SEVERANCE KILL (28 page)

THIRTY-ONE

The sun had risen an hour earlier and hung low and watery in a pale cocoon of cloud. It would have been warmer to sit in the car with the engine running, but Calvary needed to keep moving to loosen up the joints and get the blood through the muscles. He paced slowly and steadily beside the vehicle. Gaines sat in the passenger seat, glancing about.

The field lay on the outskirts of the city, to the north west. A potholed mudstreaked track curved down from the main road to a gate in a low stone wall. Calvary had pulled through the gate and driven some way in and swung round to face the gate, a hundred yards or so from it. Behind, sweeping up to the road, was a grassy bank with a drainage ditch separating it from the field. Off to the left, half a football pitch’s length away, was the edge of a pine forest.

Every time the noise of a car came down from the road he turned to look, but each one swept by without slowing. Calvary wasn’t all that conspicuous, a man standing next to a car in a field, but he assumed it was private property and didn’t know how likely it was that whoever owned it would find him there.

His phone said it was seven fifteen. He’d synchronised it with Llewellyn an hour before.

*

‘A straight swap. You and Gaines for the young lady.’

Gaines frowned and blinked in the seat beside him.

When Calvary didn’t answer Llewellyn said, ‘Oh, come on, Martin. It’s nothing personal. You know that.’

He’d screwed up, in two ways. By asking Llewellyn to run a check on Nikola and the others earlier, he’d allowed the man to find out her address. And by telling Nikola the battle was over, he’d given her the green light to return home. Llewellyn had already guessed what Nikola meant to Calvary.

‘How long have you been in Prague?’ His voice grated like an unoiled hinge.

‘Since yesterday morning. As soon as you told me the mobsters had taken Gaines, I decided to come over.’

With how much backup? Calvary had no idea. There’d be SIS agents here in the city. How many were affiliated with the Chapel?

Llewellyn went on: ‘Let me give you the location of the rendezvous. There’s a –’

‘No. I decide.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Do you think I’m stupid? If you set it up it’ll be an ambush.’

‘You’re hardly in a position –’

‘To be dictating terms? Aren’t I? if this exchange doesn’t happen, I have the girl’s fate on my conscience. You on the other hand lose both me and Gaines. I don’t think you’d like that.’

The smile was there again in Llewellyn’s voice. ‘Fair enough. Name your place.’

‘I will once I’ve decided on it.’

‘Within the hour.’

‘That’s not possible. It’ll take me two hours at least to get back to Prague.’ It was an exaggeration, but it would buy him time. ‘I’ll call you.’

*

It was seven thirty-five when two vehicles turned and began to lumber down the track towards the gate. A Skoda saloon and a minibus.

Calvary tapped on the roof of the car. Gaines clambered out and they watched the vehicles pass through the gate. Calvary gestured at them, indicating that the drivers should move deeper into the field so that they were closer to the gate than he was. The drivers complied; it was insurance and Llewellyn understood it. When the Skoda and the minibus were a hundred yards or so away, Calvary held up a palm and they stopped.

Llewellyn stepped out of the passenger seat of the Skoda. He raised his chin, beamed. The driver emerged as well: nobody Calvary knew, an impassive functionary. Two men appeared from the back of the minibus, helping Nikola step down through the sliding door. Calvary could see she was pale, gaunt, her hair straggling over her face.

Calvary drew the Makarov from the back of his waistband and held it away from him so that it was clearly visible. At the same time, casually, the two men from the minibus stepped forward in front of Llewellyn. They drew handguns of their own, as did the driver.

Llewellyn led Nikola forward by the arm, not roughly. She was staring across, but Calvary wasn’t sure if she recognised him. Had they drugged her?

Calvary had phoned Llewellyn nearly an hour earlier from the field, giving him the location, referring to a few distinctive features he’d spotted on the way to make it easier to find. He’d ended by saying: ‘The girl gets swapped for Gaines first. I need to know she’s safe, before you take me.’

Calvary raised his hand, waving it until it caught Nikola’s gaze.

‘Nikola. Start walking forward, slowly. Don’t run, but don’t stop, either.’

Slowly, as if stepping on a path of stones across a pond, she began to pick her way forward across the wet grass.

Calvary said, ‘All right, Sir Ivor.’

The older man started moving towards her.

Calvary raised the gun and aimed it at arm’s length at Llewellyn. Gaines’s pace was a fraction quicker than Nikola’s. Calvary muttered to him to slow down a bit.

Nikola seemed to be taking ever smaller steps. Calvary reflected that anyone driving by on the road above who gave them even a cursory glance would see the guns. He didn’t want to panic her so he said, loudly enough to be heard, ‘You’re doing great, Nikola. Just a bit further.’

He kept his eyes on her, but on the borders of his vision he saw Llewellyn standing motionless a little behind the other three men, who held their guns pointing down at their sides. For a few moments the only sounds were the susurration of a light wind in the pine trees off to the left and the faint mulchy noise of Gaines’s and Nikola’s footsteps, and the slow intake and outlet of Calvary’s breathing.

They would pass each other in ten seconds, he estimated.

He watched Gaines angle inwards a fraction so that he passed directly by Nikola as they drew parallel. Beyond, Llewellyn’s men tensed visibly. Calvary couldn’t hear the older man’s murmur, hoped it had come.

Nikola advanced, her eyes fixed on Calvary’s now.

The crack arced across the flat expanse of the field.

Gaines gave an oddly high-pitched cry and was flung off his feet to land in a sprawl with his neck twisted and his face pressed against the grass.

Calvary yelled at Nikola to
run
but she had stopped and was standing with her hands pressed to the sides of her head. Across the field there was bewilderment and shouting as the men assimilated what had happened and the three with guns turned to look at the forest. Hoarseness rasped in Calvary’s voice, and at last Nikola’s gaze swung from the body on the ground back to Calvary. She took off at a scramble toward him, feet slithering for an instant on the wet grass.

The men across the field were swinging to stare in their direction again when a second crack lashed the air and Nikola went down.

A third, two seconds later. Calvary bounced off the door of the Mazda, his face hitting the sodden grass.

*

He’d landed on the passenger side of the Mazda, which was angled out of the line of sight of Llewellyn and his men. From beneath the car he watched the turmoil across the field, Llewellyn ducking inside the Skoda alongside his driver while the remaining pair of men crouched facing in the direction of the trees, weapons levelled but not firing – there was nobody they could see to fire at – and backing towards the minibus.

Much nearer, Nikola’s face was turned towards him on the grass. He caught her eye. Gave a nod, which she returned.

She’d caught Gaines’s whispered instruction.

Calvary rose and hauled open the passenger door, which Gaines had left ajar, dropped in. Through the windscreen he saw Nikola scramble to her feet and reach the driver’s side. She was fast now, all fatigue gone, and she fired the engine and brought the Mazda swinging in an arc alongside Gaines, who was still prone, his head raised. Calvary reached behind him and popped the rear door and Gaines slumped inside, almost catching his leg as he slammed the door shut.

Nikola floored the accelerator and J-turned the car, the wheels churning the ground in a fan of mud and grass. They’d spun a hundred and eighty degrees and the Mazda was now facing the grass bank at the back of the field, leading up to the road and separated from it by a wooden fence. She gunned the engine.

Calvary checked his wing mirror, realised the impact of the bluff had worn off. Both vehicles were on the move, the minibus coming after them, the Skoda veering away towards the gate, meaning to head them off up on the road if we managed to get there. Through the front window of the minibus one of the men aimed his pistol.

The first shot smashed off Calvary’s wing mirror. Ahead the drainage ditch was approaching fast, six feet wide. Beyond it was the bank. Calvary leaned back through the window with the Makarov and loosed off two shots. He heard glass shatter. Then the Mazda leaped across the ditch and its nose hit the base of the grass bank, the front bumper crumpling and the jolt flinging them forward in their seats. The front tyres found purchase on the bank and they were scrabbling and clawing their way up the verge, Nikola having geared down to first. Calvary risked a look back out the window. His shots hadn’t done much damage but they’d caused the driver to slow down, and that had been his undoing because he’d reached the ditch at too low a speed. The van had tipped into it and slammed to a stop. One of the gunmen had been thrown out of the open door into the ditch. The front passenger was trying to kick through the shattered windscreen.

The Mazda approached the top of the bank, building up speed as the slope became less steep, and as they crested it Calvary saw the Skoda reach the top of the track off to the left in parallel with them and begin to turn right on to the road. Nikola muttered something in Czech, a prayer perhaps, and the battered front of the car bashed through the wooden fence at the top of the bank, splintering the wet and rotten wood. The Mazda swung right on to the road as the Skoda gunned towards them from their left, a hundred yards away and closing fast. The Mazda’s gears and tyres shrieked as they took off down the road through the forest.

Nikola took them through an S-bend with astonishing skill, but Llewellyn’s driver was good, too, and he kept pace. Calvary didn’t look back, kept staring at the forest flashing past until he said, ‘There.’ Between the trees, a slight figure had emerged, one arm encased in white, the other hauling the rifle like a hod of bricks.

Max.

‘Brake,’ said Calvary. Nikola slowed and Calvary pushed open the door and rolled out on the tarmac and was up instantly, waving Nikola on and loping over to Max and grabbing the rifle from his hands. He swung it to bear just as the Skoda rounded the bend.

Calvary took out the front passenger tyre with a single clean shot.

The saloon swerved wildly and veered to its right and smashed into the base of a tree, glass shattering.

Calvary said to Max, ‘Stay back.’ He laid down the rifle and drew the Makarov.

Steam billowed from beneath the sails of the car’s buckled bonnet. Calvary couldn’t see much inside the car as he approached because the airbags had bloomed and were obscuring the interior. He peered in through the driver’s window. The driver had his eyes closed, was murmuring. Calvary found a stick with a sharp point and slit the airbag. It hissed and settled across the man’s lap. Calvary reached in and switched the ignition off.

He walked round the other side and deflated Llewellyn’s airbag. He was conscious, shifting each arm and leg in turn to test them. When he looked up, Calvary couldn’t read his expression. 

Calvary raised the Makarov and touched the muzzle lightly, gently, against Llewellyn’s forehead. He looked past it, at Calvary’s eyes.

Enough
.

Calvary lifted the gun away from his head and flicked the safety on and walked down the road towards Max. Beyond him Nikola was reversing back up the road towards them. Another car was bound to come past any moment and they needed to be out of there.

Halfway down the road Calvary turned.  He didn’t know why.

The smile, the mocking eyes.

Llewellyn raised a hand to his forehead and tipped Calvary a salute.

THIRTY-TWO

Through the window the early afternoon light soaked the trees in shades of green and gold. The engineering of the train was precise so that the quiet rhythm of the carriage’s wheels on the tracks was barely noticeable. The middle-aged woman sitting opposite had glanced briefly at Calvary, at the bandage swaddling his head, but lost interest quickly and was now asleep.

He put his head against the window where it was cool, and closed his eyes.

They had crossed into eastern Germany an hour earlier. There had been no checkpoint, as there seldom was nowadays on the borders between EU countries. Nonetheless he’d watched for roadblocks on both sides. Given what Prague had been through over the last forty-eight hours he was unsurprised by the number of police vehicles that seemed to have infested the country’s roads.

*

After calling Nikola’s phone and finding Llewellyn on the other end, he’d told Gaines about the change of plan. Gaines hadn’t protested, had simply closed his eyes and nodded. A few calls had established which hospital Max was at. Calvary had rung Max on the ward phone – there was no way he’d get in to visit at this hour – and told him about Nikola.

‘I’m out of here,’ said Max. He’d discharged himself against medical advice, had met Calvary in the car park outside. He walked painfully, his chest bound and his left arm in a cast and supported by a sling.

They’d gone through the plan. Max had never fired a rifle before. Calvary made him understand that it would be ludicrously awkward to try to fire one with one arm in plaster. Max told him to stop being an old woman.

‘Fire in our direction, but not at us.’

‘Got it.’

‘I’m serious, Max. If you hit any of us by accident, we won’t be getting up.’

‘Dude…’

And he’d done it, masterfully, creating the impression that some unknown third party, perhaps a remnant of Blažek’s or Krupina’s group, was picking off Calvary and his friends. 

They’d returned to a city reeling in bewilderment, the chaos of the night’s events beyond most people’s grasp. There was no chance of returning to Nikola’s flat, or Max’s either. They’d found a motel on the northern outskirts, where they could access a room without all four of them parading past the desk.

In the shabby confines of the motel room Nikola tended Calvary’s head, applying antiseptic and bandages, wincing every time he did. She turned her attention to Gaines. He tried a smile.

‘I’m first class, young lady. But thank you.’

Calvary said, ‘You need to get Max back to the hospital.’ The young man’s face had a green hue, and each breath clearly lanced at his chest.

Max said, ‘Can’t believe they drilled your head.’

They ate and drank all they could manage. Nikola and Max came up with the price of a train ticket for both men. They would have offered more but Calvary refused.

It was time to go. Calvary gripped Max’s hand.

‘Ah, jeez.’ The kid turned away, sniffed. ‘Arm hurts, man.’

Nikola pressed herself against Calvary, her body and her mouth. He started to say something but she waved him away, her glance quick and liquid.

‘Go.’

*

Calvary dropped Gaines off just inside the German border. He parked near a bus depot and walked the fifty yards with him to the depot’s office, where there would be timetables.

Gaines said, ‘What will you do?’

‘I’m not going to tell you. Obviously.’ Calvary said.

Gaines turned, gave Calvary his hand. ‘I’m really most grateful.’

‘Even though I might have killed you. Even though you’ve been through two days of hell, and your life here is destroyed forever.’

‘They would have fed me to the Russians sooner or later. This… Chapel, or whatever they call themselves. And that would have been disastrous.’

‘Yes.’

He gave a silent laugh. ‘I don’t just mean for me personally.’ Stepping a little closer he said, ‘I might as well tell you. Your Mr Llewellyn can’t be aware of this, but I know who TALPA is. The mole, the real one. Yes, I’ve been fed disinformation; I knew that was what it was at the time, and I assumed it was so that I wouldn’t compromise the real mole if I ever fell into Moscow’s hands. I might have held my own under questioning, enough that my interrogators would have believed the false information. But I might not have. By delivering me from Mr Llewellyn, from Moscow, you’ve done your country a great service.’

My country.
Calvary suppressed a laugh of his own. He said, ‘And you’re not going to tell me who this mole is.’

‘Obviously.’

Calvary watched his back as he headed for the office, an old man with a stoop now that was more pronounced than in the beginning, as if his shoulders had recently taken on a weight.

*

The last light of the afternoon came coldly through the window. Alone in the carriage now, Calvary huddled into the corner of his seat. His eyes were closed, the unfamiliar Saxony fields and towns through the window having long ago lost their appeal. The train’s destination was Berlin, but he was going to change well before that.

He thought about Llewellyn, and how he’d looked as Calvary had pressed the barrel of the pistol against his forehead. For a second his face had morphed into that of the young man, Pelabo Ghilzai, the one he’d failed to kill in Garmsir.

But of course it wasn’t him. Nobody ever would be.

Calvary thought of the old man, Gaines, a stranger to him until right at the very end, an object he’d been intending to erase like a speck of grease. He thought of Nikola, of Max, of Jakub, dead. He thought Gaines and the three Czechs were among the bravest people he had ever met.

He had money to last a while, shored up in bank accounts Llewellyn wouldn’t be able to reach. Apart from that he had nothing. He could never return to England. He’d be looking over his shoulder forever, expecting to see Llewellyn’s Punch-like grin close behind.

And he needed urgent medical attention, because he’d had a bloody great hole drilled in his head.

But he was free, for now at any rate. He’d helped bring down Blažek, a blight on the lives of Prague’s citizens. He’d saved Sir Ivor Gaines, a good man – and, it seemed, an important one – from torture and death in a Moscow cell.

And he was alive.

For the first time in as far back as he could remember, Calvary smiled.

THE END