Jack Higgins - Rough Justice

‘Now what?’

‘I’m going on. You take the alley and find the rear entrance.’

Blake, on fire in a way he hadn’t been in years, did as he was told, and Miller crossed to the door, opened it and went in, his right hand once again behind his back holding the Browning.

The inn was old fashioned in a way to be expected deep in such countryside: a beamed ceiling, wooden floors, a scattering of tables and a long bar, bottles ranged on shelves behind it. There were about fifteen men crouched on the floor by the bar, hands on heads, two Russian soldiers guarding them. A sergeant stood behind the bar drinking from a bottle, a machine pistol on the counter by his hand. Two other soldiers sat on a bench opposite, two women crouched on the floor beside them, one of them sobbing.

The officer in command, a captain from his rank tabs, sat at a table in the centre of the room. He was very young, handsome enough, a certain arrogance there. That the muted sound of Miller’s silenced pistol had not been heard inside the inn was obvious enough, but considering the circumstances, he seemed to take the sudden appearance of this strange apparition in combat overalls and old-fashioned trench coat with astonishing calm. He had a young girl on his knee who didn’t even bother to struggle as he fondled her, so terrified was she.

He spoke in Russian. ‘And who are you?’

‘My name is Major Harry Miller, British Army, attached to the United Nations.’ His Russian was excellent.

‘Show me your papers.’

‘No. You’re the one who should be answering questions. You’ve no business this side of the border. Identify yourself.’

The reply came as a kind of reflex. ‘I am Captain Igor Zorin of the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards, and we have every right to be here. These Muslim dogs swarm over the border to Bulgaria to rape and pillage.’ He pushed the girl off his knee and sent her staggering towards the bar and his sergeant. ‘Give this bitch another bottle of vodka, I’m thirsty.’

She returned with the bottle, and Zorin dragged her back on his knee, totally ignoring Miller, then pulled the cork in the bottle with his teeth, but instead of drinking the vodka, he forced it on the girl, who struggled, choking.

‘So what do you want, Englishman?’

A door opened at the rear of the room and Blake stepped in cautiously, machine pistol ready.

‘Well, I’ve already disposed of your two guards on the porch, and now my friend who’s just come in behind you would like to demonstrate what he can do.’

Blake put a quick burst into the ceiling, which certainly got everybody’s attention, and called in Russian, ‘Drop your weapons!’

There was a moment’s hesitation and he fired into the ceiling again. All of them, including the sergeant at the bar, raised their hands. It was Zorin who did the unexpected, dragging the girl across his lap in front of him, drawing his pistol, and pushing it into her side.

‘Drop your weapon, or she dies.’

Without hesitation, Miller shot him twice in the side of the skull, sending him backwards over the chair. There was total silence, the Muslims getting to their feet. Everyone waited. He spoke to the sergeant in Russian.

‘You take the body with you, put it in the Storm Cruiser and wait for us with your men. See they do it, Blake.’ He turned to the Muslims. ‘Who speaks English?’

A man moved forward and the girl turned to him. ‘I am the Mayor, sir, I speak good English. This is my youngest daughter. Allah’s blessing on you. My name is Yusuf Birka.’

The Russians were moving out, supervised by Blake, two of them carrying Zorin’s body, followed by the sergeant.

Miller said to Birka, ‘Keep the weapons, they may be of use to you in the future.’

Birka turned and spoke to the others and Miller went outside. Blake was standing at the rear of the Storm Cruiser, supervising the Russians loading Zorin’s body and the wounded man. There was an ammunition box on the ground.

‘Semtex and timer pencils. I suppose that would be for the mosque.’

The soldiers all scrambled in and the sergeant waited, looking bewildered. ‘If these people had their way, they’d shoot the lot of you,’ Miller told him.

To his surprise, the sergeant replied in reasonable English. ‘I must warn you. The death of Captain Zorin won’t sit well with my superiors. He was young and foolish, but well connected in Moscow.’

‘I can’t help that, but I have a suggestion for your commanding officer when you get back. Tell him from me that since you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we’ll treat the whole incident as if it didn’t happen. Now get moving.’

‘As you say.’ The sergeant looked unhappy, but climbed up behind the wheel and drove the Storm Cruiser away, to the cheers of the villagers.

People milled around in the street, staring curiously. Some of the men arrived now, but they kept their distance as Miller and Blake talked with the mayor, who said, ‘How can we thank you?’

‘By taking my advice. Keep quiet about this. If they come again, you have arms. I don’t think they will, though. It’s better for them to pretend it never happened, and better if you do, too. I won’t report any of this to the Protection Corps.’

The mayor said, ‘I will be guided by you. Will you break bread with us?’

Miller smiled, ‘No, my friend, because we aren’t here. We never were.’ He turned to Blake. ‘Let’s get going. I’ll drive this time.’

As they moved away, Blake said, ‘Do you think the villagers will do as you say?’

‘I don’t see why not. It’s entirely to their advantage, and I don’t think it’s worth us mentioning it to the Corps because of, shall we say, the peculiar circumstances of the matter.’

‘I’ve no problem with that,’ Blake said. ‘But I’ll have to report back to the President.’

‘I agree. I’ll do the same with the PM. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been informed of this sort of thing. Meanwhile, you’ve got your laptop there, and the information pack you were given by the Protection Corps people includes Russian military field service codes for the area. See what they have on Captain Igor Zorin and the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards.’

Blake opened his laptop on his knees, got to work and found it in a matter of minutes. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Forward Field Centre, Lazlo, Bulgaria. Igor Zorin, twenty-five, decorated in Chechnya. Listings for the unit, home base near Moscow.’

‘Sounds good,’ Miller said.

And then a magic hand wiped it clean, the screen went dark. ‘Dammit.’ Blake punched keys desperately. ‘It’s all gone. What have I done?’

‘Nothing,’ Miller told him. ‘I imagine the sergeant called in and gave his masters the bad news within minutes of his leaving us. It didn’t happen, you see, just like I told you. Except the Russians are being even more than usually thorough. So, is it back to Zagreb for you?’

‘No, Pristina. I’m hitching a lift from there back to the States with the Air Force. How about you?’

‘Belgrade for me, and then London. Olivia’s opening on Friday in the West End. An old Noël Coward play, Private Lives . I hope I can make it. I disappoint her too often.’

‘Let’s hope you do.’ Blake hesitated, awkward. ‘It’s been great meeting you. What you did back there was remarkable.’

‘But necessary. That’s what soldiers do, the nasty things from which the rest of society turns away. Zorin was something that needed stepping on, that’s all.’ And he increased speed as they went over the next rise.

Seated by the fire in the beach house, Blake finished his account of what had taken place at Banu and there was silence for a while and it was Cazalet who spoke first.