Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

Llewellyn went on: ‘Let me give you the location of the rendezvous. There’s a — ’

‘No. I decide.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Do you think I’m stupid? If you set it up it’ll be an ambush.’

‘You’re hardly in a position — ’

‘To be dictating terms? Aren’t I? if this exchange doesn’t happen, I have the girl’s fate on my conscience. You on the other hand lose both me and Gaines. I don’t think you’d like that.’

The smile was there again in Llewellyn’s voice. ‘Fair enough. Name your place.’

‘I will once I’ve decided on it.’

‘Within the hour.’

‘That’s not possible. It’ll take me two hours at least to get back to Prague.’ It was an exaggeration, but it would buy him time. ‘I’ll call you.’

*

It was seven thirty-five when two vehicles turned and began to lumber down the track towards the gate. A Skoda saloon and a minibus.

Calvary tapped on the roof of the car. Gaines clambered out and they watched the vehicles pass through the gate. Calvary gestured at them, indicating that the drivers should move deeper into the field so that they were closer to the gate than he was. The drivers complied; it was insurance and Llewellyn understood it. When the Skoda and the minibus were a hundred yards or so away, Calvary held up a palm and they stopped.

Llewellyn stepped out of the passenger seat of the Skoda. He raised his chin, beamed. The driver emerged as well: nobody Calvary knew, an impassive functionary. Two men appeared from the back of the minibus, helping Nikola step down through the sliding door. Calvary could see she was pale, gaunt, her hair straggling over her face.

Calvary drew the Makarov from the back of his waistband and held it away from him so that it was clearly visible. At the same time, casually, the two men from the minibus stepped forward in front of Llewellyn. They drew handguns of their own, as did the driver.

Llewellyn led Nikwelorwola forward by the arm, not roughly. She was staring across, but Calvary wasn’t sure if she recognised him. Had they drugged her?

Calvary had phoned Llewellyn nearly an hour earlier from the field, giving him the location, referring to a few distinctive features he’d spotted on the way to make it easier to find. He’d ended by saying: ‘The girl gets swapped for Gaines first. I need to know she’s safe, before you take me.’

Calvary raised his hand, waving it until it caught Nikola’s gaze.

‘Nikola. Start walking forward, slowly. Don’t run, but don’t stop, either.’

Slowly, as if stepping on a path of stones across a pond, she began to pick her way forward across the wet grass.

Calvary said, ‘All right, Sir Ivor.’

The older man started moving towards her.

Calvary raised the gun and aimed it at arm’s length at Llewellyn. Gaines’s pace was a fraction quicker than Nikola’s. Calvary muttered to him to slow down a bit.

Nikola seemed to be taking ever smaller steps. Calvary reflected that anyone driving by on the road above who gave them even a cursory glance would see the guns. He didn’t want to panic her so he said, loudly enough to be heard, ‘You’re doing great, Nikola. Just a bit further.’

He kept his eyes on her, but on the borders of his vision he saw Llewellyn standing motionless a little behind the other three men, who held their guns pointing down at their sides. For a few moments the only sounds were the susurration of a light wind in the pine trees off to the left and the faint mulchy noise of Gaines’s and Nikola’s footsteps, and the slow intake and outlet of Calvary’s breathing.

They would pass each other in ten seconds, he estimated.

He watched Gaines angle inwards a fraction so that he passed directly by Nikola as they drew parallel. Beyond, Llewellyn’s men tensed visibly. Calvary couldn’t hear the older man’s murmur, hoped it had come.

Nikola advanced, her eyes fixed on Calvary’s now.

The crack arced across the flat expanse of the field.

Gaines gave an oddly high-pitched cry and was flung off his feet to land in a sprawl with his neck twisted and his face pressed against the grass.

Calvary yelled at Nikola to run but she had stopped and was standing with her hands pressed to the sides of her head. Across the field there was bewilderment and shouting as the men assimilated what had happened and the three with guns turned to look at the forest. Hoarseness rasped in Calvary’s voice, and at last Nikola’s gaze swung from the body on the ground back to Calvary. She took off at a scramble toward him, feet slithering for an instant on the wet grass.

The men across the field were swinging to stare in their direction again when a second crack lashed the air and Nikola went down.

A third, two secondsd, aga later. Calvary bounced off the door of the Mazda, his face hitting the sodden grass.

*

He’d landed on the passenger side of the Mazda, which was angled out of the line of sight of Llewellyn and his men. From beneath the car he watched the turmoil across the field, Llewellyn ducking inside the Skoda alongside his driver while the remaining pair of men crouched facing in the direction of the trees, weapons levelled but not firing — there was nobody they could see to fire at — and backing towards the minibus.

Much nearer, Nikola’s face was turned towards him on the grass. He caught her eye. Gave a nod, which she returned.

She’d caught Gaines’s whispered instruction.

Calvary rose and hauled open the passenger door, which Gaines had left ajar, dropped in. Through the windscreen he saw Nikola scramble to her feet and reach the driver’s side. She was fast now, all fatigue gone, and she fired the engine and brought the Mazda swinging in an arc alongside Gaines, who was still prone, his head raised. Calvary reached behind him and popped the rear door and Gaines slumped inside, almost catching his leg as he slammed the door shut.

Nikola floored the accelerator and J-turned the car, the wheels churning the ground in a fan of mud and grass. They’d spun a hundred and eighty degrees and the Mazda was now facing the grass bank at the back of the field, leading up to the road and separated from it by a wooden fence. She gunned the engine.

Calvary checked his wing mirror, realised the impact of the bluff had worn off. Both vehicles were on the move, the minibus coming after them, the Skoda veering away towards the gate, meaning to head them off up on the road if we managed to get there. Through the front window of the minibus one of the men aimed his pistol.

The first shot smashed off Calvary’s wing mirror. Ahead the drainage ditch was approaching fast, six feet wide. Beyond it was the bank. Calvary leaned back through the window with the Makarov and loosed off two shots. He heard glass shatter. Then the Mazda leaped across the ditch and its nose hit the base of the grass bank, the front bumper crumpling and the jolt flinging them forward in their seats. The front tyres found purchase on the bank and they were scrabbling and clawing their way up the verge, Nikola having geared down to first. Calvary risked a look back out the window. His shots hadn’t done much damage but they’d caused the driver to slow down, and that had been his undoing because he’d reached the ditch at too low a speed. The van had tipped into it and slammed to a stop. One of the gunmen had been thrown out of the open door into the ditch. The front passenger was trying to kick through the shattered windscreen.

The Mazda approached the top of the bank, building up speed as the slope became less steep, and as they crested it Calvary saw the Skoda reach the top of the track off to the left in parallel with them and begin to turn right on to the road. Nikola muttered something in Czech, a prayer perhaps, and the battered front of the car bashed through the wooden fence at the top of the bank, splintering the wet and rotten wood. The Mazda swung right on to the road as the Skoda gunned towards them from their left, a hundred yards away and closing fast. The Mazda’s gea Mablirs and tyres shrieked as they took off down the road through the forest.