The Increment

TWELVE

Matt could feel his fingers tightening on the trigger of his gun. His skin was warm and sticky, and the metal of the weapon was already wet. He moved carefully forwards, making sure he had checked each inch of ground before taking every step.

There's no way of telling where the next trap is.

Where he was standing, one passage led right, the other left. It was already twenty-five minutes past midnight, he realised. They were about halfway through their safe hour, and the job not half done. The odds are against us and so is the clock.

'Here's the plan,' whispered Matt, looking back towards Ivan and Malenkov. 'Ivan and I will take the left side; Sergei, you cover the right. We clear this place room by room and we shoot on sight.' He paused, looking back at Orlena. 'You follow me, but keep ten paces behind us.'

'Just try not to damage anything,' she said sharply.

Matt grimaced. 'We'll worry about that if we're still alive. We're soldiers, not removal men.'

He looked ahead. The admin block split into two passages, both of them about ten yards long. His passage led to what looked like a storeroom, the other to a series of small offices and laboratories. Malenkov and Nikita started crawling rightwards, while he and Ivan went left. Orlena was bringing up the rear. It was pitch black, and Matt was using a torch to inch his way forward. The smell of the explosion was still thick and sulphurous in the air, and the blood of the last guard to die was seeping out across the floor in front of him.

'What are we looking for?' hissed Matt, looking back towards Orlena.

'Computers,' she said. 'You see one, make sure you don't shoot it up.'

A noise. Matt couldn't be certain where it was coming from, but he sensed the unmistakable sound of a man breathing. Ten yards away, maybe fifteen, inside one of the two small rooms that led off the corridor. The acoustics along the narrow passageway made every faint whispering sound reflect back on itself. In the background, the flames still rising from the factory were sending waves of hot air across the building.

Still, no doubts. There is a man out there somewhere.

If we had known we were going to get into this kind of battle we would have brought stun grenades, thought Matt.

Matt signalled to Ivan. To flush him out of the room where he was hiding, they were going to have to work as a pair. Matt crouched down low, kneeling close to the concrete surface, while Ivan stood behind him, his gun cocked and ready. A shot splintered through the night air. Matt could feel some dust spitting out from the concrete wall, then hitting the floor. He stopped. Behind him, Ivan had loosed off a volley of fire in the direction of the first door. Matt stopped at the second, crouching on the ground. Ivan was increasing his rate of fire, peppering the first door with bullets. Fuck the computers, Matt thought.

He unhooked his gun, checked the cartridge, then started firing into the second room. The computers might get damaged, but Orlena could worry about that: it wasn't part of the original mission, so she couldn't complain now. Even though the kickback from the gun was light, it was still bruising the shoulder that was already hurting from the last fall. But the weapon was solid and easy to handle. After two magazines were spent, the door fell with a crash to the ground.

It didn't matter now which room the man was in. Either way, he should be dead.

'Move in,' shouted Matt. 'Move in.'

He pulled himself up, rushing at the room ahead of him. It measured five foot by ten, its walls made from bare concrete blocks. His gun held high, he squeezed his finger down tight on the trigger of the AN-49 ready to fire: he could feel his nerve endings jamming against the hot steel of the gun. As soon as he entered the room, he threw his back against the wall, taking a moment to survey the scene. One man was standing ten feet ahead of him. In an instant, Matt raised the gun to his eyes, fired once, then twice. The first bullet blew apart his skull, the second tore into his chest.

Matt ran across the room, kneeling to check the man was dead. His finger was still twitching, as he clung on desperately to the last embers of life. Maybe thirty, Matt judged, with soft features and dressed in jeans and a black sweatshirt. Matt took one step forward, put the gun to the side of the man's head, and fired a single bullet into his brain.

This one's not standing up again.

'Room cleared,' he shouted.

Ivan and Orlena appeared in the doorway. 'Nobody in my room,' said Ivan, his voice breathless. 'This must have been the guy that was shooting at us.'

In the distance Matt could hear the sound of gunfire echoing down the corridor. He started running back towards the corridor Malenkov was clearing, his feet pounding against the concrete. Turning sharply left, he dived to the ground as he hit the corridor. A bullet had just struck the wall behind him, and Malenkov had taken up his gun, standing at the centre of the corridor and sending covering fire into the room beyond.

'Help the bastard, help the bastard,' shouted Malenkov.

Matt could see Nikita on the floor in front of him. He was lying across the centre of the corridor. Blood was seeping from his leg, pouring from the open wound. Matt didn't want to look too closely, but he could see the man had taken more than a single shot: the bullets had shredded the femoral artery running through the thigh, causing massive haemorrhaging and blood loss. Matt grabbed Nikita's shoulders and started dragging him back. He could see the man wince with pain as he slid along the floor.

'Matinka, matinka,' he was muttering through strained and fading vocal cords.

He wants his mum, realised Matt.

'How many men ahead?' Matt shouted to Malenkov.

'One, maybe two, can't tell,' shouted Malenkov.

'Drop back,' yelled Matt.

With a round of rapid fire into the doorway above, Malenkov retreated, throwing himself backwards. His breath was short, and his eyes were sagging: he'd taken a cut on his forehead, and the blood was mixing into the sweat on his hair. 'These guys are even tougher than we thought,' he said.

Matt looked down at Nikita, then across at Ivan. 'Can we do anything for him?'

Ivan was already kneeling next to the man. Ivan had taken the shirt from his back, and had tried to wrap it around the wound. 'I think the bleeding is internal as well as external,' he muttered. 'Unless we can get him to a hospital in the next hour, he's finished.'

'Then we put him out of his misery,' snapped Matt. He checked his watch. Thirty-three minutes past midnight. The clock was ticking away on them. Reinforcements could be here in twenty-five minutes. And then we are all dead.

He looked first at Ivan, then at Malenkov. 'Anyone disagree?'

Both men shook their heads, their expressions sombre. Matt pointed to the gun in Orlena's hand. 'You do it,' he said quietly. 'One bullet to the head, make it quick for him.'

Matt knew it was a challenge. He couldn't be certain, but he doubted Orlena had ever killed a man before. He could tell from the way she was fingering the trigger of her gun, looking down at the man as if she was wondering where the bullet should go. But there was no fear in her eyes, no sign that the horror of robbing another human being of their life had affected her. This was merely a technical exercise, a task to be understood, then accomplished.

'Don't look in his eyes,' said Matt.

The blood was still flowing from Nikita's leg, even where Ivan had tried to bandage it. His head had rolled to one side, and saliva was drooling from his mouth. 'Matinka, matinka,' he croaked.

She looked at his eyes, then placed the barrel of her AN-49 gently to the centre of his forehead, squeezing the trigger. The bullet smashed through the man's skull, draining him of what little life remained in just a few seconds. His split-open head slumped to the side.

Once she gets a taste for it, she's going to be a natural.

Malenkov knelt down, kissing the boy on his bloodstained cheek. He wiped the sweat from his own brow, looking back up. The more battle-hardened a soldier was, Matt reflected, the more troubled he was by every needless and pointless death: you see one or two men die, you can take it, but when you see dozens it starts to tear away at your soul.

'This wasn't what we were asked to do,' he said angrily, rising to his feet again. 'I hired three boys, three good boys.' He looked hard at Orlena, the blood rising in his cheeks. 'I told them it would be dangerous. But not that they had little chance of getting out alive.'

'You were paid, they were paid,' said Orlena, spitting the words from her mouth.

'OK,' shouted Matt. 'Let's deal with those fuckers up ahead, before the rest of us get shot.'

They were sheltering at the back of the corridor now, taking cover behind the curve of the corner. That kept them out of the line of the sniper fire from the room ahead. Matt was keeping his AN-49 trained on the door to stop the enemy from rushing them, while Malenkov was protecting their rear.

'There's two, I reckon,' said Malenkov, pointing towards the doorway. 'No more.'

'Any windows?' asked Ivan.

'Two at the back,' said Malenkov.

'They'll be guarding them for sure,' said Matt. 'Anyone tries to come through a window, they'll get shot to shreds.'

'Diversion,' said Malenkov. 'One man puts bombs through the windows, the other men move in.'

Matt nodded. It was ten yards up to the guarded room. To get round the back was thirty yards. The plan wasn't going to get any prizes for sophistication. Put a bomb down, get their attention, then shoot them in the back. It was rough and simple and nasty. But it could work.

'Right,' said Matt firmly. 'Ivan, you do the bombing. Sergei and I will attack.'

Ivan disappeared. There were ten petrol bombs left at the top of the tunnel, and he would need two. In total he had to cover two hundred yards there and back. So far as they knew, the compound had been cleared of snipers in the watchtowers, but unless you made a proper search you couldn't be sure. Ivan would have to move carefully to make sure he didn't get a bullet in the back.

'Give me six minutes,' Ivan had told Matt. Two to get back to the tunnel, two to come back to the admin block, and one for ignition. The other minute was for faffing around and admiring the view.

Matt checked his watch again, the tension rising within him each time he did so. Midnight thirty-nine. By the time Ivan bombed them, they would have just fifteen minutes to clear the room and get out of here. The strain was starting to tell: his nerves were fraying and it was harder and harder to hold his concentration at the peak levels needed for room-to-room combat.

'Ready?' he said, looking across at Malenkov.

The Ukrainian nodded. 'You shoot high, I'll shoot low. That way we cover the room.'

'Fine,' said Matt. He turned towards Orlena. 'You stay here, and guard our rear. You see or hear anything, you shoot.'

Matt looked forward. Another sixty seconds before the bombs blew. If there were two men in there, he reckoned they were lying in wait. And if just one of them had an AK-47, he could kill them all.

If they're patient, they'll think they can take us down. They've got three of us already.

Ten seconds. Matt could feel the sweat pouring off his back. It was more than a year since he'd been in close combat, and he could no longer be certain his reactions were as sharp as they had once been. A mistake, a mistimed shot or a delayed response, and I'll be buried here.

One second.

Matt steadied himself, tightening up the muscles in his ankles, making himself ready to spring forward.

Nothing.

He looked first at Malenkov, then up along the corridor. Somewhere, he could hear a scratching movement, as if there were rats moving around.

Christ, where's Ivan?

Five more seconds ticked past. The sweat was growing on Matt's palms, and he could feel the blood pumping through his veins.

Get on with it, man.

The explosion rocked through the air. Matt could see a blinding flash of light bursting out from beneath the door, followed by the din of a detonation, so loud he could feel his eardrums cracking open. Instinctively, he flinched, backed away, then looked up again. A wave of heat was rolling down the corridor, and the door had been flung open. A familiar scent was hanging in the air.

The smell of petroleum and soap.

'Go,' he shouted, and he sprang forward in a smooth arc across the floor. He had ten yards to cover without getting shot. His AN-49 was gripped hard to his stomach, the barrel pointing forward. His head was bowed down low, and his eyes fixed on the door in front of him. He ran, then pushed, shoving the door aside, and directing his fire into the room.

A hail of bullets chattered out of the gun. He was holding its tip up high, making sure the ammunition sped through the air at around five feet from the ground. At that height, it would sever the head from anyone unlucky enough to be in its path. A short river of flame was rising up from the windows where Ivan had tossed through the firebombs. Then he caught his first glimpse of the enemy. One man was trying to douse the flames, the other was trying to shoot from the window.

With Malenkov standing right behind him, Matt trained his gun on the man with the rifle. Drop, you bastard, drop.

He was as strong as an ox, Matt judged. Despite the punishment his body was taking, he was trying to swivel around on his heels and direct a last, dying round of fire on his assailants. Matt went straight for the hands: he could finish him off later if he had to, but without any hands, he wasn't going to shoot back.

The gun dropped, as the bullets shredded through his hands. Then, an instant later, the man crumpled to his knees, blood pouring from the wounds stretched across his body. At his side, the second man, caught in crossfire from Malenkov's machine gun, had fallen on to his side, his hair catching alight on the flames still rising from the floor.

He looked up, terror filling his eyes, but his gaze moved beyond Matt to the doorway behind him. 'Orlena,' he muttered, struggling to speak through the pain. 'Orlena.'

Matt spun around. Orlena was standing behind him, the gun attached to her hip. 'He knows you?'

Orlena ignored him. 'Likuvannia,' she shouted down at the dying guard, 'Likuvannia.'

The man looked up at her. 'Pishov, pishov,' he shouted.

Orlena pulled her gun free, pointed it down, then fired twice. Two bullets struck the guard, one in the forehead, the other in the cheek. A muted scream struggled from his damaged throat, but within seconds his body was alight, and the life had drained out of him.

Matt walked across, briefly checking that both men were completely dead. They're only doing their job, just as I am. They didn't deserve to go down like this. Later, in the still of the night, I will grieve for these men, as I grieve for all the others.

'Clear?' he barked towards Malenkov.

'Clear,' grunted the Ukrainian.

'How's it looking out there, Ivan?'

'Clear,' shouted Ivan through the window. 'I think we're OK.'

Fifty per cent casualties, thought Matt. I wouldn't call that OK.

'Let's get these fires out,' said Orlena, walking into the room. 'I want all the data on these computers transported back to London.'

'We came here to destroy a factory,' snapped Matt. 'Not to play the IT department.'

'You came here to follow my instructions,' said Orlena icily.

Matt glanced across at her. One man was lying on the floor, blood seeping from multiple wounds, another was gently burning. Yet Orlena stepped over them as if they didn't exist. Her eyes moved through the room, looking only at the computers, focused on the final part of the mission.

Like a ready meal that hasn't had long enough in the microwave, thought Matt. Hot on the surface, but freezing inside.

'How did he know who you were?' asked Matt looking across at Orlena.

She shrugged: a nonchalant toss of the shoulders that suggested the question did not interest her. 'We were here in a delegation some time ago trying to persuade them to stop counterfeiting our drugs,' she answered coldly. 'I guess I have a memorable face.'

Matt stepped closer to her. 'But what was he asking you about?' he persisted. 'What was the "word you used? Likuvannia? What the hell does that mean?'

'Nothing,' answered Orlena, moving across the room. 'He was begging for mercy, but it was no use. Everyone here has to die.' She paused, looking back towards Matt. 'A screwdriver? Do you have one?'

'Do I look like Bob the bloody Builder?'

'Never mind, a knife will do,' continued Orlena. 'Take out the casings on all these computers, and remove the hard drives. Get those, then we can leave.'

It was midnight fifty, Matt realised. 'We haven't got time,' he said angrily. 'The police could be here in ten minutes.'

Orlena paused, fixing her gaze on Ivan and Malenkov before turning to face Matt. 'There's always time to obey an order.'

Ivan had joined them in the room now. Matt could see the exhaustion in his face, but also the relief.

That was a closer-run thing than I could ever have imagined.

Matt worked fast and furiously. The cuts on his arms were starting to ache, and he could feel the soreness rippling down his back where he had bruised himself.

It took only two minutes to unpick the computers. There were eight of them, and Orlena, Matt and Ivan were working together. Matt was no expert, but he knew how to unscrew the casing, and the hard drive was easy to locate. A shiny square rectangle of metal, it was sited at the centre of the machine's innards. Don't worry how you take it out, Orlena had told him. The data stored on it can be still be retrieved once we get it back to head office.

What's on the hard drive that she needs so much? wondered Matt as he ripped the disk free.

The job finished, they ran back into the main compound. Ivan planted his remaining eight firebombs to blow the main admin building into the sky. The fire in the factory was still blazing, the flames licking up into the night sky, creating a warm crimson glow that spread out across the whole area. It was hot and the air was thick with the fumes from the fire. Matt scanned the brightly illuminated sky, searching for helicopters. Midnight fifty-three. If reinforcements were coming, they could be here any moment. They certainly weren't going to have any trouble finding the place: the flames would make it visible for miles.

It would burn for another two or three hours, Matt judged. And by the morning it would be completely destroyed.

Malenkov had collected the bodies of Nikita and Andrei, and had laid them out on the hard mud, their heads turned towards the east. In the Russian Orthodox Church, he explained to Matt, everyone was always buried facing east: that was where the sun rose, so that represented light, whereas the west, where the sun set, represented the darkness.

It wasn't possible to bury these two men properly or to return their bodies to their families. But they had fought bravely, and died for pitifully little money. We should do the best we can for them.

'How long is this going to take?' Matt asked anxiously, looking across at Malenkov.

'They gave us their lives,' answered Malenkov. 'We can spare five minutes to bury them.'

Matt was about to reply, but he swallowed his words. His watch had ticked past one o'clock. He looked up into the sky, but could see only the sparks and flames spitting up towards the stars.

Orlena, Matt and Ivan stood in a small semicircle, while Malenkov sprinkled some petrol over the bodies. Malenkov crossed himself and began to chant. The words were in Ukrainian, and meant nothing to Matt, but then at his side he could hear Orlena slowly whispering them in English as well. 'Be open, O earth, and receive the body that has been created out of you. That which was in the image of God, the Creator has received, and do you receive your body?'

Malenkov tossed a match downwards. A blast of burning petroleum hit Matt in the nostrils, as the flames started to crawl over the two corpses. Malenkov turned away and started walking back towards the forest.

'Josef was my son, you know,' he said, not looking back to the others. 'His mother will never forgive me.'

Matt hesitated. He wanted to say something, but he'd seen enough men die on the battlefield to know there was nothing you could say or do. He followed Malenkov back into the forest, taking the same path they had come in by. As he walked, he was scanning the night sky, his ears listening for the hum of choppers. Nothing. All he could hear was the sound of a light breeze rustling through the leaves of the trees, and the crunch of their feet against the moss, twigs and dirt that made up the floor of the forest. The Land Rover was parked twenty minutes hike away, hidden among the trees, and they should be able to cover the tracks of their escape route.

The sooner we get out, the better.

'Two hours sleep, then we get moving,' said Matt looking up at Malenkov and Ivan. 'It's a long drive. We need our strength.'

The farmhouse had been empty for years, and was surrounded by thick forest. If the police found the burning factory, Matt calculated, it should be days before the search brought them here, so they were safe for a while at least. Before dawn, they would start their drive back to the Ukrainian border.

He drained the glass of vodka Malenkov had poured for him. It was after three in the morning now, and the night was at its stillest. 'I'm sorry about Josef said Matt.

Malenkov nodded, his expression remaining sombre. 'He wasn't a soldier, I shouldn't have brought him,' said Malenkov. 'But we needed the money.'

'The families of the other men who died?' asked Matt.

'They'll be contacted in due course,' answered Malenkov. 'I'll get someone to speak to them.'

'And make sure they get paid.'

Matt walked down the corridor towards his bedroom. His kitbag was still in the corner of the room, and the mattress was lying on the floor. He unpeeled his T-shirt, chucking it to one side. A line of red blood ran along his left arm where he had cut himself, stretching for about eight inches, with a thin scab already starting to cover it.

He took a cup of water from the sink, dipped a tissue into the water, and began to press it against the cut, breaking open the scab. He winced as he did so. The water stung the blood, sending a bolt of pain jabbing up through his arm.

'Here, let me do that for you,' whispered Orlena, suddenly appearing at his side.

He looked round. She had a bottle of vodka in her hand, its cap already unscrewed.

'I already had a drink, thanks,' said Matt.

'Not for drinking.'

Orlena poured some of the vodka on to the tissue, and started to run it along the length of the wound. 'Neat vodka is just about pure alcohol,' she said. 'It makes a good disinfectant.'

Matt tried to relax the muscles in his arm. He could feel his skin starting to sting as the alcohol rubbed into the raw flesh. Orlena worked softly and surprisingly tenderly, dabbing at his skin with the tissue, careful not to make it any more painful than it had to be.

When it was done, she put the bottle down on the floor. Next, he could feel Orlena's soft hands caressing his chest. She took his fist, and pushed it inside her trousers.

'I'm cut, and I'm tired,' he said, looking into her eyes. 'And we just killed a dozen or more men.'

'I don't care,' she replied, pushing him down, and stretching her legs over his. 'Like I told you, we fuck the way I want, when I want to, or not at all.'

Matt lay in her arms, his passion spent and exhausted. He could feel her long legs curling around his and, although the mattress and the single blanket were rough and worn, her skin felt fresh, soft and new next to his. As the first glimmers of dawn started to break shards of light through the window, he held her closely to him, enjoying the smell of her breath, and the taste of her lips.

In her company, even the blood of the men who had died during the night was starting to fade from his memory.

'I know so little about you.'

Orlena shrugged her shoulders. 'I'm a woman,' she replied. 'I'm lying in your bed. What more do you need to know?'

Matt laughed, realising there was something girlish about his line of questioning. Still, she fascinates me. I want to know more about her. 'Family?'

'Everyone's got one of those.'

'In the Ukraine?'

'No, in New York,' snapped Orlena, anger flashing up into her eyes. 'My dad's chairman of Goldman Sachs.' She rolled over on to her side.

'You must have someone,' persisted Matt, his fingers running down the delicate outline of her spine.

'Nobody.'

'Parents, brothers, sisters?'

Orlena shook her head, and although he could not see her face he sensed she was sad: it was written into the tensing of her shoulder blades, and the way her neck was sagging on to the pillow. 'My parents are dead. I have one brother. Roman.'

'Do you see much of him?'

Orlena turned round, lying flat on her back, her arms folded across her supple, white breasts. 'He fought in Afghanistan, for the Soviets,' she said. 'After he came back, he was, well, never quite the same.'

'Happens to a lot of guys,' said Matt. 'I still have nightmares myself, we all do. It doesn't matter what anyone says, men aren't designed to kill other men. It damages all of us.'

'What else are they designed for?'

'I'll show you.'

Matt leant over and kissed her lips, feeling a wave of pleasure roll through him as her tongue flicked up to meet his.