Assassin

by Tom Cain

  ‘He’d even picked a date? Oh my!’ said Maddy, doing her best to sound cheerful. ‘Well, I guess you had to say yes to that!’

  ‘I didn’t know what to say at first, it was so sudden. But he was very persuasive.’

  Maddy nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m sure,’ she said. ‘And I’m so glad we could talk.’

  She leaned across and pecked Karin on the cheek, then got up, walked right over to Larsson and asked him, ‘Do you want to tell her, or shall I?’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  ‘That the wedding is a scam. That it was only set up to get Carver here on the right date, the same way you got us to go to that restaurant last night, so he’d be there when the bomb went off. So he’d get the blame – your best friend. How could you do that to him? Why?’

  Maddy was ready for Larsson to react violently. But he did not even argue. Instead he seemed to crumple before her: his face, his shoulders, even his legs seemed to buckle a little.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘please. I don’t want Karin to hear anything.’

  Maddy walked with him back down the aisle and out into the open air.

  ‘I swear I didn’t know what was going to happen,’ Larsson said when they got outside. His voice was pleading but there was also relief there that he could finally get things off his chest. ‘I was just told to find a way to get Carver to the hotel that evening, that was all. And some other stuff, you know, designs… like I did for Carver…’

  ‘But why did you agree?’

  ‘I was sent photographs of Karin… at home, at work, walking through town, everywhere. If they had threatened me… I mean, I’m not like Carver, but I can look after myself. But I could not look after Karin, not every minute of the day… And there was something else…’ He leaned closer to Maddy and barely whispered, ‘Karin’s pregnant. Our baby… that was too much to lose. I had to do what he asked.’

  ‘Who was he, this guy?’

  ‘I don’t know. He never gave me a name. But, Madeleine, you have to believe me. The bomb, blaming Carver… I didn’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Oh come on, you must have guessed!’

  ‘Maybe I did not want to admit it. But even when I found out for sure, last night, I told myself Carver would escape. He would win. Like all the other times.’

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘No…’ Larsson closed his eyes and screwed up his face. Maddy could see there was a battle going on inside him, as if part of him was resisting one final admission.

  ‘Come on, Thor, you know something. I can tell…’

  ‘OK, assuming Carver is alive, if he’s free, he’ll go back to Geneva. But I’ve been calling pretty much constantly. No answer. If he’s not free… If this man has got him, well, I think I know where he is. But I hope I’m wrong.’

  ‘We’ve got to call the police, tell them everything.’

  ‘But what about Karin? The wedding?’

  ‘You think she’ll care about that, once she knows what you did? You’ve only got one chance, Thor. With her, with me, with Carver… You’ve got to tell Ravnsborg everything. Now.’ She held out her phone towards him.

  Larsson shook his head. ‘It’s OK, I’ve got the number too.’

  He took out his phone and dialled the incident room at Olso police headquarters. Maddy watched as he spoke, not understanding the words but picking up the change of mood, from introduction, to explanation, to exasperation and finally anger.

  ‘There’s a problem,’ he said, when he ended the call. ‘Ravnsborg isn’t there. He left the station about five minutes ago, with some English guy, they wouldn’t say who. He’s on a mobile, but they won’t give me the number. They just say that if I leave a message, they’ll pass it on in due course.’

  ‘So what did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them to tell Ravnsborg his life is in extreme danger, and so is Carver’s. They didn’t seem to believe me.’

  ‘So now what are we going to do?’

  ‘We are going to drive like crazy to a lake called Tvillingtjenn. We have to get there before Ravnsborg. People’s lives depend upon it.’

  ‘Well, if we need to get there quickly, you’d better let me drive,’ Maddy said.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ snapped Larsson. ‘Are you crazy? You don’t know the way. You don’t know the country. It’s my car. You won’t be quicker than me.’

  ‘Believe me, I will. Just give me the keys.’

  66

  If Carver stood up, directly under the beam, the pull of the bungee cord against his slave collar didn’t hurt his throat or restrict his breathing. If he sat on the chair, absolutely upright, trying to ignore the rasping agony of his open wounds rubbing against the rough wooden chair-back, it felt no worse than a tight dress-uniform collar. The moment he tried to do anything else the trouble began.

  If he slumped his shoulders, or lowered his head, for example, the pressure increased against his Adam’s apple, making him want to gag. Sleep, or even the slightest relaxation, would be impossible.

  There was a part of him that almost admired Tyzack for the thoroughness with which he’d thought the nightmare through, right down to the ceaseless jabber of the TV sets that surrounded him like medieval peasants jeering at a man in the stocks. He’d already seen a report from the site in Bristol where the President would give his speech in a little over forty-eight hours. Regular updates had been promised, an inescapable countdown to the moment when Tyzack struck.

  Carver wondered what state he would be in by then. The pain and exhaustion would increase hour by hour, steadily draining him of the will to live. Yet it would be equally hard to kill himself. The elasticity of the cord and the padding of the collar allowed no possibility of a quick hanging. It might be possible to asphyxiate himself, but it would take a long time – several minutes at least – and an implacable, unrelenting death-wish. That, too, would surely be beyond him. He had no choice but to endure a half-life, a purgatory that would continue until Tyzack returned. Assuming that he ever did. He could just leave Carver to rot. Or he might be arrested or killed on his mission, whatever it was.

  Carver’s heart was pounding now, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He’d let his thoughts run away with him and now he was close to panic.

  ‘Come on, get a grip, you wanker!’

  His voice was little more than a husky rasp through his battered vocal cords. Shakily, he got to his feet, straightened his back, ignoring the protesting shots of pain, pulled back his shoulders and let out a single, voice-cracking roar of pain and frustration, holding it until his lungs were empty. When he breathed again, the panic was gone and his pulse was steady.

  His throat, though, felt as if it had been scrubbed from the inside with wire wool. He needed a drink. The prospect of enduring another fight against the cord as he dragged himself towards the table, where the plastic container sat taunting him with its fifteen litres of cool, fresh water, sent another shot of fear through his system. Yet far from putting him off, the fear only drove him on. If he was to survive, he had to turn the desperate scrabble for water into a routine. He had to find a way of normalizing the experience. Better yet, he could try moving the water closer to him, a lot closer, so that he could get to it easily – or as easily as he could do anything in Tyzack’s chamber of horrors.

  Carver told himself to start with the basics: get a drink.

  He took three deep breaths, flooding his lungs with oxygen. The fourth breath he held and stepped forward towards the table, his total concentration focused on the water bottle. He felt the grip on his neck tighten and willed himself to ignore the sensations of nausea and asphyxiation. All the while the cord was pulling at him, trying to force him back.

  He was still barely halfway across the open floor between his chair and the table.

  Carver leaned forward into his next step. His blood was pounding in his ears and the edges of his vision were becoming blurred. For a moment he craved the vicious sting of the cane on hi
s back, forcing him to go onwards whether he wanted to or not. It was even harder making himself do it.

  One more step: he pushed his left foot ahead of him as far as it would go, till the toe of his shoe was almost touching the table. Then he leaned forward one last time.

  He could almost feel his larynx collapsing under the pressure from the collar. His craving for oxygen was as desperate as a drowning man’s.

  He reached out his arms, joints and tendons straining, fingers outstretched, and somehow his left hand managed to curl around the neck of the bottle, while his right fumbled for the little plastic cup beside it.

  Carver was close to blacking out as he lifted the cup to the lip of the bottle.

  He tilted the bottle towards him. Water gurgled up the spout, but did not reach the lip. He would have to tilt it further before any came out.

  The bottle tipped over another few degrees. Now Carver felt as though he was fighting a war on two fronts. The weight of the bottle was dragging him downwards, just as the cord was pulling him up and away.

  He was desperate for air now. But if he let go of the bottle, he might never manage to get it again.

  He had to get the water into the plastic cup, but still it wouldn’t come out.

  He tilted the bottle a few more degrees, the strain becoming worse as its centre of gravity shifted over.

  And then something gave.

  What went first he didn’t know. But suddenly his back foot was slipping and scrabbling for purchase on the wooden floor. The bottle was sliding on the table.

  There was even more tension pulling against his throat. The full weight of the bottle was bearing down on his fingers wrapped around its neck. As the bungee cord pulled him inexorably away, his fingers lost a fraction of their purchase. But that was enough.

  The bottle slipped from his grasp, teetered for a fraction of a second and then toppled over, thudding against the top of the table and then rolling sideways, water now pouring from its spout, and all Carver could do was watch as it fell from the side of the table, crashed down on to the floor and poured its precious cargo over the pine boards.

  A pool of water spread across the floor, too far away and too low for him even to touch, let alone scoop into his hands.

  The water gurgled. It splashed. It puddled. And every drop of it was wasted.

  He could only stand and watch despairingly as little by little it slipped between the cracks in the floorboards and seeped, agonizingly slowly, into the soft, pale wood.

  Carver lunged despairingly, trying to reach the overturned bottle and the last litre or two that remained within it. He strained until he felt that his shoulder sockets would be torn apart and his head torn from his body. He fought against suffocation and unconsciousness. But it was no good. The bottle remained out of reach, untouchable, its open top staring blankly at him.

  He knew then that it was over. Tyzack had won. He would hit the President. And Carver was going to die within the next few days. From now on it was simply a matter of exactly how and when.

  67

  The road map of Oslo’s northern suburbs looks like a maze in a children’s puzzle book. The roads twist and switchback as they snake across the hills. Some side roads link back into the system, while others run blindly away to dead ends. Had she not had Thor navigating for her in the passenger seat, Maddy would have become hopelessly lost. Instead he gave her instructions in a voice as irritatingly calm and emotionless as a sat-nav, while she channelled her anger and desperation into the business of getting to Carver as fast as humanly possible.

  Larsson owned a Volvo XC90 4 × 4 whose engine growled like an angry bear as Maddy flung it round corners, slicing across the oncoming traffic, seeking out the racing line. She braked like a racing driver, too: one decisive deceleration, then straight back on the power and a slingshot round the bend, trusting the Volvo’s four-wheel drive to keep it on the blacktop. She broke every rule in the book, overtaking on blind corners, aiming for tiny gaps between vehicles, playing chicken with trucks and buses. Her face was a tight mask of concentration, the only outward signs of her tension coming from the occasional flicker of her cheek, just below the left eye, and the clenching of her jaw as she worked the wheel and the brakes.

  The ground was flattening out and the individual detached chalets that lined the streets on the edge of the city, each with their patch of garden, were giving way to more tightly packed housing when Larsson spotted a run of shops a hundred metres or so ahead.

  ‘Pull in there,’ he said.

  ‘Are you outta your freakin’ mind?’ Maddy shouted, her temper pumped up by the adrenalin flooding her system.

  ‘Just do it,’ Larsson insisted. ‘If you want Carver to live.’

  Fuming, she pulled into a small line of parking spots.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Larsson said, jumping out of the car and running over to one of the shops. Maddy couldn’t work out what the sign on the front meant, but, from the gear displayed in the window, it looked like a tool-hire store.

  Larsson emerged from it barely a minute later carrying what looked like a gigantic, super-vicious pair of orange kitchen scissors, with a chainsaw where the top blade would be.

  ‘Alligator loppers,’ he said, by way of explanation.

  ‘Yeah, I know what they are,’ she said dismissively. She’d already started the engine as he was walking towards the car and was now pulling back out into the traffic.

  Within a few minutes they were on the ring road that ran around the north of the city, still going fast, but travelling more smoothly. Larsson didn’t have to give directions any more. He tried making conversation.

  ‘Where did you learn to drive like that?’

  ‘Back home, when I was a girl. I come from the boonies, didn’t Carver tell you? Oh, no, I guess he didn’t have time. Look, just don’t talk to me, all right? Don’t tell me how it’s all a terrible mistake. Don’t try to justify yourself. Just shut up unless you’re giving me directions.’

  Larsson lowered his head for a moment, cradling it in his right hand. Then he took a deep breath, pulled himself back together and sat back in his seat.

  ‘Yeah, I get it,’ he said. ‘So, where are we?’ He glanced out of the window. ‘OK, turn left at the next exit. Take the E6. Follow the signs to Lørenskog and Lillestrøm. Got that?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Fine then, I’ll shut up.’

  68

  The police Saab 9-5 was powered by environmentally conscious biofuel, but that didn’t seem to slow it down as Ravnsborg raced down a country road on the way to Tvillingtjenn. He leaned forward and looked up through the windscreen as a helicopter clattered overhead, painted in drab, military green.

  ‘The anti-terrorist boys!’ he shouted over the noise. ‘Let us hope they manage to control themselves until we get there. Not long now.’

  Another car, filled with Ravnsborg’s own people, was hurtling after them. The local force from Bjørkelangen had already established a perimeter around the farmhouse and barn where the Lists had reported hearing sounds of violence and seeing a helicopter take off. Grantham was on the phone, listening more than talking.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said at last. ‘Appreciate it. Sorry if I caused you any grief. Speak to you later. Bye.’

  He put his phone away and turned his head towards the driver’s seat.

  ‘The man’s name is Damon Tyzack,’ he said. ‘He’s an all-purpose nasty piece of work. Suspected links with various unpleasant gangland activities, including trafficking of people and drugs. He’s also rumoured to work on the side as a hitman, though no one’s ever got enough evidence on him to bring charges. One interesting thing, though: he’s an ex-marine, spent some time in the Special Boat Service, but got cashiered, kicked out. Seems like a mission went wrong, though the SBS didn’t release any specific details. They like to keep things close to their chests, those boys, but friend Tyzack must have been a very naughty boy indeed, judging by the speed with which they shoved him out the door
. There’s one other interesting wrinkle. It was the commanding officer on the mission who insisted Tyzack had to go. Guess who that was…’

  ‘I thought you said Mr Carver did not work for Her Majesty.’

  ‘That’s right, he doesn’t.’

  ‘But he did once? In the SBS?’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘And Tyzack has never forgiven him for destroying his military career?’

  ‘Well,’ said Grantham, ‘that’s certainly a possibility.’

  ‘We may soon find out, one way or the other,’ Ravnsborg said, hitting the brakes and bringing the Saab screeching to a halt at a police roadblock. Up ahead, to the left of the road, a long, narrow stretch of water was lined with rows of trees rising up into jagged, rocky hills. Three fire-engines and a couple of ambulances were lined up along the side of the road, their crews standing around, chatting, smoking, or lying on the verge, soaking up the sun.

  Ravsnborg opened his window and showed his badge. One of the officers manning the block leaned down and gave directions, pointing across the water towards the trees. Ravnsborg turned off the road on to a dirt track and drove the car, much more gingerly now, around the narrow end of the lake and along the far bank.

  The track had taken them round the back of the property, up to the patch of open ground now occupied by the anti-terrorist unit’s helicopter. It led past the farmhouse and round to the barn, which was just visible through the trees in the distance. Black-uniformed and helmeted assault troops and local police were lined up behind a line of squad cars opposite the farmhouse. A couple of the men were pointing guns at the building, but most were standing round with the unmistakable air of men awaiting orders and wondering when something would happen.

  As Ravnsborg parked and got out of the Saab one of the black-clad figures walked towards him with a tough, purposeful stride in keeping with his menacing appearance. A pot-bellied policeman followed after him, almost having to jog to keep up. Ravnsborg was a superb detective, but it didn’t require a man of his talents to deduce that this was the local inspector.