SEVERANCE KILL (27 page)

Unless of course he had a spare magazine.

Calvary crept along the church wall towards the side window. It had been stained glass, and was shattered. Through it, dim candlelight provided a degree of illumination. Alongside the wall was a small rockery. Calvary prised a Frisbee-sized rock loose, nearly overbalancing as he bent down, and tossed it through the window space.

The flash came from somewhere to the right of the window at the back of the church, the crash of the shot echoing in the confined space.

Two left.

Calvary launched himself through the space, using his left shoulder to roll and coming up on one knee. He was alongside a row of pews, his view of the back of the church obscured.

He crawled down the aisle on this side of the pews, risked a glance over the top. Blažek was there, Gaines slightly off to his side. Calvary took the shot, missed, heard the ricochet sing off something brass. Blažek fired back and Calvary dropped, feeling the slug pass above him.

One.

Calvary stood up. Blažek was behind the rearmost pew, Gaines clamped in front of him with his left arm. Calvary saw the awkwardness, the blood saturating Blažek’s shoulder. Once again the gun was jammed against Gaines’s head.

‘It’s over, Blažek. One bullet left. You shoot Gaines, or me, or yourself.’

The big man glared, his eyes swimming out of focus for an instant.

‘I’ll make it easier for you.’ Calvary tossed the Makarov to one side. Spread his hands. ‘Here I am. A sitting target.’

Blažek’s eyelid flickered in bewilderment. He moved the pistol, at first uncertainly and then with more resolve, so that it was aimed directly at Calvary’s face.

‘But first, you might want to have a look at this.’ Using his fingertips he drew the phone from his breast pocket. He found the picture, placed the phone on the floor and sent it spinning towards Blažek.

Blažek stopped it with his shoe, glanced at it. Keeping his eyes and the gun on Calvary, he stooped to pick it up, wincing.

Gaines blinked at Calvary, his face wary, as if he thought he might be expected to make a move. Calvary shook his head minutely.

Blažek looked at the picture.

*

He was the Kodiak. The king of the city.

The asshole kid had taken the picture from the back of the Hummer. It was a lucky shot, the angle perfect. In the picture, Bartos had his arm round the neck of the other guy, the gun against his head. Bartos’s face was clearly visible, and the camera had caught him clenching his teeth so it looked like he was grinning.

Bartos dropped the phone.

In front of him the Brit, Calvary, said, ‘Within the hour, every paper in the country will have that picture. Every TV broadcaster, every internet news site. You’re finished, Blažek.’

He wasn’t. The Brit was wrong.

‘One bullet. If you shoot Gaines, I’ll make it to my own gun before you can. If you shoot me, you’ll kill Gaines as well, but you’ll have nowhere to run. Your men are dead or scurrying around trying to cover their backsides. Your empire’s in ruins. Nobody’s scared of you any more.’ Calvary shrugged. ‘Though, I suppose you could always go on the rampage. Go down in a blaze of glory. Death by cop.’

He wasn’t finished. Because when a man controlled his destiny, he was very much still in charge.

Bartos put the muzzle of the gun under his chin.

In his native Czech –
fuck all this Russian
– he said, ‘I win.’

He squeezed the trigger.

THIRTY

The city chattered and echoed, sirens competing with shouted voices. The clocks said it was after three in the morning but the streets were ablaze with light, as though Prague was burning.

They were on some sort of foothill, the castle far above. Calvary kept up the pace, his arm under Gaines’s, heaving the older man upright every time he faltered. They kept as far as possible to back alleys, cringing into doorways whenever an emergency vehicle flashed past.

Parkland loomed ahead, sloping up the hill. Quickly Calvary marched them across the main road and through the nearest gate. The park was lit only by occasional lamps along its paths.

Outside the church, Calvary had examined the VW. Blažek had crashed it into a bollard and the front was too mangled for it to be of any use. He glanced inside, saw the rifle in the back seat. He pulled the door open and retrieved it. A Russian A-91. For a moment he debated, then took it, carrying it vertically by his side like a walking stick. It was conspicuous, but not as conspicuous as it would be if he strapped it across his back. Silhouettes counted for a lot.

They stumbled along the winding tracks until they were deep in the park. At last Calvary let Gaines sag on to a bench. He sprawled sideways, managed to pull himself into a sitting position with great effort. He sat with his eyes closed, the blood crusted around his mouth, his breath shallow.

Calvary crouched before him.

‘Are you hurt? Chest, abdomen?’

Gaines tried several times to speak, his lips drily sticky. ‘Just winded. And the face. Mustn’t grumble.’

Calvary liked him for that. He sat on the bench himself, propped the rifle, took out his phone.

Before dialling he said, ‘You understand that you’re going to have to disappear. From Prague, and you’ll certainly never be able to set foot in England again either.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you have any idea what you might do?’

He almost smiled. ‘You’re a resourceful man, Mr Calvary. But you’re not the only one. I have a little money squirreled away. I’ll manage.’ He coughed. ‘Just not quite what I was planning for my retirement, that’s all.’

Calvary thumbed in Llewellyn’s number.

He answered on the first ring, sounding startlingly clear. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Calvary. I have Gaines.’ Calvary turned up the volume, moved closer to Gaines on the bench, nodded, holding the handset to his face.

Gaines said, ‘This is Ivor Gaines.’

Calvary said, ‘Satisfied it’s him?’

‘Yes.’ Llewellyn sounded more than satisfied. Delighted, in fact. ‘But I would have believed you anyway, Martin.’ He paused a beat. ‘The news channels are going berserk. What on earth have you been up to? The whole of Prague seems to have gone mad.’

‘I’m not going to do it.’

‘Say again?’

Calvary drew a breath. ‘The hit. I’m not going to kill Gaines. And you know why. He’s innocent. He was never a suspected double agent.’

‘If that’s what he’s telling –’

‘You said he gave regular talks here in the city. He’s never given any. All you said about his being a well-known left-wing polemicist in Prague… it’s a lie. I checked. Nobody’s ever heard of him. He’s just a retired expat, keeping his head down.’

He waited, expecting bluster. Instead Llewellyn chuckled.

‘Very astute, Martin. All right. It’s a fair cop.’ The rustle of cigarette paper. ‘What else do you know about him?’

Calvary glanced at Gaines. ‘That he’s former SIS. That during his diplomatic service in Prague and Berlin and elsewhere, he was running networks of agents.’

‘Correct. Has he told you why he’s so special, though?’

In profile, Gaines looked hangdog. Calvary watched him as he said, ‘No. But you’re going to.’

‘Being a little demanding, aren’t you?’

‘I hold the cards, Llewellyn. Your blackmail threats don’t scare me any more. I’m never coming back, anyway.’

His ear rang with Llewellyn’s laughter, rich and heartfelt. ‘Oh, we never had any intention of shopping you to the press or the police, Martin. Think about it. The Chapel handing over one of its best operatives, with all his inside knowledge of our operations, risking exposure like that… it would be madness. Certainly worked as a bluff, though, didn’t it?’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ll put you in the picture. But first, I need to know something. The Russian SVR woman? Krupina?’

‘She’s dead.’

There was a slow outlet of breath down the line, with the hint of a whistle.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive. I saw her crushed under the wheels of a car.’

The silence was longer than any Calvary had experienced in Llewellyn’s company.

At last Llewellyn said: ‘All right. I’ll explain.’

*

‘It was, as I told you in the beginning, all about revenge for the Grechko murder. But revenge of a far more subtle, British kind than a straightforward tit-for-tat killing.’

Calvary had debated whether or not to allow Gaines to listen in. Had decided it couldn’t hurt, and kept the volume up high, his head close to the older man’s.

‘Sir Ivor Gaines has been too modest with you. He wasn’t just a humble SIS operative running a few tuppeny-ha’penny networks. He knew – knows – the identity of our agent in the Kremlin. The one the Russians call TALPA. The Mole.’

Calvary glanced at Gaines, saw no expression.

‘That’s why Comrade Krupina was so desperate to find Gaines, to get him back from this gangster and from you. He was gold dust. The ultimate trophy for a Russian intelligence operative.’

‘How did she know about him?’

‘Because we tipped her off.’

The stillness of the park was almost a physical entity, the turmoil of the city seeming miles away.

‘It’s easy to do. A message from one of their supposed agents in London who’s really working for us, sent to his handlers in Moscow. They would have informed Krupina at once.’

Gaines had turned his head a little. The unspoken question between them –
why
– hardly needed voicing. 

Llewellyn went on: ‘But of course, Sir Ivor doesn’t really know the identity of TALPA, even though he thinks he does. He’s been fed disinformation, as have several others in his position. Insurance, you might call it, in case they were ever captured. You were never supposed to succeed in killing Gaines, Martin. You just had to be seen to try, and to try so convincingly that there was never any doubt that the information he had was genuine, was so important to the British state that we were prepared to send an assassin in to ensure our own man didn’t fall into enemy hands.’

‘So I fail to kill Gaines, the Russians take him back to Moscow, find out from him the identity of the mole and deal with whoever that is –’

‘Thereby diverting attention from the real TALPA. You’ve got it. And the irony? Gaines is captured by Darya Krupina, the murderer of Pyotr Grechko.’

Calvary’s breath caught in his throat.

‘Yes. I told you we knew for certain who’d killed Grechko, but couldn’t extradite them. Krupina was in London at the time of the Grechko hit, was identified by several sources as being in the vicinity when the murder took place. Left the country hours later. It was her. Not any of the other people our government has made a public show of accusing. But we’ve no proof. So we take revenge on her. Not by killing her, but by making her unwittingly complicit in one of the most sophisticated disinformation exercises since the Cold War. Delicious, isn’t it?’

Calvary said, ‘Except it hasn’t come off the way you wanted.’

Llewellyn hissed through his teeth. ‘Well, yes and no. It’s true that a lot of the elegance has been lost along the way. We can probably blame that gangster chappie for that. But at the end of the day, as the cliché has it, Darya Krupina is dead. She was dying anyway, from cancer, but we got there first. We’ve had our revenge. Thanks to you.’

There was almost too much to process. The cold was settling like a shroud and Calvary felt himself starting to shiver.

‘There still?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve really been most helpful, Martin. Yes, I admit, I made a mistake. I assumed you’d fail to get Gaines. You didn’t. You’ve beaten both the Russians and the most powerful crime lord in Prague. You’re even better than I gave you credit for.’

‘And?’

‘And, I need you to come in now. Bring Gaines in. He can’t be left out there, it’s too messy. As for you, I have great things in mind for you. No more hits. The kind of work you’d enjoy, as well as be skilled in. A senior position.’

Calvary let the silence hang. Then he said, ‘You must be mad.’

‘I can assure you –’

‘This is the last time we’ll ever speak. You’ll never see me again. Or Gaines.’

‘
Wait –
’

‘Rot in hell, Llewellyn.’

He flung the phone high into the darkness, watched it arc over a row of bushes.

*

They were on the march once more, having found a water fountain and gorged themselves repeatedly. Calvary no longer supported the older man but had to put out a hand once or twice when he staggered.

From a pocket Calvary retrieved the other phone he’d taken from the cottage where Gaines had been kept.

‘
Ano?
’ She sounded guarded.

‘Nikola, it’s me. Can you talk?’

‘What happened? Where –’

‘Blažek’s dead. Killed himself. I showed him the picture Max took.’

She gasped.

‘How’s Max?’

‘We’re at the hospital. It’s a clean fracture of his upper arm. He doesn’t need surgery. They’re keeping him in overnight, though.’

‘Any trouble on the way?’

‘No. We got a few streets away, called an ambulance. The police are everywhere.’

He was at a loss for a moment. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I am unhurt.’

‘I mean... not physically.’

She didn’t answer, said, ‘Martin, is it over?’

‘Yes. Blažek’s gone for good, and most probably his empire with him. The Russians have failed to get Gaines and most of them are dead, anyway. They may come after us, so Gaines and I need to get away.’

‘Can we meet –’

‘No. I need to get away.’
Your life’s here in Prague
, it seemed unnecessary to say. ‘And you need to get some rest.’

‘Jakub, and Kaspar.’ She sounded as if she was talking to herself.

‘I didn’t know Kaspar, but Jakub was a good guy. He saved me. You all did.’

‘Martin –’

‘Best that we go. Goodbye, Nikola. And good luck.’

*

It hit him an hour and a half later.

They’d gone west, Calvary and Gaines, stumbling through the streets like two refugees from hell. Eventually the city streets gave way to suburbia. They had no money on them and they looked roughed up.

Calvary broke into a family saloon, a Mazda, that was parked outside a moderately prosperous house. He hotwired the ignition and disabled the alarm within seconds, too late to prevent lights from going on in the house. He felt bad about the theft, and made a mental note of the house number and the name of the street, telling himself he’d send some money in compensation whenever he next had the chance. He wondered if he was kidding himself.

Beside him Gaines dozed. They both needed food – he found a child’s chocolate bar in the glove compartment, which made him feel even more guilty, and they shared the meagre mouthfuls – and sleep. Plus medical attention, especially Calvary. The hole in his forehead was throbbing and when he touched the discharge seeping from it, his fingers smelled.

He kept off the motorways, with no real idea where he was going other than that it was in the broad direction of Austria. What he would do once he got there he didn’t know.

The unease tugged at him all the way. Something Llewellyn had said; or rather, something he’d said to Llewellyn.

On a country road winding between dark fields, the odour of manure pungent in the night air, Calvary slammed on the brakes, sending the car slewing sideways. Gaines jerked awake against his seatbelt, mumbling.

Calvary grabbed the phone.

It was answered, but in silence.

He said, ‘Nikola?’

The chuckle, the one he’d thought and hoped he’d never hear again.

‘Martin. I was
so
hoping you’d call.’

Calvary pressed himself back into the seat, his head pinned against the headrest. His fists gripped the phone and the steering wheel. His stomach roiled emptily. Bile felt as if it were sludging his throat closed.

Llewellyn had the upper hand.