Matt Hilton - Blood and Ashes

It would have been laughable if the situation wasn’t so dire. Listening to the loathing between two Eastern nations was no different to arguments that raged the world over. Allowing Rink and Kwon to exchange insults, I crept round the stack of furniture. Directly ahead was one of the booths and I slowly slipped the curtain aside and stepped over a futon-style mattress lying on the floor. Kwon evidently couldn’t see me, because he continued to trade insults with Rink. I was no idiot, though, and credited Kwon with as much sense. The Korean was trying to play us as much as we were playing him. Rink was keeping Kwon busy, and Kwon was happy to oblige while the fourth Korean moved to a better position. I readied myself.

Had only seconds to wait.

As Kwon screeched something in his own language, the hidden Korean came out from the next booth, levelling his pistol at Rink. I didn’t bother with a warning shout; bullets were much faster. I merely caressed the trigger of the SIG, fired a single round that punched into the would-be assassin’s neck. The man fell to the side, becoming entangled in a curtain that wrapped round his body as he fell. Following the movement, I saw that the man was dying but still able to pull a trigger. Shot him again, once in the heart, once in the head.

Kwon fired, forcing me to skip away to avoid joining the man on the mattress. Rink’s Glock made a rattle like a firecracker, bullets firing as rapidly as he pressed the trigger. The sounds of Kwon running for cover came to me, even as I tore a way past a curtain and through another booth. Footsteps sounded loud on the stairs as law enforcement officers hastened up.

If the cops came in the room we’d never get the chance we needed. Terrorist or not, Kwon would be arrested and afforded the treatment laid down by law. Torture wouldn’t be permissible.

‘Rink! Get the door,’ I shouted, trusting that he would hold back the stampede while I got the job done.

At the same time I moved, and that was good because Kwon fired at the sound of my voice. Bullets tugged at the drapes, continued on and smashed one of the painted windows. Mid-afternoon light flooded into the room, the moving curtains causing a ripple and sway of shadows. I moved with them, dodging through the room like a living silhouette. Saw a figure ten feet ahead.

Again I wondered about how fate played games, how I’d travelled from one red moon to another. I remembered the cockerel-crowing man I’d strangled to death under that first moon and how he’d fancied himself as a tae kwon do expert. Kwon had the build of a fighter, and listening to his bravado, I guessed that the Korean was a true tae kwon do exponent, probably from military service since all soldiers in the North Korean army had to train to black-belt level. I was no black belt, had never felt the need to test my abilities when every day my work had done that for me. But the notion was there of how I wouldn’t mind testing Kwon in combat. The pain from my injuries had miraculously fled now that I was fighting for the lives of countless others, and the challenge of taking down Kwon could do my self-worth nothing but good.

But this was no place for egotism.

I shot Kwon clean and simple. That put paid to any number of black belts the man might hold.

Kwon howled, rolled on the floor, holding his damaged knee to his chest.

‘Drop the gun or I’ll shoot you again.’

Kwon howled even louder, interspersing his scream with a rapid-fire curse. This time I didn’t catch a single word.

My gun spat again.

Now Kwon didn’t know which knee to cradle, so dragged both of them to his chest. ‘You dog, you shot me!’

‘And I’ll shoot you again if you don’t drop the gun! Believe me.. I’m not fucking around with you.’

Moving close, I pointed the SIG directly at Kwon’s head. The Korean’s face was pinched tight with agony, tears streaming from his eyes. If hatred was flame it would have seared me to the core.

‘Now!’

Kwon threw the gun from him. ‘I surrender, I surrender, OK, Yankee? You have me. Now you must arrest me and get me a lawyer.’

‘Yeah, right.’ I kicked him in his shoulder, knocking him over on to his back. ‘See, we’ve got a problem… I’m not a cop.’

Rink came up to my side, covering Kwon with the threat of his Glock. ‘And you’re not such a big guy now, Kwon.’

‘ You are dogs with no honour! ’

Rink and I shared a glance.

‘How’d you like that? Coming from a prick who wants to poison New York?’ Rink asked.

I crouched down and jammed the SIG in the Korean’s right eye. The barrel was hot from discharging rounds and I fancied I could smell the man’s flesh sizzling. ‘The cops are coming, Kwon. You will be arrested and given your rights. Chances are that diplomatic arrangements will be made for you to be released into the hands of your own government. You’ll return home just like that arsehole al-Megrahi did to Libya. Just think, you’ll be hailed a fucking hero when you get back. That’s if I don’t happen to slip and put a round into your brain first. Now the only way to stop that from happening is if you give me what I want. Are you ready to deal?’

Kwon tried to pull away from the barrel of the gun, but only to nod. ‘I will deal with you.’

‘Good. Now, I already know that you supplied some sort of radioactive isotope to Carswell Hicks, so you needn’t try and deny that. What I want to know is how much and in what form it was delivered to him.’

‘You do not understand-’

‘I understand enough. You supplied shit to an even bigger piece of shit. Now, tell me, or I swear to you, you will be going back to Korea but it’ll be in a lead-lined box with a nuke strapped to your arse.’

‘I demand to speak to your CIA,’ Kwon said through gritted teeth.

‘I’m afraid they’re not here right now. It’s me or a bullet, Kwon, take your pick.’

Pain made the man gag, perspiration running down his cheeks. He looked like he was going to throw up. The moment passed, and it was as though some new resolve stiffened his spine. He peered at us with calm eyes, like the deep dark pools found in hidden glades. Kwon described glass flasks sealed in lead containers, and the size and dimensions of each. He said there were two in total. I was no physicist, but in my estimation that’d be enough to contaminate the entire metropolitan areas of New York and New Jersey combined.

‘Tell me about Carswell Hicks,’ I said.

Kwon described how he’d met a man at a cargo-shipping compound near to the Elizabeth Town Marina, and how the transfer was completed. Then he cursed Carswell Hicks, whose name he hadn’t known up until that point. ‘You kill that bastard for me,’ he spat. ‘He told me to see the sights today! He knew full well he intended detonating the bomb and he meant to kill me along with everyone else.’

Sneering down at him, I said, ‘Sorry, Kwon, but I owe you nothing. I’m going to kill Hicks for all the people he has condemned to death. The same people you condemned when you handed over the isotope.’

‘I told you before, you do not fully understand.’

‘I understand enough to know a murdering son of a bitch when I look at him.’ I lifted the SIG again, my face flat as sheet-steel.

Kwon squirmed away. ‘No, wait! Remember that you owe me my life, Yankee. We made a deal.’

‘There you go again with the misconceptions. I’m not a cop and I’m not a Yankee,’ I said, face going lax. ‘But you’re right. I made a deal to hand you to the police.’

‘Good,’ said Kwon, smiling.

‘Not that good. I didn’t promise you a goddamn thing,’ said Rink, and shot Kwon in the skull.

‘Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.’ Special Agent Vincent fiddled with his damp hair, as though he still wore the Everett pompadour. His conservative feebie cut just didn’t have the same effect.