Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3)

by Lewis Hastings

  “So now what?”

  “Do as I say, remember? Ready?”

  “As I will ever be.”

  McCall decelerated then eased the handbrake on, causing the little car to skew across the road in an inch-perfect J turn. No brake lights. No other traffic either. It was late, and this was a quiet road. It looked that way on the online map and it was very accurate.

  The car came to a halt across the road, facing the way it had just come from, straddling the white centreline, lights on full beam.

  “Get out and lie down on the road, by the driver’s door. Facedown. And don’t move, even if they shoot you.” Stefan did as he was told, but he was not sure he would ever appreciate the Kiwi soldier’s humour.

  “OK, I think they are coming. A little way off, but that’s a car travelling at speed. Stand by.”

  Stefan called back but McCall was gone, into the trees, running as fast as he could, avoiding hazards and gaining ground. If Stefan was to trust him, then it would be in the next ten minutes.

  McCall could see the lights approaching, hear the six cylinder German engine screaming.

  Stefan laid perfectly still, feeling intensely vulnerable. He could also hear the car approaching, swear he could feel it through the coarse road surface, where he lay, face down, as instructed.

  The BMW took the corner fast, its driver fighting to correct the understeer, knowing that if he went off the road at this speed, into a wall of trees, the car and its occupants would come a distant second.

  The forest canopy was dense, almost midnight black, row after row of five-year-old fir trees, green at the front, under the partial, cloud-covered moon, then dark brown, fading to black; a deep, dark mass without an apparent ending.

  The BMW came to an abrupt halt, about a hundred metres from the Hyundai.

  “Wait. It could be a trap.” The front seat passenger lifted his pistol out of his lap. “That looks like Stefan. Do you think he has been killed?”

  “We should see if he is alive. The Jackdaw will want to know. It is his brother...”

  “He told us to bring him back alive. What if he is dead?”

  “Questions, questions. Enough! We need to focus!” The older member of the team took control. “I will go. Nicolae, you come with me. You two stay with the car but be ready to help. You have your guns?”

  All four were armed. Two favoured Glocks, one a Sig Sauer, the leader, a long-barrelled Colt that had been gifted to him by its deceased victim. It had stopping power, and that appealed to him.

  He knew it was secluded. So desolate in fact that he had never been anywhere near there before. The chances of anyone being out here at this time of the night were less than remote.

  The response by local police to gunshots, somewhere in the forest even less likely.

  He raised his arm and fired a round through the grill, shattering the plastic moulding, splintering the silver H logo and drilling into the radiator. The noise was immense in such a quiet place. It was enough to wake the dead. It stopped somewhere in the engine block. The damage was done. That was fine by McCall, who watched and waited.

  Colt stepped forward. “See, that is why I carry a powerful handgun. Now they cannot leave.” His grin was supercilious, his eyes narrow.

  “But where is the other man?”

  “He has run off through the woods, like the coward that he is.” Colt yelled the word coward, allowing it to echo through the dense timber.

  “You think he killed Stefan, then ran away?”

  “Yes, I do. Come, let’s go and have a look.” He kept his weapon pointing at the inert figure on the ground. “Be careful.”

  “Should we shoot him?” Sig Sauer was trigger-happy and wanted to fire at least one round from the P226, which he had convinced a young student to part with only a week before.

  “No, fool. If he is injured we take him back to Bucharest, then we ring the Jackdaw. He will reward us well for this. He is only in the city for a few more days. Then, he will leave – and we may never see him again.”

  “Where will he go?” Glock One was the most excitable of the quartet. “Where to?”

  “Shut up, and wait here, and do not shoot. I don’t trust you with that.”

  Glock One waited, shuffling from his left foot to his right, like a drug addict waiting for a fix.

  Colt gradually edged forward, mirroring the footage he had watched online, sweeping the road and the surrounding trees with his gun. But never actually looking. He waved to Glock Two.

  Glock Two followed him, doing the same, turning around now and then to check the other two men were still there, not whisked up and into the trees. He’d watched too many films.

  McCall waited patiently. All he could hear was the amateur soundtrack and the purring of the BMW.

  All four were out of the car now. First mistake. The group had separated, second. At least two of them looked uncomfortable with their weapons and surroundings. It just got better.

  The Bushman blended quickly and skilfully with the scenery, bracken stuffed down his collar, face smeared in mud, hands too. The Seven Ss were never more at the forefront of his mind: Shape, shine, shadow, silhouette, sound, speed and surroundings.

  He used vegetation to break up the familiar shape of the human form. The only thing that he had that shone was stuffed tightly into the cargo pocket of his trousers. He cast no shadow. Silhouette wasn’t a problem, his background was blacker than a coalmine.

  He made no sound, moving slowly and carefully. As a deer walks through a forest, so does the Bushman. Last, but by no means least, he had become one with his surroundings. There was a saying in the regiment that when Scott McCall walked into a forest, he became it; the wildlife approached him; the trees enveloped him. He could disappear in seconds and not be seen or found for days. He killed only when he needed to eat and concealed his tracks with such skill that the best military trackers couldn’t find him.

  His escape and evasion course had caused chaos when he refused to surrender. He was one of the few to avoid capture, therefore his interrogation phase took even longer. Naked, hooded, exposed to interminable white noise and stress positions – all the while smiling.

  They isolated him and mentioned his kid sisters. Over and over again.

  They broke him eventually. They always do.

  And now he was in his element, his natural environs. It had taken moments, and he was only twenty metres into the forest. He could smell the forest floor, the terpenes, chemicals in the conifers that gave them their distinctive sweet, sharp smell and he could hear everything, eyes closed briefly. A scan of the sky had told him where in the world he was right now. He had done all of this without moving an inch.

  Colt was halfway. Stefan had been good to his word, not moving, barely breathing. Hoping he was doing it right. He had spent so long being the hunter that this was foreign territory. He quietly longed to know that McCall was still there.

  Glock Two was on edge. He started talking again.

  “Where’s the second guy?” He earned a swift rebuke.

  “I told you. He has run away. Wouldn’t you if you saw me coming? Go forward and check on Stefan. Do you know how to check for a pulse?”

  “Of course. Do I look stupid?” Colt didn’t answer.

  McCall was now in the middle of the two groups. To his right, the Hyundai, Stefan and the two pursuers. To his left, the BMW and the two younger men.

  He reckoned on about forty metres each way. A tall order for an average shot. But the humble Glock was a remarkable weapon. With it loaded the way it was, seventeen rounds and a couple of replacement magazines, he felt confident. It was all down to the first shot.

  Glock Two was a few metres away from the inert body now and felt very uneasy. If Stefan was dead, he didn’t want to touch him. If he was alive and it was a trap, then it could be even worse. He stepped quietly, one small stride at a time. Could hear his shoes rasping on the road surface, every crackle of every leaf, every heartbeat.

  He cou
ld hear his own breathing, swear he heard something in the trees. It was different out here. He yearned for the city. Where it was light and he felt safe. The hunter preyed upon.

  At the BMW both men had switched off, had started looking around, up at the stars that begun to reveal themselves from beneath the cloud cover. Next error.

  McCall breathed in, let the air out quietly. The Glock fired. That was how it supposed to work, anticipate the shot and you would probably miss at that range. Trigger reset. The second round was away.

  The targets were perfectly lit.

  The first round hit Glock Two in the neck. The second ploughed into Colt’s chest as he turned instinctively to see what was happening.

  McCall now had a tactical choice. Fire another round at each, or arc left. He chose the latter and hoped that Colt wouldn’t shoot Stefan, who had remained on task with the utmost professionalism, but was now understandably moving for cover.

  Two shots rang out. Then two more. Two seconds. Two down. The rear guard was out of the game before it had the chance to react. The whole incident had taken moments. McCall was out of the woods and moving through the smaller trees towards the road.

  “Let’s move!” Stefan responded, not waiting for another instruction. He knew not to compare his own experiences with that of a professional soldier. In his shadow he considered himself nothing more than a street thug – with style. McCall had impressed him completely. If ever he had needed a bodyguard, it was now and here in the darkened rural setting he realised he had just found one. He knew little about the man, but he trusted him.

  He heard his shouts, breaking through his uncharacteristic sense of anxiety.

  “To the Beemer. Now!”

  Stefan ran towards the BMW, past the two bodies. Glock Two was dead, or at least very unwell. Colt was still alive. Stefan covered the eighty metres in an impressive time. As he got to the German car, he stopped and looked at the younger two. Both had a single wound in their heads and another in the torso. The car was undamaged. Not a scratch.

  McCall was approaching tactically, listening for traffic. Nothing. God bless rural Europe.

  Colt turned. His gun was nowhere near him. The 9mm round had hit him in the rib cage and had entered one of his lungs.

  For McCall, it was head over heart. Leave him to tell the tale and enhance the reputation of the enemy, save his life, or put him out of his misery?

  He was looking into the eyes of a man who had never experienced mercy – least of all believed in it.

  He stared down at him, watching his laboured breathing, air sucking in through the dark red hole in his chest. “Let me guess. A little birdie sent you?” It meant nothing to the twenty something who looked like he had lived a hard life. Tacky gold watch and matching tooth aside.

  “I’ll try again. I take it you work for the Jackdaw?”

  Nothing, but the eyes told him all he needed to know.

  “Mate, I’m going to shoot you anyway, so it’s your call. You want ruthless? I can do ruthless. Your amateur circus has no idea what it is dealing with. Now, I asked you a question, friend. Three seconds. There will be no four. One…”

  “Yes. I work for the Jackdaw and who are you to ask?”

  “That’s better. My name is irrelevant. You speak English which helps, I am really not sure how this little chat would go if you only spoke in your own language. Pleasing to see your education wasn’t entirely wasted.”

  McCall could see a blue tattoo on the man’s right wrist.

  “What’s that?” He pointed with his left boot, pinning the arm to the road.

  “Again, who is asking?”

  “Friend, I’ve told you once. Don’t push things. Need I remind you that you are no longer running things here? You say the Jackdaw. Does he have a real name, or did his parents hate him?”

  Colt reflected on his situation. “It is the mark of the Seventh Wave. It is who I belong to. Alex is our leader. Alex Stefanescu. We all belong to him. You will never know what it is like to belong. You are just the bastard who happens to be holding the gun.” More confident, defiant almost.

  “Pretty sad that you can’t make your own way in life. Big fella like you.”

  Colt responded, breathing shallowly, struggling to push the words out between breaths.

  “And you…you have never been part of a group…that you feel loyal to?” It was an arduous but great question. Given his circumstances, he did well to talk.

  “I have. But my group operates on a different level to yours. And by the book. I have a tattoo as well, different to yours. Mine has a dagger on it, but I guess in our way we all follow a leader.”

  “Good, so at least you will let me live. Brothers in arms, and all that…” There was now a sense of desperation in the question.

  McCall lifted him onto his side with his stronger foot.

  “My friend, that round is going to kill you soon. I am a decent person. I can either let you bleed out here in a desolate forest, alone, where trust me, the chances of anyone coming to help you are average to poor, or I can do the decent thing. It’s what I would do to an animal if I’d just run it over.”

  “Shoot me. I don’t care. I am better off dead here than facing the boss – he sent me to follow his brother. I won’t be the last, they will keep coming, for him, and now you.”

  He looked down the road at Stefanescu, not for an endorsement but to make sure he was ready to go. Stefan nodded, as if to say ‘Yes, I am ready. Do what you need to do.’

  McCall looked at the overweight male lying on the road.

  “Oh, aren’t you just a little ray of sleet, you are depressing me now. What’s it to be? Your call.”

  The male nodded and entirely against the flow of the conversation smiled and said, “Do it. If you ever meet Alex tell him I was a brave soldier.”

  “Soldier? Is that what you consider yourself to be?”

  “Yes. I am a soldier of the people.”

  McCall shook his head. It seemed that Walter Mitty was alive, and well, and living in Eastern Europe. He pitied him.

  “You haven’t earned the right to call yourself a soldier.”

  The gun went off and had reloaded before McCall turned to the second male. Glock Two was already dead, but he fired a round through him too, back of the head. He walked the hundred metres, listening to the forest settling down after the last shot. Approaching the two remaining men, he noticed both were also dead. He repeated the act, one shot each.

  “Why are you doing that? They are dead already.” Stefan was supposed to be a higher-echelon criminal, his question surprised McCall.

  “Why? So that when they are found the police will assume they have been targeted by their opposition, not a soldier and his new escapee partner. I doubt the authorities will carry out a postmortem on this band of merry men, so the head shot is designed to make a statement. Come on, we need to move.”

  They got into the BMW, which had been ticking over faithfully.

  “Heated leather seats, nice. Should make for a more comfortable journey to France. You drive, I’ve got some thinking to do.”

  Stefan got behind the wheel, put the lever into drive and moved off. They drove by the four men and the woeful Hyundai, turned right in a kilometre and re-joined the main road.

  “Aren’t you worried this will be reported stolen?”

  “No. Because I doubt your old crew ever reported anything legal. I’m going to close my eyes, mate, need some thinking time. Wake me when you’ve had enough.” He closed his eyes but spoke again. “Oh, and if you are thinking of abandoning me, make sure it is in a picturesque French village filled with grateful and willing maidens.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  In a central London hotel, a nettle-strewn factory within walking distance of the mist-laden River Thames and a car heading to northern France, three people woke, similar time, different places.

  It was a sudden awakening, hearts pounding. The type of awakening that shocks the system, makes it demand to kn
ow where it is. And then the chest beats, fast, furious until normality returns.

  The first person recovered the quickest, looked around, checked his bearings, let out a sigh of relief, then lowered his head back onto the pillow. The second wished her heart would stop – permanently. The third opened and closed his eyes repeatedly, trying to free them of sleep, then extended his arms, clicked his knee joints, the pop audible from half a mile away and finally ran his hand over the condensation, watching it run down the green-tinted glass of the stolen BMW. He looked out at the beginning of a new day, in a new country. They were almost there – well, to be accurate they were a long way from home but closer than they were when they started. It was still dark. In their wake, at least six bodies, a smouldering shell of a nightclub, an abandoned rental car and potentially, on their tail, a varying group of people, some law-abiding, some not.

  “Where are we? How much longer?” McCall had slept for hours, a deep sleep too, which was unlike him. He felt a little vulnerable.

  “Still in Germany. Forty minutes, fifty possibly we will stop. We are not going through the tunnel.”

  “Ferry?”

  “Neither, we can’t risk it. The police will know by now that I am not in the nightclub – and they probably want me as much as they want my brother. I’m still a big name on the Interpol website.” He was almost proud of the claim. “And you, who knows, they may even be after you. So we stay away from ports. OK?”

  “Fine by me. So what’s it to be? Boat or a refreshing swim across the channel, I reckon if we leave now, on the early tide we could be there in fifteen hours.” He smiled.

  “Are you always this sarcastic, Mack?”

  “Always brother, always.”

  “I’ve arranged for us to be met. Up ahead. You could say I’ve cashed in a favour with an old friend.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been easier to get to your contact called Maria? Jump on her plane and hightail it to England, tea with the Queen, maybe a knighthood?”

  “I changed my mind. I do not trust Maria Anghel, and she does not trust me. We make our own way from here.”