by Chris Ryan
What’s wrong with a son wanting to visit his parents?
Jacob was there, just as Sam knew he would be. He stood on the unkempt grass in front of the simple tombstone, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, his back towards his brother. Sam halted some thirty metres away. He caught his breath and extended his gun hand. And then he walked forward.
He didn’t expect Jacob not to hear him; he just wanted to be prepared when his brother turned round. Sam was barely ten metres away when he did.
Sam stopped. Jacob also held a gun. Both brothers faced each other and Sam couldn’t take his eyes from Jacob’s face. He looked like he was wearing a mask – a mask of anxiety and hate. He didn’t appear at all surprised to see Sam.
‘Long way from Kazakhstan, Sam,’ he drawled.
An unnatural silence surrounded them.
‘Is that what you said to Mac?’ Sam asked. ‘Before you killed him.’
Jacob’s face wrenched itself into an agonised expression. His hand, Sam noticed, started to shake. ‘Mac got in the way,’ he said. ‘It was his own fault.’ Sam didn’t reply, so Jacob repeated his words, as though trying to persuade himself that it was true. ‘It was his own fault.’
‘You know that’s not true, Jacob.’
Now it was the older brother’s turn to be silent.
‘Mac was helping me. Helping you, actually. Trying to stop the Firm from sticking a bullet in you.’
‘I didn’t need your help.’
‘Clearly not.’
They stood.
‘You should have been here four years ago, J.,’ Sam said. ‘When we buried Mum. You should have been here.’
Those dark eyes bored into him. ‘She wouldn’t have missed me. Not her, or the old man.’
‘You’re wrong.’
Jacob snorted with contempt.
‘Jesus, J. What the hell’s happened to you?’
‘You should put the gun down, Sam. You’re not going to shoot me.’
Sam looked meaningfully at Jacob’s own weapon. His brother shrugged, then stowed it inside his jacket. Sam lowered his gun arm, but he kept the weapon in his hand. ‘I’m waiting for you to tell me that I’ve got it all wrong, J. That you didn’t kill Mac. That your red-light runners…’
Jacob interrupted him sharply. ‘How did you know about them?’ Then, almost as soon as the words left his mouth, he nodded in understanding. ‘Dolohov,’ he said.
‘We had a little chat.’
‘Good for you. I’m going to leave now, Sam. Why don’t you go back to the old man’s bedside. Talk about what great soldiers you both are.’
Sam’s eyes narrowed. ‘You honestly reckon that’s what he thinks?’
Jacob didn’t reply.
‘Since you went dark, he’s talked about no one but you. I mean it, J. I can’t spend five minutes in his fucking presence without hearing how much better you are than me. Or were. He thought you were dead, J., because you never came to see him.’ Sam looked over at the grave. ‘Mum too. If you hadn’t left, she wouldn’t have given up.’
Jacob’s lips had thinned. ‘Shut up,’ he said quietly.
‘No, Jacob. You don’t know what I’ve been through to catch up with you.’ He found himself breathing deeply, trying to keep his anger under control. ‘Mac had two children, you know. Cute kids. I don’t suppose you thought about that when you plugged him.’
‘It was his own fault,’ Jacob half-shouted, repeating his mantra.
‘And Rebecca, too. Wonder how she’s going to cope? You know, Mac risked a hell of a lot in Kazakhstan to stop the Regiment nailing one of their own. And in the end you nailed him.’
‘Fuck the Regiment!’ Jacob flared. ‘I stopped being one of them the day they kicked me out.’
‘And then you felt a burning desire to work for the Russians, is that right?’
‘I felt a burning desire to work for whoever paid me,’ Jacob retorted. ‘And don’t try to tell me it’s anything different to what you do. We kill people for money, Sam. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter which people, or whose money.’
It doesn’t matter which people. Mac on the roof, blood oozing from his fresh, fatal wound.
Sam felt like he was in the control of some other force, as though his limbs weren’t even doing his own bidding. He strode towards Jacob, who didn’t move from that spot in front of their mother’s grave. He raised his gun hand. Some tiny part of his mind observed that Jacob barely moved to defend himself, and he wondered why just as he brought the hard metal of the gun down forcefully on the side of Jacob’s face. A crack – the breaking of bone – and a sudden welt of blood. Jacob staggered, then drew himself up to face Sam.
The two brothers stood, damaged face to damaged face, eyeball to eyeball.
‘Feel better, Sam?’ Jacob whispered. His words were arrogant; but his eyes were disturbed.
Fury still burned through Sam’s veins. He pressed the Browning against the side of Jacob’s head. ‘You’re going to tell me about the hit,’ he said.
Jacob jutted his chin out, but didn’t say anything.
‘Dolohov told me one of the red-light runners is planning a hit,’ Sam persisted. ‘He didn’t know where or when. You’re going to tell me who it is, Jacob, otherwise I swear to God I’ll kill you.’
The two brothers stared at each other. Then, slowly, Jacob stepped backwards. In the background Sam heard the sound of sirens. Somewhere deep down he supposed it should worry him; but it didn’t.
‘You won’t kill me, Sam,’ Jacob said. A calmness appeared to have descended over him. ‘I’m your brother.’
He turned his back on Sam and started walking away. No hurry. In fact, there was a slowness to his gait. A heaviness.
The sirens grew louder.
Sam’s body went cold. Once more he felt himself in the grip of some other power, as though he were a puppet being controlled by invisible strings from above. He raised his gun hand.
‘You’re not my brother,’ he heard himself say.
Jacob stopped. He was five or six metres away now. When he turned again, there was an animal expression in his eyes.
The brothers stared at each other.
And then, Jacob came at him.
It happened so quickly. Jacob launched himself at Sam with his arms outstretched, going for his throat. It was a clumsy movement, the result of rage, not training. But Jacob was a big guy, and the impact knocked Sam backwards. He fell to the ground and Jacob fell on top of him with the barrel of Sam’s gun awkwardly pressed into the hard flesh of his stomach. The elbow of Sam’s gun hand crashed against the grass.
Sam never felt his trigger finger move. He heard the shot, though. It rang out across the graveyard, scaring the birds in the trees and causing them to rise up in flocks. He pushed Jacob away from him, but already he was spattered with the blood that had exploded from his brother’s stomach.
‘Jesus, J.,’ he whispered. And then louder: ‘Jesus!’
Jacob lay on his back. His breaths were short and irregular. Blood flowed from his abdomen.
His body was shaking and his skin was white. He looked up at Sam and for the first time ever, Sam saw fear in his brother’s eyes. Jacob started to say something, but all that came out was a weak cough and a trickle of blood that spilled over his lower lip.
Another cough and another gush of blood. In the distance, the sirens became louder and suddenly stopped. The crying of the disturbed birds dissolved into nothing and silence surrounded them.
Jacob closed his eyes. His skin became a greyer shade of pale and Sam knew what that meant.
‘Dad never forgot about you, Jacob,’ he breathed. ‘Not for a single second of a single day.’ Jacob winced and Sam sensed it was nothing to do with the pain. It was as if that one fact was too much for him to bear.
His chest started to rattle.
‘You have to tell me,’ Sam urged. ‘Tell me what you’ve set up. Who’s the target, Jacob? Who do the Russians want dead?’
The
sound of shouting from the edges of the cemetery. Sam looked over his shoulder. Movement in the distance. He turned back to his brother. ‘For Mac’s sake, Jacob. And for Dad’s. If he thought you were a traitor, it would ruin the rest of what life he has left…’
Jacob’s eyes were rolling in their sockets. Fresh blood spewed from his mouth. He choked on it as he spoke. ‘You can’t stop it. It’s in motion.’
‘Who?’ Sam urged. ‘Just tell me who?’
The shouting grew louder. Half of Sam wanted to shake his dying brother; the other half wanted to hug him. ‘Who?’
A pause. It lasted forever. When Jacob spoke again, his voice was so weak Sam had to strain to hear it. ‘Beridze…’ he said.
He heaved again.
‘Kakha Beridze.’ Sam wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. The words were meaningless to him. A deep breath from his brother. Jacob gained control of his vision and stared him straight in the eye. ‘His assistant… tomorrow night…’ His body jerked, as though an electric shock had passed through it. On the edge of his consciousness, Sam became aware that he was surrounded. A harsh voice shouted at him. ‘Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head.’ Sam ignored them. He grabbed his brother’s arm. ‘Don’t tell him,’ Jacob whispered, and Sam knew what he meant. ‘For God’s sake, Sam, don’t tell him…’
Jacob struggled to draw another breath, but it stopped suddenly. There was a horrific silence. And then, with a gruesome, aching slowness, the sound of his lungs deflating. Jacob’s eyes glazed over; his body stopped shaking and relaxed on to the grass like ice beginning to melt.
Sam stared at him in lone shock.
‘Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head. You’re surrounded by armed police.’
He was numb. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother’s tombstone. He felt as though her eyes were upon him.
‘This is your last warning. Drop your weapon and put your hands on your head. If you do not drop your weapon, we will shoot.’
Slowly, Sam laid the Browning on Jacob’s chest. He raised his arms in the air and placed them, fingers clasped together, on his head. Before he knew it, he became aware of three flak-jacketed police officers with MP5s trained directly at him. He barely gave them a second glance; Sam could not take his eyes off the body of the brother he had just killed.
He spoke. His voice sounded separate from his body. Monotone. Emotionless.
‘You need to contact MI6,’ he said. ‘Gabriel Bland. Tell him that Sam Redman has some information for him.’
The armed response unit closed in. With their black body armour and grim faces, they looked for all the world like an army of shadows gathering round his brother’s corpse.
TWENTY-SIX
The cell in the basement of the Hereford police station was tiny. A single bunk with a thin mattress and a yellow-and-brown-stained toilet without any seat were all the comfort it offered, but that didn’t matter to Sam Redman. There were no comforts that would ease what he felt inside.
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the yellowing wall opposite. How long he had been in there he couldn’t have said. An hour? A day? They were both equally likely. His head was filled with ghosts. Memories of his brother when they were kids, which were unavoidably chased away by the one image that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. The image of Jacob, motionless on that cemetery ground, dead by Sam’s hand. It didn’t feel like it could possibly be true.
A policeman brought in some food. Sam didn’t even look at it. ‘Where’s Bland?’ Sam demanded. The policeman – a young guy – gave him a look of contempt. He didn’t answer.
Sam continued to stare. Continued to think. He supposed he should weep, but tears wouldn’t come. Perhaps he didn’t deserve them. Every now and then his guilt would be replaced by something else. Anger. Anger at his brother. Anger so deep and so hot that it felt as if it would consume him. And with it a desire – no, a need – to put everything right. He couldn’t undo everything Jacob had done, but if he could stop things getting worse, maybe the anger would go. Or at least subside.
The peephole of the cell door opened. ‘I’m not talking to you,’ he called. ‘I’ll only speak to Gabriel Bland.’
The peephole slid shut, then the door opened. A familiar voice. ‘Leave us alone.’
Sam turned to look at his visitor. He was accompanied by the young police officer. ‘I should stay, sir. He’s dangerous…’
‘I shan’t repeat myself,’ Bland said. He stared at the policeman.
‘No, sir,’ the young officer said, withering under the heat of his gaze. Bland stepped inside and waited for the sound of the door locking.
‘Hello, Sam,’ he said when they were alone.
‘Where is he?’ Sam demanded. Bland raised an eyebrow. ‘Jacob. His body. What have you done with it?’
‘It’s, ah… It’s dealt with. I’m sure you can understand that we don’t want any more dead bodies cropping up in public places.’ A pause. ‘You’ve, ah… You’ve been busy since we last met, Sam.’
Sam ignored his visitor’s obtuse comment. ‘Dolohov told you about the hit?’
Bland’s face gave nothing away. ‘Mr Dolohov told us lots of things, Sam. He was extraordinarily talkative. It, ah… It seems that a few hours with you can loosen a man’s tongue.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Either that, or silence it forever.’
Sam looked away.
‘I, ah… I understand you have some information for me,’ Bland continued. ‘I trust this is true and isn’t just a way of trying to wriggle your way out of…’
‘Shut up, Bland!’ Sam snapped. ‘Just shut up and listen to me!’ He rose to his feet and noticed that the MI6 man flinched slightly. ‘Jacob gave me a name before he died.’
Bland nodded slowly, his sharp eyes wary. ‘And?’
‘And before I tell you who it is, I want some assurances.’
An insincere smile spread across Bland’s face. ‘I hardly think you’re in a position…’
Sam gave him a stony look. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Throw the book at me.’
An awkward silence filled the cell. It was broken by Bland.
‘What would these assurances be?’
Sam sniffed. ‘Number one, Mark Porteus back in charge. Number two, your heavies leave Clare Corbett the fuck alone. Number three, Mac Howden’s family get properly looked after – no bullshit with the insurances, they get the full payout. And number four…’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Number four, not a word about my brother’s death leaks to anyone.’
‘Ashamed, Sam?’ Bland asked mildly.
‘No,’ Sam lied. ‘I don’t give a shit what you or anyone else thinks. But if my father finds out that Jacob’s dead…’ He hesitated. ‘And how…’ His voice trailed away.
Bland surveyed him with dead, emotionless eyes. ‘I’m sure those things could be arranged,’ he said quietly.
Sam scowled. He didn’t trust the Firm and he didn’t trust Bland. But at some point he was going to have to trust someone and he’d run out of options. ‘Kakha Beridze,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know who the hell he is, but Jacob mentioned his assistant. And the words “tomorrow night”.’
Bland nodded, absorbing the information. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘It’s all I know.’
Bland turned and knocked on the inside of the door.
‘Wait,’ Sam said, and the MI6 man turned. ‘In Kazakhstan, at the training camp. Spetsnaz were waiting for us. They could only have known we were there if one of your lot tipped them off.’
The door opened and the young policeman appeared. Bland looked as if he was going to say something, but instead he marched out. ‘Be careful who you tell!’ Sam shouted after him. And then, even though the door was shut and locked, he repeated himself. ‘You’ve got a mole! Be careful who you tell!’
His voice echoed around the cell. He kicked the bed in frustration, then sat down to wonder if he’d done the right thing.
*
&n
bsp; Somehow, Sam slept. It wasn’t a refreshing sleep. The bunk was hard and his dreams were haunted. When he awoke in that windowless room he was confused. No sense of time or place. He pissed in the rank bog, then scowled when it wouldn’t flush. Then he went back to sitting on the bed. Waiting. He didn’t know what for.
The door opened. Two police officers entered and cuffed his hands behind his back. Sam didn’t bother to struggle. He could sense their hatred – the hatred of a policeman for a murderer – but he could also tell they had been instructed not to talk to him about the events of the past few hours. ‘What time is it?’ he demanded.
‘Time for you to fuck off out of it,’ one of the officers replied.
He was roughly led out of the cell, along an institutional corridor and up some steps. At the main entrance to the police station he drew stares from members of the public: whether that was to do with the cuts on his face, the handcuffs or the armoured police van with flashing siren that was parked just outside, he didn’t know. And he didn’t care. On the wall there was a clock that told the time and date: 18.38, May 25. Sam was wordlessly escorted into the back of the van, then left alone as the doors were shut. He was encased in steel and there was no way to get out, even if he wanted to.
The journey was long and uncomfortable. Sam endured it sitting in the corner of the van, ignoring the bruising jolts that bumped through his body, and brooding on everything that had happened. An idle corner of his mind wondered where he was being taken, but he didn’t really care much about that either. He’d find out soon enough.
Having driven at speed for a couple of hours, the van began to stop and start. City driving. He felt it going down a long ramp, then coming to a halt. The doors opened and an armed escort of four men awaited him.