Exit wound

The smoke-filled cabin was in shit state. Yellow oxygen masks dangled from the ceiling. Seats had become grotesquely distorted. The fuselage had buckled. The dark leather sofas round a fixed coffee-table were upended. Sparks jumped from severed wiring and at least four different warning alarms were going off. They were so loud I could no longer hear the chainsaw still chugging away behind me. I could smell burning electrics, cigar smoke and alcohol.

The crew door swung open and the two pilots saw me. Then they saw the pistol. The door cannoned shut again and I heard bolts slamming home.

Altun was sprawled on the floor to my left, nursing an arm that flopped like a broken wing. It was covered with blood. A champagne bottle was emptying itself onto the thick pile carpet next to him.

His eyes were glued on my weapon. He opened his mouth, but I spared him the indignity of begging. ‘This is for Red.’ I double-tapped him in the head.

Another one down.

I moved along the cabin. Everything was still in slow motion. I was floating.

The Taliban was on the right, hiding behind a section of brown leather. His eyes met mine. He knew what was coming. He didn’t even flinch as the weapon came up. He stared, and waited.

‘This is for Tenny.’

I fired.

One more to go.

I moved deeper into the cabin, clearing a path through the oxygen masks with my Makarov’d right hand.

He was in the far right-hand corner, struggling to get up. His lap was wet. Either it was champagne or he’d pissed himself. There was a cigar on the floor, still smouldering. ‘Nick! Is that you, Nick? You’re supposed to be stood down!’ A cut that started just above his right ear ran all the way to his neck. ‘We’ve got to get away out this shit. Come on, let’s go.’

He staggered to his feet. ‘It’s been a total fuck-up. They should have called you off. They were told to.’

He took a couple of paces but I pushed him back. He toppled into one of the leather chairs. His eyes never left the weapon. He looked up at me, his arms outstretched. ‘Nick, what are you doing? I’m on your side here, that’s why they should have pulled you out. What’s the deal?’ He saw my head. ‘You OK?’

‘Why aren’t you dead?’

His hands came up in mock surrender. ‘Dubai? I didn’t know that was going to happen. I took a round myself.’ He pointed to his side. ‘Luckily it didn’t hit anything vital. I’m not carrying, by the way. I’m going to show you.’

He lifted his fleece and the polo shirt beneath to show a dent in the side of his overflowing gut. ‘I didn’t know. I swear.’ He shook his head. ‘Your people were told to back off. Now they’ve really fucked up.’

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to take all the credit for that. What were you up to, Spag? Doing your Ollie North impression again?’

He pointed beyond the gap in the tail section. ‘You see that shit out there?’ He meant the carpet of dollar bills. ‘That’s the money we’re going to use to fight fucks like him.’ His podgy finger moved to the Taliban. ‘That fucking Obama and his new fucking broom… He’s cutting our budgets left, right and centre… He’s fucking up our world, Nick. My world and your world. But we’re putting that right.’ He gave me his trademark leer. ‘Damn right we are!’

I kept quiet. Neither of us had anywhere to go right now.

‘I used the gold to buy the missiles from Vladislav. You remember him?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Then I geared up by trading the missiles to the Taliban for heroin, via that fuck Altun.’

His hands finally came down. ‘Iran’s having an election soon, Nick. The Taliban paid us way over the odds to get their hands on the missiles. We’re going to flood the country with their heroin and pocket the proceeds. Double whammy! The CIA needs black money to finance guys like me and you.’ He reached out a hand for me to help him up.

I stared along the barrel. ‘Not me, Spag. I was stood down. But you know why I’m here. You were there when it happened.’

His jaw dropped. ‘This whole thing – for two guys? You’re kidding, right?’

I was almost in a trance. I just looked at him, wondering when I was going to pull the trigger. ‘Not just two. There’s Tenny, and all the others like him.’

‘Big boys’ rules, Nick. They knew what they signed up for. This is bigger than them.’

‘Wrong.’

As I brought the weapon up he sprang towards me, slapping my hand off to the left.

The weapon spun and he started running for the gap.

It was OK. I had five or six metres. I wanted to take my time, get it right, savour the moment.

I turned, brought the weapon back up – even thought about my stance. Nice stable position with the feet; weapon solid in the right hand; web of the thumb and forefinger tight into the back of the grip. Nice straight right arm; left now bent, fingers closing over the right wrist.

Both eyes open, fixed on the foresight so it was clear and sharp, I took aim in the centre of the big, now out-of-focus mass dodging the oxygen masks and debris.

The pad of my right forefinger rested on the trigger.

‘Nick! Nick!’

She stood in the opening, right in my arc of fire.