by A P Bateman
“You cut that fine,” King said.
“Better late than never,” there was a distinct brummie lilt to his accent.
“Better never late.”
The man shrugged, cradled the suppressed M4 rifle. “You didn’t give me much notice. Seems to be a habit. And you still owe me a pint from last time.”
“I’ll buy you a couple later.”
“Do you know how hard it is to smuggle one of these out of Hereford? And through the border force lot at Dover?” he raised the rifle, then glanced at Sergeyev on the ground. “You’ve got a live one.”
King turned around to see the Russian mafia boss trying to push himself backwards across the earth. The fallen pine needles were thick, and they were mounding up around his shoulders. He raised the pistol and Sergeyev stopped moving. He was bleeding heavily from the wound in his chest. The blood was almost black. The bullet had caught his liver.
“Bastard…” he said, his Russian accent thick and hateful.
“I gave you a chance. You were too much of a tough guy to take it,” King paused, looked at his companion. “Rashid, find the keys to the Range Rover and let’s get out of here.” He looked back at Sergeyev. “Your wife and child are quite safe. I’ll release them tonight. No harm will, or would ever have come to them. But I’m in a tight spot. Someone who wants you dead is holding my fiancé.”
“So?” he rasped.
“Her name is Helena. She is from the Ukraine and she married an English billionaire…”
“Helena Milankovitch…”
“You know her then,” he said flatly. “What’s her issue with you?”
The Russian sneered. He touched his chest, then looked at his blood-soaked hand. He’d seen enough in his violent and unforgiving life to know his fate. He seemed to relax, as if knowing had knocked the fight out of him. “Fuck you,” he grimaced. “Fuck you, and fuck her too…”
“We’ve got wheels!” Rashid shouted. “Stick a bullet in him and let’s get the hell out of Dodge!”
King looked down at Sergeyev. He didn’t see the tough and resourceful, unrelenting, unforgiving mafia boss who had risked the life of his wife and child in a show of strength to his men. He saw a dying man, whose violent past had finally caught up with him. Whatever it was, the mention of Helena Milankovitch had taken the wind out of his sails.
“Your liver has had it,” King said. “You are going to die here, in this clearing. You’re not going to talk about Helena, are you?”
“Niet!” Sergeyev glowered. His face was ashen, his torso now completely soaked. He forced a smile, perhaps a last-ditch show of bravado. “But mark my words,” he said, his breathing laboured. “If she has your woman, she is as good as dead. You won’t bargain with Helena.” He smiled. “Your bitch is as good as dead…”
King looked at the Russian, then glanced around the clearing at the bodies strewn on the ground. He shook his head, angered with himself that he had let it get this far, taken this turn of events. He had tried to give a man a chance. Not that the man deserved it. A ruthless individual who would have caused untold pain and suffering to others in his world of organised crime. His quest to become more powerful, ever wealthier, had caused misery for so many. He wasn’t a man who deserved a chance, yet King had attempted to take the moral high ground. To spare a woman the loss of her husband, a child the loss of her father. And when it had come to it, the man had been willing to risk their life for nothing more than his own ego.
King stared down at Sergeyev, ashamed at deviating from his instructions, from chancing Caroline’s safety, to try and do the right thing. The right thing for a woman and a child he did not know. The right thing was whatever it took to get back the woman he loved. He shot Sergeyev through the forehead, dropped the gold-plated pistol onto the dead man’s chest and walked through the clearing to where Rashid had the Range Rover idling.
Rashid was searching the radio station for something that wasn’t French folk music. He found a rock channel playing Steppenwolf and Born to be Wild. King got into the passenger side as Rashid put the vehicle into drive and floored the accelerator. The wheels tore up the sandy earth, the pine needles scattering behind them.
Rashid turned the volume button up on the steering wheel and started to sing, “Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway! Lookin’ for adventure, and whatever comes our way…”
8
It was completely dark when they reached Rashid’s car. The SAS soldier was not pleased at leaving the leather throne of the Range Rover, but King had insisted any link to Sergeyev needed to be severed as soon as possible. The Russian mafia boss had many interests in southwest France, and one of his vehicles could easily be identified, especially by the police, which King would assume were privy to what the Russian did, or were in fact on the payroll themselves.
Rashid had pulled alongside King’s BMW and King had swiftly got in, moved off and taken the lead for him to follow. He led the way out of Biarritz and through Bayonne to the gentle hills a dozen miles from the coast - the foothills of the Pyrenees. There were villages - some as old as the first settlers to the region - others purpose built, full of faux chalets and cottages for the summer tourist season, complete with micro-markets and pharmacies, medical centres and gift shops. Farmhouses dotted the rolling grass hills, visible only by lights shining within.
King used his phone’s GPS to find the farmhouse. The darkness made it impossible to use the various landmarks he had noted during the day, but as he reached a crossroads with recycling bins packed tightly on the other side of the road, he recognised the farmhouse’s entrance. He turned sharply to the left, crossing over the road and slowed over the potholed track. The farmhouse was the only property on the track. King had earlier scouted out the track, but it merely led to pastures and a large storage shed stacked with the last of the previous year’s haybales.
King turned into the driveway, the lights of his car illuminating the chalet and its front garden. He switched off the engine, for a moment enjoying the darkness and silence it afforded him. Taking lives was not something that went without reflection. Or at least, not the older one became. It had been so long now, King couldn’t remember if it had always been this way, or merely in recent years. He liked to hope, that on some level, it had always rested heavily with him. In truth, he suspected it had not. He looked up as Rashid’s headlights swept over the chalet, dazzling him in the mirror. He doubted the young SAS officer was feeling the same way. He imagined him blasting out karaoke renditions to the rock station all the way up here. Hyped up on the adrenalin, trying to maintain its levels with whoops and calls, screams and shouts, playing back the shots in his mind and seeing the men drop as he moved the rifle’s sights to the next unfortunate soul.
Rashid was a gifted marksman. He was also the first solider of Pakistani extraction to lead an SAS unit in Afghanistan, and had successfully infiltrated ISIS, which he had done by taking up arms against US-led Iraqi troops. A dark time in Hereford’s history, and one that would forever be denied. Rashid had also helped King in both the fight against Muslim extremists and a Russian-sanctioned terrorist plot against Britain. In a world where he had few friends and had left little personal or emotional impression behind, King would call Rashid his closest and most dependable friend. Only now, for the third time in just over a year, he was further in the man’s debt.
King got out of the car. The air-conditioning had cooled him, and the night air was warm and pleasant. He watched Rashid get out of his car – a ten-year-old Audi A4, that had seen better days – the M4 assault rifle held loosely in his right hand. He was chewing gum and still bobbing to the music, long after the stereo had been switched off. The man was wired and pumped and ready for a war. King wanted him to mellow. In fact, he wanted him out of the way entirely. There was no point in the soldier being a part of what was to happen next.
“Do a sweep of the area,” King said. “Take up position fifty-metres over there,” he said flicking his head down the road. “
Enough to keep eyes on the house, and the road down here.”
“What will you be doing?” he asked.
“What needs to be done,” King said.
9
Anna Sergeyev looked up at King as he entered. She was scared and as all mothers would have done, she turned to look at her nine-year-old daughter. King felt a pang of anguish, of regret. He saw that the girl had fallen asleep, her hands still bound to the chair he had put her in. He had not involved himself with any contact with children in almost twenty years of service in the intelligence services. He had never considered them to be collateral damage, had gone out of his way and risked the outcome of entire operations to keep children coming to harm. Now, with the woman he loved taken as leverage, he had barely considered taking the girl hostage, of terrifying her, of using her as a pawn.
King walked across the room and eased at the edge of the duct tape covering Anna Sergeyev’s mouth. He pulled at it gently, her lips stuck, but she did not have enough facial hair to make the process too uncomfortable. He said nothing, decided to leave Dina Sergeyev sleeping as he walked through to the open-plan kitchen and fetched a glass of water for the woman.
She watched him as he returned. He held the glass to her lips and she sucked some of the water off the top.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She pulled away from the glass having slaked her thirst. “You are going to kill us…” she said quietly.
“Your husband didn’t go for it,” he said. “I gave him the chance, but he barely considered it.”
“You expected him to?”
“Of course.”
“Then you know nothing of the Russian mafia. The brotherhood.”
“So, it would seem,” he said.
“Stupid man,” she said, her accent a mix of thick Russian, guttural, with a hint of American. A woman who had grown used to watching and listening to popular culture, but couldn’t quite shake off the motherland.
“Who? Him or me?”
“Both.”
“Fair enough.”
“Bastard.”
“Me?”
“Him,” she snapped. “How much did he ask about us?”
King shrugged. “Nothing.”
“He sacrificed us?”
“In fairness, he was set on torturing me to death to find you.”
“How far did he get?”
“He made a start,” King said. “Drove me out to the forest, told me to dig my own grave.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, when she opened them again, her eyes were moist. “How did he die?” she paused. “How did you kill my husband? My daughter’s father?”
“It was quick and painless,” King lied, thinking of the man’s exploded liver and that dark, unmistakable blood. He wasn’t feeling unhappy about it. He hadn’t been a good man. He felt something for the woman in front of him, the child asleep in the easy chair. “He was a big boy and he was playing big boys’ games. He died by big boys’ rules.”
“How will you do it,” she asked. “How will you kill us both? My daughter is sleeping…” she said, her voice catching in her throat. Tears had formed in her eyes. “You could do it now… while she’s asleep,” she paused. Her brow was perspiring suddenly, her face pale and her breathing more rapid. “Oh, God, no…” she said urgently, as if changing her mind in an event she had no choice over. “I don’t want to die…”
King looked at her, took out his knife and opened the blade. “You fucking Russians are hardcore,” he said. “My car is a hire car. I took it under an alias, so knock yourself out.” He bent down and sliced through the bindings. She pulled her hands away and rubbed her wrists. “I have no way of knowing what will happen with your husband out of the chain, but a powerplay will put both you and your daughter at risk. Can you get to any money?”
“Enough,” she said. “Enough to disappear and live well.”
“That sounds good enough,” said King. “This place is taken for two weeks. You can stay here, make your plans and be invisible. There are shops in the village for food and clothes, nobody will disturb you here. You’ll be just another tourist.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “But why?”
“Why, what?”
“Well, why let us go?” she rubbed her face, then took the glass of water off the table and drank most of it in a few large mouthfuls.
“You were leverage, nothing more. I’m sorry I scared you,” he paused. “And your daughter too. I was desperate.”
“Why?” she asked, seemingly interested, though she was sad. King suspected not so much by the death of her husband, but his willingness to sacrifice them to save face.
“Someone is holding my girlfriend, my fiancé. They want me to perform certain tasks. Killing your husband was one of them.”
She stared at him. “Well, you stand to get her back then,” she paused. “You win, my husband loses.”
“And so do you. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll survive. Possibly longer now that he’s dead. There have been many attempts recently, many betrayals. He has driven to those woods many times. He was scared. So, if not you, then somebody else. Somebody even more ruthless. Perhaps you have saved me, my daughter too.”
“I hope so. It wasn’t my plan, but perhaps some good can come from it.” He folded the knife, slipped it back into his pocket and tossed her the keys to the hired BMW. “Your husband seemed to know the woman behind his death, the woman holding my fiancé.”
“Her name?” Anna peeled the remainder of the duct tape from her wrists, slipped the keys into her pocket.
“Helena…”
“Milankovitch…” she interrupted.
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But your fiancé is as good as dead.”
10
“I thought you were going to slot them both.”
King looked at Rashid as he drove. “Really?”
“Well, you’re pretty hardcore.”
“Says the man who just took down the Bratva Mafia.”
“Needs must,” he paused. “I didn’t hear you complaining.”
King shrugged. “That sort of thing isn’t my style.”
“Complaining?”
“No, you tit. Collateral damage.”
“Not yet, at least.”
“Meaning?”
Rashid negotiated the slip road and accelerated to join the D817. “I just don’t think you’ll stop at anything to get Caroline back.”
King didn’t answer. Deep down, he knew the man was right. But it had only just started. He knew he was going to be put through the ringer. He just hoped he stood a chance of freeing Caroline. He thought back to what Pyotr Sergeyev had said before he died. King had merely thought it a taunt. The man knew he was dying; his injuries were too severe to hope to recover. But King hadn’t been ready for Anna’s comment. And no amount of asking would make the woman elaborate. She had history with Helena Milankovitch, knew her from old. He had seen from Anna’s file that she was Ukrainian. He knew too that she had met Sergeyev in the club scene. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume she was from a similar background to Helena – a dancer, an escort or more.
Rashid carefully overtook a series of slow-moving trucks, keeping the Audi at a speed of around seventy-miles-per-hour. He was making timely progress but didn’t want to push it. Not with a firearm on board. Especially when that firearm was a Ministry of Defence registered 5.56mm Colt M4, part of a requisition from 22 Special Air Service Regiment.
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Rashid. “I’ve done some stuff I’d rather not talk about, but I can’t see this going well. Not unless you get some help.”
“You helped,” King answered tersely.
“Always glad to. Especially now I’m shining a chair with my arse.”
“Really?”
Rashid smiled. “Wound up the wrong Rupert.”
“You’re a bloody Rupert,” King corrected
him. In the SAS, and now in many other units as well, Rupert was slang for an officer.
“Well, someone a lot higher up the chain than myself.”
“What did you do?”
Rashid shrugged. “Well, he’s in his fifties, a lieutenant-colonel. He has a daughter…”
“A sullied one now, I take it?”
“Oh, I imagine she was sullied a long time before she met me…”
King smiled. Rashid was a captain, and only recently promoted. He didn’t say anything, but he had a feeling it wasn’t just rank that irked the toy colonel. Rashid didn’t seem remotely bothered, so he didn’t mention it. The army was inherently racist, despite the recruitment films, and there would be those who would think Rashid had simply been promoted to fill a minority quota. King knew it was more likely because he was one of the best soldiers he had ever met.
“Well, getting caught AWOL with a weapon would do more than find you a desk,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
“Well, you still owe me a beer from the last time,” he smiled. “Seriously though, you need someone helping you. What about ‘Box?”
King shook his head. “Not yet. They wanted to, but I didn’t want it. Not yet.”
“Why? Just think of the resources, the manpower. Even a discreet investigation would give you a few pairs of hands.”
“But they won’t play it like it needs to be played,” King paused.
“This woman, Helen Snell…”
“Milankovitch.”
“Right,” Rashid nodded. “So, let me get this straight. You investigate Anarchy to Recreate Society, a terrorist group founded to kill the richest five people on the planet and continue to do so until the rich offload enough money to get off the rich list. But it’s not all it seems. Helena Snell, AKA Milankovitch, is the wife to one of the richest men on the list and she is sleeping with some guy and has been all along throughout her marriage.”
