by David Caris
‘Bullshit. Let me guess, the security cameras were installed by Curzon?’
‘Close. We supply the security staff.’
Which gives you the CCTV, Kovac finished internally.
He realized he was beginning to sweat. He raised the cap slightly and ran a forearm over his brow to keep his eyes clear. ‘What do you want, Bishop?’
‘To bring you in.’
‘Not going to happen.’
‘Sure it will. What’s your alternative?’
‘A normal life.’
Kovac heard a faint scoff. ‘Yeah, I’ve been watching that. Jogging, Spanish, coding. Jesus Christ, Kovac, what’s next? Knitting?’
Kovac heard Bishop stand up, an almost imperceptible grunt and a slight change in the breathing. He turned to see Bishop start down the stairs. ‘Permission to approach.’
‘Where you are is fine.’
Bishop stopped and signaled for his drunk to play it cool too.
‘What did you tell them?’ Kovac asked.
‘Who?’
‘Your helper elves here. Let me guess, you told them the truth. You told them my first kill was at age eleven, and far from helping me make amends for that, you taught me to make a fucking living from it. I was a kid, Bishop.’
‘What is this, Oprah?’
‘I told you – I’m done. I’m out.’
‘You were on a fast track to prison or death when I found you, Kovac. Now you’ve got what, three or four properties, a skillset most men would kill for, and a perfectly good job. Spare me the fucking sob story.’
Kovac resumed speaking, still choosing his words for the benefit of the old man beside him. ‘You paying the hired help extra for the added risk, Bishop?’
The old man simply sneered. But a sneer was a reaction, and any operator worth his salt knew that was a win. It was impossible to suppress all reactions. The trick was to swap one reaction for another: damaging for less damaging. Which meant Kovac’s words were getting through.
The old guy probably had an impressive resume – anyone in Kovac’s line of work who managed to get old invariably did. But Kovac had rattled him.
The eye of the storm, he thought again.
The old guy said: ‘We don’t need a scene, Mr. Kovac.’
They were in a stalemate of sorts now. The soccer game went on. Players kicked the ball to one another, headbutted it, and took shots at goal without success. The referee was liberal with his whistle, players either rolling around in fake agony or arguing the point. The crowd loved every second of it, and broke into song more than once.
The old guy wasn’t singing though. He was sitting motionless with his pistol in one hand and his beer in the other. No one had noticed the pistol, but they would. The longer they sat like this, the greater the chance someone would turn in the row just in front of them and come face to face with the little of it that was exposed.
Kovac kept an eye on Bishop and the man in the rumpled jacket, who both kept their distance. Bishop didn’t speak, but he was still on the line. Kovac could hear him breathing, and the faint conversations of spectators around him.
Kovac didn’t speak either. He swallowed a couple of times, his mouth dry and sticky. He felt his heartbeat get erratic. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to. Normally he channeled excitement, not fear.
Maybe he really was getting rusty…
The stalemate dragged on for another minute and a half, until the game ended in a 0-0 draw and went into a penalty shootout.
Bishop said: ‘Don’t do it, Kovac.’
Kovac swallowed hard again, a sour taste in his mouth. His ears were ringing slightly. He wondered if it was the fact he was going up against Bishop, the one man who knew all his tricks. Was this a hit?
Kovac pressed the phone to his ear a little harder, counteracting his slippery palms. Bishop spoke again: ‘Don’t be an idiot, Kovac. This is for your own good.’
‘What, taking me out into an English forest in the middle of the night and putting a bullet in my head?’
‘I would never.’
‘Yeah you would. I’ve helped you do it, remember. I know you Bishop. You talk a good game, but in the end you’re a butcher.’
Bishop began to say something but hesitated and started over. ‘You’ll be exposed unless we get ahead of this hack, Kovac. Think of what that will mean. Newspapers are only the start. I can think of one Saudi sheik in particular who will be first in line to send a team to kill you. And that’s if the Russians don’t get to you first.’
‘As for the Iranians…’ Kovac said, before adding. ‘Don’t forget you deployed me. They’ll be coming for you, too.’
‘Precisely. And Luther and Megan. I’m offering to help you fix this. But we’re on the clock here. We need to find the source of this hack and shut it down before it leaks. We can’t put information back into the vault. Once it’s out, it’s out.’
‘Or you bury me and deny everything.’
‘Jesus, Kovac. You know that doesn’t get me free and clear.’
‘It sure as shit gets you close, though.’
The goal Kovac needed finally came – arriving on the second to last attempt at goal in the shootout. As expected, the crowd around Kovac leaped up. Food and drink went everywhere, as fans hugged and screamed and jumped on the spot. The old man had to hide his pistol completely under his jacket, and Kovac pocketed the phone and took the chance to stand and start moving.
Rumpled Jacket spotted him and immediately started moving, too. Kovac didn’t look back but figured the old man would be in pursuit, along with Bishop.
The final shot at goal was a miss, and the few fans who were still seated now stood and joined the throng converging on the exits. Everyone was moving fast, rushing to beat the inevitable bottleneck. Kovac joined the stream, using it as a shield as he ditched the cap and grabbed another – a green one this time – from a man just ahead of him. The man complained, then looked confused when Kovac removed his windbreaker and gave it to him. Kovac didn’t wait for the inevitable questions. He slipped around the man and through a gap between a young woman and her toddler son.
And kept moving.
Always moving.
Rumpled Jacket moved too, looking to intercept. So Kovac stepped up onto the seats. He cut diagonally across to another aisle, pushing into another crowd. He was feeling a little better now that he was moving, a little more like his old self. His ribs were expanding and contracting normally again, and his heartbeat had calmed.
Rumpled Jacket doubled back and circled round to block Kovac’s new exit route. Kovac saw a clash was inevitable, but that was okay. Bishop and Old Guy were stuck in the crowd and wouldn’t arrive in time to provide support. It would be one on one, which was as good as Kovac could hope for under the circumstances. He made a snap decision to get it over with.
The man was slight. But he was clearly trained, and he was smooth in his movements as he navigated to cut Kovac off. If he had a weapon, he was choosing to proceed without it. This was good. Kovac didn’t want to produce a weapon right now either. A fight in a soccer stadium was one thing, weapons another entirely. If word of weapons got out, the police response would be prompt and severe.
The man went for a low kick. At first, Kovac assumed it was a feint. Everything in his posture broadcast the move. But it wasn’t. Kovac blocked with his left shin and used his right hand to deliver a vicious jab. Rumpled was off-balance after the kick, and though he tried to duck, his bunched fists pressed desperately to each cheek, he wasn’t successful. Kovac connected – just. Rumpled tried to recover from the blow, coming up with a clumsy right hook, but Kovac crouched deep – as deep as he could, his appendix holster jabbing him hard in the naval – and shot under the punch.
Thanks to the stairs, Kovac had the elevation, even in a crouch. He decided it was time to use it. He sprung up, as if from diving blocks, and slammed into Rumpled Jacket. A crash tackle – kind of. Kovac’s shoulder struck him in the base of the ribcage, and he also go
t an arm around the man’s waist. Kovac didn’t let up. He drove through, and felt Rumpled lift up into the air and sail backward. Because of the fall of the stairs, it was a sickening drop after they both cleared the apex. Kovac concentrated on aligning his body with Rumpled’s. He was going to need cushioning on impact, and that’s exactly what Rumpled provided. His upper back hit the stairs first and his head snapped back, striking the edge of a concrete step like a watermelon. Kovac kept rolling, eventually tumbling down into the legs of confused bystanders, all of whom scrambled. There was screaming and scrabbling, as people realized what was happening. Confusion turned to fear.
But Kovac was already on his feet again, back to a calm, controlled walk. The cap he had stolen was gone, but he still had his pistol in place in its Kydex holster. His knife too. He didn’t need to touch either to know everything was still right where it was meant to be.
The crowd pressed down even harder on the nearest exit, everyone desperate to leave. It seemed they understood the difference between an everyday brawl, with men grabbing shirts and shoving, and what they had just seen transpire here. Kovac found himself boxed in. He did a quick scan of the faces surrounding him – a full 360 or as close as he could manage. No Old Guy, no Bishop.
He kept quiet, kept his head down, and flowed out with the crowd – just more flotsam on the current. As soon as he was clear of the stands he retraced his steps, all the way back to the exit.
Police appeared, but didn’t spot him in the chaos. He walked calmly to the outside of the stadium’s main pavilion and entered the smaller, redbrick building with its large red ticket scanner and two guys in a booth, both still in their orange vests. He was back in a bottle neck, and he passed through with hundreds of others. They didn’t recognize him in his new clothes.
Outside, Kovac saw the van was gone. Even so, he made for the park, where it would be impossible for a vehicle to pursue him. He followed the outer line of the stadium to the river, continually checking behind. No one was following. It seemed he had managed to lose the police as he exited.
At the river, he once again slowed to a stroll. His shin was throbbing, but aside from that he was unscathed.
He took out Old Guy’s phone and saw it was still on the call to Bishop. ‘Still there?’ he said, putting it to his ear.
‘That wasn’t necessary, Kovac.’
‘Choices, Bishop. We all make them. You taught me that.’
‘This is stupid Kovac. We’re wasting time.’
‘Was Bibi you?’
There was a pause.
Kovac said: ‘She didn’t deserve to be turned in like that.’
‘We need to talk, Kovac – and not like this. In person.’
Kovac said nothing. He wanted to get clear of this public park. It was getting on dusk but still too open, mostly soccer pitches at this end, and he felt exposed.
Bishop said: ‘Meet me at Curzon’s London office at 8:30 p.m.. I’ve arranged it with Megan. She’s there. We’ll talk this though and formulate a plan. Hopefully she’ll have information we can action by then.’
‘Thanks, but like I said – I’m done.’ Kovac hung up. He considered throwing the phone out into the Themes. Watching it land with a ka-plunk would have been satisfying. But he decided against it. It was better used in the coming hour as a decoy.
The trees lining the river were casting long shadows out onto the dark pitch – blacker on black – and he could hear the wind running through their leaves, moving them all in great gusts only to let them fall still again. A couple of dusk joggers passed him by, their breathing loud.
Kovac lowered his head and pressed on. Even if he was clear of Bishop, he wasn’t free of this hack. And he had to pay it to Bishop: throwing Bibi to the wolves had definitely constrained his choices. Another reason to keep the phone a little longer. He was going to need it to vanish, and unless he could find some way across the channel without paperwork, he was going to have to vanish here in the United Kingdom.
It wasn’t a prospect he relished. Curzon had tentacles that ran deep into countless businesses in the U.K..
Kovac was just starting to form a plan when he heard the explosion.
Chapter 11
It had happened back at the stadium, and given Kovac didn’t believe in coincidences he lingered. He made a snap decision to watch the emergency response play out and learn what he could.
First came thick black smoke, rising from the stadium only to be caught in the wind and dispersed. Then came panic. The crowds had already been leaving, but there was now a visible rush on the exits. With so many people swarming around and crushing down, Kovac feared for those trapped in the exodus.
As the crowd surrounding the stadium thickened, he was able to move back towards the structure. He blended into the chaos as police and the London Ambulance Service arrived, their sirens cutting through the questions being asked all around him. Fire trucks arrived moments later.
People were filming on phones, even as they asked others what was happening. Kovac avoided getting caught in a video, but otherwise joined in, asking strangers what they knew. Predictably, no one knew anything.
The response from emergency services was impressive, despite what Kovac knew would be a chaotic flood of information hitting the 999 number, as well as media outlets. They had done well to narrow down the location. They had police, ambulance and fire here now, and police immediately went to work controlling the flow of people out of the exits.
The explosion had been loud, though long experience told Kovac it would only affect a very small section of the stadium. It had sounded like some kind of improvised explosive device. Small enough not to collapse buildings, sizeable enough to provoke mayhem. He stayed as long as he dared, keeping an eye out for Bishop and anyone else Bishop may have been working with. They didn’t appear. The van didn’t reappear, either.
He watched the police enter the stadium. Then he watched the ambulance workers organize their equipment and take it in. The air smelled like smoke now, and all around him people had fixed frowns.
Kovac didn’t wait for victims to be brought out. He was pushing his luck already. Instead he joined those departing and melted back into the streets of London. He set a brisk pace, as an ambulance roared past him. He figured hospitals would be on major incident standby now, identifying their safe rendezvous points in case of a chemical, biological or radioactive risk. He reminded himself there was a small chance it was a coincidence: some kind of accident, some kind of malfunction deep in the bowels of the stadium, with any injuries coming from the rush on the exits.
But he wasn’t buying that. The phone Kovac was holding rang. He looked down and was surprised by the name on the screen. “Megan”.
He stopped walking, turning on the spot. He looked back towards the stadium. He was tired, he was alone, and he felt like he was being framed. He had a single pistol, a knife, a stranger’s phone, and a limited supply of cash. As things stood, he couldn’t counter the threat of the hack alone. And now he would struggle to vanish, too…
He swore under his breath, angered by the predicament he found himself in. He had sworn off this life. He had made a conscious decision to walk away, and his old world had no right to impinge. But even as he thought this, he knew it was childish. And pointless. No one could ever truly escape their past, particularly assassins.
He would be found. If not by Curzon, then by Curzon’s enemies. And if not by either of them, then by police. He had raised too many red flags with his behavior in the stadium.
He ignored the call from Megan but phoned Bishop back. ‘I’ll meet with her,’ he said, when the call connected.
‘With Megan? Where?’
‘Her office.’
‘Time?’
‘Later tonight, when I’m ready. And no one else. Just Megan. I so much as sense you hovering, Bishop, I swear to God I’ll kill her.’
Chapter 12
Curzon’s London office was dark and silent. Kovac walked past as if he had no inten
tion of entering. Nothing flashed on the little sensors overhead, and the front doors didn’t open.
He dropped back into shadow and waited ten minutes, until a group of employees who had been working late came out of the staircase inside. They were all deep in conversation as they exited. Kovac stepped forward again, slipping in through the open door as they passed him by. He mumbled that his ID wasn’t working on account of the outage, but he needn’t have bothered. They were young – all in their early twenties – and they didn’t pause their conversation long enough to acknowledge him.
Still watching his six, he went to the staircase and started up the levels. He figured Megan would be working out of her father’s old office, which meant the seventeenth floor. He took each level at a jog. He was fit on account of all the jogging to kill time, but seventeen levels was still seventeen levels. It taxed his aerobic system, and he was breathing hard and sweating when he arrived at the top.
He exited the staircase and made his way through towards the front desk. Two security guards immediately stepped in front of him, blocking access. Both were armed.
Kovac looked to the front desk. There were three people working it. Two women, and Megan’s personal assistant, Nixon Hsu.
So he had the right level.
The women both looked up at the sound of Kovac’s heavy breathing, and at the stern ‘Can I help you?’ from one of the guards.
‘Tell Megan John Kovac is here to see her,’ Kovac said, ignoring both the guards and directing his words to Nixon Hsu.
The name John Kovac didn’t seem to mean anything to Nixon. He finished stapling a document and said: ‘She expecting you?’
Kovac checked his watch. ‘Right about now, yes.’
The two women refocused on their computer screens and started typing again.
Nixon said: ‘I’ll need to see ID.’
‘ID?’
‘ID,’ both the security guards parroted, now standing shoulder to shoulder in front of Kovac. ‘And we’ll need to search you.’
‘We’re not taking any chances,’ Nixon said.