Severance Kill Page 26
*
After calling Nikola’s phone and finding Llewellyn on the other end, he’d told Gaines about the change of plan. Gaines hadn’t protested, had simply closed his eyes and nodded. A few calls had established which hospital Max was at. Calvary had rung Max on the ward phone — there was no way he’d get in to visit at this hour — and told him about Nikola.
‘I’m out of here,’ said Max. He’d discharged himself against medical advice, had met Calvary in the car park outside. He walked painfully, his chest bound and his left arm in a cast and supported by a sling.
They’d gone through the plan. Max had never fired a rifle before. Calvary made him understand that it would be ludicrously awkward to try to fire one with one arm in plaster. Max told him to stop being an old woman.
‘Fire in our direction, but not at us.’
‘Got it.’
‘I’m serious, Max. If you hit any of us by accident, we won’t be getting up.’
‘Dude…’
And he’d done it, masterfully, creating the impression that some unknown third party, perhaps a remnant of Blazek’s or Krupina’s group, was picking off Calvary and his friends.
They’d returned to a city reeling in bewilderment, the chaos of the night’s events beyond most people’s grasp. There was no chance of returning to Nikola’s flat, or Max’s either. They’d found a motel on the northern outskirts, where they could access a room without all four of them parading past the desk.
In the shabby confines of the motel room Nikola tended Calvary’s head, applying antiseptic and bandages, wincing every time he did. She turned her attention to Gaines. He tried a smile.
‘I’m first class, young lady. But thank you.’
Calvary said, ‘You need to get Max back to the hospital.’ The young man’s face had a green hue, and each breath clearly lanced at his chest.
Max said, ‘Can’t believe they drilled your head.’
They ate and drank all they could manage. Nikola and Max came up with the price of a train ticket for both men. They would have offered more but Calvary refused.
It was time to go. Calvary gripped Max’s hand.
‘Ah, jeez.’ The kid turned away, sniffed. ‘Arm hurts, man.’
Nikola pressed herself against Calvary, her body and her mouth. He started to say something but she waved him away, her glance quick and liquid.
dth="2em" align="justify"›‘Go.’
*
Calvary dropped Gaines off just inside the German border. He parked near a bus depot and walked the fifty yards with him to the depot’s office, where there would be timetables.
Gaines said, ‘What will you do?’
‘I’m not going to tell you. Obviously.’ Calvary said.
Gaines turned, gave Calvary his hand. ‘I’m really most grateful.’
‘Even though I might have killed you. Even though you’ve been through two days of hell, and your life here is destroyed forever.’
‘They would have fed me to the Russians sooner or later. This… Chapel, or whatever they call themselves. And that would have been disastrous.’
‘Yes.’
He gave a silent laugh. ‘I don’t just mean for me personally.’ Stepping a little closer he said, ‘I might as well tell you. Your Mr Llewellyn can’t be aware of this, but I know who TALPA is. The mole, the real one. Yes, I’ve been fed disinformation; I knew that was what it was at the time, and I assumed it was so that I wouldn’t compromise the real mole if I ever fell into Moscow’s hands. I might have held my own under questioning, enough that my interrogators would have believed the false information. But I might not have. By delivering me from Mr Llewellyn, from Moscow, you’ve done your country a great service.’
My country. Calvary suppressed a laugh of his own. He said, ‘And you’re not going to tell me who this mole is.’
‘Obviously.’
Calvary watched his back as he headed for the office, an old man with a stoop now that was more pronounced than in the beginning, as if his shoulders had recently taken on a weight.
*
The last light of the afternoon came coldly through the window. Alone in the carriage now, Calvary huddled into the corner of his seat. His eyes were closed, the unfamiliar Saxony fields and towns through the window having long ago lost their appeal. The train’s destination was Berlin, but he was going to change well before that.
He thought about Llewellyn, and how he’d looked as Calvary had pressed the barrel of the pistol against his forehead. For a second his face had morphed into that of the young man, Pelabo Ghilzai, the one he’d failed to kill in Garmsir.
But of course it wasn’t him. Nobody ever would be.
Calvary thought of the old man, Gaines, a stranger to him until right at the very end, an object he’d been intending to erase like a speck of grease. He thought of Nikola, of Max, of Jakub, dead. He thought Gaines and the three Czechs weree Czechs among the bravest people he had ever met.
He had money to last a while, shored up in bank accounts Llewellyn wouldn’t be able to reach. Apart from that he had nothing. He could never return to England. He’d be looking over his shoulder forever, expecting to see Llewellyn’s Punch-like grin close behind.
And he needed urgent medical attention, because he’d had a bloody great hole drilled in his head.
But he was free, for now at any rate. He’d helped bring down Blazek, a blight on the lives of Prague’s citizens. He’d saved Sir Ivor Gaines, a good man — and, it seemed, an important one — from torture and death in a Moscow cell.
And he was alive.
For the first time in as far back as he could remember, Calvary smiled.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-bdf0df-5dc7-3949-628e-b714-e658-f72784
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 03.09.2013
Created using: calibre 1.1.0, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Stevens, Tim
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