by Jake Cross
He fell into the back room, tried to get his feet under him like a cat, and half managed it. But his landing was ungraceful. Toni dropped onto the top of the wall, then down into the room, and her transfer had all the grace that Lazar’s had lacked. Which meant she was on her feet before Lazar had even gotten to his knees.
He saw her, and his hand slipped into his jacket, pulled out an extendable baton. She stepped forward, grabbed it, and lifted a knee into his face. He fell back and the baton stayed where it was, now in her hand, not his.
She planted her feet, waist twisting, arm thrown back, ready to deliver a home run to his head. The baton extended at the end of the back swing. She hoped the blow would not kill him: she wanted him alive, watching, feeling, as a blade opened his throat.
His hands came up to cover his face. The baton powered forward. Halfway through its lateral arc, though, her shoulder jerked and pain jumped through her entire arm. The baton jumped off its arc and ruffled Lazar’s blond curls as it passed over his head. She stumbled and dropped to one knee, clutching her shoulder.
Seeing his chance, Lazar twisted on his knees and grabbed the bag, and at least two thousand pounds sterling cracked her in the head and shoulder. The world swam as she fell onto her back.
He was standing over her a second later, showing how well-equipped he had come tonight. First the baton, and now a knife.
‘You know it was me who slit your boyfriend’s throat, right?’ Lazar said, staring down. ‘Let me show you–’
Shouting, bellowing, screaming. Laughter and whistling from some of the more inebriated of the merrymakers. Then the threat of ‘COPS’ took hold in another voice, and another, until it ran rampant throughout the entire crowd. People bolted. The loading dock soon got crammed, so people headed for any nook or cranny that looked like it might offer a way out.
Nate found himself forgotten, thankfully. He looked up at the offices and saw Lazar’s men fleeing also. They thundered down the stairs, and he thought they were coming for him, and maybe they had started with that intention, but they joined the rush of escapees. There was no sign of Lazar.
In the gloom high above, he saw a black shape swing down from the rafters and drop out of sight. Toni. He ran up the stairs and booted open the door of the middle office.
This room was lit by a lamp. He saw three doors, but concentrated on the one in the back wall. Because that was the room he thought he’d seen Toni drop into. The door was padlocked.
‘Let me show you–’ he heard Lazar say from beyond, then the door burst inwards under Nate’s foot, the hasp torn away from the wood.
Lazar was standing over Toni, with a knife. Their gazes met. Nate pulled Buzzcut’s revolver, but he was too slow, and he saw Lazar’s hand delve into his jacket at the same time. He knew the guy would draw quicker, and so he ducked behind the doorway. But no shot was fired.
Nate stuck his arm through the doorway, made sure he aimed at least six feet high because Toni was laying down, and fired two bullets. He hadn’t expected to hit Lazar, but to buy a second in which to poke his head out and see what was what. And what he saw was the night sky beyond an open fire exit in the far wall.
And Toni, squatting, hands over her head, looking his way. And much closer than before to the fire exit. ‘You damn lunatic,’ she yelled, angry and shocked. He knew what had happened.
Lazar had had no gun – why pull a blade if he had a firearm? Delving into his jacket had been a tactic to scare Nate, and it had worked. Lazar had then fled. Toni had started to pursue Lazar, and then hit the deck when Nate started firing blindly.
She rushed through the fire exit and onto a metal landing. Nate joined her. Below, in the grassy area between the building and a dark river, sat the three bikes that had brought Lazar and his henchmen. No sign of Laz–
‘There,’ Toni said, pointing.
A black shape with a bag running along the riverbank, already thirty or forty metres away.
Toni ran down the stairs and Nate followed.
The cops had arrived out front. Six cars, their spinning roof lights washing the building’s walls, reflecting off the glass of the nearby buildings. It was as if the police were throwing their own party. Nate heard shouting and the thud of running feet, and saw uniformed officers chasing inebriated revellers who had no chance of escaping. Nobody came down the side of the building, so without fear of being seen, he and Toni darted towards the neighbouring establishment and behind. Shrouded in blackness, they pounded along the riverbank.
Lazar was fast, despite carrying a bag, and showed no signs of slowing. Forty metres became sixty. They could see him in the moonlight reflected off the river.
‘We’re losing him,’ Nate said. He was dropping behind Toni. But as the noise from behind them faded, Lazar seemed to slow. Toni slowed also and ducked behind a bush. Nate did the same, and just in time: Lazar stopped, turned, paused. Looking for pursuers. They waited. Thirty seconds later, he continued along the riverbank. But now he was walking, not running: obviously he thought he was home free.
‘Hopefully he’ll go right to the big boss in his incriminating evidence-filled lair,’ Nate said.
‘If we run along the front of the buildings, we can get ahead of him,’ Toni said.
‘The cops will see us out there.’
‘You just want to see if he leads us to the big boss.’
‘That’s right. There’s no point leaving Lazar dead in a river if we never find the man paying him.’
‘If he gets away, I’ll blame you.’
‘So will I.’ She looked at him. He saw something in that look that he thought was admiration. She did not say anything else.
They continued to follow Lazar, but slowly, moving amongst the thicker undergrowth closer to the buildings in case he turned to look again. But he believed he had escaped, so he didn’t do anything more than throw the odd look back, and it was too dark for a quick glance to expose them.
Then he moved off the riverbank and vanished down the side of a building. Nate and Toni copied, two buildings separating them from their quarry. Fifty metres. No cops down this end of the industrial estate. Lurking at a corner of the building, they watched Lazar rush across the road like a scared cat and down the flank of a building on the other side. They scarpered across once he was out of sight.
Behind this row of buildings was a chain-link fence, a sports field beyond. They could see a school in the distance. Lazar was sixty metres away, climbing the fence. They watched him walk across the field.
A much greater risk of being spotted if they followed him across the field: brighter, nothing to hide behind. But Lazar got halfway and he hadn’t looked back once. They decided to risk it.
Soon they were treading mown grass out in the open, and even a quick glance back from Lazar would expose them. No glance came. His tradecraft was bad, or his ego dangerously bloated. He reached the playground and aimed for a gap between two buildings.
‘Right here,’ Toni said. ‘Give me the gun. We make him tell us where the big boss is. If he gets to a busy main road, game over.’
Nate sidestepped to create distance between them. He didn’t want Toni trying to wrest the gun from him. ‘No. We follow.’
‘You came full-circle. From wanting to clear your name, to revenge, and back to doing the right thing.’
‘Lazar’s not waking up tomorrow,’ Nate said. ‘You’ll get your fantasy. Try a little patience for once.’
She said nothing further, and there was no attempt to wrestle the gun from him.
From behind a stone bike shed, nervous as petting schoolkids, they watched Lazar climb a set of wrought-iron gates in a brick wall as high as his head. Beyond was the main road: they could see the aura of headlights, and the passage of bigger vehicles.
‘Last chance,’ Toni said. ‘If he gets away…’
For the first time in a long time, her threat carried a serious tone. He believed she might try to hurt him if Lazar got away. But Nate had endured so much over the l
ast few days that he wasn’t bothered. Civilian life might have mellowed him, but he’d re-entered the fog of war recently. He told Toni to shut up, and his tone wasn’t that of a wet businessman. She opened her mouth to object, and he said, ‘I want the big boss. If you let him get away…’
Lazar dropped over the gate and was gone. They broke cover and ran to the wall, avoiding the gate. They peeked over like nosey kids. Lazar was on the other side of the main road. At a bus stop!
A bus arrived.
Blocked from his view by the vehicle, they clambered over the wall and darted across the road. Lazar was already on the bus. Through the windows, they watched his brightly lit form vanish up the stairs to the top deck.
They got on behind a black guy with a guide dog. Nate paid with loose coins from his pocket. They found empty seats near the back, same side as the stairs so they’d be beyond the peripheral vision of anyone coming down to the lower deck.
Nate took the window and expected Toni to sit beside him, but she knelt across his lap, facing him.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, aware of glances from the few other passengers. But they looked away quickly. In London at night, you didn’t stare if you wanted a peaceful life.
‘Playing the role of a loved-up couple.’ She linked her fingers behind his neck.
‘Cool it,’ he hissed. It was too intense. People kept glancing. He waited for someone to recognise him as that bloody killer guy off telly who had gone and chopped up his brother.
‘My arm’s dislocated again.’ He looked at her face, saw it creased in pain. ‘Damn baseball you warned me about. Use your basic knowledge of physics again.’
‘Not here.’
‘I’m not getting off until you do.’
An old couple on the other side had their faces turned to the window, but he suspected they were watching his reflection. He put his hands on Toni’s breasts. And pushed. He felt the jerk of her shoulder. She yelped. Heads turned. With her ass on his lap, and that noise, God knew how this looked. She collapsed into him, head on his shoulder.
‘You went two inches lower,’ she said into his neck. ‘I should crush your nose with my forehead.’
Lazar got off just a few minutes later. He came down with his head bowed, as if, like Nate, he feared being recognised. No look around the bus: no fear that he had enemies close. Again, bad tradecraft or bloated ego. He got off. Nate and Toni let three other people get off, then stepped onto the street behind them. Lazar had turned left, so they turned right. From behind a freestanding digital advertising board, they watched the bus move away to reveal Lazar crossing the road.
They followed him along the road, staying on the opposite side. Here, there were restaurants and late-night shops and the trade was bustling, which was good because Lazar had either suppressed his ego or remembered a couple of Robert Ludlum novels he’d read: he kept glancing around. But they hung back, walked alongside pedestrians, and kept street furniture between them and their target, and he had no chance of spotting them unless he stopped and really stared. Which he didn’t.
Three minutes later, he turned down a side street. At the corner, they glanced down a road of terraced houses, and just in time to see him take another turn. They gave him thirty seconds and then followed.
It wasn’t a corner as such, but a break in the terraces where a recessed building sat behind a flower-bordered lawn. A three-storey block of flats, pale red brick, with blue window frames and a bright green door of glass. And a key fob entry system. As they arrived, the door was just closing behind Lazar. Two seconds later he was gone.
As one, they looked up. They were waiting to see if any of the dark windows lit up. But nothing had changed five minutes later. Either the guy was sitting in the dark, or he’d already left his light on. Of course, he might not have entered one of the flats at all.
A guy in a British Gas uniform appeared at the door, opened it, stepped out. But then he watched the door swinging closed.
‘Stay here,’ Toni said. She rushed towards the gas man, waving her hand, saying something about a lost key. The gas man stopped the door with his hand. She went in and thanked him and vanished. The gas man let the door swing shut, and pushed it to make sure it was locked, and then left. Ten seconds later, just as Nate was beginning to think that Toni had abandoned him so he wouldn’t stop her killing Lazar, she reappeared and opened the door.
There was a lift and a set of stairs, and a list of residents. The names were on pieces of card slotted behind glass. Sixteen spaces. The flats were all on the first and second floors, eight at the front, eight at the back.
‘Back row,’ Toni said. Nate nodded. No light had come on in the front-facing flats.
Of the eight at the back, only two didn’t have names written on the cards. The others were in different scripts, suggesting the residents had written their own. Both empty ones were on the second floor. And both were at the end of the row. Nate tapped the one on the corner.
‘That one, because he wouldn’t want neighbours.’
They went up the stairs and into a corridor lined with blue doors. They approached the nameless end flat. In the end wall was a window looking over the back gardens of the terraced houses.
The front door had a lever lock door handle, surprisingly. Luckily. Toni grabbed it and turned it slowly before Nate could stop her. The door was not locked.
‘Maybe–’ he said, and that was all he got by way of a warning before Toni opened the door all the way and stepped inside.
A hallway. Bare, not even a carpet. Instantly, Nate knew that this was a temporary place for Lazar. Just a place to crash so he could be closer to… who or whatever. Or maybe it was a hub for something, a hideout for many. They heard no voices, but the noises of movement.
Two doors in the right wall, two in the left, and one dead ahead. Similar design to Olcay’s cheaper flat, which would make the room ahead a living room. The only open door was in the right wall. They approached slowly, careful not to make a noise on the tiled floor.
Nate pulled the gun, and Toni snatched it off him.
‘We get information first,’ he mouthed at her. She ignored him and turned away and stepped ahead of him. He couldn’t do anything about it in case he alerted Lazar.
It was a bedroom. Lazar was facing the bed, sideways on to them, bent over a suitcase laying on the quilt, stuffing the money from the other bag into it.
‘I hear hell’s hot this time of year,’ she said.
Lazar jumped and went for his knife even as he turned his head to see who had accosted him. The shock on his face when he saw Nate and Toni was a picture. Toni was already pointing the pistol at him. He froze, then put his hands up. One still held the knife.
‘You caught me just doing an overnight bag for my sick mother. Hospital.’
‘Back against the window. Face it. Knife down.’
Lazar moved back until his ass touched the sill. Then he turned around, but corkscrewed his neck so he could still watch his unwelcome guests. His hands were still up, and still he clutched the knife. ‘What was the third one?’ he said with a grin. You couldn’t doubt the guy’s balls. But he dropped the knife two seconds later.
‘Search the case,’ she told Nate. He tipped it out. Nothing but money and clothing. Nothing else. Lazar was planning to flee the city, maybe the country, just as Ryback had planned to. Before he got killed.
‘I don’t know what you think you know,’ Lazar said. ‘But you’ve got a gold-standard in wrongness.’
Nate said, ‘I know you killed my brother, and Toni’s partner, and that puts you in a world of shit.’
Lazar turned around. No-one objected. Still that grin slicing his face. ‘Enjoy jail for that, won’t you?’
‘I’m not going to jail. Because you’re going to tell the police, your brothers in blue, all about what you did.’
Surprise there, as if Lazar hadn’t known that Nate knew he was a cop.
‘What happened at HyperX, Lazar?’ Nate said. He saw Lazar�
��s eyes drop to the knife. No, not the knife. Higher. Something on the bed. Nate looked. He saw, amongst the clothing, a tiny flash drive. He picked it up.
‘Fuck it,’ Lazar said, still grinning. ‘Why not, eh? Can’t hurt. Laptop’s in the living room. Grab some popcorn.’
‘Get it,’ Toni said to Nate.
‘Screen’s knackered,’ Lazar said. ‘It’s hooked up to the TV. Can’t bring it in here.’
‘Living room it is,’ Toni said. ‘But I’ll check it first. Make sure there isn’t a pit of snakes trap waiting for us.’
She gave Nate the gun, told him to hold it on Lazar and to shoot the guy’s balls of if he moved. She took the knife and left the bedroom.
‘She’s only using you, you know?’ Lazar said.
‘Keep going. You’re close. Another couple of sentences designed to make me turn on her, and I’ll probably be unable to stop myself going in there and shooting her dead.’
Lazar said nothing further. A minute later, Toni was back. She took the gun from Nate.
‘Clean,’ she said. ‘No secret gun that he can shoot us with.’
Nate went first and waited just inside the doorway while Lazar came, on his hands and knees like a dog, as ordered. Behind him, at a safe distance, Toni followed with the gun aimed at his ass.
The living room had no furniture apart from a two-seater sofa and a coffee table with a TV and a laptop on it. No carpet here, either. The room stank of cigarette smoke and there were overspilling ashtrays around, and empty beer cans. Lazar looked too fresh-faced and healthy to be a smoker and a heavy drinker, so maybe he held parties or meetings.
Lazar climbed onto the sofa like a naughty dog before anyone could object, as if he thought all three of them would sit side by side to view whatever was on the flash drive. He sat right in the middle, so that the seam between the cushions was between his spread legs. He put his hands on his knees.
‘What’s on this?’ Nate asked him, holding up the flash drive.
