Brian Freemantle: The Run Around

There was only distraction. He had to surprise the man, deflect the attack. Anything, until the Swiss got here. Hurry, he thought. For Christ’s sake hurry!

Zenin saw the woman’s hand come out of the briefcase, the heavy handgun clutched before her. It became an odd, slow-motioned sequence: there she was, out in the open and completely visible to everyone with a gun raised in her hand and they all appeared unaware, still smiling at the camera, all holding their poses. He saw the faintest puff of smoke and the jerky recoil, as she fired. Only then — and still slowly — did the stances begin to break but by that time Zenin was firing, moving easily with the rifle’s kick.

Charlie was at the door when the sound came, not an explosion but the fart of a silencer and he knew it immediately, like he knew immediately that he was too late. He pushed against the door, not expecting it to give but it did, so quickly that he actually stumbled into the room, off balanced.

The rifle farted again.

Everything registered instantly with Charlie. He saw the Russian turned practically away from him, attached to the rifle by the complicated professional harness and knew without having to look that it had been the photographic session and that there’d already been two shots and that so concentrated was the man that momentarily, despite the sound, the Russian was unaware of his entry.

And then there was the compressed hiss of a third shot.

‘NO!’ That’s all there was, just a yell: distract and deflect, nothing more. Certainly Charlie did not anticipate the reaction.

From the Russian there was no pause or hesitation, of surprise or fear. Zenin moved instantly and smoothly, trying to swing the rifle on its revolving stand around into the room to fight off whatever the intrusion and Charlie saw the movement and thought, Fuck it, I’m dead. He actually hoped it wouldn’t hurt.

But the gun would not completely swing. The silencer extension caught the edge of the window frame, jarring Zenin against the buttress he’d chosen to shield himself against the light. He swung again, harder this time, but still it was too long and again he rebounded off the wall extension. Trapped inside the harness, Zenin strained back, trying to bend the tripod away from its floor mountings to complete the movement and kill Charlie.

And Charlie realized the man’s helplessness.

He’d actually been half turned, hopelessly to run. Now he jerked back, dashing instead towards the man and lashing out with his fist when he reached him, wincing with the pain that shuddered up through his fist and into his arm when he connected just below the Russian’s left eye. There was another desperate jerk against the rifle and another collision with the buttress and Charlie properly realized it for the first time, snatching out for the rifle barrel with the hand that was not numbed.

Zenin saw what Charlie intended and tried to brace himself against it but so restricted was he by the leather vest there was no way he could stop it happening, just initially reduce the force of impart by stressing his feet against the floor and that only briefly. Charlie hauled the rifle back and forth, as if he were working a pump handle, battering the Russian encased at the other end against the sharply edged wall. The barrel was high now, far away from its target, and twice before the breath was driven from his body and he lost consciousness Zenin fired, trying to frighten Charlie’s grip away from the barrel. But Charlie did not let go, working it back and forth and back and forth, smashing the gradually weakening man into the buttress. Even when Zenin hung in apparent unconsciousness, blood smearing the wall and floor, Charlie did not stop, needing two hands against the barrel now and stopping, exhausted, only when the Russian became such a dead weight that he could not move him any more.

For several moments Charlie slumped where he was, actually bent over the rifle from which Zenin now lolled backwards, mouth open, snorting his unconsciousness. Charlie gulped at the air from the open window, vaguely aware of the scream of approaching police sirens, gradually aware of the panicked scene far away, too far away properly to distinguish. And then he saw the magnified sight, only inches from his face.

Experimentally Charlie pulled at it, isolating the restraining screw. He undid it, slid the sight from its housing and pulled himself up against the tripod, still needing its support. He used the sight like the spyglass it was, needing to adjust it only slightly.

He was perfectly able to see the blown-apart, blood-splattered body of James Bell being lifted on to a stretcher, American security men needlessly ringed around the dead Secretary of State, handguns drawn. They appeared to be standing over another body, too, and as Charlie watched medics lifted it on to a stretcher. Before they fully covered it with a blanket he saw it was Roger Giles, but only part of the man because the left side of his body wasn’t there any more. There was a third body from which everyone seemed to be standing back and Charlie adjusted the magnifier, better to see it, not sure until it was also lifted on to a stretcher. There was a huge, gaping hole in the side of Sulafeh Nabulsi’s body, to the left again like it was with the American security chief, but not quite so extensive because the hit had not been so direct.

Charlie swept the area, back and forth, trying to see if there were any more dead or injured, stopping abruptly when he identified David Levy. The Israeli delegation had already been hustled away to safety and the intelligence chief was looking calmly about him, standing apart from all the other scurrying security officials. And then, suddenly, Levy turned and looked directly up at the window from which Charlie was watching, as if it would be possible for one to see the other.

The final answers to the final questions flooded in upon Charlie, who pulled himself up unsteadily from his half-kneeling position. He lowered the spyglass but remained staring at the scene he could no longer properly see, realizing fully just how wrong he had been.

‘Oh you bastard,’ he said, quietly at first. Then, more loudly, ‘You bastard!’

Charlie became aware of running feet and shouting and moved away from the still unconscious body, not wanting wrongly to become a target by association for some trigger-happy policeman.

But it was Blom who came into the apartment first, pistol drawn. The white-haired, pink-featured man stared around, halting at the sight of Zenin still strapped to the rifle.

‘Satisfied now?’ asked Charlie.

Barbara Giles had taken up her husband’s suggestion to watch the opening ceremonies of the conference live on television and Martha Bell watched, too, because she always did when James was doing something publicly, so they both saw their men gunned down at the very moment it happened.

Aloud, Barbara said: ‘No, please no! I want to love you.’

Aloud, Martha said: ‘What’s going to happen to me!’

Both women, of course, were in shock.

On the Rue Dancet, where Charlie had hours before abandoned Alexander Cummings’s office car, the parking warden attached the second penalty ticket and made a note in his book to summon the tow-away service if it wasn’t moved in the next hour. Arrogant foreigners with their damned diplomatic plates believed they could do what they wanted and get away with it but the law said he could penalize them and so he would.

‘Bastard!’ yelled Charlie, again.

‘Why so upset?’ demanded Levy, mildly.

‘You knew, you fucking well knew!’ accused Charlie. He was tight with anger, fury shaking through him, relieved only that he was at least able to confront the Israeli security man. Charlie had been frightened he would be too late. Blom had delayed him, seeking a full briefing so that he in turn could provide a complete explanation to the Swiss security committee and the federal cabinet, so by the time Charlie got to the Bristol hotel the Israeli leaders, like all the other delegation heads, had already flown away from Geneva and the cancelled conference, each unwilling fully to accept the Swiss assurances that there was no risk from an ongoing assassination conspiracy.