He heard, against the thunder of the water and the moan of the wind, the click that was metal on metal. It carried to him over what remained of the river to be crossed, and he knew that a weapon was armed. A sight would now be focused on him and the cross-hairs would be over his chest.
He had wanted a clear kick with the maximum impact and the greatest surprise.
The bastard held on to the rope, had it and rode the flow. The boat shook and the shape of the thing slithered in bilge water along the planks, came to rest against his feet, and he could not make the second kick.
At that moment what was Reuven Weissberg’s plan? There was none. His life and his power were built on the twin foundations that came from careful planning. Fury consumed him.
They were twenty metres from the blackness of the far bank. He hung, now, with one hand on the rope, and with the other he groped forward for Johnny Carrick’s throat. If he found the throat of the man who had betrayed him, he would break the neck bones, crush and snap them. He felt flesh but didn’t have a good hold.
The boat shook and the river water slopped into it and lapped around the cargo.
A hand tried to free his, but could not.
Lawson hissed in his ear, ‘Shoot, damn you. Take him out.’
In the sight, the cross-hairs bounced on two pastel shapes in a washed-out green that were against a background of a harsher green, that of lawn grass after rain. But the shapes had merged. The boat seemed to Deadeye to be marooned out there in the river, but the flow force struggled to break it free and the white water powered round it. He was not there to watch pretty pictures of the wake the boat created or to see the balletic dance of the figures, those shapes. Yes, safety was off. Yes, the lever was on ‘single’ and not automatic. Yes, his right index finger was off the guard and on the trigger. Yes, it rested there gently, without pressure. No, he had no damn target. What made it harder was following the shapes with the water behind and in front of them because the moonlight reflected back up off the surface and flared.
‘Can’t separate them.’
‘You have to take out Weissberg.’
It was an old rule for marksmen. He — true for any marksman — could not be ordered by a superior to shoot. His decision. No man, whatever his seniority, made the decision for him. His finger stayed on the trigger bar and the pressure was not applied. They were together. The shapes were one, writhing and moving, heaving and shaking, but indivisible.
‘For God’s sake, Deadeye, do it.’
‘Fuck off …’ afterthought ‘… sir.’
Stress mounted in Deadeye. They were locked together, and the dazzle came off the water, spoiling the quality of his view. He held off. Inside the sight, with the cross-hairs, was the range finder, and the digits showed the figure 30. Thirty metres range. The stress surged. He thought it a struggle for life. His mind wobbled, shouldn’t have done, and he saw the man come fast, rat speed, across the pavement — six days before — and seemed to feel the barged weight of him in the moments that he’d fired two blank rounds. He heard the girl, whom Lawson called ‘the little cuckoo’, murmur that if their man went into the water he was gone, lost. Didn’t need to be told it, knew it.
He couldn’t buck the stress.
Deadeye waited for the heads to come apart, not the bodies. He thought, from what the sight showed him, that water came into the boat. They each had one hand on the rope and fought with the other, and he saw each of the punches thrown and each of the flailing kicks. He leaned hard against a sapling tree, used it for support, and had the cross-hairs wavering on their heads. At that range, with the image intensifier’s magnification, he could see half of the snarled face of his target. Needed the whole of the damned face.
Had it, squeezed, went for it.
Deadeye felt the recoil belt his shoulder joint.
They flinched. They ducked. Any man with a high-velocity bullet blasting over his head would flinch and duck. The two hands came off the rope.
Fucking missed. When had he last missed? Top scores always on a range. Didn’t understand. Had missed.
The rope, without the weight on it, leaped up, seeming to shimmer and shiver, then went slack.
They had balance for a moment, but briefly.
Two seconds, or three. The rope was now high above them. Either man, to have caught the rope again, would have had to reach up and leave himself defenceless. If Carrick had done it, stretched his arm towards the rope, his stomach and head would have been open … and the chance was gone. The river took the boat.
Again, Reuven Weissberg came at him. Fingers gouged at his eyes and a knee came into the pit of his stomach. Carrick gasped. They were rolling.
They were lost, gone, and he knew it. He fought back, had to. Had to free himself and the water surged round him and he felt it round his legs. They went in.
Still struggling, hands now on his clothing. Reuven Weissberg’s head was inches from Carrick’s and water was spat from it. Carrick could not have said where his strength came from. Fingers found Reuven Weissberg’s eyes. A little choked gasp of pain. Carrick was free. The great current tugged and the undertow sucked at him.
He could no longer see Reuven Weissberg or the boat, or what the boat had carried.
A branch cannoned into his back He snatched it, but it lacked the buoyancy to hold him up. The water went round him.
Darkness closed on him.
‘Who’s going in?’ Lawson faced them.
In chorus: ‘Waste of time. Can’t swim, never have. Bloody suicide. Nothing lives in that.’
He did not identify the voices. It seemed clear-cut. A kaleidoscope of sights and thoughts rampaged in him. He was God, the relic of the Good Old Days. Sorry, and all that, Clipper, but I’m stepping out of line. Lawson kicked off his good brogues and heaved down the zip of the waxed coat. He thought of the Spree river, the agent who had been Foxglove and the great open water by the Oberbaumbrücke, and himself waiting in the cold, stamping to keep his feet warm. He loosened his tie, went forward in his stockinged feet, slipped down the bank. No one tried to stop him, funny that. Had they, he would have pushed them away. Seemed to see the searchlights and hear the rattle of gunfire, machine-guns using three- or four-round bursts with tracer. One was using a flashlight and it played over the water’s surface and caught a branch. There might have been the top of a head but it was moving too fast for him to focus on and retain. And Foxglove had screamed, a shrill, piercing call for help. Then his tube had been holed, its buoyancy gone. He’d not seen Foxglove for a full minute before the body had tangled in one of the nets that ran down the river. He’d lived with it so damned long, and made a pretence that what happened to an agent was all part of the game — greater good of the greater number. God, Clipper, it’s bloody cold …The water was at his knees and the eddy by the bank drew him out and into the flow. Then his feet lost contact with the bottom. He started to swim, used the combination of breast-stroke and dog-paddle he’d learned at school.
He was guided by shouts from behind him and by the direction in which the torchbeam was aimed. He might have seen a head bob up, and what was ahead of him might have been the bottom of the little boat or it might have been another of those wretched trees coming down the river.
I remember what you said, Clipper. ‘An agent is lost and you go find another.’ Good counsel. And you said, ‘Get close and sentimental to an agent and you get to be useless.’ It’s what I am, Clipper, bloody useless. What he had thought might have been the bottom of the boat was indeed a log, and when the swell surge carried him closer to what might have been a head, the torchbeam showed a deflated football.