by Simon Toyne
Bonnie looked up. Angled her gun higher. Saw his head tilt down. His eyes meet hers.
She fired three shots in quick succession, eyes closed against the splinters blowing back in her face from the bullets tearing through wood.
She opened her eyes. Saw the landing was empty. Leapt up in panic, terrified he may have retreated to the nursery, her stitches tearing with the effort but her mind oblivious to the pain. She rounded the door, tears of fury and terror streaming down her face, ears still ringing from the gunshots. She glanced right as she rushed on to the landing, gun drawn and ready to fire. And then she saw him, lying on his back, at the bottom of the stairs where two of her bullets had thrown him.
She whipped her gun round and surveyed the scene from behind it, her heart hammering, the twins still screaming.
Blood spattered the walls and the pale stair carpet, marking the man’s violent passage down them. Halfway down, his gun lay balanced on the edge of a step like a broken black cross. Bonnie dropped down the few steps to get it, her gun never wavering from the sprawled red form at the bottom of the stairs. She saw a bullet hole in his side and another in his head. His eyes were open and still. The only movement was the creep of dark blood spreading out from beneath him like a hole opening up to drop him back down to hell. She got closer. Crouched low to pick up his gun. Saw something further along the hallway, a sneaker attached to the foot of someone lying motionless on the floor.
She recognized it, realized what had happened. Then her own scream rose, desolate and terrible, drowning out the cries of her fatherless babies.
Chapter 114
In the deepening night a van pulled to a halt next to one of the silent warehouses, a few buildings short of the one with the cargo plane parked out front. Johann killed the engine. Cornelius looked out of his window towards the unmarked police car and the hangar beyond, its door slightly open, lights burning inside. Kutlar said nothing. He kept his head down, studying the two arrows on the screen of the notebook, one pointing at Cornelius’s phone, the other at the last recorded signal from Kathryn Mann’s. They were almost overlapping.
A soft buzz sounded in Cornelius’s pocket and he drew out his phone. Opened a text message. Frowned. Showed it to Johann, who glanced at Cornelius then nodded. He opened his door and slipped into the night, taking the keys with him. Kutlar felt the van rock gently as the rear door opened and he heard the muffled sounds of things being moved around in the back. The morphine had started to wear off on the drive to the airport and he could now feel the pain steadily bubbling up inside his ruined leg. The walk up the steep cobbled streets of the old town had ripped apart most of his internal stitching and he felt that the dressings and his trouser leg were now the only things holding it together. He’d tried to hide it from the others by folding his jacket on his lap, but he could still smell the blood, tainting the air with its rusty tang.
The van rocked again as the back door closed and a few seconds later Johann reappeared, ambling slowly across the tarmac towards the cargo plane, his red windcheater pulled tight around him, a canvas bag slung loosely over his shoulder. In the gloom he looked like a member of the ground crew doing the evening rounds.
Liv was still staring at Arkadian when the phone finally picked up. She could hear babies crying in the background.
‘Bonnie?’ she said.
‘He killed Myron,’ Bonnie said, her voice ragged and dry. ‘He shot him.’
‘Who shot him? Where is he now?’
‘In the hallway. He ain’t gonna hurt my babies now.’
Liv glanced up at Arkadian, his eyes still on her, his gun still pointing at Gabriel.
‘Listen, Bonnie,’ she said, ‘I need you to get the kids and get out of there, OK? I want you to call someone at the station, someone you trust, and get them to put you and your family in a safe house, somewhere no one can find you. Will you do that for me, honey?’
‘No one’s going to hurt my babies,’ the ravaged voice repeated down the line.
‘That’s right, Bonnie. You call the station right now, OK?’ She looked back at Arkadian, wishing she could ring the station herself, knowing she couldn’t push her luck.
The muffled sound of the furious babies rose like the howl of the damned through the crackle of the transatlantic line. She thought of them growing up, never knowing their daddy, all because of a phone call – all because of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered into the phone. Then she placed the receiver back in its cradle to cut off the sound of the crying.
Chapter 115
Cornelius watched Johann close in on the squad car. The text message he’d received from the Abbot had changed things. He didn’t like changes to a mission midway through. It made him nervous. On one hand the new directive made things simpler. Just seizing the girl and returning to the Citadel was much easier than having to also silence every possible witness. But his training made him reluctant to just give up on his original mission. Maybe he could still complete both.
When Johann had covered half the distance he opened his door and slid out after him. ‘Stay here,’ he said, then pushed the door closed.
Kutlar watched him move away, making for the perimeter fence that ran behind the buildings. He reached the back of the warehouse and disappeared round the edge, heading towards the same hangar as Johann. Kutlar put the notebook on the seat beside him and lifted the folded jacket from his leg. A black wetness shone in the dim reflected light of the night sky. His leg looked as though it had been dipped in oil. Seeing its ruined state made it hurt even more. He reached into his jacket pocket and found the jar of morphine capsules – instant relief at his fingertips. He pulled it out and looked up at the distant hangar. Warm light spilled on to the tarmac from the open door. The girl was in there. The guard had told them that. And as soon as they had her, or she was dead, they’d kill him. They’d probably do it here and leave him in the warehouse along with whoever else was in there.
His eyes flicked across to Johann ambling up to the side of the car. He saw him lean down. Saw a muzzle flash briefly illuminate the interior of the car.
In the distance he could see the terminal building glowing brightly like a mirage. It was too far. His best bet would be to try and make it back to the guard’s hut. He’d have a gun stashed somewhere, and a walkie-talkie to call help. He remembered the surprised look on the guard’s face as he’d looked up from his newspaper straight into the barrel of Johann’s silenced gun. He hadn’t reached for anything. He just answered Cornelius’s questions. He’d told them the girl was inside and someone else was in there too. Someone who sounded like the man Kutlar had fought on the road the previous night. The man who had shot his cousin Serko and planted this pain in his leg.
He looked back at Johann now, running towards the open hangar door in a loping crouch, keeping clear of the light that spilled from it. He reached the edge of the door and another figure appeared from the rear of the building, slipping through the darkness to join him. They squatted on the tarmac, two demons in the dark, checking their weapons; and like a revelation Kutlar realized this was his chance. He edged over to the driver’s side, pain jabbing his leg with every movement. He took the jar of pills from his pocket and twisted the cap off, his eyes never leaving the two crouched figures as he popped a single capsule into his mouth – enough to quell the pain, not enough to blunt his sharp desire to survive.
He thought about the man inside, unaware that the man he had shot was sitting outside and oblivious of the two men by the door with guns in their hands. If Kutlar let things ride, that man would probably be dead in a few minutes. But then the killers would come back for him, and though he dearly wanted revenge for Serko, he wanted to live even more. He apologized to the darkness under his breath, hoping Serko would hear it wherever he was. Then he watched Cornelius and Johann, coiled in preparation, counting on surprise. And waited.
Chapter 116
‘We need to get out of here,’ Gabriel said, the moment Liv put the phone down.
Gabriel sighed and shook his head wearily. ‘I haven’t time to explain,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to arrest me, go ahead and do it – but you need to let these people go. And you need to do it right n—’
The sudden blast of the horn cut him off mid sentence. His head instinctively whipped round in the direction it came from in time to see the shape of a man slipping in through the open door on the far side of the hangar, body tense, gun rising up and pointing straight at them.
‘Down!’ he shouted, throwing himself forward, taking Oscar and Kathryn down to the floor with him. Then the world all around them started disintegrating.
Arkadian also saw the gunman. He swung his own gun round just as the window next to him exploded, filling the air with tiny crystals. He let off two shots at the distant figure before he felt something punch him hard on the shoulder, knocking his gun from his hand and spinning him to the floor.
He stared across to where Gabriel was crouched next to the woman and the old man, pulling a gun from a black bag on the floor. Beyond him, on the far side of the office, he saw Liv crouched behind a photocopier, covering her head with her hands as the TV exploded above her, cutting off the news report and showering her with sparks.
More gunshots boomed nearby as Gabriel returned fire.
Arkadian tried to crawl away from the open doorway and pain shot up his right arm. He rolled on to his side, his teeth gritted against the agony, then hands grabbed his jacket and tugged him to safety. He kicked out with both legs to help shift his weight and looked up into the straining face of the woman. He slid across the twinkling floor and into cover just as the doorway started spitting splinters.
The woman let go and reached across his body to retrieve his gun from where it had fallen. She expertly checked the breech, making sure it hadn’t been damaged in the fall, the snick-snacking of the action moving smoothly back and forth.
Then everything went quiet.
Cornelius had already dropped into position behind a crate when the car-horn had sounded, but Johann was still coming in through the door. When he crashed heavily to the concrete floor, Cornelius knew he’d been hit. He dragged him into cover, rolled him on his back and checked him over.
There was a large wound on the upper part of his firing arm. It was bleeding but not pumping. Then he saw more blood bubbling from a ragged wound in his neck. Johann looked up with confusion in his eyes, lifted his hand and felt the surge of hot liquid against his palm. He brought it away and stared dumbly at the thick wet redness that continued to ooze rhythmically from the ragged neck wound. Cornelius pressed down hard with his hand, trying to stem the flow. Realized it was useless. Johann knew it too. He twisted away from the pressure. Reached into his canvas bag that had fallen to the ground and pulled out two small objects. They were olive green and round and looked like small steel fruits. ‘Go,’ he said.
Cornelius glanced down at the grenades then back into Johann’s eyes. He saw the brightness slowly fading in them. The blast on the horn had ruined the element of surprise. He should have shot Kutlar rather than leave him alone in the van. Johann was now dying because of his mistake. He would kill Kutlar slowly when he got the chance. He reached over and quickly made the sign of the Tau on Johann’s forehead, his fingers tracing a bloody mark where they touched the skin.
‘Keep them busy, but don’t harm the girl,’ he said, remembering the Abbot’s message. He released the empty clip from his gun and snapped a new one in place. He took one last look at Johann. Nodded once then angled the gun over the top of the crate and started firing rapidly as he moved backwards across the concrete floor, away from the line of crates and towards the open door.
Chapter 117
Arkadian’s ears were ringing from the gunfire and his shoulder hurt like hell, but he still felt sharp. He reached up. Pressed his hand against the wound. Felt the wet hole in his jacket where the bullet had passed through. Took it away and examined it. The blood on his palm was dark, not bright. It wasn’t arterial. He wasn’t bleeding too badly. He looked across at Gabriel, crouched low by the shot-out window, his eyes scanning the silent warehouse for movement.
‘You OK?’ the woman’s voice asked. He turned to look at her. She was hunkered down next to an open box of cartridges, her black hair tumbling over her face in a silken wave as she dexterously refilled the clip from his gun.
‘I’ll live,’ he said.
She looked up. Nodded towards the corner. ‘You should go look after her,’ she said. ‘This isn’t your fight. It’s not hers either.’
He followed her gaze to where Liv was still huddled beside the photocopier. From his new angle he saw something else. Underneath the ruined TV set there was a door set into the wall with FIRE EXIT written across it in bold green letters.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ the old man said, reading his thoughts. ‘They’ll know there’s a back way. Anyone heading through that door will be walking straight into trouble.’
Kathryn snicked the last cartridge into the clip and smacked it back into the stock of Arkadian’s gun. ‘Just watch the exit and keep your head down,’ she said, holding it towards him by the barrel. ‘You got a mobile?’ Arkadian nodded and instantly regretted it as another sharp pain shot through his shoulder. ‘Then call for backup. They’ll respond much quicker to an officer in trouble.’
He held her gaze for a second then reached out with his good hand and took the gun, feeling for the safety catch with his thumb and discovering it was already off.
Johann knew the walls of the office would dampen the blast from a grenade. He needed to get closer, or wait for the people in the office to come out. He figured the girl would stay in the office. She might be stunned by the explosions, or suffer shrapnel injuries, but she’d live. He could feel a numb coldness spreading from the ends of his fingers and feet.
At the far end of the warehouse he could hear the tinkle of glass and the scuff and crunch of cautious movement. His eyes dropped down to his gun lying on the painted concrete floor. He reached over and picked it up. It felt ridiculously heavy. Not a good sign. Slowly he unscrewed the silencer to make it lighter. He placed it on the floor beside him and felt the cold reach his knees as the heat continued to pump out from his neck.
Time was up.
He picked up the first of the two grenades.
Chapter 118
Gabriel rose slightly and scanned the warehouse over the jagged lower edge of the window. There had been no further movement since the last volley of gunfire. This meant one of two things. Either the man had retreated – in which case he would undoubtedly return with more men and more firepower, or he was still in the warehouse and biding his time. Either way they couldn’t just wait it out and hope for the best. They would have to force the situation.
A crunching sound drew his attention and he glanced over at the Inspector moving stiffly across the glass-gravelled floor to where Liv was huddled by the photocopier. He gripped a mobile phone in his mouth and held his wounded right arm stiffly across his chest. In the other he held a gun. Gabriel didn’t want to wait around while he called in the cavalry. After his visit to the morgue they would arrest him for sure – and being stuck in a cell for the next few days wasn’t going to help anyone. The Inspector reached Liv and leaned in close to whisper something. She looked up at Gabriel and smiled. He smiled back then looked away as more glass crunched behind him. Kathryn and Oscar were taking up a position by the door. Gabriel gripped his gun and raised it up as he glanced back out at the silent warehouse, scanning the gaps between the crates for movement.
Still nothing. Just shadows and air.
He looked over at his mother and grandfather, braced against the wall inside the open door, his mother in lead position. In her hand she held the Glock he had liberated from the man who now rested at the bottom of the quarry. She looked over her shoulder at him, her face sharpened with concentration. H
e held up his left hand so she could see it. Took a breath. Then dropped it.
As his left hand fell his right hand rose bringing his gun up over the lower edge of the broken window. The moment the barrel cleared it he started firing, letting off a tight pattern over the area he’d last seen the man go down. He fired eight shots. Three rapid rounds to put someone down, five slightly slower to keep them there.
He finished firing and scanned the warehouse through the thin cloud of blue smoke. Saw nothing. He glanced down over the edge of the broken window. Kathryn was now outside in the warehouse, her back pressed against one of the crates, in position and ready to go.
Johann heard the bullets rip through the air above his head and ping into the steel door beyond. One round clipped the top of the crate he was slumped against, showering him with wood and shards of aluminium before it ricocheted off to the right, whining as it went. All the while he kept his hand clamped to his neck, keeping the pressure on, staunching the flow of blood to buy himself just a little more time. He counted the shots and noted their frequency – three quick, five slower – classic cover fire. They were changing position. It meant they were coming for him. He smiled and closed his free hand round the two grenades in his lap. He was starting to feel cold and drowsy.
Not long now – he thought.
He started to recite one of the vigil prayers in his head.
He was dying doing God’s work, and God always gathered his own.
* * *
Gabriel reached the open office door and took up the position his mother had recently vacated. Three quick shots tore through the silence from outside and he spun away and was out of the door before the first of the slower shots sounded.