the cord.

The
door swung wide.

A
hail of gunfire.

“Good,”
Blake thought. “Eventually, you’re going to have to come and check on your handiwork.”

He
waited.

The
chimpanzees began to calm. A leopard flopped onto its side and began playing through the bars kittenishly with the lynx.

A
presence loomed in the falconry door. It found and tugged on the string.

Blake
fired two shots.

The
figure fell.

Blake
was back on his haunches and creeping towards the mews. He held his breath. If there was another guard inside, he was taking a risk. Reaching the corpse, he rifled its clothes.

A
box of matches, a wallet full of receipts, another Skorpion machine gun, a set of car keys, six local coins and half a packet of gum.

“Nothing
of use...”

Blake
stopped himself.

He
was thinking like a journalist.

He
ran his mind through the list.

“What
do I have?” he whispered silently. “What do I need?”

The unofficial motto of any Special Forces operative, the essence of all their training condensed to that single phrase.

He removed the magazine from the Skorpion and took the top five bullets. Opening the gum, he began chewing on a piece as he unfolded the four half-page sized receipts.

Twisting
with the blade of his Sebenza between the slug and the shell casing, he prized the bullets open and tipped the contents into the central crease of each piece of paper. He cut short fuses with the string.

“Metal,”
he thought, “I need metal. Aluminium, magnesium, perchlorate...”

He
mentally ran quickly through his surroundings.

“The
soil here is red. Feldspar. Could that work? No... ignore that, the gunpowder will serve... the cages?”

Knife
in hand, he cautiously scraped rusting iron from the cage bars into one piece of paper. With each slow scrape down the metal, he felt more on edge.

Where
were the three remaining Russians? Would they counterattack? Why are they waiting?

“What
do they know that I don’t?”

His
muscles were tense, anticipating a surreptitious knife to the ribs at any moment.

None
came.

He
tipped and mixed the contents of each receipt together, placed some coins in to add weight and stuck the paper down with gum.

Two
improvised flashbangs.

A
heavy sigh.

He
lit a fuse, closed his eyes, looked away and tossed it in to the room.

With
the extra mass from the coins, he was surprised how far into the darkness it went. He was even more surprised when the jerry rigged stun grenade emitted a loud bright ‘bang’.

A
loud volley of gunfire.

Blake
had no idea where the bullets went. Whether they were shot into the ceiling in surprise or directly at the improvised device, he didn’t know. All that mattered was that they weren’t fired at the door and whoever was inside had lost that 40 minute night vision advantage.

Blake
was inside the falconry.

Birds
shrieked and blustered as the Russian fired bullets blind. Large flashes from muzzle retort flared in the dark. Fluttering wings. Blake rushed on. Twisting between cages, he reached a new spot near the middle of the hut. He held his breath and sniffed the air.

The
musty smells of dust and birds and hay were mixed with the sickly scent of stale aftershave.

No
help.

The
perfume could come from either the live Russian within or the dead one outside.

A
footstep.

Blake
inched forward.

The
birds stopped their cries as stillness returned.

“Use
the second flashbang?” he wondered.

Even
with his night vision intact, the ambient light in the falconry was so low it was difficult to see more than the vaguest outline of anything.

He
listened for breathing or the sound of movement.

This
guy was good.

The
only noise came from the gentlest batting of wings.

He
remembered back to his training. Long ago – another age, it seemed.

“Sensing
intention,” he thought.

He’d
hated the course, set amidst useful martial arts training: it involved closing your eyes and piercing the dark with your mind. Where others claimed it worked – an extension of humans’ limited magnetoception or proprioception – he remembered describing it as “hokey-pokey nonsense”.

“Trust
in your subconscious,” Blake remembered his trainer saying. “It’s a far more powerful tool than your conscious mind.”

Here
in the dark, death somewhere stalking him, he closed his eyes and blanked his head.

He
reached out, feeling for another person hiding in the black.

Empty
of thought.

Empty
mind...

Nothing.

“Utter bullshit,” he thought, opening his eyes.

He
shifted forward.

A
shiver in his spine.

Stalked.
He was definitely being stalked.

He
moved into a different column of the bird cages.

He
didn’t know how but the Russian had figured out his location.

He
placed his P90 on the ground with his bag.

Pistol
and knife.

In
such close quarters...

He
inched onward. Another gap between cages. He shuffled on.

Another
shiver.

The
beat of a bird adjusting its feathers.

He
stopped.

Knife
to hand, he turned and swung behind himself with relentless fury.

A
loud huff. Butt of his Sebenza crushed against an unseen skull.

He
jabbed with the knife at the invisible foe, he lashed and stabbed, then leapt on the stunned body.

Stab,
stab, a stab again.

Gunshots.

The
Russian, fingers contracting in the spasms pulled the trigger of his pistol. Blake’s fingers found his enemy’s neck. He sunk the blade deep.

With
a rattling gasp, the Russian was dead.

Blake’s
body trembled with the power of his actions.

“Some
kind of ninja radar?” he wondered.

A
bird ruffled.

Blake
snorted a suppressed laugh.

No.

His subconscious was indeed smarter than he was.

The
birds – they only fluttered when a person was near.

Blake
swiftly changed location, back past his rucksack and P90, lest another guard lay coiled in the sable night. He stopped.

Even
the birds went silent.

He
placed the P90 on top of a cage and switched on the small beam-light torch that ran along its muzzle. He stepped back three paces, pistol ready. Thirty seconds passed. No bullets. No randomly placed shots attempting to take him down.

He
returned to the weapon and began a sweeping search of the aviary. The body of the first Russian, shot through the door, lay curled in a foetal ball surrounded by a bloody puddle. Moving the rifle slowly around the room, the brilliant white cone of light illuminated a pair of twisted legs protruding from the walkway between a row of cages. The second Russian, whom he'd just dispatched.

Continuing
his exploration, his pupils expanded with surprise.

A
third body?

Pegged
out on the floor, some warped version of Da Vinci's vitruvian man, was an Egyptian male in his mid forties.

“
And you must be Zain,” Blake's lip curled as he knelt over the corpse.

The
body was a mass of talon scratches and gnarled holes. His eyes were pulled from their sockets and half devoured. Sand stuck grimly to the remnants of his intestines: he'd been disembowelled with a dagger and feasted upon by the birds.

“
You must forgive me but it's important I get to man responsible for your death. I'll have to send someone back for you later.”

With
resolve, Blake returned to his feet.

He
found the route to the basement in an annex, running down a low-ceilinged flight of rickety stairs that opened out into a store full of bird food. Blake moved carefully past table-top workshop stations for repairing lures and hoods, heading for a narrow passageway. Reaching the wall beside the corridor, Blake shone the torch beam down its length.

A
little more than 15 metres.

The
room ahead appeared to be a pantry that led to the kitchen.

He
switched off the light and took the flashbang from his pocket. He lit the makeshift grenade's fuse and tossed it into the room ahead.

The
brilliant flash stung his retinas even though he'd turned his head and closed his eyes.

Nothing.

“That makes no sense,” he thought. “You must know about this entrance to the building. You have two mercenaries left – one of whom is acting as a sniper. So why is this route unguarded?”

Blake
gasped with shock as the hand clasped tight over his lips. Conditioned reflex, he pushed out with his elbows and raised his forearms. He felt the cold steel blade cut across his hand as his attacker tried to drive it home between his ribs. Fumbling, grappling, the Russian placed a knee in his spine to pull him off balance.