Die Trying (8 page)

Gardner couldn’t hear the shot, but Maston spasmed as the bullet speared the parietal section at the back of his skull. Blood sprayed out, like a spurt of hot lava. Then his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He keeled over and died.

Bald was ranting at the Italians. If they’d hoped to intimidate Bald by slotting Maston, their scheme had obviously backfired. He went into meltdown. Gardner could see the situation was getting out of control.

Petruzzi gave an order. The shaven-headed guy held his Beretta 92 to the roof of Bald’s skull – like he’d done with Maston – and shoved him towards Petruzzi. The
cap crimini
exchanged words with Bald, the Scotsman neither nodding nor shaking his head, his eyes rooted on the fallen body of his old Regiment Major. The Beretta was still aimed at his head.

It was clear what Petruzzi was telling him. Do as we say, or you’ll end up like your friend. Each second mixed with the sweat on Gardner’s back, running over his knotted muscles. Then the shaven-headed goon spotted something approaching from the slip road to the north and waved to his
amici
.

Gardner took a long draw of breath.

Two more vehicles pulled into the rest stop. A black Lincoln Town Car and, behind it, a Mercedes-Benz eighteen-tonne sleeper truck with a trailer hooked to the back. The trailer was small – Gardner put its capacity at four or five cubic metres, the truck at sixteen – and carried an advert for some sort of frozen-foods company. He recognized the words as Russian.

Italian leather shoes ground cigarette butts into the asphalt. Italian guns were stowed back inside jackets.

I’m ready, Gardner thought. He had plenty of experience using the TRG-22. Unlike most other so-called sniper rifles, the Finnish-designed TRG-22 was developed specifically for long-range target-acquisition ops. He tugged on the bolt and felt the heart of the weapon beat. Shifted his body weight to the right side, nestling the polyurethane stock against his shoulder. The barrel didn’t glisten; the last user had painted it black to mask the metallic sheen underneath.

Three men got out of the Lincoln, one from the sleeper truck. They were all dressed in sweaters and jeans instead of suits. But to Gardner’s eye they looked the real deal. Each man wore a bulletproof vest overlaying their sweater and rugged Gore-Tex boots. They moved with a swagger.

Gardner saw no weapons.

A fifth Russian, sporting a shock of silver hair and dressed in a grey suit, emerged from the driver’s side of the Lincoln. The chauffeur, Gardner figured. The man walked to the rear door while his three mates approached the Italians. They stood four metres from the ’Ndrangheta. No warm hugs or firm handshakes or backslapping. Gardner felt as if he was watching a Mexican standoff.

The rear window of the Lincoln lowered. The man with the silver hair bent forward, propped an elbow against the window frame and swapped words with a guy in the back seat. He was sitting on the left side, just out of Gardner’s view. Gardner saw an arm reclining on leather upholstery, thin and long.

Bald veered between edgy and pissed off. His fists clenched by his sides, he practically blanked the Russians, fixing his dead-eye gaze on Petruzzi
. He’s no longer in control of the deal, Gardner figured.
The Italians were using him to get the money from the Russians – and would waste the Scot for sure as soon as the
mafya
were out of sight.

On the word from old man Petruzzi, one of the ’Ndrangheta goons fetched a large black suitcase from the boot of the Bentley. The guy struggled with the weight of it. He dumped the suitcase on the ground, between the Italians and the Russians.

Silver Hair exchanged glances with his mates. He stooped down beside the suitcase gracefully, like he was bowing before royalty. Then he unzipped the suitcase. From Gardner’s position he couldn’t identify the contents. But Silver Hair’s big old smile gave the game away. The coke was all there.

Then Silver Hair clicked his fingers. Another of the Russians zipped up the case, started to lug it towards the back of the Lincoln. The Lincoln sagged a little with the weight of the cocaine. At the same time the driver of the sleeper truck tossed a set of car keys to Bald.

A sonic boom at Gardner’s nine o’clock, a shriek fast on its heels. He spotted a second Bentley, this one black, racing into view. An ambush! The car skidded to a halt by its silver cousin, tyres flinging dust clouds into the air. Four men launched out of the car, decked out in identical suits to the ’Ndrangheta. Except for one small detail – they were all brandishing their Beretta 92s in full view. On cue, the three original goons standing beside Petruzzi brandished their own Berettas.

Russian hands slowly pushed skywards in unison. Surrendering. And confirming Gardner’s guess that the Italians were making a play for the cash as well as relieving Bald of the cocaine. Sneaky bastards. He expected Silver Hair to be venting his spleen. But the Russian wore an intractable mask.

Petruzzi gestured angrily for Silver Hair to retrieve the suitcase from the Lincoln. Outnumbered, with seven guns trained on them, the Russian was left with little choice but to comply. He calmly relayed the order, and the Lincoln exhaled as another
mafya
guy removed the suitcase from the boot. Heaved it back towards the ’Ndrangheta. He dumped it beside Silver Hair’s feet.

Then Gardner clocked movement on the hill west of the spruce trees.

The shapes were indistinct at first, and an untrained eye would not have spotted them. They moved in a ragged line three-quarters of the way up the hill, so their silhouettes did not stand out against the smooth, undulating background. The spaces between the men – Gardner had counted a dozen of them – were irregular. They moved in among the shadows cast by the scattered rocks. Settled between several large rocks and propped the black-painted barrels of their guns on top.

Who the fuck are these guys? Gardner wondered. More ’Ndrangheta?

But the ’Ndrangheta were oblivious to the men on the hill. Petruzzi’s goons forced Bald to hand over the keys to the sleeper truck. Bald chucked them to the ground. Petruzzi bent to scoop them up and, when he stooped, Bald gobbed in his face. The Italian didn’t flinch. Instead he produced a spotless-white handkerchief, dabbed it on his forehead and motioned to his goons.

One of the ’Ndrangheta stepped forward and booted Bald in the crotch. The Scot yelped, grabbed his aching nuts and sank to his knees. Petruzzi made a beeline for the sleeper truck, his crippled, weary body carrying him as fast as it would allow.

Gardner turned his attention back to the hill. The twelve-man fireteam produced their weapons: fuck-off big FN F2000 bullpup assault rifles, sixty-four centimetres long, with telescopic sights and 40mm FN EGLM grenade launchers attached to the underslung Picatinny rail systems. The F2000 was a hi-tech piece of kit and Gardner had heard all about its lethal rate of fire – 850 rounds a minute – and its bullseye accuracy. The grenade launcher came with a single round of 40x46mm High-Explosive ammo. It packed a mean punch: the kind of grenade that could tear a target limb from limb and leave fuck-all for the vultures.

Gardner’s bowels constricted.

Then the throats of the F2000s barked.

1218 hours.

Vicious bursts of rimless brass bullets fractured the air. Through his optics, Gardner could see the cartridge cases ejecting out of a tube running along the side of the hammer-forged barrel. Cases tumbled; bodies soon imitated.

The ’Ndrangheta went over to the dark side. Their bodies jerked as each successive round yawed through their tissue. The F2000 used 5.56x45mm NATO ammo, bullets that fragmented on impact, creating wounds the size of glass tumblers. Chunks of flesh were torn from the goons. Ten seconds in and the seven goons had been razed. Petruzzi, the
capo crimini
, was the last to fall. Several rounds struck him in the back of the head, the cartridges making a strange tinny sound, brass bouncing off his crooked spine.

Beyond the punctured corpses, Silver Hair stood his ground impassively. The Russians weren’t fleeing. They weren’t targets. So the fireteam on the hill must be with Sotov and the
mafya
, Gardner figured. They’d planned on being backstabbed by the ’Ndrangheta the whole time, and prepared an ambush of their own accordingly.

At the first sound of gunfire, Bald looked to bug the fuck out. He picked up one of the goons’ Beretta 92s, forward-rolled towards the cover of the horse chestnut and dropped the nearest
mafya
guy. Silver Hair and the other two
mafya
retreated behind the sleeper truck.

Valon had broken into a sprint towards the fields. Bullets zipped around him, his legs breaking the long grass. His run was doomed. The only available cover was a ditch three hundred metres away.

No way he’s gonna make it, Gardner thought, then ran his scope over the men on the hills. He needed to protect Valon, because he was the only link to Sotov – and Aimée. He latched on to the nearest target in his optical sights. Breathed out. And…

Something inside him froze. He didn’t pull the trigger.

Start shooting now, his training voice lectured him, and the Russians will target you next. Eight armed-to-the-teeth
mafya
against you, in exposed territory? That’s a fucking suicide note.

Valon ran for his life. He made it halfway to the ditch, bullets slapping into the dirt around him, scything grass and mud. Finally one of the men on the hill switched tactics. He pressed a breech-release button on the left side of the launcher body and peered down the optics. Tilting the rifle upwards to align the grenade trajectory with the target, he then squeezed the grenade launcher’s trigger, located underneath the F2000’s standard trigger mechanism.

The EGLM launcher belched. The round whizzed through the air,
crumped
on impact, and Valon disappeared behind a hurricane swirl of smoke. Shrapnel and charred soil showered the grass in a fifteen-metre radius, splashes of blood in the mixer, and Gardner knew the Albanian was shredded.

The Italians are slotted. Valon is down. John’s the last man standing.

Swinging his rifle back to the rest stop, Gardner spotted him at the tree. The Scot emptied the last of the Beretta 92’s Parabellum rounds at the fireteam on the hill. He kept on firing even after the
click-click
of the empty chamber. Never John Bald’s way, to admit defeat. Not even in the face of insurmountable odds. Not even now, when he was cornered on both sides.

Seeing Bald was out of ammo, the team on the hill ceased fire. Silver Hair and his two mates edged out from behind the truck. Both groups began to march towards Bald’s position. The Scot was slumped against the horse chestnut’s trunk. He shot glances at his three o’clock and nine, then crawled around the tree. His eyes flicked towards the Shogun, as if he still believed there was a way out.

Gardner swallowed his spit. He wasn’t going to shoot Bald and give up his position. The thought briefly crossed his mind that he could take down the fireteam, save Bald’s arse. He dismissed it.

I’ve repaid what he did for me in Afghanistan ten times over.

Bald rested his head against the tree trunk’s bleeding cankers. His chest heaved, his head arched skywards, his eyes closed. The fireteam were fifty metres from him; Silver Hair and his mates less than half that distance. Bald seemed to whisper something to himself, but his lips hardly moved and Gardner couldn’t make out any of what he was saying.

Opening his eyes, Bald snarled at the pistol on his lap. Cast it aside, as if disgusted that it had let him down in his hour of need.

‘There’s nothing to save you now, John,’ Gardner found himself saying under his breath. Part of him wanted to be the one to kill Bald. Having come so far, and with the history they shared, it seemed only right that he should take Bald’s life. Instead some greasy Russian fucks were going to do the job for him.

End of the fucking line.

A few steps closer and Silver Hair was almost at the tree. To the west, the twelve angry men on the hill kept their F2000s directed at Bald. The rifles were intimidating in their size: each man looked like he was wrestling with a shark.

Bald reached for something at his ankle. A knife, strapped in place with black masking tape. He tore the four-inch blade free. Sprang to his feet. Charged at Silver Hair, one last act of defiance.

Got to within ten metres.

The F2000s boomed.

Bald jolted as rounds thrust into his torso. Bullets ripped out clods of flesh. Dozens of shots tore into him. His arms and legs twitched. After three or four seconds the shooting stopped. Bald raised an arm to his chest, trying to plug holes the size of coffee mugs dotted along his front. Blood fountained out of his wounds. He staggered for a moment, his arms hanging loose. The knife dropped from his hand, stabbed the soil.

Silver Hair placed a cigarette between his lips and flicked open a Zippo lighter. He took a long drag on the tab, eyes never veering from Bald. The Scot managed a limp step further towards the
mafya
man. Silver Hair spared him the effort by walking right up to Bald. Blew smoke in his face.

Bald collapsed, and Gardner was left looking at a bloody pile of clothes.

1227 hours.

Silver Hair smoked the rest of his cigarette while the fireteam dispersed beyond the crest of the hill. He heard the hoarse throttle of an engine some two hundred metres distant. He took the car keys from Petruzzi’s corpse. Done with his cigarette, he tossed the butt into the pool of blood laking around Bald, turned on his heels and strolled back to the Lincoln.