by RR Haywood
The years behind him stretch away like a dirty river of the mind, full with the flotsam of memories. Faces. Names. Places. Marks. Always marks. The times he sat in that same room with the low sodium bulb waiting for the heavy tread of the old man. People age at the same rate so to Gregori, the old man had always been the old man and he was the only constant in Gregori’s otherwise sterile existence.
Gregori wasn’t trained by the military. His life was far harder. Owned outright as payment given for a debt his father could never pay. Taken as a child to be indoctrinated, brainwashed, drilled and drilled. His trainers were ruthless in their methods and the young Gregori soon knew a life of pain and hardship.
By the age of eighteen he was trained to a higher standard than the US Navy Seals. By the age of twenty he was up there with Mossad and by twenty one he was progressing past that of the most highly trained Special Forces in the world, the British Special Air Service.
His mind and body were honed to be subservient to those that owned him, while being taught to have no compassion for any other living being. As his reputation grew, so too did his skills at killing. Seemingly bullet proof, he never once sustained serious injury and the higher the body count grew, the more his mind closed off to what he was doing.
Only in recent years, with the ever expanding world and being sent further overseas, had he begun to see the people within the subjects he killed. It didn’t stop him from his duty but it did fascinate him. How they lived, what they thought about, the normality of their existence. The clothes they wore, the food they ate. The children they had. To Gregori they were alien and other-worldly and something he would never have.
‘Ten minutes,’ the driver breaks into his thoughts, snapping Gregori back to the present. The mark was a Russian, a high level player in gun running and modern day slavery. The Albanians had tolerated his presence simply because it served a purpose to keep attention from them, but now the Russian outfit had started expanding into their territory. So the Russian had to be removed and dealt with in a way that would send a clear message not only to the Russians back home, but to every other gang operating in the area.
London was already flooded with gangs. It was these outer cities that now saw the intense battles for ground taking place. Millions of ordinary people going about their daily lives, worrying about the recession, house prices, redundancy and having no knowledge of the wars taking place within their streets and towns. The capital city of England was familiar to Gregori. He had undertaken missions there time and again, but the north of England was like a different country. Strong accents and dirty towns crammed into small spaces, yet surrounded by vast open countryside. Why didn’t they just spread out instead of living on top of one another?
‘Tell the other cars to drop back,’ Gregori spoke a full sentence for the first time, waiting while one of the back seat passengers called the other vehicles, telling them to divert away. Within a minute both the front vehicle and the rear were gone.
The driver looks to Gregori and clears his throat. ‘Up here, on the left,’ he says in a low voice, ‘there is a gated entrance to the house, uniformed guards on the gate.’
‘Drive past at 35m.p.h,’ Gregori instructs, ‘do not look at the gates,’ he says louder for the benefit of everyone. A speed seemingly too fast for the other three occupants of the vehicle but to Gregori the speed is fine. His eyes sweep the front of the gates with his mind on record. Once past he closes his eyes and replays the footage. A guard house, brick built with toughened glass. Two uniformed security personnel that were unarmed but they will have a direct alarm to the main house. The two guards were observant with eyes up at the passing traffic.
‘Keep going, turn around and come back,’ Gregori instructs. The driver does as told, leaving it a full minute before using a wide entrance to a farm to turn the vehicle round. Gregori takes the area in. Rural countryside with the houses set at great distance from each other. Gunshots will not be heard and if they are heard, then the locals will assume them to be shotgun sounds coming from this farm.
Back on the road, Gregori tells the driver to pull up on the road outside the house. They will wait until Gregori starts work then drive off. They will then wait for precisely fifteen minutes before returning to collect him. If there is a failure or blow out, the second pick-up point will be the farm, and if that blows out, they will be one kilometre further down the road.
The silver Volvo pulls up. The two guards snap their eyes up instantly. Watchful and immediately suspicious of the vehicle. Gregori steps out and seems to say something to the driver. He shakes his head, waves his arms a little and then looks round, seemingly lost.
‘Hello?’ Gregori calls out the one word in perfect English.
‘You cannot stop here,’ one of the guards exits the small building, calling out as he ventures towards the vehicle. His own accent is thick Russian. Short hair cropped close to the skull and typically Russian with a strong frame and thick muscles.
‘Ah,’ Gregori smiles, stepping round the vehicle he scratches his head and looks to be the lost accountant, the highly educated but eccentric engineer out with his friends and lost. The guards’ suspicions are strong. The vehicle is four up, all of them males of a certain age and look.
‘You cannot stop here,’ the guard’s voice is firmer now and his face makes it clear no further conversation is to be tolerated.
The mistake is when the second guard steps out from the guard building. If he had stayed inside and secured the door as per his training and protocol, then he would have stood a chance of survival. But he didn’t. He steps out to help his buddy and in doing so he presents two easy targets for the expert marksmanship of Gregor. Two shots ring out in quick succession.
The vehicle pulls away and all three of the Albanians wait a full thirty seconds before breaking into excited conversation at seeing Gregori the ugly man at work. And those two shots! They were so fast, so casual, yet perfectly aimed at two moving targets.
Gregori tucks his pistol away and grabs the bodies to drag back into the guard hut. He spots the direct telephone and looks down at the buttons, number one being pre-programmed direct line to the main house. Lifting the handset he presses the button and waits.
‘Da,’ the deep guttural tones of another guard answering the receiver. Gregori waits, unspeaking for several long seconds.
‘Da?’ The voice prompts, clearly annoyed at being disturbed.
Gregori waits another second before speaking in a low voice, ‘I Gregori.’ He replaces the handset and walks out of the guard hut knowing the main residence will be exploding into frantic panic.
Another second and a red light fixed low to the wall in the guard building starts to flash, the panic alarm pressed at the other end. He exits the building to the rear, inwardly shaking his head at the poor discipline of not securing their doors, for now he is inside the grounds. Gregori makes for the vehicle he saw parked behind the guard building and gets inside the drivers seat. A solid built, four wheel drive with blacked out windows. It is a status vehicle designed to impress and intimidate. One finger taps the windscreen, toughened glass. How easy do they want to make this for him?
Pulling away, he drives down the long drive to the main house, an overly sumptuous modern mansion built to replicate something old and distinguished. The typical Russian habit of needing to display wealth is everywhere. Huge fountains and sculptures dot the grounds and several high end sports cars are parked nose out in front of the house, all of them perfectly aligned.
Several men run from the huge double doors at the front of the house, all of them dressed in dark suits with sunglasses. Even from this distance Gregori can see the overly large muscles of their arms bulging through the material of their suit jackets. Steroids, no doubt about it, but that will work in his favour. The steroids will give them such a huge dose of testosterone they will think themselves indestructible and therefore put themselves into situations he can take advantage of.
Pistols are drawn and
aimed, double handed grips that show military training. Gregori pushes his foot down on the accelerator but keeps the vehicle in a low gear so the engine screams out, knowing the high pitched scream will only serve to heighten the sense of panic within the men. The action works and they open fire, tinny bangs sound out followed by the pings as the small calibre bullets bounce harmlessly from the four wheel drive. They fire faster, depleting their ammunition. Fingers pumping on the triggers until, as one, their magazines are empty and they are ejecting the spent ones while patting down pockets in a rushed effort of finding the new ones.
Gregori gets the gear stick into neutral. With the momentum gained and such a heavy vehicle he knows it will keep rolling without power being applied. He kicks the door open and tumbles out in a well-practised movement that has the fall of his body timed perfectly to the speed of the vehicle. By the time he rolls upright his pistol is gripped in one hand with a spare magazine in the other. With the suited Russian guards still scrabbling to reload, he aims and starts his own return fire. Each shot is a killing shot. Either through the skull or through the chest. Those that don’t die immediately will be gone within seconds, drowning in their own blood which is pumping into their punctured lungs.
The guards are dropped. Gregori ejects his magazine, catches it and replaces with a fresh one. The spent magazine is pushed into his back pocket and he heads towards the door, pausing to pick up one of the pistols from the fallen guards. He finds a new magazine for the collected gun, checks the working parts with that same lightning speed. Heaving one of the dead guards up, he pushes his own arms under the armpits of the dead man and holds him upright in front while gripping two semi-automatic pistols. By slightly leaning back he can take the weight of the dead guy into his own body rather than using just arm strength.
At the door he pauses, takes a quick step forward then straight back. The dead guard is punctured with pistol shots and the risk of the bullets going through the corpse is great. However, it’s a good decoy to find the location of other shooters. With a heave he sends the body flying through the doorway to a symphony of shots that send it smashing off to one side. Gregori pauses a second, replays the last few seconds in slow motion in his mind and works out the location of the shooters.
Gregori steps through, pistols up and tracking. Two men on the right are taken by two single shots from the pistol in his right hand. One on the immediate left is taken with a shot from the pistol in his left hand. He raises both pistols to fire at the wide marble staircase, peppering the advancing guards with crimson dots, sending them staggering back only to fall and tumble down the stairs. Four big strides see him clear of the doorway, he spins and pushes his back to the wall, pistols facing left and right. He holds position and waits quietly, blotting out the sound of one dying guard gurgling his last breaths to hear the heavy tread of people running towards him. Gregori knows the big guns will have been brought out now and waits for the clatter of the machine pistols and assault rifles.
He slides down into a crouch, his legs poised to drive him forward. With a shocking lack of co-ordination the new defenders come first from the left. They should all be connected to a secure radio system. They should be pausing to gather larger numbers and be ready for a combined assault but they’re not. They rush in foolhardy and pumped up on steroids. Machine pistols burst out firing before the weapons holders even spot the position of the assailant. Plaster, marble and wood get splintered with flying chunks that spew dust into the air. Black holes appear in long lines as the automatic weapons discharge their ammunition at a rate too fast to allow decent control.
Gregori fires once to the left side. The first guard is thrown back as the back of his skull explodes from the round ripping his brain and cranium apart. The machine pistol clatters to the ground, now a useless hunk of metal. Shouts in Russian language sound out from all directions, and Gregori picks out the tone of a child wailing in terror.
From the left another one tries to sneak round the bottom of the door, pausing to locate then fire at Gregori’s position. He’s shot through the face, the bullet ripping into his cheek bone and killing him instantly. To the right, two burst through with heavier calibre assault rifles. The deeper, bass filled drum resonates as they open up. Gregori drives his powerful legs to propel him forwards in a long, sliding dive. The movement prevents his normal pinpoint accuracy from being so effective, so he empties the magazine in their general direction, scoring fatal hits on both as they stagger and spin away. On his back he uses the pistol in his left hand to cover while he changes magazine from the spent one. He swaps hands and does the same for the other side. With both pistols fully loaded,he’s on his feet with an athletic flip and surges towards the left side, knowing they will not be expecting him to attack.
With both guns raised he fires again and again into the solid wooden door and the wall surrounding it. His large foot slams the door open, two more guards are down and bleeding heavily. One head shot to each and he’s up and moving off.
In the kitchens, women scream in panic as they burst away towards the far exit door. All of them dressed in black and white French maid outfits as ordered by the Russian mob boss.
A message has to be sent, an example has to be made. The cowering and fleeing women are gunned down, shot mercilessly for being unfortunate enough to work for the wrong person. Young women, long legged and beautiful are slaughtered. Shot through the face or executed through the back of the head. Handsome young men employed as drivers are killed. Everyone he comes across is murdered. Some beg, some plead and others simply sink down in shock acceptance of the inevitable.
A round trip through the ground floor brings him back to the main hallway. He changes magazines and starts the ascent, pistol raised and firing as people appear, regardless of their role or intent to attack or simply fleeing in a vain effort to save their lives.
From room to room he goes, swift and as relentless as time. Nobody is spared. In a far end room he finds a nanny shielding small children with her body. She is on her knees and begging in broken English to spare the children. Gregori pauses to change magazines, taking in the little girl and young boy both with tear streaked faces. Pistols loaded he lifts his right hand, ‘I Gregori,’ he mutters and fires three single shots.
A scream pierces the air from the next room, an adult woman breaks free of a man to come running into the room wailing in terror. Gregori shoots her dead, a single round through the head and at such close range she’s taken from her feet and sent flying into the already dead bodies of the nanny and small children.
Back in the hallway he stalks back to the main staircase and starts the ascent to the third and top floor. No further opposition meets him as he heads for the far end and enters the last room to see the steel door of the “safe” room right in front of him. Solid steel walls prevent him gaining access. A whir of a motor and he looks up to see the video surveillance camera panning down to focus on him.
‘You will not get in,’ an amplified voice in thick Russian speaks from a hidden speaker.
Gregori sighs and stares at the electronic number pad fixed to the outside of the door. Holding both pistols in his left hand, he uses the index finger of his right to press the unlock code to the door.
‘No!’ The voice yells in disbelief as Gregori keys the correct sequence. A beep sounds out and the locks disengage as the door quickly retracts to the side, revealing a small room equipped with a bank of monitors and two men staring at him in utter horror.
The mob boss he identifies from the picture the old man gave him. The other is younger but bares such a striking resemblance it must be his son.
‘Stop!’ The son begs as Gregori takes aim, ‘I gave the code,’ he bleats in perfect English, ‘me…I gave you this…’
‘I Gregori,’ he shoots the son through the face, blowing the back of his skull off which coats the interior steel wall with dripping gore and brain matter.
The mob boss stares at his dead son, his face devoid of expression. He looks u
p at Gregori, taking in the ugly features, the bulging eyes and pasty skin.
Five minutes later and Gregori is walking back down the stairs. The Russian mob boss lying crucified on the top landing. His genitals cut from his groin and shoved into his mouth to choke him as he dies slowly of blood loss.
Precisely fifteen minutes after being dropped off, Gregori is collected from the main gate by the silver Volvo. Eighteen people killed within less time than most people get for a lunch break at work. As the silver Volvo pulls away, Gregori once more lets the sun dappled windscreen relaxe his mind back into a reverie of old memories.
Seven
‘Could be someone famous,’ Cookey says.
‘Like who?’ Nick asks conversationally.
‘I dunno, like…oh shit I feel bad now.’
‘Why?’ Lani asks.
‘Just reminded myself of that Paco Maguire, he was famous.’
‘Point mate,’ Blowers says then spits a gob of phlegm to the side. ‘Sorry,’ he mutters in the direction of Paula.
‘What about me?’ Lani huffs.
‘What about you?’
‘Why you saying sorry to Paula and not me?’
‘Paula’s new, you’re not,’ Blowers answers, ‘and she’s a lady,’ he adds with a smirk.
‘What did you say?’ Lani glares at him.
‘Joking,’ Blowers laughs, ‘here Nick, did you speak to Lilly after the meeting?’
‘Might have done,’ Nick glances sideways to Blowers, clearly wary of giving any ammunition.
Having traipsed to the end of the lane, we turned left onto the main road which we know is the general direction of Portsmouth, and also the area where Nick left the Saxon. We’re hoping he’ll recognise the road he took to whatever harbour he found and trace his route to our vehicle.