Severance Kill

by Stevens, Tim

  Krupina had come very close. ‘Explain.’

  Calvary tried his voice, was surprised to hear it come out as normal, with no shake in it. ‘Blažek has two of my friends prisoner. He’ll be holding them as bargaining chips, but he doesn’t know how to contact me. I have their phone numbers. Blažek will be monitoring their calls.’

  He watched her eyes, saw the calculating going on in the heavy silence. Then: ‘What do you propose?’

  ‘I offer myself in exchange for my friends. A public place somewhere – you can decide where, I don’t know this city well enough. Blažek’ll come armed to the teeth, with all the men he can round up. You take him out. You’re Chekists, you’ll have access to whatever resources you require.’ He broke off. The pain was starting to bore through his head again. ‘Two things. I want a guaranteed safe passage out for my associates.’

  It was a ludicrous demand, and Krupina knew he knew it. She didn’t even bother to nod.

  ‘And I need a piece of equipment. Again, you’ll be able to get it if you ask.’

  He told her, and explained what he needed it for.

  Her cigarette stub burned down and she dropped it, twisted her foot on the flagstones. With a nod to Lev she turned away, Arkady moving off with her, out of Calvary’s earshot.

  *

  Yevgenia had phoned an hour earlier, while the Englishman had still been unconscious. ‘They’re here, Ms Krupina. The six men.’

  Six trained operatives, plus Arkady and Lev. Krupina had little doubt they could do it, could face down Blažek. Her concern was with Calvary. What was he planning?

  To Arkady she said, ‘Tell Yevgenia to organise what the Englishman asks for.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘But with modifications.’

  She told him. Arkady nodded, understanding. A smile at his lips.

  Admiration. She seldom received any, insisted she didn’t need it. But it felt good.

  *

  ‘Your plan is approved.’

  It sounded ridiculously solemn. Calvary said, ‘We can speak Russian if you prefer.’

  ‘My English is not good enough for you?’

  Touched a nerve. Calvary raised his hand to his forehead. ‘I’m going to need a dressing for this.’

  ‘It is coming.’

  She’d returned without Arkady. Lev had taken a step back and stood watching him, arms folded. Krupina was taken suddenly with a hacking cough which she tried to suppress.

  He thought about offering her some of his water. Decided against it.

  She paced a little, then turned to him. ‘My associate in the hospital. Why did you kill him?’

  ‘I didn’t. Not deliberately. I was interrogating him. I pushed him too far.’

  ‘What questions were you asking him?’

  For the time being Calvary would keep Tamarkin’s betrayal of her to himself, a card to be played later.

  ‘What he’d found out about Blažek. I knew he was SVR and that you lot were looking for Gaines. I thought your friend might be able to help me with the information I needed.’ Calvary shrugged. ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘And how did he come to be in hospital in the first place?’

  ‘How did he get shot? He just appeared on the roof of the car park. I’ve no idea how he got there.’

  Krupina stood, brow furrowed. Without looking at Calvary she said, ‘It is not likely that you will survive. When we come down on Blažek, you will be in the centre.’

  ‘By which I assume you mean one of your men will conveniently shoot me by accident.’ He shook his head, winced at the pain. ‘Bad idea. I’m more valuable to you alive. Your interrogators in Moscow will put on a more effective show than that travesty just now.’

  Another nerve. This time she did look at him, eyes yellow and baleful.

  ‘No, Mr Calvary. The only Englishman who will be going to Moscow is Gaines.’

  He kept eye contact, his thoughts churning. They were going to take Gaines back to Moscow when they found him. Did that mean he was still working for them, an asset who was now blown? Why would they grant him sanctuary if he was nothing but a Cold War relic?

  *

  Krupina met Arkady upstairs, out of hearing of the Englishman. He’d procured gauze, antiseptic, and bandages.

  ‘Yevgenia is discussing with the new men possible venues for the rendezvous with Blažek.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘And the item Calvary requested?’

  ‘It’s on its way, from a cache we hold in the countryside outside the city.’

  ‘Good man.’

  Arkady disappeared down the cellar steps with the dressing material. Krupina remained in the front room of the safe house for a minute, gazing out at the deepening afternoon shadows on the patch of lawn.

  Calvary was right on both counts. He was of value alive, and Moscow would be more successful in extracting information from him than she had been, or had time to be. And yet… Ensuring his survival might prove more trouble than it was worth. Her priority was to get Blažek, alive, or at the very least one of his lieutenants such as his brother, Miklos. Calvary’s safety couldn’t get in the way of that objective.

  Plus, he killed Gleb. Let’s not forget that.

  She shoved the thought away. She was a professional, and as such she couldn’t let personal considerations influence what had to be done.

  Not for the moment, anyway.

  *

  Calvary wiped his hands and dropped the filthy cloth on the flagstones. They’d brought him a bucket of water which he’d used to wash his face and neck. Arkady had cleaned his forehead with antiseptic and packed a gauze pad against it, winding a bandage tight around his head. A spare shirt had been found, too, and a packet of ibuprofen tablets. He swallowed half a dozen.

  The other man, Lev, had removed the table with the bloodied drill and brought another to Calvary’s right side. On it he placed a mobile phone.

  Krupina said, ‘Make the call.’

  She’d changed to Russian.

  Calvary replied in kind. ‘Where do I say we meet?’

  ‘We’re still working on a location.’

  ‘The more advance warning we give Blažek, the more opportunity he’ll have to call up reinforcements.’

  ‘Granted. But I want you to hook Blažek now, before he decides he’s had enough of waiting and kills your associates.’

  It made sense. Calvary picked up the handset, switched the speakerphone on, dialled Max’s number from memory. He punched the numbers in slowly, letting them hear that he was dialling an eleven-digit mobile phone number rather than sending a secret text message or something. Placed the phone back on the table and waited.

  Three rings. Four. Then an urgent voice, not Max’s: ‘Ano?’

  In Russian Calvary said: ‘This is Martin Calvary. The man you’re looking for. I want to speak to Bartos Blažek. No-one else.’

  ‘One moment.’

  He heard confused shouting and footsteps in the background. After about a minute a voice close to the mouthpiece bellowed: ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Bartos Blažek?’

  ‘Yes. Where –’

  ‘Listen, don’t talk. You have my friends?’

  ‘Fuck you, you murdering –’

  ‘This is a once-only offer, Blažek. I’m not going to tell you again to shut up.’ He paused, but the man had stopped. ‘Okay. The deal is, we do a straight swap. You get me in return for them.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’ll let you know the time and place. Stay near this phone.’ Calvary glanced at Krupina. ‘First, I need proof that my friends are still alive.’

  Footsteps in the background again, then Blažek said, ‘Here’s the kid.’

  A second later Max’s voice came through the speaker in English, sounding dazed. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Max, it’s me. Calvary.’

  ‘Calvary?’ The voice shook. ‘He killed Jakub, man.’

  Not looking at Krupina now, Calvary said, ‘Put Blažek back on.’
r />   When he heard the big man’s grunt he said, ‘You killed the other man. Jakub.’

  ‘No. I just told the kid that to spook him. I’ll put him on.’

  A few seconds passed before Jakub came on, in another room, Calvary assumed. His voice sounded swollen.

  Calvary said, ‘Are you in one piece?’

  ‘Nothing this pig can do to me.’

  ‘All right. I’m going to get you out of there.’

  Blažek’s voice cut across. ‘You satisfied now?’

  ‘Make sure they stay intact, Blažek.’

  ‘You killed my son.’ The man’s voice was quieter, shot through with a thread of rage. Rage was good. It led to mistakes in planning.

  ‘I did, yes. It was no more than he deserved. And you’re next.’

  Calvary reached over with his good hand and killed the call.

  TWENTY-THREE

  They converged on Bartos’s home from both sides of the Vltava River. Hard men who’d earned his respect through unflinching service, or undisciplined psychopaths who’d earned his coin for their breathtaking viciousness. From the cities of Ostrava and Pardubice they came, too, men based in the colonies of Bartos’s empire, called into service of the motherland. Of the emperor.

  Including the ones with whom Bartos surrounded himself, there were twenty-eight men in all. Twenty-eight, to take down one man. However professional he was, and whatever rag-tag outfit he’d associated himself with – and from Bartos’s experience of the two he’d taken captive, he wasn’t impressed – there was no way the Brit, Calvary, could win against those odds.

  Bartos stood in the turret at the peak of his mansion, the tower at the top of his castle, and stared out over the growing lights of the city.

  His city.

  Twenty-four hours earlier he’d been in control. A petty thief had dared to pick the pocket of one of his men and he’d pulled the boy’s face apart, before breaking his neck. He hadn’t had to care where the body was dumped. Nobody would find it, and even if they did, the police would never link it to him.

  He’d had a grown-up son. A putrid waste of space, a whoremongering cokehead, but a son nevertheless. His son. Someone whose fate it was his to decide.

  And this stranger, this strutting cock of a Brit, had breezed into his city and taken over. Had made him and his men look like prissy, mincing fairies. Had raped his empire and plundered his authority and made him a laughing stock.

  And murdered his kin. The worst offence of all.

  *

  The night glimmered off the immense shifting bulk of the river, the castle towering on the opposite bank. The Audi headed south, Krupina driving, unusually. Lev was in the passenger seat, his arm across the back, his Makarov pointed at the Englishman. Arkady sat next to Calvary in the back seat, his own gun jammed into Calvary’s side.

  The dashboard clock said it was 11.35 pm.

  Yevgenia had come through with the location an hour earlier and Krupina had immediately agreed. Vysehrad Park, alongside the river south of the city centre. It was open late at night, a spot with enough hiding places for all her men, and unlikely to be riddled with tourists at this late hour. The dozen men sent from Moscow were already in position, placed strategically through the park.

  In the mirror Krupina watched Calvary. The wound was seeping through the dressings. His face was pallid, waxy, his eyes half closed. She wondered if she’d pushed him too far.

  *

  There’d been a lot of sitting about in the cellar. Calvary had asked if he might stretch his legs and he’d been permitted to. At once he’d regretted it, each step sending a spike of pain through his head. But he persisted. There’d be running later, and he needed to acclimatise to the discomfort.

  Krupina and Arkady appeared and disappeared, only Lev remaining with him at all times. Habit made Calvary size up the man, looking for weak points, but he knew there’d be no point in trying to jump him. The man was too professional, and Calvary too weakened at the moment. Instead he forced himself to breathe in to the pain and the nausea, accepting them as part of his being.

  Once, when Krupina returned, Calvary said, ‘Any news on the location?’ They were conversing exclusively in Russian now.

  ‘Yes, we have identified one.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You’ll be apprised of it in good time.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud.’ Giddiness made him sway. ‘You don’t have to be so cagey. You might as well tell me. This swap will work best if I know as much about the environment as possible. Otherwise Blažek might just pick me off before you even get close to him.’

  ‘All right.’ She called for Arkady. He came down the cellar steps with a laptop computer. Krupina opened it on the table beside Calvary’s chair. He sat down, grateful for the excuse.

  It was a panoramic, Google Earth view outside some sort of battlement wall.

  Krupina said, ‘Vysehrad Park. The birthplace of Prague, according to legend. It contains the remains of the city’s second castle. Have a look round.’

  He advanced the view, passing through an arched gateway. Roamed paved and cobbled paths, noted trees, manicured lawns, assorted sculptures and statues.

  She stopped him. ‘Here. The Devil’s Stone. This is where the exchange is set to take place. Deep enough in the park to be away from the entrance. It’ll give my people an opportunity to cut off the exit points.’

  ‘How many are there?’

  ‘Two. Tabor Gate in the southeast corner, the Brick Gate in the north.’

  ‘I meant how many of your men are there?’

  Again the pause, as if on principle the truth ought to be withheld.

  ‘Twelve.’

  Calvary breathed out slowly. ‘You’ll be outnumbered. Count on it.’

  ‘We have the advantage when it comes to quality.’

  He poked around the site, ranging through the park. Noting the perimeter.

  ‘What time is it?’

  She indicated the screen. ‘That clock’s accurate.’

  Nine twenty p.m. He’d been in the cellar for close on eleven hours, most of those spent unconscious. He wondered where Nikola was. Whether she’d made it out of the hospital.

  ‘When’s the exchange?’

  ‘One a.m., provisionally. I’m waiting for my men to scout the location and get in place. And for the item you requested to arrive. Once we’re there, you notify Blažek.’

  He gazed back at the screen. On the western aspect of the castle complex, beyond the perimeter wall, lay the river.

  *

  The man emerged from the shadows without warning, as though part of the scenery had suddenly detached itself. He was short, whip-lean, his face all hard planes and angles. His left eye socket was covered with a patch. He extended a hand.

  ‘Voronin.’

  Krupina had read the brief biography she’d been sent. He was former Spetsnaz, special forces. A captain. Distinguished service in Chechnya. He was in charge of the reinforcement detail.

  His eyes took in Calvary. If he was doubtful about the Englishman’s ability to play his part in what was to come, doubtful of his ability even to stay conscious for long enough, he didn’t show it.

  They stood on the cobblestones before the Tabor Gate, Krupina and Calvary and Arkady and Lev, and the new man. A couple out for a late-night stroll glanced over incuriously as they passed. Voronin moved so that his back was to the couple and brought his hand out of the pocket of his greatcoat. He handed the object to Calvary.

  To Krupina he said, ‘He knows how to use it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lev remained with her. She watched the three of them pass through the gate, Calvary flanked by Voronin and Arkady. She didn’t know what Calvary had planned, but she doubted he’d make a run for it now. Not with a man on either side of him, not with the park crawling with concealed agents.

  Krupina looked at her watch. Eleven fifty.

  In ten minutes Calvary would make the call to Blažek, set up the rendezvous f
or one o’clock. He’d arrive early, of course, believing himself to be clever.

  *

  A light skein of rain hung from the sky. The path was lamplit and sodden with leaves. A jogger pounded past, not giving them a second look. Ahead loomed a second gate, a Gothic construction, and they passed beneath it.

  His eyes roved, taking in the landscape, trying to match it to what he’d seen on the laptop. In the distance, lit up against the night sky, Calvary could see the twin spires of St Peter’s and St Paul’s Church. Looming to the right was St Martin’s Rotunda. They turned left and headed towards the western wall, beyond which the hill dropped steeply towards the river.

  The two men on either side of him were silent, Arkady and the new one with the eye patch. Calvary recognised in him the bearing and physique of a special forces soldier. He recalled what Krupina had said, about the quality of her men being a match for Blažek’s superiority in numbers.

  Krupina had given him a clean jacket, a little big for him. Into the pocket he’d put the object the soldier had handed him. It weighed heavily against his hip. Earlier Calvary had asked for a gun. The look Krupina gave him had been his answer. It was worth a try, anyway.

  They drew nearer to the church. In the middle of a flat stretch of lawn dotted with trees sat an odd construction, three tubular rocks piled up against each other. The Devil’s Stone.

  They stopped. Arkady handed him a phone.

  ‘Make the call.’

  *

  They came in from the other side, through the Brick Gate. Calvary was propped against the rock structure, bouncing a little on his toes, trying to keep his limbs from seizing up. More than once the burning in his forehead threatened to drop him to the ground and he had to clench his teeth against it, turn it into a tiny bead of agony to be filed away for later.

  His watch told him it was forty minutes since he’d made the call. He was alone, and yet not alone: all around, in the darkness beyond the splashes of light from the lamps, he could feel the presence of men skilled in staying hidden for long periods.