by Nick Oldham
Ivankov had watched Loz leaving Uncle B’s, scuttling down the street like some sort of weasel. It was obvious that Loz was nervous, evidenced by the glances he continually threw over his shoulder, pausing at shop windows, sneaking furtive looks from side to side whilst pretending to inspect the goods on display. Ivankov wondered what he was playing at.
So far, the Russian’s discreet investigations had brought him as far as Loz and the information had been: find Loz and you find Billy Crane. But Crane was not on the scene. There was a whisper about a villa on La Gomera, but nothing more concrete than that. And Ivankov was now getting impatient. He had to get face to face with Crane very soon to satisfy Drozdov. The sooner the better. Having observed Loz, on and off, for over a day, it was getting to the point where Ivankov was going to ask some very direct questions of him. And then dispose of him.
Tailing Loz was easy for Ivankov amongst the holidaymakers. Loz led him through the streets of Los Cristianos, down to the beach-front and along the promenade to a large, modern hotel positioned on a rocky headland across the small bay from the harbour and ferry terminal.
At some point, Loz seemed to have decided that his anti-surveillance tactics were no longer needed and openly walked up the steps leading to the pool, no more looking back, just sheer cockiness. Ivankov followed him around the Lido, which was crowded to bursting with prostrate, sun-worshipping individuals of all shapes and sizes, into the hotel. Inside it was dark, cool and air-conditioned, all smoked glass, shiny metal and creeping vines. Loz headed straight for the elevators. Ivankov peeled away to the reception desk and picked up a car-hire brochure.
This was the point where Ivankov thought he could lose Loz.
He wondered what he was doing here. Could Crane be holed up here following the robbery? Could Loz be doing some running for him, keeping him in touch with developments? Was Loz going to lead Ivankov straight to the man he had been contracted to kill? That would be very agreeable. Ivankov had a good feeling about the whole thing - if only he could keep tabs on Loz inside the hotel.
The Russian placed the brochure back on the rack, strode across the foyer and stepped into the lift after Loz, who pressed the button for the first floor. He made no offer to his fellow traveller about pressing a button for him. Manners was not his strong point. Ivankov leaned across the front of Loz and thumbed ‘Two’.
The lift rose and moments later hissed to a stop at the first floor. Loz got out and turned right, having completely blanked and ignored Ivankov on the short journey.
The contraption could not go up quickly enough for the Russian who, when it reached the second floor, contorted out through the doors as they opened, ran to the stairs and hared down them - hoping not to meet Loz on the way; but Ivankov had made an appraisal of Loz’s mental capabilities in the short time he’d been watching him, scoring him very low on the IQ scale. He did not have the capacity to out-manoeuvre the Russian, nor anyone else for that matter, Ivankov believed.
At the first-floor landing, double swing doors made entirely of smoked, patterned glass, opened out on to the corridor. Ivankov paused. He could hear the murmur of voices further down the stairs, but they were not important to him. He pushed one of the doors slightly open and scrutinised the corridor. Loz was further down, banging impatiently at one of the room doors. The Russian stepped back out of sight, able to hear the banging through the doors. It continued for a while, then there was silence. Ivankov gently opened to door again and looked down the corridor. Loz was now sitting outside the room. The Russian pushed the swing door open a little further and worked out the room number - 117. The door creaked on it hinges, so he moved back on to the landing as Loz raised his head at the noise.
The Russian turned casually at the sound of people coming up the steps behind him. Two people. A woman in front of a man.
The man raised his head and looked past the woman, locking eyes with the Russian.
Both men recognised one another in that instant.
Henry mouthed the word ‘Fuck!’ as recognition of the Russian hit him like a thunderbolt. His mind tumbled and twisted. The Russian killer, Ivankov, here in the hotel! The meeting Henry had had with Alexandr Drozdov. The race against time to capture Crane before the Russians got to him first. . . and now Ivankov here, the Moscow Mafia’s most notorious and successful assassin, in the hotel, showing that the Russians were well on Crane’s tail.
Danny, a couple of steps in front of Henry - who had been concentrating on her bum - was on the landing with the Russian. She was unaware of who was standing in front of her, thinking the man was just a hotel guest, nothing more. He had a vaguely familiar look about him, but she did not make any connection with the photograph she’d seen until it was too late. . . by which time the Russian, who did not know who she was, other than a handy bargaining tool, had grabbed her.
He moved with incredible speed; confident, self-assured, having already planned his next moves in his mind.
He yanked Danny roughly towards him, spun her round and pinned her tight against him with his left forearm across her throat, making her gurgle desperately for breath. She did not even get the chance to scream. In the same movement, he drew his silenced pistol from the waistband of his trousers and jammed the barrel against Danny’s lower spine. He reversed through the swing doors, off-balancing Danny, and dragged her on her heels, almost at a run, down the corridor to where Loz was sitting.
A dumbstruck Henry followed. He was completely disorientated by this turn of events and did not know what to do, other than to wait, see, react or pro-act if the opportunity arose.
Loz scrambled to his feet, his face screwed up in puzzlement. By the time his slow mind had made sense of it, the Russian, with hostage, was right up to him and Loz was staring down the barrel of Ivankov’s gun. His hands shot up straight away.
‘Who does the room belong to?’ the Russian demanded of him.
Loz’s eyes flickered to Henry who was standing a few paces down the corridor. ‘Him.’
Henry’s eyes wavered from the petrified Danny, to her abductor, to Loz and back again. He gave Danny the best look of reassurance he could muster, sickeningly aware that it was probably not very reassuring at all. He wasn’t certain how to handle this. Henry was a trained hostage negotiator, but this situation did not fit neatly into anything he had learned. Most hostage-takers were amateurs driven by greed, emotion, sickness or commitment to a cause; they were not usually professional killers and the negotiator wasn’t usually part of the scenario.
‘Stay calm,’ he said to Danny, then to Ivankov, ‘What’s this about?’ Henry had decided that time spent in the corridor was a bonus. It meant other people might see what was going on and raise the alarm. Once inside the hotel room, out of sight, the Russian would be in complete control. ‘Let’s talk.’
Ivankov was not about to fall for any delaying tactics. He sniggered and said, ‘Open the door and go into the room.’ He pushed his gun hard against Danny’s cheek. ‘Or I’ll kill her here and now, and then the both of you - as you know I’m capable of doing.
Henry licked his dry lips and slowly went for the room key in his trouser pocket.
‘Well, I’ll be going then,’ Loz said brightly, as if to walk away. ‘You obviously don’t need me. This is something between yourselves.’ He smiled and bowed humbly.
Ivankov’s gun swung towards him again. Loz cowered back against the wall. ‘I think not.’ He turned back to Henry, tightened his grip across Danny’s throat and reiterated, ‘Open up.’ He smiled and Henry thought, This man is not concerned that he’s outnumbered here. He’s actually enjoying this. It’s a test of his skills - and not much of a test at that. Additionally, Henry thought desolately, None of us three will walk away from this encounter alive.
Ivankov drew Danny back a couple of feet as Henry went to the door, unlocked it. He pushed it open and stood back, letting the Russian see into the room. Ivankov waggled his gun at Loz. ‘You first - then you.’ He indicated Henry. ‘Please don’
t do anything silly or suddenly, or I’ll kill you all very quickly ... it’s not a problem to me.’
Ashen-faced and fearful, Loz trudged into the room, followed by a dry-throated Henry whose fingertips were starting to dither with anxiety; then Ivankov and Danny, who was beginning to go faint as the blood supply to her brain kept being cut off and then opened as the pressure from Ivankov’s forearm varied.
The hotel room was fairly standard. There was a short hallway, off which was a bathroom; beyond was a double-bedded room with fitted wardrobes and a small writing desk. A floor-to-ceiling sliding window led out on to the balcony overlooking the pool. The curtains were drawn and the room was in semi-darkness, a slit of sunlight cutting through the narrow gap between the curtains. The bed was unmade and in disarray, and Henry’s clothes, and some of Danny’s, were scattered around. The indent of their bodies was still visible where they had been lying and making love earlier that morning.
Loz and Henry stood sheepishly in the space between the bed and the sliding window, facing Danny and Ivankov.
‘I think you can let her go now, don’t you?’ Henry said firmly. For any chance of survival, Henry reckoned Danny had to be away from the Russian.
Once more, it was as if Ivankov was reading Henry’s thoughts. He shook his head and pushed the Makarov hard into Danny’s waist, just above the hipbone. She uttered a squeak of pain. ‘You are a policeman, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘I knew it when I saw you with Jacky Lee,’ Ivankov said with a hint of triumph.
‘And that’s why you’ll never get away with this, or the murder of Jacky Lee.’
On those last words, Danny now understood who was holding her and she said, ‘Oh God!’ instinctively, then, ‘Ahhh!’ as Ivankov wrenched his arm back on her throat to shut her up.
‘Keep quiet,’ he whispered into her ear, ‘otherwise I’ll break your neck. And as for you’ - he looked across at Henry - ‘making those stupid claims just serves to annoy me intensely, because I always - always,’ he stressed, ‘get away with it . . . but what interests me here and now is, what is this all about? Why were you’ - and here he addressed Loz - ‘knocking on a policeman’s door?’
Loz opened his mouth, but Henry interjected quickly. ‘He’s a witness against Billy Crane. I know you’ve come for Crane, but you’re too late, Yuri. He’s being arrested at this moment by the Spanish police on my behalf. So you can go back to Russia and tell Alexandr that the chase is over and the law has won.’
‘I’m impressed, Mr Policeman,’ the Russian said genuinely. ‘You know my name.’
‘That’s because you make mistakes.’
Ivankov’s face hardened at the slight to his professionalism. He looked away from Henry and pointed his gun at Loz. ‘Is it true that Crane is being arrested now?’
‘Y-yeah,’ Loz responded hesitantly after eyeing Henry for a lead and giving the lie away. This hesitation meant that the Russian pulled the trigger and shot him. With no more than the sound the metallic click of the hammer falling to indicate firing, the silenced slug struck his shoulder, exploding in the joint on impact, sending Loz spinning back against the curtains which he tried to cling to as he fell to the floor. Blood poured out of the devastating wound and he went immediately into shock.
‘You bastard!’ Henry snarled, but had the sense not to make a move.
Ivankov screwed the smoking muzzle into Danny’s waist and raised his eyebrows. ‘Now then,’ he said in a businesslike way, ‘do not waste my time, Mr Policeman. Just tell me the truth of the matter and where I can locate Mr Crane. I’ll be upfront with you. Even if you tell me willingly, I’m going to kill you all. If you don’t tell me willingly, then I will have to waste precious time extracting the information from you using techniques in which I’m a little rusty. But I guarantee that you’ll regret not telling me willingly in the first place. So, either tell me now and die quickly, or refuse and die slowly... the choice is yours.’
Ivankov regarded Henry with an ice-chilling stare, critically appraising the cop standing across the room from him. In that instant, the Russian made a judgment call. He pulled the gun out of Danny’s side and pointed it at Henry. ‘In fact, you’re going to die now, Mr Policeman, because I’m quite sure I’ll be able to get all the information I need from this woman.’ He tightened his grip on Danny’s throat with a hard, backwards jerk. ‘You’d be just too much like hard work.’
The gun rose and seemed to focus in on Henry’s palpitating heart.
Henry emitted a gasp of fear. He was about to back away, saying, ‘No, no,’ about to plead for his life when Danny, with a surge of strength, twisted into Ivankov and lashed out with her right hand in a sudden, chopping motion, bringing it down on to Ivankov’s wrist with such force that his fingers spasmed open and the gun dropped on to the bed.
Screaming, ‘Get the gun, Henry, get it!’ Danny kept on turning into the killer, at the same time driving her right heel down on to his foot.
Ivankov was thrown off-balance by the tiger in his grasp - but only momentarily. In a flurry of limbs he quickly overpowered her and was back in charge, though Danny refused to cease struggling wildly, antagonising him.
Briefly taken aback by the distraction, Henry was now moving swiftly across the room towards the bed - and the gun.
Ivankov saw Henry’s intentions.
Roaring, he grabbed hold of Danny’s hair in his right hand, his left hand going to the back of her neck. With a powerful jerk he snapped her head backwards with his right hand and pushed forwards with his left. He then threw her down on to the floor beside him where she flopped.
Then he went to beat Henry to the gun.
Too late.
Henry was there just before the Russian, having hurled himself across the bed, fumbling the gun into his trembling hands but still able to aim it up at the advancing figure, stopping him in his tracks.
His breathing laboured, Henry looked up at Ivankov along the barrel which trembled in his grasp.
‘Ha!’ The Russian’s hands went up in surrender. He stepped back, stood upright, then without warning launched himself towards Henry, figuring that he would be too lightning quick for the cop who was bound to hesitate about pulling the trigger anyway. Hadn’t he already proved that once before?
Henry’s eyes took in the frame of the Russian coming at him, a wild, murderous look on his face. And he did hesitate. The conscience of a cop gnawing at him, wondering how he would be able to justify killing an unarmed man. But then he saw the stiletto blade in Ivankov’s right palm. How had that got there? Where had it come from? Down the sleeve! He was no longer unarmed. He was capable of murder.
Henry’s mind processed all these thoughts in the fraction of a second before his finger jerked back on the trigger. The bullet struck Ivankov in the cleft of skin just below the Adam’s apple, ripping out his throat. The energy from the impact contorted his body obscenely in mid-air.
Henry rolled to one side and the Russian slammed down heavily on to the bed beside him, where he lay twitching like a huge fish in a fast-spreading pool of blood, which soaked into the covers. He twitched for a long time and Henry watched, both fascinated and repulsed. A man dying, only inches away from him. A man he had killed.
When the Russian stopped moving, Henry exhaled, slumped on to his back, breathless, and attempted to regain control.
He was still on the bed, the Russian lying next to him. Dead.
He got to his feet and looked down at Loz who was whimpering quietly like a kicked dog. His eyes were closed and he lay coiled in the foetal position, prostrate in a lake of his own blood. He was in urgent need of medical attention.
Still quivering, Henry turned slowly round and looked towards Danny, lying spreadeagled on the floor on the other side of the bed. Unmoving. His legs buckled, a hand grasping at his short hair in a gesture of anguish as a terrible realisation hit him. He tried to say the word, ‘Danny,’ but no sound came from his lips.
Slowly, he
circled the bed and sank to his knees, next to her. His fingertips reached slowly to stroke her pretty, flushed cheek, but he knew she was dead. Her neck had been broken with ruthless efficiency by the most dangerous man he had ever met.
Epilogue
Externally, for the next six weeks, Henry Christie remained a fully functioning Detective Inspector, dealing with everything in a cool, professional manner.
There were many issues to resolve.
Firstly, the Spanish authorities refused to release Danny’s body for five weeks. The circumstances of her death and the manner of it, as well as the death of Ivankov and the serious wounding of Lawrence Brayfield, caused uproar. Many questions were asked, most went unanswered. Bureaucracy was unleashed on an almighty scale and had to be addressed and managed by Henry who was well in the thick of it. He was accused of murder himself at the beginning, though never arrested, then accused of conspiracies, then corruption, until eventually he persuaded his Spanish inquisitors, by his openness, frankness and honesty, that he had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as had Danny. He had done what had to be done - an act of self-defence which had saved his own life, but not that of his colleague.