Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

Bethany reached the edge of the bed. With the heel of her left hand she pushed against the side of the General’s head to expose his neck fully. The tendons were tense and strained, and she could just make out the high-pressure pulse of the carotid artery. One cut was all it would need. One deft slice. She raised a corner of the duvet with the free fingers of her razor hand, ready to protect herself from the initial spurt of blood.

‘Good night, General O’Brien,’ she said.

The General’s guy left the stairwell at the third floor. The fire alarm was loudest in the corridors. Tiny red warning lights flashed in the ceiling panels. There were four other guests in the corridor, hurrying from their rooms towards the stairs. It was enough movement for Danny’s presence to be unremarkable to the guy if he even noticed him. Danny followed him to the end of the corridor where he took a left and disappeared from Danny’s field of view. When Danny saw him again, he was holding a key card to a panel three doors down on the left. The door clicked open and he entered.

Danny ran. He caught the door a fraction of a second before it clicked shut, and burst into the room. It was a suite. With a single glance he took in the furniture, the whisky glasses at the bar, the two doors leading off. Only one was open, and the General’s guy was standing in the door frame. Danny could tell from his posture – shoulders hunched, legs slightly apart – that he was aiming a weapon. He hurled himself across the room towards the door frame and launched his whole body at the guy, slamming into him with a crashing momentum. The guy fell forwards to the ground, but not before releasing a round. It was a handgun round, unsuppressed, and its retort, merged with the fire alarm, was disorientating. Danny let the full weight of his body crash down on to the soldier to stop him getting to his feet again and taking another shot. As he fell, he took in the room. He saw the General, naked and tied to the bed. He saw Bethany, one hand on his head, something in her other hand, looking back over her shoulder. He saw where the bullet from the guy’s handgun had slammed into the wall just behind her, throwing out a shower of plaster. And he saw Bethany turn to the General again and raise her right arm. He realised she was moving in to cut his throat.

‘ NO! ’ he shouted. ‘ LEAVE HIM! ’

The General’s guy was strong. Despite Danny’s weight on his back, he was pushing himself up with his free hand and he still had a good grip of his weapon. He was aiming at Bethany again, his finger on the trigger. Danny slammed a heavy clenched fist on to his elbow joint. The joint clicked as it broke, and the guy yelled in pain and the gun fired. But Danny had compromised his aim and the bullet flew harmlessly under the bed and splintered into the skirting board on the far side.

‘What the hell?’ Bethany shouted, her voice tense.

‘Instructions from London,’ Danny shouted back. ‘He’s not what they thought he was.’

The General’s guy started shouting for help from underneath Danny, each word followed by a noisy inhalation of breath, shaky on account of his broken elbow.

Danny didn’t have time to explain. He bore this guy no malice. He was Yank soldier, doing his job, and he didn’t deserve to lose his life because of it. But Danny needed him out of the way. He raised his own elbow and crashed it down on the back of the guy’s skull. His head jarred hard against the floor and his body went limp. He’d be out for a good few minutes. Danny loosened the weapon from his hand – it was a Sig Sauer M17, nine millimetre, sand coloured. He stood up and strode over to where Bethany was still perched on the edge of the bed. The General was still wearing his military ID tags, and his eyes were bulging. Something was stuffed in his mouth and his arms were straining against two dressing-gown cords tied to the timber uprights of his four-poster. Danny didn’t need to know how Bethany had got him into this position. He just needed to get him out of it. ‘Give me that,’ he said, indicating the razor blade.

‘What’s happening?’ Bethany demanded.

‘No time,’ Danny said. He grabbed the razor and quickly cut through the two cords. The General rolled away from them, almost falling off the bed. He regained his footing and removed the object obstructing his throat. He gagged as he pulled out a fistful of material and Danny realised it was his own underpants. He raised the Sig and aimed it at the naked man. ‘Get your clothes on,’ he said.

‘What in the—’

‘ Get them on! I haven’t got time to explain. I think there are Wagner Group operatives in the hotel, and I think they’ve been ordered to kill you if we fail.’

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘British SAS,’ Danny said, figuring that it would hold some weight with a man like this. ‘We know about Poliakov and the deepfakes.’ He said it with bullish confidence, hoping to hide that the CO’s instructions made no sense to him.

Whatever they meant, Danny’s words hit their mark. The General nodded, but then he pointed at Bethany. ‘What about her? Who the hell—’

‘Long story, no time. Get dressed if you want to live. Do it. Now.’

He nodded and hurried over to where his clothes were neatly piled. He was plainly traumatised as he tried to get dressed. He was having trouble coordinating his limbs. When Bethany moved towards Danny, the General visibly shrank away even though they were separated by the width of the room.

‘We need to get back to the vehicle,’ Danny said. ‘As long as the fire alarm is ringing, we should be able to leave by any exit. There’s a fire exit at the bottom of the stairwell. That’ll be better than the main entrance. Less people to see us go. But we might encounter hostiles on the way down, so I need you and the General to stay behind me.’

‘Why?’ Bethany said. Her voice had an edge. She was wired. Hardly surprising. ‘Because I can’t take care of myself?’

‘No,’ Danny said, and he held up the Sig. ‘Because I’m the one with the firearm and I think we’re going to need it.’ He bent over the unconscious soldier and felt around his abdomen. He located two spare clips for the Sig. He could tell by the weight that they were standard seventeen-round magazines. That gave him thirty-four shots, plus whatever was already in the handgun. He stole the clips and put them into his pocket. The General was worming his feet into his shiny brown brogues. ‘Ready?’ Danny said.

‘Ready,’ they said in unison.

And as soon as they’d said it, the fire alarm stopped. There was a heavy silence. Danny swore. Getting out of here was suddenly ten times more difficult. He considered the possible routes. They were on the third floor. They needed to get to the ground floor. The lift was out of the question. Too confined. He knew from the hotel plan on the exhibition board that there was only one staircase. They would have to use it to get back down to the ground floor. Once there, it would be better to avoid the main entrance, but he didn’t think they could avoid going through the bar. And that made him remember something. ‘There were two Russian guys in the bar,’ he said. ‘One with sandy hair, polo neck, leather jacket. One with black hair and a black moustache. Anyone starts firing, get out of the way and let me deal with it. Understood?’

‘I can handle myself in a combat situation,’ said the General.

Danny looked meaningfully at the remnants of dressing-gown cord that were still hanging from his wrists. ‘Let me deal with it,’ he repeated.

The General’s pale face reddened but he puffed out his chest anyway. ‘I have guys in the hotel,’ he said. ‘American guys. Good guys. Any more of them get hurt, you’re in the glasshouse for the rest of your goddamn days.’