Death in the Kingdom

by Andrew Grant

  There was spittle coming from the Russian’s lips, his face mottled purple and crimson with silver worms through it as he worked himself into a frenzy. Finally Sami had heard enough. The blade of the katana swirled in the sunlight and Dimitri Chekhov earned another scar. This one was across his left cheek, where the delicate backhand sweep of the razor-sharp killing sword kissed it.

  The Russian reacted as Sami no doubt knew he would. Chekhov clapped his right hand to his cheek and stooped amazingly quickly for a man of his bulk. He had the cane knife in his left hand and immediately went on the attack. Judging by the ferocity of that attack, the Russian was trying to force the long slim blade of the katana against the shorter more solid one of the cane knife and break it. Sami didn’t oblige by leaving the blade of his sword hanging in the air as a target. He sent the blade of the katana swirling as he pirouetted, spinning away, altering the angle of Chekhov’s attack. Chekhov stumbled at the sudden change of direction and the blade of the sword made contact again. This time with the Russian’s right shoulder.

  Chekhov stumbled, this time backwards. He almost fell. Blood spurted from his injured shoulder. He didn’t hesitate to catch his breath or examine his wound. The Russian charged again, like a wounded, enraged bear attacking a smaller, lightning-fast wolverine. Sami caught the cane knife on an angled sword blade and deflected it away. Then he swept the katana in an arc aimed at Chekhov’s head. The Russian went down on one knee but the long silver blade caught him high on his head and sent him into the dust. Sami had used the reverse side of the blade. If it had been the cutting edge, he would have opened Chekhov’s head as one opens a hard-boiled egg.

  ‘He’s playing with him,’ Alex said. The Special Forces man was right. Sami was playing with the Russian. Dazed, Chekhov got back to his feet, the cane knife still clutched in his hand. The Russian’s lips were moving again. I could imagine the words: ‘Stop dancing. Come and fight.’

  Whatever was said, Sami obliged. He came at Chekhov weaving a dazzling vertical figure of eight in the air and sending the Russian stumbling backwards. Then the figure of eight became a horizontal line. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Karl muttered. ‘I’ve never fucking seen anything …’

  The CIA man never got a chance to finish his statement because Sami stepped through the Russian’s defence and hammered the heel of the butt of the katana into Chekhov’s face. The Russian went down again, blood now pouring from the wound in his forehead. Kneeling in the dirt, Dimitri Chekhov was looking up at his tormentor through a curtain of blood. He was shouting at Sami. Through the imager I could see the droplets of crimson spraying in the air. Sami was standing motionless, the sword once again resting across his body.

  I had to give Chekhov credit for guts, if nothing else. He made it back to his feet and came at Sami again. This time Sami parried the cane knife with the blade of the sword. I could see the sparks as the blades kissed, raised and locked high. Chekhov tried to trip Sami, pushing him back, hooking with his left leg. But Sami had been there before. He twisted his body and brought his right knee up into Chekhov’s groin. The Russian released his grip and pulled away.

  ‘Christ, Sami, finish it,’ I whispered. The time for playing was over. I wanted him to finish it before Chekhov got in a lucky blow or something fucked up the scenario. I didn’t want this to be a false ending. I’d seen too many movies where the good guy gives the villain a chance and ends up dead. The Wes Craven corpse always comes back for one last bite of the cherry. Sami must have heard my prayer because he changed tactics.

  The katana blade caught Chekhov on the left shoulder. It was a lightning-fast blow, delivered with immense power. The razor edge of the katana’s blade bit deep through flesh and bone. The blade was withdrawn as quickly as it had been delivered. In my enhanced vision, it was a surreal scene. The long blade of the sword drew back and the Russian’s left arm, still wearing its jungle pattern sleeve, slowly detached itself three or four inches below the shoulder. The arm fell into the dirt, the cane knife still clutched in its dead fist.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Karl said. ‘Fuck!’ The flashing blade stilled, held directly in front of Sami Somsak. Chekhov stood, his head down and turned to one side as he contemplated what had just happened. There was a pause of several seconds before the blood started to spurt from the severed shoulder stump. Chekhov raised his head, the blade flashed again and his right arm fell in the dirt at his feet.

  Dimitri Chekhov raised his head to the sky and howled. We could hear the sound from where we were. It echoed back off the ridge and fell back on itself. The sound was purely animalistic. At that moment in time, Dimitri Chekhov wasn’t a Russian bear, he was a timber wolf or a banshee or both rolled into one. I’d never heard a sound like it in my life. It was despair, hatred, anger and death all combined in one long, keening song.

  Sami then adopted the pose. Standing as he was directly in front of the Russian, he was mirroring the pose of the warrior in his study. The mighty katana was about to do the very thing that had birthed it as a killing sword. Chekhov knew as well, I was sure of that. He held his pose, head back as the blur of silver impacted on his left collarbone and passed down through his body, exiting above his right hip. The force of the blow was so great that Sami stumbled forward. He didn’t fall but retained his balance. He was standing up straight again, his sword once more raised, when Dimitri Chekhov’s body separated on a diagonal through his torso. Blood, intestines and other entrails erupted from the two clearly separate body parts as the remains of the Russian madman hit the dirt.

  ‘Yes,’ I yelled. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Finally,’ Karl whispered. Alex was silent. I raised my head. The Special Forces officer caught my eye and nodded, then turned away. It was over. He had other wars to fight. Such was the life of a warrior.

  38

  Sami, Jo, Karl and I were in the air in the Jet Ranger an hour after Dimitri Chekhov had finally been removed from the face of the earth. We were silent, lost each to our own thoughts. The A Team stayed behind to retrieve their gear and pack, awaiting the arrival of their ride scheduled for the following morning. I was dozing in my seat, my tiredness a reaction to the amount of adrenaline I’d used up and the Thai whisky I’d drunk.

  Sami was in the seat next to me. He’d found a beautiful length of gold and green silk that he had tenderly fashioned into a wrap for the head of his daughter. His precious bundle remained on his knees throughout the flight, his hands resting lightly on top of it. His sword was wrapped in its protective covering and leaned against the seat beside him. My old friend’s eyes remained closed most of the flight. Tears occasionally escaped his eyelids and slid down his cheeks as his lips moved in silent prayer.

  My heart was right out there for Sami. His loss was my fault, at least on the surface. Deep down I knew that there was nothing I could have done. Sami knew it too. What happened would have happened one day, with or without me. Most of the blame I laid squarely at the feet of Sir Bernard Turncoat.

  Despite knowing the realities of the situation, I couldn’t shake off the guilt. That was the thing about a Catholic upbringing: guilt fitted like a silken shroud. It was almost comfortable, and we all wallowed in it from our birth to our death without absolution. In my book it was the perfect religion. I had lapsed the moment I’d cracked my stepfather’s Catholic skull open. But the Catholic had never left the altar boy, even when that boy had spent his life playing God with other people’s lives.

  As I sat in my seat, my mental movie screen played a multitude of images. Geezer was grinning at me over a beer, then he was just grinning at me, his tan turning green and blue, the whites of his eyes yellow around the dull raisins of his dead pupils. Then there was Babs, beautiful, bountiful, energetic Babs, every man’s perfect red-headed sex machine. One moment she was bouncing on my thighs gasping like a ruptured steam engine, the next she was lying silent and limp on the white tiled floor, blood slowly pooling around her, moving slowly as it spread like hot tar.

  Next was pretty young Kim, her h
ead covered with a long silk scarf. She was smiling in the air above me, the scarf trailing as I danced barefoot on a bed of flames to the sound of a balalaika. Chekhov was playing the instrument, or rather his fingers were. His torso sat to one side, his head was at his feet and he was smiling at me. ‘Fuck!’ I jerked awake as we started to descend towards the helipad at the US Embassy. I guessed it was another lesson learnt in Vietnam: always have a helipad at the embassy in case you have to bug out really fast. Whatever, it meant we didn’t have to land at the airport and drive back into town. For that, at least, I was grateful.

  Sami was still sitting as he had been when sleep had claimed me. He gave me a sad smile. ‘You snore,’ he said. ‘Even above the noise of the helicopter I could hear you.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I replied, thinking of nothing else to say. My old friend managed a chuckle.

  ‘A liability in a bush bivouac, Daniel. I would have had to have gagged you,’ he said as he stood and followed Karl out of the chopper, the precious bundle held in both hands. Jo, the faithful retainer, carried the sword in its leather and fabric covering.

  ‘Stay with me,’ Sami said as we ducked instinctively under the rotor arc. ‘We have much to talk about in the days ahead.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. There was much to do. We had many people to bury and a final revenge to be plotted. I already had an inkling of what I would do to Sir Bernard Sinclair, but I wanted something else first—a holiday from death. Apologies to Agatha Christie or whomever coined that wonderful title.

  The plan that I had conceived on the flight back was another simple one. Once I’d done what I needed to there, I was going to slip back into the UK without alerting Sir Bernard. Then I was going to visit him at home one night, late and unannounced. I imagined that his suicide would come as a great shock to all those who knew him. The funeral would be with full honours, no doubt. However before I induced that most melancholy and final of all states, I wanted some questions answered.

  39

  I stayed in Bangkok for the funerals of Sami’s family members and his people and then I went south. I didn’t want to stay in Patong. I wanted a little space so I checked into a very expensive little resort at Kata Noi. I’d spent a week there in a past life. The resort itself sat back on a hill with five separate villas acting as a luxurious escape. These were set low on the side of a steep cliff that dropped down to rocks and white swells that rolled in from the Andaman. A walkway linking the widely spaced villas ran down to the golden sands of a small crescent of beach. It was beautiful but most of all it was quiet. That was what money could buy in Thailand. The tsunami had miraculously spared the villas, thanks to a small island a hundred metres offshore that had acted as a breakwater.

  The first night I demolished the best part of a bottle of bourbon out on my patio and woke up flat out on the golden sand of the beach when dawn found me. Killing people up close and personal could fuck your mind at times.

  Geezer’s head had been reunited with the rest of his body in Patong and he was cremated along with Yin at her home village in the north of the island. Their farewell to this earth had been pure and simple. Geezer had left papers, diaries mainly. They were for me. His money, what little there was of it, and the house had all been left to Yin but as she had no will, these passed to her family. It wasn’t compensation for a daughter but then inheritance never is.

  Anyway, that particular part of it all was signed, sealed and as neat as it was going to get. I tried to track down my ‘date’ from before, Nan, but gave up. She’d obviously gone wherever pretty little ladies of the day and night go. It didn’t really matter. For the time being, old JD and I were having our own party. I wouldn’t say I was feeling sorry for myself. Really I was feeling sorry for the whole fucked up world.

  I didn’t call Sir Bernard. I kept my mobile permanently switched off in my holdall. I’d bought a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phone in Bangkok. I got Don Don to call Sir Bernard on my behalf and tell him I had gone into Laos when the trouble had started. Don Don didn’t know where.

  After a week, Sami started calling. He wanted me to go back to Bangkok and work with him. He also told me that Tuk Tuk was fading fast, and he added that Anita had been asking after me. I didn’t mention Sakura or her parting words to me. Then I thought of my beautiful ex-wife and had another drink. Life was complicated.

  I met an Australian girl in Patong one afternoon. Her name was Heather and her accent didn’t cut glass. She had a fantastic body, and mine managed to respond. We ended up in her room at some little hotel down the south end of the beach. It was a pleasing encounter that lasted until the next afternoon. When I left in the early evening we tentatively planned on getting together again the following day and maybe go island hopping or something. It appeared I was starting to feel human again.

  I had to admit I felt like a new man as I drove back to Kata Noi that evening. I parked the car in the resort car park and decided to walk along the beach. It was nearly dark and the air was hot and still. I should have been falling into my bed, exhausted from a night and the best part of a day of relatively rampant sex, but instead I was feeling invigorated. As I walked I savoured the fine details of my plan to exact my revenge on Bernard. I could be in the UK on a false passport in time for Christmas. The timing somehow seemed appropriate. Endings, new beginnings and all that! I would have my chat with him then be back in Thailand for the New Year and some serious talks with Sami.

  The way I was feeling I decided I would make departure plans just as soon as I got back to the laptop in my villa. I would brew a coffee, take the computer out on the balcony and work out a schedule. I needed a maximum of only five to ten hours on the ground to do what I had to do in the UK, depending what time the flight got in. Ideally I wanted to touch down early evening. Then I could go to Sir Bernard’s flat in Knightsbridge, do what I had to and get out on an early morning flight. If I did it right, no one would know I’d ever been back in the UK.

  I used the key card to open the door to my temporary sanctuary and flicked on the lights.

  I wasn’t really surprised to see the stick figure of Sir Bernard Sinclair sitting on the couch in the lounge with a gun in his hand. The silenced automatic was pointing directly at me. What did surprise me was the blow to the back of the head that sent me slamming face down onto the tiled floor.

  I awoke slowly, in pain and coughing up water. How long I had been out I had no idea, but a jug of water in the face told me that my soon-to-be-ex boss was impatient for us to talk. I was sitting in one of the high cane chairs from the breakfast bar. My hands were behind me, bound tightly to one of the slats of the chair back. I could feel pins and needles starting to form in my hands.

  Bernard was still sitting on the same couch. My chair was six feet away, directly facing him. To Bernard’s right was a familiar figure. I blinked the water out of my eyes and winced from my pounding headache. ‘Roddy?’ I said at last.

  ‘Yes, Daniel. Good old Roddy. Roddy the arse,’ he said quite amiably, a short leather-covered cosh in his hand. Gone was the bumbling idiot he was at the embassy. This Roddy Thomas was a different person. He gave me what almost passed for a genuine smile. ‘You’ve no idea how difficult it is to always play the class clown, Danny boy.’ The tone was a gloating one.

  ‘And you, Bernard,’ I said, focusing on my boss. ‘How difficult was it for you to play the traitor? Kim Philby, Bernard Sinclair! It has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Sir Bernard Sinclair,’ I corrected. ‘The traitor with the title, huh?’ Roddy swung the cosh, hitting me in the mouth. It was a glancing blow because I saw it coming and managed to rock my head back out of the way, well almost. My lips kissed leather and I could taste blood.

  ‘No, Roddy,’ Bernard held up his hand. ‘He’s right.’

  Roddy lowered his cosh and stood regarding me with something approaching anticipation in his eyes. ‘I guess I’m not leaving this room alive, so why not tell me what the hell was going on?’ I spat a dribble of blood out of my mouth and closed my
eyes for a moment. I wanted them to think I was hurt worse than I was. It wasn’t strictly necessary—I wasn’t about to break my bonds—but maybe, just maybe there would be a chance for me to get the fuck out of the chair in one piece. Whoever had tied me up—and I figured it had been Roddy—had forced my hands either side of the bamboo slats and used what I guessed to be a cable tie around my wrists and the slat.

  ‘Oh my dear boy, where do I start?’ Bernard looked genuinely confused. Roddy went and sat on the couch by the sliding door leading to the balcony. The door was closed but the drapes were open. From that direction there were no witnesses other than the waves rolling in under the light from the rising moon. Either Roddy knew Bernard’s story or he was just bored. He tossed the cosh onto the coffee table and sat looking out at the ocean. Perhaps Roddy had been one of Bernard’s bum boys in the years gone by, and he and the old prick had shared intimacies of the verbal kind as well as the physical. Who knows? In fact, who the fuck cared?

  I tested my bonds while Bernard started talking. The split bamboo slat between my wrists was flexible but, being bamboo, I knew it wasn’t going to break. I looked sideways at the companion chair sitting at the breakfast bar. The slats were slotted into the chair base and the top of the U-shaped frame that formed the back. There appeared to be two small nails, top and bottom, holding the slats in position in the grooves. If I applied enough pressure I figured I could bend the nails that were really little more than tacks, hopefully soft copper ones. Then, with the nails bent, I could hopefully bend the slat enough to get the bottom end out of the groove in the seat. If I did manage to get free I would still have my wrists bound, but I would be clear of the chair at least. As far as plans went, that was it for the moment. Get clear of the damn chair.