Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

So they find the English hostage. They win this battle. What the fuck. Live to fight another day.

They’d strapped him down on some sort of metal table, four hard and ugly men who knew their business — unlike his own people, the shitty rabble he’d relied on to take down Calvary — and the small guy with the eyepatch had flung the hood over Bartos’s head. The canvas had stunk of old sweat and rot. Then the water had come, a fast thin torrent straight on to his face, moulding the canvas against his nose and lips, driving it up his nostrils and down past his tongue into his gullet.

It was the most frightened he’d ever been in his life. He’d shat his pants, cried like a snot-nosed baby, tried to shake the hated wet mask off him. They’d done it again, and a third time, and he’d heard himself screaming, promising he’d tell them everything.

And through it all, he’d kept his wits. Had admired, professionally, the technique, and had made a note to himself to use it himself in future.

If his men, not his brother Miklos who he assumed was dead, but the others, the shower of shit he’d made the mistake of considering worthy of his trust, had any common sense, they’d give up looking for him and instead protect the Russians’ target, Gaines. Would recognise there was more they could achieve that way. But B›

Gaines was lost, because Bartos had told the Russian bitch where he was. Shit happened. Now he needed to concentrate on buying his freedom. And he had no doubt he could do so.

Everyone had a price.

*

‘We should leave him behind, under guard.’

‘No. We take him with us.’

Krupina felt the atmosphere had altered. The balance of power had tipped in her direction. Voronin had taken charge during the waterboarding, directing the mechanics of the process, doing the initial shouting; but it was her questions that had evoked a response. Including — praise the Lord who didn’t exist — the blurting of the crucial address.

They’d agreed, Voronin and her, that Blazek must be kept alive for now. What happened to him in the long run remained to be decided. H could be an extremely useful asset in the city, but if he proved uncooperative then he would have to be despatched. For the time being, however, they needed him alive, both as insurance against his own people and in case he turned out to have been lying about Gaines’s whereabouts.

They disagreed about what should happen to him in the mean time.

Voronin said, ‘He will get in the way. His presence will encourage his men to fight harder.’

‘Just the opposite. It will be a blow to their morale, seeing their leader captive. And we can use him to enforce their cooperation.’

He stared at her eyes, then dipped his head in a curt nod. ‘As you wish.’

*

‘Why?’

It threw Calvary. He was used to displays of defiance, of bravado even, but not this level of genuine incredulity.

Gaines had complied, his cheeks working, his unshaven face making him look more mole-like than ever. He’d turned and knelt and put his interlinked hands behind his neck.

The question had come over his shoulders.

Normally Calvary didn’t engage in banter with his targets. Do the job, get out. Nothing personal. Something about Gaines’s smallness, his age, made Calvary say: ‘Use your imagination.’

Gaines’s voice was flat, with no hint of a quaver. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ He half turned his head. ‘You were on the tram. You tried to stop them taking me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you mind telling me who you are? It makes no difference to you, surely.’

Do the job, get out. Now. They’ll be here any moment, the Russians, the police.

‘My name’s Calvary. I’m here because of what you did in the seventies and eighties.’

A frown crept into the man’s voice. ‘Could you be a little more specific?’

Calvary drew a deep breath, pressed the muzzle of the SIG against the base of Gaines’s skull, making him flinch a little. ‘Selling out your country. Betraying your colleagues to the other side and getting them killed.’

A beat.

Gaines said: ‘I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘And I presume you’ve no idea why there happened to be a Russian surveillance detail on your back while I was tagging you? Why the local SVR cell has been as hell bent on finding you as I’ve been?’

‘SVR — ’ It was Gaines’s turn to exhale deeply. ‘My God.’

What are you waiting for. Calvary’s hooked finger began to squeeze the trigger.

‘Mr Calvary, I’m not trying to bargain here. But before you shoot me I think you should hear what I have to say.’

Calvary stepped back. Kept the gun extended.

‘All right.’

‘May I turn round?’

‘Yes.’

*

It took two minutes, Gaines perched on the arm of a chair and reciting in clipped, concise sentences, replying to Calvary’s interruptions when he thought them relevant, ignoring them at other times.

Calvary took a long breath, wrestled down his feelings. There was no time to confront them now.

In the dead men’s pockets he found three sets of car keys. To Gaines he said, ‘Do you have any idea where they’re parked?’

‘No. I arrived here blindfolded. But it was a short walk from the car, so I imagine not too far away.’

Calvary picked up the gun belonging to the man who’d been shot in the neck. A Glock 17 with an almost full magazine. He hesitated, then pushed it into the pocket of his sodden jacket. He didn’t offer it to Gaines, didn’t trust him enough yet. He took two of the mobile phones he found, pocketing them.

In the tiny kitchen off the living room he found a drawer with clean dishtowels. Using a roll of duct tape from another drawer he bound the towel around his head. He filled a pint glass with tap water, drank it off, did it a second time.

He jerked his head. ‘Let’s go.’

The street outside was ablaze, every light oneve"›He jer in the surrounding houses, dark silhouettes peering from behind curtains. He pressed the buttons on the three car keys one after the other. The second unlocked a vehicle several yards down the road on the opposite side, its alarm chirping, its lights flashing. A twin-cab Ford pickup truck, dark in colour.

‘Follow me and keep low,’ he said to Gaines. He began to run in the direction of the pickup, the SIG in his hand but kept low at his side.

Then the headlights came on, two sets, full-beam, shocking in their closeness and in a rapid one-two beat, from ahead and behind, pinning the two men.

*

‘It’s the Englishman, it’s Calvary, he’s got Gaines.’

Arkady’s yell made her recoil from the handset. Krupina was in the Audi once more, Lev driving, south of the Spanish Synagogue and of the address Blazek had given. Arkady and three of Voronin’s men had parked up the street. Voronin himself, together with three of his men and Blazek, were in the Hummer at the other end. There’d been shooting from the direction of the address as they’d approached, and they’d parked to watch and wait. The rest of Voronin’s people, the four remaining ones, were in two cars several streets away, providing backup.

‘We’re moving in.’

Krupina said to Lev: ‘Get us there.’

*

Calvary shouted at Gaines to run and he did, surprisingly quickly, mimicking Calvary’s crouch as the engines gunned and an exhaust backfired and tyres screamed against tarmac. Calvary reached the pickup and rolled over the bonnet while Gaines fumbled with the door handle on the passenger side nearest the road. Because Calvary didn’t think Gaines was going to get the door open in time, he aimed the SIG at the oncoming headlights and pulled the trigger, twice, more to take their attention off Gaines than because he thought he had a chance of hitting anything worthwhile. He heard glass shatter and the headlights veered sideways on to the pavement on the opposite side of the road.