88° North. J.F. Kirwan

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      Heron flourished Nadia’s pistol. He sprang the mag and flicked eight of the 9mm parabellums into his palm with his thumb, then clicked the mag back into place by ramming it onto his thigh. One bullet left. He slid the pistol noisily across the plastic sheeting to her feet. A Beretta. Her, and her father’s, weapon of choice. She stared at it, refusing to comprehend why it was there, even as she began to sweat.

      Images flashed through her mind. The day her father had been snatched away from her, when she was fourteen, and she hadn’t dared pick up his Beretta to protect him. The first time she’d used it for real, and shot Janssen. The first time she’d killed, back in the Scillies, and then how many more times she’d pulled the trigger in Chernobyl. She was a killer, no question.

      But an executioner?

      She couldn’t do this. She wouldn’t do this. Nadia looked to Blue Fan, mentally begging her to intervene. Blue fan didn’t have that cold look in her eyes anymore, but she clearly wasn’t going to interfere.

      ‘Shoot Mr Hanbury,’ Salamander said. ‘In the head.’

      Nadia shook her head. ‘No fucking way!’

      Salamander sighed again, and said something in Chinese.

      ‘Nadia,’ Hanbury said. ‘Listen to me.’

      She stared at him. She wanted to pick up the gun and shoot Salamander, but Hippo and Heron had their gun sights trained on her face. And the sheet of glass … was it bulletproof?

      ‘My family died tonight,’ Hanbury said, his voice croaky. ‘Not my real family. But they were all I had. I—’

      ‘No. Don’t you dare ask me!’

      His eyes were waterlogged, their inner light drowned. ‘Nadia, I’d rather go quickly.’

      She faced Salamander. ‘What’s to stop you killing me and Jake straight afterwards?’

      His eyes met hers for the first time. Deep, sunken, two smouldering lumps of charcoal.

      ‘I give you my word, in front of my granddaughter, that Jake will live.’

      ‘We are Green Dragon triad. We operate by a code,’ Blue Fan added. ‘We live and die by it.’

      That’s what Nadia had been told before, by one of Salamander’s men, right before he died.

      ‘Take it, Nadia,’ Hanbury said. ‘Best offer you’ll get today.’

      ‘Now,’ Salamander growled.

      Hanbury’s lips quivered. ‘Just remember, Nadia. It’s not always about the big picture. The small pictures. They’re what really count.’

      She stared at the Beretta. A small part of her hoped the Chef would burst in, any second. Her life’s history told her otherwise. But if Jake would live … She knelt down and picked up the gun, her head level with Hanbury’s. ‘I’m sorry.’

      She stood, breeched the weapon, snapping the bullet into the chamber. She pressed the end of the muzzle against his forehead, tenderly, as if it was a caress, and firmed her right arm. He closed his eyes. She took in a ragged breath, then let it out slowly, as if through a straw, like her father had taught her … and spun around and fired straight at Salamander, aiming for his right eye.

      The shot rang out in the room, like a sledgehammer striking a bell. A ricochet. Bullet-proof after all, a tiny smear on the glass in front of Salamander’s face.

      Hippo seized her in a bear hug and pulled her to one side, while Heron prised the weapon from her fingers, and re-loaded the magazine. Heron then moved into position next to Hanbury’s trembling frame.

      ‘Lift your head a little, Mr Hanbury,’ Salamander said. ‘And your butler James’s brother, and Ma-Lee’s mother will live to see dawn.’

      Nadia tried to scream ‘NO!’ but Hippo’s fat palm smothered her mouth. She kicked, but to no avail; the guy’s legs were like dead tree stumps.

      ‘Tilt the barrel down a fraction,’ Salamander said, and continued giving instructions, choreographing the scene until the pistol and Hanbury were exactly where they had been while Nadia had held the gun to his head.

      ‘Hold it just there,’ Salamander said. ‘Now.’

      Nadia flinched with the gunshot, and watched in disbelief as Hanbury’s head flopped backwards, as if he’d simply fallen asleep, a neat hole in his forehead, scorch marks around the wound’s circumference. Blood oozed out and pooled there, until a single drop ran down his temple, like a tear.

      Nadia stopped struggling.

      Hanbury’s face was serene. She wished she’d had more time to get to know him. But then, if there was anything after, there would be plenty of time very shortly. The Chef would arrive too late.

      She looked at Jake, still unconscious. He’d see the video, sooner or later, seamlessly spliced. Her placing the gun against Hanbury’s head, the weapon firing, him falling backwards. Everyone would see it. At first he wouldn’t believe it, but then he’d wonder, just enough to crack the bond between them.

      Salamander had won. Maybe not the big game, whatever that was. But this small one. Her small life – her picture, mainly full of death and pain – was over. Like Hanbury’s.

      Salamander walked to the two cameras and ejected the memory sticks, pocketing them. He uttered something in Cantonese to his granddaughter and left. Heron and Hippo hauled Jake up and dragged him away, while the cameramen packed up their gear. She heard a car engine start out front.

      She guessed Blue Fan was the executioner here.

      ‘I’m ready,’ Nadia said.

Chapter Five

      Nadia was led outside by Blue Fan, where four armed men awaited her, which seemed a trifle excessive. The road was quiet, except for the night breeze rustling the trees. Salamander and Jake were gone. The hazy lights of a beach – Repulse Bay, she reckoned, the only true beach on the island – beckoned far below.

      Blue Fan walked up to her, close. ‘If you make it to the beach, you live.’

      ‘Bullshit,’ Nadia said. ‘It will look better for the headlines if I’m shot in the back fleeing the crime scene.’

      ‘You make it to the beach, you live. Our code, remember?’

      ‘Salamander doesn’t live by a code. He twists the rules any way that suits him.’

      Blue Fan seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘I am not my grandfather. You will have a five second head start.’

      Nadia scanned the bushes and trees descending at a thirty-degree angle to the beach, five hundred metres below. Dense vegetation. Almost no light. There would be roads crossing her path every now and again. It was a chance, a slim one. And there was one good reason to try.

      Jake.

      She СКАЧАТЬ