by Jack Hayes
The Russian instinctively put his forearm on the wood, preventing Blake from breaking Abram’s nose on the surface. Before he had time to react, Blake struck down with his foot in the back of Abram’s knee.
The Russian lost his balance.
Blake balled his fists. He punched to the thug’s kidney. Once, twice, three times. A blow with the flat of his palm to the face. Then one to the spine.
Next, a throw.
Blake tossed Abram through the air, minimum of effort, maximum effect. The Russian groaned as he walloped into the wall and landed with a clatter.
“My God,” Blake said, already dancing back to the lounge, “it feels good to finally get that out of my system. So much pent up fucking rage.”
The blond Russian was clasping at his throat, clawing for breath. Eyes bulging, fingers straining to release his collapsed trachea. Blake ignored him. He’d be unconscious in thirty seconds and dead four minutes after that.
Instead Blake stalked across to Abram, who was trying to uncurl from a heap against the lounge wall. The Russian’s fingers finally managed to take hold of the pistol grip and remove it from the leather holster under his arm.
Long before Abram could aim the weapon, Blake snapped the Russian’s fingers and the gun was removed. Twisting it like a gunslinger, Blake brought the pistol down level with the Russian’s brow.
“Well, how’d you like them apples?” Blake said.
The pistol was small, light in his hands. From the feel, a Berretta but the angle of the stock was wrong. For the first time he had chance to look at it.
“Guns in Dubai?” Blake said. “Even for gangsters, they’re forbidden, a big no-no. Completely against the rules of the detente. And this one in particular... Jesus! It’s a GRU designation 6P28, if memory serves! The ‘silent death’ – the quietest pistol ever made. You don’t see many of these outside Spetsnaz. Which means you guys are either the worst excuses for ex-special forces I’ve ever seen, or badly out of shape or chancers.”
Abram opened his eyes and spat at Blake.
“Go to hell.”
“No,” Blake replied. “I think not.”
He stuffed a cushion from the sofa over the gangster’s mouth and fired the pistol straight into the man’s left knee cap.
The pistol was no louder than a cap gun popping. A normal weapon fired in a sparsely furnished room would have deafened them both. Even with a high-end suppressor or silencer reducing its bark, the discharge would have startled neighbours up to two or three streets away.
The Russian’s face swelled with pain, veins normally hidden beneath the skin pulsed around his temple and forehead.
“So, now that we’ve established that I’m not the soft mark you thought I was,” Blake said, “it’s time to uncover exactly what’s going on here. Let’s start easy: who sent you?”
He pulled the cushion away from Abram’s mouth. The Russian went to scream. On the inhalation, Blake shoved the cloth back over his lips. The muffled yelp would have been inaudible outside the room.
“Bad move,” Blake lamented. “With a full magazine, a standard PSS like this contains six bullets. It’s a very special weapon. Not only are the bullets specifically designed to be sub-sonic, so avoiding the typical crack-boom problem of a normal gun, but the chamber cuts off expanding gases.”
Blake kept his knee pressed into Abram’s chest as he held the pillow in place. The pistol was barely an inch above the Russian’s eye.
“Of course, such specialist shots are therefore pricey,” Blake continued. “It costs around $300 every time you fire it. But then, I’m not picking up the tab. So, six bullets means I’m only going to ask you six times. And I’m going to make every shot count.”
Blake jammed the barrel into the Russian’s crotch.
“Second time: who sent you?”
Behind Blake, the abrasive guttural thrashing of the blond Russian turned to stillness. Abram, the muscles in his body still twitching, twisted his head to watch his friend’s legs go limp and motionless. He turned back to Blake and shook out a ‘no’.
“So be it.”
Another bullet.
Blake stood as the Russian’s back arched and his body started convulsing. Arms in spasm, Abram writhed. With no pillow to keep him silent, he swore loudly in his native tongue.
Blake waited for the flaying to stop before stepping in and placing his foot on the Russian’s seeping kneecap.
Abram went to scream.
“Uh-uh,” Blake said, bringing a finger to his lips. “This is a family district and you’ll wake next-door’s baby. Now, I may only have four bullets left – but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to take advantage of the holes in you I’ve made, as I make them.”
There was a new look on Abram’s face that replaced the pain as Blake applied increased pressure with his boot: fear.
Blake wondered how many times over the years this thug and his ex-colleague had extracted information or money or retribution from businessmen, rivals or marks. How many times had he beaten or murdered the hookers who worked for his boss?
Blake always told himself these things when he interrogated. It helped cut the natural instinct for empathy with the one you were torturing.
He removed from under his shirt the rubberised dustbin lid that had been outside his front door. Pared with the secateurs to more closely stick to his skin, it had been this make-shift body armour that saved him from the taser blast.
He slung it aside.
“Third time...”
“Da, da,” Abram wheezed as he stopped twisting and returned his attention to Blake. “You have fucked up big time. I am enforcer for the Wolves. They will find you and kill you for this.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know,” Blake said with strained patience.
Blood from Abram’s wounds was soaking in darkened circles through his clothes and beginning to dribble onto the floor. The Russian’s body was curled foetal as he clasped his crotch with vermillion streaked hands.
“I estimate you’ve only a couple of minutes before blood loss takes you. So, if you won’t tell me anything useful, we’re going to have to speed this up.”
Blake took a pace forward, selecting a spot for the next round.
“We get request,” Abram said quickly, his features contorted with the effort of speaking. “Ash-Shumu’a, I’m not supposed to know, but I know. Ash-Shumu’a.”
“Never heard of them.”
“The Candle,” the Russian continued. “New Islamic terrorist network. Very nasty. They plan something big. They want the package you receive and they want key. Big plans.”
“What plans?”
“I know not. I don’t even know what package contains – only that is puzzle box and very important.”
“Okay but Ash-Shumu’a doesn’t control you,” Blake replied. “Your boss does. You work for Fedor Milanovich? He’s the head of the Wolves. Or you get your orders from one of his lieutenants?”
“I work for Mr Astrinka – but this mission special,” Abram stuttered. “Fedor Milanovich himself, he call me in. He give me orders directly.”
The Russian paled, his eyelids began to flutter. Blake tapped his boot against the man’s knee.
Abram gasped with pain.
“And?” Blake asked. “How would the box be returned to Ash-Shumu’a?”
“I am to text number in my phone. It burn phone, change daily. Must text before midnight. Just one word: ‘cuckoo’ if I have box, ‘nest’ if no locate box yet. Instructions then to come.”
“Who runs them? Who runs this Islamic group?”
“They call him Aarez – but not a real name. It mean leader. That’s it. That’s all I know,” the Russian was fading again.
“Bullshit,” Blake said, kicking the Russian. “You know what they want. You know more.”
“No, no, I swear...”
“Why did they target me?” Blake shouted. “What’s so important about this puzzle box?”
&
nbsp; “I don’t know!”
“Speculate!”
“Prince Harry,” the Russian cried. “I don’t know why but they whisper it is about England’s Prince Harry!”
Blake stood bolt upright with surprise.
“Prince Harry?” he exclaimed.
He paused and ran through the links again in his mind to make sure it all fitted: Afghanistan, UK military, helicopters, DNA, cigarettes.
It all added up.
“Prince Harry...” he repeated. “Prince Harry – you swear?”
“Da, da. No more, please. No more.”
A sudden change swept over Blake. Reality set in. He was staring down at some poor man, bleeding out on his carpet, whom he was slowly killing.
Truth be told, he didn’t like torture. He’d worked alongside many people who had. They were the kind of men and women who as children gleefully pulled the legs off insects and, once grown up, had simply graduated on to pulling limbs off people instead.
Blake always found he paid a cost for using it – an emotional hangover.
He also believed that in most cases, it was used inappropriately.
Information gained under duress was always suspect – in the end, people would say anything to make it stop. Torture was good for getting broad brush strokes but only a true sadist could persist with it until they got the individual atoms that made up the sweep of every dash of paint.
The thin pool of blood underneath the Russian was gradually expanding to the soul of Blake’s shoe.
“Please,” the Russian begged. “Please help me.”
Blake hesitated, caught in shock as he realised the monster from the past that had been awakened.
The Russian sobbed.
Blake swallowed hard.
“Please…” the Russian begged.
Blake pulled the trigger.
Abram’s face froze in agony as the bullet passed through his skull, spattering bone and fluids against the white lounge skirting board.
Blake tucked the weapon in his belt and went straight to the cupboard under the stairs. He removed the cat carrying case and a small leather holdall. He pulled the zip on the bag.
Empty.
As he ran up the stairs with the case and holdall in one hand, he began searching his contacts on his phone. He pushed call.
Ringing.
He put the bags on the ground and extracted Jeffrey from underneath the farthest corner of the bed.
“This is the US embassy 24-hour emergency assistance number,” a robotic recording began through the phone’s speaker. “For lost passports, press 1. For...”
Jeffrey protested as Blake pushed him into the carrying basket and locked the door tight. He turned his attention to the phone. He pressed a long sequence of numbers containing stars and hashes.
More ringing.
He began pulling open his clothes drawers.
Three pairs of everything – socks, tee-shirts, pants...
“US Embassy, how may I direct your call?” a sprightly voiced woman with a Mid-Western accent asked.
“I need to talk to Constantine White,” Blake replied.
The sound of furious tapping at a keyboard.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“His swimming pool repair man.”
No more questions. The phone began ringing again.
Blake went to the bathroom medicine cabinet. He removed a screwdriver from the top shelf. Jeffrey began to ‘meow’ in protest at his incarceration. Blake found himself breathing heavily as he opened the bedroom door wide, stepped outside the room and examined the back frame. Here there was a small brass plate.
He began to unscrew it.
“Constantine White’s office.”
Montana accent. White male. Late twenties.
“I’m afraid Mr White is not available at present. Can I ask who is calling?”
Blake took the screws from the plate and dropped them on the floor. It didn’t matter if anyone knew his hidey-hole now. Inside, he’d hollowed out an eight inch wide space. It contained two passports, one Norwegian, the other Canadian, a credit card and $5000 in $100 bills.
“Cavallo,” Blake said bluntly.
Typing. Silence. More furious typing.
“My apologies sir,” the boy at the other end of the phone said, slight quaver to his voice. “Can I just confirm the designated department you’re calling from?”
Blake sighed.
“Rubicon,” he growled.
Words he’d not said in a decade.
He bowed his head in shame.
“Absolutely, sir,” the boy continued. “Mr White will call you back immediately, sir.”
The phone went dead.
25
Asp entered Chrome’s penthouse headquarters expecting the lights to be off and the desks empty. He should have known better. Two of his best operatives were still busily discussing a case in amongst a pile of half-drunk coffee cups and computer printouts.
“Paul, Michelle – what’s new?” Asp asked, nodding to his colleagues.
“Hey boss,” Michelle replied, offering him a plastic folder. “This is the latest on the Salexco situation.”
“Is it resolved?” Asp asked, taking the file.
Paul rubbed the back of his head in irritation.
“We’ve hit a complication,” Michelle said. “They want to buy land in northeast Africa for a new cotton plantation and factory. Yesterday, Connors hinted that if the election in Egypt results in the extremist party gaining power...”
Two years ago, after 3 terms of Democratic presidents, the United States had taken a swing to the political right. President Connors had ridden on a wave of evangelical support into office.
Less than nine months after being elected he had successfully managed to both diminish international support for the country and boost his popularity at home. His speciality was loud rhetoric about regaining America’s pre-eminent place in the world.
After more than a decade of recession, his appeal was understandable.
“Right,” Asp agreed, “He’ll slap sanctions on foreign investment into the country...”
“Exactly,” Paul said. “So, I’ve been trying to explain to Michelle that our best course of action is to tell Salexco to look elsewhere. There are good opportunities for what they want in Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. They should give north Africa a miss until it settles down.”
Paul was twenty-two, bright and eager – two qualities Asp prized highly. However, while there was nothing wrong with his analysis on paper, Asp often found it lacked human insight – where knowledge of personalities and how to play their foibles could lead to a desired outcome.
It was a problem Asp was discovering with increasing frequency among people under the age of twenty-five. They’d been brought up practising solo pursuits – listening to iPods through headphones, playing games consoles and using the Internet. The intelligent ones just didn’t quite get how social interactions affect results.
“And you don’t agree?” Asp asked Michelle.
“Can I speak frankly?” she asked.
“Always,” Asp said. “You know I encourage it. We’re all adults here.”
“Connors is a dick.”
Asp laughed.
Europeans in particular held a dim view of the new President. That only boosted his standing at home. Depending on your political persuasion, he was most often described as George W Bush mark II, the spiritual successor of Ronald Regan or an evangelical reincarnation of Truman.
The one name left off the list was the one Asp most clearly identified with – there was a narrowness to his eyes that always made him think of Richard Nixon.
“That’s not really relevant,” he said.
“Actually,” she said, “it is. He shoots from the hip. He’s a populist. He’s a blowhard. He’s also a manipulator, it’s amazing everyone seems to know all these traits about him and yet he’s so popular.”
“I don’t see how that negates Paul’s argum
ent,” Asp replied.
“I think we should proceed with looking at the parcels of land we’ve analysed around the upper Nile,” Michelle said. “One of two things will happen. Either the extremists aren’t elected, which right now looks like a coin toss. In that case, Connors’ threats don’t matter. By continuing to research Egypt, we win. In the other case, the extremists do get into power. Then, there’s another coin toss. Connors either follows through with his threat, or he doesn’t.”
“You’re saying the risk profile is that you’ll only lose 25% of the time by continuing to research Egypt?”
“And maybe even less than 25%,” Michelle replied. “If we get extremists and we get sanctions, there’re always routes around that. Salexco could make the investments through one of their Italian or Brazilian subsidiaries, for instance. It’s win-win.”
“Why take the chance?” Paul asked. “We could have zero problem if we simply look at Kazakhstan.”
Asp formed a steeple with his fingers.
“I like your thinking, Michelle,” he said. “I don’t have time to read your report right now. Email it to me, I’ll give you answer tomorrow afternoon. And Paul, good work from you too – do a prelim background sketch on feasibility for doing the project in Tashkent. Nothing fancy, just the basics.”
Asp left the two of them and hurried to his office.
He had a new route to get to the bottom of the murders.
***
Blake was a hundred metres from Abram’s Toyota when he pressed the unlock button on the key ring he’d liberated from the dead Russian’s pocket. There was only the remotest of outside chances that the vehicle would explode in a Hollywood-esque ball of pyrotechnics but it cost him nothing to be cautious.
Instead, he was relieved to see the car’s indicators flash a single time in the rapidly darkening night. He pulled on a pair of marigolds lifted from his kitchen and opened the driver’s side door.
The floor was a mess.
Burger wrappers, chewing gum packets, empty water bottles and the ubiquitous UAE signature: sand. He pulled a torch from his pocket and after brief examination, tossed the litter on the back seat.
They were all multinational brands, nothing useful there.
But the sand – now that was different.