by Rob Sinclair
‘Because you don’t trust me,’ I said. A statement, not a question.
‘Because I want to know that you’re not going to turn around and run away. Chris and Mary will sort you out for food and whatever else.’
‘I’m not sure why you bothered to ask then.’
Mackie tutted and shook his head. ‘I never thought that the two of us would end up like this,’ he said. ‘Talking to each other in this way.’
‘As far as I can see, you’re the one who sees me as a threat.’
‘Don’t be so self-righteous, Logan. You might feel like a victim right now, but I can see that you trust me even less than I trust you. I don’t know what they said to you. I just hope we can make it right.’
‘Me too,’ I said.
And with that Mackie got up to leave.
Dismay coursed through me. The tone of the meeting was as I’d expected, and yet I was feeling abject disappointment that it had been that way. It should have been a reconciliation, a reunion. The end of the whole sordid affair. It had been anything but, and even though I knew I had Mary and Chris to escort me around, the mood of the meeting and the manner in which it had ended made me feel isolated and alone.
Mackie pulled on his coat, scarf and hat and made his way to the door. Chris and Mary stayed seated. The two goons stood up, taking positions by the exit.
As Mackie approached one of them opened the door and stepped out into the street. A rush of sub-zero air shot into the café and sent a chill right through me. Mackie’s other man stayed inside, glaring back into the room, alert for any unexpected movement from within the near-empty café. I found the whole masquerade quite amusing. Hardly discreet. Mackie was being treated more like a mafia don than a member of a secretive agency.
The goon out in the street held the door open for Mackie who turned to look at me as he reached the doorway. I think he gave the slightest of smiles, but I wasn’t really sure. I didn’t reciprocate, and he turned to leave.
But he never made it out into the street.
The bullet hit him square between the eyes before he’d even stepped over the threshold.
Chapter 32
What I did next I would call a gut reaction. I’m not sure whether it was conscious or subconscious; probably somewhere between the two. Certainly it happened without any premeditation. And there was nothing more to it than that.
I ran.
I hadn’t heard the shot. Hadn’t seen the shooter. From where I was sitting I could see little of what lay outside the café.
That didn’t matter.
The noise of the bullet hitting Mackie – a dull, wet thwack; the way that his head snapped back as his body slumped to the ground; the dark spot in the middle of his forehead where the bullet had pierced skin and bone and entered his body – it was all I needed.
I knew that Mackie was dead. No doubt about it.
And I ran.
The two goons were half-crouching to cover themselves, hands fumbling at their sides for their weapons. Mary had hunkered down in her seat. Chris was up, out of his, facing me. His reactions were quick.
I heard shouts from Mackie’s men. Or maybe Chris. Perhaps they’d spotted the shooter. Then the blast of a gunshot rang out. Wood splinters filled the air around me.
They weren’t just shouting at me. They were shooting at me.
‘Stop him!’ one of them screamed.
I didn’t stop.
I kept on going.
I flung myself at the fire door, pushing down on the security bar that released the lock. The door flew open a full one-eighty degrees, crashing against the adjacent wall. I launched myself outside, ignoring the shock of the ice-cold air filling my lungs.
I was in a narrow alleyway, barely wide enough to fit a vehicle through. The exit out onto the street was some thirty yards off to the left. I ran toward it. As hard and fast as I could. I stumbled as my feet hit unseen potholes, and slipped where my feet failed to get traction on the icy surface.
More shouts rang out from behind me. I risked looking back. Saw the outline of Chris and then one of the other men emerge from the café doorway. Guns drawn. I was already nearing the corner of the alleyway.
I heard another gunshot. The bullet ricocheted nearby. I flinched and ducked down as I rounded the corner into safety, at least for a few seconds.
The alley opened onto a small side street. I instinctively turned right. Left would only have taken me back to the cross-street that the café was on. Not many vehicles were on the road. A handful of pedestrians had stopped to see what the commotion was. They probably hadn’t realised yet that they were hearing gunfire. If they had, they’d have been screaming and running.
I knew I couldn’t stay out in the open. I had to find cover. Chris and Mackie’s man would be coming around the corner any second. The next nearest road turning wasn’t for another forty or so yards. I couldn’t clear that distance before Chris and the goon came out into the open. As soon as they saw me, I’d be a sitting duck.
I heard the whir of a car engine, heavily revving, coming up behind me. Without breaking stride, I looked back and saw a dark saloon car, approaching fast. Too fast to be some random Russian out for a drive. For a second, I wondered whether it was Mackie’s other man coming round from the front of the café.
The car raced towards me. All of sudden I heard pedestrians screaming. Was it because of the car, which was surely going to mow me down? Or had they seen Chris and the goon with their guns drawn, readying to take their next shot?
Either way, it seemed I was out of luck.
Every muscle in my body strained as I tried my best to keep going, to make it to safety.
I took one more look behind. The car’s bulky bonnet seemed to fill my entire vision. But then, at the last second, the brakes were thumped on and it came to a screeching halt just a few feet in front of me.
I didn’t know what would happen next, or who was in the car. My instincts, though, told me to keep moving towards it. If anything, it was my nearest cover.
The rear passenger door of the car flew open. A long, slender arm came into view. Then a face appeared that stopped me in my tracks.
Lena.
Lena, here!
‘Get in,’ she said. Her velvety-smooth voice was the essence of calm, as it so often was.
I turned to see Chris emerging from the alleyway. A look of confusion came to his face. He stopped. The goon came around the corner too. He didn’t hesitate at all but raised his gun and opened fire, squeezing off two shots. I ducked. But his shots had been too rushed, not even a nearby ricochet to indicate where the bullets had landed.
I heard more screams from the pedestrians. Maybe one of them had been hit by a wayward bullet.
Chris began to raise his gun too. But rather than fire, he backtracked quickly towards the alley. When I turned back to the car, I saw the reason. The other rear passenger door of the car was now open. A man stood half in the car, half out, an assault rifle resting on the roof, pointing towards the alleyway. He fired off a volley of rounds. I flinched as the booming sound coursed through my head and echoed through the street.
I knew that the shots hadn’t been aimed at me. The agonising yell followed by a thud from behind told me Mackie’s man was down.
But I didn’t dare turn around to confirm that.
Because, more worryingly, Lena was now pointing a handgun at my head.
‘Get in the car,’ she said. ‘Now.’
Chapter 33
What choice did I have? I was certain to be killed if I refused. If Lena didn’t shoot me then Chris almost certainly would. I moved towards the car. Lena got back in, scooting over to the middle of the back seat to let me in. She kept the gun, a Berretta, pointed toward me until I was in and had shut the door.
The guy with the assault rifle dived in next to Lena and the driver put his foot down. The car lurched forward. The back end fishtailed left and right as the tyres struggled to keep traction on the slippery surface.
> As the car began to move away, I looked back. Mackie’s man was writhing on the floor. I couldn’t tell where he’d been hit, but it didn’t look good for him.
Chris stepped back out into the open. He took aim and fired off the rest of his clip. But the muzzle flare and the distant sound were the only evidence of his having done so. None of the bullets came close to the vehicle. It wasn’t a surprise. Handguns are made for short distances and we were already too far away. Anything over fifty yards and even a trained marksmen would struggle, particularly given the limited time that he’d taken to aim. Luck would have been his only hope. But for now, at least, that seemed to be with me.
Or so I hoped.
As I settled back down in the seat, though, I didn’t let the feeling of relief at the momentary respite take hold. It was highly unlikely that I could have got away from that café without Lena’s help – I was unarmed and had no transport, no money. But I didn’t want to feel anything positive about the situation.
For one thing, I wasn’t stupid enough to not realise the mess I was in. Mackie hadn’t trusted me. That was for sure. He almost certainly would have passed that message on to others. And now look at me: running away from the scene of his demise with the Russians, the very people I’d tried to convince Mackie I’d escaped from. Whatever lingering doubts may have been in the minds of my people would be gone now.
I was well and truly on my own.
Lena held on to her gun, though she placed it casually in her lap. She stared straight ahead, out of the front window, not paying any particular attention to me now that she had what she wanted. The man to her left did the same. He was holding the assault rifle vertically, the butt on the ground next to his feet, the barrel pointed at the roof of the car. I couldn’t see the face of the driver, but could tell it was a man from glancing at the back of him. The front passenger seat was empty.
We drove like that, no-one saying a word, for five minutes as the car meandered through the cold, quiet streets of Omsk.
The silence gave me some time to let what had just happened sink in. A few minutes ago I’d been sitting opposite the person to whom, despite everything, I felt closest in the world. And he’d been gunned down in front of me. I’d seen Charles McCabe for the last time. I tried my best to hold back the tears that were welling in my eyes.
I knew the Russians had to be responsible for his murder. They’d wanted Mackie dead. They’d wanted me to kill him. And, rightly or wrongly, given that I’d run straight back into their hands, I was almost certain that Mackie’s death would now be pinned on me.
I felt more alone than I could imagine. Every time I tried to do something to get my life back on track, another problem seemed to come along to set me back even further. And now, with Mackie gone, I felt so lost.
With the adrenaline of the chase gone, I was struggling to keep my emotions bottled up inside. I tried not to think about Mackie. Tried not to think about the gap that was now left in my life. I tensed my whole body, focusing on that, not the tears that threatened.
I managed to keep it locked up, like I so often did. But that only made me feel like I was betraying Mackie further. Was I so scared of feeling emotion that I wouldn’t even let myself grieve for him?
I looked out of the window. I didn’t know where we were going but I could tell from the now sparse buildings that we were heading out of town.
‘Why did you kill him?’ I asked, finally breaking the silence.
‘You know why,’ Lena said without hesitation, her eyes staring straight ahead.
‘The cherry on top,’ I said, referring back to one of the conversations we’d shared during my captivity.
Lena laughed. ‘Something like that.’
‘Who did it?’
‘Not important.’
‘It is to me.’
Lena turned to me, scowling. ‘Why? Do you want your revenge now?’
Yes. I did. In fact, I knew at that moment that I had to avenge Mackie’s death. If nothing more than to prove that I wasn’t to blame.
‘You still don’t believe that your people turned against you, do you?’ Lena said. ‘Even after we saved your life just now.’
‘I’m not sure what I believe right now. But I do know that I haven’t been saved.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Well, am I free to go?’ I said, looking down at the gun in Lena’s lap.
‘That’s entirely up to you.’
‘Then what do you want from me?’
‘I want you to believe me. And we want you to work for us. You’re a real asset, Carl.’
‘It’s never going to happen.’
‘I don’t think Mackie’s bodyguards would be so sure of that. Nor those two who’ve been babysitting you. They’re probably already telling their superiors how you’ve turned. How you lured Mackie to his death.’
She smiled at her last words and I had to fight back the urge to wipe the smirk off her pretty face. I clenched my fists as hard as I could, trying to channel away the anger.
She was right, of course. Mackie himself had doubted me, never mind Chris and Mary and the two other men I’d run away from after drawing Mackie to his death. Because that’s how it would be portrayed, I had no doubt about that. I would be a wanted man.
‘Despite your antics over the last few days, you’ve done exactly what we wanted you to,’ Lena said, picking up on my thoughts and loving every second of it.
‘However you try to play it,’ I said, ‘Mackie’s death has nothing to do with me.’
I spoke through clenched teeth, angry with myself as much as anyone else. Because even though I desperately wanted her to be wrong, I knew that she wasn’t.
‘Do you really believe that?’ she said. ‘Then why did you run from the café?’
I didn’t answer but it was self-preservation. Simple as that.
‘You took us right to him,’ Lena said.
‘How?’ I asked, immediately thinking through the possibilities.
Was one of Chris or Mary involved? Perhaps that was what they’d been talking about at the safe house the night before, when each had claimed the other couldn’t be trusted.
‘Ah, Carl, all in good time. Just be sure that if it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have been able to get to him.’
‘Yes, you could. You could have got to Mackie if you wanted. It wouldn’t have been that hard. You didn’t need to drag me into this.’
‘I don’t think so. Your agency is secretive for a very good reason. Mackie is like a ghost except to those on the inside. You were our way to him.’
‘But you still needn’t have set me up like that. Why are you trying to make it seem to everyone else like I betrayed him?’
‘That’s not my intention at all. I just want you to see the truth. Mackie set you up. He’s the reason you were with us in the first place. In the end, he got what he deserved.’
‘He told me that Project Ruby is real. That my mission was real.’
‘And did you believe him? Did he show you any kind of evidence to back up his claim?’
He hadn’t. Nothing at all. But I’d wanted to believe him, no doubt about that.
‘Didn’t think so,’ Lena said.
‘He said the mission was a success,’ I said. ‘That they’ve got the information. If that’s true, it’ll all come out in the end. It won’t matter what you do to me.’
‘You’re right. The mission was a success,’ Lena said. ‘We got you, Mackie’s dead and they got the information they wanted. But the information was nothing to do with Project Ruby.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Lena was grinning, enjoying toying with me as usual.
‘I told you before that they gave you up for information, remember? But it wasn’t Project Ruby that your side wanted. It was something else. To us, though, having you wasn’t enough. So we brokered a new deal. You know, the buck didn’t always stop with Mackie. He didn’t have to know about everything. So we went highe
r up the chain.’
Lena smiled knowingly. She was playing me as she always did. Leading me on. Only giving away what was required to further her own needs. I had met some snakes in my time, but she came out trumps as the most slippery and sneaky.
I got the gist of what she was talking about, though. Someone had betrayed me. And it looked like someone had betrayed Mackie too. Someone had made a deal with the Russians, sold out not only me but Mackie. And it had cost Mackie his life. I had no idea what the deal was. But I had a good feeling for who might.
Chris or Mary.
I didn’t trust either of them. They’d both told me the other was dirty. Perhaps they both were. Though Mary had been convinced that Chris was working with the CIA. Maybe they were the missing link in all this. Or maybe Mary was the dirty one. A snake in the grass, Chris had said. Just like Lena.
‘What was the deal?’
‘All in good time, Carl,’ Lena said. ‘I’m going to need you to put this over your head for the rest of the journey.’
She took a small sack from the man next to her and placed it onto my lap.
‘Why?’
‘Because you can’t know yet where we’re taking you.’
‘Even though you want me on your side?’
‘It’s somewhere safe. That’s all you need to know.’
‘And what if I refuse?’
‘Please don’t,’ Lena said, tapping her gun again.
Her point was made. She wasn’t going to get her wish, though. Not this time. Not any time. It didn’t matter to me whether she was telling the truth or not any more. No benefit would come from my being associated with her. I would never work for the Russians. For her.
Perhaps I should have let them take me to their supposedly safe place. Find their nest and then pass the information back home so the JIA could wipe out the lot of them. But whom would I tell? With Mackie gone, who else was there to listen to me?
I had only one other option. I lifted off my seat and threw my weight into Lena’s side, barging and pushing into her. She hadn’t expected the move; her body was relaxed. She provided little resistance to my weight, falling into the man next to her.