MemoRandom: A Thriller (50 page)

He heard the sound of footsteps, whispering, then someone clearing his throat.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up, Atif,” a familiar voice said. It was his old friend Sasha. “I presume old Hamsa sent you, then? Because he’s
helping
you find the man responsible for your brother’s death?” Sasha let out a low laugh. “Hamsa uses that gym as a money-laundering operation. The moment Adnan ran in there waving his gun, he was finished. But because he was your brother, none of them wanted to take responsibility for getting rid of him. So they came up with a smarter solution.”

A crashing sound from upstairs interrupted Sasha, and judging by the smell the fire had seriously taken hold up there now.

“Think about it, Atif. Whose idea was the raid on the security van? Who knew all the details and could tell the cops everything? Who had taken a fancy to Adnan’s girlfriend?” Sasha laughed again. Atif licked his lips.

“They ratted on Adnan to the cops so they could get rid of him,” Sasha said. “Then blamed it all on Janus. Whereas the dirty work was actually done by that little rat Bakshi. After all, as you know, he’s good at that, he’s on the payroll of a whole load of different cops. All it took was one phone call.”

Atif could make out movement in the next room and heard
someone whisper in Serbian, then footsteps. He turned and looked out toward the kitchen. They could take him from two directions at once, trap him like a rat.

“So you’re actually working for the man who killed your brother, which is pretty ironic, don’t you think, old friend?” Sasha said.

Atif looked at the nearest window. It was high up and looked solid. Jumping through it wasn’t a particularly appealing prospect. Instead he glanced toward the kitchen. He saw a reflection in one of the pieces of glass still hanging from the kitchen window. Saw a very familiar movement.

“You see, Atif,” Sasha went on, but Atif was no longer listening. He took three quick paces straight out into the kitchen and almost ran into the other man, who had just pulled out the cartridge from his assault rifle.

Atif shot him in the middle of the forehead, then carried on past him, out into the hall. The salvo from Sasha’s assault rifle slammed through the walls, sending splinters and ricochets all around the room.

Atif took cover behind the staircase. A sudden burst of pain struck him in one side. A six, maybe a seven. He felt the injury with his hand and discovered dark blood. Not good.

“We don’t have to do this, Atif,” Sasha called from the living room. His voice no longer sounded so confident. “I can help you get revenge for your brother, all I want is Janus. We can work together, the way we used to.”

Atif was breathing hard. On the stairs the heat from the fire on the floor above was palpable. His eyes started to water, and the smoke was making him cough. In a few minutes it would get hard to breathe. The only possible ways out were through the front door or back through the kitchen, but that would give Sasha an easy line of fire with his assault rifle. He thought for a moment.

“Okay!” he said, then got slowly to his feet and peered inside the living room.

Sasha was standing there with the rifle in his hands. When he saw Atif he held the gun up, its barrel pointing at the ceiling.

Atif walked into the room, doing the same with his pistol. He saw that Sasha had a bloody bandage around one thigh. That explained his sudden willingness to cooperate.

“Look at us, Atif.” Sasha smiled. “Neither of us looks in particularly good shape.” He gestured toward his bandaged leg, then at Atif’s jacket, one side of which was now red with blood.

“They headed off toward the forest. I know the terrain, there’s nowhere for them to go,” Sasha said.

Atif nodded, still looking at Sasha. In the past five minutes he had killed two of Sasha’s men. But the other man didn’t seem remotely bothered. Abu Hamsa, the treacherous little bastard, had been right about one thing: there was no longer any honor. The only question was whether there ever had been.

“By the way,” Sasha said. “I’m sorry about that message to your niece. It was Abu Hamsa’s idea, I just helped him carry it out. Children should be off-limits.”

Atif nodded mutely, feeling pressure building up in his head. He thought about Tindra, and how she had happily taken the Christmas card home in her little schoolbag, not realizing what it meant. Tricked into thinking that Santa had sent a message to her and her uncle. Then he remembered what he had promised to do to the people who dared to get at him through his only niece.

Sasha turned and walked toward the doorway. The same Sasha who had once sworn to kill him. Outside the sky was still dark, not a glimpse of any stars.

“Are you coming, or what?” he said over his shoulder.

Atif closed his eyes and saw Tindra’s little face in front of him. He opened his eyes and stared at the back of Sasha’s death’s-head skull. There really wasn’t any honor left. Not anymore. He raised the pistol and squeezed the trigger.

•  •  •

Natalie grimaced with pain as she massaged her wrists. She had managed to get her trusty ChapStick out of her pocket and had greased her hands, enough for her to be able to pull them through the cable ties with a bit of wriggling and a fair degree of force.

The shooting up at the house had fallen silent now. She looked around for her cell phone and found it on top of the dashboard.

Six missed calls, all from Rickard. She had no intention of calling back. Rickard, aka Oscar Wallin, could fuck right off. What she ought to do now was get out of there, knock on one of the neighbor’s doors, and wait there until the police showed up.

She got out of the van, looked up toward the house, and noticed the thick column of smoke above the roof. She thought about the gunfire, explosions, and cries that she had heard down in the van. About the people who had to be lying up there injured, people who would bleed to death before help could arrive. David Sarac might well be one of them. Maybe she’d never get to be a qualified doctor, but at that moment, out there on the island, she was probably the closest thing available.

Natalie clambered back inside the van and gathered up everything she could find. A roll of duct tape, a blanket, some cable ties. In a compartment marked with a red cross she found a surprisingly well-stocked first aid kit. She shoved everything into an old plastic bag, jumped out of the van, and started to make her way cautiously up toward the house.

Sarac reached the orchard and had just got in among the trees when Molnar shot him. The bullet hit the back of his thigh and his leg gave way beneath him. He fell and rolled over. He managed to get his pistol out and fire off a shot. It missed.

The gun clicked and he automatically released the empty cartridge. His left hand was useless, so he held the pistol between his legs while he fumbled for the spare cartridge with his right hand.

Molnar stumbled toward him and fired a shot that passed just above Sarac’s head. Sarac managed to get hold of the cartridge and pushed it into his pistol. He spun the weapon around, aimed it straight at Molnar’s body, and released the safety catch. He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He hit the butt against his thigh and felt the cartridge click into place. He repeated the bolt action by pressing the top of the gun against his belt.

Molnar shot him from just ten feet away. The bullet hit him in the neck. His head fell to one side and blood gushed into his throat, leaving him gurgling for air.

Molnar was standing right above him.

“And where do you think you’re going, little David?” he slurred as he kicked Sarac’s gun away.

Half of Molnar’s top lip seemed to have been torn off in the explosion, transforming his expression into a macabre grin of perfect white teeth. Sarac spat out a mouthful of blood and tried not to glance toward the edge of the forest. He failed.

Molnar saw him looking. At first he stared up at the tall trees, then realized what Sarac had been looking at.

“Toward the exit!” he slurred triumphantly. “Of course!”

He walked past Sarac, toward the old concrete gateposts that marked the end of the garden. He squatted down between them with an effort and scraped away the snow. At the bottom of one of them a small, barely visible symbol was carved into the old concrete. Two ornate
J
s facing each other, forming two faces looking away from each other. Molnar pushed the snow aside and found a canvas flap that the cold had pushed up from the ground. He pulled at it, then started to laugh out loud.

“You followed the rules, David,” he said. “Obviously I should have realized. Hell, I’ve stood down here for hours keeping watch on you. And the answer was right under my nose the whole time. Janus, the god of transitions. Of doors, gates, portals.” Molnar leaned his head back and laughed again. A disconcertingly shrill sound that echoed between the trees.

The god who starts and ends all wars,
Sarac thought. His head and body were aching, and his throat kept filling up, making it hard to breathe. He really ought to try to get to his feet and make a last attempt to stop Molnar.

But he realized that he’d never make it. Instead he slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position and leaned his back against one of the old apple trees, spitting out yet more blood. The exertion made his vision blur.

In just a few minutes he would be dead. Oddly enough, the thought made him feel something like relief. But he had one last thing to do. A mission to complete.

He clenched his right hand a couple of times, then carefully felt down his trouser leg.

Molnar was scraping the snow away between the gateposts and uncovering more black canvas. Then something that looked like a handle.

“You and the Duke and your fucking Roman gods.” He
grinned. “Shall we place bets on whether I’m going to find a bank account number in the bag? Maybe even a card reader?”

•  •  •

Atif was walking slowly across the grass. He was treading carefully, as if he were trying to make sure he didn’t fall. He was following the tracks through the snow, just like Adnan had done when he was little.

His clothes were wet and he could feel blood running down one side.

“Nearly there, Adnan,” he muttered.

He saw David Sarac leaning against a tree. His face was white, his head was hanging at an odd angle. There were patches of red in the snow around him.

The other man was standing about thirty feet away. Atif recognized him now; it was the man he’d seen coming out of the door of Sarac’s building. Was he Janus? If Sasha was right, he wasn’t guilty of Adnan’s death. But Atif wasn’t about to take any risks. A psychopath like Sasha was capable of saying anything and making it sound believable. He hadn’t come this far only to abandon his mission.

Atif raised his pistol, feeling the pain getting steadily worse. An eight, close to a nine now.

The first bullet missed Atif by three feet or so. He carried on walking, waiting to shoot until he was sure of hitting his target. The man fired again, using one of the gateposts as a support. Another miss, but this time so close that Atif could feel the rush of air as it passed. He raised his gun and aimed.

The third bullet hit him below his ribs, making him stagger. Atif kept walking, forcing himself to hold his pistol hand up. The man’s weapon clicked and Atif saw him fumbling desperately for a fresh cartridge. He took a step, then another. The man clicked the new cartridge into place and raised his arm.

Atif shot him twice, in the center of his body. The man dropped his gun and slumped beside the gatepost. Atif carried
on staggering forward and didn’t stop until he was holding the barrel of the pistol against the man’s head. He realized too late that it was a mistake. A millisecond before the blow hit him he noticed that the man was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Atif tumbled backward but managed to grab hold of a branch at the last minute and stay on his feet. The man kicked him in the thigh, making his leg buckle. Then he aimed a rock-hard right hook at Atif’s ear that brought him to his knees, and followed through with an elbow to his shoulder. Atif fell forward and ended up on all fours. He felt the ground lurch.

An arm tightened around his throat as a hand pushed hard at the back of his neck. He tried to break free and keep his airway open.

But it was too late. The man already had him in a stranglehold. Atif could hear the other man’s breath panting in his ear. He could almost smell the adrenaline coursing through his body. The scent of victory.

Atif twisted his head, trying to buy himself a few more seconds. His fingers felt along the outside of his shin, and he reached into the back of his boot. His fingers closed around the switchblade he had taken from Bakshi, and he pulled it out and opened the blade. At that moment his field of vision began to shrink and turn black. He tried to raise his arm but realized he didn’t have enough strength left.

•  •  •

Sarac rested his right hand against his knee. He drew as much air as he could into his lungs and closed his left eye before he squeezed the trigger of the revolver Bergh had given him.

There was still a bit of insulating tape stuck to its side, but that didn’t bother him. He waited until the bead was right in the middle of the notch, then pulled the trigger the rest of the way and shot Peter in the middle of his triumphant, mocking grin.

For a moment Molnar stood there with his arms around
Atif’s neck. A hole had appeared in his perfect row of teeth. His eyes stared blankly at Sarac, as if he still couldn’t take in what had happened. Then he collapsed without a sound.

After a few moments Atif straightened up slightly. He took several gasping breaths, then slumped back against a tree, in the same posture as Sarac. On the ground beside him he found his pistol. He picked it up and closed his fingers around the butt. He found that it had got very heavy.

“Is that him?” Atif gestured with the barrel toward Molnar’s body. “Janus?”

Sarac shook his head, then cleared his throat and spat another mouthful of blood onto the white snow.

“So where is he, then?” Atif’s voice sounded weary.