The Bach Manuscript

Chapter 33

Six hundred rounds a minute. One nine-millimetre copper-jacketed bullet spitting from the Uzi’s short barrel every tenth of a second, propelled by burning gas at a velocity greater than the speed of sound, every one of those bullets kicking the recoil of its acceleration straight back into the shooter’s hand. Even for an experienced operator, the beast was hard enough to tame. In the hands of a criminal thug who probably posed in the mirror with the gun every day but had never put in any range time, it was almost impossible to control.

And that was what saved Ben’s life. The Uzi’s wild full-automatic gunfire lifted its muzzle and stitched a ragged line of holes in a climbing zigzag. Dragan’s guy grappled to control the bucking weapon, his face twisted up in a crazy grimace as the whole corridor in front of him was peppered with a random shower of bullets. They shattered the overhead lamps and blew electric switches apart. Blasted the cheap acoustic tiling from the ceiling. Smacked through stud walls into neighbouring apartments. Drilled into the flimsy wood of the hippy guy’s open door. And slammed through the body of the hippy guy himself as he tried to stagger out of the way, not fast enough. The impact of multiple strikes jolted him back and slammed him into the wall. He bounced off, leaving a big bloody smear, then crumpled twitching to the floor.

Ben made it to the fire escape door by throwing himself down and sliding the last couple of yards, feet first. Bullets thunked into the heavy wood above his head as he battered the fire door open with the soles of his boots and slithered through. More gunfire shattered the reinforced window and showered him with glass. Even in the hands of an idiot, the Uzi was a deadly force. But like any other lethal storm, its fury couldn’t last forever. After just three seconds that felt more like thirty, the gun had shot itself empty and fell silent. Through the ringing in his ears Ben could hear the steady shrill of the smoke alarm, and behind that the sound of screaming and panic from other residents of the block.

He struggled upright and slammed back through the fire door at a sprint. Dragan, Lena and their friend with the samurai sword were already escaping the other way, along the L-shape of the passage in the direction of the main stairs.

The one with the machine gun was still standing in full view in the middle of the smoky corridor, now grappling with the weapon’s magazine release catch on the grip so he could load his spare. The twisted body of the hippy guy lay near his feet. The dog was still caught by its chain under the bottom edge of the door, and was going wild.

Ben raced along the passage, skipped once more out of reach of the snapping dog, and bodyslammed the guy with the Uzi into the wall. He tore the weapon from his hands and rammed its steel-box receiver hard into his face once, twice, three times. Blood spurted from the guy’s split lips and nose. Ben grabbed him by the neck, spun him up onto his feet and sent him sprawling towards the dog. The pit bull was so crazed with frustration and aggression that it no longer differentiated friend from enemy. The guy screamed as the dog’s jaws closed on his arm, ripping his flesh.

He wouldn’t be getting away in a hurry. Ben left him to his fate and ran after the others.

The smoke was thinning now. Ben reached the head of the stairs. The staircase wound downwards in a rectangular spiral with a minimalistic concrete shaft running up its centre. He glanced down and caught a glimpse of movement two floors below him. He could hear the echo of their footsteps clattering up the shaft. He gave chase.

Ben had reached the landing of the floor below him when the figure emerged from a recess and came at him. Something shiny and long glinted in the lights as it whooshed at his head.

Ben ducked low out of the path of the sword blade. It hissed over him, moving so fast and with so much force behind it that Dragan’s crony, clutching the hilt with both hands, couldn’t slow its momentum. The blade’s sharp point thunked into the wall behind Ben. Before his attacker could yank it out and swing it at him again, Ben knocked him away.

They circled one another. The guy was big and powerful, thick arms laced with spiderweb tattoos like the ones that adorned the sides of Dragan’s neck. Ben saw the punch coming before the idea for it had even formed in the thug’s brain. He rolled the big fist aside like deflecting a beach ball lobbed to him by a child, then used the guy’s speed and weight against him to trap the arm and break it.

The guy let out a howl of agony and staggered back, gaping down in disbelief at the jagged stick of bone that was protruding from the torn flesh of his arm. Ben hit him in the throat, not hard enough to kill. Then pitched him headlong down the stairs.

That might kill him, but only if he was really unlucky.

Ben sprinted down the stairs after him, trampled over the top of the unconscious body and kept going. Down and down, until he reached the empty stairwell entrance where the youths had been standing guard earlier. Through the grimy glass doors he saw the shapes of Dragan and Lena under the sodium lamps of the estate, running full pelt away from the building, already sixty yards away. An Olympic sprinter couldn’t have hoped to catch up with them.

Ben instinctively brought the Tokarev up to aim, then thought better of it and lowered the pistol. To shoot meant to kill, unless he missed. To miss was to risk a stray bullet going through a window across the way, into someone else’s apartment, through someone’s baby as it lay gurgling in its cot. None of those were good options.

Ben had no choice but to let them run. Moments later he heard the rasp of a diesel engine, then spotted a battered white van tearing away. He had Lena’s car keys in his pocket, and thought about giving chase. He had as much hope of catching them in the underpowered Nissan Micra as he would on a bicycle.

Ben said, ‘Shit.’

He didn’t have much time before the police and fire brigade turned up. He rushed back up the stairs. The thug with the compound arm fracture was awake, and moaning loudly in pain as he tried to stand. Ben pinned him with a knee to his throat and shoved the muzzle of the Tokarev hard against his cheek.

‘Which one are you, Danilo or Miroslav?’

‘Miroslav.’

Then Danilo was still upstairs, serving as a dog’s dinner. Ben said, ‘Here are your options, Miroslav. You can either take a bullet in the head now, or spend a very long time in jail for your part in killing my friend. You don’t have a lot of time before the police arrive, so choose fast.’

Miroslav was breathing hard and in a great deal of pain. Sweat was pumping from the pores of his forehead and cheeks. ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘That’s what I thought. Then tell me where Dragan goes from here.’

‘He is going home.’

‘Home, as in, back to Serbia?’

Miroslav nodded and gasped, ‘He tell us tonight he is going back.’

‘He’s taking the manuscript to Zarko Kožul?’

Miroslav stared at Ben through the mist of his agony, as if wondering how this crazy guy could possibly know that.

Ben asked, ‘Where is Zarko?’

Now the look in Miroslav’s eyes was the same fear Ben saw in Lena’s at the mention of Kožul’s name. ‘You don’t want to tell me? Fine.’ Ben pressed the pistol harder into the side of Miroslav’s face.

‘He have a nightclub in New Belgrade. The Rakia. You can find him there, many nights.’ Miroslav seemed to forget his pain for a moment, and gave Ben a little smirk of satisfaction. ‘But you should be careful what you wish for, my friend. You go looking for Zarko Kožul, you might find him. And then you will wish that your father had never met your mother.’

‘Enjoy prison,’ Ben said, and knocked Miroslav out cold with the butt of the Tokarev.

Leaving the limp body there, he ran up the remaining flights of stairs to retrieve his bag from where he’d left it near the fire escape landing. The pit bull had managed to wrench its chain free, and had escaped. That would be something for the police to worry about, when they got here.

Danilo lay in a pool of blood in the passage, a few feet away from the man he’d shot to death. There was nothing Ben could do for Dragan’s hippy neighbour. Danilo was at least still breathing, but the dog had torn him up pretty badly. Ben took the pack of plastic cable ties from his bag and used two of them to secure Danilo’s wrists and ankles, in case he made a miracle recovery and decided to leave the scene of the crime. The gunshot residue all over Danilo’s hands and his prints on the Uzi would quickly and easily tie him to the killing.

As for Ben, he planned to be out of here very soon. He used more cable ties to truss up the two of Dragan’s crew he’d knocked out with the rubber mallet, before returning down the stairs to Miroslav and repeating the same procedure on him. Then he left the building, his exit as unseen as his entrance.

Ben dumped Lena’s car keys down a drain outside, along with the latex gloves and the dismantled parts of the Tokarev. He was walking away in the darkness, just another shadow among the trees and buildings, when the first police armed response vehicles came screaming into the estate, flooding the night with swirling blue light. He had a feeling that, if he stuck around a little longer to observe, he might see DI Tom McAllister’s Plymouth Barracuda arrive on the scene, too.

But Ben had no intention of remaining any longer than he had to. By the time McAllister had figured out what had happened here tonight, he would already be en route for Serbia.