Reaper

by A P Bateman

  King eased the door outwards, looked directly at Sergeyev, who was standing in front of him. There were four burly security personnel on either side of him. All had a variety of handguns pointing at him. King was fast, and he was good. But nobody is that good. He glanced to his right, where the house security stood. Unarmed, but they were loving the turn of events. He figured they would get a bit of him sooner rather than later.

  “Give me Dimitri’s gun,” Sergeyev said quietly. “Slowly.”

  King reached slowly, as he was told, but even now, he was unsure which end to give the Russian. The muzzle first and a .45 bullet right between the eyes, or butt first and surrender? King had never surrendered before. He had been shot and captured, held and tortured, but he had never had to hold up his hands and accept capitulation. He eased the weapon out of his waistband. He could do it, was convinced he’d take down several of them, but it was a suicidal move. But he couldn’t abandon Caroline. Right now, he was her only hope of survival. Play the game he had been pulled into and look for the right opportunity. King held the pistol pinched between his thumb and forefinger, held it out carefully.

  “Easy,” one of the armed men said. He stepped forward and caught hold of the barrel with confidence and familiarity. He twisted the weapon away from King and gained possession, before stepping back.

  The unarmed men lunged forwards as one. A flurry of fists and elbows, but King was too akin to a life of survival to take a beating without a fight and reacted hard and fast, the men dropping around him clutching chopped throats, gouged eyes, broken noses and loosened teeth. King dodged and weaved and punched and kicked and with five men down, was starting to look like he could go all night and take on all-comers. And then he felt an impact between his legs and an indescribable pain through his testicles and his stomach. He dropped to his knees and took the slam to the back of his head. He fell forwards, rolled onto his side and saw the bulk of Dimitri in the doorway. The big Russian was holding his own groin and heaving for breath. He was pale and clearly pained, but he looked like he was pleased with his efforts. He’d certainly repaid King for the kick in the balls.

  King gasped through the pain, struggled to get a breath inside him, as he watched the big Russian walk forwards and raise a size fourteen shoe above his face, hovering ominously.

  Perhaps it was time for plan B? Plan A had gone to shit, he just hoped things would get better. There was no avoiding the stamping foot, nor the darkness of the unconsciousness which followed.

  7

  The pine forest smelled dry and fresh. The scent was strong, heady – like a pine air freshener. The forest was dry and hot too. A savagely-hot start to the summer, with long hot days and uncomfortably close nights, had dried the forest floor, the needles and the scattered pine cones.

  King could smell this, and more besides. His own body odour in the confines of the vehicle’s boot was not the freshest thing he’d smelled in a while. And the exhaust fumes that filled the boot had worked its way into his nose, his throat and his eyes.

  He had regained consciousness on the drive into the forest. The car had been driven erratically along the twisting country roads. Many were straight, interspersed by cross-roads, but the road surface was of poor-quality. Seldom maintained, deeply rutted, which tested the vehicle’s suspension.

  The vehicle had slowed and pulled off the road, and King could tell that they had travelled on softer ground. Just as rutted, but foliage scraped underneath and occasionally, the vehicle would bottom out and the wheels would spin as the driver tried to maintain progress.

  When the car eventually stopped, King realised he could hear another vehicle. There was the sound of doors opening and closing, and low voices. He could smell cigarette smoke, and he imagined the men gathering together to devise their plan or receive orders.

  There had been a few times over his time with the intelligence services, that King had been convinced he was about to die. Fate, luck or happenstance had turned it around, but right now, bound and imprisoned inside the boot of the vehicle, this was one of those times. Possibly the definitive moment. Plan A hadn’t worked out, and plan B was a work-in-progress. Whether he got out of this would depend on one thing. But now, after spending much of his time in confinement, he just hoped it had been enough.

  The boot lid opened and even though it was close to sunset, the light stung his eyes. He blinked against it, then felt rough hands on him, some grabbing his collar, others grabbing him around the ankles. King was solid, a shade under six-foot and around fourteen-stone. But he was whipped out of the boot and thrown through the air as if he were a child. He looked up to see it had been three men who had got him out. The monkey named Dimitri, all twenty-stone of him, and two other men, similarly sized. Dimitri clearly had a grievance, and King couldn’t blame him, but could have done without another kick to his ribs. He gasped, grit his teeth, and hoped he had not shown how much it had hurt. He couldn’t get up with his hands bound behind him, but he got onto his side, more to take in his surroundings than in any hope of getting to his feet.

  Sergeyev smoked a cigarette and watched with amusement. He was flanked by two more guards. He nodded to one of them, and the man dutifully walked around to the open tailgate of the Range Rover. He retrieved a shovel and a chainsaw and walked towards King, throwing the shovel at him. It hit the ground and bounced into his face. King recoiled, fell onto his back.

  “I think getting a man to dig his own grave gets that man into the right headspace for what is about to happen,” Sergeyev paused as he inhaled some of the cigarette smoke and blew out a thick pungent-smelling plume. “You will die, but before you do, you will tell me where my family are, and you will beg for a swift end. I guarantee it.” He nodded to one of the men behind King and he bent forward, slashing the rope bindings with a knife.

  King knelt slowly, rubbing some feeling back into his wrists. He looked around him. There was a glimpse of the ocean, the beach some fifty metres beyond the trees. He closed his eyes, a distant memory coming to him. Southwest France, the beach, the pine forest, the pungent cigarette smoke. King would bet anything it was a Turkish blend. The memory of a night of killing, the start of his career all those years ago. He shook his head to dismiss it. He needed to stay in the game.

  King stood up, heard the safety catches release or hammers cock on the various pistols around him. For a moment he was reminded of the scene in the film Blazing Saddles and the gunmen lining up on the Wako Kid, hammers cocking. Comedic interlude in a dire situation. Gallows humour. He smiled to himself. He didn’t have a gun, almost certainly wouldn’t be as fast as Gene Wilder’s character. The shovel was at his feet and he figured he could slice at least one man’s head open before he went down. He figured that was the best he could hope for.

  Plan B, still a work-in-progress…

  “Dig,” Sergeyev said.

  King shook his head. “You risk never finding your wife and child.”

  “I’ll pay the price for showing strength,” Sergeyev smirked. “But it will not come to that. You will give me what I want to know.”

  “Don’t count on it,” King said.

  “Who are you?”

  King smiled. “Is that it? You think you’re getting shit out of me? I told you – I have been told to kill you to free my fiancé. I gave you the chance to keep your family safe and for you to lay low while I sort this out. And you do this?” King gestured at the forest clearing. “There’s no deal anymore.”

  “What did you want to deal?” Sergeyev frowned. “You captured my wife and daughter.”

  “Well, I misread you,” King paused. “So now, I’ll just have to kill you.”

  “Kill me!” Sergeyev screamed at him. He paced over and stood two paces in front of King. “Look around you, dickhead! I am calling the shots! It is I who will kill you!”

  “And you will never see your wife and child again. They are quite safe. For now. But they will die of thirst and starvation before you find them, or before anybody else do
es,” King paused, held up his hand. “You control their fate. Don’t be an idiot. I’ll give you one chance, and one chance only. We’ll put this down to ego, to theatrics. Emotion, even. Now, get your boys to put down their weapons and leave us alone to talk.”

  “Niet!” Sergeyev screamed. He pulled a gold-plated Makarov pistol out of his waistband and aimed it at King.

  Sergeyev went down hard. The bullet striking him in the chest and throwing a mist of crimson in the air. Some of it went on King’s face, but he was already moving and had the shovel in his hands as he rolled back up onto his feet. He saw the bewildered expression on Dimitri’s face, right before he split the big Russian’s head open through to the middle of his face.

  Gunshots echoed out, but these were not the shots that were finding their targets. Instead, two of Sergeyev’s bodyguards went down almost simultaneously. King dug the shovel out of Dimitri’s face, went to swing at the nearest monkey, but the man went down, his head dissolving into a pink mist. King dropped to the ground, scrambled over to Sergeyev and picked up his pistol. He sighted on the last remaining guard, who looked at King in bewilderment, more than anger, and watched him fall into the rear door of the Range Rover, slip to the ground and lie still.

  King was breathing hard. He had no cover, no target to acquire in the pistol’s tiny sights. He stood up slowly, the pistol lowered down by his side.

  The figure rose from a pile of broken branches, twenty-five feet from him and stood still, the rifle held with the muzzle pointed at the ground. He walked over, stepping over one of the dead Russians. He was dressed in an army surplus olive jacket and a pair of tan cargoes. His hair was as black as jet and his dark coffee complexion remained invisible in the dim light, right up until he stood next to King.

  “You cut that fine,” King said.

  “Better late than never,” there was a distinct brummie lilt to his accent.

  “Better never late.”

  The man shrugged, cradled the suppressed M4 rifle. “You didn’t give me much notice. Seems to be a habit. And you still owe me a pint from last time.”

  “I’ll buy you a couple later.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to smuggle one of these out of Hereford? And through the border force lot at Dover?” he raised the rifle, then glanced at Sergeyev on the ground. “You’ve got a live one.”

  King turned around to see the Russian mafia boss trying to push himself backwards across the earth. The fallen pine needles were thick, and they were mounding up around his shoulders. He raised the pistol and Sergeyev stopped moving. He was bleeding heavily from the wound in his chest. The blood was almost black. The bullet had caught his liver.

  “Bastard…” he said, his Russian accent thick and hateful.

  “I gave you a chance. You were too much of a tough guy to take it,” King paused, looked at his companion. “Rashid, find the keys to the Range Rover and let’s get out of here.” He looked back at Sergeyev. “Your wife and child are quite safe. I’ll release them tonight. No harm will, or would ever have come to them. But I’m in a tight spot. Someone who wants you dead is holding my fiancé.”

  “So?” he rasped.

  “Her name is Helena. She is from the Ukraine and she married an English billionaire…”

  “Helena Milankovitch…”

  “You know her then,” he said flatly. “What’s her issue with you?”

  The Russian sneered. He touched his chest, then looked at his blood-soaked hand. He’d seen enough in his violent and unforgiving life to know his fate. He seemed to relax, as if knowing had knocked the fight out of him. “Fuck you,” he grimaced. “Fuck you, and fuck her too…”

  “We’ve got wheels!” Rashid shouted. “Stick a bullet in him and let’s get the hell out of Dodge!”

  King looked down at Sergeyev. He didn’t see the tough and resourceful, unrelenting, unforgiving mafia boss who had risked the life of his wife and child in a show of strength to his men. He saw a dying man, whose violent past had finally caught up with him. Whatever it was, the mention of Helena Milankovitch had taken the wind out of his sails.

  “Your liver has had it,” King said. “You are going to die here, in this clearing. You’re not going to talk about Helena, are you?”

  “Niet!” Sergeyev glowered. His face was ashen, his torso now completely soaked. He forced a smile, perhaps a last-ditch show of bravado. “But mark my words,” he said, his breathing laboured. “If she has your woman, she is as good as dead. You won’t bargain with Helena.” He smiled. “Your bitch is as good as dead…”

  King looked at the Russian, then glanced around the clearing at the bodies strewn on the ground. He shook his head, angered with himself that he had let it get this far, taken this turn of events. He had tried to give a man a chance. Not that the man deserved it. A ruthless individual who would have caused untold pain and suffering to others in his world of organised crime. His quest to become more powerful, ever wealthier, had caused misery for so many. He wasn’t a man who deserved a chance, yet King had attempted to take the moral high ground. To spare a woman the loss of her husband, a child the loss of her father. And when it had come to it, the man had been willing to risk their life for nothing more than his own ego.

  King stared down at Sergeyev, ashamed at deviating from his instructions, from chancing Caroline’s safety, to try and do the right thing. The right thing for a woman and a child he did not know. The right thing was whatever it took to get back the woman he loved. He shot Sergeyev through the forehead, dropped the gold-plated pistol onto the dead man’s chest and walked through the clearing to where Rashid had the Range Rover idling.

  Rashid was searching the radio station for something that wasn’t French folk music. He found a rock channel playing Steppenwolf and Born to be Wild. King got into the passenger side as Rashid put the vehicle into drive and floored the accelerator. The wheels tore up the sandy earth, the pine needles scattering behind them.

  Rashid turned the volume button up on the steering wheel and started to sing, “Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway! Lookin’ for adventure, and whatever comes our way…”

  8

  It was completely dark when they reached Rashid’s car. The SAS soldier was not pleased at leaving the leather throne of the Range Rover, but King had insisted any link to Sergeyev needed to be severed as soon as possible. The Russian mafia boss had many interests in southwest France, and one of his vehicles could easily be identified, especially by the police, which King would assume were privy to what the Russian did, or were in fact on the payroll themselves.

  Rashid had pulled alongside King’s BMW and King had swiftly got in, moved off and taken the lead for him to follow. He led the way out of Biarritz and through Bayonne to the gentle hills a dozen miles from the coast - the foothills of the Pyrenees. There were villages - some as old as the first settlers to the region - others purpose built, full of faux chalets and cottages for the summer tourist season, complete with micro-markets and pharmacies, medical centres and gift shops. Farmhouses dotted the rolling grass hills, visible only by lights shining within.

  King used his phone’s GPS to find the farmhouse. The darkness made it impossible to use the various landmarks he had noted during the day, but as he reached a crossroads with recycling bins packed tightly on the other side of the road, he recognised the farmhouse’s entrance. He turned sharply to the left, crossing over the road and slowed over the potholed track. The farmhouse was the only property on the track. King had earlier scouted out the track, but it merely led to pastures and a large storage shed stacked with the last of the previous year’s haybales.

  King turned into the driveway, the lights of his car illuminating the chalet and its front garden. He switched off the engine, for a moment enjoying the darkness and silence it afforded him. Taking lives was not something that went without reflection. Or at least, not the older one became. It had been so long now, King couldn’t remember if it had always been this way, or merely in recent years. He
liked to hope, that on some level, it had always rested heavily with him. In truth, he suspected it had not. He looked up as Rashid’s headlights swept over the chalet, dazzling him in the mirror. He doubted the young SAS officer was feeling the same way. He imagined him blasting out karaoke renditions to the rock station all the way up here. Hyped up on the adrenalin, trying to maintain its levels with whoops and calls, screams and shouts, playing back the shots in his mind and seeing the men drop as he moved the rifle’s sights to the next unfortunate soul.

  Rashid was a gifted marksman. He was also the first solider of Pakistani extraction to lead an SAS unit in Afghanistan, and had successfully infiltrated ISIS, which he had done by taking up arms against US-led Iraqi troops. A dark time in Hereford’s history, and one that would forever be denied. Rashid had also helped King in both the fight against Muslim extremists and a Russian-sanctioned terrorist plot against Britain. In a world where he had few friends and had left little personal or emotional impression behind, King would call Rashid his closest and most dependable friend. Only now, for the third time in just over a year, he was further in the man’s debt.

  King got out of the car. The air-conditioning had cooled him, and the night air was warm and pleasant. He watched Rashid get out of his car – a ten-year-old Audi A4, that had seen better days – the M4 assault rifle held loosely in his right hand. He was chewing gum and still bobbing to the music, long after the stereo had been switched off. The man was wired and pumped and ready for a war. King wanted him to mellow. In fact, he wanted him out of the way entirely. There was no point in the soldier being a part of what was to happen next.

  “Do a sweep of the area,” King said. “Take up position fifty-metres over there,” he said flicking his head down the road. “Enough to keep eyes on the house, and the road down here.”

  “What will you be doing?” he asked.

  “What needs to be done,” King said.