Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

‘Where is Gaines.’

‘Why are you trying to find him.’

The same two questions, almost contradictory in what they implied, repeated like a chant.

Lev had done this before. There was a real art to it, or a craft, at any rate. You had to know when to stop, so that you didn’t penetrate the dura mater, the outer covering of the brain. Or, worse, the frontal lobes of the brain itself.

The Englishman’s face was obscured behind a caul of blood. His eyes were closed now, his breathing disturbingly slow and even.

A professional. So pain wasn’t going to work, nor fear of mutilation.

*

Returning was always highly unpleasant, rather like being born: from the hot suspended cradle of safety to the violent, screaming world of light and pain.

His eyes were gummed and stinging, his cheeks tacky and his mouth clotted with congealing blood. He couldn’t seecoum" a his forehead but knew what had happened. He felt violated, penetrated.

The pain was terrible, a living untameable beast ravening through Calvary’s skull, down his neck.

The woman, Krupina, looked down at him, her face expressionless. Then she said something to the younger man beside her, Arkady. The man drew a pistol from inside his jacket and stepped forward. He pressed the barrel against Calvary’s forehead, beside the hole there, flicked off the safety. The older man in shirtsleeves, the wielder of the drill, moved away.

Calvary looked back up at Krupina, her face distorted as his vision began to blur.

‘I have a cell phone number that will get me through to Blazek,’ Calvary said. ‘It’s me he wants. I can set up a meeting with him. You can take him down then.’

He didn’t dissociate then, just passed out.

Calvary fed himself water, lots of it, from a two-litre plastic bottle. He was perched on the chair, free from restraints: his head had been released from the clamp, the cords had been unwound, the plastic ties cut.

They hadn’t offered him any kind of dressing. He’d probed the wound with a ginger fingertip. It felt enormous, a crater lipped with bony spurs, though it could only be a few millimetres across. He wondered how far it had penetrated. His fingers came away bloody, but there was no clear cerebrospinal fluid.

He needed a dressing, and soon. Infection would be potentially fatal.

They stood before him in a neat crescent, the woman in the centre. She was smoking. Calvary didn’t think she’d been without a lit cigarette since he’d woken up in the cellar.

The older man, Lev, had woken him with open-handed slaps. At first they hadn’t untied him.

Krupina had come very close. ‘Explain.’

Calvary tried his voice, was surprised to hear it come out as normal, with no shake in it. ‘Blazek has two of my friends prisoner. He’ll be holding them as bargaining chips, but he doesn’t know how to contact me. I have their phone numbers. Blazek will be monitoring their calls.’

He watched her eyes, saw the calculating going on in the heavy silence. Then: ‘What do you propose?’

‘I offer myself in exchange for my friends. A public place somewhere — you can decide where, I don’t know this city well enough. Blazek’ll come armed to the teeth, with all the men he can round up. You take him out. You’re Chekists, you’ll have access to whatever resources you require.’ He broke off. The pain was starting to bore through his head again. ‘Two things. I want a guaranteed safe passage out for my associates.’

It was a ludicrous demand, and Krupina knew he knew it. She didn’t even bother to nod.

‘And I need a piece of equipment. Again, you’ll be able to get it if you ask.’n›

He told her, and explained what he needed it for.

Her cigarette stub burned down and she dropped it, twisted her foot on the flagstones. With a nod to Lev she turned away, Arkady moving off with her, out of Calvary’s earshot.

*

Yevgenia had phoned an hour earlier, while the Englishman had still been unconscious. ‘They’re here, Ms Krupina. The six men.’

Six trained operatives, plus Arkady and Lev. Krupina had little doubt they could do it, could face down Blazek. Her concern was with Calvary. What was he planning?

To Arkady she said, ‘Tell Yevgenia to organise what the Englishman asks for.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘But with modifications.’

She told him. Arkady nodded, understanding. A smile at his lips.

Admiration. She seldom received any, insisted she didn’t need it. But it felt good.

*

‘Your plan is approved.’

It sounded ridiculously solemn. Calvary said, ‘We can speak Russian if you prefer.’

‘My English is not good enough for you?’

Touched a nerve. Calvary raised his hand to his forehead. ‘I’m going to need a dressing for this.’

‘It is coming.’

She’d returned without Arkady. Lev had taken a step back and stood watching him, arms folded. Krupina was taken suddenly with a hacking cough which she tried to suppress.

He thought about offering her some of his water. Decided against it.

She paced a little, then turned to him. ‘My associate in the hospital. Why did you kill him?’

‘I didn’t. Not deliberately. I was interrogating him. I pushed him too far.’

‘What questions were you asking him?’

For the time being Calvary would keep Tamarkin’s betrayal of her to himself, a card to be played later.

‘What he’d found out about Blazek. I knew he was SVR and that you lot were looking for Gaines. I thought your friend might be able to help me with the information I needed.’ Calvary shrugged. ‘He wasn’t.’

‘And how did he come to be in hospital in the first place?’

‘How did he get shot? Hhe ont e just appeared on the roof of the car park. I’ve no idea how he got there.’

Krupina stood, brow furrowed. Without looking at Calvary she said, ‘It is not likely that you will survive. When we come down on Blazek, you will be in the centre.’

‘By which I assume you mean one of your men will conveniently shoot me by accident.’ He shook his head, winced at the pain. ‘Bad idea. I’m more valuable to you alive. Your interrogators in Moscow will put on a more effective show than that travesty just now.’

Another nerve. This time she did look at him, eyes yellow and baleful.

‘No, Mr Calvary. The only Englishman who will be going to Moscow is Gaines.’

He kept eye contact, his thoughts churning. They were going to take Gaines back to Moscow when they found him. Did that mean he was still working for them, an asset who was now blown? Why would they grant him sanctuary if he was nothing but a Cold War relic?

*

Krupina met Arkady upstairs, out of hearing of the Englishman. He’d procured gauze, antiseptic, and bandages.

‘Yevgenia is discussing with the new men possible venues for the rendezvous with Blazek.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘And the item Calvary requested?’

‘It’s on its way, from a cache we hold in the countryside outside the city.’

‘Good man.’

Arkady disappeared down the cellar steps with the dressing material. Krupina remained in the front room of the safe house for a minute, gazing out at the deepening afternoon shadows on the patch of lawn.

Calvary was right on both counts. He was of value alive, and Moscow would be more successful in extracting information from him than she had been, or had time to be. And yet… Ensuring his survival might prove more trouble than it was worth. Her priority was to get Blazek, alive, or at the very least one of his lieutenants such as his brother, Miklos. Calvary’s safety couldn’t get in the way of that objective.

Plus, he killed Gleb. Let’s not forget that.