Die Trying (5 page)

He sensed the bracelet on his wrist. Hated the feel of the plastic against the hairs on his skin. Tagged like a fucking paedophile, he thought. Suddenly he hungered for freedom. Manoeuvring his body so he didn’t wake Aimée, he brought his wrist to his mouth. Snagged the lock between his teeth and yanked at the bracelet. Something snapped. It came loose. He tossed the bracelet to the floor. It landed somewhere amid the sea of clothes.

Aimée stirred. Her head rested on his chest, the flat of her nose using the curved ridge of his pectoral muscles as a pillow. When he peered down at her he saw only a head of ruffled hair. But Gardner felt her breath rise up his chest and stream on to his chin. She kissed his chest, then the side of his neck, working her way up muscle by muscle. Finally she kissed him on the lips and rubbed her nose against his stubbled cheek. Her face – fifty per cent sleepy and fifty per cent smiley – pronounced her happiness.

‘It’s early,’ she said.

‘You can go back to sleep.’

‘Are you kidding? I’m not sleepy at all.’

‘Me neither,’ said Gardner. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbed sleep from his eyes. In the Regiment he got by on two or three hours’ sleep a night. These days it was more like five or six. He was getting slack.

‘I have to go,’ he said.

‘Already?’ Aimée made a noise in the base of her throat, like a poorly dog. ‘Damn it, and there I was thinking you could wait just a few more hours before killing evil drug dealers.’

‘I might be persuaded to leave a few minutes late.’

‘Persuaded – how?’

‘Surprise me.’

The noise in her throat came again, now a note higher. She squeezed his right bicep. Her fingers traced the route of his bluish veins, visible on the surface like steel cables. ‘They’re so soft and smooth,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d be harder.’

Her left hand slid under the thin white sheet that covered them from the waist down. He felt her fingers against the inside of his leg. Her fingertips were warm and he felt a pang of electricity course through his body when she touched him.

‘People think muscle’s rock hard, but that’s not the truth.’

‘
Every
muscle?’ Aimée said.

‘Well, maybe one exception.’

Half an hour later Gardner was woken by the revving of an engine and the screech of wet brakes in the street below. He checked his watch. Not yet five. Now the violent slamming of car doors and the urgent pitter-patter of feet on the pavement made him suspicious.

Leaving Aimée to bury her head under the pillows, he slid out of bed, rushed across to the bedroom window, pulled the curtains a little way apart and stared down. He spied a black Land Rover behind his Toyota.

Three figures had debussed from the Land Rover. Two guys Gardner didn’t recognize. One was no more than five foot five and shaped like a giant testicle with arms. Gardner spotted a crucifix the size of a GI Joe hanging on the end of a necklace.

The second guy, a lot taller, had a mouthful of gold teeth and a shaved head covered in tattoos: swastikas, skulls, crucifixes. He was decked out in a dark-green puffer jacket, white vest and black trousers with toe-capped boots.

The third was Valon.

Son of a fucking bitch, Gardner thought.

‘What’s going on?’ Aimée was awake, arching her head up towards him, the outline of her face imprinted on the pillow.

Gardner spun around. ‘Grab some clothes. We’re leaving.’

‘Not before you tell me who’s outside.’

‘There’s no time. Trust me, Aimée. Get up.’

The urgency in his voice spooked her. She threw on a pair of tight jeans and a Nike T-shirt while Gardner went to grab the TRG-22.

A crash stole Gardner’s attention as he stepped across the hallway. The sound of wood splitting, metal buckling. He froze. The goons were at the periphery of his vision, the door busted open. Valon stood between them. He held up his hands. He was toting a gun. Testicles squeezed past Tattoo and marched down the hallway.

At three metres’ distance, Gardner dropped his right shoulder, faking to swing with his left. Then he dug his fingertips into his palm to form a sharp ridge with the first knuckle joints. Testicle moved to cover his face with his enormous arms, leaving his stomach exposed. Gardner set his sights on a gut shot, hoping to knock the wind out of his sails. He rammed his knuckles into the guy’s abdomen.

Pain gnawed at his hand. His fingers burned. What he’d figured was a fleshy gut was in fact a hard wall of muscle. Testicle’s abs were swollen up like sandbags.

The goon chuckled. His fat fingers clamped themselves tight around Gardner’s head and wrenched his neck back. Gardner’s chin was level with Testicle’s forehead.

As Testicle punched him on the jaw, Gardner felt his body defy gravity. He was on the ground one second, airborne the next. Testicle shrank from view as the force of the punch flung Gardner several metres down the hallway. His back smacked against the lino floor. Pain sprang up in clusters along his spine.

‘Fuck you, man,’ roared Testicle, shaking his wrist.

Tattoo trained the business end of a Sig Sauer P229 on Gardner. In his enormous hand the big fuck-off pistol looked like a joke gun-lighter.

‘Take her and you’ll fucking pay,’ Gardner said. ‘When I’m done with you, there won’t be anything left to identify you, except for your tiny fucking dick.’

‘Sure, man,’ said Tattoo, stepping closer to Gardner. ‘Whatever makes you feel better.’ On the last word he pistol-whipped Gardner in the face, stunning him. Gardner’s head rang with pain, and the next thing he knew, Tattoo had yanked his hands behind his back, restraining him.

Testicle walked into the bedroom. A moment later Gardner heard Aimée scream and the slap of a hand against flesh. ‘Fucking bitch,’ rasped Testicle as he dragged Aimée out into the hallway.

‘I’m sorry, Aimée,’ Gardner said.

‘Get this bastard off me!’

‘I’m going to get you free. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be OK.’

‘Yeah, listen to your boyfriend,’ said Testicle. ‘You remember his words while we’re raping the shit out of your pussy.’

Testicle manhandled Aimée out of the flat. Tattoo followed, nudged past Valon, Aimée’s squeals echoing up and down the stairwell. Valon said something that Gardner couldn’t quite catch. Next thing he knew, Valon was directing the pistol at his temple.

Gardner squinted at the black hole of the muzzle. Frost spread from his spine down to his hands and feet. He couldn’t move: the gun had him in a trance. So this is how it ends, he thought. Killed by a fucking chancer.

A flash, a sound so loud it seemed as if a grenade had kicked off inside his skull. Blood leaking from his nose, his eardrum throbbing. Taste of burnt gas on his lips, the smell of it in the air. To his left, a neat bullet hole burned into the lino floor.

And the realization that he wasn’t dead.

He looked up. Valon was running down the hallway.

How did he miss me from that range? Gardner wondered.

Petrol fumes stung his throat. He watched in a daze as Testicle slopped a jerry can of the stuff around the hallway. On the floor, over the walls. Petrol dripped from Aimée’s framed newspaper clippings. When he’d fully doused the hallway, Testicle paced to the front door, turned and removed a thick roll of paper from his back pocket. With his cigarette lighter he torched the end of the paper and chucked it towards the petrol.

The fire spread spontaneously, fast. Flames licked at the walls. Glass cracked. Plastic blackened. Smoke thick and grey as charcoal rapidly filled the hallway. Gardner’s eyes reddened.

He choked on the fumes.

Get out of here – before you die.

0518 hours.

Gardner ran to the end of the hallway and ducked into the room on his left, smoke and burning plastic stinging his throat. Slinging the TRG-22 sniper rifle over his shoulder and grabbing a Glock 9mm as a secondary firearm, he retraced his steps to the bedroom and made a beeline for the window looking down on to the street. Testicle was slamming the door of a black Land Rover, Tattoo jumping in the other side. Valon behind the wheel.

Flames hissed at the bedroom door. He felt the heat on his back, smelled the melting paint. Gardner yanked at the window. Fucking fastened shut! He tugged at the rusted brass lock. No dice.

Grabbing the butt of the TRG-22, he swung it like a baseball bat against the glass. He was grateful for single glazing as the two large panes smashed with one clean swing. He raked the remaining shards with the muzzle of the sniper rifle. Fresh air hit him and he sucked in hungry breaths. Then he climbed through the gap head-first, the balls of his feet balancing on the window ledge.

The drop to the pavement was about fifteen metres. High enough to be dangerous, low enough to be Gardner’s only realistic way of escaping the fire. He might break a leg, or he might walk away unharmed. The jump was a lottery. But with the fire eating up the hallway, he had to buy a ticket.

Gardner pushed himself off the ledge as the Land Rover raced off. He extended his arms at his sides like wings to balance his body as it dropped. The wind gushed over him. The pavement grew larger and larger until he could see nothing else.

He closed his eyes as he hit the concrete shoulder-first. A dull throb swam from his ankle joint right up to his shoulder blade. He felt as if someone had clubbed him on his right side.

Picking himself off the ground and checking himself for injuries, Gardner rifled through his pockets. My car keys. I can still stop them. They can’t have gone far.

The Toyota was ten metres away. As Gardner beat a path to it he hocked up cloying, blackened phlegm. He chucked the TRG-22 and the Glock in the passenger seat, shoved the key into the ignition and pulled out into the main street, swerving to avoid an approaching fire engine. Looking back, he saw the flames engulf the entire third floor of the apartment block.

Soon hitting 110 in a forty-kilometre zone, Gardner wrenched the steering wheel hard left. Matchsticks lit under his wrists. The Toyota slalomed left at the end of Gavrilo Principa. He’d studied the layout of Belgrade for months in advance of the Kosovo War and knew that Gavrilo Principa was one-way. The only way out was left.

At 0525 the roads were deserted. Gardner throttled the Toyota, reaching 130. He spotted the Land Rover sixty metres ahead as it banged a right. Gardner jerked the wheel to his right, the Toyota screeching under the pressure. He eased off and at the apex of the turn he hit the accelerator again and levelled out. He’d reduced the distance to the Land Rover to thirty metres.

Clink!

A bullet starred the windscreen. One, two, three rounds cracked the glass. Then Gardner heard the clunk of hot lead thwacking against hard leather as the rounds ripped into the passenger seat. He swerved left, then right, in a zigzag manoeuvre.

Sparks bounced off the bonnet. The shooter couldn’t get a fix, he reckoned, loosing off shots in the hope one would strike lucky.

Gardner urged the Toyota up to 145. He was gaining on the Land Rover. Fifteen metres now. Close enough to see Aimée’s tinted-grey outline in the back seat.

They were heading out of the city.

Crack!

Another round. This one missed the windscreen and the bonnet. Gardner thought the trajectory might have sent it high into the air. But an angry hiss set the record straight. The bullet had punched a hole in one of his tyres.

He had no time to react. No time to think. The Toyota wobbled. He was fucked. He felt the motor shudder under the pressure. Shudder, then slide. He wrestled with the wheel. No fucking use. He could feel the lack of friction. The Toyota swapped the road for the fence of a small park. The fence beckoned. Gardner applied maximum force to the brakes. Braced himself for impact.

The crash damn near threw him out of his seat, but his arms were locked tight around the wheel. G-force kicked his arse, smashing his forehead against the dashboard and unleashing waves of pain across his skull. His jawbone tremored, as if someone had taken a defibrillator to the sides of his face.
Rat-rat-rat
went the Toyota’s engine in its death throes. Steam fluttered out of the grille.

Gardner gathered his senses. He mopped blood from his nose and looked to his right. Forty metres ahead, the Land Rover had stopped at a deserted junction. A single lamppost gave the asphalt a spit and polish; a wire fence sealed off naked farmland. In the distance he could see a cottage, lights off.

A white Ford Transit pulled up smartly alongside the Land Rover, breaking the silence. Testicles and Tattoo bundled Aimée into the back of the van while Valon looked on approvingly. He watched the Transit head off into the distance, the two heavies and the girl with it.

Now Valon began to walk over to Gardner. He was wielding an AK-47.

Gardner kicked open the driver-side door. The TRG-22 was lying on the passenger seat, the Glock 9mm on the floor. Seizing both, he climbed out of the wreckage. He still felt disoriented. The world jarred. A shrill sound perforated his left eardrum, as if mice were crawling inside. Every muscle in his body ached.

Then came the shots. A maddening volley of them, metal shredding metal, the contorted Toyota shell lighting up like it was fucking bonfire night. Bullets whirred into the chassis. Gardner heard leather tear, the wheezing of tyres. Any one of the rounds could bounce off a hard metal front, deflect into the path of his brain like a squash ball. That’s all it would take, he thought, as he ducked for cover behind the chassis.