The bike is sliding along the road, in a spray of sparks, in front of me.
I am flying along, backwards, fractionally in front of it.
I brace myself for impact.
Which comes quickly.
I land, backpack first, onto the tarmac and am thrown into a helpless, tumbling, roll.
~~~~~
London
Greere grimaced, feeling his blood pressure rising rapidly toward boiling point. His screen, in front of him, was filling with messages from the raft of Central European feeds being listened to and transcribed by a multitude of unknown administrative operatives scattered throughout the sprawling network of Europe’s Security Services. He had asked the system to filter out messages based on a range of keywords: Budapest, gun, shot, shooting, murder, body, Fecske, and several more.
‘Gunfire reported. Bérkocsis Street...’
‘All available units. Murder suspects. On motorbikes. Heading at high speed toward the river...’
“Shit,” he muttered to himself and grabbed his cellphone.
Ellard would still be on the plane.
He tapped out a text message, ‘CODE RED. EXTREME CAUTION. CALL ME SOONEST,’ and then pressed send.
‘Suspect in river. Repeat. One body in river. Scramble boat patrols downstream of Erzsébet Bridge...’
‘Two persons murdered. Bérkocsis Street. Presumed owners of stolen motorcycles...’
‘Three bodies. Apartment. Fecske Street. Signs of small arms fire. Back-up requested...’
“It’s a fucking bloodbath!” he shouted angrily, wondering what-the-hell he would tell Sentinel.
~~~~~
Budapest
Jack rolled to a painful halt and pushed himself unsteadily up onto his feet.
Various civilian cars were pulling up on both sides of the road, their headlamps creating a pool of light within which he could make out the dark mass of dormant motorbike and the equally dark bundle that must be Nick.
He staggered over toward them and the bundle rolled itself over.
Various drivers and passengers were emerging from the parked vehicles. Someone was yelling at him, asking if he was alright. A crowd was gathering at the damaged railings. Some of them were pointing toward the river. One of them screamed and ran off to one side, retching violently.
“Nick?” he called out.
The bundle weakly raised one arm and waved it about. Gesturing toward the Danube. “Go see,” came a familiar grunting voice.
Jack was slowly finding his feet again and turned and shuffled toward the gathering spectators. They parted rapidly, backing away as he approached.
One of the uppermost railings was bloodstained and bent where the bike had hit it. There was a lump of something fleshy lying on the ground next to it. Something with a boot attached.
He felt his own bile rising.
Looking away from the grisly remnant, he peered out in the direction that some of the other watchers were pointing, and could just make out the dark form of a torso, drifting on the current, slowly spinning on itself, face downwards. There were no signs of life.
In the distance he could hear sirens approaching.
They needed to get moving.
He forced himself back over to Nick.
“Can you move?” he shouted as he got closer.
~~~~~
“Is he dead?” I ask him.
There’s a dull ache coming from any number of places across my anatomy. The rucksack, thankfully, took most of the impact, but it didn’t stop me getting battered as I bounced along the roadway. I’m pleased that I can’t really feel very much at all.
I seem to be able to bend my arms and legs, and can flex fingers and toes. Reaching up, I feel wetness on my face and, when I pull my hand back down, I’m surprised to see it slick with dark blood.
Jack arrives next to me and stoops down with a wince from pains of his own. “You’ve cut your head,” he observes. “Doesn’t look too bad. Can you move?”
“Is he dead?” I repeat.
Jack nods sombrely. “Looks like it, but we
have
to go. Now.”
I push myself upright. Every part of me is complaining but I’m still mobile. “Come on then,” I say. I notice the sirens. They don’t sound far away. “I’m not sure how long I can run for.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Jack pushes himself up and runs to the bike, hauling it upright. He grimaces at the damage but the handlebars, though out of alignment, appear to be solid enough inside their shattered fairing. He presses the starter. “Come on,” he begs.
The bike wheezes, turns over, and dies again.
The sirens are closing quickly. A strafing kaleidoscope of blue and red lights is flickering along the flood wall, signalling their forthcoming arrival.
I drag myself up alongside Jack.
“Come on,” he mutters as he tries the starter again.
The bike fires twice this time, and almost catches.
“Jump on!” he shouts, throwing one leg over the machine.
“What if it doesn’t...,” I start to ask.
“It’ll start!” he asserts, cutting me off, and I heave my aching leg up and climb back astride the machine that so recently evicted me. Under my thighs I can feel the engine turning again. Jack is twisting aggressively at the throttle. It catches, coughs, backfires and roars back to life.
“Hold on,” yells Jack.
~~~~~
Downstream of the Erzsébet Bridge, the Hungarian police-boat carved round in a graceful arc and came to rest in the darkness of mid-river, bobbing back and forward on the gently lapping water.
Its searchlight remained trained on an object which bumped gently alongside it.
A group of police leaned down over the side and hauled Azat Sikand’s lifeless body onto the decks. It didn’t take long before one of them turned to the wheelhouse and shook her head.
“He’s dead. Bullet wound, straight between the shoulder blades,” the policewoman shouted up to her boat commander. “Also lost a leg somehow.”
“Yet another bastard gangland murderer,” he shouted back down to her. “Any ID?”
“None, so far, sir,” she yelled back.
~~~~~
Jack pointed the bike forwards and opened the throttle. They were, at least, already heading in the right direction for Göd though he doubted they’d be able to hole up there for long. On top of all of the eyewitnesses to the bike chase and crash, they would also almost certainly be blazoned across a multitude of CCTV images. Getting out of Hungary was going to be an urgent priority.
Assuming they could avoid the police net which would be rapidly tightening around the city.
In the distance, a gaggle of brightly flashing lights telegraphed another group of police cars approaching from in front of him. They were spread out across the road in a line. Blocking the way forward.
A narrow pathway was set into the flood wall a little way ahead. No choice but to try it, so he killed the headlight and headed off in that direction.
“Hold on,” he yelled to Nick. “I need to get us up these stairs!”
The bike juddered and bounced angrily as he punched it upwards over the worn steps until they arrived at a narrow alleyway between the residential buildings perched at the summit.
The rolling roadblock howled past beneath them.
He eased the bike along the passageway and out into a quiet road. Time to get moving.
Avoiding the main roads, he piloted the battered machine to the outskirts of the city. Göd and the neighbouring villages were a less densely packed extension of the main conurbation so he drifted off into an unlit side road and stopped the engine.
“We should dump the bike here,” he said, climbing off. “Let’s go.”
~~~~~
I grasp the backpack’s straps with both hands and jog along behind Jack as he leads us along the dark backstreets toward the safe house. I’m still badly shaken, and limping slightly from the crash, but I press onwards. He’s a good way in front of me.
Something is ticking somewhere.
I noticed the noise after Jack stopped the bike.
It’s not a particularly loud ticking but it’s persistent, like it’s nearby.
Then I realise where it’s coming from...
“Jack?” I call out and he looks round, frowning at me to keep quiet, so I gesticulate over my shoulder.
He shakes his head and points vigorously.
He’s right.
The flat is only a couple of streets away...
~~~~~
Jack frowned angrily, they needed to keep moving and, most importantly, they needed to avoid attracting attention. At the next junction he paused for a moment as he checked for other pedestrians or cars. No-one around. He sprinted away again and glanced back over his shoulder for a second time.
Nick was still behind him, and still gesticulating at the rucksack for some reason?
Why would he do that?
He turned forwards and a splash of light suddenly flashed across the darkness, casting his shadow out across the paving in front of him. The compressed bang which instantly followed made him stumble in surprise, and he crashed to the floor in an instinctive crouch, spinning around to see his stricken comrade flying face forward toward the paving slabs.
A cloud of tattered rags fluttered like a mass of tiny ghosts in the smoky air where, moments before, Nick had been running along behind him. The remains of the rucksack were still strapped onto his colleague’s back. It had turned itself into little more than a shredded carcass of flapping canvas.
Concealed booby trap.
Anti-tamper.
All of the recent jarring must’ve tripped it...
He raced back to his stricken comrade.
~~~~~
My ears are ringing.
I’m lying face down on the pavement.
I cough and a splatter of blood sprays from my mouth and nose.
Something grabs my shoulder and carefully lifts me onto my side...
It’s Jack.
“What?” I manage to grunt, and can taste more fresh blood oozing round my tongue.
“Quiet,” he hisses. “The pack was booby trapped. It’s gone off.” He’s examining me. “Looks like it was pointed away from you. Oriented to go off into the face of anyone who tried to open it and get inside.”
“Hurts,” I mutter.
“Where?” he asks.
“All over,” I report. “Leg.”
He gently rolls me onto my back, and grimaces.
I glance down. There’s a piece of metal tubing sticking out from one of my thighs. It looks like it might have come from the frame of the pack.
“Shit,” he says. “Keep still.”
There’s a lot of blood.
He explores the wound. It’s close to my groin.
“It hasn’t hit an artery but is bleeding badly,” he confirms, standing up swiftly and wrestling himself out of his jacket which clanks as he drops it onto the ground next to me.
“Mind you don’t shoot me,” I grumble.
He ignores my sarcasm and pulls his shirt off over his head. Even in the almost unlit backstreet I can see his muscular chest tightening in the sudden cold. Then he grabs up his jacket and swings it onto his shoulders again.
“Bandage,” he explains. “Hold still. I need to get this out.”
“Leave me,” I mutter. “You need to get clear.”
A look of abject misery ghosts over his face. “No fucking way,” he says grimly. “Hold still.”
He pulls hard on the metal and, despite my numbed senses, a strangely satisfying and yet at the same time stabbing burst of pain leaps upward from the wound. It’s as if my body knew it had to be separated from the invasive foreign object.
Blood pools rapidly in the hole and he slams the bundled shirt onto the opening then wraps the sleeves around my leg.
“Put your hand on here,” he instructs. “Keep pressure on it.”
I comply, and he ties the sleeves as tightly as he can.
“Keep the pressure on,” he repeats, then roughly extracts me from the remnants of the backpack and hoists me up into his arms. I keep one hand pressing down on the aching wound and throw my other around his broad shoulders. “Time to go,” he says.
~~~~~
London
“From what I can piece together, it looks like there was a firefight at the apartment in Fecske Street.” Greere paused in case Sentinel was going to interject, but the line remained silent. He cleared his throat nervously, then continued to talk into his encrypted cellphone. “Three Hungarian nationals, with lengthy criminal records but also tenuous links to a number of groups of terrorist sympathisers, were discovered dead at the scene by local police.” Sentinel remained silent. “Neighbours reported another man, a stranger, arriving and then leaving again shortly after the incident. They also reported that two other men exit the building in pursuit of this stranger.”
Sentinel finally spoke, “The target, followed by Tin and Mercury, I presume?”
“A reasonable assumption, sir.”
“Then what?”
“Shots were fired outside. Information is confused but two motorcyclists were killed and a high speed bike chase is reported to have proceeded from the general location of the gunfire down into the city and then alongside the river.”
“And?”
“One body has been recovered from the Danube – confirmed dead – and witnesses report two men fleeing from the crash scene.”
“Hmmm... Any word from them?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Where’s Deuce?”
“Lands shortly.”
“Plan?”
“I’ll get Deuce to wind up Göd and make sure it’s clean. The police chatter is speculating that it’s a gangland hit but I suggest we abandon Tin and Mercury, and wait to see if one or other of them can get themselves clear of the immediate vicinity or, preferably, out of the country. They will doubtless have been ID’ed during the bike chase.”
“Agreed,” Sentinel said emotionlessly. “Wipe the remote terminal, straight away, from there.”
“I have the kill codes ready to send.”
“Do it,” Sentinel said. “Keep in close contact with Deuce, monitor for further information, and come to my office with an update in the morning.”
The line clicked off.
~~~~~