Candleburn

by Jack Hayes

  The dagger retreated.

  Blake knew what was coming, a second thrust. This time he couldn't block it -- he couldn't see it and there were too many possible targets: neck, back, kidneys...

  His mouth open, his tongue could taste the dirty skin of the Russian's fingers. He clamped his jaws down hard.

  A scream of pain.

  The fingers withdrew. Blake kicked with his foot – connected with something, and shifted his position. The blade stuck deep.

  Searing pain.

  He felt the knife stab somewhere south of his lowest rib at the back on his right side.

  Moving saved his life.

  He lashed out with his fists and fired the P90 in the dark.

  In the blazing flash as bullets left barrel he saw the figure, crouching.

  “Damn – I fired too high,” he cursed.

  The Russian rose.

  Blake jumped backward. A slash of the blade barely missed his face. He pulled the trigger of the rifle again but the muzzle was knocked to the side – bullets pinged down the rough-cut walls.

  He kicked.

  Lucky strike – he knocked the knife away from his attacker.

  A slap to his cheek, it was a finding hit used to test Blake's location. The Russian followed it with a swift punch straight to Blake's face.

  Blake’s brain rang against the inside of his skull like a bell.

  He staggered.

  He slipped backwards into the pantry, landing on the floor.

  Back up. Running.

  His fingers clicked the P90 from single rounds to automatic fire.

  The air filled with the deafening blasts of his submachine gun. Each flare from the muzzle gave him a flashed picture of the tunnel and walls, the Russian, face first brutal, then concerned, diving to the floor – each stage in flickering stroboscope – then to his knees crawling, bullets hitting the target, then flailing, cut down.

  And finally still.

  Blake switched the torch on and tried to find his wound.

  “Shit,” he growled, hand red as a matador’s cape.

  Applying force to the gash, he stumbled towards the fallen Russian. He padded the body.

  “Come on, come on,” he hissed.

  Found it.

  He pulled out the man's wallet and removed a credit card. More staggering as he lumbered to the aviary workshop. He fumbled for a light switch.

  Blinking in the sudden brightness, he scanned the room and grabbed a pile of cotton wadding. He lifted his shirt and clamped it on the two inch wound.

  He pulled at the drawers in the side of the wooden tables.

  The first slid free. Pliers, clippers, scissors, wire...

  He went for a second. Leather off-cuts.

  He ignored them and tried a third and a fourth.

  Success. Duct tape. Ideal.

  His head moved incessantly between his makeshift work, dressing his wound and the two entrances to the room. Each time he got the cut clean, blood oozed out through the wadding.

  “I'm fighting a losing battle here.”

  He took the duct tape between his teeth and reeled off a strip, using it on the edges of the credit card. Drying the skin around the hole, he taped the card tightly in place. He grabbed the remaining clump of cotton.

  "Shit... How to hold you down?"

  He threw the wadding to the floor and instead took a tea-towel sized piece of material from a hook on the wall. He exhaled to make his midriff as small as possible, folded the cloth over to make a temporary bandage, then strapped it to his body with reels of tape sweeping his full circumference.

  His stomach looked like a modern Pharaoh’s mummy.

  He knew his handiwork – unsanitised and sloppy – wouldn't hold for long. But then it didn't need to.

  Replacing the magazine in the P90 with his last remaining clip, Blake berated himself.

  “Of course they were going to flank me,” he said. “You took too long coming through the zoo and mews.”

  He checked back down the corridor, now lit dimly throughout its length by the glare from the workshop.

  “Still, leaving this route in unguarded doesn't make sense.”

  Blake’s side and ribs stung as he walked, rifle in hand, towards the kitchen. Careful to keep himself concealed from an easy shot, he stooped outside the room and examined its layout.

  A large metal Aga, old-fashioned English style, sat heavy against one wall. Elsewhere, a rustic, farmhouse kitchen had been designed to give the feel of a rural retreat.

  “Something's very wrong.”

  He switched the light of the P90 on and ran it over every surface. Plates, fresh from washing up were stacked next to two oversized sinks.

  “That's weird, no dishwasher in an Emirati house...”

  Blake discounted it as the source of his worries and continued the search. The torch shone over bell jars of herbal tea, electrical sockets, a kettle, a toaster, a wicker basket of vegetables...

  “Come on, why have you left this route unguarded.”

  Blake ran the beam back to the power outlets. He then checked the rest of the room. Six sockets – all used.

  He counted up the appliances. He got down on all fours and checked the floor tiles.

  “Oh, that’s brilliant,” he muttered.

  Blake hobbled back down to the fallen body of the Russian and dragged it to the edge of the pantry. He huffed with the exertion as the dead-weight resisted being tugged. The deep tracks scuffed the rocky floor.

  Holding the body as best he could, Blake pushed it into the kitchen.

  Blue sparks flashed as the hulk toppled onto the tiles. The body jiggered as electricity coursed through its muscles, contracting them.

  “I thought there were too few things to account for all those plugs.”

  Blake put a single round into each socket.

  A lightning blast and crackle.

  The Russian stopped his zombie dance.

  “Now I'm in,” Blake snarled. “And you've got just one guard left.”

  62

  Blake bolted across the kitchen and up the steps to the ground floor.

  He emerged in a large, open plan lounge that ran most of the length of the house. He knew the design well – it was a massive open space designed to provide a ‘wow factor’ for those entering for the first time.

  Giant ballroom stairs swept away in a cascading spiral to the first floor, where typically the lounges and true living space were. The upper floor would be reserved for bedrooms.

  Blake hid behind a large settee, set with its back to the front door and stairs.

  There was an eerie quiet. For a few seconds he worried he was about to be flanked again, then he heard a creak on the floorboards of the first storey.

  “Are you there Blake?” Aarez called out.

  The terrorist’s voice echoed in the sparse furnishings, seeming to come from everywhere. It was almost omnipotent in quality. Blake shut out all thought and listened carefully. Aarez was definitely speaking from upstairs – but beyond that, the acoustics bouncing off the marble floors and stone walls made it difficult to shoot based on sound alone.

  A chuckle.

  “Of course you are,” Aarez said. “You’re too late, though, I’m afraid. The puzzle box you’ve come to retrieve is already being couriered to a laboratory. You have lost.”

  Blake edged around the sofa trying to get a better shot.

  A burst of fire came from the upper level.

  Blake shifted back behind the settee as the bullets ripped holes in the floorboards next to him.

  Another chuckle.

  “The puzzle box is irrelevant,” Blake replied loudly. “No-one will care about the contents. I’m here for you.”

  He darted for the stairs and concealed himself beneath the banisters. The marble sweeping above would provide deeper protection. Another round of bullets. They hit precisely where he’d run across the room.

  It could only mean one thing: the sniper had some form of night vis
ion.

  “Oh, but it’s not irrelevant,” Aarez called back. “Those cigarette butts are the start of something great.”

  “They are worthless,” Blake replied.

  Another burst of rounds splintered marble above his head sending white chips into the air.

  “I think not,” Aarez called from above. “I believe the Royal Family will pay $20 million for them in their current frame of reference. Had the attack today been successful, Harry would have been closer to the throne – their value would have increased to perhaps $100 million.”

  “Absolute bullshit,” Blake replied. “I doubt very much the Royal Family have that much money to squander, even if they wanted to pay.”

  Blake tried to pierce the darkness looking for light switches. It was the only way to overpower the night vision goggles and put himself and the sniper on an equal footing.

  “Fuck it,” he thought, clutching the bandage on his ribs.

  Using the lights in the workshop may have helped him dress his wound, but he would take another thirty minutes to readjust to the dark.

  “You underestimate me,” Aarez replied. “Trust me, all this has been carefully researched and planned.”

  “Except you failed,” Blake said, shifting underneath the stairwell, “the bomb didn’t go off.”

  Blake popped out on the other side of the stairs, hoping he’d be able to see better on this side of the room. It was pitch black. Aarez must have pulled all the curtains closed. Blake dropped his head just quickly enough to be missed by three well placed shots.

  He dropped back behind the marble.

  “I’m a businessman, Mr Helliker,” Aarez replied. “For that kind of return, it will always be worth my while to assist an operation that brings the Prince closer to power. And of course, this time I didn’t have to pay for it – that was all Kaskhar and his dreams of a free Iran. Who’s to say I won’t find a similar patsy again?”

  Blake’s mind raced.

  He was trapped, pinned beneath the stairs unless he could come up with a better way of taking out the sniper. He thought through possibilities – leave via the kitchen and burn the house down... use the petrol from the cars...

  “That won’t work,” he thought.

  By the time he’d doubled back, Aarez could easily have moved or put in place an alternative escape; he couldn’t have been sitting upstairs doing nothing all this time.

  “What of your high ideals?” Blake said. “I thought you were a terrorist? This is petty extortion. Where’s the high religious zeal or desire for a new real politik?”

  Another laugh.

  “This is where the terrorists of old have always gone wrong,” Aarez replied. “Whether it was Irish unity, the downfall of America or some socialist dream in Italy, how often were they really a success? That is my new vision, Blake – what I have learned from my English education: it is all about money.”

  Blake had an idea.

  “Crap,” he thought, “my ideas are always terrible...”

  “Money,” Aarez continued. “It brings influence and power. The underworld industries in the UAE have been drying up as the government has clamped down on everything from drugs to gun running. I spent the last of my stipend from my declining interests acquiring those cigarettes – and they will provide the seed capital for my vision: corporate terrorism on an industrial scale. Think of the money to be made when that $100 million is in my hands and can fund other ventures around the globe!”

  Blake mentally triangulated the position of the sniper based on the locations he had been able to shoot so far. Blake hadn’t heard any sounds of movement from upstairs and made the assumption that the shooter was holed up behind barricades for protection.

  He flicked the P90 to fully automatic fire.

  Any hidey hole would survive a few lone slugs. A continuous stream would obliterate anything short of sandbags.

  An image of the restless desert outside filled his mind.

  “God,” he thought pensively, “please don’t let him have built sandbags...”

  “I’ll make you a deal, Blake,” Aarez said, “Leave via the front door – you won’t be shot and we won’t pursue you. A year from now you’ll receive a money transfer for $2 million. That I will promise. No more dealing with fatuous reporter bosses who would happily see you bullied and do nothing about it. No more being at the beck and call of the American or British governments...”

  Blake gritted his teeth.

  It was a tempting offer.

  He groped inside his backpack for one last item.

  “Thank you Aarez,” Blake replied, “but I’m fully aware of what your promises are worth.”

  He used the marble steps as cover and switched the bright P90 torch on. Keeping his head out of sight he flashed the beam across the sniper nest and fired a rapid succession of shots.

  There was a loud shout of pain and immediate return of fire.

  Shards of stone once again splintered into the air.

  Blake was already gone, back underneath the staircase and round to the front. The intense light had burned the eyes of the sniper. Blake knew the Russian would be blinded and forced to remove his goggles or reset the overloaded software of his sniper-scope.

  Blake ran up the steps backwards. He pulled the P90’s trigger, round after round after round pummelled into the sniper nest. Feathers and foam began to float gently in the air. Clever. The shooter had holed up behind cushions and bedclothes – a reasonable approximation for sandbags – but certainly unable to withstand an onslaught.

  The P90 clicked.

  Out of ammo.

  Blake tossed it aside and brought the Scorpion, picked up in the barn, to bear.

  More bullets. More feathers. No returning fire.

  Blake reached the top of the stairwell.

  He threw the Scorpion aside; his hands now clasped the SIG pistol.

  He flicked the light switch for the second floor and saw the sprawled Russian, riddled with metal slugs bleeding out on the deep pile carpet.

  The sound of a window opening. Blake moved on warily, the wound in his side was beginning to seep through the duct tape and he didn’t want to run foolishly into a fresh trap.

  Aarez was on a higher floor.

  Pistol leading the way, Blake covered every conceivable hiding spot and approached the third level.

  He switched the lights on.

  He felt the heat of the outside breeze swirling in the air conditioned coolness of the house. Faster, Blake eased his way towards the open window in the front bedroom.

  Aarez had indeed been busy.

  He’d knotted the bed sheets together like an old fashioned prison escapee.

  Blake looked outside to see Aarez, dressed in jeans and a shirt, backing away from the house.

  It was a tough shot.

  Blake raised the P226, in his best days as a sharp shooter he might have made the shot – 40 metres, with a handgun, from a third storey window of a man in the dark.

  But now...?

  “Slow, slow down,” he whispered.

  “You can’t win,” Aarez’s shout reverberated around the complex. “I have lieutenants throughout the world. They have instructions to release the results of the DNA test if I die. Killing me is futile. Ash-Shumu’a will live on!”

  “You’re a liar, Aarez,” Blake replied. “I know your type: you’re a sociopath. You required only one person in your life – Oassan – and the two of you fed off one another, egging yourselves on. In the absence of that relationship, you are alone.”

  “I have lieutenants,” Aarez shouted, backing further into the darkness. “There are other cells!”

  “No lieutenants, no other cells,” Blake replied. “You are alone.”

  Blake aimed carefully.

  He stopped.

  He put the pistol away.

  Aarez looked confused; only then did he hear the snarls as the three wolves circled him.

  Aarez began to swing around trying to find a way between the be
asts, but they had him exactly where they wanted. He moved left and they closed the route. He shifted right and they snapped with their incisors.

  Aarez looked back at Blake.

  “You cannot leave me like this to be taken down by jackals!”

  “It’s better than I had planned for you,” Blake replied. “I was going to tie you up for the birds.”

  “This will not stop me,” Aarez shouted defiantly. “The candle flickers but the darkness cannot put it out.”

  All three wolves leapt for different parts of his body, dragging him kicking and hollering to the stony earth.

  63

  When Nate awoke, his head throbbed in a way he’d not experienced since his graduation night.

  He opened his eyes and stared grimly across at Blake, who was concentrating as he drove across the bleached sands of the Empty Quarter.

  “Am I dreaming?” he asked. “Why the hell are we out here?”

  Blake blew a wispy cloud of smoke between his teeth as he pushed the Audi as fast as its battered frame could handle.

  “It seems the authorities in Dubai need someone to hang the events of the last few days on,” Blake said after a few moments’ pause. “Unfortunately, everybody in this sorry saga, apart from you and me, is dead. Guess who that leaves to carry the can?”

  Nate nodded apologetically.

  “So we’re heading for the border with Oman?”

  “No,” Blake replied. “Apparently, they’re so hopping mad that even the combined efforts of Mac and Ron couldn’t calm them down. The border with Oman is closed. So is Saudi. And all the airports and the sea ports.”

  Nate sat upright in his seat. For the first time he noticed the blood all around Blake’s shirt.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I’m bandaged professionally, like you,” Blake said, “but not really, no. We both need serious medical attention. It’s just there’s nowhere in the country we can get that without being arrested. The hospitals and consulates are being watched too.”

  Nate stared out the window into the expansive nothingness of the desert.