The Contract Man

by A P Bateman

  King realised that the three men had taken a house on the other side of the square and were obviously talking quietly amongst themselves; but in the silence of the desert, the faintest sound can carry for hundreds of metres. He stopped in his tracks as the voices ceased. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, heightening his hearing, which predominated in the darkness. The voices wafted eerily through the air again and King continued directly towards them. As he reached the front of the large building, he listened intently to the men’s conversation, then felt another overwhelming pang of guilt, as he suddenly understood that Shameel had been praising him.

  He made his way back to the hotel and climbed the stairs to their room. Juliet Kalver looked up at him venomously as he entered.

  King smiled amiably, deciding it would either cool her a little, or fuel her fiery temper completely and at that moment he didn’t particularly care which. He placed the assault rifle on the chair and walked over to her. “The perimeter is clear, I don’t think there’s anybody for ten miles.” He glanced at his watch then nodded towards the door. “We’d better get going, I heard the others up and about from across the street.”

  “Fine.” She turned away from the window and walked over to the bag, picked it up, then dropped it onto the bed. “You can be responsible for that.” She picked up the loaded Uzi submachine pistol and the two spare magazines, then walked towards the door. “Come on then, are you coming or not?” she asked curtly, not looking him in the eye.

  King walked over to the bed, picked up the bag with the radio and interlocking aerials, swung it over his shoulder and then picked up his rifle. “Sure.” He followed her out of the room, then reached out and touched her gently on the left shoulder. “Hey...”

  She spun around and knocked his hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

  “I was just seeing if you were Okay,” he shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry about earlier…”

  “Don't apologise to me.” She shook her head and turned away. “Just get the job done and leave me alone.” She walked ahead of him, swaying her shapely hips as she hurried down the stairs.

  Rocky was waiting outside, his AK47 assault rifle hanging from his shoulder in his characteristically casual manner. Akmed Faisal stood a few paces to the right, smoking an extremely rough smelling cigarette.

  “Ah! Mista English! We kill some ISIS bastards now, okay?”

  King nodded. “But if we see Iraqi soldiers, we avoid them at all costs. We don’t fire on them. Got that?” He knew that Iraqi soldiers had used the ISIS situation to settle some old scores with the Kurds, but Iraq was Britain’s ally these days and he had to keep the Kurdish fighters in check. At best they were trigger happy, at worst they were bloodthirsty.

  The Kurd nodded, as if he were a small child having just been reprimanded. “I remember. But I don’t have to like it!”

  Rocky laughed heartily, then looked up as Shameel raced the Land Rover round the corner and into the square.

  “Right, everybody get in,” Juliet ordered quietly, then looked at Shameel as he pulled the vehicle to a halt. “You can give us a lift to my vehicle.”

  “Lift?” the Kurd asked, somewhat puzzled at the term.

  “Yes, a lift. You know, a ride!” she snapped, opening the rear door. She sat down and glared at Alex King who was talking to Akmed at the foot of the hotel steps. “Move your ass will you!” she shouted. King walked towards her and placed the bag carefully on the rear bench seat. “We’ll be late for sending the message.”

  Sending a scrambled message on a dedicated frequency was only a pretense. Kalver had convinced the three Kurds that they were there acting as their bodyguards and all three men had liked the description, especially Rocky, who had seen a bootlegged copy of The Bodyguard starring Kevin Costner. Now, as they travelled through the deserted streets, Rocky insisted on singing the Whitney Houston version of the accompanying theme song. It sounded dreadful. What puzzled King was why Kalver was being so aggressive. He had turned her down in the room, but he couldn’t imagine that it would have such an effect.

  Shameel pulled the Land Rover to an abrupt halt to the side of Kalver’s Toyota. King opened the rear door and grabbed the bag, then jumped to the hard ground. Kalver followed, ignored his proffered hand, walked straight around the vehicle and unlocked the driver’s door. “Come on then,” she said to him curtly. “It’s central locking, you can get in.”

  King opened his door, threw the bag onto the rear seat then got into the cab without a word. He stared straight ahead as she started the engine and drove erratically round the parked Land Rover. She raced up through the gears, misjudging the engine’s revs at every change, then settled at around eighty kilometers an hour, which seemed to be more than enough for the potholed road. The two-vehicle convoy travelled for about an hour, with the three Kurds in the much slower Land Rover struggling to keep up for much of the time. Every now and then, Kalver would curse loudly, releasing a mouthful of four-lettered expletives, then ram her foot hard on the brake. The Land Rover would close the gap a little, but soon enough, she would repeat the process, much to King’s silent amusement.

  Before long she pulled off of the main highway and onto a narrower, bumpier side road. The potholes were worse and at the speed that they were travelling it physically hurt when the vehicle’s axle ground on the rocky ground. King could only imagine what discomfort the three Kurds were feeling inside the older and far less luxurious Land Rover.

  After an unusually excessive grounding, King broke his silence. “Come on, ease up. I know you’re mad at me, but if you’re not careful you’re going to snap the drive shaft in a minute. Then we’ll be in real trouble.”

  “Mad at you?” she tossed her head back and laughed. “Mad at you? You have no idea!”

  “What?” King frowned.

  “I’m mad at myself!” She shook her head in dismay. “The first time I feel the desire to go with another man since my husband’s death and he makes a fool out of me! Gets what he wants, satisfies himself, then turns me down...”

  “It wasn’t like that…” He rested his hand on her knee, she flinched but he left it there and he felt her relax a little. “It’s just the mission. I never usually mix business and pleasure. I didn’t realise I was your first since your husband…”

  “You were there, weren’t you?” She smiled. “That wasn’t everyday sex…”

  King gave her knee a squeeze, then took his hand away. Juliet Kalver was an enigma. Either that or bipolar. She made him uneasy. Maybe it had to do with shutting down the American operation here. Maybe it had something to do with her. She struck him as desperately unstable.

  He watched the line of hills draw closer, then spoke without taking his eyes off the night sky. “Slow down, this look’s about perfect…”

  The silence in the desert at night was eerie. It was cold also and King shivered slightly as he scanned the night sky, watching the horizon to the east and the line of distant hillocks to the south, beyond which lay the deserted village of Kalsagir. He turned back to the others, who were waiting for his signal to follow and waved them towards him.

  King had taken point and was making his way up the series of rocky ledges and inclines, approximately fifty metres ahead of the others. Now that he had finally reached the top of the hillock, he waved for them to follow the rest of the way. He kept his eyes on the horizon, then looked down at the two vehicles parked below. He was only around a hundred feet above them, but the incline varied in gradient and in the dark the walk had taken almost twenty minutes. He watched them approach him, and realised why Kalver had chosen this spot. It was far enough off the beaten track, yet easily accessible. Moreover, it was only a few miles from the border. After he had killed the Faisal brothers and Rocky he could be over it very quickly.

  He turned around just in time to hear Kalver order Rocky to be gentle with the radio. She stood with her hands on her hips watching the Kurd carefully place the bag on the ground, then looked up at King,
unsure of what to do next.

  It was his time now, time for him to go to work. She had come up with the story of having to send a special high-tech radio message, a burst or squirt signal, which would need a higher altitude to avoid atmospherics and the three Kurds had swallowed it.

  King breathed steadily, he put the rifle down carefully on the ground, keeping the weapon’s breach and cocking lever facing upwards and out of the dirt. He methodically flexed his fists, loosening his muscles, calming the adrenalin. He was ready. He stepped down from the rocky ledge and walked towards the group, then shook his head at Kalver. “Sorry,” he said and caught hold of the barrel of her Uzi with his left hand and pointed the muzzle down to the ground. He had the Browning pistol held firmly in his right hand and aimed at her head. She seemed to weigh her options for a moment and released her grip on the machine pistol.

  “What? What are you doing?” she asked, looking at him in bewilderment. “For Christ’s sake, do what you’re here to do!”

  King kept his weapon trained on her forehead as he dropped the Uzi a few feet away. “I had my doubts about this mission, but I would still have done my job.” He nodded towards Akmed Faisal, who in turn picked up the radio and beckoned the other two men to follow him back down the hill. King had briefed him at the steps of the hotel. Akmed had in turn briefed his two companions on the way. King shook his head at Kalver. “I’m an assassin, I do what I’m paid to do all the same. Even if it’s a bullshit job like this one.”

  The woman shook her head in disbelief. “What’s going down then? Why the Hell are you pointing the gun at me?” she looked at him tearfully. “Don’t kill them, let them go. See if I care!”

  King backed up a couple of paces, lowered the pistol, but kept it pointed in her direction. “It’s not as simple as that, is it…” he said flatly. “Although this mission stinks, and although the CIA duped my service into performing a cleaning job, I would still have followed orders and killed the Faisal brothers. The trouble is, in being super-efficient, you ruined things for yourself,” he paused. “You see, I checked your position on the stairway back at the hotel. You said that you were backing me up. Well, that wasn’t the case, was it?”

  “Of course it was!” She looked at him pleadingly. “Please, you’ve got this all wrong!”

  King shook his head. “From the stairway, you cannot see any further than the double doors. You weren’t aiming at the Kurds, you had the Uzi aimed at my back. The moment I ceased firing, you would have sprayed me all over the reception desk. You’re pulling out of the area and the operation, and you don’t want a single loose end to trip up on. Your orders are to have me killed…”

  Her shoulders sagged and she looked forlornly at the ground. “So what happens now?” She chuckled morosely. “Do I have a last request? Will you administer the coup de grace?”

  “I don’t do last requests, never have done,” King said flippantly. “But so far, nobody has got hurt. Let’s leave it that way.” He pointed to a clump of rocks on the opposite side of the hillock’s summit. “Sit down over there and wait until dawn. You have the keys to your own vehicle, just ride it out and go home unscathed. Leave somebody else sort this shit pit out…” He holstered the pistol, bent down and picked up the Uzi and walked to the edge of the first shallow ledge.

  “Just answer me this…” Juliet Kalver called out. “Why go to the trouble of bringing me up here?” King frowned. He heard her question, but also a familiar sound, a metallic sound which her voice had all but muffled. He threw himself to the ground on his left, rolled onto his shoulder, then brought the Uzi up to aim. He was aware of a blinding flash in the dark, it illuminated the ground between them. There were two quiet, suppressed shots in the silence of the night and the sensation of a breeze near his head where the bullets passed inches away. He squeezed the Uzi’s trigger twice, releasing two short bursts of approximately five rounds each. The muzzle flashes lit up Kalver’s face, the ground and the rocks behind her. The sharp roar of the machine pistol echoed off the rocks around them.

  The woman fell backwards onto the rocky ground, her hand releasing the grip on the tiny silenced 9mm Glock pistol, supposedly lost when King had made the drop.

  King walked over to her, keeping the Uzi’s crude open sites trained on her. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and panicked, her breathing erratic and rasping. Most of the bullets had found their mark and the holes were now indistinguishable by the amount of blood soaking her chest and stomach. There was blood on the ground also and King could tell that she did not have long left. The ground would soak up the blood quickly, so to look like a large quantity in the dirt she was bleeding out fast. “Why bring you up here?” He crouched down, put the Uzi on the ground and picked up her hand in his. “In case you tried something stupid like that, that’s why.” He kissed the back of her hand and looked into her eyes. She breathed shallow and hard breaths, her limbs shaking. “Relax, don’t fight it, let it find you,” he said. “Close your eyes and think of your husband. Picture his face…”

  She did just that and started to smile, squeezing King’s hand tightly, until after a minute or so she let go and laid still.

  King watched her for a while. She was still and at peace. There was no pain for her now. He had tears in his eyes and an ache in his belly. He had only been with, comforted, a dying person like this once before. The night he had been widowed.

  Akmed Faisal looked up expectantly as King walked back to the Land Rover. “We heard gunshots, is

  it done?” the Kurd asked.

  King nodded. “Unfortunately. She had a choice and she made it.” He opened the passenger door, then slipped inside and rested the rifle and Uzi beside him, with the muzzles of both weapons pointed at the floor.

  “We go now?” Shameel asked hesitantly as he sat down behind the steering wheel.

  King nodded. “Yeah, we go.”

  “What is his name?” Akmed asked, leaning curiously between the two front seats.

  King stared straight ahead into the night. “His name…” he paused, trying to push the sight of Juliet Kalver’s dead body out of his mind. “His name is Osman Emre. He’s a Turkish pilot who works for my government. He has been helping in the fight against Islamic State extremists and he is being held prisoner at the military installation near Zakho,” King said. “And we are going to get him out.”

  53

  The sea mist hung close to the narrow road, and the car’s headlights merely reflected off of the impenetrable barrier, creating the illusion of oncoming traffic. He eased his foot off the accelerator and the vehicle’s pace slowed considerably, as he negotiated the next sharp bend.

  “For Christ’s sake!” Stewart shook his head. “We’ll never get there at this rate!”

  Holmwood kept his eyes on the narrow country road as he strained to see through the barrier of fog. “I can’t help it Sir, I can hardly see the road.”

  “What the Hell did you bring us in this way for?” Stewart asked abruptly. “We’ll end up in a bloody farmyard a minute!”

  Holmwood bit his lip in frustration, then readied himself for the next blind corner. “This is a main road Sir, it’s just a bit narrower than we are used to, that’s all.” He shrugged submissively. “It looked quicker on the map.”

  “Oh, I see! Quicker than a main road littered with dual-carriageways and nice gentle bends,” Stewart replied sarcastically. “I’ll have to remember that next time I plan a route.” He settled back in his seat, then pointed straight ahead. “Watch it!”

  Holmwood saw the mini-roundabout just in time and hit the brake. The car skidded slightly, then came back under control as the ABS system cut in.

  “Didn’t you see the sign?” Pryce asked from the rear seat.

  “Did you?” Holmwood paused, as he steered the car around the obstruction, then turned onto the road, which was simply signposted ‘Penryn’. “I can hardly see a thing the fog is so bloody thick!”

  After a few miles the mist had largely given way to
a curtain of drizzle which annoyingly covered the windscreen in a thin film of water, yet proved to be too small a quantity for the windscreen wipers, even when turned on to the intermittent setting. The wiper blades streaked the sheen of drizzle away, then smeared the windscreen with the return stroke, creating a reflective sheen in front of them under the orange glow of the street lamps.

  Holmwood steered the vehicle down the steep hill, paused at the junction and turned left into High Street. He drove the Insignia steadily, then slowed almost to a stop when a group of men staggered across the road ahead of them.

  “What the Hell’s this?” Stewart leant forward in his seat and stared at the men in front of them. Each of them carried a plastic carrier bag, stuffed full to bursting, and several carried either bottles of wine or cans of lager.

  Holmwood watched as one of the men gave them a particular hand gesture, then continued to walk unhurriedly across the road. “Down-and-outs,” he commented, then drove the car steadily onwards. “It looks as if Falmouth has a homeless problem as well.”

  The group stepped onto the pavement, then continued down a paved walkway towards a series of shelters at the end of a long pier.

  “Prince of Wales Pier,” Stewart read the sign, then shrugged. “Must be a hangout for the local bums.”