SEVERANCE KILL Read Online Free PDF Page B

he could turn down any job, on any grounds – moral, practical – he liked, and no hard feelings would be nurtured. But he’d never felt the need to refuse.
    His first twinge of misgiving came with number four.
    It was the first hit he’d carried out on continental Europe. Florim Zagreda was a truly vile human being, a trafficker in hard drugs and women – Zagreda’s definition of women included girls as young as eight – who had eluded conviction once too often, thanks to a combination of sharp legal representation and systematic intimidation of witnesses. He was an international problem, but his involvement in the Albanian organised crime networks of East London sealed his fate as far as the Chapel was concerned.
    Calvary’s problem hadn’t been with removing Zagreda from the human pool. It had been with the way the hit had played out. Zagreda was at an arms fair in Hamburg, brazenly flaunting his recent acquittal on some charge or another. He normally moved about with a retinue of heavily-armed cronies, and was known always to wear a Kevlar vest in public. Neither of these measures protected him when he was lounging in his hotel bath at four a.m. after a night’s debauch, and Calvary appeared in his bathroom out of the closet he’d been hiding in since purloining the cleaning lady’s key card earlier that day. Before the bodyguards could run through from the bedroom Calvary tossed the most low-tech of improvised weapons, an old-fashioned battery-operated transistor radio, into the bath.
    The crackle and scream were eardrum rending, the churning mix of water and blood and effluent like a shark attack. Zagreda didn’t die at once. Calvary was through the bathroom window, every inch of his escape route having been mapped out in advance, but although he couldn’t afford to waste time he stared back in fascination as the head thrashed, lips rolled back to reveal an impossibly huge rictus, and a claw hand grabbed at the air – at the very air – in desperation.
    It had nothing to do with sorrow for a life lost. Zagreda deserved to die if anyone did. Nor did Calvary care particularly that the man had suffered. Again, on récolte ce qu’on a semé . No, what unsettled Calvary, left him with a gnawing in his gut all the way back to London and beyond, and through his sleeping as well as waking hours, was the last images of an organism clinging to life. Clawing at it, as though it had never had a right to anything else. Outraged at its being torn away.
    Perhaps Zagreda deserved to lose his life. But did Calvary have the authority to take it?
     
    *
     
    Back at the restaurant, Llewellyn had said: In answer to your unasked question – how can you be sure I’m telling the truth when I say you’ll be left alone after this job – all I can say is, I give you my word. And whatever you think of me, you have to admit... I’ve never lied to you.
    Llewellyn was right. He’d never lied to Calvary. And he was right about the other thing, too.
    Killing Gaines would kill Calvary’s past. Finally.
    Calvary felt grimy after his flight. In the shower a few minutes later he almost laughed out loud. He realised he hadn’t raised the matter of remuneration. Had no idea how much he was being paid for the Gaines hit, or even if he was being paid at all.
     
    *
     
    ‘Rise and shine, boss.’
    Krupina jerked her forehead off her wrist, squeezed her eyes tight against the dazzle. Through strands of lank fringe she saw a Tamarkin-shaped figure shoving a cup of tea across the desk at her.
    His face came into slow focus. He looked cheery, eager even, with no trace of the practised cynicism that usually marred his good looks.
    Yes, she had to admit that bit.
    He’s twenty years younger than you, you old bat. Get a grip.
    ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ She was furious: at him for having caught her out, at herself for having been caught napping, literally.
    ‘Right. Whatever.’ He cracked his knuckles. ‘Lev and Arkady are in position.