Predator

Chapter 3

The shop building has been transformed. Sandbags now cover all the windows, and there are even concrete blocks obstructing the path to the front doors. So, tell me do, who would go to all this effort if they weren’t planning to do some sort of business here? The shopfront sign is still hanging above the entrance, even. But there’s nobody around. Just the wind skipping down the street, kicking up all sorts of junk.

I listen carefully. I find I’m beginning to trust my ears more and more. People aren’t so easy to spot, especially if they don’t want to be seen. Hearing them, on the other hand… What did they write in that clever book? “There’s no such thing as a silent ambush.” That’s the Strugatsky brothers… True, nobody’s scratching or belching the way they do in the book, but there are other sounds to listen for. Maybe nobody here is rattling chains, but they do shift from foot to foot every now and then.

That’s what I hear now – somebody gets impatient and starts moving around. Roughly twenty meters from me. I’m lying on a balcony on the third floor. To get there, I had to come down from the roof. Thankfully, the house is old and the balconies aren’t covered. On the other hand, there is a fire escape that goes up to the attic, and from there it’s simple. So, stomp around for now. Meanwhile, I take out my axe and carefully prise open the balcony door. I’ve no desire to smash the glass here, it’s a nice place. I’d like to keep it from myself. The view is pretty good.

Clearly, I’m no great housebreaker, but then again this isn’t Fort Knox. The door squeaked as it was opening, which got a response from the guy stomping round downstairs. He ran up from somewhere, and for an instant I caught a glimpse of him.

Definitely not one of Makar’s crew. His clothes are just too shitty. And it doesn’t look like he has a gun, either, although that doesn’t really mean anything. You can easily hide a pistol in a pocket. And what exactly is he waiting for down there? Doesn’t look like he’s seriously thinking of robbing or killing somebody. Then again, that’s not the sort of intention you go around advertising.

I take a quick look round the flat for anything useful. Jam, stale bread, matches, and three packs of cigarettes which go straight in my bag. I don’t smoke, but I can try to trade them for something. And where do I plan to do that? Why, in the shop downstairs, of course! I decide to leave everything else where it is. I could do with the food myself, and I still don’t know what the trader downstairs might want.

I hear a scraping sound from down below. I climb up on the windowsill, but nothing’s changed down there. I guess the man’s given up on waiting. Looks like he’s on his way. I’ll just give him a minute or two.

A clanging sound as the door of the shop is opened, and out onto the stage comes a new character. One look at him tells you he’s the reason the other guy’s done a runner. Dressed in full camouflage gear (clearly expensive and imported), with a bullet-proof vest and all sorts of other kit I don’t recognize, he’s a big, strong guy. The rifle in his hands looks like something out of a sci-fi film, it’s got so many accessories bolted on. Well, I’m certainly not going to take that on with my axe. You’d need a machine gun just to get that guy’s attention. A big man, and full of self-confidence.

I hear the scrape of the door again, and another similar-looking figure appears, also armed. Have they got an arsenal in there? I move away from the window – they could shoot me from there. But no, I hear their footsteps withdrawing. I perform the same old trick with lock and door, and carefully creep downstairs.

Woah! My feet freeze. There’s a thin wire drawn tight across the staircase. A hundred different swear words come into my head as I think of tripwires, mines, and all the related horrors. If it’s a tripwire, then it’s bound to be connected to something, right? But if I don’t touch anything and don’t pull on it, then in theory it shouldn’t go off. As it turns out on inspection, there’s nothing actually to go off – the wire’s attached to an ordinary tin can which has been carelessly stuffed with a bunch of kitchen spoons and forks. Touch the wire and it’ll rattle, nothing more. In other words, all we’ve got here is a jerry-rigged early warning system. Which means?

It means that if someone put it there, they should be near enough to hear it. And maybe they’re sitting there now, listening. Perhaps they even live on this very staircase. So let’s move carefully. And one more thing

Seeing as this shop’s populated by armed tough guys like the two I’ve just seen, it doesn’t make much sense to go in there showing off my axe. At the very best, all I’ll do is make them laugh, and comedy is not the effect I’m going for. As I walk through the archway of the building, therefore, I hide my axe in a pile of rubbish. It may not be much good as a weapon, but it’s great for opening doors and windows. That’s what I value it as – a tool not a weapon.

I snake between the concrete blocks and stop in front of the door. It wasn’t just for decoration before, and now it looks like the front of a safe. The same impression of weight and thickness. I don’t see a bell anywhere, and there’s no electricity anyway, so I knock and the door resounds thickly under my fist. There’s a scrape, and a peephole opens in the door. So that’s the sound that guy was running from.

“What do you want?”

“I’d like to trade.”

“Is that right?” says the invisible voice with surprise. “Well, go ahead and trade. We won’t stop you.”

And the peephole scrapes shut.

“Hey, maybe I want to buy something from you!”

“Yeah?” Once again the peephole scrapes open, and this time I’m examined more intently. “Step back from the door!”

Apparently I passed the examination, as I hear the bolts being drawn on the other side of the door.

“Come on in.”

Inside, the shop has also been transformed. Now there are grilles on my right and on my left, right up to the ceiling. Behind one of them, there’s a guy slumped in a chair with an assault rifle in his hands. Opposite me stands another guy, unarmed as far as I can tell.

“Spread ’em!” I’m frisked professionally. “What, no weapons whatsoever?”

“What for?”

The guy sniffs and steps to one side, gesturing me forward.

There’s only a small length left of the counter, and even that is all shut off behind thick metal bars. Everything else has been walled over. It’s recent work, I can still catch the smell of fresh plaster.

Behind the counter is a face that I can’t quite place. I know I’ve seen him somewhere before. He’s wearing a wool hat, a warm sweater, and a scarf wrapped round his neck.

“Well?” he says, eying me doubtfully, “what have you got?”

He took a look at my cigarettes and pushed them carelessly to one side – I’d brought six sealed packs with me and one that was half full. The condoms, on the other hand, caused great amusement.

“Now that’s what we’re really after! Selling like hotcakes. What the fuck do you expect me to do with them?”

He slides the pack back across the counter towards me.

“You can keep ’em. Never know when you might need them, eh? What else have you got?”

“What else do you need?”

The shopkeeper laughs.

“We need everything. What exactly do you have?”

“All sorts of clothes.”

A cynical laugh tells me all I need to know.

“Electronics”

The same reaction.

“Look,” he says, nodding at the cigarettes, “I’ll take these. I can give you food and ammo, but not much.”

“I need tinned meat.”

“Two tins! And a pack of hardtack on top.”

I’m in no position to haggle, so I agree to the deal.

“You can bring the same goods again. Water, beer, fizzy drinks – those I’ll take, too. Spirits are always welcome. Can’t imagine what else you’ll find. You’re going through flats, I guess?”

“That, too.”

“Then we’re agreed. Don’t bother with any other junk, and wait till you’ve got a decent weight together. Don’t even think of bringing two or three packs.”

Behind me, I hear the bolts scraping back again. So that’s the end of our business. Fair enough, it’s no loss to me. I don’t smoke so I don’t need the cigarettes. And from what I remember they can be found quite often in the empty flats, so that’s something to work with.

And another thing. There are empty plastic bottles lying around everywhere, and nobody seems much interested in them. Their loss! It took no time at all to get together a couple of dozen containers of all sizes. Now here I am, filling them with water from the pipe. I also found a gas canister with a torch on it, which I use to solder (or stick) the plastic rings left on the bottle necks back onto the sealed tops, matching them by colour. It took a while, but now I’m a dab hand and the results look pretty good. Sure, it’s not mineral water. But it’s not from the sewer either, at least I hope not. It tastes just like ordinary drinking water, and from what I remember the shopkeeper said there was a market for that.

To let you in on a secret, I couldn’t stop myself. I did eventually visit my old home. No, I didn’t go into my flat, but I did hang around the doorway for a while. The panes in the windows were unbroken, which meant the nasty surprise left by those arseholes was still there, biding its time. If it had already been tripped, then every pane in the apartment and in the stairwell would’ve been smashed.

However, I did find my jacket by the burnt-out car. With my knife in one pocket and my water bottle in the other. The bottle goes on my belt, the knife in my pocket, and jacket, which has sadly lost any form of respectability, goes into the bushes. It was scorched, and I didn’t want it.

Now the saucepan’s full! I pour the water into bottles. I’ve got just over a dozen already, so I can go see the shopkeeper. I select the most attractive-looking containers – you’ve got to keep up appearances, and I’m a man of my word. Ten bottles makes fifteen litres, which should be weight enough to satisfy the shopkeeper. I already had a decent backpack, the fruits of another flat-gutting expedition. The bottles fitted perfectly.

So once again I’m standing in front of the familiar shop door. The procedure’s the same. I’m frisked by the guard and then I start to put out my bottles on the counter.

“Well,” murmurs the shopkeeper, looking at the fruits of my labour, “you did it. Good man!”

The water is removed under the counter.

“What do you want, then?”

“I want to eat! Tins – meat, instant soups, everything!”

Thus, we begin to haggle. After a few minutes, I leave the store and can feel the weight of groceries in my backpack. That’s enough to live on for a few days! With what I’ve salvaged from abandoned flats, there’s really no need to worry for a while.

Slam! My eyes go black for a second.

“Stop right there, you bastard!”

It’s not like I’m about to take off running – that was some smack in the stomach they gave me. I see three wankers of some sort. Surprise, surprise, I know one of them. It’s the same guy who ran away from the two tooled-up gorillas before.

“Are you fucking stupid?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think you can just walk straight past us?”

There’s something I’m missing. They pull me up on my feet and shove me against the wall, then they explain the balance of power to me, punctuated by a few “friendly” pokes and jabs. Turns out these three represent the shopkeeper’s “protection”, and anyone who wants to do business with him has to slip a little something to them in return for access. Nothing too extravagant, just ten percent of each deal. Hmm, interesting. I wonder if those gorillas in imported camouflage know about this arrangement?

“Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, fool, you’re better off making friends with us. If you fuck about, you’ll pay for it! What’s your address?”

“What address?”

“Not your fucking safe-deposit box, obviously! Where do you sleep?” shouts the biggest of them in my face. Honesty’s the best policy, so I give them my street, building, and apartment number. I say nothing about the office – nobody asked for my business address.

“We’ll be checking.”

“I’d be happy to accompany you gentlemen there right now.”

Like they’ll go anywhere with me. No doubt they’ve got other idiots to wait for.

They’re lying, the bastards! They’re no kind of protection, just street trash. But there are three of them, and they’re stronger than me. Any argument from my side will result in fisticuffs, and I know who’s going to come off worse.

“When you come back, go into that doorway over there. It’s flat seven. There’s a box in the hallway. If none of us are there, that doesn’t mean we’ve left. We guard everything round here, see? So put your stuff in the box. We’ll be checking.”

It’s the same stairwell where I found that jerry-rigged alarm. It’s all a simple shakedown. They hang around outside the shop – or as close as they dare to get for fear of catching a bullet. I doubt the shopkeeper’s guards think much of their activities. Doesn’t mean these arseholes can’t catch me on the way, though. And I’ll get more than a punching if I’m not careful. I know their kind. They don’t give a shit.

My backpack loses much of its weight. I get another slap round the head in the way of goodbye, and get round the corner fast.

So, there’s another Makar round here, too. It’s just a simple racket for now, but soon they’ll get stronger, work out what they’re doing, and attract more scumbags to their ranks. Am I going to have to spend my whole time running away from bastards like this?

If only I was armed, but where am I going to get a gun from? A pocket knife won’t be enough to get rid of them. Nor will the axe, for that matter. There’s too many of them, and I don’t even remember the last time I used it to cut someone. How long ago was it? That’s right, never. Do I really plan to start? Not now, certainly.

There is, of course, a chance of finding a gun while I’m gutting flats. But even with a crew the size of Makar’s that didn’t happen very often. For some reason folks round here don’t keep much in the way of arsenals at home. It’s hopeless. So, what can I do? Pondering the matter fruitlessly, I drink half a bottle of cognac and slump into Vitya’s shagpad.

Something jolts me awake in the middle of the night. I jump out of bed. What’s the matter? Something must have woken me, but what? I pace round the room, banging my knees on the vast bed every other step. Fuck-fuck-fuck. That’s it! That guy, the one who was killed by the “Bears” in the second shop. He shot at them, didn’t he? He did. There was firing that didn’t sound like an automatic weapon. And then the bad guys opened fire on him. Though why are they the bad guys? They even threw me a couple of tins of food. Then off they went, and I don’t remember seeing any other guns on them but their assault rifles. What would they need anything else for? Which means the dead guy’s gun is still there.

It must be lying round there somewhere, but when I get to the shop and look around, I just can’t work out exactly where it could have got to. So, let’s think logically. My brain seems still to be working more or less.

A shot, followed almost immediately by bursts of fire from the Bears. No screams, sounds of footsteps, or any other noises. Which means they downed him almost immediately, and he dropped dead more or less on the spot. He’s still lying there, arms outstretched and beginning to stink.

Let’s work on the assumption that most people shoot right-handed. There’s no reason to think this guy was any different. Then, when they pumped his chest with at least five rounds, he went straight down where he was standing. Which means his gun must have ended up somewhere over here…

I crouch down and catch sight of a glint of light off the metal of the gun barrel. The gun must have flown under the overturned shelves, and that’s why I never saw it. The previous owner had for some reason sawed off the stock, almost all the way to the pistol grip, as I believe they call it. The gun wasn’t all that big to start with. You could fit it under a coat, or even a suit jacket, without attracting attention. A semi-sawn-off, I guess you’d call it. Normally, they saw off the barrel. I’ve seen them in museums. But then you can only fire point-blank, while with the barrel still intact you’ve got a fair chance of hitting something at up to fifty meters. If you can shoot straight, that is.

I don’t know exactly what type of hunting gun it used to be – I’m no expert, after all. But you can let loose down a corridor without even bothering to aim too carefully. You reload it by pulling the piece of wood under the barrel towards you. From the movies again, I know that that makes it a pump-action.

I should take a look at the dead guy, but his pockets have been turned out long before I got there. It was probably those Bears who did it. There’s unlikely to be anything left. And I’ve no great desire to go anywhere near that corpse. The smell is awful, and I’d probably just catch some disease.

The gun was lightly covered with rust. This I noticed once I’d already got it home. Never mind, there’s some sunflower oil in the little office kitchen, and that’ll do for now. Then I’ll find some motor oil in one of the flats and give it a proper greasing. After tinkering around for a while, I manage to strip the gun down. As I thought, the shooter hadn’t managed to chamber another round. I pulled an empty cartridge smelling of gunpowder out of the barrel. According to the marking on the bottom, it’s a twelve-gauge. That’s a big hole – almost two centimetres across. Shit, so how big’s a twenty-gauge? You’d need to put it on wheels. Or am I confusing something? I must be, because I remember they used to talk about a twenty-gauge as a ladies’ gun. It must be some kind of inverse proportion. As for ammo, there were only three shells. Two of them had a flying duck drawn on the casing, while the third had four zeros stamped on the paper at the tip. So? What does that mean? Which one should I put in first?

Having cleaned off the gun, I put it back together. Turns out it’s a lot easier than reassembling a printer after servicing. That’s something else I did once upon a time, and it wasn’t just printers I fixed, there was some more serious kit as well. I try using the pump-action, pulling the wood under the barrel backwards and forwards. The barrel jumps up.

No, it’s not my game. I just can’t get the hang of swinging round and aiming quickly. What about those amazing manoeuvres they do in the movies? But then again, that’s the movies. Where everybody shoots like a trained sniper. Whereas my doubts in my ability to shoot accurately are well-founded. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to hit a door at ten meters!

For ammo, I’ll have to go and see the shopkeeper – he’s bound to have some! He must be supplying his guards, which means he’s got a store. Or at least he knows where to find some. Which means I’d better start looking for more empty bottles.

So once again I’m back in the basement at the water pipe. I really do need to think of something else. While this water business does stop me dying from hunger, the career prospects are rather limited. How much of this water does the shopkeeper need? And sooner or later even plastic bottles are going to be scarce. Then what? I don’t have an answer yet.

When he frisked me this time, the guard showed no surprise at what he found.

“Got yourself a piece, eh?”

“Just a little one,” I agree.

There’s no point dicking around. I want to be friends with these guys.

“See the box over there?” asks the guard. “Put it in there.”

The guy behind the grille with the assault rifle tenses. You never know.

The shopkeeper (whose name, it turns out, is Artemiy) chucks all the bottles into a crate.

“What do you need?”

“Ammunition. Twelve-gauge.”

He purses his lips and looks sceptically at the bottles I’ve brought.

“Well, I can give you a couple of packs. Birdshot or buckshot? I can give you three of those.”

“What about fifty-fifty?”

“What?”

“I mean half of one and half of the other. How many shells in a pack?”

The shopkeeper grins.

“So, you’re a mathematician. Ten shells in a pack. So, a pack of birdshot and…” he thinks for a second, “a dozen of buckshot.”

“Fifteen.”

We agree to fourteen.

In the course of discussion, I discover that buckshot means balls of around four to five millimetres. Considering the large gauge of my gun, that’s more than sufficient for close quarters, but I’m not going to hit anything on the other side of the road unless it’s an elephant.

On my way out, I discover that my not-quite-sawn-off has been unloaded. The shells are arranged neatly beside it.

“In future,” explains the guard, “you do that yourself. If you come in here with a loaded gun, we’ll put you down.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’ll blow your fucking brains out, and all that jazz.”

They’re a friendly bunch, aren’t they?

I hide the gun under my jacket and step out into the street. Those thugs that jumped me last time have a lookout post, if that’s what you’d call it, somewhere round here. From there they can see everyone who goes into or comes out of the shop. Now it makes sense why some of the paths to the door have been made so difficult – to ensure everyone approaches the same way. There’s a tree down suddenly on one side, or elsewhere a pile of rubbish has appeared out of nowhere – somehow the bins have turned themselves over. Bins that were never there before anyway. Most people don’t want to climb through a stinking pile of trash, or crawl through the earth under a fallen three. They’ll take the cleaner, more comfortable path.

So, that’s the deal. There aren’t many those wankers, and they can’t cover every approach to the shop. That’s how they’ve made their life easier. Where did they meet me last time? Next to that building there. Which means? They saw me, got ready, and jumped straight at me. And one of them did stink a bit, like he’d come from the trash. So, where are they sitting?

Wherever it is, they must also be able to see the flat they told me to take the stuff to. Otherwise they’d have to keep running backwards and forwards. If they see you go in, that means you’re paying your ten percent and everything’s OK. They don’t need to collect the stuff till evening. But if you don’t go in, they have to be ready to catch you.

It’s that building over there. None of the others are as conveniently placed. Elsewhere there are fences in the way. Making holes in them doesn’t make sense. Then anyone could use them and avoid the carefully laid path. The wankers wouldn’t like that.

I wait for a couple of seconds in the cover provided by the wall of the building and the protruding rubbish bin. I quickly put four shells in the magazine, slide the pump (I’ve learned how), and the gun’s loaded.

Five shots. In theory, that’s five deaths. If I actually end up shooting. But I know I’m going to have to. There’s no good way this ends up. And if they see my gun there’ll be all hell to pay. They don’t have guns. Well, maybe they have pistols. And I’m sure they’ve got knives, which no doubt they’ll cut me up with to get rid of their fear of an armed man. I’ve read about how it works. If they did have a gun, then they’d have waved it round under my nose already. For the sake of good form, as they say, and for greater persuasion. They’d have made me sniff it.

I loosen the strap I’m holding the gun with slightly, wrapping it in a loop around the round cover of the magazine. My shotgun sling (that’s the proper name for it, a shotgun sling!) is pretty new, with plastic buckles that can easily be adjusted. If you slip the loop from the magazine, the shotgun drops out from under my coat and hangs on a long strap, which makes it easy to handle. Sadly, this isn’t my invention, it’s something else I saw in a film. True, they did it with submachine guns there, but what’s the difference? It’s not very comfortable, so you can’t go far with it, but then I don’t have to.

And here’s the entryway I was told to bring my offering to in return for their so-called protection. To be fair, they’ve chosen the place pretty well. No need to make a special detour.

As I come inside, I unfasten my jacket and carefully step over the wire of their alarm system. It’s still in the same place. There’s no point announcing my presence too early. Even more so as I’m coming up the stairs and not down, and the tripwire’s designed to catch someone coming down from upstairs.

The apartment turns out to be empty. Nobody’s bothered to wait for me. You’d guess the wankers have worked out that it may not only be conscientious payers that want to come in here. There really is a box in the kitchen, and right now it’s completely empty. Either they’ve already collected their bounty, or nobody’s brought them anything yet. Not all of the shopkeeper’s customers can be so helpless that they have to pay those arseholes off. I’d like to see them try to shake down those armed gorillas. In fact, I’d pay anything for it. I look into the neighbouring room and find what I need. I drag out a writing desk and use it to block the doorway to the kitchen. I also turn the kitchen table around. Now, in order to get from the hallway into the kitchen, they’ll have to get through my obstacle course, which isn’t easy as I’ve left only the tiniest gap. I then leave the apartment and go back out on the street, and turn in completely the opposite direction from the way I went last time, just to make sure no one intercepts me on the way home. They should have seen my visit to the apartment, and that means there’ll be somebody along soon to pick up my payment.

As I now more or less know the way, I make my journey considerably more quickly than the time before. It helps that the fire escape is completely out of sight from where I assume their lookout post to be. It’s wide open from the other side, however, so it’s best to get up fast. Across the roof, onto the familiar balcony, and through the apartment to the staircase without incident. Slipping cautiously into the kitchen, I take up position in the corner so I that I can’t be seen from the street. Just in case. I sit and wait. It’s a shame I don’t smoke, or the time might pass a little faster. I can’t snooze, and it’s not a good idea to relax too much.

So, will the courier be here soon? If my calculations are correct, he should be along any minute. At some point in my checkered career, I worked in logistics and had to organize all sorts of things. You get used to assessing a huge variety of factors, among them the walking speed of a courier on foot. So I do have some reason to believe my estimates are reasonably accurate.

And there’s the scrape of the door downstairs! Who’ll be the lucky first visitor? Well, I really couldn’t have hoped for better! Standing in the doorway is none other than the original lookout I saw from the balcony on my first visit. I’ve got a bone to pick with you, my friend.

“Waaaaa?” He clearly wasn’t expecting to find anyone here, and voices his confusion.

“Sit down!” I nod towards the floor.

“What the fuck?” shouts the little tit.

And then he notices the shotgun poking pointedly out from under the table.

He really is a little tit, too. Skinny and unkempt. You’d think he’d just be a hanger-on in most groups, but he’s trying to puff out his chest. You can see why, too. A dickhead like that will have spent all his life being kicked around – sent off to buy beer, cigarettes and girls. Then suddenly he gets to be the one shouting orders, and he’s got friends at his back to stop him getting punched in his ugly face. He must have liked the feeling, and decided that he was born to rule after all. Now suddenly he was being knocked back into his customary cringing position. He didn’t like it one bit.

“What do you think?” starts the wanker, still holding out hope.

Well, he should be a little more observant, shouldn’t he? Hasn’t he noticed there’s a chopping board right next to me on the table? It’s a good old-fashioned one, made of thick wood. Very comfortable to cut on. A useful thing in all sorts of ways. Easy to throw, too. So, when the heavy piece of wood hits our dickhead right in the middle of his ugly face, he finally stops talking. All that time playing table tennis turned out to have a use after all – it was a good, powerful throw with a good, powerful effect. The guy choked up, and all the words he was planning to let fly in my direction remained stick in his throat.

“Did anyone give you permission to talk?” I ask sweetly. I borrow the manner from our old HR director, who always kept a calm, pleasant tone. He knew what he was doing. It sounds like you’re being polite, but it’s very difficult to argue with.

The dickhead says nothing, just wipes the blood from his split lip. Sensible of him. Also standing on the table is an iron. It’s old, too, the sort made from actual iron. Get hit with that in the chops and you really won’t be saying anything. Ever again.

“Speak out of line again, and I’ll shoot you in the fucking kneecaps. Then I’ll leave you here, and by the time your friends come running to find you’ll have bled out all over the floor. Nod if you understand!”

I shout the last words at the top of my voice, and see the dickhead shudder before he nods. Even I’m afraid of what I’m saying. Afraid because I really am going to have to do all that. It may be easy to pull a trigger in the movies, but what’s it like in real life? So that’s why I’m shouting, to get my own nerve up.

“Where are your mates?”

“Not far. Number ten on Karpov Street.”

“Flat number?”

“Sixteen.”

I know the building. There used to be a shop on the ground floor. So, the bad guys are up on the fourth floor. Makes sense, there’s a pretty good view from there.

“How many of them?”

“Two.”

“The ones who were with you last time?”

“One of them – Big Misha. Valera stayed at the base.”

Ah, so they have a base. That’s worth knowing.

“Where’s your base and how many people there?”

Gabbling and mixing his words, the dickhead hurries to tell me everything he knows. Why’s he got so much to say, and why so loud?

“Quiet now! Keep your mouth shut. If you even yawn, you’re fucked!”

Something’s not right here. Sure, he’s frightened, and there’s still blood flowing from his split lip, but that’s no reason to make so much noise.

I move further back into the corner and bring my gun to the ready. The front door is slammed open with a crash, hitting the wall so hard that there’s a shower of plaster and dust from above. Two male figures appear in the doorway.

Bam! It’s quite something. I mean, of course I’ve seen people fire shotguns before. I’ve even fired one myself. Out hunting. In the open air. Not in the narrow hallway of somebody’s flat. It’s not the same effect at all.

The pane of the window behind me shatters loudly – presumably from the sound of the charge. There’s a whistling noise as buckshot ricochets off the walls – the first shell was buckshot, just to make sure there was plenty to go round.

There was plenty. Blood’s streaming from the wanker’s face, and it looks like he caught some shot. One of the new arrivals is pressed against the wall, hit in the shoulder. No more fight from him, his right arm’s hanging like a ribbon. The third guy I can’t see, or at least not all of him. Just his legs. The round knocked him back out onto the landing. Or did he drop down himself. Either way, his legs are only twitching slightly. Is he dead? Fuck!

Gradually the sound returns to my ears, and the smoke drifts outside with the breeze. I’m in shock, but you’ve got to assume it was worse for the others. The barrel was pointing their way, after all. Their ears would have got the worst of the sound, too. Shit!

I pull at the wood under the barrel to chamber another round. I’d be a real idiot to let them jump me now. From what I can see, however, they’ve shat themselves. The wanker’s lip is trembling, and then he starts to sob out loud. You can’t blame him. He’s had a wooden board smashed in his face and barrel of buckshot straight past his head. I’d have shut down completely, I guess.

“Get down on the ground!”

Both of them drop so fast the floor shakes.

I stand up and lean sideways to look at the front door. I can’t see shit, just the legs of the guy lying there. The bastard’s still alive – his legs are twitching violently.

“Hey, you! Pull your friend inside.”

The guy with the injured shoulder nods with fear – sure, sure. With his good hand he grabs a boot and drags the guy on his back into the cover of the hallway.

Fucking hell! His whole chest’s been ripped open! His prospects don’t look great.

“Are you armed?”

“I’ve got a knife,” the wounded guy says hoarsely.

“Slit his throat, then throw the knife over here on the floor!”

If someone ordered me to do that, I doubt that I could manage it. Sliding a knife across the throat of a living human being… no, I couldn’t do it. But if you can’t do it yourself, get someone else to! That was our company motto back in the army, as I remember. And if this guy has any reservations, he doesn’t show them. He finishes off his friend with a single cut. Not fun to watch, but the knife came clattering across the floor.

“Right,” I say hoarsely. I’m finding it hard to talk, but I guess for the bad guys my croaking sounds scary enough. At any rate, the two of them flinch when I speak.

“I don’t want to see your faces round here again, ever! Understood? Otherwise…” I look meaningfully towards the door. “Any questions?”

They both shake their heads, almost in tempo.

“Turn out your pockets!”

All sorts of crap falls out onto the floor. Huh, the wanker had another knife stuck in his belt.

“You fucker!” The words came out with some feeling. “I should have shot you straight away! Be grateful for my good nature.”

The two of them vanished into thin air.

Among the junk they left behind was a pretty good knife. I’ll keep that. It’s certainly better than my pocket knife. Some hardtack and a couple of tins of food. Not too bad.

I move over to the third member of the merry band. So, then, what did they call you? Big Misha, wasn’t it? Well, size didn’t help you here. It wasn’t what I’d planned, and I can’t say I wanted to shoot you to be honest. That’s just how it went down. The door slammed open, and my finger twitched automatically. It just so happened that my finger was on the trigger at the time. Basically, it’s bad luck, old boy. But then I find he has a revolver in his pocket. Not such bad luck after all, at least for me.

I hear movement, turn to my right, and I’m looking at the black hole of a gun barrel. It’s the shopkeeper’s regular guard. He’s calm and composed, holding his gun with confidence, unlike some of us.