Dark Horizon, page 27
Stop the boat first, he told himself. Step by measured step, Alex closed the distance to the wheelhouse, running through every possible approach he could make. It was a few metres away now, past the cabin, up a wide step.
He would have to act quickly to catch the man at the helm by surprise. Anything else would be doomed to failure. And if it came to it, how far would he have to go?
He thought about Stepan, the man who had gone overboard without a sound. Was he dead? Would he wash up somewhere on the Medway coast in a few days? Try as he might, Alex couldn’t find any compassion for the man. Matvey and his men had proven they were willing to kill without compunction. Alex wasn’t afraid of violence, but could he deliberately, intentionally take a life in order to save his son’s?
Yes. It was alarming how easily that decision came to him. But thinking it and doing it were two different things.
That thought still burned in his mind when, without warning, the metal door at the rear of the trawler’s cabin compartment swung open.
Alex found himself looking Matvey right in the eye, a look of shock scarring the grey-haired man’s face.
In his hands, the Russian held two tin cups full of black tea, steam curling upwards from the hot fluid. His moment of utter surprise shattered like glass, and Matvey let the cups drop to the deck, one hand darting into the back of his jacket where his pistol was holstered.
Alex could only do one thing – he lowered his shoulder and rushed at the other man, slipping on the deck as he charged bodily into the killer.
Matvey’s gun had cleared leather as the two of them collided, but not enough to bring the long, silenced muzzle around to bear. Alex grabbed at Matvey’s arm and tried to force him down, as Matvey swore and put his effort into resisting. The gun trembled between them, the black barrel dancing in the air, wavering back and forth.
Alex had mass and momentum, but Matvey was stronger in his muscle and sinew, and inexorably the gun began to drift the wrong way, closer and closer to its intended target.
Risking it, Alex shifted the position of his fingers, surrendering some of his impetus in exchange for a better grip on the weapon. He tried to jam his thumb into the gap behind the pistol’s trigger, and Matvey pressed hard, firing a shot. A bullet whistled past Alex’s head. He flinched but kept holding on as tightly as he could.
The two of them turned on the deck, caught in a violent pirouette, and Alex felt his footing drift again as his heel skipped over a greasy patch on the metal.
‘Ha.’ Matvey grunted in triumph and pressed his advantage, pushing the gun nearer to Alex’s face. Another shot cut past him, the wake of it so close that Alex thought it had parted his hair. A few centimetres more and the muzzle would be pressing on his temple.
‘No,’ Alex retorted, clutching at the trigger, surprising Matvey for the second time that night. Deliberately squeezing with all his strength, Alex forced the Russian to pull the trigger again and again, trying to make him empty the gun before he could bring it to bear.
Matvey struggled to disengage without success and swore again as bullets arced away, ricochets keening as they sparked off the deck. He yelled and tried one last time to force the pistol into Alex’s face, but the weapon’s slide locked open as the final round in the magazine was discharged.
Behind them, glass pealed as random rounds shattered the wheelhouse’s windows. Alex caught a glimpse of Luka jerking backward from the trawler’s controls, hands clutching at an ugly red bloom that had appeared on his chest. The man fell out of sight and away from the helm, and the fishing boat listed sharply as the next wave caught it.
The bow bounced over the whitecap, and without Luka’s hands on the wheel to guide it, the trawler lurched wildly off-course.
Alex was still reacting to the sudden motion when Matvey kicked forward and used the frame of the spent pistol as a cudgel, cracking him across the bridge of the nose.
Agony exploded across Alex’s face as the reek of blood filled his nostrils. He struck back in blind, flailing rage, and landed a lucky hit, punching Matvey in the throat. Choking, the Russian staggered, losing his grip on the gun. The spent weapon fell to the canting deck and slid away into the shadows.
Alex didn’t wait, following up with a front-footed kick that put his heel hard in the man’s belly. Matvey slipped on the greasy spot and fell badly.
The trawler pitched to port, throwing Alex against the side of the cabin with an impact that blew the air out of his lungs, before rocking back the other way. Across the bow he could see the lights of the shoreline growing nearer as the out-of-control vessel motored at full speed toward the pebbled beach, boosted by the waves of the incoming tide.
Grabbing at a metal rail, Alex held on as the fishing boat rolled level again, finding himself pressed up against a grubby porthole in the side of the cabin compartment.
Inside, under a wash of dirty orange light, he could see a tiny crew space with a table and bench bolted to the floor. In one corner was his boy, knees drawn up to his chin, arms hugging himself tightly, his brown eyes wide and his face pale with terror.
‘George!’ Alex banged on the porthole, at once elated and petrified that he had found his son in the middle of this madness. ‘I’m out here!’
He sensed movement behind him and jerked away, as another breaker clipped the boat and rocked it. Matvey was coming right at him, the blur in his hand a billhook – a curved talon of rusted iron.
Razor-sharp, the tip of the hook slashed through the air and caught Alex’s jacket in passing. It tore through the material and the lining, through the layers below, just kissing the skin of his chest. A line of fire cut over Alex’s breast and he howled. A little closer and the billhook would have opened him down to the bone.
He had no idea where the Russian had found the wicked thing, but it didn’t matter. All Alex could do was hang on as the trawler raced on through the worsening swell, the deck bucking under his feet like the floor of a fairground crazy house. They were dangerously close to the shore now, caught in the turbulence of the beach-break.
The Russian didn’t notice; his expression of gritted teeth showing his only interest was in killing Alex. Slashing the billhook high and low in wild diagonal strokes, Matvey came stomping up the boat towards him. Alex ducked, trading places with his attacker, trying to stay beyond his reach, but it was impossible in the narrow confines of the gangway. He stumbled against one of the yellow barrel floats and barely kept on his feet as the boat tilted again. Blood streamed down his chest from the new cut, and more soaked his arm from the aching bullet graze in his bicep. In the cold and wet, his energy was leaking out as well, dripping off him on to the deck.
Matvey snorted and tossed the weighty billhook from one hand to the other. ‘I will make sure your corpse is the last thing your little brat sees before I toss him over the side.’
Alex couldn’t make out the other man’s features any more. He was a shadow wreathed in the vapours of his exhaled breath, with a massive claw for one hand, back-lit by the sodium glow of shore-side streetlights and the neon jumble on the fronts of the arcades along the coastal road. Alex had nowhere to go, trapped between the cabin wall and the barrels. Matvey would bury the hook in him with his next blow.
And then the bow of the Margaret III ran into a sandbar hidden under the surface of the waves, striking it with enough force to send a rolling shock down the length of the trawler from bow to stern. The deck flicked Alex up and he bounced off the side of the cabin before pitching into the rack of hollow barrels.
Standing in the open with nothing to support him, Matvey went tumbling, losing his footing with a strangled yell. The back of his skull, at the spot where it connected to the top of his spine, slammed hard into the starboard guide rail and bone shattered.
Alex scrambled back to his feet, the deck vibrating as the trawler’s diesel motor roared uselessly. Matvey lay sprawled in front of him, eyes open and staring at the sky, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. He made a long, drawn-out wheezing sound.
Matvey gave a last choke and fell silent. Still, Alex gave the Russian a kick, just to be sure.
‘Dad!’
Alex was in a dozen different kinds of pain, lacerated, bruised and bleeding badly; wet and freezing, shaky with adrenaline, but still the sound of his son’s voice made him break out in a big, goofy grin. ‘All right, kiddo?’
George came off the bench and across the cramped cabin like a gangly rocket, lanky arms wrapping round his father as he hugged him for dear life. Alex couldn’t stifle a moan of discomfort, and the boy let go, blanching as he saw his father’s bloodstained jacket and shirt.
‘Oh shit,’ he said, and under the circumstances Alex decided he could allow the swearword to go unmentioned. ‘What did they do to you?’
‘Rough night for both of us,’ he managed. ‘You up for a paddle? We have to get off this thing.’
‘OK.’ George didn’t hesitate, reaching back to gather up his hoodie from where it had fallen.
As he moved, the boy’s foot clipped something on the deck. There was a mess of tin mugs, papers and other debris there, thrown down when the trawler ran aground, but George had disturbed the blocky shape of the satellite phone that Matvey had been using back on the beach.
On an impulse, Alex grabbed it, weighing the thing in his hands. These men had come after him and his son, and they’d done it to get to Kate. Would she be on the other end of this? Could he use it to reach her?
‘Dad?’ George pulled on his sleeve. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Me too,’ he lied, and Alex jammed the sat phone in his pocket. Leading them back out into the night, he moved to the edge of the trawler’s deck and looked down at the sea. The beach didn’t seem too far away, but the water would be icy and turbulent. ‘Hold on tight, yeah? This is not going to be fun.’
‘You think?’ He might have barely been old enough to call himself a teenager, but despite his ordeal tonight, George still retained the capacity to be sarcastic to a parent. ‘Because we’ve had a lovely evening so far.’
Alex caught George’s gaze drifting toward the gangway where Matvey’s body lay, and he squeezed his son’s hand to distract him from the grisly sight. ‘Here we go!’
They leapt off and struck the water with a crash. It was deep enough at the sandbar to reach Alex’s chest and swallow George whole, so he waded forward, pulling the boy to him. George came up coughing and spluttering, cursing a little more, and again Alex gave him a pass.
Harsh waves and salt spray buffeted them, but soon they had the shifting masses of stones beneath their feet. Stride by exhausting stride, the two of them climbed out of the breakers and on to the beach proper.
Shivering with the chill, Alex looked up and saw faces staring down at them from the other side of the low sea wall, locals who had been roused by the sound of the Margaret III catastrophically grounding itself.
‘All, er, right?’ Alex called out, his teeth chattering madly as he waved at the onlookers. He wanted to say more, but past the numbness in his extremities, the pain in his chest and the pressure in his head, Alex realised that a heavy, droning wind was blowing around him, loud enough that he could feel it in his bones.
Pure white – brighter than a supernova – drenched the pair of them in illumination as the beam of a night-sun searchlight snapped on overhead. The droning became a helicopter’s clattering, thunderous rattle. Behind the white blaze, Alex saw strobing flashes of blue up on the coast road. The police had found them.
‘Stay where you are.’ A voice boomed from an amplified speaker out in the black sky. ‘Do not move.’
‘You.’
Miles almost dropped the cigarette in his hand as the gruff American called out. He turned as Knox marched toward him, his eyes flint-hard and pitiless. Oh bloody hell, he thought, what now?
For hours, the Americans and their pet mercs had effectively kept Miles under armed guard at the airfield, and all the MI6 officer had to go on were snatches of conversation he wasn’t supposed to have heard. He nursed the nasty suspicion that they had only held him here so they would have someone from the British end of tonight’s fuck-ups to hold responsible.
With that in mind, and precious little else he could do, Miles had finally given up on passing the night without a smoke, choosing to ignore the warning signs around the hangar, finding a spot out of the wind where he could sneak a ciggie. Now he took a quick draw to give him a little courage and stood his ground as the bigger man loomed over him.
‘What?’ Miles folded his arms. ‘How much longer do I have stay here holding my cock and doing nothing?’
‘Give me one of those.’ Knox jabbed a finger at the cigarette.
‘I thought you had a vape.’
‘Threw the goddamn thing in the trash,’ he replied. ‘Was trying to cut down, maybe quit, but screw it.’
‘Yeah, not a good night for that.’ Miles proffered his half-empty packet of Silk Cut and a disposable lighter, which Knox snatched from his hand. The American lit up and greedily pulled on the cigarette, filling his lungs with nicotine smoke before tossing them back.
‘This’ll be over soon.’ Knox volunteered, in a tone that was almost apologetic. If anything, the unprompted change in the man’s attitude was more worrying to Miles than any of his previous behaviour had been. ‘Just sit tight.’
‘Yeah, nah.’ Miles shook his head. ‘I’ve been doing that for hours. Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?’
‘National security, need to know.’ Knox automatically gave the rote reply.
‘Piss off, mate!’ Emboldened by his simmering annoyance, Miles took a step towards the other man. ‘I’ve had enough of the silent treatment. I heard what you said on the call with that geezer with the tie. Something about a ship?’
Knox sighed and looked at the bulky, over-engineered mil-spec watch on his wrist. ‘In less than thirty mikes, that aircraft, the asset, the tangos who interdicted them? They’ll be gone. Thunder’s coming, courtesy of the US Navy. This time, we won’t miss.’
Miles blinked, parsing the operator’s reply into something jargon-free. The Yanks are going to blow up the plane and everyone in it. ‘There’s gotta be another way!’
‘You know as well as any of us, there ain’t.’ Knox drew on the cigarette again. ‘We have to contain this. Control the narrative moving forward.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Miles tensed, wondering if this was the moment the CIA were going to hang him out to dry.
‘My people and yours, we have to follow the story. The jet was hijacked, we lost our agents on board, the civilian pilot too. Aircraft was tracked to a terrorist training camp, missile strike destroyed said camp. File closed.’
‘Except that’s bullshit,’ Miles replied, half-distracted. He could hear a noise on the wind, a distant thudding coming closer. ‘We don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead.’
‘That’s already been decided,’ said Knox. The sound became clearer, resolving into the beat of rotor blades.
The American looked up and Miles followed his line of sight. The boxy shape of a police helicopter in midnight blue and yellow passed over the runway, circling around as the pilot picked a spot to land.
‘My boss has talked to your boss,’ Knox said, pitching up his voice. ‘It’s already done. You and me, we just gotta toe the line.’
‘What’s this?’ Miles countered, gesturing at the helicopter as it settled on to the asphalt.
‘Civilians,’ replied Knox, ‘the pilot’s boyfriend and his kid. Your local flatfoots did good and secured them for us.’ He shook his head. ‘We’ll have to manage them. They were exposed to the contractors working with Finn. I need you to work with me. Make sure they see it the right way, understand?’
Miles didn’t answer, jogging over to the helicopter as the rotors spun down and the rear compartment opened. Inside, one of the aircraft crew worked on an injured man with a blood-darkened shirt. Sitting close to him was a boy who couldn’t have been much older than Miles’s kid sister Juliet. They were both wrapped up in foil blankets, their faces weary with survivor’s fatigue.
Another of the helicopter’s crew dropped out on to the apron, and Miles saw she had the rank tabs of a police officer. She stepped into his path. ‘Are you in charge here? Is someone going to tell me why the hell I had to bring this man here instead of straight to a hospital?’
‘National security. Need to know.’ Miles echoed Knox’s earlier words, brandishing his Security Services identity card in the woman’s face as he stepped round her. He swallowed his own doubts and spoke directly to the injured man. ‘Sir. Are you the partner of Katherine Hood?’
‘Yes. My name’s Alex Walker. This is my son, George.’ He nodded at the boy. ‘Is Kate here?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Miles was aware of Knox coming up behind him, with a trio of PMCs at his back. ‘We’re trying to determine Kate’s situation. Are you aware of anything that could help us?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Alex looked away. ‘The men on the boat, they kidnapped George, they said they wanted something from Kate . . .’
‘What men?’ Knox interjected.
‘There was an incident on the Medway coast,’ said the woman, apparently unmoved by Miles’s attempts to silence her. ‘A boat ran aground. Bodies on board, both Russian nationals. It’s a mess.’ She pointed at Alex Walker, her ire rising. ‘And that man is required for questioning about a murder investigation, the assault on a police officer and the death of another!’
‘Understood,’ Knox told the woman. ‘We’ll take it from here.’
‘No, I don’t think you will!’ she shot back, kicking off an argument that Miles tried to blot out.
‘Mr Walker,’ he said, leaning closer. ‘Kate and the people with her are in grave danger, if there’s anything you can—’
‘Dad, the phone!’ The boy came forward, grabbing his father’s arm. ‘They were using it all the time!’
Alex nodded, pulling the blocky shape of a satellite telephone from his jacket pocket. He offered it warily to Miles. ‘I took this from them.’
