Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

The Toyota saloon sat with its rear-view mirror angled precisely, giving a clear view of the Fiat two hundred yards behind.

Tamarkin watched Calvary climb back in, and considered his options.

Krupina had dismissed them at two a.m., ordered them to get the sleep they needed before an early start in the morning. By early start she meant eight a.m. At the office. Two hours from now. Even if he didn’t make it on time, he’d say he had been doing some investigating on his own, visiting informants, seeking a paper trail, anything that might give them access to the mobster Blazek.

He had no idea what Calvary and his trio of oddball sidekicks were doing at the hotel. But he had to assume that Calvary would recognise him — perhaps he’d been watching when they had found the discarded bug the night before — and so he couldn’t approach more closely. Couldn’t follow Calvary if he went back into the hotel.

It had been a simple matter to plant the tracking device on the Fiat outside the club. Tamarkin had been on his own in the Toyota after Arkady had gone in. He kept the tracker under the seat for use at short notice. A low dash alongside the parked cars had brought him alongside the Fiat, unnoticed either by its occupants or by Krupina and Lev, parked in the Audi at the other end of the road. He fitted the tracker to the Fiat’s undercarriage where it remained held in place magnetically. Back in his Toyota he’d opened his palmtop computer, established that the signal was working.

It was insurance, his own way of keeping track of the car even if the bug on Calvary’s person was discovered. It had proved a good idea. After they’d found the discarded bug and returned to the office, Tamarkin had checked the progress of the Fiat. Once Krupina dismissed them, he followed the signal, found the Fiat parked in a quiet residential street. Empty, and with no indication where Calvary and the others had gone.

So he sat there, all night, allowing himself to slip into the controlled doze he’d mastered after years of stakeout work. At a little after five thirty they’d emerged.

Ten, twelve hours. That was Krupina’s estimate of how long it would take for reinforcements, SVR personnel rustled up at short notice, to arrive. Even if her best guess was right, there were still five hours left.

A dozen SVR operatives would take Calvary down, without difficulty. Tamarkin could contrive some story about how he managed to track Calvary to the hotel. It would be infinitely preferable to an assault by Blazek’s cack-handed, untrained thugs. But Blazek’s people could be here in half an hour. Perhaps sooner. Krupina’s troops weren’t even in Prague yet.

Tamarkin watched Calvary, the woman and the other two men leave the Fiat vdth and head for the entrance to the car park.

It gave him a little time.

*

Calvary had asked for an unused pay-as-you-go phone. Nikola kept a stash of them in her flat. She handed one over.

He’d done a quick survey of every floor of the parking lot, the others in tow. Two side-by-side lifts at the far end gave access to each floor, as did fire stairs adjacent to them. On the roof the early morning air was chill. The turrets of the old town loomed in the distance across the rooftops.

He led them back down to the fifth floor, one below the top.

Calvary dialled the number on the card he’d found in Zito’s wallet.

In a moment, a sleep-furred voice: ‘ No? ’

‘Is this Marek Zito?’ As usual Calvary used Russian. Zito had looked in his thirties, was therefore old enough to have had the language forced upon him as a boy and be at least reasonably proficient.

‘Yeah?’

In the background, an annoyed woman’s mutter.

‘Listen carefully. I’m not going to repeat myself. I’m the man who took your gun and wallet off you in the club last night.’

The shout blasted his ear. He could imagine the man leaping out of bed, knocking things over.

‘I want you to call your boss. Janos, not his father. Tell him to ring me on this number immediately. I have an offer for him. For him alone. Not Bartos.’

He cut the call.

They watched the phone in his hand. It rang less than two minutes later.

‘Who are — ’

He recognised the voice.

‘As I said to your friend, listen . Just so we get it clear from the start that I am who I say I am, I chucked a tray of burning drinks into your lap last night, disarmed your gunman, and generally made you look like a complete idiot in front of your cronies. Probably earned you a spanking from Daddy, too, I’d imagine. Ring any bells?’

Silence.

‘Good. Now I’ve learned I don’t have anything to fear from you, I want to propose an arrangement. Is anyone listening in on this conversation? Are you on speakerphone?’

‘No.’

‘I’m at the Premiera multi-storey car park on Chodov St { onpanreet. The top floor, on the roof. I’ll be here for half an hour. It’s now six ten by my watch. Six forty, I’m gone.’

‘What’s this — ’

‘Just listen. I can tell you why the man you have, Gaines, is so important. But I’ll tell only you. Not your father, not your uncle Miklos. Oh, and I want payment for it. Five hundred thousand koruna, cash.’

After a beat: ‘I can get this.’

Calvary knew he had him.

*

They stood saying nothing for a few seconds afterwards. It hit Calvary, the realisation of what he was planning. Of how risky it was.

Jakub walked to the chest-high wall that ran along the perimeter, peering down as if Janos could be out there already.

‘Can’t believe you said come alone .’ Max laughed, but there was a shake in it. ‘Bad line, man. Too many movies.’

‘Of course he won’t come alone. It’s what he’d expect me to say. He’ll assume I’m not alone, either.’ Calvary paced to get the blood flowing again, the muscles limber. ‘He started playing the game when he said he could get the money. Half a million koruna in half an hour? You’ve got to be joking.’

‘And you do not think he will tell his father?’ Nikola, this time. Face pale against the dark of her hair.

‘Highly unlikely. This is his moment. He won’t even tell many people. Just those closest to him. Anyone else might just go over his head and inform Bartos.’ He breathed deeply. ‘And that, I’m hoping, will keep the numbers down.’

Calvary swung to face them. ‘Jakub, I want you on the floor below us. You’re my backup if his men start coming up the ramps or the stairs.’

A nod.

‘All right. Nikola, you wait in the car. Watch the front entrance.’ He turned to Max. ‘You find a vantage point round the back, maybe across the street. Keep me up to date about anyone who might be approaching from that direction’

Jakub had the Glock. Calvary said, ‘You up to using that if need be?’

Jakub didn’t answer. Glared at him.

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

They could all feel it, the rising collective adrenaline tide.

Calvary said, ‘One more thing. Nikola and Max, if the shooting starts, you hide. Doesn’t matter where you are. Don’t run. At the moment they don’t know what you look like. But if you’re running, you’ll draw attention. And Janos will have backup down there. Make no mis {. Mven telltake. He’s not going to risk letting me getting away this time.’

*

Six thirty-five. The sun had struggled above the horizon and was tipping the distant spires orange.

Calvary crouched against the perimeter wall near the stairwell, behind a car somebody had left in the parkhouse overnight. He had the Browning out with its safety still engaged.

Five minutes left. He’d given Janos a very short deadline. Perhaps too short. Perhaps he’d overestimated the kid’s ability to organise a squad in time.