Prague (2)
Once we got out of the city, the landscape changed completely.
The streetlights and tram tracks disappeared, leaving nothing but snow-covered fields stretching endlessly on both sides of the road.
McKinnon’s car kept going long after it had left the highway.
“Where are we going?”
“Almost there.”
McKinnon gave the flat reply and turned the wheel.
The road had become a country dirt track with no pavement at all, lined on both sides by tall trees.
Because it was winter and the ground had frozen hard, the car jolted and swayed side to side over every bump.
Just when I was starting to feel carsick, a small house appeared in the distance. It was the kind of old farmhouse you saw all over the Czech countryside.
There was a barn attached to the yard, and beyond that was nothing but open, empty land. Even the nearest building was barely visible far off in the distance.
Thunk.
McKinnon got out of the car first.
I followed him out, and the first thing that hit me was the cold wind. It was definitely a little colder here than in central Prague.
“This way.”
McKinnon took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
Click.
As soon as we stepped inside, the first thing I noticed was the stale smell of dust.
The only furniture in the house was a large wooden table sitting in the middle of the living room.
They’d cleaned it up in their own rough way, but it was obvious no one had lived here for a long time.
Perfect place to drag someone off to.
As that thought crossed my mind, I looked around the house.
The ceiling was low, the walls thick, and there didn’t seem to be any need to worry about sound leaking outside.
Most of the windows were small, so even though it was daytime, very little sunlight came in.
“Grab your gear first.”
McKinnon jerked his chin toward a black hard case sitting in the corner of the living room.
I opened the latch and lifted the lid.
Inside was a Glock 19, a suppressor, and three spare magazines.
Next to them sat a plate carrier, a bundle of cable ties, and a balaclava, all neatly arranged.
I picked up the Glock 19.
Click.
When I racked the slide, I saw a round chambering.
I removed the magazine to check it. Fifteen rounds. I reinserted it and screwed the suppressor onto the muzzle.
One turn, then another. It seated smoothly, with no snag at all.
Looks fine.
McKinnon took out a laptop and opened it on the table.
Then he tapped the screen and brought up a photo. It was Kucera, the target.
An ordinary-looking middle-aged man with glasses. It was a relatively recent photo, newer than the one in the file.
“You read the basics on the target, right?”
I nodded.
A weapons broker running a legitimate import-export company while reselling high-performance arms that had leaked out of Western countries to various buyers. That much from the dossier, I remembered.
“Good. Listen closely.”
McKinnon exhaled smoke and tapped the screen again.
A satellite map appeared.
“This son of a bitch has been running around overseas for a while, but he came back to the Czech Republic a few days ago. Headquarters says there’s a pretty large deal in progress, but frankly, that’s not my problem.”
Two buildings marked with pins appeared on the map.
Judging by the spacing, his office and apartment weren’t all that far apart.
“The point is, when he’s in the Czech Republic, we have to take him. No second chances.”
McKinnon pointed at the screen and went on.
“Once the pickup’s done, we bring him here first and ask him a few questions. The polite way, of course. Ha. He’ll never forget the experience, I’ll tell you that.”
He murmured it in that cold, mocking tone of his, then shut the laptop.
“After that, we move him to Germany and hand him over to the guys waiting there. Simple.”
That was the end of the briefing.
McKinnon ground out his cigarette and said one last thing.
“Let’s wrap this up fast and go home. I fucking hate this part of Eastern Europe.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Several days passed after we began keeping watch on Kucera in earnest.
During the day, McKinnon mostly circled the target’s office and apartment.
No one in Prague gave a damn about a white guy loitering around the streets.
Instead, the night watch from evening until dawn was mine.
Since I had to stay up all night every night, I’d no choice but to quit the café job.
I felt bad about it for Hanna, but it was probably better for her too.
If the chance came up, maybe I’d see her once more.
To maintain my cover identity, I kept going to language school.
When morning classes ended, I’d eat lunch and return to the apartment to rest or check my gear.
Then, once evening came, I’d pull my hat down low and drift around the target’s neighborhood, taking over from McKinnon like it was just another shift.
That night, around eleven.
I met McKinnon at a 24-hour coin laundromat in the city.
It was a narrow little place with four or five washing machines lined up in a row, and hardly any customers ever came in.
McKinnon was sitting on a plastic chair, sipping coffee when he spoke.
“His commute is fixed, and so is his lunch break and the time he goes home. No separate security detail, either.”
He muttered a curse under his breath.
“For a guy with such a dirty backstory, his routine is too damn clean. It’s one of two things: either he’s an idiot with nothing in his head, or he’s got someone backing him. If it’s the first, then this is basically a Christmas present.”
I snorted and answered, “I don’t think I’ve done many good deeds this year.”
“Fuck. Then it’s the second.” McKinnon took another sip of coffee and added, “Doesn’t change our plan, though. We hit hard and get out as fast as possible.”
Then he said one more thing.
“And another thing. He goes out to a warehouse on the outskirts every weekend. Pretty damn isolated place. Hardly any cars go out there. Let’s take a little drive this weekend.”
That weekend, McKinnon and I went out to the outskirts.
We wanted to check the road leading to the warehouse Kucera visited every weekend.
They’d said it was remote, and they weren’t kidding. There was nothing out there but woods and fields, a country road where hardly any cars passed.
Overall, the road wasn’t wide enough. One car would be enough to block it completely.
McKinnon slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road.
It was just past a gentle curve, where the road straightened out.
“This should do.”
McKinnon looked around and spoke.
I thought the same thing. If we left the car here, no one would see us until they came around the curve, and once they did, we’d be right in front of them and they’d have no choice but to stop.
We checked the pull-off and the terrain around it carefully before heading back.
“Let’s do the pickup next Saturday.”
McKinnon said it while keeping his eyes on the road.
The pickup date was set.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Saturday came.
We headed out early in the morning for the spot we’d already scouted.
We parked the car crookedly in the middle of the snow-covered country road.
Then we left the hood open and turned on the hazard lights.
“Damn it, it’s freezing, and this is a pain in the ass.”
McKinnon stood beside the car, scowling as he muttered to himself.
He looked genuinely miserable, like a man whose car had died on the side of the road and left him stranded.
That is, if you ignored the suppressed pistol tucked under his thick jacket.
I lay back in the rear seat and waited.
I’d already pulled the balaclava over my head, and the pistol was in the holster at my waist.
I checked the bundle of cable ties I’d tucked into my jacket pocket one more time.
Everything’s ready.
Crouched in the cramped back seat, my spine had gone stiff.
The pistol inside my jacket kept jabbing my side, but there was no room to shift position.
Maybe fifteen minutes passed like that.
Then I heard a car approaching from far away, the sound growing steadily louder.
I lowered myself even more and steadied my breathing.
Soon I felt another car stop in front of ours.
I stole a glance through the heavily tinted windows and confirmed it was Kucera’s black sedan.
But the man who got out of the driver’s seat was a fairly large middle-aged guy.
That’s not Kucera.
Looking more closely, I saw there was someone else in the back seat.
Unlike before, Kucera hadn’t come alone.
The plan had gone sideways.
“Co se děje? What’s going on?”
The man who’d gotten out of the driver’s seat started walking toward McKinnon.
His stride was loose, but his gaze stayed fixed on McKinnon.
Just as his hand brushed the inside of his jacket—
Pop. Pop.
Two short, dull cracks sounded.
Then the man stopped, his knees gave out, and he collapsed right where he stood.
McKinnon had drawn and fired immediately.
Thud!
As soon as I heard the shots, I sprang out of the car.
I ran for the sedan’s back door and glanced once toward McKinnon as I moved.
At the edge of my vision, I caught him walking up to the fallen man and putting another round into his head.
Pop.
I reached the back door and yanked it open.
A man with glasses looked up at me, his eyes wide.
It was Kucera, the target for this operation.
“Uh, uh—”
He looked much smaller and more pathetic than in the photo.
His mouth hung half open, as if he were trying to say something.
Before he could make a sound, I grabbed his collar and dragged him outside.
“Aaaah!”
Kucera was thrown to the ground and started crawling to get away.
I pinned him by the waist. His face slammed into the snow.
Even then he kept twisting and struggling, so I had no choice but to clench my fist.
Thump! Thwack!
I drove two full-strength blows into his side, and at last he went still.
While he groaned in pain, I pulled both his hands behind his back and bound them with cable ties.
Zzzzip.
The sound of the tie cinching tight. After that, I pulled a hood over his head.
Through the black cloth came a muffled sound that might have been either breathing or screaming.
“······!”
I dragged the bound and squirming Kucera over and shoved him into the back seat of our car.
He was still writhing and shouting something, so in the end I grabbed him and hit him once more in the groin.
His body went limp, and he finally fell quiet.
“...What a stubborn bastard.”
McKinnon, who had been hauling the body over from behind, clicked his tongue when he saw that.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? The nerve of him, saying that after all he’d done.
McKinnon and I loaded the man’s body into the sedan’s trunk.
It was awkward lifting a slack body with just the two of us, and we had to wedge it against the lip of the trunk before shoving it inside.
In a sense, this was the first time I’d handled a corpse in this life, but it didn’t move me much.
Even if it was only memory, I’d seen too much of that in my previous life to feel anything special now.
“Hngh.”
After we shut the trunk, we pushed the car off the road and toward the woods.
It was a spot that wouldn’t be noticed unless someone came off the road and actually searched the brush.
We had to buy as much time as possible before the body was discovered.
When I returned to the road, I saw the marks left on the snow where Kucera had been dragged out.
I kicked snow over them and roughly covered them up. Not perfect, but not something a passerby would notice at a glance.
After the cleanup, McKinnon headed for the car and said, “That took longer than expected. Let’s go. We’re out of time.”
I got into the passenger seat at once.
From the back seat, Kucera’s unconscious breathing came rough and ragged.
Creak, creak.
Inside the car, with even the radio off, the windshield wipers were the only steady sound, pushing snow away in a rhythmic scrape.
I rested a hand on my waist where the pistol I hadn’t used yet sat hidden, and looked out the window.
That was easier than I expected.
It really had gone too smoothly.
Almost enough to make me uneasy.