Blind Eye

71

She was still alive, just, but if the ambulance didn't get here soon, she probably wouldn't be for long. Still, there was one thing he could do for her: Logan stood, walked over to Kravchenko's body, and kicked it in the ribs. Hard.

The old man groaned.

Logan stared at him. 'Oh you have got to be kidding…'

Kravchenko was trying to lever himself onto his side, the front of his baggy linen suit tattered from the shotgun blast, drenched in blood.

How the hell did he survive that?

Logan placed his foot against the old man's shoulder and shoved him over onto his back. Kravchenko's head hit the ground with a dull THUNK and he grunted.

Logan looked down at the ruined suit, the ripped shirt, all the holes from the shotgun pellets. And the guy was still moving. 'You're as bad as bloody Grigor!'

Kravchenko reached for his tattered chest with trembling hands, and fumbled with the buttons on his blood-soaked shirt. And that's when Logan saw the bulletproof vest. The old man coughed, then swore in Polish.

Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out Grigor's gun. His latex gloves stuck to the handgrip, leaving bloody smears on the black barrel.

'Everyone thinks you're already dead.' He racked the slide back and a brass-jacketed 9mm bullet pinged out into the warm afternoon air, landing with a plop in the blood — sending out slow-motion ripples. 'Do you have any idea how much shite I've gone through, because of you?'

The old man rolled onto his side again, then struggled to his knees.

Logan kicked him between the shoulder blades, sending him crashing back to the ground.

'Thanks to you I've been blown up, shot at, I'm probably going to get fired, maybe sent to bloody prison…' He kicked the old man in the bullet-proof ribs. 'And I've started smoking again! You know how stupid that is? I don't even like the bloody things any more!'

Once more for luck, this time hard enough to hurt his own foot. Logan limped away, then back again, pointing the gun at Kravchenko's face. 'Right, first: the Buckie Ballad, where is it?'

'Go… make fuck with yourself.'

He jabbed the gun barrel up under Kravchenko's chin.

'Tell me where that fishing boat's going to unload the guns, or I'm going to blow your head off.'

The old man made a noise. It took Logan a moment to realize it was laughter. 'What the hell's so damn funny?'

'You are. Is big act. You are policja, you must to have rules. It make you weak.'

Logan took a step back. Kravchenko was right: there were rules.

'You know what? Fuck it.' Logan shot him in the chest.

Kravchenko slammed back into the concrete, mouth open on a silent scream, fingers scrabbling at the new shiny lump on the front of his bulletproof vest.

Logan watched him writhe. 'Hurts, doesn't it? Bet it's like being cracked in the ribs with a crowbar. Where's the Buckie Ballad?'

'Ffffuck… you… kurwa…'

'Want another go?'

Logan shot him again, this time in the stomach — right in the middle of the vest's abdominal panel. Kravchenko nearly folded in half, hissing in pain.

'You really think I'm going to let you bring a boatload of automatic weapons into my city?' He kicked the old man over onto his back and shot him in the ribs again. 'Where is it?'

'Aaaaaaagh! Cholernik… Odpierdol sie!' Swearing, and groaning, and swearing some more.

'OK, fine. Let's make it more interesting.' Logan swung the gun around and blew a hole in the old bastard's leg. 'Now where's that bloody boat?