Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

He wanted to lie there, catch his breath. Instead he recoiled, cringing away as a man came crashing down through the foliage towards him. He was flailing, airborne, and he hit the wall with a crack and slid down. It was Blazek’s minion, the one who’d been after him on the slope. Calvary saw the dark hole in his chest where the slug from one of the automatics had caught him. His mouth gaped, his eyes wide and lifeless. Calvary stood and grabbed the top of the wall and hauled himself over, dropping to the other side just as he became aware of figures barrelling through the trees after him.

Beyond the wall the brightness and space was frightening after the stifling darkness of the wooded slope. A broad single-lane road ran along the edge of the river, the traffic light enough to allow him to see the pavement on the other side. Calvary didn’t hesitate, sprinted across the road, provoking a blast of alarmed horns. A low iron railing separated the pavement from the sloping concrete drop to the river’s surface.

For the last time he looked back. Men were scrambling over the wall, black-clad figures, three or four of them. Krupina’s people, not Blazek’s. It meant they’d followed him down the slope, had probably got Blazek.

He swung over the railing and slid down the slope on his bottom. The water yawned to meet him. Ten feet from the bottom he launched himself forwards and outwards with his legs, was airborne for a second, and hit the surface.

*

Krupina watched them come through the Tabor Gate at a run, three of them, hustling the big man between them at surprising speed. He was stumbling as though drugged, his hands restrained behind him.

She stepped out to meet them. One of them — Voronin, she saw as they drew close — hissed, ‘Stay in the car. The police will be here any minute.’

‘I want to see.’

They halted for a mhalfonoment. She gazed up at him. His face was bloody, his shirt, which she assumed was expensive, torn. Even bowed, his head sagging, he exuded power.

‘Bartos Blazek.’

He stared back at her. Then spat. A bloodied tooth stuck to her shoulder.

From far off came the occasional single shot. Her men were mopping up.

Voronin gave her a terse update. No casualties on their side. At least six of Blazek’s men dead, one of them Miklos Blazek. The big man showed no reaction to this.

Calvary gone. But Voronin’s men were in pursuit.

Krupina wanted to smile, but didn’t.

‘Call your men in.’

She saw him raise his eyebrows.

‘We need all available personnel. Because Mr Blazek is going to tell us where he is holding our target.’

*

The shock of the cold was a hammer blow to Calvary’s chest. The drop had been only six feet or so and he hadn’t gone very far beneath the surface, but before his head could rise back above it he tipped forward and kicked away from the wall with his legs, sending himself as far as he could out into the river. He began a slow-paced breaststroke. Before he had plunged in Calvary had made sure there were no boats in the immediate vicinity, but even so as he swam he imagined the impact against his skull of a keel or propellor blades.

Holding his breath for impressively prolonged periods had never been among his repertoire of tricks, and although it felt like five minutes it was probably closer to ninety seconds when the burning in his airways began to feel like acid eating away the boundary between himself and the river. At the same time, instead of feeling panic he noticed a dream-like quality to his thoughts and perceptions. It was a bad sign. He needed to breathe.

He angled his legs downwards and kicked hard. A second later his head and shoulders burst through the surface and he was sucking in air, great sweet draughts of it.

There was no raking gunfire chopping at the water’s surface. Calvary trod water until his head had cleared. He reached up to feel his head. The bandage had disappeared, and the gauze pad was hanging off on a strip of tape. Calvary wasn’t medically trained, but he suspected filthy river water entering the skull through a trepanned hole wasn’t that good an idea.

He moved in a jerky circle, surveying the environment. He was close to a long, narrow island in the river. Far above on the opposite bank brooded the castle, swathed in mist and looking even more sinister than previously. On the other side, Vysehrad Park and the spires of its church were dark and still, but then a spattering of light rippled across the trees and shots echoed in its wake. Somewhere nearby sirens had started up en masse .

On the bank Calvary basizhad left, standing at the rail, were three men, peering at the water. Reflexively he dipped his head so that the white of his face was obscured.

He waited, and bobbed. The cold was like a cocoon, sheathing him. The silhouettes on the bank didn’t move, just stood patiently scanning the water. Calvary’s feelings began to drift. It was pleasant to hang here in the water, not required to do anything but stay afloat. Come to think of it, even staying afloat seemed unnecessary. All he needed to do was relax, trust in the river to keep him safe.

The adrenaline jolt stabbed him alert and for a moment he wondered if his sudden jerky movement had drawn the attention of the men on the bank. One of them was straightening, raising his hand. Calvary drew a long breath, prepared to dive. To flounder away until his chest was on fire again, and then to surface into a sweeping fusillade of rifle fire. The end would be quick, at least.

Then the three men peeled away from the railing and started back across the road, disappearing from sight.

Calvary flexed his arms and legs, shaking life back into them. He struck out for the bank.

‘We’ve brought equipment.’

By turning her head Krupina could see behind her, in the darkness of the car’s back seat, Voronin’s lone eye glinting whitely.

Lev was at the wheel of the Audi once more, Arkady in the back alongside Voronin. The Hummer was ahead. Moscow had sent it along with the men. Blazek rode in the rear, wedged between two agents on either side.

Krupina turned back to look through the windscreen. ‘We have all the equipment we need.’

‘Including canvas sheets?’

The balance of authority had shifted, ever since Voronin had brought Blazek through the gates. The act itself had said it all. Look, we have taken him. You couldn’t manage it on your own. You weren’t good enough.

Voronin went on, with measured quietness. ‘It’s the quickest way. I will achieve a result within fifteen minutes, maximum. I guarantee it.’

Krupina remained silent, watched the tail lights of the Hummer ahead. American methods. Her motherland’s intelligence services were embracing with enthusiasm, acknowledging as superior, even the old enemy’s interrogation techniques. It was the present, and she wasn’t a part of it. Nor would the future include her. She was a creature of the past.

To her left, through the window, emergency vehicles whipped by, their lights stuttering in disbelief.

The fist of triumph in her centre had opened, and claws of pain were growing through her as in a sped-up film.

*

He stumbled past the flashing headlights of a last terrified car and was free, on the other side of the road. At the fringe of the Old Town.

As he loped down a dim alley towards the lights of a tiny square redolent even at this hour with the aromas of spice and cabbage and roasting meat, Calvary reflected on his needs. He needed a phone, a map, and a gun. In that order. Food and sleep, blessed sleep , would also be good, but they were low on the ladder.

And a dressing for his head. Mustn’t forget that.

He had none of what he needed. Instead he was lurching like a vision of hell through the late-night streets, sodden from the river, his head violated and mutilated. He had no wallet, no money. No passport.