Exile

by James Swallow

  There was a long silence. ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Because I’m outside the apartment block right now. And the dog and his pal are sniffing around in there. I did warn you before.’

  There was a rattle as Bojan put his hand over the phone’s pickup in an attempt to muffle it, but Horvat still heard him giving angry orders. He heard the screech of brakes and the distant complaint of car horns. A door slammed and he caught something about the van, get them back there, hurry up.

  After a moment, the elder Kurjak was talking to him again. ‘Listen to me,’ Bojan said carefully. ‘You go up to the door and you wait there, out of sight. My men are coming. You tell them what you know and clean this up for us.’

  Horvat gave an airy sigh, reaching for a ski mask in the glove compartment. ‘What about my fee?’ He shifted his jacket, feeling the weight of the unregistered revolver in his pocket.

  ‘Earn it,’ Bojan told him, and cut the line.

  *

  Pavic took point, drawing his semi-automatic and holding it close to his body as they advanced up the stairs. He threw Marc a quick look and frowned. ‘You didn’t bring a weapon?’

  Marc shook his head. Back in the rooming house where he lived, there was a stun gun hidden in the nightstand, but it did little good for him there. ‘I never was someone who shot people for a living, Luka.’ He grimaced at the smell of paint fumes that lingered all around them in the stairwell.

  Pavic gave a vague shrug and continued on and up. ‘That won’t give bad men any pause.’ He was matter-of-fact about it in a way that didn’t make Marc feel any less vulnerable.

  As they emerged on the fourth floor, the wind was starting to pick up. The cold breeze coming in across the city off the Dalmatian Coast was bringing in rain clouds, and the air was growing chilly. Around them, the plastic sheath over the scaffold supports was rippling, cracking against the steel poles. Marc held his breath and strained to listen, but all he heard was the rush of traffic out on the street below.

  ‘Look around,’ he told Pavic. ‘You see any clues, sing out.’

  ‘Don’t get into trouble without me,’ grinned the younger man, and he made his way up the central corridor that bisected the layout of the floor.

  Each level of the Dolphin Apartments had eight flats, four on either side – but the Kurjaks’ workers had hammered their way through all the partitioning walls from one side to the other, making the spaces into large open voids supported by thick concrete pillars. Similarly, there were square holes cut in the floor and ceiling that might have accommodated a new elevator shaft or service trunk, but for now were gaping pits that went all the way down to the basement-level parking garage. Marc gave them a wide berth and ventured in the direction of the balconies, making his way past pallets loaded with sheetrock panels and breeze blocks. Inert gas-powered work lamps were set up here and there, all covered in a layer of brick dust.

  Marc paused in the middle of the open area and drew the S60 smartphone from his jacket’s inside pocket. He took a few shots of the space, switching to thermal mode in the vain hope of spotting something that might stand out. Turning in a slow circle, he peered at the ill-defined images of cool sea greens and cobalt blues, the objects all around him rendered into visual representations of their surface temperature.

  Something nearby flickered and registered with the digital camera: a faint pool of fading yellow atop a metal bench. Uncertain of what he was seeing, Marc moved closer.

  He heard Pavic’s footsteps as the police officer came in from the far end of the open area. ‘What have you got?’ he called.

  ‘Heat.’ Marc put his fingertips in the hot-spot. By touch, it didn’t feel that much warmer to him, but the camera didn’t lie. ‘Something was here, all right.’

  A distant metallic clank sounded several floors below them, the sound carrying up the concrete stairwell. Both men exchanged a look. ‘The wind,’ offered Pavic. He was more interested in the thermal image the phone was showing him.

  An unpleasant thought pushed its way to the front of Marc’s mind, and he switched modes on the device, activating a different application. ‘We know what games the Kurjaks like to play, yeah?’ he said, asking the question without really needing an answer. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘What is that you are doing?’ said Pavic.

  ‘The thing about digital cameras,’ Marc told him, ‘is that they don’t work like film cameras do. Light particles bounce off a circuit, not film. Computer turns that into an image. But light isn’t the only thing they can pick up.’ He set a program called CellRAD running. ‘See, gamma rays are just a different kind of high-energy photons, after all . . .’

  ‘You’re talking about radiation.’ Pavic’s enthusiasm slipped a little. ‘Up here?’

  The smartphone let out a low warning tone, and showed Marc a pop-up window with the words RADIOLOGICAL DETECTION EVENT in large and unfriendly letters. His blood chilled and he backed away a few steps without even realising he had done so.

  ‘Shit.’ He told Pavic what it meant – that someone had placed a powerful radioactive source on the workbench within the past few hours. ‘Reckon we can guess the rest.’

  The policeman nodded grimly. ‘So the Kurjaks are up to their old tricks again? Selling counterfeits to murderous idiots?’

  Marc shook his head and slipped the phone back into his pocket, his throat suddenly desert dry. Pavic wasn’t quite getting it. ‘Luka, mate, it’s more than that. This reading? Its way higher than anything some fake-bake would put out. This is like dirty bomb levels of nasty.’

  Pavic looked around, weighing the seriousness of Marc’s words. ‘Call it in. This is more than we can handle –’

  This time the sound from the stairwell was clearer, closer and followed by a scrape that could only be a boot catching on the bare concrete floor of the corridor.

  *

  ‘Bojan says you tell us what to do,’ whispered the thug with the heavy shotgun. He didn’t appear to like the idea.

  Horvat had seen big full-auto weapons like the man’s gun before, resembling the bulked-up silhouette of an assault rifle. He knew from experience how lethal they could be. He pulled down the ski mask over his faced and smiled. ‘Kill them both.’

  ‘I thought we’re supposed to take them back?’ said the other man, a thin-faced Serb who carried a dented aluminium baseball bat.

  ‘Bojan told you to listen,’ Horvat hissed. ‘Don’t tell me how to do my job. Waste those fools and destroy the evidence.’

  ‘Okay.’ The one with the gun seemed like the simple type, and he didn’t wait for any further instructions. Coming up out of the stairwell, he went for one of the apartment doors that was still set on its frame and let the auto-shotgun reduce it to matchwood with three blasts of double-aught buckshot.

  Horvat had his revolver drawn and he followed the thug with the bat into the open area beyond the corridor. Two figures were caught framed against the light bleeding in from the city outside, and Horvat’s grin widened. The fates had to be smiling on him, to grant him the chance to cross off the dog-faced Englishman and that muscle-bound sergeant at the same time. Even better that the Kurjaks would be paying him to do so.

  *

  The gun blasts were peals of low thunder that echoed off the bare walls of the building, and Marc flinched back in shock as a man in a dark red tracksuit came charging in over the ruined door blown off its hinges. He held a USAS-12 combat shotgun at his hip, sweeping the room for targets, and behind him were two more men coming in to back up the shooter.

  Pavic spun and aimed his service pistol, throwing up his badge with his other hand. ‘Policija!’ He bellowed the words across the room. ‘Baci oružje!’

  The command had absolutely no effect. The shotgunner fired in their direction in another booming three-round burst, and Marc instinctively dove for cover behind a crate of building supplies. He heard lead pellets whistle and clatter off the concrete supports around him as he hit the fl
oor in an awkward scramble.

  Pavic wasn’t with him. His breath caught and he twisted back in the direction he had come, fearing the worst – but the police officer had leapt the other way, running between cube-shaped piles of bricks a few metres away.

  There was another shout, and more words in Croatian that Marc couldn’t follow. The intention was clear enough, however, and it ended with them dead. These men had to be Kurjak muscle sent in to silence them, and they were blocking the path down the stairs.

  Need a weapon. The impulse flashed through Marc’s mind and he grabbed at the first offensive-looking thing within reach, a two-metre length of scaffold pole. He barely got a grip on it before one of the Kurjak thugs was rushing him.

  The fact that it wasn’t the shotgunner saved his life. The thug committed to a looping swing with the metal baseball bat in his hand, and Marc inelegantly deflected it with the edge of the pole.

  He tried to bring the pole around again, but it was heavier than it looked and the momentum was all off. The man with the bat used his weapon in a forward stabbing motion that put it squarely in Marc’s sternum.

  Winded, he stumbled over a pallet. The thug rolled the baseball bat around in a showy loop and brought it down in a plunging arc, aiming for a point in the middle of Marc’s face.

  Marc still had a grip on the length of scaffold and brought it up across his chest to block the falling blow before it could connect. The impact juddered through his wrists and, belatedly, it shocked his muscle memory into action. Adapting one of the Krav Maga moves Pavic had taught him, Marc pushed up and angled the pole into a sliding strike that cracked the thug’s shins. He went down, losing the bat along the way.

  Marc let the pole drop, ignoring the stress it had put on his grip, and followed up with a savage one-two punch to keep the Kurjak thug down on the floor. He landed the blows, but the third man in the shadows was already drawing a bead on him, and a heavy-calibre shot rang out. Marc heard the wasp hum of the round as it narrowly missed him and he reacted without thinking, going for cover once again, putting distance between them.

  He dared to glance over his shoulder and saw a masked face and the glint of light off a gun. The outline of the man, and a familiar shit-eating grin on his lips, betrayed him. Horvat. That son of a bitch!

  The crooked cop gave him little time to react. Another round cracked into the floor near Marc’s feet and he was forced to run on, toward the far end where Pavic was exchanging fire with the shotgunner.

  Marc saw the young policeman telegraph his next action and pop up from behind his meagre cover. He shouted a warning, but Pavic was already moving.

  The thug with the shotgun was waiting for him, and he fired off the last shells in the USAS-12’s magazine in a single roaring discharge. Pavic squeezed the trigger of his HS2000 pistol in the same instant, and Marc saw the moment unfold through a lens of adrenaline-distorted perception.

  Pavic’s snap shot went straight through the soft tissues of the shotgunner’s throat and the shooter reeled back, slumping over into one of the access holes cut through the floor. Man and gun disappeared into the building’s lower levels.

  But the rounds he had fired hit home. Pavic’s right side was raked by a cloud of buckshot, shredding his jacket and the flesh beneath, clawing his face into a red mess. The policeman crashed to the floor and Marc sprinted toward him, his heart pounding.

  Blood oozed from Pavic’s cheek and shoulder, from the ruin of his right ear, and Marc fought down a jolt of terror as he clamped his hand around the other man’s throat. Mercifully, the buckshot had not opened a major artery, but the policeman was twitchy with shock, and blood loss could still end him easily enough if he remained here.

  Pavic tried to speak as Marc dragged him back behind a low workbench. He ignored him, snatching up the pistol Pavic had dropped when he was hit, and blind-firing in the direction of the other Kurjak thugs. Shots came back at him in answer, and he ducked again. Less than a minute had passed since the first round had been fired, and already it felt like an eternity.

  *

  Horvat drew back into cover and swung out the cylinder on his revolver, letting the spent shells within fall into his open palm. He snapped in fresh reloads as the thin-faced Serb limped painfully toward him. ‘You’re what Bojan considers good?’ He looked the thug up and down and gave a snort. ‘Pissants.’

  ‘Fuck you, old man,’ growled the Serb. ‘How many bullets did you waste missing him?’

  Horvat tensed, momentarily on the verge of cracking the other man across the face with his pistol. He reigned in the violent urge and grew a sneer. ‘Your playmate is dead, and I’m getting bored with this shit.’ He strode back out into the corridor, searching the shadowed corners.

  ‘The cop is hit, probably dying,’ said the Serb, grimacing with each step he took. ‘What are you doing?’ He jerked his thumb at the room behind them. ‘They’re back there. We have to finish them off!’

  ‘I intend to.’ Horvat found what he was looking for among dozens of drums of weatherproof paint, and dragged a container into the middle of the corridor.

  The can stank of solvents, and he kicked it over, sending a gush of oily paint thinners out across the floor. The fluid pooled around the foot of the inert elevator banks and dripped down into the stairwell.

  Horvat found his cigarette lighter and thumbed it to life. ‘Get moving, unless you want to burn with them.’

  The thug’s eyes widened and his injured leg suddenly became the least of his concerns. Horvat followed him down the stairs, pausing only to toss the lighter up, into the puddle of liquid.

  *

  A bright yellow flash of ignition washed out from the corridor and through the open doors, and Marc held up a hand to his face as pungent chemical fumes filled the building. Cans of cheap, solvent-heavy paint popped and cracked with the surge of heat, and the fire took hold in seconds, reaching out to consume whatever fuel it could find.

  ‘What . . . is happening?’ Pavic coughed up a mouthful of pink foam. ‘I can’t . . . see . . .’ His eyes were losing focus.

  ‘Never mind that.’ Marc shouldered him up to his feet. ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Have to,’ Pavic told him, gasping at the pain. There was a wet rattle to his words that made Marc fear for the damage that had been done to his friend.

  The fire churned in the corridor, spewing acrid smoke that drifted past them and out into the air through the open balconies. ‘Can’t get down that way,’ said Marc, nodding toward the stairwell. He looked around. The access chutes in the floor would be a straight fall to a broken neck. That left the scaffolding surrounding the building. ‘You’re not going to like this, mate. We have to climb down the outside. You up for it?’

  Pavic wheezed and managed a nod. ‘This is not . . . like those American films where the man . . . He says, Leave me behind, I’ll slow you down. I’m not going to die in here!’

  ‘Yeah, me neither. Come on then.’

  Together, they lurched out onto the balcony. Below, some of the evening traffic had halted so passing rubberneckers could watch what was going on, but no-one was racing to their rescue. Marc thought he heard the distant skirl of sirens, but the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, feeding oxygen to the fire and smothering them in black haze. Pavic slipped off his shoulder and fumbled at ropes dangling down the side of the apartment block, wrapping them around his uninjured arm.

  Each new gust made the growing blaze rumble and pulse, and Marc couldn’t stop himself from taking in a lungful of fouled, smoky air. The heat and the fire smell triggered a powerful memory that he had worked very hard to bury deep, and without warning it was upon him in full force.

  On a dockside in France, he had been soaked in that same ashen stench, the reek of it filling his throat and his nostrils. The mix of burning fuel, scorched metal and seared flesh, so strong it soaked into his pores. For months, that burned stink had followed him around, and he couldn’t tell if it was real or his mind p
laying tricks on him. He read somewhere that scent-triggered memories were the most powerful of all recollections, and for Marc Dane the smoke dragged him back to that brutal night when his team had perished.

  He staggered and shook it away with a violent tremor that ran through his whole body. ‘Piss off!’ he growled, angrily dispelling the memory with a snarl.

  ‘What . . .’ Pavic was trying to form the question when the next blast came.

  Marc felt it rather than saw it. Some questing, writhing stream of fire found another cluster of paint-thinner cans and they exploded with a concussive chug of detonation. A shock front of new combustion found the path of least resistance and blew out through the balcony, slamming into Marc and Pavic.

  The policeman lost his shaky footing and went over the edge of the scaffolding, falling toward the street, his arm still tangled up in the safety ropes. His descent was slowed, but still he landed with a crash atop a parked car four storeys below, the shock of it knocking him unconscious.

  With nothing in the way of the flames, the discharge swept over Marc and he caught fire. The material of his jacket ignited instantly and the ends of his hair crackled and burned, tearing an agonised howl from his lips.

  He tore madly at the jacket, shrugging it off before the flames could eat through and burn him alive. The fire was everywhere, consuming his world, and in the moment Marc could have sworn it was alive – that it wanted to take him, destroy him, make him cinders and ash.

  ‘No!’ His breath dying in his throat, Marc made a wild leap at the dangling ropes and snatched at them. Gravity took hold and he tumbled through the smoke, falling and falling.

  FIVE

  The cold, steady feed of oxygen through the mask was painful and soothing all at once. Marc took it in shallow breaths, hunched forward on the edge of the hospital bed, blinking back the ache in his lungs. His chest felt as though it had been hollowed out and repacked with needles, and the strong chemical smell of anti-infectives hung around him, soaked into the burn dressings on his neck and hands.