Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

As Nikola pulled away, Max shook his head.

‘Still can’t believe you killed my van, man.’

There was little traffic on the street at this hour. As they turned at the end, Calvary glanced at an idling Audi. Saw a man and an elderly woman inside.

For an instant there was almost eye contact.

Then they were away and heading towards the lights.

They’d sat in the car for ten minutes, watching the entrance of the restaurant Nebe from across the street. A steady stream of people passed in and out, more leaving than arriving at this hour.

Nikola and Max both had prepaid phones. They took Calvary’s number, and he theirs.

To pass the time Calvary said, ‘Are the two of you related?’

Nikola gave a faint smile. ‘We are cousins.’

To Max he said, ‘But you grew up in Minnesota.’

Max turned to stare at him. ‘St Paul. How the hell’d you know?’

The rounded vowels, the singsong delivery. ‘Lucky guess.’

‘Yeah. Whatever.’ He gave Calvary a curious look. ‘My parents took me there when I was a baby. Three years old. The borders had just opened up and they got the hell out of Czechoslovakia. But I kept in touch with my big cousin here, always wanted to come back. Arrived here two years ago.’

‘To fight the good fight.’

‘Hey, you don’t need to make fun of us, man.’ The kid’s anger was genuine. ‘You’ve got your priorities, we’ve got ours. This asshole Blazek has screwed up more people’s lives than you could imagine. He needs to be taken down.’

‘I wasn’t making fun,’ said Calvary, quietly. He thought: nice one. You’re alienating the only people in this city who might be able to help you.

*

Calvary walked through the doors into the clatter of cutlery and crockery, the din of conversation. The place was dimly lit in red, the tables crowded.

Somebody touched his arm and he turned. A man sharply uniformed in a tuxedo had stepped up and was appraising Calvary, his expression chilly.

Calvary slipped a banknote out of his wallet and held it folded between two fingers. ‘Speak Russian?’

The man shrugged, looking as if he wanted to spit.

‘I’m looking for Bartos Blazek. Is he here?’

The man shook his head. Too quickly. Stepped back. Calvary brandished the note.

‘I’m not asking for an introduction. I just want to know if he’s here. A nod will do fine.’

A faint lifting of the eyes, past Calvary’s shoulder. Calvary looked round. Over the diners’ heads, through the hovering layer of smoke, he saw some sort of balcony. A mezzanine level.

He turned back to the maitre d’. ‘He up there himself?’

The man took the money, not quite snatching it. He leaned in again.

‘His son. Janos,’ he said in Russian.

Calvary fished out his phone, texted Nikola and Max. Janos Blazek is here.

He was making his way between the tables when a reply came from Max: Watch yourself. He’s dumb but mean.

Calvary thought about texting back I know , but didn’t.

A central flight of steps led up to the balcony that projected from the mezzanine. The bottom of the steps was crowded with people queueing to go up or come down. Waiters squirmed through, holding loaded trays precariously above their heads. Calvary headed for the steps.

An arm gripped his wrist.

As he began the instinctive manoeuvre to break free and counterattack, the other man pulled him close and pressed into the small of his back a hard steel object which he didn’t need to see to be able to identify. Another man appeared at his side, a third loomed ahead, at the foot of the steps leading up to the mezzanine. He jerked his head indicating up the stairs.

The maitre d’ must have tipped them off.

Calvary began to climb the steps, the gun pushed into his back. The two men took up positions on either side of him, the gunman bringing up the rear. They led him into the depths of the mezzanine. Ten or twelve booths lined the walls at the back on all three sides, the booths themselves insulated by partitions as high as a man’s shoulder. Access to them was through an opening about two people’s width across. All the booths were full and gold flashed from within some of them, rich laughter swirling like cigar smoke. The booth they were heading for was directly in the centre at the back.

They stopped at the entrance to the booth. Inside, still seated, were four men and three young women, pneumatic and feline, bleached blonde. Directly opposite Calvary was a lean man in his twenties in expensive but nasty clothes: light grey shiny three-piece suit, pink and white striped shirt with gold cufflinks, no tie. Calvary recognised the face from the encounter outside the hospital and in the bookshop. From the photos on the wall of the office. Janos Blazek.

Janos’s eyes were chips of blue, and slightly bloodshot as though he’d been drinking. They came into focus. c/fodth

He stood up, staring at Calvary. Triumph chased fury across his face.

He said something in Czech, raising his voice to be heard over the din. Calvary shook his head. ‘Russian or English.’

‘Who are you?’ Janos spoke English. His accent was thick and guttural.

Calvary said, ‘I’m the guy who skewered your friend through the throat on the tram. And wrecked your daddy’s BMW.’

The barrel of the gun drilled deeper into the area over Calvary’s left kidney. He realised, suddenly, that Janos had been one of the masked men on the tram. Realised it from the way Janos’s teeth clenched when he mentioned the man he’d killed.

‘I’m looking for the man you kidnapped,’ Calvary said. ‘Give him to me and I’ll leave you alone.’

Janos didn’t like Calvary’s reply because his face darkened and his fist slammed the table top, dislodging a glass. ‘You do not speak until I tell you. This man. Why he is important to you?’

So they didn’t know. It was a bargaining chip. Calvary felt a flash of optimism.

‘Tell me where I can find him, if you still have him, and I’ll tell you why he’s important.’

His face showed he was struggling with his anger. Then he said, ‘We have him.’

Janos wasn’t going to reveal any more, and it wasn’t worth trying to get him to. Calvary knew he had to get away, as far away as he could, and quickly. The advantage he had was that four of them were inside the booth and only three outside, so the odds were better than they appeared, but they weren’t going to stay that way for long.

Calvary glanced at the man on his right, one of his escorts up the steps. Beyond him he saw that a waitress had negotiated the traffic on the steps adroitly and was speeding over, trays in both hands carried at waist height and laden with tiny shot glasses, each crowned with flame. She was heading for the booth immediately to the right of Janos’s.

Calvary made his move.

*

Darya flicked the spent butt end into the street and sat bolt upright.

Men were swarming from cars towards the entrance of the restaurant like bees funnelling into a hive at the command of their queen. The cars were high-end ones. The men looked like athletic thugs. The drivers moved the cars — four of them — into a tight barrier along the pavement outside the entrance.

‘You see that?’ she almost shouted.

In her ear Tamarkin’s voice was shockingly close. ‘Yeah.’

‘Who are they?’

‘I’m not sure, but they look like gangbangers. The Blazek crew.’

She knew of Blazek. Everybody who spent time in the city did.

‘They must have something to do with our man. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.’

Tamarkin said, ‘I agree.’

They had followed the Fiat expertly after the first visual contact had been made, checking occasionally with Yevgenia that they were in fact following the signal she was monitoring. They’d taken up position at either end of the street, watching the Fiat until Calvary emerged, alone, and entered.