Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

He wasn’t. The Brit was wrong.

‘One bullet. If you shoot Gaines, I’ll make it to my own gun before you can. If you shoot me, you’ll kill Gaines as well, but you’ll have nowhere to run. Your men are dead or scurrying around trying to cover their backsides. Your empire’s in ruins. Nobody’s scared of you any more.’ Calvary shrugged. ‘Though, I suppose you could always go on the rampage. Go down in a blaze of glory. Death by cop.’

He wasn’t finished. Because when a man controlled his destiny, he was very much still in charge.

Bartos put the muzzle of the gun under his chin.

In his native Czech — fuck all this Russian — he said, ‘I win.’

He squeezed the trigger.

The city chattered and echoed, sirens competing with shouted voices. The clocks said it was after three in the morning but the streets were ablaze with light, as though Prague was burning.

They were on some sort of foothill, the castle far above. Calvary kept up the pace, his arm under Gaines’s, heaving the older man upright every time he faltered. They kept as far as possible to back alleys, cringing into doorways whenever an emergency vehicle flashed past.

Parkland loomed ahead, sloping up the hill. Quickly Calvary marched them across the main road and through the nearest gate. The park was lit only by occasional lamps along its paths.

Outside the church, Calvary had examined the VW. Blazek had crashed it into a bollard and the front was too mangled for it to be of any use. He glanced inside, saw the rifle in the back seat. He pulled the door open and retrieved it. A Russian A-91. For a moment he debated, then took it, carrying it vertically by his side like a walking stick. It was conspicuous, but not as conspicuous as it would be if he strapped it across his back. Silhouettes counted for a lot.

They stumbled along the winding tracks until they were deep in the park. At last Calvary let Gaines sag on to a bench. He sprawled sideways, managed to pull himself into a sitting position with great effort. He sat with his eyes closed, the blood crusted around his mouth, his breath shallow.

Calvary crouched before him.

‘Are you hurt? Chest, abdomen?’

Gaines tried several times to speak, his lips drily sticky. ‘Just winded. And the face. Mustn’t grumble.’

Calvary liked him for that. He sat on the bench himself, propped the rifle, took out his phone.

Before dialling he said, ‘You understand that you’re going to have to disappear. From Prague, and you’ll certainly never be able to set foot in England again either.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you have any idea what you might do?’

He almost smiled. ‘You’re a resourceful man, Mr Calvary. But you’re not the only one. I have a little money squirreled away. I’ll manage.’ He coughed. ‘Just not quite what I was planning for my retirement, that’s all.’

Calvary thumbed in Llewellyn’s number.

He answered on the first ring, sounding startlingly clear. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Calvary. I have Gaines.’ Calvary turned up the volume, moved closer to Gaines on the bench, nodded, holding the handset to his face.

Gaines said, ‘This is Ivor Gaines.’

Calvary said, ‘Satisfied it’s him?’

‘Yes.’ Llewellyn sounded more than satisfied. Delighted, in fact. ‘But I would have believed you anyway, Martin.’ He paused a beat. ‘The news channels are going berserk. What on earth have you been up to? The whole of Prague seems to have gone mad.’

‘I’m not going to do it.’

‘Say again?’

Calvary drew a breath. ‘The hit. I’m not going to kill Gaines. And you know why. He’s innocent. He was never a suspected double agent.’

‘If that’s what he’s telling — ’

‘You said he gave regular talks here in the city. He’s never given any. All you said about his being a well-known left-wing polemicist in Prague… it’s a lie. I checked. Nobody’s ever heard of him. He’s just a retired expat, keeping his head down.’

He waited, expecting bluster. Instead Llewellyn chuckled.

‘Very astute, Martin. All right. It’s a fair cop.’ The rustle of cigarette paper. ‘What else do you know about him?’

Calvary glanced at Gaines. ‘That he’s former SIS. That during his diplomatic service in Prague and Berlin and elsewhere, he was running networks of agents.’

‘Correct. Has he told you why he’s so special, though?’

In profile, Gaines looked hangdog. Calvary watched him as he said, ‘No. But you’re going to.’

‘Being a little demanding, aren’t you?’

‘I hold the cards, Llewellyn. Your blackmail threats don’t scare me any more. I’m never coming back, anyway.’

His ear rang with Llewellyn’s laughter, rich and heartfelt. ‘Oh, we never had any intention of shopping you to the press or the police, Martin. Think about it. The Chapel handing over one of its best operatives, with all his inside knowledge of our operations, risking exposure like that… it would be madness. Certainly worked as a bluff, though, didn’t it?’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ll put you in the picture. But first, I need to know something. The Russian SVR woman? Krupina?’

‘She’s dead.’

ed to kth="2em" align="justify"›There was a slow outlet of breath down the line, with the hint of a whistle.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive. I saw her crushed under the wheels of a car.’

The silence was longer than any Calvary had experienced in Llewellyn’s company.

At last Llewellyn said: ‘All right. I’ll explain.’

*

‘It was, as I told you in the beginning, all about revenge for the Grechko murder. But revenge of a far more subtle, British kind than a straightforward tit-for-tat killing.’

Calvary had debated whether or not to allow Gaines to listen in. Had decided it couldn’t hurt, and kept the volume up high, his head close to the older man’s.

‘Sir Ivor Gaines has been too modest with you. He wasn’t just a humble SIS operative running a few tuppeny-ha’penny networks. He knew — knows — the identity of our agent in the Kremlin. The one the Russians call TALPA. The Mole.’

Calvary glanced at Gaines, saw no expression.

‘That’s why Comrade Krupina was so desperate to find Gaines, to get him back from this gangster and from you. He was gold dust. The ultimate trophy for a Russian intelligence operative.’

‘How did she know about him?’

‘Because we tipped her off.’

The stillness of the park was almost a physical entity, the turmoil of the city seeming miles away.

‘It’s easy to do. A message from one of their supposed agents in London who’s really working for us, sent to his handlers in Moscow. They would have informed Krupina at once.’

Gaines had turned his head a little. The unspoken question between them — why — hardly needed voicing.

Llewellyn went on: ‘But of course, Sir Ivor doesn’t really know the identity of TALPA, even though he thinks he does. He’s been fed disinformation, as have several others in his position. Insurance, you might call it, in case they were ever captured. You were never supposed to succeed in killing Gaines, Martin. You just had to be seen to try, and to try so convincingly that there was never any doubt that the information he had was genuine, was so important to the British state that we were prepared to send an assassin in to ensure our own man didn’t fall into enemy hands.’

‘So I fail to kill Gaines, the Russians take him back to Moscow, find out from him the identity of the mole and deal with whoever that is — ’

‘Thereby diverting attention from the real TALPA. You’ve got it. And the irony? Gaines is captured by Darya Krupina, the murderer of Pyotr Grechko.’