Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

But he had an address.

In the brightness of the square he straightened his back, hearing Major Farnborough’s yelled command — for Christ’s sake, Calvary, put some spine into it — and inhaled deeply. He stopped, looked around. A few restaurants were mopping up, turning out their last stragglers. Across the way a bar was in full, raucous flow.

He toured the periphery of the square. In one corner he found what he wanted: a map of the vicinity on a vertical column. He squinted at it. He’d got the right side of the river, at least.

North was Josefov, the Jewish Town, and on its eastern side the Spanish Synagogue.

The most direct way would be through the Old Town Square, where a day and a half ago he’d tailed Gaines, but it was large and exposed and Calvary didn’t want to risk being stopped by the police patrols that must be crawling all over the city by now. Instead he worked out an alternative route, one that would keep him as far as possible in the shadows.

He ducked along alleys and narrow streets, emerging into a larger square with an enormous renaissance hall across from him — the Rudolfinum — and the expanse of the river to his left. Keeping to the edge of the square, he headed west, skirting the Old Jewish Cemetery. The gravestones staggered and tumbled into one another and for a moment Calvary paused at the railing, seeing something heaving beneath the ancient earth.

The dead were returning for him, coming to claim him as one of their own.

He stumbled on, shaking the image from his head. From either side visions lurched at him. Here was an enormous red Golem, hewn from clay, which groped for his shoulder but revealed itself to be a tacky decoration outside a restaurant. Over there was the arched face of a malevolent puppet leering from a shop window.

Rest. You need to get your head together, you’re starting to lose it. At least slow down a little.

But he couldn’t rest, or even slow down, because if Krupina had taken Blazek and taken him alive then she would soon have the address from him, the whereabouts of Gaines, and then Calvary would lose Gaines forever.

*

An Art Nouveau clock on a street corner told him it was just shy of two a.m.. Perhaps an hour since he’d fled the park.

The Spanish Synagogue reared to meet him and he stopped to orientate himself. Before it stood the bronze Kafka statue, the man sitting on the shoulders of a striding, empty suit. Calvary wandered about until he found another street map. The address he wanted was to the north.

The street led into an increasingly residential district, tall terraced houses giving way to individual building, quirky in their contrasting shapes and sizes. There was the side road he was looking for, off to the right. It was dimly lit with infrequent, Gothic streetlamps. He squinted at the numbers. Twenty three: it would be on the right-hand side, where the odds were.

Cars were parked end to end on the opposite side of the street. Calvary crouched and duckwalked behind the row until he drew abreast of number 23. He peered round the rear bumper of the nearest car.

It was a cottage, a narrow two-up, two-down building with one corner forming part of the entrance to another alley. There were lights on downstairs, coming through the spaces between the horizontal slats of wooden blinds. The blinds were closed too tightly for Calvary to be able to see through. He shifted further along and looked down the alley alongside the house. It was dark and featureless.

Keeping low, he crossed the road and went down the alley. There were two plastic wheeled bins at the end. High up on the side of the cottage that formed one wall of the alley there was a small window, dark and curtained within. Calvary took hold of one of the bins and lifted it across so that it was beneath the window. Then he climbed on to the bin so that he was balanced on the top. He reached up and got a grip on the rough sill below the window, hauled himself up so that his elbows and forearms were on the sill. It was about six inches wide and as he pushed himself higher he tipped forward so that his face was almost against the glass.

There was no light whatsoever coming through the curtains. It was the type of window that consisted of two casements, one below and in front of the other and which slid up to open the window. The lower casement was secured by a latch which he could see through the pane.

As quietly as he could Calvary dropped back down again and searched the alley. Finding nothing of use, he searched the bins. In one he found a plastic knife and fork in a discarded tin foil food container.

He climbed back up on to the sill. After several slips and false starts he succeeded in raising the latch off its peg enough that he could push the lower section of the window upwards with his right hand while the left provided a brace against the sill. The gap created by the raising of the window was about two feet wide. He decided against parting the curtains to inspect the room before climbing through, because if there was anyone in there they could easily have pushed him off the sill. He grasped the sides of the window frame and levered himself through.

If the man waiting in the dark had chosen a garrotte or even to use his bare hands he would have incapacitated Calvary. Instead he had a handgun ha size=, and the cockiness that came with it. Calvary saw it coming sooner in the darkness than he would have if the lights had been on, lamplight from outside glinting off the barrel to his right. Calvary snapped out a sideways kick which connected with the man’s hip. It surprised him and it gave Calvary a chance to sweep low with his heel in an arc across the floor and catch his ankles. The man went down.

Calvary grabbed for him because he would have a noisy landing on the thinly carpeted floor, got hold of his hair in both fists That stopped his fall, but it meant Calvary’s hands were occupied, and in that crucial moment the man swung the gun up. Calvary pulled his head forward by the hair and drove a knee up under his chin. The neck snapped, and his body sagged like a sack of grain. This time Calvary couldn’t catch him in time and he hit the floor with a heavy noise.

There was sound, then, from downstairs. Calvary picked up his gun and stepped over to the open door. Beyond was a landing with a wooden railing that overlooked the stairs. Light was coming up from downstairs. There were voices from below, but low ones, as though they were trying not to let Calvary hear.

The gun was a SIG Sauer. Checking the magazine would produce a tell-tale sound so Calvary didn’t do it, but from the heft of the weapon he could tell that it was loaded. On the floor behind him the man was breathing thickly, almost snoring. Calvary paused at the door, crouching, not moving out into the landing in case the floorboards creaked. He aimed the SIG at the top of the stairs and waited.

The door opposite him across the landing moved an inch. God, he’d been slow , because there was someone in there, in the other bedroom, waiting in the darkness just as the first man had been.

It meant that they had been lying in wait. It was an ambush.

Calvary fired off two shots in rapid succession at the door, which looked cheap and modern and not very strong. The slugs smashed through the wood and there was a cry of pain which he barely heard, because he was up and running at a stoop to the top of the stairs where he stopped again.

Halfway down, hanging on the wall, was a large mirror. Reflected in it he could see the living room at the foot of the staircase. Two men were moving quickly into position, guns raised.

Seated beyond them on a sofa was a small, molish man, head hung, eyes watchful behind dense glasses.

At last. Gaines.

*

Calvary hung back and aimed down along the banister into the room. As one of the men, shaven-headed and black-clad, came into his line of sight he fired. He was a fraction shy. A coffee table exploded in a rainbow of glass. The man lurched back as Calvary himself withdrew.