“I don’t know,” he mumbles.
“You have killed indirectly and now,” I nod to Nagpal, “directly, many people.”
“I suppose,” he says.
“That’s a lot of power,” I say. “Almost godlike.”
His mouth opens, but he says nothing.
“Yes,” I say. “God is the creator, however we name him. No matter what form we assume for him. No matter what creed we wrap around the concept. And only a God can choose what is to live...”
“And what is to die,” he finishes, and I can see a tear running down through the blood on his cheek.
“What do you call it?” I ask him, callously. Whatever happens, he
must
understand. Even if he kills me for it. “When a human claims to be God?”
He gasps in outright horror. “No...,” he insists, terrified eyes wide.
“Shirk,” I help his memory. “The unforgivable sin.”
“NO!” he screams and lifts his weapon but I’m already rising to my feet, and Vengeance is rising in front of me, and the mechanised broad-head is already notched, and in the glass pane behind the man two spectral faces appear, reflecting in toward me, and they’re smiling, and the arrow is loose, and it flies across the room and deploys its barbs...
And Sergei Ebrahimi is picked up by the face, and lifted, and smashed through your reflections which shatter to a million pieces as he passes through.
“Go to hell,” I say.
~~~~~
Gulyar bin Imraan hefted his trusty AK47 rifle in one hand, and strode out into the street where a small group of his men were gathering. A sudden smashing of glass, much farther along the road, drew his attention and he span round to see a ragged bundle dropping out of sight. A dull crump announced that the body had hit the ground.
“The squatters’ house!” shouted one of his men.
He turned back to them. “Are the other locations secure?” he asked.
They nodded variously. “All of them,” one reported.
“So it’s just our visitors then,” he concluded. “I wonder what is so ‘valuable’ about them?”
“Do you think they are fighting each other?” asked his bodyguard, looming close.
“Or perhaps someone has come for them?” Gulyar mused.
His guard took up a covering position near to him. “The child’s message?” he growled.
“Maybe we should find out?” Gulyar said calmly. “You four come with us. Be careful. Profit is one thing, but I don’t intend to get hurt for someone else’s pointless cause.”
~~~~~
I stand there for a second, completely still with my arm extended in front of me. It’s hard to believe that in such a few short moments it is over. I slowly lower Vengeance, and grab my pack with my free hand. The bow will fit in lengthways now my rucksack’s not full of battle dress.
I notice the bloodied metal case on the floor, and can see that it has a couple of quick release catches which I trigger before flicking it open. It’s full of various switches and a couple of screens. It’s obviously military and might be useful, so I grab the corner of Ebrahimi’s scattered sheets to wipe it over roughly, and then shove it into the pack, alongside the bow.
My Browning is still in the corner, I rush over and snatch it up – it looks okay. I snap out the magazine and slam in a fresh one from one of my pockets. I know there must be a shell case somewhere, but I’m not going to waste time looking for it – besides, there’s not much need for stealth, not with one of my mech-arrows currently sitting, impaled into the face of a dead body, in the street outside.
No, I can’t put it off any longer. As reluctant as I am to find out how bad it is, I must go and look. It’s time to find out what happened to Jack.
I drag the pack onto my shoulders and race to the top of the stairs. Through the hole, I can see him lying sprawled at the bottom of the staircase, bathed in silver moonlight which spills into the house through the open front door.
He’s not moving.
“Don’t be dead, Jack,” I murmur to myself as I head downwards. “Please don’t be dead as well.”
I crouch beside him. He’s lying, face down, laid out like he’s in an untidy version of the recovery position. I can’t see any major entry or exit wounds on his back, though he does seem to be bleeding slightly from the back of his head. A small amount of blood is trickling down from under his beanie. Must’ve been from when he hit the wall, or the tumble, or something.
I reach forward, and gently turn him over, and gasp.
I can see his chest moving slightly.
He’s breathing...
“Jack?” I venture quietly. “Jack? Can you hear me?”
I slap gently at his face, whilst scanning his chest and front. I still can’t see any puncture wounds.
“Jack?” I slap him harder. Under other circumstances this might be good fun. “Jack! Come on!”
His eyes blink open, and he lurches up into a sitting position, and starts thrashing at me with his arms.
“Get off me, you mother-fucker!” he shouts furiously.
He must be mistaking me for someone else, I hope, and I throw my arms around him and hold him tight. “Jack, it’s me Nick,” I say into his ear. “It’s me! They’re dead. Both of them.”
“Nick?” he mumbles.
I’m holding him tightly, and feel him relax under my grip, but I don’t let go of him. I don’t want to. Not yet.
“You’re squashing me,” he grumbles painfully. “I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry,” I say and reluctantly release my bear hug, and sit back into a crouch in front of him. “Where are you hurt?”
“Chest,” he winces and unbuttons his jacket to reveal the old linen bag, rolled up, and tucked inside. He fishes it out, gingerly, and unrolls it. It’s got a couple of metal ammunition clips inside. They’re badly bent in the middle. One has a mangled lead slug buried in it. “Hit my spare mags,” he explains, staring incredulously at the mangled objects. “It’s lucky I didn’t go off like some fucking Chinese firecracker...”
I can’t help myself. It must be the stress. I guffaw and have to thrust my hand into my mouth to try to stifle my sudden desire to laugh until I cry.
“That’s fucking nice,” he mutters. “Laugh at me, why don’t you?” He gingerly peels aside the top of the Kurta shirt he’s wearing underneath the battle dress jacket. The left side of his chest is an ugly mass of redness. “Ribs,” he grumbles. “Might have broken a couple.”
I don’t doubt it.
“Can you move?” I ask.
He offers me one arm, grabbing his Browning off the floor with the other. “Help me up,” he says and I ease him gradually upright. He’s struggling to put any weight on one of his legs. “Must’ve twisted my ankle too,” he moans quietly. “Fuck. I can hardly move.”
He’s right. He can’t stand on one leg, and winces on the other. Not good.
I can hear voices from the street outside the open door. Coming closer.
“Leave me,” he says. “Get out of here.”
I heave one arm around his shoulder, and look deeply into the bloodshot jade of his eyes. “Ain’t gonna happen,” I growl. “Come on.”
~~~~~
Bin Imraan, flanked by his men, crept forwards along the middle of the dusty street, aware of nervous faces peering cautiously from the doors and windows around him. The sight of him moving confidently toward the troubles, armed and dangerous, would only reinforce his already significant reputation amongst the local population.
There was no more gunfire, the house seemed silent.
They came alongside the broken body. It was the young man – Ebrahimi. He was lying on his back, legs and arms splayed around him unnaturally. A bright steel and black-carbon flighted shaft rose toward the star-filled heavens from the centre of a bone and blood crater where his face should have been. An arrow, but like none he’d ever seen before. Dark stains were creeping outward into the sand and dirt around the corpse.
His men looked round at him. Alarmed by what they were seeing. He didn’t blame them. If Nagpal and Ebrahimi had been fighting it wouldn’t explain the strange weaponry. Nagpal’s preferred means of execution was a bullet. From the front. So he could look straight into his victim’s eyes. Gulyar had seen it many times.
He looked toward the house. Perhaps Ebrahimi had been bugged? That would certainly have triggered one of Nagpal’s rages for sure. If so, that scanner was very useful, and would be in the house somewhere. Time to take back possession.
One of the local residents hurried nervously out towards them from a nearby doorway. “Sayedy, Bin Imraan?” the man spluttered respectfully. “Would you like me to alert the ANP?”
Gulyar looked at him, and the man cowered back slightly. “Not yet,” he instructed, smiling. He didn’t need the police around for a little while. Not until he found the scanner. “Stay ready. I will call for you.”
The man swelled with pride at the thought of being called upon, bowed gratefully, and backed quickly away to his home.
~~~~~
I make as if for the front door.
“Not that way,” Jack hisses.
We wheel around clumsily, and head through the back of the house.
“Pull the door to,” he whispers, through teeth clenched against the pain from his hobbling legs and battered chest.
I reach back and ease the door closed behind me.
“Through there,” he nods across the narrow enclosure, to where another doorway stands open on the other side.
Lurching forwards I lead him into the neighbouring house, my gun extended ready in front of me.
There’s a noise from above us, and we both jerk our weapons toward it.
A dark face with bright white eyes stares down in fright from the hole at the top of the loft ladder. It yells something unintelligible. A challenge, I guess. So I brandish my weapon aggressively, then press it to my lips, indicating that silence would be a good option right now, and the face shuts its mouth.
I nod once.
Stay quiet.
I swing my head gently toward the front. We’re leaving.
The face remains silent.
Time to move.
I edge us forward and through the front doorway. I can feel Jack twisting under my arm as he keeps the resident covered.
“Come on,” I grunt quietly, and we stumble off down the backstreet.
Behind us we can hear that the face has started screaming again.
~~~~~
His men swept into the house and fanned out across the ground floor.
“Clear,” one reported.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
He stepped forward to the doorway. “Up there,” he ordered prodding his rifle toward the staircase, and watched as they stormed upwards.
“Nagpal is here,” a voice shouted down. “Dead.”
He strode upwards and scoured around him, ignoring the bloody carnage sprayed over floors and walls.
No sign of the scanner.
“Look for a case. A metal case. Silver coloured. Find it!” he shouted.
His men spread out again, and he returned to the ground floor.
His bodyguard loomed out from the shadows of the kitchen, shaking his head. “It’s not here, Sayedy Bin Imraan.”
Someone started yelling from somewhere out back.
“This way,” he yelled. The murderous thieves were escaping and they had taken his prize...
~~~~~
We hobble down the alleyways. Jack is guiding us.
“Left,” he says.
The shouting, from behind us, is getting closer.
Catching us up.
I need to slow them down somehow.
We come to a narrow T-junction, flanked by low rubble walls. Good cover.
“Right,” says Jack.
I heave him in that direction, then stop a few stumbles further forward, and prop him against the wall. “Don’t run off without me,” I say, and move back to the junction.
“Don’t shoot at them,” he hisses angrily. “It’ll only make things wor...”
The Browning coughs, and spits its red-orange flames, and a blood curdling scream rises, followed immediately by a rage of automatic gunfire. Sparks glitter from the walls around me as bullets swarm down the street biting angry, dusty chunks out of the rudimentary brickwork.
“Come on,” I growl, hefting him up onto my shoulder again.
~~~~~
The unexpected shot blew a large hole into his man’s calf, sending him spinning around, screaming in agony.
Gulyar and the others dived for cover and returned fire.
“Kill them!” he screamed, as his AK47 bucked violently in his arms. “KILL THEM!”
~~~~~
“Not far now,” I say as we reach the edge of the conurbation.
There’s a short stretch of open ground between here and where the car’s hidden and we start out across it. Suddenly a man leaps out of the shadows brandishing a rifle. He’s yelling something at us but I just flick myself side-on and kick out at him. I have no time for messing around; he’s stupidly rushed in too close and I use the style of destruction kick I’d normally reserve for large lumps of timber. My foot buries itself violently into the soft, untoned, muscleless, flesh of his stomach.
The blow lifts the man off his feet, folding him momentarily over at the waist, and it flings him backwards, with his arms flailing, and his rifle muzzle blazing bullets wildly into the sky like champagne from an overexcited bottle.
“Nice,” Jack acknowledges, impressed, and shoots the stricken man in the thigh for good measure.
~~~~~
The clattering of distant automatic fire drew Bin Imraan’s attention away from the bullet-peppered end of the alleyway. “STOP FIRING!” he roared. “STOP! THIS WAY!”
He jumped upright and sprinted off toward the main street.
“Come on!” he yelled. Their quarry were getting away. “Get the cars!”
~~~~~
London
Greere watched as Ellard zoomed in on the tracer.
“It’s moved into the street outside,” said the shock of white hair in front of him. He watched it shake from side to side. “Not moving now though,” it concluded.
Greere weighed up his options. He needed to make sure he took all the credit for this. Assuming the targets were down, all the praise and glory needed to flow his way. It was the perfect time to wind up this experiment, but a couple of stranded assets like Tin and Mercury were only likely to create complications – especially when they added to the risk of the full history, and checkered success, of the earlier efforts in Paris, Berlin and Budapest coming to light. He didn’t need that kind of trouble. It would be best for them both to vanish. All he needed was confirmation that the mission was complete.