She’d caught Gaines’s whispered instruction.
Calvary rose and hauled open the passenger door, which Gaines had left ajar, dropped in. Through the windscreen he saw Nikola scramble to her feet and reach the driver’s side. She was fast now, all fatigue gone, and she fired the engine and brought the Mazda swinging in an arc alongside Gaines, who was still prone, his head raised. Calvary reached behind him and popped the rear door and Gaines slumped inside, almost catching his leg as he slammed the door shut.
Nikola floored the accelerator and J-turned the car, the wheels churning the ground in a fan of mud and grass. They’d spun a hundred and eighty degrees and the Mazda was now facing the grass bank at the back of the field, leading up to the road and separated from it by a wooden fence. She gunned the engine.
Calvary checked his wing mirror, realised the impact of the bluff had worn off. Both vehicles were on the move, the minibus coming after them, the Skoda veering away towards the gate, meaning to head them off up on the road if we managed to get there. Through the front window of the minibus one of the men aimed his pistol.
The first shot smashed off Calvary’s wing mirror. Ahead the drainage ditch was approaching fast, six feet wide. Beyond it was the bank. Calvary leaned back through the window with the Makarov and loosed off two shots. He heard glass shatter. Then the Mazda leaped across the ditch and its nose hit the base of the grass bank, the front bumper crumpling and the jolt flinging them forward in their seats. The front tyres found purchase on the bank and they were scrabbling and clawing their way up the verge, Nikola having geared down to first. Calvary risked a look back out the window. His shots hadn’t done much damage but they’d caused the driver to slow down, and that had been his undoing because he’d reached the ditch at too low a speed. The van had tipped into it and slammed to a stop. One of the gunmen had been thrown out of the open door into the ditch. The front passenger was trying to kick through the shattered windscreen.
The Mazda approached the top of the bank, building up speed as the slope became less steep, and as they crested it Calvary saw the Skoda reach the top of the track off to the left in parallel with them and begin to turn right on to the road. Nikola muttered something in Czech, a prayer perhaps, and the battered front of the car bashed through the wooden fence at the top of the bank, splintering the wet and rotten wood. The Mazda swung right on to the road as the Skoda gunned towards them from their left, a hundred yards away and closing fast. The Mazda’s gears and tyres shrieked as they took off down the road through the forest.
Nikola took them through an S-bend with astonishing skill, but Llewellyn’s driver was good, too, and he kept pace. Calvary didn’t look back, kept staring at the forest flashing past until he said, ‘There.’ Between the trees, a slight figure had emerged, one arm encased in white, the other hauling the rifle like a hod of bricks.
Max.
‘Brake,’ said Calvary. Nikola slowed and Calvary pushed open the door and rolled out on the tarmac and was up instantly, waving Nikola on and loping over to Max and grabbing the rifle from his hands. He swung it to bear just as the Skoda rounded the bend.
Calvary took out the front passenger tyre with a single clean shot.
The saloon swerved wildly and veered to its right and smashed into the base of a tree, glass shattering.
Calvary said to Max, ‘Stay back.’ He laid down the rifle and drew the Makarov.
Steam billowed from beneath the sails of the car’s buckled bonnet. Calvary couldn’t see much inside the car as he approached because the airbags had bloomed and were obscuring the interior. He peered in through the driver’s window. The driver had his eyes closed, was murmuring. Calvary found a stick with a sharp point and slit the airbag. It hissed and settled across the man’s lap. Calvary reached in and switched the ignition off.
He walked round the other side and deflated Llewellyn’s airbag. He was conscious, shifting each arm and leg in turn to test them. When he looked up, Calvary couldn’t read his expression.
Calvary raised the Makarov and touched the muzzle lightly, gently, against Llewellyn’s forehead. He looked past it, at Calvary’s eyes.
Enough.
Calvary lifted the gun away from his head and flicked the safety on and walked down the road towards Max. Beyond him Nikola was reversing back up the road towards them. Another car was bound to come past any moment and they needed to be out of there.
Halfway down the road Calvary turned. He didn’t know why.
The smile, the mocking eyes.
Llewellyn raised a hand to his forehead and tipped Calvary a salute.
THIRTY-TWO
Through the window the early afternoon light soaked the trees in shades of green and gold. The engineering of the train was precise so that the quiet rhythm of the carriage’s wheels on the tracks was barely noticeable. The middle-aged woman sitting opposite had glanced briefly at Calvary, at the bandage swaddling his head, but lost interest quickly and was now asleep.
He put his head against the window where it was cool, and closed his eyes.
They had crossed into eastern Germany an hour earlier. There had been no checkpoint, as there seldom was nowadays on the borders between EU countries. Nonetheless he’d watched for roadblocks on both sides. Given what Prague had been through over the last forty-eight hours he was unsurprised by the number of police vehicles that seemed to have infested the country’s roads.
*
After calling Nikola’s phone and finding Llewellyn on the other end, he’d told Gaines about the change of plan. Gaines hadn’t protested, had simply closed his eyes and nodded. A few calls had established which hospital Max was at. Calvary had rung Max on the ward phone – there was no way he’d get in to visit at this hour – and told him about Nikola.
‘I’m out of here,’ said Max. He’d discharged himself against medical advice, had met Calvary in the car park outside. He walked painfully, his chest bound and his left arm in a cast and supported by a sling.
They’d gone through the plan. Max had never fired a rifle before. Calvary made him understand that it would be ludicrously awkward to try to fire one with one arm in plaster. Max told him to stop being an old woman.
‘Fire in our direction, but not at us.’
‘Got it.’
‘I’m serious, Max. If you hit any of us by accident, we won’t be getting up.’
‘Dude…’
And he’d done it, masterfully, creating the impression that some unknown third party, perhaps a remnant of Blažek’s or Krupina’s group, was picking off Calvary and his friends.
They’d returned to a city reeling in bewilderment, the chaos of the night’s events beyond most people’s grasp. There was no chance of returning to Nikola’s flat, or Max’s either. They’d found a motel on the northern outskirts, where they could access a room without all four of them parading past the desk.
In the shabby confines of the motel room Nikola tended Calvary’s head, applying antiseptic and bandages, wincing every time he did. She turned her attention to Gaines. He tried a smile.
‘I’m first class, young lady. But thank you.’
Calvary said, ‘You need to get Max back to the hospital.’ The young man’s face had a green hue, and each breath clearly lanced at his chest.
Max said, ‘Can’t believe they drilled your head.’
They ate and drank all they could manage. Nikola and Max came up with the price of a train ticket for both men. They would have offered more but Calvary refused.
It was time to go. Calvary gripped Max’s hand.
‘Ah, jeez.’ The kid turned away, sniffed. ‘Arm hurts, man.’