SEVERANCE KILL by Tim Stevens Page A

for you already.’
    He grinned back. ‘Uh-uh, dude. Unregistered car, fake plates. Untraceable.’
    Well, that’s something. ‘Why?’ said Calvary. ‘Are you criminals?’
    Another laugh. ‘No. We just don’t trust the State, man.’
    They ignored red lights, wove their way precariously across traffic. Overhead a helicopter chattered through the early evening sky. It looked like police.
    ‘He means,’ the woman said, ‘our enemies, the ones chasing you, have connections everywhere. Maybe in the vehicle licensing department.’
    Calvary was disorientated, thought they were somewhere south of the hospital where it had all kicked off. It was a slightly grubby commercial district, fleets of lorries rolling down the roads in boiling clouds of dust.
    ‘Who are you?’
    She said, ‘I’m Nikola. This is Max.’
    ‘No, I mean who are you?’
    ‘Your enemy’s enemies,’ said the boy. ‘So, your friends.’
    Calvary thought, Spare me . He didn’t push it, concentrated on an inventory of his injuries. Nothing disabling, but there’d be aches later that might restrict mobility. He’d have to watch for that, keep his joints in motion.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Calvary.’
    ‘Like where Jesus got crucified.’ The boy was grinning again.
    The woman, Nikola, had been murmuring into a phone. She put it away.
    ‘We are activists,’ she said. ‘We publish an independent newsletter. Reflektor . You are from England?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then you will not have heard of us. Even most Prague residents haven’t.’
    Max said, ‘We’re kind of a single-issue group.’ When Calvary didn’t ask, he went on: ‘Committed to bringing down Bartos Blažek and his empire.’
    Calvary was silent. Max stared at him. ‘You – don’t know?’
    ‘Who that is? No.’
    ‘Shit, you really are from out of town, dude.’ He glanced at Nikola. ‘He’s the head of the biggest organised crime syndicate in the city. The country, even.’
    Nikola finished: ‘And that was him. In the car behind us.’
     
    *
     
    A bulb blew with an audible pop as she flicked on the lights. The office was low-ceilinged, crowded but neat. Four workstations were positioned to make maximum use of the space available. The IT equipment looked up to date or close to it. A couple of older televisions hung on brackets. Even with the illumination from the fluorescent lights the room had the feel of a basement, which it was.
    The walls were corkboarded almost from floor to ceiling, and virtually every inch of board was in turn covered with a cutting or photograph of some sort: newspaper and magazine articles, posed portraits, paparazzi shots. The faces were unfamiliar apart from two that kept cropping up: the scarred potato features of the huge man he’d fought in the bookshop, and the feral-looking smaller man whom he’d slammed in the car door and who had followed him into the shop with his crony.
    And, most frequently of all, he noticed another large man, mid-forties, running to fat, dressed sometimes in shiny suits, sometimes polo shirts. He hadn’t had a clear look at the passenger in the BMW but he knew this was him.
    ‘Blažek. The Kodiak,’ said Max. He shoved a swivel chair across. Put your feet up, man. You look beat.’
    ‘No time.’ Calvary began to prowl about the office, taking in the pictures. The articles were all, or nearly all, in Czech so they meant little to him. ‘How did you happen to be there just at the right time?’
    ‘Back there?’ Max looked at Nikola, who’d hung up her jacket and was over at a tiny kitchenette, putting the kettle on. ‘Do you think we should –’
    ‘We have been following this man.’ She tapped a shot of the scarred giant. ‘Pavel Kral. One of Blažek’s thugs. He is medium level, not among the lieutenants but more than just a footsoldier. We’ve been tailing him all morning. This afternoon he took a phone call and set off for the hospital. We saw him enter the bookshop. Then you came out with