The Takers

by Robert Enright

  Sam pulled off his jacket as he fell against the wall, ripping the sleeve from the seams and wrapping it around his thigh. He gritted his teeth and pulled it tight, grunting with agony as he stemmed the flow of blood. The makeshift tourniquet quickly stopped the blood oozing out and he took a few moments to catch his breath. His body was screaming for sleep, the blood loss had weakened him nearly to the point of collapse.

  But he couldn’t.

  Jasmine was still in the port and he needed to make sure Singh got to her and got her out.

  Sam limped to the stairs, grimacing as he forced himself up, stopping at each floor for a slight bit of respite from the pain. Eventually, he stumbled through the door to the ninth floor, the abandoned control room was a mausoleum of dusty desks and glass screen panels. Part of the roof had been removed, a tribute to the work that had never been completed. The rain crashed through, splattering the desks with freezing water. From the metal beams that had been exposed, a number of chains swung down, some of them with rusty hooks which rattled in the wind.

  Sam assumed they were set up as a makeshift winch at some point, but with the renovation clearly abandoned some time ago, they now acted as nothing more than heavy wind chimes.

  Sam weaved through the desks to the far window, the glass panel giving a wide view of the port below. Flashes of light drew his attention, machine guns spitting bullets with murderous intent.

  The war was still continuing.

  In some ways, Sam felt like it had never stopped.

  He reached beneath the windowsill for the black sports bag he had stowed there earlier that evening. Inside it, his Accuracy International Arctic Warfare bolt action sniper rifle waited patiently.

  Behind him, the chains rattled, and wind whistled through the empty building. The sounds camouflaged the surprisingly soft footsteps of the behemoth, Oleg Kovalenko, as he slowly approached Sam Pope from the shadows.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Oleg Kovalenko had followed Sam the moment he’d left Aaron Hill’s house. The opportunity to enter the property and beat the truth out of the civilian had been mooted by his sister, who always seemed to want to hurt people. Dana was so very pretty, but Oleg knew that an evil rested within her.

  Not like his brother, Andrei.

  Oleg idolised him and obeyed every word. Ever since they were younger, nasty boys had called Oleg names. Despite his size, none of them were scared of Oleg because his brain didn’t work as quickly as theirs did. They would hurl abuse at him whenever he was alone, calling him a freak and saying all sorts of horrible things about Dana. Oleg would cry, not knowing why they would hate him so much.

  When Andrei found out, he would scream at Oleg to shut them up, to show them how strong he was. Oleg was too afraid, but everything changed after that blood-filled night. Andrei had taken beating after beating from their father, not allowing him near his younger siblings. Oleg knew, that even as a teenager, he was bigger than most fully grown men, but their father terrified him. The man was an animal and Oleg had witnessed him brutally kicking Andrei in the ribs, his older brother coughing up blood but refusing to cry.

  He was so brave.

  When the time came, and Andrei told both he and Dana that Papa was dead, they knew he had done it for all of them. After that, Oleg promised to always listen to his brother, who had encouraged him to join the army. There, despite his mental limitations, Oleg proved to be a physical specimen beyond most and his lack of compassion made him a cold and calculating killer. Even under extreme torture when the Russian Special Forces melted the left side of his face with a blow torch, Oleg had stayed quiet.

  Because his brother had told him to be the best soldier he could be.

  It was why, when he joined his brother in London, he followed every order. He had thrown every punch he had been commanded to and he had killed ruthlessly whenever asked. Oleg had tortured, beaten, maimed, and murdered at the behest of his brother. It was a loyalty, bound by blood and the reason why, as he watched Sam Pope stumbled towards the windowsill, he knew he would kill him.

  Andrei wanted Pope dead.

  So Oleg would kill him without thinking twice.

  As he crept forward from the shadows, Oleg felt proud of his ability to hide, the skills he had learnt during his seven years in the army had kept him off of Pope’s radar and had taught him what Sam was doing. Sam had placed a weapon here, in case things got out of hand. By the sound of gunfire outside, Oleg realised it had descended into a war zone. He was worried for Andrei, but he knew his brother could take care of himself.

  As Pope pulled open the bag, Oleg could see the fabric tightly wrapped around his leg, the left side of his jeans dark with blood. Pope had clearly been shot, and he grunted with pain as he unzipped the bag, the barrel of a sniper rifle visible under the floodlights from outside.

  Pope was going to shoot Andrei.

  Oleg lunged.

  Abandoning his subtlety, the monstrous Ukrainian emerged from the darkness like a demon from the gates of hell. Sam turned just in time, his eyes wide with shock as the mutilated face snarled at him, two massive hands reaching out and grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket.

  Sam felt his left leg buckle, and the man crashed his solid, charred skull into his face, the blow snapping Sam’s head back and sending his entire brain into a whirlwind. Oleg swung Sam by his jacket, crashing the side of his head against the metal window frame before hurling him back into the room, Sam stumbling back until his injured leg crashed into the side of a dusty desk. He cried in pain as he flipped over the wood and crashed to the hard floor below, willing himself back to his feet.

  The man mountain stormed around the desk, reached down and grabbed Sam by his shoulder, but as Sam found his balance, he dropped his shoulder and tipped the large man over his head. He crashed through the desk, but instantly got to his feet.

  All it did was piss him off more.

  The man threw a few punches that Sam blocked with his arms, each impact crashing into his muscles like a sledgehammer. The man was a trained fighter, but his size and strength advantage was something unlike Sam had ever experienced. As the man landed a sickening thump into Sam’s ribs, he thought back to the brawl he had experienced with Mark Connor in the High Rise. The vicious East End gangster, affectionately known as one of the Mitchell Brothers had fought him to the death, the two men beating each other to a pulp until Sam had lodged a knife into the man’s eye and then through to his brain.

  This would be different.

  As Sam stumbled backwards from the blow, he collided with the wall behind. His huge attacker launched forward at full force, driving his fist straight for Sam’s face. At the last second, Sam ducked, his leg slightly buckling and the man’s knuckles cracked into the plaster, puncturing the wall and colliding with brick work.

  The bones cracked.

  The man didn’t react.

  Oleg retracted his hand and used his left to grab Sam by the throat, pulling him back up to his feet. As Sam rained hard punches down on his monstrous face, Oleg felt the trickle of blood from a gash above his burnt eye.

  He reacted by grabbing Sam’s left leg with his right hand, digging his fingers into the fresh bullet wound. Sam roared with pain, but the man tightened his grip around his throat, choking the pain right out of his voice.

  Then, in a display of terrifying strength, he spun, lifting Sam off of the ground and hurling him through one of the glass screens that was embedded in the wall. Sam smashed through the divide, collapsing into a pit of sharp, broken shards that punctured into him like a pin cushion.

  The tourniquet had come loose on his leg and he could feel the blood begin to ooze to freedom, taking his energy and chances of survival with them. Sam began to crawl through the broken glass, the shards slicing his skin. He thought of Jasmine somewhere below, locked in a crate and what her life would be with monsters like this man.

  The drugs. The abuse. The rape.

  He couldn’t let another child’s life be ended
by his inability to act.

  He couldn’t save his Jamie.

  He had to save Jasmine.

  Sam heard the crunch of glass behind him, the heavy footsteps stamping the glass to dust. Above him, Sam heard the jangle of the chains, the rain slipping in through the gap in the roof and splashing against his face.

  A hand reached down and grabbed the back of his collar and Sam was hoisted from the ground. He scrambled in the glass and as Oleg turned him around to deliver another bone crunching strike, Sam slammed his fist into the chest. The man’s eyes widened with agony as Sam stumbled back, the shard of glass embedded deep into the side of the man’s pectoral. Blood began to spill out from around the sides of the wound.

  It only provoked him.

  The man stormed forward, cracking Sam with two, hard, right hooks before wrapping both hands around his throat and hoisting him clean off the ground. Sam began to choke, his eyes watering and straining from his head, his feeble kicks having no impact. He could feel his life ebbing away, the immortal fingers of death beckoning him towards the afterlife.

  It would be easy just to let it all go.

  The war would finally be over.

  As Sam began to fade, he saw flashes of his life dart before his eyes, ending on his wife walking away from him, disappearing into a field of whiteness. A voice caused his head to look downwards.

  His son. Jamie.

  ‘Not yet, Daddy.’

  Sam’s eyes opened, and with a renewed vigour, he hammered at the thick, tree-like arms of Oleg, who snarled crookedly. The man was a cold-blooded killer, and Sam was moments away from being another successful encounter.

  Sam scrambled and his hand reached out and grabbed a metal chain. Instinctively, he wrapped some of it around the thick, triangular neck of his attacker and Oleg, realising Sam was fighting back, pressed his fingers deeper into Sam’s larynx.

  Sam was seconds from passing out.

  With the chain wrapped around Oleg’s throat, Sam used the last of his energy to wrap his fingers around the rusty hook that hung from the end of it.

  Darkness began to blur the edges of his vision.

  He swung his arm with all the strength he could muster.

  The hook rammed into the soft flesh beneath Oleg’s chin, the hook bursting up into his mouth and embedding in its roof.

  Oleg’s grip instantly loosened, and Sam reached out and snatched a handful of chains as he dropped, clattering to the floor in agony. As he fell, he pulled the chain taut, lifting Oleg off the ground, the metal links around his throat tightening. As his feet kicked in panic, the blood burst from his mouth and cascaded down his throat like a crimson waterfall.

  As his airwaves were choked, his lungs filled up with blood and Sam held on tightly, watching as the gargantuan attacker drowned on his own blood.

  Oleg stopped kicking.

  Sam fell back, releasing the metal. Oleg crashed to the floor, dead and Sam used the nearby desk to pull himself to his feet. He could barely stand; the bullet wound was still pumping blood, and he reattached his makeshift plaster to see him through. The man’s grip had certainly done some damage to his throat, and his body ached from the cuts and bruises.

  He looked like hell and felt like he had been dragged arse backwards through it.

  As he stumbled to the window, he collapsed to the floor, his body buckling under its injuries. He hauled himself across the floor, leaving behind a smear of blood like a dying slug.

  He needed to stay alive.

  At least until they’d freed Jasmine.

  With the evidence of their fight to the death behind him, Sam reached for his bag, his fingers finding his rifle.

  Andrei had been furious as the location of his container had been scrambled. Dmitri, the superintendent at the port who had implemented the system, had promised him it would help to evade the watchful eyes of the authorities. If they couldn’t pinpoint their own shipments until the moment of delivery, how could the authorities?

  Dmitri had met them as they arrived, assuring Andrei his shipment was well protected and that he had hired ten heavies to patrol the port.

  Sam Pope had been followed to the port by Oleg. It meant he was going to try to stop the shipment, which was something Andrei couldn’t allow. Ever since he had suggested the move to the UK to their uncle Sergei, Andrei had never missed a shipment. He had ruled with an iron fist, he had ordered a lot of pain and torture and been responsible for a lot of death.

  All in the name of business.

  As soon as Dmitri reported that the location had been hacked and scrambled, Andrei had put a bullet in the man’s head. He reviled incompetence and the man’s solution to their problem had backfired.

  Andrei demanded his own men filter out into the port, team with the hired guns already patrolling, and call for further back up. The shipment would be going out as scheduled and he would make his way to Zone C, the usual location. From there, he would need to wait for the system to resend the location of his shipment. It would be the final time he would use it, the idea of spending a small fortune on a cleaner system had become unbearably preferable. As Andrei had headed towards Zone C, a series of gun blasts echoed out behind him and he watched in horror as armed police began to enter the port through the gate.

  His men had engaged and now, despite his insistence on professionalism and subtlety, they were locked in a gun fight with the police themselves.

  Andrei decided then that he would escape with the shipment, demanding the captain of the boat take him to his uncle and they could rethink. Prison wasn’t scary to a man as powerful and as cut throat as Andrei, but it was time consuming. The moment he stepped away from the table, there would be a power-hungry upstart ready to take his seat.

  Andrei ruled over the human trafficking in London and he wasn’t ready to relinquish his throne.

  Entering Zone C, he walked slowly through the dark corridors, the crates stacked high and casting ominous shadows across his path. A few floodlights loomed over the port, their beams of light fogged by the relentless down pour. The echo of rain danced around him like chattering teeth, intermittently broken by the explosion of gunshots from somewhere behind him.

  He didn’t care.

  His phone buzzed and he smiled evilly.

  Lot 21235. Bay 64. Zone C.

  Looking up at the nearest sign, Andrei could see he was only ten bays from where he needed to be. He broke into a quick jog, his drenched suit chafing against his thighs. It didn’t matter, the adrenaline of getting away with the shipment and his freedom consumed him and he raced through the final few walkways until he emerged into a large opening. The floodlights burst down like a raging sun, illuminating the crates before him.

  Bay 64.

  With measured steps, he approached the blue crate emblazoned with the Transcendence logo. The senior official working with the Mayor-elect had worked diligently to ensure the water ways were clear. Andrei’s donation to Harris’s campaign had been sizeable and kept secret from the man himself. The man would be mayor within the next month and Andrei knew having evidence that he had been in cahoots with his executive would make him a very powerful man.

  It would open other avenues and would be extremely helpful when he needed to return to the country. With his men opening fire on the police, Andrei knew he would join Sam Pope on their list of most wanted men.

  All he hoped for was that one of the men on the receiving end of those gunshots was Pope himself.

  Andrei approached the front of the crate, the small keypad slick with rain water.

  A timer was counting down on the small screen, the red numbers informing him he had just over two minutes before the lock would disengage and he would be able to view his merchandise. Once he had inspected the girls hadn’t been abused, he would usually give the team the go ahead to transport them to the ship and begin the short voyage back to their homeland.

  This time, he wouldn’t be giving orders. He would be the merchandise itself.

  If he got
bored on the trip, maybe he could even experience the girls for himself. He chuckled at his own twisted version of quality control.

  Behind him, the safety latch of a gun clicked.

  ‘Don’t move.’

  Singh’s word were laced with menace and she stepped a few feet closer, narrowing the twenty feet gap between them. Andrei turned slowly, his piercing blue eyes were wild with excitement. He raised his hands in the air, refusing the temptation to reach for the gun inside his blazer. The woman before him wore a furious scowl, but she was fiercely attractive. Her slim, defined frame was evident through her drenched clothes and her brown skin added an exotic beauty.

  Andrei smiled.

  ‘How do you think this ends for you?’ he asked, his thick accent carrying every word.

  ‘Open the crate,’ Singh demanded, taking a few steps to the side, her arms straight ahead, her eye trained on the sight of the pistol.

  ‘I do not want you to be killed,’ Andrei said, a sudden confidence taking over him. ‘But my men do.’

  Singh glanced over her shoulder and felt her heart drop. Behind her, four men approached, their rifles trained on her chest. They walked with the practiced symmetry of an elite military squad and Singh realised she was out of options. As they approached, Andrei pulled out a gold-plated Bowing knife, tossing it up and down in his hand, feeling its weight. It had been cleaned since he’d murdered Peterson with it, and now the shiny blade shimmered under the floodlights.

  ‘You kill me, and you’ll have the entire Met after you,’ Singh said defiantly. ‘You don’t just kill a detective and get away with it.’

  ‘I don’t want to kill you,’ Andrei said, a cruel grin across his face. ‘But after you join me on my trip home and I’m finished with you, you will wish that I had.’

  Singh felt her heart race, the claustrophobic feel of her captors closing in caused her hand to shake. She was outnumbered, outgunned, and had no way out. The man would take her, do god knows what to her and then probably sell her into the same deplorable life as the teenage girls behind the metal door.