Last Man Standing

by Stephen Leather

  They dropped the guns the Russians had been using over the side, too. There was no way of knowing the history of the weapons and it wouldn’t do them any good to be caught with guns that could be linked to previous murders.

  When they’d finished their macabre task, they pulled the boat back onto the shore and went back to the cabin. Bobby-Ray made fresh coffee and boiled six eggs in a pan. He poured three mugs of coffee while Standing sliced bread and cheese and arranged it on three plates with some of the fruit they’d brought with them. He finished the plates off with the boiled eggs, then placed the coffee and food on the table.

  Bobby-Ray went into the bedroom where Kaitlyn was still sleeping. He gently shook her shoulder to wake her up. ‘Good morning,’ she said sleepily. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Time to get up,’ said Bobby-Ray. ‘Breakfast is ready.’

  Kaitlyn followed him out of the bedroom and she sat down at the table, brushing her hair from her face. She picked up a mug of coffee, sipped it and nodded her approval. ‘You always did make a great cup of coffee,’ she said. She frowned as she saw the red flecks on his sleeve. ‘Is that blood?’

  Bobby-Ray looked down at the stains and forced a smile. ‘I don’t suppose you’d believe that I cut myself shaving?’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Kaitlyn.

  ‘We had visitors, while you were asleep,’ said Bobby-Ray. ‘Don’t worry, we took care of it.’

  Kaitlyn frowned at her brother, then looked over at Standing. ‘Visitors? What sort of visitors?’

  ‘Oleg Ivchenko and his heavies,’ said Standing, sitting down at the table.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘You were asleep.’

  ‘Matt! You could have been killed.’ She looked across at Bobby-Ray. ‘You, too. What were you thinking?’

  ‘We were thinking that we’d take care of it and then make you breakfast, which we’ve done,’ he said. He started to peel one of the boiled eggs.

  ‘And what happened?’

  Bobby-Ray shrugged but didn’t answer. Instead he popped the peeled boiled egg into his mouth, whole.

  Kaitlyn looked up at Standing. ‘Matt?’

  ‘Like Bobby-Ray said, we took care of it.’

  ‘How many of them were there?’

  ‘Six,’ said Standing.

  ‘Where are they now?’

  Standing looked uncomfortable and didn’t answer.

  ‘Matt?’

  ‘They’re in the lake,’ said Standing quietly.

  ‘The lake?’

  ‘Yeah. The lake.’ He picked up a piece of cheese and ate it.

  ‘I don’t understand how you can be so relaxed about it? You killed six people.’

  ‘Six people who came out here with the intention of killing all of us,’ said Bobby-Ray. He picked up another of the boiled eggs. ‘Anyway, it’s over.’

  ‘Except if Ivchenko found us, others could follow,’ said Kaitlyn.

  ‘That had occurred to us,’ said Standing.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Kaitlyn.

  Bobby-Ray sat down at the table. ‘We can’t stay here, not after what’s happened,’ he said.

  ‘So we go back to LA?’

  Bobby-Ray looked at Standing. ‘I think that’s probably the best option, right?’

  ‘I think we need to talk to Erik Markov,’ said Standing. He picked up an apple.

  ‘But he’s the one who wanted Koshkin dead,’ said Kaitlyn. ‘He’s going to want you dead as much as the Russian mafia.’

  ‘But he’s the one who can call them off,’ said Standing. He bit into the apple.

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘We explain to him that we’ll be more trouble than we’re worth.’

  ‘You’re going to threaten him?’ said Bobby-Ray.

  ‘He needs to know that we won’t lie down and let him and his mafia mates walk all over us,’ said Standing. ‘What are they going to do? Keep sending gangsters to kill us and we keep killing them?’

  ‘You think he’ll just walk away?’ asked Bobby-Ray.

  ‘He’s a businessman, right? An oligarch? He has to look at this like a profit and loss account. What does he gain by trying to kill us? And what does he lose?’

  ‘So you get him to back off, what then?’ asked Kaitlyn. ‘The cops are still after Bobby-Ray.’

  ‘We have the evidence that shows that Bobby-Ray didn’t kill Koshkin. Once the cops have that, Bobby-Ray is in the clear and he can get on with his life and I can go back to the UK.’

  ‘You make it sound so simple,’ said Kaitlyn.

  While Kaitlyn went to shower and change, Standing and Bobby-Ray packed everything and cleaned up the cabin. When Kaitlyn eventually came back into the kitchen she was wearing a blue UCLA shirt and blue jeans. They shouldered their backpacks and picked up the carrier bags and holdalls. Bobby-Ray had his hunting rifle over his shoulder and Standing had his Beretta tucked into his belt.

  Bobby-Ray led them down the track and through the undergrowth to the parking area, where they loaded the bags into the back of the Escape. ‘What are you going to do about their cars?’ asked Kaitlyn, gesturing at the two SUVs.

  ‘There’s not much we can do,’ said Bobby-Ray.

  ‘If more mafia guys come, they’ll see them,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t see that matters,’ said Standing.

  ‘What about my truck?’ asked Bobby-Ray.

  ‘Leave it hidden for the time being,’ said Standing. ‘You don’t want to be riding around LA in it, the cops will be looking for it.’

  ‘I call shotgun,’ said Kaitlyn, climbing into the front passenger seat of the Escape.

  Bobby-Ray laughed and got into the back. He had his Glock and hunting rifle with him. The rest of the weapons had gone into the lake with the bodies.

  46

  It took just under two hours to drive back to Redding. Standing parked behind the Chevrolet. Kaitlyn got out of the car and went to the front door as Standing twisted around in his seat. ‘Do you want to stay with your parents for a while?’ he asked.

  ‘Better not,’ said Bobby-Ray. ‘In fact, maybe I should just stay in the car and not see them. That way if the cops turn up, they don’t have to lie.’ He flashed Standing an uncomfortable smile. ‘If I do talk to them, they’re going to have so many questions.’

  ‘I hear you,’ said Standing. He got out of the car and went over to Kaitlyn, who was ringing the doorbell for the second time. Standing tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. ‘Maybe they went out,’ he said, but Kaitlyn gestured at the car in the driveway. ‘They never walk anywhere,’ she said. She tried the bell a third time and when there was no response she took out her keys. She had a key to the door on her ring and she slotted it into the lock and turned it.

  Standing put a hand on her arm and nodded for her to stand to the side. He pulled out his Beretta. She frowned and opened her mouth to speak but he put his finger to his lips and shook his head. He looked over his shoulder at Bobby-Ray in the car.

  Bobby-Ray understood immediately and got out of the Escape with his Glock.

  Standing pushed open the door. Almost immediately he heard a buzzing sound. That and the smell of decomposition told him all he needed to know. He kept his finger on the trigger as he moved down the hallway but the buzzing sound intensified as he got close to the kitchen, so he was pretty sure there was no one else alive in the house.

  Bobby-Ray was at his shoulder and Standing looked across at him. Their eyes met and Standing could see the pain in them.

  Bobby-Ray turned to look at his sister, who was just behind him. ‘Wait here,’ he mouthed.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asked, trying to peer around them.

  ‘Just stay outside!’ he hissed. ‘Wait here until we tell you it’s safe to come in.’

  Kaitlyn went out onto the porch, hugging herself as Bobby-Ray and Standing moved down the hallway to the kitchen. Standing went in first. Mrs Barnes was lying on the floor by the sto
ve. Her face had been beaten to a pulp and her dress was a mass of blood. Flies had settled on her face while others buzzed around.

  ‘Oh my God, no …’ moaned Bobby-Ray. He rushed over to his mother and knelt down next to her. ‘Mom … Mom …’

  Mr Barnes was sitting at the kitchen table, upright but as dead as his wife. His wrists had been separately tied to the legs of the table opposite him, forcing his arms out, and all of his fingers and thumbs had been hacked off. The table was awash with blood that had dripped down to the floor. The man’s head had slumped onto his chest. One of his ears had been sliced off and his nose had a deep cut from the top to the bottom, revealing the cartilage within.

  Standing shuddered. The Russians had tortured and killed Mr and Mrs Barnes, presumably to find out where the cabin was.

  Standing put his hand on Bobby-Ray’s shoulder and squeezed. He knew there was nothing he could say. It wasn’t just that his parents were dead, it was the way they had died. Standing could only imagine the horror of their last moments. ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ said Standing. He’d seen countless dead bodies over the years, and been responsible for many of them. But this was different. This wasn’t combat, this was the murder and torture of innocents. Standing understood warfare, he had no qualms about taking lives when it was necessary, but he doubted that he had it in him to chop off the fingers of someone just to get information from them. Cold-blooded torture wasn’t in his nature, though if anyone was trying to kill him he would do whatever was necessary with zero feelings of guilt.

  Standing looked over at the sink. Dozens of flies were buzzing over the discarded bloody fingers. There was a pair of pliers in the sink, and two bloody knives.

  ‘My God, Dad!’ shouted Kaitlyn.

  Bobby-Ray stood up, whirled around, grabbed his sister and hustled her down the hallway, away from the kitchen. Standing could hear Kaitlyn sobbing as Bobby-Ray took her into the sitting room. Standing looked around the kitchen, wondering what to do. Calling the police wasn’t an option, at least not while they were in the vicinity. But he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of leaving the bodies where they were, covered in flies.

  The smell was still turning his stomach. He got a bottle of water from the fridge and took it through to the sitting room. Bobby-Ray was sitting on the sofa with his arm around his sister.

  Standing offered her the bottle of water and she took it but didn’t open it. ‘I’m so sorry, Kaitlyn,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ she asked, looking up at him with tear-stained cheeks. ‘Why would they do that to my parents? They never hurt anybody, not in their whole lives.’

  ‘Ivchenko wanted to know where the cabin was,’ said Standing.

  ‘Why didn’t Dad just tell them?’

  ‘Because he wanted to protect us,’ said Bobby-Ray.

  Standing nodded in agreement but he knew that Mr Barnes wouldn’t have been able to stand that degree of torture for more than a few seconds. He would have told them what they wanted to know almost immediately, but the mutilations had continued. Mrs Barnes had been hit in the face and shot in the chest, so death had probably come reasonably quickly, but her husband had been hacked away at until he had bled to death from his injuries. Standing was sure that Ivchenko had done that because he’d wanted to see the man suffer. He’d taken pleasure from the killing, something that Standing had never been able to understand.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ said Kaitlyn. ‘You said we should have gone straight to the cabin but I’m the one who said we should visit them and now they’re dead. I should have listened to you. Shit, shit, shit.’ She started to sob again. Bobby-Ray hugged her but there was nothing that Standing could do or say to make her feel better. He didn’t want to walk away but at the same time he felt almost embarrassed by her grief.

  The fact that the men who had killed Mr and Mrs Barnes were all dead themselves didn’t make Standing feel any better. And there was an unfairness to the fact that the Russians had died quickly and with guns in their hands, while Mr Barnes had died while he was tied to a kitchen table as his fingers were hacked off one by one. He wondered whether Mrs Barnes had died first or if she had been forced to watch her husband being tortured. He shuddered. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out. It was Spider Shepherd.

  He walked through into the hallway and took the call. ‘Where are you?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Still in California.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Best you don’t know the specifics, that way you at least have plausible deniability.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s an understatement.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Bobby-Ray?’

  ‘I’m with him now. And we’ve got evidence that proves he didn’t kill Koshkin.’

  ‘So that’s good news.’

  Standing grimaced. ‘The Russians killed Bobby-Ray’s parents,’ he whispered. ‘I’m at the house now. It’s a mess.’

  ‘I warned you, the Solntsevskaya are dangerous bastards.’

  ‘You were right. They came for us and we took out half a dozen of them. The family has a cabin upstate. We got there last night and they attacked us first thing.’

  ‘They won’t stop, Matt. They’ll keep on coming.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Standing.

  ‘There’s no “maybe” about it. They’re relentless. Look, come back to the UK, let the Regiment protect you. No one’s going to get to you in Stirling Lines.’ Stirling Lines was where the 22 Special Air Service Regiment was based, on the site in Herefordshire that used to be RAF Credenhill. It was one of the most secure places in the UK.

  ‘What about Bobby-Ray and Kaitlyn? I can’t abandon them, Spider. That’s not going to happen.’

  ‘They can go into witness protection.’

  ‘Mate, the FBI has tried to kill Bobby-Ray already and an LAPD detective tried to slot me. The Russian mafia are into everything. I don’t know who we can trust.’

  ‘So what’s your plan?’

  ‘That’s a work in progress at the moment.’

  ‘What’s the evidence you’ve got?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘The gloves that Lipov was wearing, and the silencer he used when he shot Koshkin and the bodyguards. He hid them in the kitchen. Bobby-Ray’s gun was found – without the silencer – in the garden near where Lipov was standing. It’s all good stuff, we just have to get it into the right hands.’

  ‘Just so you know, Lipov is now dead, here in London. Someone shoved a knife into his skull after what seems to have been an epic fight.’

  ‘No great loss to the world,’ said Standing.

  ‘The cops think that Lipov knew his killer because he seems to have let him in.’

  ‘I’m sure he had a lot of enemies.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Shepherd. ‘But whoever killed him was obviously skilled at unarmed combat because a lot of punches were thrown before the knife went in. And Nikolai Lipov was a big, powerful guy.’

  ‘You know what they say, Spider. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.’

  ‘Sure, if you know what you’re doing. Just be careful, Matt. The cops aren’t looking for you but if they do …’

  ‘I hear you. And thanks for your concern. By the way, Koshkin’s former partner, Erik Markov. He is still in the Four Seasons in LA?’

  ‘So far as I know. I’ve got a watch on his movements so as soon as he leaves, I’ll be informed. Why do you ask, Matt?’

  ‘Best you don’t know.’

  ‘Plausible deniability?’

  ‘Markov is the problem here. He’s the one who paid for Koshkin to be killed, he’s the one tied up with the Russian mafia and ultimately he’s the one who framed Bobby-Ray.’

  ‘Be careful, Matt.’

  ‘I always am.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You have a tendency to shoot from the hip. And Markov has the resources to shoot back.’

&
nbsp; ‘I have to put an end to this, Spider. I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. And neither can Bobby-Ray.’

  ‘Just be careful. And think it through.’

  Standing chuckled. ‘I promise to count to ten before I do anything stupid.’ He ended the call.

  Standing took Kaitlyn out of the house and put her in the back of the Escape while Bobby-Ray locked up. Standing got into the driving seat and Bobby-Ray got into the back with his sister. She sobbed quietly most of the way back to Los Angeles.

  They checked into a motel in West Hollywood, booking two rooms with a connecting door. They hadn’t eaten all day, so they went into a nearby diner. Kaitlyn ordered a coffee but said she didn’t want to eat. Standing and Bobby-Ray ate burgers and drank coffee. Kaitlyn stared out of the window. Standing could see that she was in shock, but there was nothing he could do or say to make her feel better.

  ‘The way I see it, there’s only one way out of this, and that’s to get to Erik Markov,’ said Standing. ‘He’s the one who wanted Koshkin dead. And he’s the one who is in bed with the Russian mafia. If we can get him to call off the dogs …’

  ‘You think he’ll do that?’ asked Bobby-Ray.

  ‘If we put the right sort of pressure on him.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’

  Standing grinned. ‘I have a plan.’

  47

  Bobby-Ray tapped out the number. ‘It’s ringing,’ he said. Standing was on the bed holding a bottle of beer. He raised it in salute. Kaitlyn was in the next room, dozing.

  Faith Hogan answered the call with a curt ‘yes?’

  ‘Faith?’

  ‘Who is this? It’s almost midnight.’

  ‘It’s Bobby-Ray, Faith.’

  Hogan gasped. ‘Bobby-Ray? Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in LA. But I have to stay under the radar, Faith. I’m in big trouble.’