Severance Kill

by Tim Stevens

He’d kept the phone switched on, half expecting a call from Janos to plead for more time. There’d been nothing.

  On his other phone, Max’s text message buzzed. Middle-aged couple just walked past. Otherwise, zip.

  A moment later the phone rang: Nikola. ‘It is him. Janos. He is alone, walking towards the entrance.’

  Calvary cut her off and speed-dialled Max’s number. ‘Max. Nikola’s seen Janos. Anyone else round the back?’

  ‘Hold on.’ Max said. ‘Yeah. Four guys. Look like hoods. They’re waiting by the wall at the rear.’

  Calvary said, ‘What are they wearing?’

  ‘Huh? Long coats. Why’s it matter?’

  ‘They’re packing serious firepower. Concealing it.’

  Nikola’s call came through. ‘He has gone in.’

  From his position behind the car Calvary could hear the echo of footsteps. It sounded as though they were coming from the stairwell.

  Janos had been instructed to come alone, so he had to ensure his backup men hung back. On the other hand, they had to be close by enough that they could respond if he was attacked. Calvary listened to the footsteps pause, then resume, then pause once more. As if somebody, presumably Janos, was climbing the stairs and stopping cautiously at each floor to glance into the open space. Calvary had told him to go up to the roof but Janos would naturally suspect that he might be ambushed on the way up.

  The footsteps approached and stopped. From behind the car Calvary could hear slow breathing. He waited until he could no longer sense the human presence a few feet away from him and crept forward, peering round the end of the car.

  Janos was starting to climb the steps leading up to the roof.

  Calvary moved fast, running at a soft-footed crouch towards the doorway and reaching the first step before Janos half turned, his mouth ope {hist, ning in surprise.

  The phone went, then, Calvary’s, and although it was a tiny buzz he allowed it to distract him for a split-second too long. Janos scrambled backwards, bringing up his own phone which he already had in his hand and yelling a single word into it.

  Calvary dived for the man’s legs and caught them and sent him sprawling on the steps as the shouting began below, several floors down. He got to his feet first and hauled Janos up by the collar of his jacket, pressing the muzzle of the Browning against his forehead.

  The first shots came, then, a volley of three or four followed by another three from a gun with a different sound, the hollow interior of the parkhouse amplifying the noise so that the concrete seemed to shake beneath Calvary’s feet. He heard a scream and another shot but there was no time to dwell on what it meant, because he needed to get Janos up on the roof.

  He half-dragged, half-shoved the younger man towards the perimeter wall, also chest-high as it was on the lower floors. On the way he kept the Browning pressed into Janos’s back, letting go his collar for a moment to reach into his waistband and pull out the gun he found there and toss it spinning away across the concrete.

  ‘Get on the wall.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’ Calvary motioned with the barrel of the Browning. ‘Up.’

  Janos clambered on to the ledge. It was perhaps two feet across. He stood facing Calvary, terror stark in his face. He rocked in the wind.

  Calvary stepped back and sideways, so that the stairwell they’d come up was on the periphery of his vision.

  ‘First off, you lied to me. You said there was no backup outside.’

  ‘There isn’t.’

  ‘What do you call that shooting downstairs, then? Unfortunately for you, it means I’m going to have to rush things.’ Calvary cocked the hammer. ‘The first shot goes into your foot. You should just about be able to keep your balance. But it’ll make it harder to stay standing.’

  Janos shuffled his feet as though that would protect them. ‘You cannot — ’

  ‘I can, and I will.’ Calvary gripped the pistol two handed. ‘Unless you tell me where you’re keeping Gaines.’

  ‘I do not know.’ The answer came quickly, almost shouted out.

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  Calvary fired, the sound of the shot ringing off into the morning air. He’d aimed at the very tip of Janos’s expensive-looking loafer. Janos shrieked, his leg jerking up, and toppled back, arms pinwheeling. Calvary was prepared for it and his hand flashed out, gripping Janos by the forearm, hauling him back so that he dropped into a sitting position on the wall. He clutched his foot, staring down at the bloody leather, whimpering.

  ‘Up on your feet.’

  This time Janos didn’t del { diis ay. He staggered, wincing, keeping the weight on his good foot.

  ‘I’ll ask once more. Where’s Gaines?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I am not lying.’ The words were gabbled, sobbed. ‘My father would not tell me.’

  Calvary almost wanted to laugh.

  ‘So you’ve fouled up so badly your dad doesn’t trust you any more.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Well, in that case you’re of no use to me, are you?’

  ‘Wait.’ The leg Janos was balancing on had started to shake. In his eyes was a pathetic eagerness. ‘There is something. My father has a contact. A Russian intelligence agent.’

  Calvary thought he saw movement at the door, but there was nothing there. He nodded at Janos.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘This agent told him about Gaines. Said he was of great importance to the Russians. My father arranged to take Gaines down. He had a man phone him and invite him to a meeting, said it was to discuss something in his past.’ He swallowed stickily, having to raise his voice against the wind. ‘We were waiting for Gaines at the meeting point. Gaines was on his way to the meeting when this agent, my father’s contact, said he was on a tram and that there were other Russians, the agent’s colleagues, on his trial. We decided to hit the tram rather than wait, in case the Russians moved in first.’

  Calvary showed nothing on his face, but he thought: yes, it makes sense.

  He said, ‘What’s this Russian’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never met him. My father calls him the Worm. Pays him. He probably knows where Gaines is being held.’

  Calvary saw movement from the corner of his eye, at the stairwell. He got janos by the collar again and hauled him forwards off the ledge, swinging him across and bringing the gun up to the side of his head.

  From the stairwell two men had emerged, both dressed in the long leather coats Max had mentioned. One levelled his shotgun at waist height. The other sighted down the length of a pistol.

  They stepped forward.

  SIXTEEN

  Tamarkin made his decision after Calvary and his people had been inside the car park fifteen minutes.

  He dialled. Blazek answered on the third ring, clearly groping up from the depths of sleep. Tamarkin had a brief image in his mind of the Kodiak, hairy paunch corseted in a string vest. It was only marginally less unpleasant than the idea of him in congress with that trophy wife of his, his crass bulk bellowing away on top of her.

  ‘I can give you the man you’re looking for. I’m sitting outside a multi-storey car park, and he’s in there.’

  ‘Hold on.’ D ~tting outsown the line came sounds of exertion, fumblings for bedside lamps and the like. ‘Yeah, go on.’

  ‘A little quid pro quo first, Bartos.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Insurance for me. I want you to tell me where you’re keeping Gaines.’

  ‘What?’

  A limited education, Tamarkin’s research had told him. Wasn’t that the truth.

  ‘You heard. It’s the least you can do for me, given what I’m about to hand you. Plus, if he gets the better of you and you’re all massacred, at least I know where to find Gaines. Oh, and don’t lie to me. I’ll check it out, and if you’ve lied to me that will be the end of our association. Permanently.’

  ‘You’re a real little asshole. Ending contact with you will be a pleasure.’ Tamarkin heard the man
pulling on clothes.

  ‘Do you want to know what I’ve got for you or not?’

  Blazek told him the address. Tamarkin got him to repeat it, spell it.

  ‘All right.’

  He gave Blazek what he had, including Calvary’s name and the fact he was British. He also told him about the Fiat parked round the front and its registration number.

  Afterwards he sat, watching the car park entrance, itching to go in and scout around but knowing it was out of the question. The woman had emerged and returned to the Fiat, where she sat watching. The young man had disappeared round the back. Of Calvary and the other man there was no sign.

  At six forty Tamarkin saw a familiar figure appear round a corner and lope towards the car park entrance, hesitating at the barriers and peering upwards. It was Janos.

  Now that was interesting.

  Tamarkin had called Blazek only fifteen minutes earlier, and would have preferred to wait until the man arrived before making a move of his own. But Janos’s presence here intrigued him. Blazek couldn’t have sent him on his own, so the boy must be here for a different reason.

  Tamarkin had the Makarov with him still, as well as a spare ammunition clip. In the footwell, his hands out of sight of the window, he stripped and reassembled the gun.

  As he was about to climb out of the car, wondering how he might get to the parkhouse without the woman in the Fiat spotting him, he heard the explosion of gunfire from within.

  The woman emerged from the Fiat, stood frozen in fear and uncertainty for a moment, and then began running towards the entrance.

  *

  Calvary wasn’t afraid of the shotgun. The man wouldn’t riskouln›‹ it, given how the shot would scatter and take Janos with it. The other man’s pistol was a different matter.

  He was advancing in slow, relentless steps, the shotgun man lagging close at his shoulder. They cleared half the distance between the door to the roof and the wall where Calvary and Janos stood.

  For emphasis, Calvary recocked the Browning.

  ‘Janos,’ he said. ‘Tell your men to back down. Or I will kill you. Have no doubt about that.’

  It all depended on how confident the man was with his pistol. If he was any good, he could conceivably achieve a head shot before Calvary could pull the trigger. It was a gamble, but it might be one he was prepared to make.

  Janos said nothing, had started to gibber quietly again. It would probably make no difference if he said anything.

  Beyond the two men, at the top of the stairs, there was movement.

  Calvary deliberately didn’t look, kept his gaze alternately on each man’s face.

  Between their heads, out of focus, a woman appeared at the door.

  Nikola.

  He wanted to stare straight at her, yell at her to get back, but that was the last thing he could do.

  To cover any noise Nikola might make, Calvary kicked at the back of Janos’s injured foot, making him yell. The men had slowed their advance. The one with the pistol said something in Czech. Janos hissed back.

  ‘What was that?’ Calvary murmured.

  ‘He ask me move my head out the way. I tell him forget it.’

  ‘Good advice.’

  Beyond the men, Nikola was edging to one side, the Glock raised awkwardly in her hand. If she’d been a professional she would have taken the man with the shotgun down first: he was the more likely to do damage with a wild shot. But she wasn’t a professional, and if she put a foot wrong she was going to get herself — and Calvary, and Janos — killed.

  What the hell was she doing up here on her own? Where was Jakub?

  A noise, then, back at the door, someone else coming through, and the man with the shotgun jerked his head round.

  Probably out of fright, Nikola pulled the trigger of the Glock. The gun bucked in her fist. The man with the shotgun was flung, his upper body twisting, to sprawl near Calvary’s feet. He’d been hit in the belly and he moaned, hand clamped across the wound.

  The man with the pistol didn’t flinch, kept it trained on Calvary’s face. Didn’t even turn round. He could have had an army behind him and he wouldn’t have known or, apparently, cared. He had nerve, Calvary had to give him that.

  Calvary knew the man was going to risk a shot.

  In the middle distance Nikola had the Glock trained on the mannedlvary ’s head. A visible tremor had started up in her arm.

  Behind her stood another man, the one who’d made the noise coming through the door. Young, fair haired, pleasant faced. One of the Russians Calvary had seen after he’d ditched the bug in the alley. In his clasped hands, pointed at the ground, he too had a pistol.

  Slowly the Russian raised his gun, levelling it at Nikola’s back.

  Calvary didn’t know if this qualified as a Mexican standoff, didn’t care. The man aiming the pistol at him expected him to fire, would be anticipating the tightening of his index finger inside the Browning’s trigger guard. So Calvary did the unexpected.

  Using his chest he shoved Janos forward as hard as he could. The pistol man was six feet away and Janos stumbled on his injured foot and caromed into the man. At the same time Calvary dived sideways, over the shotgun man who lay jerking and mewling by the wall in a spreading pool. He landed hard on his side and had the Browning up and fitted the shot just past Nikola’s shape, catching the Russian in the lower leg and throwing him spinning into the air. Still on the ground, Calvary pivoted at his waist and fired at the pistol man who had stepped back from Janos’s staggering figure. Calvary’s shot went wide. The man hesitated because shots were coming from over at the stairs and Calvary realised the Russian was shooting, his aim thrown by the fall he’d taken and the agony of his leg wound.

  Calvary took aim again and put two bullets into the pistol man’s chest, dropping him. He stood and dived for Janos, who’d found his feet and was limping about, bewildered. Calvary got the Browning up against his head again and yelled, ‘Out the way, out the way,’ to Nikola.

  The Russian had hauled himself into a sitting position and was taking aim. Nikola turned and aimed the Glock at him, but the Russian ignored her. Too late, Calvary saw the Russian was aiming not at Nikola or him, but at Janos.

  The Russian squeezed off three shots, one going wild, the others punching into Janos’s torso so hard that Calvary felt the man’s body rock. An exit wound sprayed blood across the arm of Calvary’s jacket. He drew a bead and fired, watched the Russian slam back, the gun spinning away across the concrete.

  Calvary lowered Janos to the ground. One shot through the abdomen, the other in the chest. No exit wound. He was dead, there was no question about it.

  He took stock. The pistol man, dead nearby. The Russian supine at the stairs. Against the wall, the shotgun man had crawled onto his belly with his legs drawn up beneath him, like a sleeping baby. He wasn’t moving, and his eyes were open.

  In the centre of the rooftop stood Nikola, gun lowered, uncomprehending.

  ‘Give me a hand here,’ said Calvary. He snapped his fingers when she didn’t move. ‘Quickly. We’ve no time.’

  Nikola hurried over. Calvary lifted Janos under his arms.

  ‘Grab his feet.’

  She complied silently. Calvary backed towards the wall, looked over.

  In the street beltheShe cow, men were emerging from drawn-up cars, guns held low. Three of them on this side. God knew how many on the others. A growing crowd of passersby was simultaneously coalescing and drawing back.

  Where the hell had they come from? Were they more of Janos’s reinforcements? Had he told his father after all?

  He grabbed Janos under the armpits and hoisted him on to the wall.

  Nikola said: ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Creating a diversion.’

  He tipped Janos’s body over the edge, watched it tumble, saw it bounce hard off the lip of a balcony. The men below barely had time to shout before the body smashed into the roof of a parked car, the windscreen crazing. The alarm started up im
mediately, its piercing tone setting off others around it.

  More yells, frantic now, and men began to pour round the corner into the street to stare at the sacrilege, the unbelievable crime they’d been witness to.

  Calvary grabbed Nikola’s arm and started off at a run across the rooftop to the opposite side. Sirens were beginning to advance from all directions.

  ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you stay put in the car like I told you?’ said Calvary. ‘And where’s Jakub?’

  ‘He was gone,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘When I came through the entrance below. One man was dead. Jakub’s gun was lying near him.’

  Two here on the roof, one dead below, shot by Jakub. Max had seen four men. That meant one of them had taken Jakub alive.

  They reached the stairwell, stepped over the body of the Russian. Calvary led the way. The floor below was empty.

  He used the stock of the Browning to smash the window of the parked car he’d hidden behind earlier, a Peugeot saloon, ignoring the shrill whoop of the alarm. Shoving Nikola across into the passenger seat, he dropped behind the wheel and ripped off the panel beneath it and grappled with the wires. Ten seconds later the ignition caught.

  Calvary took the spiralling ramp as fast as he dared, catching the walls with the front bumper a couple of times in a screech of angry metal. As he pulled round the last curve and gunned the engine towards the barriers he saw the cluster of men, Blazek’s, spilling aside, their shouting faces whipping past.

  The boom smacked off the windscreen, breaking off but crazing the glass. Then they were free, hurtling down the street, pedestrians stumbling back in confusion. Calvary saw the Fiat as they passed it, nobody inside.

  Beside him Nikola had her phone out. When she didn’t say anything he glanced at her.

  ‘Max’s phone is off,’ she said quietly.

  Calvary’s instinct was to head away, putting as much distance as he could between them and the parkhouse; but he took a left turn almost at a hairpin angle and doubled round the back of the block. There was no sign of Max among the massing crowds.

  t, pizele Martin?’ she said, her voice choking on the second syllable.