Who Dares Wins

by Chris Ryan

  ‘I consider it unlikely,’ Dolohov mused, ‘that a man such as yourself, armed with a weapon such as that, is a mere delivery boy. A common thief perhaps, here to rob me for drug money?’ An unpleasant smile spread across his face as he shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Sam refused to let any expression cross his face. ‘A university professor,’ he countered, ‘armed and coshing anyone who turns up at his flat late at night. Doesn’t quite add up.’

  Dolohov gave him an icy look. ‘Self-defence,’ he stated.

  ‘Sure.’ Sam shrugged. ‘But against what?’

  ‘Against interfering idiots like you.’ Dolohov took a step closer and Sam could sense his anger. ‘I recommend that you tell me who you are and what you want, otherwise our conversation will be very short.’

  Dolohov’s glasses were slightly crooked on his face. If he wasn’t carrying a weapon, he’d look faintly ridiculous. He took another step towards Sam, as if to underline his seriousness.

  Keep coming, Sam thought to himself. Just keep coming. His face still hurt, but the nausea was passing. ‘I thought we might have a chat,’ he goaded his assailant.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About some e-mails.’

  Dolohov’s lips thinned. ‘What e-mails?’

  Sam smiled at him, an intentionally arrogant and infuriating smile. He said nothing.

  ‘What e-mails?’ Dolohov straightened his arm and took another stride towards Sam.

  That was all he needed.

  Sam moved quickly. With one hand he grabbed Dolohov’s podgy wrist in a crunching grip, pulled himself to his feet and circled his other arm tightly round the man’s fat neck. Dolohov fired his gun; the bullet slammed into the back of the chair, knocking it a metre along the floor before it rocked and upturned. Sam squeezed Dolohov’s neck, while firmly gripping his gun hand.

  ‘Drop the weapon!’ he hissed.

  A gasping sound from Dolohov’s throat, but the gun stayed where it was. There was a fireplace to Sam’s right, surrounded by marble and with a shelf above that housed delicate china figurines. Sam twisted Dolohov’s body round, then slammed his wrist against the fireplace. One of the figurines toppled and smashed; the gun, too, fell from Dolohov’s hand as he gasped in pain. Sam continued to squeeze his neck. The flesh bulged and the gasping sound from Dolohov’s throat grew weaker. Sam had to concentrate. Keep the stranglehold for too long and he’d kill the man, but he just wanted him to lose consciousness. It would give Sam a few precious minutes to prepare for what had to happen next.

  Dolohov’s body started to go limp. Sam held firm. The struggling ceased, so he relaxed his grip; as the man fell to the ground he manoeuvred his arms under Dolohov’s armpits and gently lowered him to the floor. Two fingers against his neck. A pulse. Sam nodded with satisfaction.

  He had to move quickly. Violence like that affected different people in different ways. He could be out for five minutes or thirty seconds. Sam had to restrain his prisoner before he woke.

  Running to the entrance of the room he switched the main light on and took a moment to get his bearings. He was in the room that he had seen leading off the entrance hallway. It was plush. Next to the fire there was a comfortable, intricately upholstered armchair and on the opposite wall an antique chaise longue. At one end of the room were big windows looking out over a long garden far below and the roofs and towers of London beyond. Thick, corded curtains hung on either side. There was art on the walls, rich rugs on the floor and books seemingly everywhere.

  Sam approached the long table in the middle of the room. He disconnected the light from its socket, then, with a sharp tug, pulled the flex from the lamp. Returning to the body on the floor, he bent down and pulled Dolohov up, plonking him on the chair which had been positioned behind the lamp. He took the flex and wound it tightly round the man’s body, arms and around the back of the chair, before tying it tightly. Dolohov could wake up any second, but he wouldn’t be going anywhere in a hurry. It gave Sam a chance to explore the house a bit.

  To find the tools he needed.

  He drew the curtains first, then made sure the front door was locked from the inside. The little kitchen, which was reached by a thin corridor that led off the main hallway, was modern and scrupulously tidy. An unopened bottle of vodka sat on the side. Sam grabbed it, twisted the top open and took a gulp. The fierce alcohol warmed him immediately as he started to rummage through the kitchen drawers. There were plenty of knives, good sharp ones, but it was the sturdy set of poultry shears that caught his attention. He added them to his stash, then helped himself to a few tea towels that were neatly piled up. Rummaging though a cupboard he found a small culinary blowtorch. His man obviously fancied himself as a chef, but he wouldn’t be making brûlées tonight. He found a drawer containing a set of DIY tools for odd jobs – pliers, a hammer, two standard-sized screwdrivers. Sam took the pliers. Walking back into the main room, he placed everything on the table. Then he turned back and surveyed Dolohov, whose head was drooping onto his chest.

  In the Regiment they called it field interrogation. Torture by any other name, of course. Earnest politicians denounced it in public, but their special forces were well trained in extracting information by whatever means necessary. Sam had long since lost any squeamishness about the Regiment’s methods and he wasn’t in the mood to mess about. Was he going to torture an innocent man? He shook his head. The guy in front of him oozed many things. Innocence wasn’t one of them. Once you’d done this enough times, you got a feel for these things.

  Dolohov stirred. He raised his pale face and looked at Sam with the confused expression of someone waking from a long sleep. It took a few seconds for him to remember what was happening; when he did, he stared at Sam with undisguised hate. His eyes flickered towards the gun on the table, but there was no way he could reach it.

  Sam took the bottle of vodka, then approached his captive, raising the bottle to Dolohov’s lips.

  ‘Drink?’ he offered.

  Dolohov turned his head away and muttered something. It sounded like Russian. It also didn’t sound very polite.

  Sam inclined his head, took a swig, then replaced the bottle on the table. He walked round to the back of Dolohov’s chair, bent down and spoke just inches from his ear. ‘I’m going to give you one chance,’ he whispered, ‘to tell me absolutely everything you know. Who you are. What you do. Believe me, Dolohov, you don’t want to fuck around.’

  A pause. And then Dolohov spoke. ‘I teach in a university,’ he said. His English accent had slipped. ‘And you,’ he continued, ‘you can go to hell.’

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. He straightened up and walked back round to Dolohov’s front. Taking one of the tea towels, he approached the Russian.

  ‘Open your mouth.’

  Dolohov kept his lips clenched firmly shut. Sam raised an eyebrow and, without warning, dealt a massive blow to his ample stomach. The Russian gasped loudly, winded by the punch; his eyes bulged as Sam stuffed the tea towel into his mouth. Dolohov’s body seemed to go into spasm as he tried to bend over and gasp for air; but the flex and the cloth in his mouth meant he could do neither.

  Sam watched as the Russian gradually got control of his breathing and his body. Then he looked around. In one corner of the room was a stereo system. He switched it on and pressed a button on the CD player. Classical music swelled into the room. Sam adjusted the volume: not so loud that it would disturb the neighbours, but loud enough to muffle any sounds that came from the room.

  And only then did he take the poultry shears from the table.

  By now, Dolohov’s glasses had slipped down his nose. He looked over them, noticing the shears for the first time. Instinctively he shuffled his chair back a few inches, shaking his head. Sam ignored him and approached.

  There was no point making threats. The first rule of field interrogation was to let the person you’re questioning know that you’re serious. ‘Remind me,’ he said. ‘Which hand was it you were holding that gu
n in? Left or right?’ He furrowed his brow theatrically. ‘Left, I think. We’ll start with the left.’

  Dolohov made some kind of noise and shook his head more vigorously. He was sweating like an altar boy in church. Sam walked round to his left-hand side and felt for the Russian’s fingers. They were clenched shut, but it was no great problem to unfurl his trigger finger. More noises – squeals, almost. Sam ignored them. He opened up the blade of the shears before clasping them round the base of Dolohov’s fat finger.

  And then he squeezed.

  The sharp blades slipped easily through the layers of skin and fat, like a warm knife cutting into jelly. Only when they hit the bone did he have to squeeze harder. The blades crunched through, more on account of Sam’s force than their sharpness. The finger came away and blood flowed copiously from the fresh wound.

  Dolohov’s body had started convulsing, his muffled squeals more constant. Sam walked casually to the table, placed the amputated finger in full view of its former owner, then picked up the blowtorch. ‘We don’t want you bleeding to death,’ he told the Russian.

  It wouldn’t take much to cauterise the wound. The cigarette lighter from a car would do it, but Sam had to use the tools at his disposal. The flame from the blowtorch was a pale blue – you could barely see it – but it would do the job nicely. He approached the still-squealing Dolohov and touched the flame to the bleeding stump of his finger. The wet blood dried brown and a foul, acrid smell hit Sam’s nose. Dolohov’s arm stiffened with the pain, but the blood stopped flowing.

  He stayed out of Dolohov’s sight for a few moments before removing and cauterising a second finger – the little finger, this time, on the right hand. The bone was smaller here; the shears made short work of it. It had the same effect on Dolohov, however. The muffled squeals seemed to go into overdrive and he shook so much Sam thought for a moment that his chair might topple over. He walked round to Dolohov’s front, switched the blowtorch off for a second time, then stepped back, before pushing the Russian’s glasses back on to his face, opening his mouth as if to say something, then making a pretence of deciding against it.

  He took the pliers, grabbed the thumb on the Russian’s right hand and held it firm. Sam clasped the thumbnail between the jaws of the plier and squeezed, tightly clamping the nail. Then he pulled. He watched with near total detachment as Dolohov squealed like a pig. Sam had to pull hard to tear the nail off, but after several tugs it was loose and he was finally able to drag it out of its roots, like a dentist loosening a tooth.

  Sam walked out of the room and back into the kitchen. He’d give Dolohov a few minutes to sweat it out and worry about what was coming next before going back. In the meantime, he turned on the tap and started washing off the blood that had smeared all over his hands. Pink water ran into the basin. His hands were perfectly steady.

  Sam rummaged in a cupboard and found a deep saucepan. He filled it with water, then returned to the main room. Dolohov had passed out. Good. He’d hit his pain barrier and he wouldn’t want to do that again. Sam stood in front of him, then threw the cold water over his head. The Russian awoke with a shock. He stared at Sam in horror as Sam picked up the wooden chair that had previously been shot down, then placed it opposite his victim before sitting only inches away from him.

  ‘What shall we do next, Professor Dolohov? Same fingers on the other hands? Or maybe…’

  He smiled, as if a good idea had just struck him, then looked down at Dolohov’s crotch. Dolohov shook his head violently – even more violently than before. An odour drifted towards Sam’s nostrils. In a situation like this, guys would often piss or cack themselves. It smelled as though Dolohov, the pussy, had done both.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave that till last. After all, it’s only a small one isn’t it? Drink?’ He reached for the bottle, then yanked the tea towel from Dolohov’s mouth. This time Dolohov accepted the drink, a good mouthful of it. It didn’t stop his heavy breath from shaking and trembling, though. Not a bit of it. He whispered something in Russian, then addressed Sam.

  ‘You are an animal!’ he spat.

  ‘’Course I’m not,’ Sam replied calmly. ‘If I was an animal, I’d have started with your thumbs.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Have you got any idea how difficult it is trying to take your underpants off without any thumbs?’

  Dolohov gave him a monstrous look.

  ‘But we’ll move on to the thumbs next,’ Sam continued, ‘unless I get what I want.’

  ‘Untie me.’

  ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid, Dolohov. I want to know who you are and what you do. And believe me, my friend, if you say the word “university” again, this is going to be a long fucking night for you.’

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘ Ja russkii.’

  Dolohov spoke first in his native language. His eyes were closed, perhaps because of the pain, perhaps because he was scared or perhaps in resignation, because telling the truth was a trial for him. He opened them, then reverted to English. ‘I am Russian.’

  ‘I’d got that far.’

  The Russian pursed his lips with loathing. ‘If you know so much, then I will remain quiet.’

  Sam just gave him a steady look. Dolohov couldn’t withstand it for long. His flabby face was pale and sweating.

  ‘I work for the Russian government.’

  ‘Spetsnaz?’ Sam was almost asking himself.

  Dolohov sneered. ‘Do I look like a Spetsnaz dog?’ he demanded, before shaking his head. ‘Federalvoi Sluzhbe Bezopasnosti. The FSB. My country’s security service.’ Every word he spoke sounded like an effort, as though he was forcing himself against his better judgement. ‘Though when I first came to London, it was known by a different name.’

  ‘Ah… the KGB.’

  Dolohov looked meaningfully at the bottle of vodka. ‘I would like…’ he started to say.

  ‘Just keep talking, Dolohov.’

  The Russian breathed deeply. ‘I am a professional,’ he whispered. ‘You are a professional too, I think.’

  ‘We’re not talking about me. Keep going.’ The smell of burnt flesh still hung in the air.

  ‘I receive orders from Moscow. There are people who need removing. Terrorists. My job is to remove them.’

  He closed his eyes again and appeared to be trying to master the pain. A silence fell across the room. Sam slotted this new information into the jigsaw of his mind. The details of the red-light runners. The word DECEASED ominously printed above them. ‘You’re a hitman.’

  Dolohov didn’t open his eyes. ‘And what are you?’ he replied. ‘A church warden?’

  ‘The last two hits you made,’ Sam demanded. ‘Tell me who they were?’

  Only then did Dolohov open his eyes again. He moistened his dry lips with his tongue and, although his face was still racked with pain, Sam thought he noticed a glint in his eye. Enthusiasm? He couldn’t tell. ‘They are dead,’ he said.

  Sam stood and picked up the shears. Dolohov shook his head violently. ‘Young men,’ he started gabbling. ‘My job is to make their deaths appear accidental. To stop anyone from investigating them further. The last hit was a car crash. I doctored the engine and made it happen when he was speeding on the motorway. Before that…’ His cheek twitched. ‘Before that, what your doctors call auto-erotic asphyxiation. I made it appear as if my target had…’

  Dolohov continued to talk, but for a moment Sam lost his concentration. The words matched the information Clare had given him. He knew the Russian was telling the truth. ‘So you’re the guy that’s been bumping off the red-light runners,’ he said.

  ‘The what?’ Dolohov asked. He managed a half-smile. ‘That is what you call them? I call them fools.’

  An image flashed through Sam’s brain. Kazakhstan. The training camp. The bullets pumping into the bodies of the slumbering kids. The photos of their corpses.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Sam demanded. ‘Everything you know.’

  Dolohov’s face reverted to its l
ook of hate. ‘You work for the British security services?’

  ‘I work for myself. Spit it out, Dolohov. Now.’

  The Russian paused before speaking, almost as if gathering his thoughts. Sam listened in silence to the monologue that followed.

  ‘You call them red-light runners. Perhaps they call themselves red-light runners? I do not know why. The truth is that they are just foolish young men, targeted by the FSB. A very particular type of person. A type of person that would be attracted by a particular… A particular lifestyle. A type of person that enjoys danger. A type of person that is easily misled. As I have already told you: fools. They are approached – I do not know how or by whom – and told that they have been selected for a certain purpose: to work undercover for your MI5.’

  ‘Only they’re not working for Five at all,’ Sam interrupted thoughtfully. ‘They’re working for the Russians. But they don’t know it.’

  Dolohov inclined his head. ‘They are taken to a training camp where they are given instruction. Surveillance techniques, the construction of improvised explosive devices, weapons training. When they are returned to this country, my government has a sleeping army. If one of them is caught, they do not know who they are really receiving their instructions from. They will always tell the same story – that they are working for MI5.’ He gave Sam a piercing look. ‘No matter how many of their fingers you cut off.’

  ‘None of this explains why you’ve been slotting them, Dolohov. You’d better start sounding convincing.’

  A wave of pain passed across the Russian’s face again. He spoke with difficulty. ‘They are told to keep silent, to tell no one. It is…’ He searched once more for the correct words. ‘It is drummed into them. But to be silent is not in their nature. We know, sooner or later, that they will speak. They are weak and impulsive. They cannot help it. For a year, perhaps, they are able to keep their own counsel. But after that, they start to get sloppy. They are not professionals, like us.’ Sloppiness, Sam deduced, was something he could not abide. ‘That is when I am called in. They are given twelve months. In that time they may or may not have been useful to our cause, but they are eliminated anyway, then replaced by fresh recruits.’