Chris Ryan - Who Dares Wins

‘Long way from Kazakhstan, Sam,’ he drawled.

An unnatural silence surrounded them.

‘Is that what you said to Mac?’ Sam asked. ‘Before you killed him.’

Jacob’s face wrenched itself into an agonised expression. His hand, Sam noticed, started to shake. ‘Mac got in the way,’ he said. ‘It was his own fault.’ Sam didn’t reply, so Jacob repeated his words, as though trying to persuade himself that it was true. ‘It was his own fault.’

‘You know that’s not true, Jacob.’

Now it was the older brother’s turn to be silent.

‘Mac was helping me. Helping you , actually. Trying to stop the Firm from sticking a bullet in you.’

‘I didn’t need your help.’

‘Clearly not.’

They stood.

‘You should have been here four years ago, J.,’ Sam said. ‘When we buried Mum. You should have been here.’

Those dark eyes bored into him. ‘She wouldn’t have missed me. Not her, or the old man.’

‘You’re wrong.’

Jacob snorted with contempt.

‘Jesus, J. What the hell’s happened to you?’

‘You should put the gun down, Sam. You’re not going to shoot me.’

Sam looked meaningfully at Jacob’s own weapon. His brother shrugged, then stowed it inside his jacket. Sam lowered his gun arm, but he kept the weapon in his hand. ‘I’m waiting for you to tell me that I’ve got it all wrong, J. That you didn’t kill Mac. That your red-light runners…’

Jacob interrupted him sharply. ‘How did you know about them?’ Then, almost as soon as the words left his mouth, he nodded in understanding. ‘Dolohov,’ he said.

‘We had a little chat.’

‘Good for you. I’m going to leave now, Sam. Why don’t you go back to the old man’s bedside. Talk about what great soldiers you both are.’

Sam’s eyes narrowed. ‘You honestly reckon that’s what he thinks?’

Jacob didn’t reply.

‘Since you went dark, he’s talked about no one but you. I mean it, J. I can’t spend five minutes in his fucking presence without hearing how much better you are than me. Or were . He thought you were dead, J., because you never came to see him.’ Sam looked over at the grave. ‘Mum too. If you hadn’t left, she wouldn’t have given up.’

Jacob’s lips had thinned. ‘Shut up,’ he said quietly.

‘No, Jacob. You don’t know what I’ve been through to catch up with you.’ He found himself breathing deeply, trying to keep his anger under control. ‘Mac had two children, you know. Cute kids. I don’t suppose you thought about that when you plugged him.’

‘It was his own fault,’ Jacob half-shouted, repeating his mantra.

‘And Rebecca, too. Wonder how she’s going to cope? You know, Mac risked a hell of a lot in Kazakhstan to stop the Regiment nailing one of their own. And in the end you nailed him .’

‘Fuck the Regiment!’ Jacob flared. ‘I stopped being one of them the day they kicked me out.’

‘And then you felt a burning desire to work for the Russians, is that right?’

‘I felt a burning desire to work for whoever paid me,’ Jacob retorted. ‘And don’t try to tell me it’s anything different to what you do. We kill people for money, Sam. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter which people, or whose money.’

It doesn’t matter which people. Mac on the roof, blood oozing from his fresh, fatal wound.

Sam felt like he was in the control of some other force, as though his limbs weren’t even doing his own bidding. He strode towards Jacob, who didn’t move from that spot in front of their mother’s grave. He raised his gun hand. Some tiny part of his mind observed that Jacob barely moved to defend himself, and he wondered why just as he brought the hard metal of the gun down forcefully on the side of Jacob’s face. A crack – the breaking of bone – and a sudden welt of blood. Jacob staggered, then drew himself up to face Sam.

The two brothers stood, damaged face to damaged face, eyeball to eyeball.

‘Feel better, Sam?’ Jacob whispered. His words were arrogant; but his eyes were disturbed.

Fury still burned through Sam’s veins. He pressed the Browning against the side of Jacob’s head. ‘You’re going to tell me about the hit,’ he said.

Jacob jutted his chin out, but didn’t say anything.

‘Dolohov told me one of the red-light runners is planning a hit,’ Sam persisted. ‘He didn’t know where or when. You’re going to tell me who it is, Jacob, otherwise I swear to God I’ll kill you.’

The two brothers stared at each other. Then, slowly, Jacob stepped backwards. In the background Sam heard the sound of sirens. Somewhere deep down he supposed it should worry him; but it didn’t.

‘You won’t kill me, Sam,’ Jacob said. A calmness appeared to have descended over him. ‘I’m your brother.’

He turned his back on Sam and started walking away. No hurry. In fact, there was a slowness to his gait. A heaviness.

The sirens grew louder.

Sam’s body went cold. Once more he felt himself in the grip of some other power, as though he were a puppet being controlled by invisible strings from above. He raised his gun hand.

‘You’re not my brother,’ he heard himself say.

Jacob stopped. He was five or six metres away now. When he turned again, there was an animal expression in his eyes.

The brothers stared at each other.

And then, Jacob came at him.

It happened so quickly. Jacob launched himself at Sam with his arms outstretched, going for his throat. It was a clumsy movement, the result of rage, not training. But Jacob was a big guy, and the impact knocked Sam backwards. He fell to the ground and Jacob fell on top of him with the barrel of Sam’s gun awkwardly pressed into the hard flesh of his stomach. The elbow of Sam’s gun hand crashed against the grass.

Sam never felt his trigger finger move. He heard the shot, though. It rang out across the graveyard, scaring the birds in the trees and causing them to rise up in flocks. He pushed Jacob away from him, but already he was spattered with the blood that had exploded from his brother’s stomach.

‘Jesus, J.,’ he whispered. And then louder: ‘ Jesus! ’

Jacob lay on his back. His breaths were short and irregular. Blood flowed from his abdomen.

His body was shaking and his skin was white. He looked up at Sam and for the first time ever, Sam saw fear in his brother’s eyes. Jacob started to say something, but all that came out was a weak cough and a trickle of blood that spilled over his lower lip.

Another cough and another gush of blood. In the distance, the sirens became louder and suddenly stopped. The crying of the disturbed birds dissolved into nothing and silence surrounded them.

Jacob closed his eyes. His skin became a greyer shade of pale and Sam knew what that meant.

‘Dad never forgot about you, Jacob,’ he breathed. ‘Not for a single second of a single day.’ Jacob winced and Sam sensed it was nothing to do with the pain. It was as if that one fact was too much for him to bear.

His chest started to rattle.

‘You have to tell me,’ Sam urged. ‘Tell me what you’ve set up. Who’s the target, Jacob? Who do the Russians want dead?’

The sound of shouting from the edges of the cemetery. Sam looked over his shoulder. Movement in the distance. He turned back to his brother. ‘For Mac’s sake, Jacob. And for Dad’s. If he thought you were a traitor, it would ruin the rest of what life he has left…’

Jacob’s eyes were rolling in their sockets. Fresh blood spewed from his mouth. He choked on it as he spoke. ‘You can’t stop it. It’s in motion.’

‘ Who? ’ Sam urged. ‘ Just tell me who? ’