by A P Bateman
King reached the landing and could see the chaos below him through the window. He could hear gunfire, and now he could see men firing their weapons at the mountainside and the treeline beyond the perimeter. The were convinced that the IEDs had been grenades, fired or thrown from the top of the first slope. King checked behind him, then slipped off the rucksack and took out two of the taper-fuse IEDs. He used a cheap disposable lighter he had bought in a service station and lit both fuses. They burned fiercely, and King worked the catch to open the window, but it was stuck firm. He cursed his stupidity, should have opened the window first. He used the butt of the rifle to smash out the glass, but the glass was toughened. Cursing again, he fired two shots through the glass and used the butt of the rifle again. The glass gave way, but a few of the men had turned and were looking up at the window. King was cursing a little more fluidly as he lobbed both IEDs out of the window amongst the men. They looked at the burning water bottles, but the first exploded before anybody worked out what was going on. Mud, shrapnel and debris blew high in the air and two of the men were thrown backwards, the third man was obliterated by the blast. The explosion had sent the second IED high into the air, and when it detonated, it showered molten-hot screws across the garden, felling men and sending shrapnel into the side of the house. King ducked and felt the wave of heat, glass blowing over his back. When he looked back up the man was standing firm, the pistol aimed at his head. King dodged left and the gun fired. He dropped low, clawed for the AKU and got a couple of rounds off, both hitting the top tread of the stairs. The man fired twice more as he ducked back around the landing. King fired three more shots, smashing the banister spindles and taking chunks of plaster out of the wall. He had a better hold on the rifle, a better aim and he shouldered it and took the stairs two at a time. The man ducked out, the pistol held in a two-handed grip, he fired at the same time as King and went down squirming. King took another step, aimed and fired. The man’s head rocked backwards, and he didn’t have to stick around to know he was dead. He took a step forwards, turned the weapon sideways and reached to detach the magazine to check how many rounds he had left. His left arm wouldn’t move as fast as it should, and he felt a stab of pain. He looked down, saw the blood on his sleeve. He’d killed the man at the top of the stairs, but he’d gone down fighting. King had been hit by one of the 9mm bullets. He checked the magazine, wincing at the pain and pushing through the barrier to get the task done. He pivoted the awkward backward alignment of the Kalashnikov’s magazine and clicked it back in place. He estimated twenty-rounds remaining. He moved on, but as he passed the largest of the windows, a bay window with an area that had been turned into a reading corner with leather sofas and books piled high on antique wooden sideboards, he caught sight of lights and gunfire at the main gate. He watched as a digger, a JCB, he thought, crashed through the gates and drove up the driveway, part on the grass and part on the road, tearing up a line of privet hedge on its front grille. It lowered its front bucket and rammed hard into the Ferrari, smashing it into the Rolls Royce. As it met resistance, the Ferrari went further into the bucket, which was already rising. The digger swung out and then braked suddenly, and the Ferrari carried on, landing in front of the men who were lining up and firing at the digger. The wrecked Ferrari smashed onto the ground and rolled into some of them as they dodged in all directions trying to avoid it. The digger swung around, the bucket lowering and drove into the security hub, taking out a complete wall and making the roof collapse.
King shot out the glass and crouched down. He took out the last two electrical-timer IEDs and set them for one-minute a piece. He counted down in his head, then threw them both out, one left and one right, when he estimated fifteen seconds remaining. He did not wait to see what effect they had on the men down below as he headed for the first of many doors along the south wing of the building.
68
Rashid hadn’t driven a digger before, but the three-mile drive to Romanovitch’s property had given him plenty of scope. He wasn’t about to consider a second career, but he could make it move – much like any heavy vehicle – with gears and brakes and throttle, although the throttle was steering wheel mounted and he discovered the brakes could be split to turn on a coin. The front bucket went down and up and tilted accordingly by use of another lever. He hadn’t had the time to study the back-hoe, which required revolving the seat, but he didn’t think he’d be digging a trench anytime soon. In his opinion, he’d done a pretty good job, raising the bucket as a bullet trap, and destroying the security hub as well as the two cars, but he was starting to take fire and the glass all around him had either completely shattered, or was strewn with individual bullet holes.
After leaving King, Rashid had deliberated for some time and had eventually responded to Neil Ramsay’s text message, when he had seen the subject matter. King no longer had to either kill the Russian, or snatch Catherine Milankovitch. Caroline was safe and well. Ramsay was demanding a regroup and debrief. As far as Rashid was concerned, his friend had crossed the line. He wanted to help, but he could only see the odds as a suicide mission. If King had reached the point where he couldn’t see reason, then Rashid had wanted no further part of it. He had driven near, hoping to catch King before his assault. He had texted him, and then, when he received no response, he had called. Straight to voicemail. He knew King would have switched off his phone. It was then that he had heard a thud and echo across the mountainside. The first of King’s IEDs.
Rashid had acted quickly, remembering the road building equipment parked up in the layby. He had no weapon, and his hire car would be torn to shreds if he tried to drive in. He had driven at breakneck speed and decided to steal the massive digger. Hereford had taught him many things, not least how to hotwire enemy vehicles. A skill he had already deployed in Syria many times. The drive back to Romanovitch’s property was a fraught one - the digger could only reach forty-miles-per-hour and Rashid imagined King cornered and taking fire, or worse.
Now he was taking fire of his own. He had heard ricochets in the cab, had pressed his chin to his chest as a fragment zinged past his ear. He had just tossed the mangled Ferrari at the group of men and taken a few out with the wreckage. He slipped his foot on the right brake pedal and spun the wheel clockwise as he pulled hard back on the throttle. The digger span quickly and Rashid lowered the front loader bucket, scything through the air and catching two men who were thrown twenty-metres into the wall of the house. They wouldn’t be getting up.
To counter the nauseous feeling from the inertia of the spinning cab, Rashid swung the wheel the other way and depressed the other brake pedal. The digger practically rotated on the spot, its bucket midway and spinning quickly. The men were starting to gather on the lawn. They were reloading or swapping magazines with each other or picking up scattered weapons from the men killed or injured in the IED blasts. Rashid didn’t give them time. He straightened up and the giant machine lurched forwards towards them. His main concern was a man getting level or behind him and leaping either onto the side ladders or the rear-mounted back-hoe. From there, they would be able to take a shot at their leisure. He countered this by swinging the machine in a zig-zag. The men scattered, some firing, others fleeing. But all the time, Rashid drove like he was demented. The digger turned so severely that it looked as if it may well keel over. Rashid stopped suddenly and reversed. He soon had fifty-metres between himself and the remaining men. He swung the vehicle around and faced off the men he had first engaged at the entrance to the drive. They had regrouped and were advancing. Rashid lowered the bucket and repeated his zig-zag as he neared them. Again, the men reacted in the same way, dodging but failing to anticipate how erratic ten-tonnes of metal could be. Rashid heard the thuds as bodies hit the metal but felt nothing as he kept the digger moving at maximum speed through the grounds. He drove a wide circle, the headlights lighting up the vast area of lawn. As he came around towards the house, he could see that he had allowed too much time for the men to regroup and he saw
the muzzle flashes a split second before he heard the bullets hitting the body of the digger. He turned and raised the bucket so that it completely blocked his view, and the bullet strikes as they impacted on the toughened steel of the bucket changed two octaves higher.
Wishing he had gone along with King’s plan of a diversion, Rashid steeled himself momentarily, then yanked back the throttle for a final charge. He bounced out of his seat as he drove over a line of flower beds, then crashed through a water feature and was left with fifty-metres of sparking, pinging bullet strikes over the front loader arms and the bucket. He was closing fast, but the bucket suddenly dropped without warning and hit the ground. The hydraulic cylinder had been hit and hydraulic fluid sprayed over what was left of the windscreen and into Rashid’s face. A mound of neatly manicured lawn was pushing up over the already full bucket and he felt the vehicle halve in speed. Rashid hit the breaks and slammed the machine into reverse. He moved backwards at full speed, the bullets pinging off the grille and bonnet. The range was increasing with every second, and Rashid kept the machine reversing hard all the way towards the front wall. He could already see men at the gates. Some were injured and crawling, others were kneeling and getting ready to fire. Rashid nailed the brake and swung the wheel hard. The digger spun, throwing up huge clods of earth. He was twenty-five metres from the wall when he changed gear and pulled back the throttle. The digger lurched forwards and he had just enough time to change into second and brace himself for impact. The bucket smashed through the wall and the digger hit the rubble and became airborne, crashing down onto the road. Rashid was thrown out of his seat and through the shattered windscreen. He slid onto the hot bonnet, scrambled off the side and limped off the road and into the brush. Gunshots echoed, and bullets sparked and pinged off the digger, but already Rashid was well out of their line of fire, picking his way through the treeline and making his way back towards the entrance, parallel to the road.
69
There were many rooms upstairs, but King already knew which one he wanted. But as he made his way down the corridor he kept the weapon trained on every doorway he passed nonetheless. The door he was heading for was a double oak door, approximately eight-feet high. It had to indicate a master bedroom. It seemed the most fitting. And the facing end of the building featured a large balcony, which spanned the entire façade. King imagined the southwest-facing balcony soaked up the sun for much of the day. It seemed the obvious choice for the master suite to benefit from such a feature.
King edged to the side as he drew near. He unslung the rucksack and dropped it on the floor before reaching across and testing the handle. Splinters of wood burst out, the bullets punching ragged holes through and spitting out across the landing. He snatched his arm back and the door continued to take a pummelling, the sharp report of a pistol filling his already ringing ears, the lead hammering the solid oak door and careening at all angles down the corridor as it penetrated the thick wood. He raised the rifle, but the thought of Catherine being caught in a crossfire at this stage, made him lower it. He had come too far to lose his bargaining chip now. And he had no idea who else could be inside the room, and although he knew Romanovitch was married, he still didn’t know if the man had any children.
The gunfire ceased, and King raised the rifle, the butt held out from his shoulder and high in the air, the barrel aimed mere inches from the door handles. He was at such an acute angle as to do nothing more than put his rounds through the floor a foot or so inside the room. He took the chance and fired six rapid rounds across the door locks. The powerful 5.45x39mm bullets smashed the locks out and took one of the round gold-plated doorknobs clean off, leaving a six-inch hole, the doors opening a few inches.
The wood splintered, three gunshots filling the air. King reversed a hook kick, keeping his body away from the door, but sending his heel powering into both doors. They sprung back, and as King pulled back his foot, he swung the rifle out one-handed, like a pistol and lined the sights up on the man standing between two facing leather chairs.
Only it wasn’t just a man standing there.
And he no longer aimed the pistol at the door.
Romanovitch was tall and thin, but broad. Like a coat hanger. He reminded King of a scarecrow. The dossier that King had read on him mentioned a period of five-years spent in a Russian gulag. Five years in the baking, mosquito-ridden swamps of a Siberian summer, and one of the coldest, most unforgiving places on the planet in winter. King could see that the man had done hard time. It showed in his eyes. They were dead. His features were chiselled and gaunt. He looked like a man who had starved to the bone. There was never a full recovery from that sort of existence. No matter what luxury he had in his life now, the damage had been done. Like holocaust victims. There was no leaving the camps behind.
The woman was tall, her long hair dark and glossy. Standard Russian or east European trash. She had the looks and the figure to have model pretensions, but there was no warmth in her eyes. No sparkle. She was a predator. She had hooked up. Paid a price she thought worth paying. She was another Anna.
Another Helena.
Romanovitch held a pistol to her head. He was a whole foot taller, but he hid well behind her not inconsiderable height. King had the short rifle held loosely in his hands, the sights hovering somewhere between Romanovitch’s face and the woman’s shoulder. He couldn’t get a clear shot at the man, and through his mind was running with the notion of clipping her shoulder to reach his face. But the round from the AKU wasn’t like the 9mm Romanovitch was holding. It could slice straight through, or it could clip bone, tumble and take her entire arm off. The 5.45x39mm had been solely designed to take personnel off the battlefield. It was a savage round and King would rather go for a clean shot.
King could see the woman shared features with Helena Milankovitch. He saw Helena a thousand times a day. He pictured her staring at him as he investigated her husband’s murder. Her long-time lover standing at her side, seething at his interference. But it was the way she had looked at him that haunted him at night. She had been staring at him impassively, but King knew now that she had been planning how best to hurt him. How to destroy him. Now King saw that same look in this woman’s eyes.
She wasn’t scared.
She was planning.
Catherine moved her arm a touch and King saw the pistol too late. She fired, and King ducked to his right, but this took Romanovitch out of his line of fire. He squeezed off two rounds in front of them, the noise and muzzle flash shocking them and ruining their follow-up measure. King swung the rifle and the barrel hit Catherine in the jaw. She yelped and fell, between the two armchairs. Romanovitch was bringing the pistol around on King, but the swing of the rifle now meant he was way off target, so he swung back and caught the pistol with the muzzle of the AKU as it went off.
Romanovitch kicked out and King felt the rifle wrench out of his hands. He ducked his head and powered into the Russian, headbutting the man in his diaphragm. King could feel the bone and as he got his arms up and gripped the man’s shirt with both hands, he could feel the sinewy muscle and thin wrap of skin around his ribs.
Romanovitch was no stranger to fighting and used his elbows to strike down on King’s broad back. It was a large target and the Russian was using it well. Not blindly beating him but aiming his blows into the vertebrae. He was working his way up between King’s shoulder blades, trying to get them down onto the base of his neck. He had invested in the strategy, knew that a well-placed blow would take King out of the fight, so he gripped King around his chest with his left arm, wrapping him in a bear-hug, as he used more force and precision to deliver his blows. King was taken by surprise at the man’s strength. He pulled backwards but met resistance. King always countered resistance and used it to his benefit. He pushed instead, but Romanovitch had been waiting for this and ran backwards with him, keeping up his savage attack on King’s spine.
King was breathless now, and knew he needed to get out of the man’s grasp. He dropped
lower but caught a well-placed knee in his eye as Romanovitch countered. He now took successive blows from above and below, but he blocked the knee as best he could with his forearms, feeling the rawness of the bullet wound more now that it was taking a pummelling from Romanovitch’s knee. The man’s knee was undoubtedly stronger and harder than King’s arms, but the power of the blows was being drained enough to have minimal effect on his face. King drew a deep breath, then dropped lower and powered up through his legs like a weightlifter. He drove both fists up into Romanovitch’s stomach in a double blow but carried on through as he straightened his legs. The Russian’s eleven-stone or so was taken clear from the ground and King kept on lifting until Romanovitch teetered and was thrown clear over King’s back and onto the parquet wooden floor. King heaved for breath but was quick turning around to meet his opponent. Romanovitch was stunned, but he knew - or rather had a well-tuned animalistic instinct – the importance of getting off the ground. He rolled onto his side, and when he glanced back up at King, he rolled twice more and put a favourable distance between them. King took a step forwards, but was wrenched backwards, the wind sucking from his lungs as a hard, slim forearm wrapped around his throat and Catherine pulled backwards with all her might.
