Tim Stevens - Severance Kill

Nikola took them through an S-bend with astonishing skill, but Llewellyn’s driver was good, too, and he kept pace. Calvary didn’t look back, kept staring at the forest flashing past until he said, ‘There.’ Between the trees, a slight figure had emerged, one arm encased in white, the other hauling the rifle like a hod of bricks.

Max.

‘Brake,’ said Calvary. Nikola slowed and Calvary pushed open the door and rolled out on the tarmac and was up instantly, waving Nikola on and loping over to Max and grabbing the rifle from his hands. He swung it to bear just as the Skoda rounded the bend.

Calvary took out the front passenger tyre with a single clean shot.

The saloon swerved wildly and veered to its right and smashed into the base of a tree, glass shattering.

Calvary said to Max, ‘Stay back.’ He laid down the rifle and drew the Makarov.

Steam billowed from beneath the sails of the car’s buckled bonnet. Calvary couldn’t see much inside the car as he approached because the airbags had bloomed and were obscuring the interior. He peered in through the driver’s window. The driver had his eyes closed, was murmuring. Calvary found a stick with a sharp point and slit the airbag. It hissed and settled across the man’s lap. Calvary reached in and switched the ignition off.

He walked round the other side and deflated Llewellyn’s airbag. He was conscious, shifting each arm and leg in turn to test them. When he looked up, Calvary couldn’t read his expression.

Calvary raised the Makarov and touched the muzzle lightly, gently, against Llewellyn’s forehead. He looked past it, at Calvary’s eyes.

Enough .

Calvary lifted the gun away from his head and flicked the safety on and walked down the road towards Max. Beyond him Nikola was reversing back up the road towards them. Another car was bound to come past any moment and they needed to be out of there.

Halfway down the road Calvary turned. He didn’t know why.

The smile, the mocking eyes.

Llewellyn raised a hand to his forehead and tipped Calvary a salute.

Through the window the early afternoon light soaked the trees in shades of green and gold. The engineering of the train was precise so that the quiet rhythm of the carriage’s wheels on the tracks was barely noticeable. The middle-aged woman sitting opposite had glanced briefly at Calvary, at the bandage swaddling his head, but lost interest quickly and was now asleep.

He put his head against the window where it was cool, and closed his eyes.

They had crossed into eastern Germany an hour earlier. There had been no cd, agas coolheckpoint, as there seldom was nowadays on the borders between EU countries. Nonetheless he’d watched for roadblocks on both sides. Given what Prague had been through over the last forty-eight hours he was unsurprised by the number of police vehicles that seemed to have infested the country’s roads.

*

After calling Nikola’s phone and finding Llewellyn on the other end, he’d told Gaines about the change of plan. Gaines hadn’t protested, had simply closed his eyes and nodded. A few calls had established which hospital Max was at. Calvary had rung Max on the ward phone — there was no way he’d get in to visit at this hour — and told him about Nikola.

‘I’m out of here,’ said Max. He’d discharged himself against medical advice, had met Calvary in the car park outside. He walked painfully, his chest bound and his left arm in a cast and supported by a sling.

They’d gone through the plan. Max had never fired a rifle before. Calvary made him understand that it would be ludicrously awkward to try to fire one with one arm in plaster. Max told him to stop being an old woman.

‘Fire in our direction, but not at us.’

‘Got it.’

‘I’m serious, Max. If you hit any of us by accident, we won’t be getting up.’

‘Dude…’

And he’d done it, masterfully, creating the impression that some unknown third party, perhaps a remnant of Blazek’s or Krupina’s group, was picking off Calvary and his friends.

They’d returned to a city reeling in bewilderment, the chaos of the night’s events beyond most people’s grasp. There was no chance of returning to Nikola’s flat, or Max’s either. They’d found a motel on the northern outskirts, where they could access a room without all four of them parading past the desk.

In the shabby confines of the motel room Nikola tended Calvary’s head, applying antiseptic and bandages, wincing every time he did. She turned her attention to Gaines. He tried a smile.

‘I’m first class, young lady. But thank you.’

Calvary said, ‘You need to get Max back to the hospital.’ The young man’s face had a green hue, and each breath clearly lanced at his chest.

Max said, ‘Can’t believe they drilled your head.’

They ate and drank all they could manage. Nikola and Max came up with the price of a train ticket for both men. They would have offered more but Calvary refused.

It was time to go. Calvary gripped Max’s hand.

‘Ah, jeez.’ The kid turned away, sniffed. ‘Arm hurts, man.’

Nikola pressed herself against Calvary, her body and her mouth. He started to say something but she waved him away, her glance quick and liquid.

dth="2em" align="justify"›‘Go.’

*

Calvary dropped Gaines off just inside the German border. He parked near a bus depot and walked the fifty yards with him to the depot’s office, where there would be timetables.

Gaines said, ‘What will you do?’

‘I’m not going to tell you. Obviously.’ Calvary said.

Gaines turned, gave Calvary his hand. ‘I’m really most grateful.’

‘Even though I might have killed you. Even though you’ve been through two days of hell, and your life here is destroyed forever.’

‘They would have fed me to the Russians sooner or later. This… Chapel, or whatever they call themselves. And that would have been disastrous.’

‘Yes.’

He gave a silent laugh. ‘I don’t just mean for me personally.’ Stepping a little closer he said, ‘I might as well tell you. Your Mr Llewellyn can’t be aware of this, but I know who TALPA is. The mole, the real one. Yes, I’ve been fed disinformation; I knew that was what it was at the time, and I assumed it was so that I wouldn’t compromise the real mole if I ever fell into Moscow’s hands. I might have held my own under questioning, enough that my interrogators would have believed the false information. But I might not have. By delivering me from Mr Llewellyn, from Moscow, you’ve done your country a great service.’

My country. Calvary suppressed a laugh of his own. He said, ‘And you’re not going to tell me who this mole is.’

‘Obviously.’

Calvary watched his back as he headed for the office, an old man with a stoop now that was more pronounced than in the beginning, as if his shoulders had recently taken on a weight.

*

The last light of the afternoon came coldly through the window. Alone in the carriage now, Calvary huddled into the corner of his seat. His eyes were closed, the unfamiliar Saxony fields and towns through the window having long ago lost their appeal. The train’s destination was Berlin, but he was going to change well before that.

He thought about Llewellyn, and how he’d looked as Calvary had pressed the barrel of the pistol against his forehead. For a second his face had morphed into that of the young man, Pelabo Ghilzai, the one he’d failed to kill in Garmsir.

But of course it wasn’t him. Nobody ever would be.

Calvary thought of the old man, Gaines, a stranger to him until right at the very end, an object he’d been intending to erase like a speck of grease. He thought of Nikola, of Max, of Jakub, dead. He thought Gaines and the three Czechs weree Czechs among the bravest people he had ever met.