by Rob Sinclair
This time he wasn’t letting him go. Ryker didn’t give Sergei a second to recover. He grabbed Sergei’s head and smashed it off the tarmac. There was a loud crack. Ryker did it again and Sergei’s eyes rolled. Ryker was set to deliver a third blow that would surely finish Sergei for good when he was distracted by the sound of movement behind him.
The Red Cobra.
Ryker spun, moving off Sergei and into a defensive position. He expected to see the shadow. Perhaps the glint of her knife.
So he was surprised when what he actually saw was the black butt of a rifle, moving quickly towards him.
Not the Red Cobra after all.
But it was too late for Ryker to do anything as the butt smashed into his face.
57
Ryker came to when his head jarred against something hard. He opened his eyes. It was dark. Noisy. Another jolt, and his face smashed off a metallic surface just inches away. It took Ryker’s battered brain a few moments to calibrate and realise where he was.
The boot of a car.
He couldn’t see a thing, could barely move in the cramped space. His wrists were strapped together. His ankles too. Rope? Tape? He had so little room to manoeuvre, he couldn’t be sure.
Wherever they were headed, it was one hell of a bumpy road. The car jumped up on its suspension every few seconds. Ryker could do nothing to stop his head and body from bouncing and crashing all over the place. He could only guess from the bumps and the grinding noise of the tyres that they were travelling over a dirt track – back to the ranch where he’d earlier been spying?
Eventually the car came to a stop and the engine went dead. Ryker prepared himself, even though in his hog-tied state he knew he had little chance of launching an immediate counter-attack.
A chance would come though. It had to.
The boot opened and for a couple of seconds, Ryker was blinded by a bright light directly above him. When he finally focussed, he saw it was a spotlight high up on a metal pole. Another industrial yard?
Standing above Ryker were two men. He didn’t recognise either. One held a shotgun, the barrel of which he pointed at Ryker’s head. The other man reached in, grabbed Ryker under his armpits and half lifted, half dragged Ryker from the car.
The man let go and Ryker thudded to the ground. He tried to look around and figure out where the hell he was. The yard they were in was brightly lit by various spotlights. The fact it was still night told Ryker he hadn’t been unconscious long and that they hadn’t travelled far. The ground was wet but it wasn't raining anymore. There were a number of cars and vans in the yard. Then Ryker spotted the outline of the white farmhouse. He was at the ranch.
Ryker was grabbed suddenly by his ankles. Someone, maybe more than one man, pulled him. His body flipped over onto his front and his face scraped painfully across the ground as he was dragged along. They moved off the yard and into the large barn that stood alongside the farmhouse.
Ryker heard the clanking of metal, then what sounded like a pulley.
Seconds later, his body was hauled into the air and he was left dangling by his ankles. His body swayed back and forth, his head at least a couple of feet off the ground. Ryker swivelled, looking around the room. It was big, maybe forty feet square. The ground was smooth concrete, and the walls and roof were corrugated metal. It was brightly lit with four large round overhead lamps. He noticed some large silvery troughs, tools, some racking. He looked up – or down? – at the ceiling. It was lined with hooks and pulleys.
A barn? Or an abattoir perhaps?
Whatever it was, it no longer appeared to be in use. It was too clean, in appearance at least – it smelled old, musty. Some remnants of its previous use.
One of the goons stepped toward Ryker, a glinting metal object in his hand. Ryker flinched as the blade came closer to him, then sighed with relief when he realised it was only a pair of scissors. The man snipped away at Ryker’s shirt. Then haphazardly cut down the legs of Ryker’s jeans until he was left in just his boxers, socks and shoes.
After that the two men walked away and Ryker was left alone. At least he thought he was. Swinging his body and craning his neck he tried to get as full a view of the room as he could. He certainly couldn't see anyone. And it was quiet. Very quiet.
Ryker looked at his feet. It was rope tying his ankles together. Wedged between his ankles was a large metal hook, the tied rope slung over it. If he could use his strength to lift his torso and grab the chain above the hook, he’d be able to pull the rope free.
But his hands were tied behind his back.
Perhaps if he swung with enough ferocity, the rope on his ankles would loosen. Or maybe even the rope would jump and slip from the hook.
He had to try something.
Ryker swung his body back and forth. It took every ounce of strength he had to build up momentum.
Within a minute or so, his body was moving in a large arc, nearly a full half circle, the air rushing against his face. Every now and then the rope nudged an inch or so in the hook’s groove .
A little more and it would come out.
If he could keep it going...
Ryker heard a door open and then the soft sound of footsteps. He turned his head, mid-swing, and saw legs approaching. Four men. Maybe five.
He moved more frantically, twisting his body this way and that. Grunting and groaning and then shouting in both anger and sheer determination.
The roped jumped again. It was agonisingly close to coming free. But the men’s feet were edging closer and closer. They were moving casually, no urgency. A contrast to Ryker’s frenzied movement.
Ryker gave it everything he had. He thought the rope was about to come free, but it slipped back into position at the last second. Still Ryker kept going. The men were just a few steps away, then...
A man stepped forward. The same one who’d earlier snipped Ryker’s clothes away. He reached out and grabbed Ryker as he hurtled toward him. The man stumbled back as he took the moving weight. Then with absolute calm, he brought Ryker to a stop.
So close.
Ryker initially bucked and jolted against the man’s strength but Ryker soon went placid. He was huffing, his breathing fast and heavy from the exertion of trying to free himself. His head was spinning from the constant motion. The whole room around him seemed to be swinging still. A wave of nausea passed through him before he regained his focus.
It was only then that Ryker took a proper look over each of the men in front of him. He recognised them all. Two were the goons who’d dragged him from the car, one with a shotgun in his hand, the other holding on to Ryker. Then there was Sergei, standing back from the other two. Next to him was the old man – the boss – his shining walking cane in his hand.
The old man spoke. His words were calm and slow, no sign of angst or anger. He was speaking Georgian and Ryker didn’t understand any of it.
‘He’s asking you if you speak Georgian,’ Sergei said in English. At least his best attempt at English.
Still, it was something of a surprise. It was the first time Ryker had heard the Vor speak. His voice was gravelly and heartless.
‘No,’ Ryker said.
Sergei responded to his master. Then said in English, ‘But you do speak Russian.’
Ryker didn't respond. Giorgi took a step forward. Sergei matched his stride. The two goons stepped away to the side.
‘This place used to be a farm,’ Giorgi said in Russian. In the more distinctive tongue, the old man’s voice sounded sharper, more clear and confident. A contrast to his doddering appearance. ‘Cattle mostly. This room was used to house some of them.’
‘You’ve done a good job of clearing the shit out,’ Ryker said. ‘Just four lumps left.’
The boss took a moment’s pause. Ryker wondered whether the old man would send a goon over to exact punishment for the slur.
No. Whatever Giorgi had planned was still to come.
‘But that was many years ago,’ the old man said. ‘Now I use this r
oom for storage. Mostly we bring the new girls here. Soften them, ready them for trade. Cattle. Like the old days, in a way. I’m also using the land as a ranch for toro bravo – Spanish fighting bulls. It’s quite an operation. Bullfighting has become a passion of mine. This farm, the land, will once again flourish. How the world changes. You see, the farmer who used to own this place, he had no money. He owed me a lot of money. I gave him a simple choice. Give me the land. And everything on it. And I’d go away. A simple choice. He didn’t take it.’
Giorgi took another step forward. Sergei unbuttoned his shirt. Ryker stared at the swirls of black ink on his skin underneath.
‘Instead,’ Giorgi said, ‘in the middle of the night he walked naked across the whole farm, acres and acres of land, a twelve inch kitchen knife in his hand, and he slaughtered every beast in this place. Bulls, cows, the young too. The floor in here was a sea of blood. It was on the walls, the ceiling. And then, in front of the twitching bodies and the corpses of his livelihood, he took that knife and he cut his own throat. I found him the day after, face down in that sea of red.’
Sergei removed his shirt and threw it to the side. Ryker continued to stare at the tattoos that covered his body. Upside down they looked misshapen and jagged. Or maybe that was the way they were pulled across Sergei’s sinewy skin. Sergei wasn’t a big guy, but what there was of him was pure muscle, not an ounce of fat anywhere.
‘You see,’ Giorgi said. ‘The farmer thought if he killed the animals, I couldn’t take them from him. And if he killed himself, it would make me go away. There would be no way for me to get this land from him: it would pass to his children – a boy and a girl – and I would move on to someone else. They were just ten and eight. His wife, she’d died many years before.’
Sergei took a metal knuckle-duster from his trouser pocket.
‘The farmer was wrong,’ Giorgi said. ‘He should have made the simple choice. I killed his son. He died the same way his father did and I buried him out on the farm. I sold his daughter. She killed herself aged fifteen. An overdose. By that point, she was unrecognisable as the sweet young girl I’d first met here.’
Giorgi reached into his pocket. His hand came back out grasping onto a small red book. Ryker’s dazed mind took a few seconds to figure out what it was. A passport.
‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Giorgi said. ‘But this place? I imagine I can still hear the calls and the screams of the animals that night. I can hear the blood spitting and hissing from a hundred necks. I can still smell death in here. It seeps through the blood-stained walls. Can you hear it, Mr Ryker? Can you smell it?’
Giorgi opened the passport and held it up, opened to show the small square picture of Ryker.
‘Like the farmer, I’m going to give you a very simple choice too. And I’d advise you take it. I’m going to be asking you some questions. I want you to answer them, truthfully. That is all. Do you understand?’
Ryker pursed his lips. He knew what was coming. He’d been tortured before. Many years earlier, he’d been trained to withstand interrogation, both physical and mental intimidation. That training had been necessary. As an asset for the secretive JIA, Ryker’s silence had been an imperative.
The training had worked, to a degree: everyone breaks eventually. Ryker had, at the hands of the Russian FSB – a devastatingly deviant snake of a woman by the name Lena Belenov. Following that a series of events had led to Ryker leaving the JIA and assuming his new identity.
The way he saw it now, he didn’t have the same need to hold his silence anymore. His only loyalty was to himself and to Lisa.
Self-preservation.
‘I said, do you understand?’ the old man asked.
‘Yes,’ Ryker said. ‘I understand.’
Giorgi smiled. Upside down, it made his face look manic.
‘Good,’ he said. He nodded to Sergei. ‘Then let us begin.’
58
Ten minutes later, Ryker’s vision – through his one remaining good eye – was tinged red from the blood dripping down his body onto his swollen face. The beating from Sergei was relentless. Animalistic. With the knuckle-duster, the Vor pulverised Ryker’s gut and chest, back and face.
Ryker was certain ribs were broken, and he was seriously worried about his left eye, which was swollen shut. But he knew what was still to come would likely be much worse than the straight-forward beating Sergei was inflicting.
Sweat droplets rolled down Sergei’s face and covered his body. He was panting from the exertion of the pounding he was delivering. Spatters of Ryker’s blood added ominous colour to the black ink tattoos that cloaked him.
‘Okay. That’s enough,’ Giorgi said, holding up his hand.
Sergei stopped mid-strike, pulled back his fist and relaxed.
‘Get yourself cleaned up,’ Giorgi told him. Sergei nodded and walked over to pick up his shirt. Then he left the room. The two goons remained, flanking Ryker. ‘First question. Who are you?’
Ryker snorted. He’d tried to laugh but hadn’t realised how dazed and detached he’d become. ‘I’m James Ryker.’
‘But there is no James Ryker.’ Giorgi paused. ‘Don’t forget I have some very talented men at my disposal. We know how to find out about people.’
‘Yeah. You use fifteen-year-old kids and then you shoot them.’
‘I can only assume you’re referring to young Miguel. It was his own fault. His mouth was too big. He had to be silenced. And when we realised you were on to him, it was the only choice we had.’
Giorgi’s words made Ryker’s brain whir. He again wondered how the mob had known Ryker was on to Ramos. Had Ryker been followed, or bugged?
No, he couldn’t believe that was the case. Otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have let Ryker travel to Algeciras and attack those men at the warehouse. Most likely Ramos’s home was bugged.
‘But yes, you’re right,’ Giorgi said. ‘We use talent wherever we see it. Even if it’s fifteen-year-old boys. And we’ve been trying to find out who you are. James Ryker? Nothing. You’re not with MI5, or MI6, or the CIA, the FBI, or Interpol. So why are you here?’
This time, Ryker just about managed a mocking laugh. ‘To kill you of course.’
And Ryker meant his words. The mission, according to Winter, was to find the Red Cobra, but Ryker was working for himself now. His job – his life – for the JIA had always been about taking out the bad guys. And these guys were definitely bad.
‘Kill me?’ Giorgi said. ‘But what did I do to you? Do we know each other?’
‘No. But I’ve seen enough of who you are.’
‘But you know nothing, I suspect, of who I am.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You’re dead. I’m nothing, just a man. You can do what you want to me. But she’s still out there.’
‘Ah. The Red Cobra. I think that’s who you mean. Isn’t that very exciting. What an enigma that girl is.’
Ryker held his tongue. What was the story that linked the Red Cobra with the mafia boss and Kim Walker?
‘Do you know what I hate about life?’ Giorgi continued. ‘Sometimes the best intentions get you nowhere. In fact sometimes they get you into serious trouble. This all started because I tried to help a friend. Patrick Walker pissed off the wrong man by fucking that little slut Eva. Andrei Kozlov is loyal to me, he’s one of us. Walker should have kept his cock to himself.’
‘You killed Kim Walker because of the affair?’
‘No. I killed Kim Walker because I thought she was the Red Cobra.’
Ryker said nothing.
‘Kozlov wanted to punish Walker,’ Giorgi said, ‘for sullying his daughter like that. And Walker owed me a lot of money. So who was I to say no to Kozlov? I don’t know why, but hurting Kim was the punishment he asked for. We weren’t going to kill her. But there was a problem, you see. Because like you, James Ryker, Kim Walker didn’t really exist.’
‘No. She didn’t. So you had Miguel Ramos try to find out who she really was.’
‘Of
course. I mean, I didn’t even know Kim or her husband personally. It was Kozlov’s territory. But he came to me with the problem. Who was this woman? I helped him. And when we found out–’
‘What did she do to you? The Red Cobra?’
Giorgi paused as though building up to answering the question.
‘She killed my son,’ he said, finally betraying emotion; hurt, sadness. But it didn’t last long. This was a man filled with hate and conceit. ‘My only son – Alex. She suffocated him in the middle of the night at a home for wounded war veterans. He was a cripple; he had no way to defend himself against an attack like that. He was my only blood in this world. She took everything from me.’
‘But Kim Walker wasn’t the Red Cobra.’
‘It seems not.’
‘I came here, to Spain, to find the Red Cobra,’ Ryker said. ‘To kill her.’
Giorgi paused.
‘So you could say we’re on the same team,’ Ryker added. ‘I can help you catch her.’
‘No, Ryker. You really can’t.’
Ryker was distracted by footsteps. He looked over and saw Sergei coming back into the room. He was dressed but now had a full-length plastic apron covering his front. In his hand was a power drill, a four-inch silver drill-bit protruding from the end. Ryker’s heart thudded.
Sergei moved to the side of the room and picked up an electrical extension cable. He casually walked back toward Ryker as he unreeled the cable, then he plugged in the drill and tested it. The drill-bit whizzed round in a blur, the small motor giving out a loud high-pitched whine.
‘Techniques such as this have been used since medieval times,’ Giorgi said matter-of-factly. ‘The prisoner would be hung upside down, much like you. The rush of blood to the brain feeds it with oxygen, which helps to keep you alert. Awake. The prisoner was interrogated. Two men would begin to saw at the groin using a hand saw, four feet long. Slowly they’d cut through the victim, working towards the head. Very effective, I’m sure you’d agree. Very bloody. But not very long lasting.’
Sergei moved forward with the drill. Ryker’s heart drummed faster still. He bucked his body, but there was nothing he could do.
