Severed (14 page)

We're in a small alcove with stairs leading up to the next floor. We stop at the bottom. I can't hear anything coming from up above, not a sound, which concerns me. This building's only three storeys, and if there's no-one up here, I really don't know where else to look.

'Where's the man I want?' I demand.

He motions with his head towards the top of
the stairs, and I wonder whether I'm being led into a trap. I watch him carefully. A line of blood runs all the way to his jaw where I've cut him. He's beginning to look nervous.

I click the knife's blade shut and put it in the back pocket of my jeans, then place an arm round Dracula's neck and pull him close, using him as a human shield as we lumber up the stairs together like some sort of pantomime horse.

'Next time there'll be no jab with the knife,' I hiss in his ear, ignoring the smell of wax and stale smoke that comes from there. 'I'll just settle for blowing your spine out.'

On the third or fourth step from the top, the third floor comes into view. The layout is the same, but the lighting is much harsher and the walls are painted a stark white which has stained with age.

Suddenly a door to the left opens, and lo and behold Rubberface appears. He's turning round and talking in Serbo-Croat to someone I can't see.

Moving fast, I shove Dracula up the last couple of stairs and swing him round so he's facing Rubberface.

Hearing the commotion, Rubberface turns our way and immediately curses. He's been caught off guard, and he freezes for a moment.

I know it's not going to take him long to gather his senses, and as soon as he does he's going to try to get back inside the door. I pull the gun away from its position against Dracula's spine, and point it straight at his torso.

'Move, and you get a bullet in the gut,' I state in tones that tell him I'm the one in control of this situation.

Unfortunately, I'm not. No longer under direct threat from the Glock, Dracula seizes his chance and grabs at my wrist, bucking and kicking as he tries to break my grip on his neck. I stumble back, and Dracula uses his free arm to try to elbow me in the belly; but I twist away from the blow and put every ounce of my strength into squeezing the air out of his throat. He chokes and gasps but keeps struggling, and I'm sent crashing backwards into the wall, my gun arm thrust high in the air as Dracula yanks at it. Rubberface is yelling something else in Serbo-Croat, and now I know that I've got seconds to retrieve matters, otherwise I'm finished.

Bouncing back off the wall, I slam my knee
into Dracula's coccyx. I'm sure he would have cried out in pain had he been able to breathe, but the pressure he's under finally takes its toll. His grip on my wrist loosens, and I pull my arm free. I'm swinging it back to smack him in the head with the barrel in a final effort to take him out of the equation when he grabs my wrist again, stopping the gun's trajectory at just the point when the barrel's facing his temple.

It's a mistake. My finger's already tight on the trigger, and the sudden force he applies causes a further involuntary tightening.

The noise of the Glock firing explodes in my ears, and I feel a warm splash on my arm as a gout of blood from what's left of the side of Dracula's head lands there. More blood splatters heavily on the carpet, and he goes limp in my arms. It may have been an accident, but it was also a perfect shot, straight into his temple, killing him near enough instantly.

Military training emphasizes the need in battle to compartmentalize your feelings. You need to kill without compunction or emotion, and then to move straight on to the next target, so I drop him to the floor and step straight over his corpse, the Glock held tight in both hands as
I approach the door Rubberface has just disappeared through. No more than five seconds have passed since he made good his escape, but I've lost my most effective weapon, surprise, and now the whole dynamic has changed because they know I'm coming. As soon as I step through that door, I'm likely to take a bullet. If I go in commando-style, rolling, I'll have no idea where my targets are and I'm still going to end up shot, particularly if that rat-faced bastard with the MAC-10's in there. I need to think of something else, and fast.

Then a girl screams.

It comes out of nowhere; or, more accurately, it comes from somewhere behind the door. It's full of panic, and it stops me dead in my tracks. I hear it again, louder now. There's pain there, too, I'm sure of it, and my adrenalin goes into overdrive all over again.

The door begins to open.

'Help me,' I hear her beg. 'You've got to help me.'

The door's open about six inches now, and I can see a head appearing in the gap. I stand frozen to the spot, the gun outstretched in my hands, the end of the barrel barely a couple of
feet from her. I have no idea what is going on.

'Come out here slowly.'

'They've hurt me,' she sobs.

I repeat the instruction. I'm not going in there.

The door opens further, and a terrified-looking young woman with a mane of blonde hair, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, rushes towards me, oblivious to the gun, an expression of huge relief on her face.

I'm already lowering the gun as she runs into my arms, burying her head in my shoulder. I breathe in her clean, musky smell, and then she pulls back and her eyes meet mine. I'm trans-fixed. It's like gazing into dark pools.

Which is unfortunate, really, because by the time I realize she's holding something by her side, it's far too late.

One hand whips out and, with surprising strength, knocks the Glock out of my grasp, while the other slams the stun baton into my side, and for the second time that day I judder wildly as God knows how many volts go shooting through my body.

I just have time to curse myself for being so damn stupid before my legs go from under me and I crash heavily to the floor.

I'm not out for long, probably no more than three or four seconds. When I come round I can feel my shirt being pulled off, along with my bulletproof vest. I'm dragged to my feet by more than one pair of hands and led stumbling down the hallway, then up some more stairs, even though I didn't think there was another floor. No-one speaks.

A door appears, and I'm pushed through it. It's dark in here, and cooler than outside. I'm shoved into a chair, and I finally see who my captors are. One is the girl. The other is Rubberface, who slaps me hard across the face. There's real force in the blow, and it knocks me sideways. I kick out, catching him in the shin,
and try to stand up, but he slaps me again, knocking me back down. My right cheek feels like it's on fire.

'Move again, and you get another dose of the baton,' he snarls, coming in close and showing perfect white teeth.

There's a leather restraint on the chair, which gives me a good idea what they use this room for, and which is why I'm not keen to remain in it. Rubberface pulls it round my midriff and buckles it at the back, pulling it tight. While he does this, the girl holds the stun baton against my leg. I glare at her, and she turns away. I can tell she's not really enjoying this.

'What are we going to do with him, Marco?' she asks, sounding worried.

'Forget him,' he snaps. 'And don't use my name, even in front of a dead man. OK?'

He grabs her arm roughly when he says this, and she gives him a frightened look of compliance. It's obvious she knows her place. Even after what she's done to me, and the fact that she's responsible for whatever's coming next (and Marco's kind of given the game away now), I still feel sorry for her.

He turns and gives me a contemptuous glare,
then snatches the baton and thrusts it right into my groin. The pain is like nothing I've ever felt before. It literally takes my breath away. I shiver and twitch under my restraints while simultaneously gasping for air. He holds it there. The bastard holds it there, the drum-tight skin of his face forming a pathetic version of a smile.

'That's for trying to fuck me about,' he says.

I feel myself blacking out as he pulls the baton away. I fight unconsciousness, but it creeps up on me, and the world of violence that is all I've experienced today fades away like a headland in a sea mist. I hear the door shutting, then nausea rises up in me and I heave twice before throwing up all down my front. It's a horrible feeling, but it stops me from going under and brings me back to the real world with a bang, although it's debatable whether or not I actually want to be here.

I spit out the last of the vomit, sit back in my seat and take a couple of deep breaths, ignoring the foul taste in my mouth. I look around the room. It's small, with a low ceiling and bare concrete walls, and it smells of damp. The only light comes from a tiny window to my right which illuminates the thousands of dust
particles floating in the stale air. The window has a long crack in it that runs left to right at a crooked angle, and the threadbare carpet is dirty and stained dark in patches. There's not much in the way of furnishings: a couple of cheap wooden chairs, and beyond them an ancient piece of machinery that I think must once have been a workman's lathe. Also, next to my chair is a rusty electric cooker. I try not to think about whether it works, and if so, what it gets used for.

The door opens again and a man in a boiler suit walks in. He's small and middle-aged, with big glasses. He shuts the door behind him, walks over to the chair opposite me and sits down. He's holding a jumbo packet of pistachio nuts, and he takes one out, flicks off the shell with an expert touch, and chucks it into his mouth. As he chews, he watches me with interest. Underneath the thick lenses of his out-size spectacles his eyes are bright with malignance, and utterly without mercy.

'What do you come back for, man?' he asks, his voice soft and lilting, his accent, like the others, Eastern European. As he speaks, he snaps the shells off another couple of nuts and
tosses them onto the carpet.

Sitting here, trapped, I'm asking myself exactly the same thing. I'm also wondering how many more minutes there are left before Lucas raises the alarm.

'You told my boss that you knew the real name of the man you picked up the briefcase from. Yeah? Tell me. What is it?'

Not for the first time, I curse myself for letting this slip. 'I don't know.'

He grins. 'You think we won't get it out of you? Sure we will.' He pops another nut. 'The man you just shot is called Pero. That was real stupid, scaring our customers like that.' He shakes his head. 'Now, I got to be honest with you, man. You're going to have to die. We can't have someone forcing his way in here and killing one of our people. It's disrespectful, you know? But there are different ways of dying. Some can be pretty painless, like the bullet in the back of the head.' He makes the shape of a gun with his thumb and forefinger, puts it against his temple, and imitates pulling the trigger. 'One shot, and bang, it's all over. No more problems, no more hassles. Just a nice long sleep. But there are other ways too, man. Ways
that aren't so nice.' He pauses again, but this time it's for effect rather than sustenance. 'Pero, the man you killed . . . His cousin's here, and man, he loves to hurt people. And now, after what you've done to his cousin, he really wants to work on you, too.' He gives a mock shudder. 'But I can stop him. All you have to do is tell me the real name of the man who gave you the briefcase, and anything else you know about him, and I'll make it quick. OK? Is that a deal?'

He tries to smile, and I feel a pang of real fear.

Using the end of the nail on my middle finger, I have gained some leverage on the flick-knife handle, and millimetre by millimetre I am lifting it up in the pocket. It requires immense concentration, but I can't afford to look anything other than interested in the offer that's being put to me.

'How do I know you won't let him torture me anyway?' I ask.

'You don't,' he answers with an honesty I wasn't expecting. 'But that's a risk you're going to have to take.'

I look like I'm thinking about it. The handle's exposed about a quarter of an inch now. I try to
grab it with my thumb and middle finger, but can't quite get a grip.

'Don't fuck me about, man,' he snaps. 'What's his name?'

It's clear they still think Ferrie's holding something back from them, and I briefly wonder what it can be. 'OK, OK,' I say, making it sound like I've come to a decision. The end of the nail's hooked under the handle again, and I continue to try to get it out of my pocket. 'His name's Terry Douglas.' It's the first name that comes to my head. The father of my first girlfriend. An ex-boxer turned property developer who never thought I was good enough for his daughter. 'I, er . . .' I pause, buying time, because as soon as I give him the rest of the information I'm dead.

I try once again to get a proper grip on the handle, and this time it comes free. I feel for the button that releases the blade, and find it. I am ten seconds away from death. My torturer is looking at me expectantly, and I'm trying to work out whether or not he's armed and whether it'll be him who delivers the fatal shot. I am absolutely terrified, and it takes all my willpower to keep my hands from shaking.

'We served together in the police,' I say, more loudly than I need to so that I muffle the click of the blade opening.

'The police?' He shakes his head angrily. 'You're fucking me about, man. We know all about you. You weren't in the police.'