The Bach Manuscript

Chapter 42

The big man charged. A fist as large and hard as a frozen turkey launched towards Ben with about three hundred and fifty pounds of muscle behind it. Enough thrust to knock a man’s head off his shoulders. But slow. Ben could have sauntered over to the bar and waited in line to get himself a whisky in the time the punch took to get within three inches of his face; then he twisted easily out of its path and rolled the blow right past him. The fist connected with the bare brick of the stairwell wall with a crack like a rifle shot. Brick and masonry dust sprinkled the steps.

The big man gave a howl. Encouraging to know the creature could feel pain. Ben drove a kick into the barrel of his ribcage and felt a couple of ribs give under the impact. The big man staggered, but didn’t go down. He came at Ben again with pincer hands grasping for his throat, to throttle the air out of him and maybe tear his head off as well. Ben bent his knees and ducked low, then drove up again and forwards with all the force in his legs and rammed the crown of his skull into the big man’s stomach. The big man tottered further back this time, right to the edge of the flight of steps going downwards. He windmilled his arms for balance, but it was like trying to stop a falling tree. He went swaying backwards over the edge. As he fell, a massive claw hand flailed out in desperation for something to grab onto, and found Ben’s sleeve.

The two of them tumbled down the concrete steps. The guard landed heavily on his back with a wheezing grunt and Ben landed on top of him and rode him like a toboggan to the landing below. His opponent was badly winded now, all the air driven out of his lungs by the sledgehammer blow to his back. Marquess of Queensberry rules would probably have dictated that Ben shouldn’t take unfair advantage of the situation, and instead let him have a moment to catch his breath before they resumed.

Except Ben wasn’t playing by those rules. He got to his feet and kicked the guy hard under the chin to push his head back and expose the curve of his larynx. Then stamped his heel down hard to collapse his throat. The biggest, meanest creature on earth was nothing if it couldn’t draw air any more. Hit a man hard enough in the throat, and even a single blow can kill him instantly. Ben didn’t settle for once. He stamped four times, until he was certain the job was done.

The big man’s weapon was lying on the dusty concrete a few steps below. Ben snatched it up and raced onwards to the ground floor. He was halfway down the final stairway when he heard the gunfire resume, and realised that at least one of his backup team was still in the game.

Ben crashed through the doorway at the bottom of the backstairs and found himself on the edge of the nightclub dance floor. It was deserted, apart from the dead bodies littered over the floor and the men shooting at one another and the last of the punters running in terror from the scene. The strobing of the lights made everything look like stop-frame animation. The noise of the music was ear rending. The staccato rattle of full-auto gunfire was louder. In a matter of minutes, the Rakia had reverted back to its original purpose as a slaughterhouse.

A long, glitzy bar covered in mirrors stretched the whole length of the far wall. Husein Osmanović was backed up against it. White muzzle flash was erupting from the barrel of his weapon as he sent a burst left, a burst right, and took down another of Zarko Kožul’s men who were entrenched behind some overturned tables across the room. From his angle, Ben could get a better shot at them. He opened fire with the Skorpion. The stream of spent brass arcing out of the ejector port looked like a shower of gold in the light. The overturned tables became colanders as Ben’s bullets punched through them. Two more of Kožul’s men went down.

Ben couldn’t see Nidal, until he recognised one of the bodies lying a few steps from Osmanović near the bar. Osmanović fired another burst towards the tables, but the survivors there had had enough and were scurrying back in retreat. Ben caught Osmanović’s eye across the room. The Bosniak signalled to Ben. He was grinning wildly from ear to ear, manic with the adrenalin of battle. Maybe he was thinking their mission had been successful, that his money had been well spent, and Zarko Kožul was lying dead somewhere upstairs.

Ben knew he was going to disappoint him on all counts.

Suddenly, more gunfire was erupting from another direction, and Ben whirled round to see a whole contingent of the enemy appear from a doorway to the left. Someone yelled in Serbian, ‘Kill them!’

Ben whipped behind a corner as bullets smacked off the wall next to him. Osmanović went to scramble over the top of the bar for cover. He was halfway there when Ben saw him twist and fall back to the floor. Ben pointed his Skorpion around the corner, returned fire at the man who’d shot Osmanović, and the shooter crumpled and fell. Ben’s gun was already half empty and he thought fuck it and rattled the rest of the mag off at the incoming enemy, taking down a couple more and driving the rest back through the doorway they’d emerged through.

He looked over at where Osmanović lay under the strobing light. Not moving. Always a bad sign.

Ben broke from cover and ran across the dance floor. He jumped over one large body, and Nidal’s smaller one, and reached Osmanović. He crouched beside him and rolled him over. Blood was bubbling at both corners of the Bosniak’s mouth, staining his grey beard purple-black under the lights. He was struggling to breathe. Ben tried to help him sit up, but nothing could help that he’d been shot through the lungs. He’d been lucky once; now his luck was out. He rolled his bulging eyes up at Ben and rasped, ‘Tell me… tell me we got that bastard.’

‘Yeah, we got him,’ Ben said. ‘Everything went according to plan. You can rest easy now.’

A big part of Husein Osmanović had already died years ago, after the things that had happened in that damned war. Now the rest of him slipped away in Ben’s arms with a smile on his bloody lips. Sometimes a lie is the kindest thing you can say to a person. Ben felt the life go out of him, and lowered Osmanović’s body to the floor.

He and the dead were no longer alone. Ben looked up at the semicircle of Kožul’s big men who had gathered round, peering down at him through their gunsights. He rose slowly to his feet, and the gun barrels rose with him. Too many to fight. More were coming.

Ben put up his hands.

The dark man Ben knew as Alek came storming over, glancing around at the bodies and the wreckage of the nightclub. Duša followed in Alek’s wake. He barely looked at the bodies of his former associates Nidal and Osmanović, and instead gave Ben a lopsided ‘ha ha, you lose’ kind of leer.

Alek wasn’t sharing in the snitch’s amusement. ‘Three men!’ he was yelling, gesticulating in anger. ‘Three men did this! And that’s with a tip-off. What if we hadn’t known it was coming?’

‘Zarko is going to love you,’ Ben said to Alek. ‘He’ll be so pleased, he’ll probably give you a promotion. New house, new car, maybe an enhanced dental plan.’

‘You’re done, English.’ Alek snapped his fingers at his men, as if they were dogs. ‘Let’s go. Move, move.’

They grabbed Ben by the arms and he was marched roughly outside with guns stabbing at his back. The night sky above New Belgrade was starless and cold, a ghostly mist rising up from the river and shrouding itself over the city. The street lamp opposite the Rakia that had been flickering earlier had now expired and was standing surrounded by a pool of dark shadow. By now the street was almost completely deserted, only a few stragglers from the Rakia still making their hasty exit from the scene. A distraught woman with ruffled-up hair, smeared makeup and a torn dress hanging off her shoulder was staggering about alone in the street, half hysterical and crying out ‘Miloje! Miloje!’ over and over; but Miloje was either already long gone or he was among the collateral damage still inside, part of the mess that Alek was going to have to clear up before Zarko returned.

First, though, Alek had other business on his mind. He led the way from the building and down the street towards a waiting black minivan. Ben’s guards followed, hustling their captive along at gunpoint. Ben supposed the minivan was his ride to the junkyard, where his promised fate awaited him.

Alek was still wearing the white shirt, with no jacket, and he was rubbing his hands and slapping his sides as the chill of the night air quickly got to him. As he walked closer to the black minivan he paused and danced from foot to foot as though undecided about something, then seemed to make his mind up and turned to face his men.

‘To hell with this,’ he complained bitterly. ‘I’m damned if I’m driving all the way to the junkyard and freezing my ass off waiting for Dragan to turn up.’ He turned and pointed at Duša, then turned the pointing finger Ben’s way. ‘Change of plan. Duša, cap this motherfucker right here and put his miserable carcass in the river.’

Duša appeared only too happy to perform the service. After all the good work he’d have done for Zarko Kožul tonight, he was sure to be handsomely repaid. He stepped up to Ben and pointed his gun. The men holding Ben quickly stepped out of harm’s way.

Ben said to Duša, ‘Remember what I said happens to snitches.’

‘Not before it happens to you, moron.’

Duša raised his weapon and was about to fire, then hesitated and came another step closer. This was his big moment and he didn’t want to foul it up by missing the mark.

If the snitch came one step closer, Ben intended on grabbing the weapon from him and braining him with it. He’d still get shot anyway, but at least he could go out knowing he’d lobotomised this little bastard.

Duša halted. His eyes were gleaming under the street lamps. He was grinning from ear to ear. He took careful aim, as though he were a sniper preparing to engage a target a thousand metres distant and not a cheap thug about to execute an unarmed prisoner five steps away.

What happened next all took place within the space of a second. Duša’s eyes suddenly darted downwards as a strange glowing green dot of light, the size of a beetle, appeared on his chest. The gun faltered in his grip as he stared at the hovering dot for a moment and the grin quickly evaporated from his face. Then he dropped the gun and started frantically brushing and swatting at the green dot, as though it were a bee attacking him.

The dot abruptly fell to the level of his knees.

The sharp crack of a pistol shot sounded from across the street.