Calvary took aim again and put two bullets into the pistol man’s chest, dropping him. He stood and dived for Janos, who’d found his feet and was limping about, bewildered. Calvary got the Browning up against his head again and yelled, ‘Out the way, out the way,’ to Nikola.
The Russian had hauled himself into a sitting position and was taking aim. Nikola turned and aimed the Glock at him, but the Russian ignored her. Too late, Calvary saw the Russian was aiming not at Nikola or him, but at Janos.
The Russian squeezed off three shots, one going wild, the others punching into Janos’s torso so hard that Calvary felt the man’s body rock. An exit wound sprayed blood across the arm of Calvary’s jacket. He drew a bead and fired, watched the Russian slam back, the gun spinning away across the concrete.
Calvary lowered Janos to the ground. One shot through the abdomen, the other in the chest. No exit wound. He was dead, there was no question about it.
He took stock. The pistol man, dead nearby. The Russian supine at the stairs. Against the wall, the shotgun man had crawled onto his belly with his legs drawn up beneath him, like a sleeping baby. He wasn’t moving, and his eyes were open.
In the centre of the rooftop stood Nikola, gun lowered, uncomprehending.
‘Give me a hand here,’ said Calvary. He snapped his fingers when she didn’t move. ‘Quickly. We’ve no time.’
Nikola hurried over. Calvary lifted Janos under his arms.
‘Grab his feet.’
She complied silently. Calvary backed towards the wall, looked over.
In the street below, men were emerging from drawn-up cars, guns held low. Three of them on this side. God knew how many on the others. A growing crowd of passersby was simultaneously coalescing and drawing back.
Where the hell had they come from? Were they more of Janos’s reinforcements? Had he told his father after all?
He grabbed Janos under the armpits and hoisted him on to the wall.
Nikola said: ‘What are you doing?’
‘Creating a diversion.’
He tipped Janos’s body over the edge, watched it tumble, saw it bounce hard off the lip of a balcony. The men below barely had time to shout before the body smashed into the roof of a parked car, the windscreen crazing. The alarm started up immediately, its piercing tone setting off others around it.
More yells, frantic now, and men began to pour round the corner into the street to stare at the sacrilege, the unbelievable crime they’d been witness to.
Calvary grabbed Nikola’s arm and started off at a run across the rooftop to the opposite side. Sirens were beginning to advance from all directions.
‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you stay put in the car like I told you?’ said Calvary. ‘And where’s Jakub?’
‘He was gone,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘When I came through the entrance below. One man was dead. Jakub’s gun was lying near him.’
Two here on the roof, one dead below, shot by Jakub. Max had seen four men. That meant one of them had taken Jakub alive.
They reached the stairwell, stepped over the body of the Russian. Calvary led the way. The floor below was empty.
He used the stock of the Browning to smash the window of the parked car he’d hidden behind earlier, a Peugeot saloon, ignoring the shrill whoop of the alarm. Shoving Nikola across into the passenger seat, he dropped behind the wheel and ripped off the panel beneath it and grappled with the wires. Ten seconds later the ignition caught.
Calvary took the spiralling ramp as fast as he dared, catching the walls with the front bumper a couple of times in a screech of angry metal. As he pulled round the last curve and gunned the engine towards the barriers he saw the cluster of men, Blažek’s, spilling aside, their shouting faces whipping past.
The boom smacked off the windscreen, breaking off but crazing the glass. Then they were free, hurtling down the street, pedestrians stumbling back in confusion. Calvary saw the Fiat as they passed it, nobody inside.
Beside him Nikola had her phone out. When she didn’t say anything he glanced at her.
‘Max’s phone is off,’ she said quietly.
Calvary’s instinct was to head away, putting as much distance as he could between them and the parkhouse; but he took a left turn almost at a hairpin angle and doubled round the back of the block. There was no sign of Max among the massing crowds.
‘Martin?’ she said, her voice choking on the second syllable.
‘He’s got them.’
‘What?’
‘Max and Jakub. Blažek’s got them.’
SEVENTEEN
The pain was like nothing Tamarkin had ever experienced before, as though a malevolent being within his leg was trying to eat its way out. For a bizarre moment his leg was raised above him, its red wetness spraying in the morning light, before his back crashed down and his leg followed with a jar. He was blinded, pierced through by agony.
Through the shimmering waves of screaming nausea he watched the woman, handling the gun as elegantly as a toddler with a monkey wrench, wave it shakily in his direction. Beyond, a man collapsed under Calvary’s shots. The young Blažek, Janos, was half-masking Calvary, a human shield.
Consciousness was ebbing. Tamarkin’s mind, detached from his body’s pain, did the calculations.
Either the woman or Calvary would kill him if he shot the other. And Calvary needed to remain alive for the time being.
Even if Tamarkin survived this encounter, Calvary was going to get away this time, and with Janos.
Janos might or might not know where Gaines was being held. If he did, and if he hadn’t yet told Calvary, Calvary would make him reveal what he knew.
Therefore, Janos had to die.
Krupina, dear old Darya Yaroslavovna, would have been moderately proud of him. He squeezed off one bad shot and two excellent ones, body shots because he didn’t have the focus and the acuity of vision right now to aim for the head. From the way Janos sagged and Calvary stepped aside, Tamarkin knew he’d done the job.
Calvary raised his gun. Tamarkin saw the muzzle flash.
The tide of blackness reared, a last wave, and engulfed him.
*
Bartos roared.
He punched at the dashboard of the car, cracking the walnut veneer, splintering the plastic of the stereo display. He hammered the side of his fist against the window, causing something to snap within the door of the car.
‘Let me out.’
‘Brother –’
‘Unlock the door.’
‘Bartos, listen –’
‘Open this fucking door now.’
‘Listen.’ Bartos wondered if Miklos was aware how close he was sailing, how narrow the margin between Bartos as he was now and Bartos with a gun in his hand, shooting down his own brother for daring to defy him. ‘Deniability. It’s your mantra. The first commandment. You can’t go anywhere near there. The men have to pull back. They can’t be seen around the parkhouse. Least of all can they be caught in there by the police.’
Bartos’s eyes blazed hate at his brother.
‘My son.’
‘Yes.’
‘My firstborn.’
‘I know, brother.’
‘The little shit. He thought he could take the bastard on.’
‘He had your courage.’
‘Bullshit.’ Bartos spat, not caring that he was in Miklos’s car. ‘He was a coward. He took this guy on because he was scared of me.’
‘Perhaps so, Bartos –’
Bartos pulled his phone out and dialled the Worm.
Four rings, and it cut to voicemail. No message, just a tone.
He was about to speak, then thought better of it. Who knew where the Russian was? Somebody else might have his phone in their hands.
‘I need to ditch this,’ said Bartos, holding his own phone up.
Deniability. It was why he personally couldn’t go anywhere near the parkhouse. Why his men had to circle the building like scavengers rather than charge in and finish the job, kill the Brit bastard, now that the police were closing in.