A Spy's Life (57 page)
Harland blinked again. It was over.
Kochalyin had dropped to his knees at the grave’s edge, right in front of him. His face did not betray the puzzlement which is said to fill the expressions of those who have been shot, but Harland did see a final look of anger in his lifeless eyes.
And that was all he noticed for several minutes. His breath, emotion and thought simply seemed to have vacated his body. When eventually he found his voice, he stammered, ‘What the … what the hell was Macy doing with Kochalyin? Why was he on the helicopter for Christ’s sake?
The Bird glanced over to Macy and Eva, who had gone to help Ibro.
‘Our Macy’s a shifty little fucker,’ he said, without a flicker of humour, offering his arm to Harland so that he could haul himself out of the pit. ‘When Zikmund Myslbek was killed in Karlsbad, Macy was damned annoyed. You see, they went back a long way and they were good pals and all that. Macy wasn’t about to let the murder of his friend go unpunished. He decided to find out about this character Kochalyin and we agreed that the only way that could be achieved was if Macy went to Kochalyin with information about you two. It turns out we had business interests in some of the same areas and, to cut a long story short, Macy and Mister K found they had a lot in common. They talked the same language, you see. Macy then tapped the phones in Century House for him. After that there was no question of him not trusting Macy. That was his
big
mistake.’
‘And you knew about this?’ Harland asked incredulously. ‘You knew that Macy was feeding him everything?’
‘Yep, which is why I stuck to you two like a tart on Easter Sunday. When Kochalyin made his move, Macy was going to tip me off. I knew he was with him, but I had no idea he’d be on his bloody chopper. I could hardly believe it when I saw him get out.’
‘And where the hell were you? You didn’t go with Ibro in the car, did you?’
‘No. I thought it was best to stay with you two, so I followed you up the track at a distance, then made myself scarce.’
‘And the hut? Did you do that?’
‘Yes, an old trick. I gather it was a local favourite in the war. You place a lighted candle in the highest part of the building – in this case a beam by the chimney – turn on the gas and walk away. Being heavier than air, the gas takes a while to rise to the flame, by which time the whole place is full of the stuff. I learned the trick from Ibro. I believe it was used in the ethnic cleansing operations. Anyway, it certainly distracted those chaps for a bit.’ He nodded in the direction of the hut. ‘Two of ’em are unconscious. The other one got trapped inside,’ he said absently.
They considered waiting for the helicopter pilot to recover from the blow delivered earlier by The Bird to his head, but decided he wouldn’t be fit to fly them to Sarajevo. So they carried Ibro to the second truck and loaded him into the passenger seat. The Bird took the wheel and, once Harland had retrieved the camera from its hiding place in the rocks, Eva, Macy and he climbed into the back.
Harland wiped his hands of dirt and looked into Eva’s eyes. ‘You had me fooled back there,’ he said. ‘I really thought you were going to shoot me.’
‘For a moment I thought so too,’ Macy commented with a glimmer of a smile. ‘Then I realised she must have had her own gun but was angling to get the better weapon from one of the men. Bloody clever to pull that off and then get you down into the shelter of the grave.’
They both waited for her to say something. But the engine roared and The Bird started the laborious business of turning the truck, pitching them forward then back to the tailgate with a series of jolts.
Eventually she shouted, ‘You must have known I wasn’t going to kill you. Didn’t you see it in my eyes?’
‘Not this time,’ said Harland grimly.
He glanced at the pit and the grotesque figure of Oleg Kochalyin. His arms were limp by his sides and his head lolled a little to the right, causing his black cap to sit at a rather jaunty angle. It was as if some unseen hand had forced him to kneel and was now holding his body in penitence for the scores, maybe hundreds, who lay in that unquiet grave. Around him sprawled the men who had carried out the massacre – the perpetrators of a long-neglected barbarity. Justice had been served, Harland reflected, albeit crudely.
They began the descent to the road and dropped out of the mist. As they swayed with the motion of the truck, they fixed their gazes on the hills to the west, away from the shame of this nameless mountain. Out of the corner of his eye, Harland caught sight of a lone raven circling the crags below them, searching for its mate.
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Orion.
This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books.
Copyright © Henry Porter 2001
The right of Henry Porter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 4055 9
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