by Dan Latus
Then things changed.
‘John!’ Sam called urgently from downstairs. ‘We have company.’
He darted to the window and glanced out across the valley. Then he grimaced and swore softly. It was what he had feared and dreaded might happen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They lost him on the escarpment, and they couldn’t track in the dark once they no longer had a thermal image. So they stayed where they were, and waited. They waited for daybreak.
Three, maybe four hours it would be, Kuznetsov said. The others nodded and settled down to make the best of it. They could do that. They were men with a lot of experience of mountain battlefields. This hill country was easy for them after the North Caucasus.
Kuznetsov phoned Yugov on his sat phone.
‘Well, you know what to do,’ Yugov said. ‘I must return now. Things are happening. Do what you have to do, and then get out of there. Come back to join me as soon as you can.’
Kuznetsov said they would. Then he switched off and settled down like the others to an impromptu bivouac amongst the rocks at the foot of the escarpment. They were out of the wind and much of the rain. They could wait for daylight. Their quarry would not escape. They were used to pursuit, and used to killing. They had been doing it for a long time. This chase would end like all the others.
As the light started to spread over the land they began to stir. They had neither food nor drink with them, but it was of no concern. They were accustomed to that. They were used to eating and drinking when they could, and to doing without when they could not. It made little difference to them, or to their effectiveness. They were from a hard school.
In growing light they spread out along the foot of the escarpment, looking for tracks. It was Yudin who found them. He studied them for a few moments. Then he signalled the others with a sharp whistle. They gathered together, spoke briefly and then set off to see where the tracks led.
Tait had done his best to avoid leaving footprints. Mostly he had trod on heather and grass, and left little trace. Just occasionally he had left a boot mark in mud. It was easy to follow his progress, although sometimes it was slow going.
After a couple of hours they neared a ruined building. Kuznetsov called a halt. He studied the building carefully before making a cautious approach. It was a waste of time. There was no-one there.
‘Maybe he met the woman here?’ Volkov suggested. ‘The woman and the boy?’
‘Maybe,’ Kuznetsov said, shaking his head as if to say it was unlikely. ‘No footprints. Could the woman and the boy have got here anyway, on their own?’
No-one replied. No-one knew the answer to that question, but they all knew it was unlikely.
Kuznetsov looked around the interior of the ruined building for a few minutes. Then he skirted the outside, eyes glued to the ground.
‘There was no-one here,’ he announced finally. ‘He came here, I think, possibly expecting to meet someone – the woman and the boy, perhaps, as you suggested, Volkov – but they were not here. So then he turned round and left. I can find only his footprints. They come here, and then they go away again.’
‘So where are they?’ Yudin asked.
Kuznetsov shrugged.
‘Maybe they went back to the house?’ Volkov suggested.
‘I think not,’ Kuznetsov said. ‘But I will call Belkin to make sure.’
‘If he’s woken up yet!’ Yudin sniggered.
Kuznetsov smiled his agreement. ‘He’s getting soft, old Belkin. Letting a man like this hit him so hard? He should remember his army training. Remember Chechnya. We all should. Maybe we’re all getting soft. No more though,’ he added with a gleam in his eye. ‘We are close now. We will soon have what we need.’
We had better, he thought. Yugov was never patient with failure.
They spread out again and returned to tracking their prey. It wasn’t so easy now. Tait had set off on his new journey along a much-travelled, compacted, stony track. They needed to know whether he had stayed on that track or diverted at some point and taken yet another path.
Eventually, they were standing on the ridge overlooking the Taits’ house again. Yudin ran down the hill to check the house. He found no-one there. Not even Belkin, he reported when he returned.
Kuznetsov weighed it up, and decided Belkin had probably recovered and gone to the airport to join Yugov. Otherwise, he would still be where they had left him, or nearby. The important point was that Tait had not returned. Nor had the woman and the boy.
‘We will search again, and find these people,’ he told the others. ‘Yugov expects us to get what he needs from them.’
They knew that. They hadn’t really needed to be told.
So they spread out once more and began to quarter the moor systematically, in daylight now, gradually spreading further and further afield.
It was Yudin who, several hours later, spotted a building in a nearby valley. He studied it for a few minutes. There was no sign of life there. Probably abandoned, he decided. To make sure, he began to descend the hillside.
Halfway down he came across a wide patch of muddy ground, just below a spring where water bubbled to the surface. That was where he saw recent tracks, a lot of them. People had come this way, and not long ago.
He stared down at the old house again and nodded. It made sense. They must be there. They had to be. Nobody else would have come this way in the last few hours, and there was nowhere else for them to be. He pulled out his phone and called Kuznetsov.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He saw what Sam meant. A man was approaching the front of the house. Tough looking and vigilant, he came forward purposefully. He knows we’re here, he thought. If he’s one of Yugov’s men from last night, he won’t be alone either.
He motioned Sam to collect Kyle and move aside. Then he opened the front door and stood facing the visitor. The man stopped, about ten yards away.
‘Tait?’
John nodded.
‘I want to talk to your woman,’ the newcomer said in a gruff voice.
Not English, obviously. Heavy accent.
‘My wife, you mean? What about?’
‘The message is for her ears alone.’
Good English, but possibly a Russian speaker.
‘You can tell me.’
‘Only your wife. Don’t make this more difficult than it already is.’
‘It’s not going to happen, pal. I suggest you clear off. Who are you anyway?’
‘We have no time to waste. I want you to know that before anything else happens.’
John shook his head. ‘Like I said, no way. Now piss off.’
Then two other figures came into view, one from each side of the house. The three of them spoke together in Russian. John understood parts of it. He understood that the main one wanted to know if the woman was here, and one of the others said he’d seen her through the window.
Damn! They didn’t have a leg to stand on now, John thought desperately. They knew who was inside the house.
The main man turned back to him. ‘One last time. We will speak to your woman, whether you want us to or not. Yes?’
John stood his ground and shook his head. ‘Anything you want to say, you can say to me.’
Two of them came for him then, one from each side. Strong men, trained fighters. The doorway was no place to take them on, but it was the two of them coming together that undid him.
He sidestepped one, only for the other to grab him in a bear hug. He managed to knee one in the groin. Then there followed a couple of heavy blows that took the wind out of him. Another one sent him crashing to the ground, where he took a bit of a kicking.
When he recovered enough to look up, it was to see one of the men dragging Sam and Kyle out of the house, both of them screaming. Sick at heart, he tried to get to his feet, only to receive another kicking.
Through his daze, he heard the main man confronting Sam and demanding in Russian to know the whereabouts of something or other. He w
anted the key, as well. John understood that much, if not much else. But why ask her?
‘Stop!’ he croaked. ‘It was me that took it. She can’t tell you where it is. I’m the one—’
Another kick to the head scrambled his senses all over again and shut him up.
Sam screamed and hurled herself forward, trying to protect him. ‘He doesn’t know anything!’ she insisted.
‘It’s down to you, then,’ the main man said equably. ‘Tell me where the key is. Tell me what I want to know. Then we will leave you in peace.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Sam spat at him. ‘You will kill us, just as you killed my father all those years ago.’
‘You will tell us. Sooner or later, you will beg to tell us. I promise you that.’
Sam glowered at him.
John tried to follow what was going on, failingly miserably. Why wouldn’t they listen to him? It was him, not Sam, they wanted.
Kuznetsov nodded to one of his men, who snatched Kyle away from Sam. She screamed and tried to reach her son but the other man pulled her by the hair and jammed a knee into her back to hold her off balance.
‘You will tell us,’ Kuznetsov said calmly. He took out a gun. ‘First I shoot a few bullets into your man, and then I ask you again. If you still say no, then I kill him, and start on the boy. After that, we may have sex with you or not, but either way I will keep asking until you tell us what we want to know. Am I clear?’
Sam stared defiantly at him.
‘OK. We start with him.’
Kuznetsov stepped forward and leant towards John, who stared into his eyes but found no comfort there. This man meant what he said.
The pistol in Kuznetsov’s right hand spoke and John gasped and arched his back with the agony in his left arm.
‘That’s one arm,’ Kuznetsov said with satisfaction. He straightened up, turned to a horrified, speechless Sam and said, ‘Next a leg, do you think?’
Before she could speak, or scream, Kuznetsov’s head exploded. Bone and other matter flew and spattered in all directions. Blood spouted out of his decapitated torso before it slumped to the ground.
John hurled himself sideways in a reflex action, long before his brain had begun to analyse what had just happened. The pain from his shoulder convulsed him for a moment. When he looked up, he saw Sam standing frozen, horror stricken, and Kyle reaching for her.
Then he saw the two other men, both with guns in their hands. One started towards the door, only to collapse, arms flung wide, as if hit in the back by an avalanche. The second man collapsed a half second later, with half his head missing.
He gasped with shock. Blood and shit all over the place. In the background, he heard gunshots. The second man fell on top of him. By the time he had recovered enough to push him off, Sam had grabbed Kyle and was desperately trying to shield him with her body.
John struggled to his knees, then his feet and got himself upright. He glanced at the bodies all around him without understanding. Then he dived towards his wife and son, clamped his good arm around them and tried to push them towards the open doorway and into the house. Sam moved a short distance and then stood her ground. She wouldn’t go any further.
He buried his face in her hair and briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw that she was staring past him. He turned to see yet another man walking towards them, this one older and bulkier, and carrying a rifle.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It took Riley several hours, but eventually he thought he had found something. It wasn’t much. Just an occasional boot mark pointing west. The same boot. One man. He guessed it was Tait.
By then, he was well out of the main search area. He pulled out his map and consulted it. Then he squinted into the distance. There was a little valley over there, and some sort of building near the head of it. Worth a look.
A little further on he came across more footprints, prints made by different boots. He nodded with satisfaction. It looked as though Tait had come this way. It also looked like Kuznetsov might be on to him. Interesting.
There was just the one building in the valley, an old stone farmhouse. It didn’t look as if farm people lived there now. Working farms were surrounded by out-buildings, barns and equipment. Livestock even, and mud. This one wasn’t. From his position high on the valley side, it looked empty and disused. Abandoned? Perhaps.
When he saw three figures manoeuvring down below, he brought out his scope and focussed. One of them was Kuznetsov. He recognized him from the photo he’d sent Ted.
He nodded. His guess had been right. They had been on to him, and now they’d found him. Tait must be in the old farmhouse.
What now? He watched with interest as Kuznetsov approached the house, and the scene below began to unfold.
To his surprise, the woman and the boy appeared, as well as Tait. This was a long way for them to have come by themselves. How the hell had they managed it?
Well, here they were, along with Tait. And Kuznetsov and his buddies.
Some sort of discussion took place. Not negotiations. More a set of demands from Kuznetsov, it looked like. No doubt he wanted the money Tait had taken from Olsson. He was in a hurry. He’d come a long way for it. As near as he could make out, Tait told him to get lost.
Not very smart. Riley shook his head. Still, what else could he do? Tait was outnumbered. Worse than that, he was up against tough people, and handicapped by having his family with him. It was easy to see what was going to come next. Kuznetsov wasn’t going to leave without the money, or some way of getting it.
Himself, in this situation, he would have threatened the wife or the kid, or both together. Not many family men would be able to withstand that sort of pressure. Instead, Kuznetsov was threatening the guy, Tait. It didn’t make a lot of sense.
Tait’s situation was pretty desperate. He would know none of them was going to be alive still when Kuznetsov left. There wasn’t much doubt about that. So he would be playing for time, desperate to keep them all alive as long as he could.
The question, George Riley decided, was what, if anything, was he going to do about it? He sat back on his heels and mulled it over. Like Kuznetsov, seemingly, he wanted Tait dead – but only eventually. First, he wanted to know why he’d killed Jack Olsson. And he wanted to know what he’d done with the money as well.
Kuznetsov was fixing to shoot Tait, now they’d beaten him up a little. But if he let Kuznetsov shoot Tait, he would never get answers to those questions. They would stay with him, and bother him, forever more. Ted Pearson might be happy, but he wouldn’t be.
Plus Kuznetsov looked like a nasty piece of shit anyway, just like his boss, Yugov. There wouldn’t be anything good about what Kuznetsov and Yugov wanted.
With a reluctant sigh, he reached for his rifle.
Chapter Thirty
‘Inside,’ the newcomer said, pointing with his rifle. ‘It’s kind of messy out here.’
Sam grabbed Kyle and rushed into the house.
John stood his ground. His vision was clearing and the pounding in his head was slowing. His shoulder was shrieking with pain but he tried to ignore it.
‘You did this?’ he asked, gesturing all around at the messiness.
‘Inside,’ the man said, pointing with his rifle. ‘Now!’
John hesitated still. The tone wasn’t friendly. If anything, it was icy. The newcomer might have saved his life, but he probably hadn’t come with that in mind. It was just something that had happened. Inexplicable things happened on battlefields, and that’s what this was – a battlefield.
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Your guardian angel, maybe?’
‘I don’t think so. But thank you anyway. You saved my life.’
‘For the moment. Now get inside.’
‘They would have killed us all.’
‘I know,’ the newcomer said without much interest. ‘But I couldn’t let them do that. I wanted to talk to you first.’
It wasn’t a ve
ry comforting explanation, but there was no doubt he owed the man. Also, the man had a rifle pointing at him. His shoulder wasn’t good, either. He could feel blood running down his arm, as well as the pain. So he acceded and went inside to join his family.
‘Ma’am,’ the newcomer said, touching his hat with a forefinger, ‘is there someplace else you can take your boy? I need to talk to your husband.’
‘Of course,’ Sam said calmly. ‘We’re in your debt. Thank you.’
John could see that she, too, was puzzled by the newcomer’s icily polite manner. She understood well enough what he had done for them, though.
‘Why do you want to talk to my husband alone?’ she asked as she took Kyle by the hand.
‘Ma’am,’ he said patiently.
‘Sam, just take Kyle upstairs out of the way,’ John said gently. ‘I’m OK with this.’
She looked questioningly at him. He nodded. She scooped up Kyle and headed for the stairs.
‘So?’ John said.
The rifle was still trained on him, he noted. This didn’t look like it was going to be a very friendly conversation.
‘That arm hurt much?’
‘A bit.’
He was damned if he was going to admit it was throbbing like hell and worrying him a lot.
‘Did you know those guys out there?’ the man said, nodding over his shoulder.
‘Not personally, no.’
‘But you know who sent them?’
John nodded. There was no point lying. Better to get this over.
‘My wife spotted their boss in the village. She recognized him. That’s why she fled with our son. They’re a bad bunch. Well, they were.’
‘Amen to that. But you’re no different, are you?’
‘How’s that?’
‘I think you know what I’m getting at.’
John sighed wearily. ‘So you, too, came for the money? How the hell did you all find out about it after all this time?’
The newcomer shook his head. ‘What I want to know is why you killed Jack Olsson. So it was for the money, was it? Not for any other reason?’
The penny dropped. Ah! Jack Olsson, the name he had taken possession of for a few hours, many years ago. American, as was this man standing here in front of him. It was starting to make sense. Some of it, at least.
