Red Notice

94

Tom’s PKM took a round into the front of its feed tray. The force of the impact punched him back. A split second later the round splintered, peppering the side of his face with brass and lead fragments. The combined momentum hurled his head against one of the solid steel wheels.

The next thing he saw was a shitload of boots tap-dancing all around the track. Three of Laszlo’s sidekicks yelled at him, and motioned for him to get out. They wanted to see his hands. Tom had ended up lying on his back, starfish-style. He felt his boots being grabbed and hauled out into the open.

As he emerged, they gave him a couple of kicks for good measure, and gestured for him to get to his feet. He heaved himself up, hands in the air. He stared straight ahead, no scowl of defiance, no eye contact. His training had taken over. There was no way he’d show them that he was scared in a situation like this; he just stood there, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and let them get on with it.

One of his new best mates jabbed him with a machine-gun and signalled for him to get down on his knees. Tom did exactly what he was told. When he looked up, the kick to his jaw knocked him backwards against the train. Blotches of intense white light filled his head. He opened his eyes. Through the starbursts, he saw the world closing in.

He took another boot to the side of his head. He wasn’t going to come up from that one in a hurry, even if he’d wanted to. His brain felt like it had been shaken loose and everything was spinning.

Even though he was winded, Tom’s instinct for self-preservation programmed his body to roll itself over. Face down on the concrete, he curled into a tight ball. He knew he had to accept what came his way; there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He tasted blood in his mouth. One half of his mind was telling him to close his eyes and take a deep breath, and maybe it would all go away. But at the back of the other lurked a small but insistent voice that said, Let’s wait and see, maybe they won’t, there’s always a chance…

It was trampoline time. They leaped in the air and landed on his back and legs. He felt each impact, but no longer the pain that went with it. His system was pumping too much adrenalin. He wasn’t blacking out — Tom had never been totally out of it from a blow of any kind — but he was sinking into a world of mush. He tightened his stomach, clenched his teeth, tensed his body as much as he could, and hoped they weren’t going to start to give him a really serious filling in.

The whole performance couldn’t have lasted for more than a minute or two, but it was long enough. When they backed off, he kept himself in a tight ball, but trying now to slide his arms underneath his body. His mind was numb. The kicks to his head had been punctuated by well-aimed toecaps to the kidneys.

When they finally wrenched him into a standing position, he fell down almost immediately onto his hands and knees, coughing up blood.

He felt them search his clothes — and find his mobile, passport and wallet — then push his face down into the concrete. His hands were pulled behind his back and zip-tied. He tried to raise his head so he could breathe, but someone seemed to be standing on it. He gasped and inhaled blood. He felt as if he was going to suffocate. Every sound was magnified, distorted, then diminished. He heard distant voices debate whether or not to kill him. And, for an agonizing second or two, he thought it would be quite nice if they did.