Close Quarters

by Adrian Magson

  In short, it wasn’t the best weapon for what I had in mind, but at least this one had a selector for firing single shots.

  Obluskva was towards the east of the city close to the rail yards and bordered by an area of old industrial warehouses and factories blackened by years of smoke and the processing of metal. In the rail yard itself, the usual jungle of tracks, overhead wires and poles, stacks of storage containers huddled together, back-dropped by lines of freight cars of every description, with fuel tankers, gravel silos and piles of lumber waiting for shipment.

  Through a haze in the distance stood the spectral outlines of three high-rise buildings, and I prayed that Number 24d Obluskva wasn’t one of them. Finding and getting to a specific person in tall buildings is not something you can accomplish quickly. It needs a team to cover all the levels, the elevators don’t always work and the network of stairways, familiar only to residents, are death traps for the unwary.

  And for a single intruder, once in, there’s no easy way out.

  I was in luck. Before I got to the high-rises I hit a highway cutting through the district from north to south, and beyond it found a rambling series of potholed streets and tracks dotted with small single-level houses surrounded by scrappy fencing and untamed vegetation.

  The car bottomed out with a crash of the muffler as I hit a dip in the surface and I slowed down. Having the suspension fall apart on me now would be a disaster. I checked the house numbers, one eye on the rear-view mirror in case the troops had managed to force their way out of the airport and were close on my tail.

  Ramshackle fences seemed the norm, surrounding ancient wooden sheds with corrugated roofs, patches of untended, weed-infested ground, cars on blocks and all the detritus of an area left to moulder and die. It was a stark contrast; everywhere else I’d seen made Donetsk seem like a modern city, landscaped and pleasant with parks, lakes, wide roads and boulevards. Yet here was like a forgotten zone, where life could have been unchanged from a hundred years ago.

  Number 24 was different. It was part of a long, two-storey apartment block, its flaking walls painted a deep yellow, with small balconies and a high wall at each end around what I guessed were communal gardens. The building stood out in more ways than mere size; it was an island of a different style of living, perhaps forgotten from some previous city plan long overtaken by the nearby high-rises across the highway. I pulled up outside and hit the ground running, and went through the front door, which was unlocked. Each of the apartments had a letter suffixed to the street number. I found a, b and c but no 24d.

  I banged on 24c. It took a while but eventually opened to reveal an elderly lady with wrinkled skin and white hair, blinking gnomishly at me through a narrow gap.

  ‘What do you want?’ She had a voice like dry paper rustling and smelled of vinegar.

  ‘Twenty-four d,’ I said to her. ‘I have a delivery.’

  She shook her head and began to close the door, so I put my foot in the way. ‘Please. It’s important.’

  She stared at me for a moment and I wondered what I would have to do to get a break. Then she stuck a gnarled finger through the gap and pointed down the corridor at a blank door with a small glass pane at head height. ‘See Yaroslav,’ she muttered. ‘Yaroslav.’ Then she slammed the door on my foot with surprising force until I withdrew it.

  I hoofed along to the blank door and knocked with authority. Whoever the hell Yaroslav was, and I was guessing he was the building superintendent, I hoped he had better social skills than the old biddy. If not, I was probably going to have to beat it out of him.

  The man who came to the door was as fat as he was tall, and wore a battered beret with a greasy rim. He didn’t look happy to see me, but I guessed that was his default position for callers.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m looking for twenty-four d,’ I told him. ‘Delivery.’

  He looked immediately wary and his eyes went walkabout. ‘There is no twenty-four d.’ He started to close the door and I pushed it against his substantial belly until he gave way. The smell coming out of his apartment was ripe and nasty, and I figured he must have been boiling live chickens in there.

  ‘There is no twenty-four d,’ he hissed. ‘Go away.’

  ‘There is and if you don’t tell me, I’ll report you to the city authorities.’ For good measure I flicked back my jacket to show the butt of the submachine gun. His eyes went walkabout again and his chin began to quiver. ‘I don’t mean twenty-four d any harm,’ I added. ‘I just need to speak to him.’

  He nodded and pointed towards the back of the building. ‘There’s a narrow door at the end of the passage. No number. He’s in there.’

  I left him to his chickens and went in search of the narrow door. It looked little more than a cleaner’s cupboard, but I was no architect. I pounded on the door hard enough to make the frame rattle, and hoped the neighbours wouldn’t care to investigate and the resident inside would be too shocked to hear that he was about to be picked up by security troops to protest.

  The door eventually swung open and a skeletal, academic type in glasses stood looking at me. His face was parchment coloured and an aura of sickness hung around him like a cloak. He was dressed in a worn dressing gown and slippers, and holding a bright yellow handkerchief to his nose, the veins in his wrist standing out like snakes.

  ‘I don’t know your name,’ I told him, ‘but you should know that the security forces know about your connection to Travis. They’re on the way here right now. You’ve got to leave.’

  He looked about as shocked as a man could do, and his face lost even more colour. I figured he’d been expecting this for some time but it was still a shock. Like anybody who lives a double life, you never know when discovery will come knocking at your door. He’d probably figured I was from the security police. ‘Who are you? Why do you tell me this? I don’t know a man called Travis.’ His voice was throaty with cold, but cultured and precise, and I wondered if, when he wasn’t being a cut-out for the CIA, he was a schoolteacher.

  ‘Did I say Travis was a man?’

  He looked as if he could have bitten his tongue and was probably praying I wasn’t a member of the security police who’d just caught him out.

  ‘You were asked to escort Travis from Donetsk to an address in Pavlohrad.’ I spoke softly but fast, keeping up the pressure. We didn’t have time to stand here playing word games. ‘Once there you were to hand him over and he would be taken to another address further on. That’s all you were told. Now, do you want to stay here to be arrested or not?’

  That got to him. He made up his mind and backed away into what was really little more than a large cupboard with a curtain across a small bed, a small camping gas stove and a corner washbasin. No wonder Yaroslav was reluctant to admit to his presence; Number 24d was a sub-tenant, undoubtedly here against building regulations, but a welcome back-pocket source of income as long as nobody spoiled the game.

  While 24d did what he had to, I went back out and checked the street. This area was isolated from the buzz of the larger city, and other than a few birds in the trees dotting the neighbourhood and the distant sound of a piano playing upstairs, the silence was a relief. If the black hats arrived, I’d hear them coming.

  I got back to hear Number 24d banging around in the depths of his tiny room for a few seconds, then he appeared dressed in plain pants and a jacket and carrying a small bag. He had developed a high colour and was breathing heavily from his exertions, and I hoped he was ready for what lay ahead. From now on in, his entire life was about to change dramatically.

  ‘Is that all you have?’ I asked.

  ‘It is all I need,’ he replied with great dignity. ‘My life is very simple.’

  And about to get a hell of a lot more complicated, I wanted to add. Instead I asked if he had somewhere to go and hustled him towards the stairs.

  He nodded. ‘I have friends who will help me. I have nothing to keep me here so maybe it’s for the best.’ He tried to smile but
it didn’t quite gel. Not surprising when a complete stranger arrives on your doorstep unannounced and turns your life upside down. ‘I lost my job at the university,’ he explained, ‘and the money paid by your CIA was not enough to live on. So, I live here in this small box.’ He shrugged philosophically. ‘But we do what we have to in life, do we not?’

  ‘Yes, we do. Will Yaroslav talk?’

  He nodded sadly. ‘Of course he will. He’s a fat, miserable turd who feeds off the misfortune and sadness of others. I have no doubt he will have another person in there to replace me before the day is done. But don’t worry – the authorities will not find me. The way things are going in this country, somehow I don’t think I will be at the top of their list of people to deal with.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Ironic, is it not? Most of us spend our lives working to leave some small footprint, some memory of our passing in the vain hope that we as individuals were not entirely irrelevant. Yet here am I hoping that my footprint will be non-existent.’ He waggled a set of car keys. ‘Thank you for coming to warn me. I have my car nearby. I will complete what I was paid to do, but that will be all.’

  ‘But I don’t have Travis yet. You should go. Get away from here.’

  He considered it for a moment in silence, his breathing harsh. We arrived at the front door, where he turned to me. ‘But you are here to rescue him, are you not?’

  ‘That’s my job, yes.’

  ‘Then we both have something to finish. Come to Vokzal’na Square directly west from here. It is not far. I will wait for one hour. If you do not come, I will have to assume you have not been successful.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He walked away without waiting for a reply, towards whatever future awaited him yet still prepared to do what he’d been paid for. I could only admire his quiet courage.

  I went back to the car and drove along the street, hooking a left at the end of the block then left again. I was now in a deserted back run behind the apartment block. On the other side was a large patch of communal vegetable gardens surrounded by sagging wire fencing and dotted with tiny sheds like matchboxes stood on their ends. Most of it looked neglected and weed-strewn, adding to what was already a desolate and moody backdrop, as if inviting the bulldozers and graders to come and do their worst.

  I walked to the end of the street and ducked behind a section of wooden fence around a deserted plot of weeds, and found a vantage point where I could keep an eye on the approach road. With luck I’d hear the sound of any vehicles coming before they got to me, which would give me time to come up with a plan to spring Travis.

  The truck was the first to arrive, no doubt having used its weight and the complement of troops on board to bully its way through the crush of vehicles at the airport. It stopped a hundred yards away out of my line of sight near a single property surrounded by a chain-link fence, with a barn-type building backing on to the road. Through the sagging open double doors of the barn I got a glimpse of a bunch of chickens in a wire-framed pen. I focussed on the truck and over the clatter of the engine I heard a brief burst of a voice coming over a radio link. ‘Stay put and wait. ETA five minutes.’

  The jeep with Travis. The clock was now ticking.

  My priority was to get Travis away from the men in the jeep, but the troops in the truck was a problem I couldn’t ignore. Somehow I had to immobilise them.

  I moved out from behind the fence and found a gap in the chain-link surrounding the property. I was out of sight of the truck or anybody inside the house and had an easy route to the barn. I ducked inside and breathed the overheated, musty atmosphere of about a dozen chickens. They ignored me, focussing on their feed or their grooming. So far so good. I moved over to the front wall for a look-see. And heard a cough very close by.

  I stopped dead and froze. A trickle of water sounded. Somebody was relieving himself just a couple of feet away on the other side of the barn wall. Through a slim gap in the planks I caught a glimpse of a uniform.

  I held my breath and prayed the house owner wasn’t about to come out and protest at this invasion of their property, or to collect some eggs.

  The soldier finished and moved away, and I peered through a knot-hole in the rough planking. The truck was a dozen feet away, but inching slowly forward as the driver held the engine on the clutch, the heavy ribbed tyres squeaking as they rolled over a line of stones half-buried in the earth close to the barn wall.

  I slid back and tried not to cough. The barn began to fill with noise and the acrid smell of diesel and heavy exhaust smoke, and the structure was vibrating with the proximity of the engine. The chickens were getting nervous, too, and abandoned their feeding, electing to go into a protective huddle in one corner of the pen.

  I reckon I had a couple of minutes, if that, to do something before Grey Suit arrived and gave the order to move in.

  If that happened, all bets for Travis were off.

  EIGHTEEN

  I checked the interior of the barn, which was full of the rubbish and discards found on any smallholding or farm anywhere in the western world. Long-forgotten and rusted machinery, coils of wire, battered feed trays, folded cardboard vegetable boxes going mouldy with damp, dented buckets, plastic sacks and a tall stack of cut logs ready for winter. I picked up a length of metal tubing as thick as my arm, an idea forming in my head. I’d seen this done once before, but never tried it myself.

  I had to work fast. I grabbed some of the cardboard and wrapped it in layers around the tubing, tying it in place with some string hanging from the wall. Next I slid the end of the submachine gun barrel into the tube. It was a loose fit so I used a fold of plastic sacking to wedge it securely in place and pack around the gun barrel.

  I now had a very rough and ready suppressor, or silencer. It was cumbersome, and I’d only find out how silent it was when I pulled the trigger. But if it served to deflect some of the sound, it would be good enough.

  I found a gap close to the ground where a piece of planking was missing, and slid the tube through, carefully pushing it along the ground as far as I could towards one of the heavy tyres, which were now almost touching the barn wall. Give it another few seconds and the truck would be past my position and beyond reach. The noise from the nearest tyre scraping on the stones was high-pitched, rising above the clatter of the exhaust and the metronomic blipping of the engine as the driver became impatient to go.

  I moved the selector to single shot and waited, timing the revs. One. Two-three. One. Two-three. One. Two-three. One—

  I squeezed the trigger.

  Some of the report came back up the tube, but most of it was lost in the roar of the truck’s engine. The crude suppressor worked, but the sound of the tyre going was much louder, the released air pressure battering the planks close to my head. I yanked the tube back and cast it aside, then moved to the back of the barn and waited.

  There was instant pandemonium from inside the truck. I heard the thump of boots hitting the ground and movement against the light as figures came to investigate the noise. Somebody swore about how a shit piece of rubber crap from Romania should have been replaced months ago and what the hell could they do now?

  I gave it a few seconds until I heard a voice ordering the tyre to be changed and double-quick. I didn’t know how good these guys were at changing truck tyres, but at the very least the driver had to know what he was doing. Either way, I didn’t have time to waste.

  I left them to it and moved out of the barn, jogging back to my earlier station behind the wooden fence.

  My timing couldn’t have been closer. As I ducked behind cover, the jeep arrived, throwing up a plume of dust as it came blasting along the street. It shot past the truck and squealed to a stop at the front of the apartment block. Grey Suit was putting on a show for the troops, and I wondered how long it would take his second-in-command in the truck to admit that they were temporarily disabled.

  Moments later, one of the soldiers from the jeep appeared at the corner and ran past me, heading for a rear door in
the wall. He was wearing a comms headset and armed with a Bison submachine gun and moved like he knew what he was doing.

  When I heard shouting from the front of the building and the first crash of a door going in hard on the inside, that was my signal to move.

  I ran across the road and through the open door, and found a pitted concrete path leading to the rear of the building through a neglected patch of disordered flower beds and rough grass.

  The soldier was right in front of me, kneeling on the path and waiting for orders, one hand clamped to his headset. I was on him before he could register the fact and hit him behind the ear with the butt of the Ero. He fell face down and didn’t move. I stepped over him and kicked the Bison out of his reach, and ran along the path and up two steps through a rear door into a darkened corridor.

  More voices from upstairs and the sound of wood splintering. A dog began barking furiously and someone screamed. I ducked along the corridor towards the front door, hoping Grey Suit had taken at least one man with him. The more the odds were reduced the better I liked it.

  I stepped outside the front door and saw Travis sitting disconsolately in the back of the jeep, with only one soldier keeping guard. It gave me an edge and I had the element of surprise in my favour, but I wasn’t keen on the idea of stepping out there and being spotted by the backup troops in the truck.

  There was no option; I had to go for broke. I walked out to the road with the Ero under my jacket, the selector on single-shot. The soldier watched me approach, eyes flicking to the building behind me, assessing the situation. He was probably wondering why I was sticking my head out here when the building was clearly being raided and every other normal resident was staying indoors out of the way. When it finally hit him that I didn’t fit the picture of anything normal, it was too late. I yanked the door open and leaned in before he could move, and jacked my right elbow hard under his chin, clicking his teeth together. As he slumped backwards I lifted a pistol from a holster on his belt and threw it in the back of the jeep, then turned to Travis, who was looking stunned.