by J. F. Kirwan
A throne.
He took in everyone around the room, gave them one by one a frozen smile betraying nothing. For once she gained as much attention as her sister, which was the same as Slick and the pilot, for that matter. The odd thing was that he didn’t look at Lazarus, as if he wasn’t there. No, as if he already knew Lazarus. Had they met? Whoever he was, he reeked of professionalism and discipline. It occurred to her that such people were rarely tolerant of others’ sloppiness. No wonder Kadinsky was nervous.
No bodyguard seemed crazy, though, walking into this den of killers. Neither Kadinsky nor his men had been searched. Maybe this was real power. No one was going to mess with him. But Kadinsky was agitated like she’d never seen him. A bead of sweat clung to his left temple, and his eyes darted around the table. She soaked up his predicament, happy to watch him get a taste of his own.
Kadinsky placed the Rose on the tinted glass coffee table between them all. ‘As promised,’ he said.
The buyer didn’t reach for it. Instead he pulled out a silver case from his suit jacket and opened it, revealing a line of filter-less cigarettes. He extracted one, lit it with a matching silver lighter, inhaled, then exhaled smoothly. When he finally spoke, he did so incredibly slowly, enunciating every word, every syllable.
‘I wish to ask the girl some questions. We do not need so many people here. I am alone, and unarmed.’
Kadinsky’s eyes shifted this way and that, then he blurted to Slick and the pilot. ‘You two take Katya back to the boat, and put on some decent coffee.’
Nadia made sure she didn’t react. ‘Put on some decent coffee’ was code for break out the heavy weapons. Kadinsky wasn’t taking any chances after all. She watched Katya disappear with Slick.
When they were gone, Kadinsky added, ‘Lazarus, I believe you and Mr Cheng Yi have met before.’
Lazarus grunted, but said nothing. She watched the big man’s eyes. They’d been shut again a minute ago, and she’d seen his hands go rigid, shaking slightly. He was in intense pain. But right now he was staring out the bay window, searching. Which meant he also believed there was a sniper. And the chairs in the room were arranged so that Nadia and Lazarus were to Cheng Yi’s right, Kadinsky to his left. A sniper would have direct line of fire. Three shots. Two seconds. High velocity bullets might not even shatter the glass.
With the others gone, Cheng Yi got up to inspect the merchandise. Swapping his cigarette to his left hand, he pulled a small black contraption from his jacket pocket and plugged a cable into a tiny slot in the Rose. After a minute he unplugged it, and returned to his throne.
‘It does appear to be genuine.’
‘The money transfer, then, as agreed,’ Kadinsky said, not hiding his irritation at for once not being the top dog in the room.
Cheng Yi held up his hand. ‘First, questions.’ He turned to Nadia, reached into an inner pocket and pulled out two photographs. He slid the first one across the table in her direction.
She picked it up. Her and Jake on a RIB, heading out to sea. The image was grainy, so it had been taken using a powerful zoom lens.
‘Who is this man?’ Cheng Yi asked.
She glanced at Kadinsky, who was glaring hard with a look she’d seen before, willing her not to piss on the deal. She wondered what the best course of action was. Truth, she decided. Cheng Yi didn’t seem to be the type you messed around with. Besides, he’d not shown her the second photo.
‘His name is Jake Saunders. Used to be MI6. He helped me retrieve the Rose.’
Cheng Yi gave her a poker stare, then slid the second photo across the table. It was an attractive woman with Jake, on a boat. It looked familiar, and then she recognised it as the Mirage, the boat on the Thames where she’d come out of the water with the Rose to meet Sammy, less than a week ago.
‘I don’t know her,’ she replied.
‘MI6,’ Cheng Yi said. ‘I need to know what they know.’
‘No idea,’ Nadia replied.
‘So you say,’ Cheng Yi said, staring at the Rose. ‘But my client needs to be sure.’
Kadinsky butted in. ‘But you are the client,’ he said.
Cheng Yi waved his cigarette hand. ‘I am the buyer. I am not the client.’ He turned to Lazarus. ‘Hold her.’
Nadia made to move, but Lazarus surprised her with his speed. She found herself clamped inside two giant hands.
Cheng Yi turned back to Kadinsky. ‘I understand the other one is her sister.’
Nadia tensed, but she was trapped inside a vice, her arms pinned to her sides.
He spoke to Kadinsky again. ‘If she does not answer me fully, please kill the sister.’
‘With pleasure,’ Kadinsky answered. He sneered at Nadia, back in his comfort zone. ‘I planned to make the boat lighter for the return journey in any case.’
Nadia squirmed. Lazarus leaned close to her ear, uttered some Russian profanities, then whispered a single word. Wait. She stopped struggling. The vice eased off.
Cheng Yi tapped at his cigarette and flicked ash onto the parquet. ‘Who do they suspect? What do they think is the target?’
‘They don’t know who was behind the cyber-attack,’ she answered. ‘Best guess Chinese government, second best guess, Russian.’
Cheng Yi seemed disappointed, more interested in the coils of smoke.
She recalled Jake’s outlier theory. ‘You’re not representing any government are you?’ Then the other part of the mystery slotted into place. ‘The cyber-attack on MI6. It wasn’t a distraction, or a delaying tactic, or even a show of force, was it? It destroyed information. Something MI6 didn’t even know they had. Pieces of the puzzle they hadn’t put together yet. The identity of your client.’
Kadinsky was unhappy again, glancing between her and Cheng Yi as if it was a tennis match.
But Jake had said something else, back in that beachside cafe. She watched Cheng Yi carefully. ‘London,’ she said. ‘Jake thinks London will be the target.’
Cheng Yi inhaled deeply, making the cigarette’s end flare red. Then a long exhale through pursed lips. Through the coils of smoke he met her eyes, and she saw the awful truth. Jake had been right. This wasn’t about leverage. The client, whoever they were, meant to use the Rose.
Cheng Yi didn’t respond, except via a wan smile across his pale lips.
She turned to Kadinsky. ‘Ka –’ She dipped her head, then raised it again. ‘Pyotr Aleksandrovich,’ she said, using Kadinsky’s patronymic for the first time ever, forcing some respect into her tone, trying to get his attention. ‘Whoever Cheng Yi is representing, they mean to use it.’
She watched Kadinsky’s eyes flicker. He was probably deciding how to react, wondering whether she could be telling the truth, but also fighting his natural instinct to kill her there and then for spoiling the moment.
‘The transfer,’ he said flat, to Cheng Yi.
She watched the exchange, and then she understood the final touch to the plan. ‘He’s already paid you,’ she said. ‘The money’s in your Swiss account.’
Kadinsky leaned forward, his head flushed, his features all bunched up. Cheng Yi sat there, smug. ‘Continue,’ he said, addressing Nadia.
‘I only just worked it out.’ She wished Jake was here. Or maybe his MI6 handler. ‘Nuclear submarines have their targets pre-coded. Even the Rose can’t just dial in and give any nuclear sub a fresh set of coordinates. So, you need a sub that has London in its targeting database. A Russian submarine, for example.’
Again she watched Cheng Yi’s eyes. But this time she was off track. She reminded herself that he wasn’t the client, he was the buyer. The client wasn’t a government, but was someone secret, with significant resources… who would go to extraordinary lengths to remain anonymous. Perhaps a person who held a grudge against Britain for some reason. If a Russian sub attacked the UK, the UK would respond, inevitably abetted by America. It could lead to all out nuclear war. Cheng Yi didn’t look the insane type, or someone who would work for a reckless maniac bent o
n world destruction. She turned it around in her head.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘A UK sub. You’re going to get a UK sub to attack Russia!’
Now she had Kadinsky’s attention. He butted in. ‘Why?’
‘Because then Russia will retaliate. In the heat of the moment, no one will aid Britain because they’ll be seen as the aggressor.’ Brilliant. Ruthless. And totally unacceptable. She couldn’t let it happen. Her and Katya’s lives weren’t worth this!
Dammit, Jake had been right all along.
Cheng Yi did a slow, theatrical clap, spilling more ash. ‘If circumstances were different, I would offer you a job. Professor Laney, the Rose’s architect, was as brilliant as he was arrogant. The Rose only works for certain on British submarines. How could he test it on any others?’
Cheng Yi was right. But she saw what was coming. She turned to Kadinsky. ‘You’re going to be the fall guy for all of this. That’s why he’s already paid you. Pyotr Aleksandrovich Kadinsky will go down in history as the man who unleashed nuclear war in Europe.’
For the first time ever, she read uncertainty in Kadinsky’s features. He was fiddling with his Rolex. And then she recalled that Kadinsky loved his gadgets. It’s not just a watch. He’s communicating with his men. Because he, too, now realises that none of us are getting off this ship except as fish food.
Cheng Yi took one last inhale, and then held the cigarette out to his left, poised above the floor. She knew what it was. The signal. Telling the sniper to get ready. Who? All of them? But who first? With her right hand, she tapped Lazarus’ giant thigh twice. His hands stayed where they were, but only with the lightest contact.
‘Well, this has all been very interesting,’ Cheng Yi said. ‘And my client thanks you for your services. But our business is now concluded.’
She did a quick assessment. Could she make it to the blind spot in time? She glanced at the Rose. And the table. Glass. Reflections. Cover. But she was out of time. They all were.
Cheng Yi let the cigarette fall from his fingers.
‘Now!’ she shouted, and dived below the table, scooping up the Rose as she hit the deck.
Kadinsky shot up out of his chair, his right arm flicking upwards as if he had a weapon. But there was a ‘pfft’ sound and the tiniest tinkling. A single drop of blood spat from Kadinsky’s right temple just as flesh, blood and brain matter erupted from the left one. He fell like a plank, straight onto and through the glass table. It shattered, spewing hail-like glass fragments in every direction. His head ended up close to her face. His angry black eyes stared at her as if still clinging to life, then they glazed over. He rolled onto his back, his mouth slack, emitting a death rattle like a gurgling drain.
Lazarus let out a deafening roar. He leapt upwards using Nadia’s chair as a springboard, and briefly sailed through the air. Two more pffts, a fast double tap. She caught a glimpse of Cheng Yi’s face, its previous imperturbable features morphed into abject terror as Lazarus, possibly already dead from two sniper headshots, fell towards him like a human meteorite. There was a sickening crunch of bones and an agonised cry from Cheng Yi, trapped in his throne, as Lazarus crashed down upon him. Lazarus moved no more, just so much dead weight. But Cheng Yi was still breathing, at least gasping, and he managed to rattle off a single sentence.
‘Kill the girl.’
She was safe as long as she stayed flat on the floor. But the world wasn’t safe while what she held in her hands still existed. Lazarus had shown the way. She knew what she had to do. Shots and heavy machine-gun fire outside split the ensuing silence. Then a grenade explosion. Another one. Shouts and screams, some Russian, some Chinese. Katya was still out there. But this was no longer about Katya.
She crawled towards the door, but had to manoeuvre through the minefield of glass fragments, behind Lazarus, which might move her back into the sniper’s sights. Sure enough, another pfft, and pain lanced across her left shoulder-blade, as if someone had just slashed her with a knife. She’d been lucky, just a graze. But if she lifted her head, even for half a second… She hugged the floor, glass shards against her cheek, and took a few jagged breaths. Come on guys, take out the sniper!
More gunfire and shouting outside, and this time a drum-roll of metallic twangs she prayed were ricochets as bullets peppered the sniper’s position hidden amongst the containers. She crawled fast, cutting her forearms, hoping the sniper was distracted, and made it to the door, to the blind spot. Carefully, she stood up, and depressed the door handle. The wind outside caught the door and flung it open, inside the room. A bullet exploded on the inside of the metal door, and ricocheted into her abdomen, knocking her backwards, and winding her. Smart fucking bastard! One hell of a sniper. Would have made the Butcher proud. She looked down. A shallow wound, bleeding nicely. She plucked the scalding hot bullet from her flesh, gritting her teeth against the stinging, grinding pain. Through the hatch, the ocean outside beckoned.
You can do this. Destroy the Rose, once and for all.
Heavy gunfire again, more metallic twangs. Cover. Ignoring the blood oozing out of her, she darted through the door and raised her arm ready to hurl the Rose into the ocean. Where it belonged. But in amongst the rat-a-tat-tat streaming of a single Russian sub-machine gun she heard one deeper crack, like close thunder. Her left shoulder exploded, the momentum of the bullet spinning her around. She’d aimed the Rose at the water, but heard it hit something metallic, and plummet to the deck below, clanging twice more before it landed with a dull thud. She lay on her back on the metal gantry outside the aquarium, panting, hurting in too many places to move. She waited for the kill-shot.
It didn’t come.
Turning her head sideways, in the distance she saw two dark blobs above the horizon, beneath the cloud layer. Helicopters. Probably MI6. A bit bloody late. But it grew quiet down below. No more gunfire, no more shouting. And then a voice. A woman’s, calling her name. Nadia tried to move, regretted it immediately, carried on anyway, and rolled onto her stomach so she could see. Down below, between the mast and the containers, only two people were left standing. Katya and Slick. Slick faced a dozen or so Chinese sailors. They weren’t armed, just crew. He had them on their knees, hands behind their heads. Katya was suddenly on her knees too, next to him. He held her by the hair with one hand, as he waved an Uzi at the crew, bellowing at them in Russian, not that they would understand, not that he would care.
No, you sick bastard, don’t you dare. She pushed up, tried to call to him, to distract him, but barely a croak came out, and then she closed her eyes as the Uzi sang its sorry tune one more time. When she opened her eyes again, Katya was screaming until he smacked her chin with the butt of the weapon.
All the crew were dead.
It hurt more than she’d thought possible, but there were two more things she needed to do. Somehow, she got up.
Staggering back into the aquarium, she knelt over Lazarus. Amazingly, Cheng Yi was still alive, struggling to breathe, his eyes a fusion of anger and pain. But he wasn’t going anywhere. She searched Kadinsky’s corpse, and found what she was looking for. A small derringer, complete with a spring-loaded gadget attached to his right arm that would spit it into his right hand in a split second. Katya had told her about it, seen him use it once. Why he always wore baggy suits. Everyone always thought he was unarmed and relied on his men. Apparently he was a dead-shot. With these little guns you had to be. But the sniper had killed him before he’d had a chance to fire it. In a way, by trying to kill Cheng Yi and therefore giving the sniper a clear priority, Kadinsky had saved her life. Talk about irony.
She released the derringer and its rapid delivery mechanism, strapped it to her own arm, adjusted it, then puffed out her jacket sleeve. The Butcher had taught her how to use one three years ago. About to leave, she stopped, bent over Kadinsky and closed his eyes. That was when she noticed Lazarus’ face. She didn’t know if it was pain or rictus, but he looked like he was smiling, despite two neat holes in the centre of his forehead
.
She made her way down the steps, each one sending a spike of pain through her shoulder and down her back, each one squeezing a little more blood from her abdomen. She was headed towards the Rose. Stealth wasn’t an option, and in any case the helicopters were getting closer, the staccato jack-hammering of their blades carried forward by the wind. She paused to catch her breath, and peered over the side. The motor yacht had been strafed by gunfire, the pilot’s body lying on the deck at such a twisted angle he had to be dead. She counted eight bodies lying on the ship’s deck. By the time she reached the deck, Slick was waiting for her, Katya in front of him, the muzzle of his Glock hard against her temple, the Rose by his boot. His shirt and jacket were torn, riddled by bullets, revealing a black Kevlar vest underneath.
Nadia made a loose fist, ready to flex her forearm to trigger the spring.
‘Let her go,’ she said. ‘It’s over.’ She nodded to the two helicopters swooping towards them. ‘MI6.’
He leered at her. She wondered if he’d been born with that face. ‘I can barter with this,’ he said, nudging the Rose with his boot.
She straightened her right arm, her muscles lightly tensed. ‘What I don’t get,’ she said, ‘is why my sister is still alive. Are you afraid of me, or Lazarus?’
His leer turned into a frown, then a grimace, then all the way back to a leer. He shoved Katya aside. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Nadia. You’re just another little cu –’
It took half a second. She flexed her forearm. The derringer propelled into her open hand as she swung up her arm and fired. The left eye. The black fluid inside splashed outwards, painting his face like a grotesque clown. He swayed a moment, then dropped vertically, like a rope coiling onto the deck. His Glock clattered to the metal deck and bounced out of sight.
She stared at his corpse. ‘That’s just it, Slick. I’m not just another little cunt.’
Suddenly, she was wrapped in Katya’s arms. Which was just as well, as she felt ready to pass out. The noise from the chopper ramped up, became deafening. The down-draft flailed Katya’s hair, whipping Nadia’s face. She didn’t care. And the noise didn’t bother her. She and Katya had never needed words. A loud-speaker told them to stand still.