Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

He’d thought about his answer to this one, too. The truth would put them off. But if he gave them too little information, or misled them entirely, he risked reducing his chances of the three of them working out why Blazek had taken Gaines. ‘His name’s Sir Ivor Gaines. British expatriate. I’ve been sent to fetch him back.’

Max said, ‘So you’re, what, like a spy? MI6?’

Calvary winced inwardly. Nobody in SIS called it MI6. ‘Something like that.’

‘So why does Blazek want this g Sk wng uy?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Calvary stood, stretched, the stiffness creeping in already. He paced.

‘Tell me about Blazek. This empire of his.’

Nikola followed him with her eyes. ‘He has the city under his control. Hard drugs, prostitution — and I mean people trafficking. Extortion, loan sharking, fraud. As well as old-fashioned robbery. He took over in the late 1990s, using cunning and brute force. United the rival gangs that had grown up during the communist years with the new ones that appeared after liberation. Now it is a dynasty. His brother and son, Miklos and Janos respectively, are set to take over from him, in that order. Janos is this guy.’ She pointed at a picture of the man Calvary had injured with the car door. ‘He’s young and stupid, he’ll never get there.’

At that moment the door to the basement office swung open.

Calvary was across the desk on his belly, the Browning in his extended arm. He flicked the safety off.

They converged on the War Council chamber from all over the city, in their Mercs and their Beamers and in some cases Cadillacs. The chamber was a converted barn in reclaimed forest land to the north west, fully equipped with central heating and air conditioning, a staffed kitchen and overnight facilities. The last two wouldn’t be necessary. This wouldn’t take long.

Bartos arrived a little before nine. Miklos was there already. No concern in his eyes, despite his older brother’s scuffed and bruised appearance. Bartos disapproved of sentimentality.

‘Janos here?’ said Bartos.

‘Not yet.’

‘That prick.’

Inside the chamber was a heavy conference table in the shape of a horseshoe. Bartos sat at the midpoint of the curve, drank mineral water and watched the cars arriving. They filed in, his lieutenants, sombre in dark suits. Ten in total. Janos wasn’t quite the last to get there, but close to it. Bartos thought his limp was exaggerated. The little shit had been bumped by a car door. He, Bartos, had survived a full-on crash.

When the room was full, Bartos got straight to the point.

‘This bastard’s made a fool out of me. Out of all of you, too.’

He ticked off points on his fingers, gazing at each man in turn. ‘One guy dead. Skewered through the throat like a pig, with a fucking umbrella . Pavel, a fellow his size, floored. While two of my men stood by with their heads up their asses and watched.’ He held up a warning finger as Janos made to speak. ‘Chaos outside the hospital. Wrecked cars, bookshop staff whose silence we’re having to enforce. So much for a low profile, people.’ He swallowed, hard. Ten, nine, eight… ‘And my BMW six series. Written off.’

He drew a deep breath, the only sound in the room. ‘One guy. One guy . Then some dipshit van, this tin can on wheels, comes along and spirits him away. And can we trace it? Can my people, the finest, handpicked modern businessmen in the city, find one pissant little Toytown van? Can you fuck.’

The silence hovered like a terrified waiter.

Bartos exploded: ‘Well? Come on. Someone help me out. I want to hear how you’re going to put it right.’

Janos tried to speak, cleared his throat, tried again. ‘I’ll — ’

‘You’ll scurry off with your drugs and your whores and keep out of the way. You’ve done enough screwing up.’

None of the men dared look at Janos. Bartos had never spoken to his son like that before, not in front of the others. He didn’t care.

Miklos said, ‘Put me in charge. I’ll find this man, and the people who rescued him.’

‘See?’ Bartos raised his palms to the heavens, looking round at them. ‘That’s initiative. That’s the can-do spirit.’ He nodded at Miklos. ‘Okay. Done. Before we get down to details, I want the security doubled on the Englishman, Gaines. A dog pisses against a hydrant within a mile of him, I want the pooch’s balls served up with a pasta sauce.’

Across from him, he saw Janos’s face burning.

*

Krupina cleared the stairs two at a time, ignoring the complaints from her unaccustomed knees. She’d barked her instructions to Yevgenia on the way and when she entered the office she saw Tamarkin bent over Yevgenia’s workstation, both their faces flushed with excitement.

‘Something?’

‘Have a look at this, boss.’ Tamarkin’s grin wasn’t sardonic as usual.

On the screen a soft turquoise blip pulsed gently, a beacon in the centre of a street map. From the street names she knew the area was in the south of the city.

‘You’re certain?’

‘Positive,’ said Yevgenia.

Then Oleg had proved himself, right to the end. He hadn’t got close enough to the target, Gaines, to drop the tag on him. But he’d become aware of Calvary on board the tram with him. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned Calvary meant the English agent had been so close to him he might have been eavesdropping on Oleg’s muttered conversation into his microphone. And so he’d contrived to drop the tag, the spider, on Calvary, in the hope that this might give Krupina and Tamarkin and the others a lead.

Which it had.

‘How far, exactly?’ murmured Krupina.

‘Five po [0"›Hint six kilometres,’ Yevgenia said immediately.

Beside her Tamarkin was pulling on his jacket. Krupina breathed out, long.

‘I’m coming along. Arkady, Lev too.’

*

‘Something else I haven’t mentioned,’ Calvary said. ‘There are Russians involved.’

The man in the door had frozen, eyes wide at the sight of the gun. It was odd that Calvary first saw him like this, because afterwards he noticed the man’s eye’s were usually hooded, half closed.

‘Jakub,’ Nikola said, fear catching at her throat.

Calvary raised the Browning, thumbed the safety back on. Slid his torso off the desk.

Jakub was older than the others. Perhaps thirty five. His hair was long, wavy and streaked with grey. He wore a leather coat that reached down to his ankles. A ‘duster’ from a spaghetti western.

He stepped in, eyes fixed on Calvary’s. Nikola said, ‘Jakub, this is Mr Calvary. A friend.’

‘Friend.’ With the one word, Calvary could tell Jakub’s English was limited. He came close, didn’t offer his hand. The hostility ebbed off him in waves.

*

Nikola brought him up to date, which was when Calvary mentioned the Russians.

‘They were surveilling Gaines from the start. He’s a traitor, possibly working for them. They’d have him under observation, it stands to reason. The Russian who got shot on the tram was one of them.’

Jakub watched him, rubbing the stubble on his cheeks.

Calvary said, ‘Can you think of any connection Blazek might have with the Russians?’

‘He hates them,’ said Nikola. ‘He’s completely bigoted about them. It’s well known. He won’t have them in his crew.’

‘So, snatching Gaines could be Blazek cocking a snook at the Russians? That assumes he knew they had some link with Gaines.’

Calvary sat against a desk, steepled his hands, blew slow air between them. An impasse.

All right.

He said to Nikola, ‘Do you have any information on properties Blazek owns?’

She stood beside Jakub, who was still regarding Calvary with hooded distrust. Contempt, even. Nikola said: ‘He owns enormous quantities of property. If you are wondering whether we might narrow down the range of places this Gaines has been taken to… no. There are scores of possibilities.’