by A P Bateman
“What is it?” She started up the stairs, but King stopped her by raising the weapon motioning her backwards with the muzzle. “Tell me…”
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She was wearing just a pair of trousers and a blouse and cardigan. She was shivering, but King suspected it was as much fear as from the temperature. “We were gathered at the foot of the stairs, in the lobby,” she said, then added, “Your friends and I…”
“What’s happened?” King asked, unable to hide his concern.
“A grenade…” she trailed off.
King had heard it. Muffled and distorted by the service stairwell. He strode down the steps and put a hand on her shoulder. He squeezed and gave her a little shake. “Tell me.”
“You need to see for yourself,” she said.
She turned and led the way. King felt as if his legs were made from lead. His heart pounded, and he felt himself go light-headed. He grabbed the rail, took a deep breath and continued. They got to the last flight and King could already see the body of the chef. His whites were pitted with red spots of blood, but it was his head which had taken a large piece of shrapnel. He would have died quickly judging from the wound and the amount of blood around him, already congealing in the cold. King felt her touch his shoulder, ease him into the foyer and around the corner of the corridor.
He froze.
He’d been stupid and now it could cost him everything.
The man held the assault rifle, the barrel just inches from Caroline’s head. King studied him, recognised him as the thin, hook-nosed man he had seen talking to Huss. The same man that Marnie suspected of stealing her laptop. And if that tied in with his snow-covered clothing and the limp, he could very well be the same man who had shot at both King and Caroline at the second rendezvous.
King felt the cold metal touch the nape of his neck and the deception was complete. The Russians didn’t only have a man in the hotel organising, communicating and indeed, blackmailing Huss, they had a woman too. King imagined this hook-nosed man dealing with the two Russian staff. Perhaps the woman, a colleague, had lured them away, and together they had trussed them up. But who had done the killing? Not that it made any difference now, but he might feel better with the pistol against his neck if he’d known what part she had played. Or maybe not…
“Drop the rifle,” she said. He did as he was told, and it clattered on the wooden floor a few feet from him. “Hand’s on top of your head,” she added.
He did so, begrudgingly and surveyed the scene before him. Ramsay was lying down, his hands taped behind his back with duct tape. He looked groggy, as if he were coming around from unconsciousness. King could not work out whether it had been concussive shock from the grenade, or if the man with the hooked nose had struck him down with the butt of the rifle.
Rashid must have put up a fight, because he had a tremendous lump on his head, his unfortunate bleached hair matted with blood. He had been forced to sit on his backside with his feet cross-legged and his hands on the back of his head. It was an awkward position, and one that was difficult to spring to action from. He wasn’t tied, most likely because the man feared getting too close to him. Better to put him in a stress position at gunpoint and keep a weapon on someone he wouldn’t chance endangering. King knew the feeling. He’d been both sides of that scenario. Rashid looked seething, glowering at the floor, murder on his mind. Which was probably why the man hadn’t got any closer to him.
King looked at Marnie, who was also on her knees, her hands placed firmly on top of her head. She was sobbing, and King noticed she was bleeding from her neck and shoulders. Nothing life-threatening, merely tiny pieces of embedded shrapnel.
“What a mess!” the man said above the whine of the wind. He eased himself around Caroline a step, and it was clear he was favouring his left leg. King found himself wondering how badly he had been wounded. The man pointed to Natalia, who was next to Marnie, the same stress position taking its toll as she shivered against the cold. “First one traitor,” he said, and then sweeping a hand towards Natalia he said, “And then another!” He shook his head. “And then the British fool sent to take the traitor in, and now all of you…”
“And two innocent police officers,” said King.
The man laughed. “And let’s not forget a young woman from the GRU who you killed!” He smiled. “And the poor Sami fool, whose services I bought for an iPhone and the promise of a new snowmobile…”
“And the doctor?” King said. “Where did he fit in?”
The man laughed again, although it was mirthless. “He was paid, but he drank too much a developed a conscience. Or at least, a higher price for it.”
“And the poor couple in the ice hotel?” King sneered. “You thought that was us,” he said, looking at Caroline.
“Regrettable,” he said, but without emotion.
“And the manager and two Russian workers?”
King felt the muzzle of the pistol dig into his flesh and he was pushed forwards harshly.
“No, that was me,” the woman said.
King shrugged. “So, what now?”
“I have your laptop,” he said. “And I have my traitor.”
“Well, you win. That’s not even détente. You’ve got everything. Just walk away…”
“Sorry,” said the man lightly. “For all I know, you have forwarded on the information from the USB drive. If that’s the case, there is little I can do about it. But, I can’t leave any loose ends. You look like an experienced killer to me, I’m sure you understand how the game works?” The man glanced suddenly to his right, struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. He had the weapon pointed at Caroline, but he had been outflanked.
Peter Stewart half limped, half dragged himself inside, his pistol held out in front of him and an expression of rage, pain and confusion on his face. He dragged himself through the glass and debris, his leg bleeding through the material and clearly misshapen under his torn snowsuit. His aim was remarkably steady, though. And the other man knew it.
King could feel the barrel against his neck, but he could also sense the indecision, a shakiness to the woman’s grip. He tested it, moved a little to his right. The woman followed, but King guessed it was, so she could see more and get a better idea of what was happening.
“Got yourself a Mexican stand-off,” King said. He was no more confident - a three-gun stand-off meant someone would generally die – but now the man had a fair idea of the pecking order. It wasn’t looking good for him.
The man did not respond, but he pressed the barrel of the assault rifle against Caroline’s skull for good measure. She flinched, the weapon so hard against her that she could no longer see King, her gaze instead pushed towards Stewart.
Stewart smiled. He chanced another step. The man seemed to tighten his finger on the trigger and Stewart stepped all the way in, his pistol no more than a foot from the man’s ear. He looked over at King and said, “Well, this is a wee little mess you’re in, Alex,” he paused. “Just like old times.” His eyes flicked down to Caroline momentarily. “Sorry, lassie, but I’m not here for you…” He fired the pistol and the shot went through the man’s neck, punching out vertebrae and spinal cord. He fired again, not aimed, merely the follow-up to his double tap and put the bullet through the man’s head as he fell to the floor. His finger still on the trigger, but no reflex followed as the weapon clattered to the floor. Caroline fell forwards, turned a shoulder to break her fall and started to scrabble for the rifle.
King moved to his right and was flailing his right arm to sweep the gun away, but she was quick and fired two shots before her gun arm was knocked away. She glared at King defiantly, but he lunged forwards, striking her in the throat with outstretched rigid fingers. He caught hold of her throat and tore backwards, struck his own hand with his other fist to jolt the force downwards. There was no blood, but he had ruptured her windpipe and she dropped the pistol and clutched her throat in reflex. She stared at him in horror, making sense of what had happened, and what w
as to come. She knew she was dying, her face already changing colour as she found it impossible to breathe. King picked up the silenced 9mm MP-443 pistol and aimed at her. She held a hand in front of her, eyes pleading. King thought of the manager, the two tethered Russians who had met their end in the closet and shot her through the palm of her hand. The bullet carried on through her forehead and she fell backwards. He turned around and looked over at Caroline, who was getting unsteadily to her feet. She was looking down at Stewart but turned slowly and stared at back King.
“Alex…” she said.
Stewart was on his back. Both bullets had hit him in the chest and he was bleeding badly from one, his breath rattling and wheezing from the other. King bent down. He could see a lung was gone, the aorta had been clipped by the other. He had seconds remaining rather than minutes.
“You came back…” King said, bending down and kneeling next to him. He took the man’s hand in his own. Both wore gloves, but King could feel the man’s grip weakening by the second. “Why?”
Stewart rasped, “Because I let you down once…” He struggled to put his other hand around the back of King’s neck and pulled him near. He whispered something as he exhaled but he did not inhale again. He was gone.
74
The worst of the storm had passed, but as King weaved the snowmobile through the debris left in its wake, he couldn’t help but to marvel at the sheer power of nature.
They had gathered up the weapons, shared out the ammunition and helped themselves to supplies from the kitchen. Ramsay’s wound was superficial – he had cracked his head on the floor in the shockwave of the grenade - and Caroline had made a cold compress for him, joking whether she could find any ice. Huss had been loaded onto the caterpillar truck, his leg bandaged, and a similar compress given to him for the journey. They would take the truck down the winding track and take one of the SUVs they had travelled up in. The truck was fitted with a snowplough and would lead the way, all the way, if needed back to Kitilla. King would return to the hotel and take the other SUV, meeting them in Kitilla the next morning. It was as good a plan as they could hatch, but news of his separate mission had been a surprise to all but Marnie, who under King’s instruction, had arranged it through Director Amherst.
King wound the snowmobile around another fallen tree, following the GPS on the instrument panel. It was a simple route - North.
Natalia held on tightly. The acceleration from the machine was savage and as King increased the power after every obstruction lying in their path, inertia forced them both backwards. Natalia had adopted a complete wrap around, locking her hands together around his waist.
They traversed frozen lakes – by far the easiest terrain – but a series of steep hills made for tough riding and snow drifts, frozen solid into shapes resembling breaking waves became impassable. King was forced to ride parallel for up to a mile to get around these natural barriers. Each time, the GPS pointed them northwards, a simple correction of the steering was all it took. King likened the experience more to sailing than driving.
The trees had thinned considerably, but ahead of them, in their place, great mountains jutted out of the ground like shark’s teeth. There were no foothills, like arriving in the Rockies or the Alps and gradually climbing to a point where the mountains started to noticeably rise to their summit. These simply appeared, adorning the landscape with breath-taking magnificence. King slowed the snowmobile and checked the GPS. He could see his path, between two impressive peaks, the fjord cutting between them, the Arctic ocean several miles beyond.
“Can we stop?” Natalia asked. “I feel sick.”
King brought the machine to a standstill and used the opportunity to make fists and squeeze some life back into his hands. He winced, his bandaged knuckles aching from where he had pounded the ice. “It’s the motion,” he said. “I can see where we’re going and make the decisions. Your brain has to play constant catch-up.”
“I guess…” she said.
King rubbed his face. His cheeks had been numb and were now burning. He took off his gloves and held his hands to his cheeks, warming them and adding to the burning sensation. His eyes were watering, the tears frozen to his eyelids. He picked at them, like mini stalagmites. Natalia had released her grip on him and was rubbing her face as well. King turned and looked at her. Her eyes were red and sore. Neither of them had goggles. With the hotel abandoned and now lying in ruins, there had been little equipment to find, and time had been critical.
“Don’t rub them too hard,” said King. “They look sore and you’ll damage them if you’re not careful…”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. The explosion knocked them both off the snowmobile, snow and ice hitting them like shrapnel. King’s ears were ringing, and he was experiencing everything in slow motion. He could see that Natalia was feeling the same. Only King had been here before, he knew what had done this to them, and he knew the importance to keep moving. This time, he saw the flare of the rocket, the trail of smoke and the rocket getting ever-closer. He was about to shout for Natalia to take cover, but even under such duress he knew the absurdity of it. They were in the open and had little hope of evading it.
The second rocket landed further away, but not by much. King had time to press his face into the ground and hunker down, his shoulders muffling his ears. The impact was felt in his chest and through his stomach. The same feeling of diarrhoea in his bowels, as if every part of him had been shaken loose. He scrambled over to Natalia, who had not seen the second rocket and had been blown several metres across the ice. She was in shock, but apart from a peppering of lacerations on her cheeks from the ice, she was unscathed. He pulled her over, pushed her to her feet as he got unsteadily to his own. The snowmobile was lying on its side and King caught hold of the handlebar and stepped onto the footplate. He leaned back with all his weight and the machine righted itself. King swung himself on, started the engine and felt Natalia catch hold of him. He swung left, then tracked right. He corrected the steering and straightened up, an explosion detonating twenty-metres away. He felt shrapnel tear through his snowsuit, a searing pain in his lower leg. Natalia screamed, but held on tightly. She started to sob. King grit his teeth, a burning, yet wet sensation on his leg. He wriggled his toes and tensed his calf muscle. It was all working, but excruciatingly painful. He chanced a look and saw scorched tatters of material and the tails of fleshettes poking out, like miniature arrows the size of sowing needles. Natalia was saying something, but King had shut her out. He was working on getting between the mountains to the fjord beyond. He checked the tiny mirror on the right handlebar and could see a snowmobile behind them, its rider dressed in an all-in-one white snowsuit. The same as the hunter force. A survivor.
King knew the man could not use a rocket launcher while pursuing them, so he relaxed into the task at hand. But not for long. He knew he was heavy, topping the scales at fourteen stone, and he estimated Natalia to be around ten stone. Which gave the machine a power deficit over their pursuer. He checked his mirror again. Was he closer? He doubted it just yet, putting the distance at three-hundred metres, which would tie in with the effective range of an RPG. King was still calculating whether he would reach the fjord before the rider closed in close enough to stop and take an easy shot, when he hit a lump of snow and was thrown airborne onto a ribbon of wonderfully new and well-maintained tarmac road. The machine landed heavily and sparked underneath, but he managed to hold on and correct it before smashing through the snowdrift and back onto the flat compacted snow.
He checked the mirror again, saw that the man had crossed the road without incident, and he gradually let out a little of the throttle. The machine slowed and the image in his mirror grew rapidly. King tore at his gloves with his mouth, and then gripped the heated handlebars. He slowed some more, and then as the machine got down to around thirty-miles-per-hour, he elbowed Natalia and she fell to the side. King lurched the steering, powered on full throttle and drove head-on towards the snowmobile. The ri
der had a moment of indecision and pulled to his left. King took his right hand off the handlebar and the machine slowed as he reached for the Makarov pistol in his pocket and aimed at the rider. He let go of the other handlebar, steadied the weapon in a two-handed grip and fired three shots in quick succession. The rider fell backwards, the RPG spinning out from where he had wedged it under his armpit as he hit the ice. King waited for the man to come to a halt, then fired twice more into his back. He pocketed the pistol, manoeuvred the machine around and drove it back to Natalia, who was still getting to her feet. He noticed she had shrapnel wounds to her calf, looked down and saw the mess of his own. Strangely, it had stopped hurting. He thought perhaps the cold air had started to freeze the flesh around the wound.
Keep moving forward…
He could almost hear Stewart shouting at him. He closed his eyes for a moment, thought of his old friend and mentor dying in the hotel lobby. He had been wrong about him. But that was the world he lived in. Smoke and mirrors. Bluff and counter bluff. A world of deception and death. Of playing cowboys and Indians and hoping it made a difference.
The GPS was showing he was near. He slowed the machine a little and checked his watch. He needed to time it just right. Ahead of him, the frozen fjord loomed, hemmed in from both sides by the terrific triangular mountains, like jagged snow-capped pyramids.
“Where are we going?” Natalia asked. “There’s nothing here.”
Ahead of them, three-hundred meters from the frozen shoreline, the ice peaked and broke, driven thirty-feet skywards by the immerging coning tower of the Astute class submarine. King slowed the machine even more. He wanted to time it, so he could get to the base of the coning tower as the vessel settled. Hatch up, asset and himself onboard, hatch down, dive. Job done. Home.
There was movement from the top of the coning tower, and two of the crew fixed a rope to the railings and tossed the coil out and down onto the ice. King stopped the snowmobile fifty-feet away and switched off the engine. He got off but had to help Natalia off the machine and onto her feet.
