A MARKED MAN
Warsaw, 1925
Nowak screamed.
A searing pain, like a scorching poker streaking across his naked flesh, cut into Charles's hip. He swore and spun. His hand scrabbled for the pocket of his greatcoat. The revolver bounced against his leg, a useless, metal lump hidden in voluminous tweed.
A second gunshot rang out. Nowak dropped to the dirty cobbles in a flurry of coat-tails. Charles crouched down. His eyes scanned the dim streets around him, his brain scrambling to pick out the trajectory of the bullet.
By a miracle, he found his way into the pocket of his greatcoat. He dragged the revolver clear. The dull grey barrel glinted in the light from the dim street lamp. His fingers were steady as he cocked the gun to firing mode. A relic of a war he thought was far behind him. Crouched low in the street, the snow seeping through his coat and trousers, Charles turned back to the dimness and-
A third shot. The flash spat out from a doorway halfway down. Charles jerked back the trigger.
His revolver kicked in his hand. The bullet spat out. There was a sharp crack of recoil. A cry of pain.
A hit.
Gritting his teeth against the grinding pain burning along his hip, Charles turned his back on Nowak's trembling lump on the Warsaw street cobbles. He limped down the street in a quick-step shuffle. The revolver he kept cocked in his hand. There could be others, more guns, more bullets.
The shouts from the bar echoed behind him. From a dim distance, Charles heard the crunch of snow being trod down underfoot. Nowak? He glanced back over his shoulder. The stunted pen-pusher blinked back at him, his eyes owlishly large behind the spectacles.
Charles turned his shoulder on the traitorous fool and pushed to the shadows of the side-alley.
Unlike Charles, this man was dressed to be a killer. Dark clothes merged with the soot-stained walls and pools of darkness in between the street lamps. He smelt of the tanneries, a sharp, alkaline smell that made Charles wrinkle his nose and recoil a little on instinct. Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward to where the man slumped in the light. The harsh rattle of breath and the darting, dilated eyes told Charles his attacker was still alive. Just.
The revolver was on the ground. The impact of Charles's shot had thrown it from the attacker's hand. Charles kicked it backward into the street. He had learnt enough in his time with the navy to know that dying men could surge with an unexpected force of life as the chill fingers of death closed about their throats.
A gurgle, thick and sticky like a drowning man fighting the waves, rose from the attacker. He reached but Charles shoved his arms aside. With rough strokes, he frisked the other man. He wore no other weapons, a fact Charles noticed with relief. There was a packet in an inside pocket, a barely-discernible ridge over the jacket. Charles pulled open the dark coat. His fingers brushed the tell-tale dampness that spread across the man's chest from the mid-point of his stomach.
For the second time, Charles appreciated the man's foresight in wearing only dark clothing. He was an experienced soldier, had served in the navy during the war. Sill, the knowledge that he was brushing his hands over blood, that when he turned his palms over they would be stained red...
He swallowed back the bile and dug into the pocket. A packet of papers, the edges tipped in red, appeared. Holding them up to the street lamp, Charles inspected them as best he could in the dim light. When he saw the print, his mind went blank with surprise.
A grunt moaned from the man beside him. The arm Charles had shoved away half-rose in protest. "Nyet..."
So it was true.
Charles looked from the red star emblazoned on the front of the packet to the man dying on the street beside him. At the back of his mind, he knew he did not have much time. Anyone could have heard the exchange of gunfire and, volatile as Warsaw was, it still had a working and able police force. He was on borrowed time, scarce borrowed time, but he could not resist grabbing the assassin beside him, dragging his blood-spittled mouth closer.
"Russkiy?" He demanded. "Russian? Who sent you? Kto... Damn it, kto v-v-vas poslal?"
The man inhaled, a wet, sucking sound. The blood was starting to fill his lungs. Pale eyes, like tiny white pebbles, rolled in his face. It would be few seconds before the full effect of the bullet stole away the last breath in his body and all information vanished to the ether.
"Russkiy?" Charles demanded again, gripping the oily lapels of the man's jacket. "Who are you? Kto ty? Kto-"
The Russian inhaled again, his eyes staring up beyond Charles' shoulders. His head twisted to the side, a futile attempt to get away. Charles tightened his fists on the lapels, praying for time, praying he got the information out if it was the last thing he did on this filthy earth, the very last thing...
A gun cocked so close to his ear, the metallic click fused in his brain.
"Stand up." Nowak. No longer screaming, no longer terrified and with the dying Russian's revolver clutched between two shaking hands.
"Stand up, ty skurwysynu, or I will kill you."
An update! It's been sitting in my lap for a while now but I finally have made enough progress with part 3 to feel happy about publishing (!).
Also, if you don't enjoy bad language, please don't google translate the words in italics, haha! Although I had a bit of fun googling appropriate curse words in Polish and Russian ... whiled away a good hour... ;-D
Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading!