Summary: They met less than twelve hours ago. Now their lives are in each other's hands.
Rating: R
It's hard to hit a moving target; Smith's shot went wide by about a foot. I flinched back as the bullet whined past me and flew out over the path into the night, then forced myself to keep watching as Goren fired in return. Smith had already dodged to one side, then, as I watched, he flung himself at Goren, swinging the gun up and across like a club. It was a crazy thing to do, but it had the advantage of surprise… plus, I realised, Smith was not only a few years younger but hadn't been hauling injured people up and down the rocky cliff path all evening. He had greater speed, if not greater strength, and to my horror, I saw his blow catch Goren across the head. He dropped to the ground, obviously stunned and in pain, but still conscious. I wished uselessly for a gun of my own… Before I could think too much about it, I stuck my head round from the rock and yelled "Smith, what the fuck are you doing?"
Smith's head whipped around towards the direction of my voice. I stuck my head out tentatively from behind the rock, so that Smith could see I was a witness if he shot anyone. Our eyes met and it was all I could do to keep from screaming, but I had to force myself to do this. The light was fading fast now, and ominous rumbles of thunder suggested that the storm was returning. Soon, it would be pitch black and raining once more.
"I could ask you the same thing," Smith shot back at me, stepping away from Goren – out of arm's reach – and training his gun on Shorokogat's son, who whimpered. "This little bastard jumped Davenport and these two guys, knocked them out like Timkowski and broke Davenport's ribs trying to stab him… he'd have killed him, too, if I hadn't intervened."
The kid looked towards me. He was fifteen, but fear, grief and confusion made him look a lot younger. He did not look like a killer, certainly not capable of knocking out three grown men. Smith, on the other hand… in the dim evening light I could only see hollows where his eyes were, but everything about him was tense, from the way he was gripping his gun to the tension of his expression…. and there were dark stains on his jacket sleeve. Timkowski's blood… Behind him, Goren stirred slightly, rubbing his head and wincing, but obviously not too badly harmed. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Okay, well, now we've caught him, why don't we all go back up to the building, see if Whitefield's back yet with the Army?" I really, really hoped I was managing to sound normal. In truth I had no plan other than to avoid getting shot until Goren revived and hope that between us we could think of something.
"Let's give it a while, see if these guys come round… sorry about Goren, he startled me… you know I didn't mean to shoot him, right?"
"Yeah, right!" I agreed brightly.
"You can come on out from behind that rock now," Smith suggested, and I could hear a faint note of strain in his voice. I kept my eyes fixed on him, but in my peripheral vision I could see Goren moving slightly, he was looking at Davenport. Was it my imagination, or had Davenport moved slightly? Maybe he wasn't dead or stunned. This was getting better.
Suddenly, Shorokogat's son yelled, a panicky yell, pointing at Smith. Smith reacted instantly, but not, as I'd expected, by raising his gun. Instead, keeping his eyes fixed on the kid, he deliberately trod very hard on Goren's wrist, bent down, and deftly removed his gun, dodging out of the way as Goren swung at him in return. Smith leapt back, cat-like, and shoved Goren's gun into his waistband. Shit.
"What did he say, Tovitz?" Smith asked, and his tone turned my guts to water. Any pretence that this was a normal situation that had got out of hand had just gone out of the window. I was seeing Smith the killer now, Smith the rogue CIA agent cleaning up a very messy situation. He turned towards me, not quite pointing the gun at me, not quite letting go of the pretence that this was still a normal situation.
"He said…" I tried desperately to stall. "I'm not sure…"
"Don't give me that bullshit. What did he say? Oh, and I know some Ukrainian, so don't go making anything up."
Oh shit. I was not a good enough liar to get away with this. "He said… he said he recognised you. I think he said he knows you." Shit. I'd just signed our death warrants.
"Ask him again, and come out from behind that rock." Smith glanced casually at Goren and Davenport, then at his gun. The implication was clear. I edged out slightly from behind the rock, but didn't come any closer. I could see the situation more clearly now. The two medics were out cold, but I could see no signs that Smith had shot them. Maybe he didn't want to risk killing anyone he didn't have to, too difficult to explain… they were both bigger than Davenport, so perhaps he jumped them first, then Davenport tried to defend himself…
Suddenly, something about Davenport caught my eye. He had a huge cut over his forehead, but despite the blood trickling over his face, he was looking at me intently from behind half-closed eyes. As my eyes passed over him, his hand twitched. I stared, until Smith's repeated question brought my attention back to him. Suddenly, I realised what I'd seen. Davenport's hand had made the shape of a gun. He was not only alive and regaining consciousness, but armed too. I couldn't tell if Goren had seen that, but suddenly a mad idea occurred to me.
"Okay, okay, I'll ask him again." I turned to face Shorokogat's son. He was snivelling now, and if I'd been less afraid for my own life, I'd have felt sorry for him, since in the last three hours he'd nearly drowned in a storm, seen his father drown, been washed ashore and then had someone try to shoot him. I watched Smith very carefully as I said in Ukrainian: "Listen to me. I can help you, okay? What did you say just now?"
He gave a half-sob and replied in a strangled voice: "I know that man. My father's had dealings with him."
Smith looked at me. I swallowed. "He thinks… he thinks he knows you…" How was I going to do this? Suddenly, the kid spoke to me again.
"I think that man… is CIA. He tried to shoot me, he's a fucking maniac!"
Smith again looked at me for the translation. Luckily, Shorokogat's son's voice was so strangled and high from stress and fear that I had a good reason for telling Smith that I needed to ask him to repeat it. I put on my calmest, most reassuring voice, and prayed very hard that Smith was bluffing about knowing Ukrainian well… well, he hadn't reacted to my telling the kid that I could help him.
"Kid, listen carefully. I'm going to say something you won't understand, but don't say anything or react, okay? No, don't nod! Don't react! That's better." I forced myself to keep my voice even, my Ukrainian accent in place and my eyes fixed on Alexei as I added, in German, "Detective, the man behind you has a gun. If we can distract Smith we might live." I couldn't risk looking at Goren as I switched back to Ukranian and told the kid: "What did you say about him trying to shoot you?"
"I was scared, trying to climb up the cliff… I heard those three coming down, I was going to hide, then suddenly he jumped out from behind a rock and hit the two of them over the head, the other one jumped away from him. They saw me… He tried to shoot me… that other man tried to stop him… he shot at him, I think maybe the bullet didn't go in, then he hit that man over the head and tried to shoot me…" Alexei Shorokogat sounded very young and very scared, and I knew exactly how he was feeling.
I looked up at Smith, and on the very edges of my peripheral vision I could see Goren's eyes widening and his head nodding very, very slightly. I tried hard to sound like it was a shock to me as I looked Smith in the eyes and said "He says that he thinks you and his father… met at some point, that you knew Shorokogat, had dealings with him…"
Smith nodded, and sighed very wearily, as if coming to a decision. "Well, that's a shame. I was hoping I wouldn't need to do this…"
"Do what?" I asked, my voice going high with panic.
"Well, you've just heard him say that, and I suspect Goren here has too… you can stop trying to fake unconsciousness, now, Detective Goren, you're a fucking bad actor… so that doesn't give me much choice. Don't worry. If you get shot in the line of duty they give you a very nice funeral, particularly if you get shot by the son of a notorious criminal whilst trying to defend a fallen colleague… tell the kid to come over here, please."
I took a deep breath.
"No, don't do that," said a very familiar voice. Goren had rolled onto his hands and knees. He glanced quickly at me with a questioning look. I frantically glanced at Davenport, who nodded once. He was awake… I nodded at Goren, hoping he'd get the message: Davenport's conscious, just distract Smith a bit longer…
"Well, this gets more interesting by the minute." Smith commented. He almost sounded gleeful. There was a manic edge in his voice which sent chills all the way down my spine. He fixed his eyes on Goren, forgetting me. Behind them, Shorokogat's son moaned slightly.
"Why are you doing this?" Goren asked. He moved slightly to the side, then stopped as Smith trained the gun on his forehead.
"Timkowski didn't tell you? You'll just have to die wondering. Sorry about that," and incredibly, Smith almost did sound apologetic. Great, we were quite possibly going to be shot by someone who was just doing his job. The two of them were staring at each other now, and I could almost feel the waves of enmity coming from them, two opposite poles of a magnet; Goren, defender of the law (albeit in his own strange way), Smith, who didn't believe any laws applied to him… Goren, stock-still, locked eyes with Smith, and I guessed that for the two of them, the rest of us had just ceased to exist.
"He said… you were involved with some of Shorokogat's deals. Let me guess… Shorokogat came up with some good intelligence, you got the credit and in return you looked the other way about him trafficking drugs, trafficking women, funding terrorists… except he was funding the wrong kind of terrorists, wasn't he? The Russians get very pissed indeed about anyone involved in smuggling arms to Chechenya, and now that they're our allies in the war on terrorism… he was going to be a very big embarassment to you, wasn't he?"
"That's pretty much it, yes. Shorokogat outlived his usefulness and it's best that this doesn't come to light. The kid's the last witness. People need to have faith that we're doing our best to protect them, and I've worked very hard indeed to get where I am."
"Oh, it's all about you?" Goren countered. I could hear the strain in his voice, and realised that he'd need me to tell him when Davenport was ready. We'd all have to trust each other.
"The sort of work I do, it's always my judgement, nothing else," Smith shrugged. "There are no laws where I operate, that's what the world outside your precious fucking civilised New York is like. You need us to make the shitty decisions, and right now, I'm making one, and you're in the fucking way."
"You're making a judgement call? Your judgement is fucked up," Goren snarled, drawing Smith's attention back to him. He was between Davenport and Smith now, obscuring the CIA man's view of Davenport, keeping his attention fixed on Goren. I could see Davenport's hand moving carefully, agonisingly slowly, towards the inside of his jacket, gripping the gun butt, drawing it out…
"I mean, I see this all the time," Goren continued, his voice almost hypnotic. "Most people who kill are stupid, they kill on the spur of the moment, no forethought involved, they just see their opportunity and take it… most of them aren't stupid enough to do it in front of witnesses though, that I don't usually see…" I watched Smith stiffen, realising he'd just been insulted, that Goren had just implied that he was no better than any of the many stupid killers Goren had put away…
As Smith raised his gun, Davenport waved his gun at me, frantically. I took a deep breath and yelled in German "GOREN, GET OUT OF THE WAY!" I looked across at Shorokogat's son and yelled in Ukranian, "Alexei, RUN TO ME AND YOU'LL BE SAFE!" Behind me, an almighty crack of thunder rolled behind us, and a brilliant flash of lightning lit up the clearing. The lightning flashed again and again, and as Smith whirled round at the sound of my voice, Goren leapt up at him, the lightning highlighting his attack, like strobe lighting… he seemed to suddenly to grow in front of my eyes, exploding up into Smith's face.
Alexei dashed across the ground to me. I grabbed his wrist, yanked him behind the rock, and then sprinted out. Smith saw me, but he was too busy trying to fight off Goren to get a good aim. I dodged a kick, then grabbed Smith's gun arm, hanging on for dear life. I'd like to say I did something more useful and heroic, but really all I did was hang on to Smith's arm and hope like hell that Goren knew what he was doing. The three of us crashed onto the ground. I was still hanging on to Smith, pinning his arm down to the ground, sheer terror at the thought of what he'd do to me if he got free lending me strength. I was aware of the two of them grappling, Goren grunting as Smith's blows landed, then Smith's arm and body tensing underneath me… I guessed Goren had managed to get a good grip onto Smith, because the next thing I knew Smith was howling and yelling, spitting obscenities and trying to bite us, head whipping from side to side, until suddenly it stilled. I looked up to see Davenport crouching beside us, the barrel of his gun jammed into the soft underside of Smith's neck.
"You…fucking…move…and…I…will…fucking…shoot, you bastard," Davenport gritted out. His breathing was shallow and he was obviously in tremendous pain, but his arm was steady. "At this range… there won't be enough of your head left…to fucking identify you…".
Smith grinned, through bloody teeth. "It's going to be your word against mine…."
Amazingly, Goren laughed. I looked up to see that he was still pinning Smith to the ground. The CIA man's arm was bent at a painful angle. Part of me winced. (A darker part of me hoped Goren had broken the arm.) Goren shifted slightly, replacing one of his hands with his knee, and reaching inside his jacket. He was grinning, a very triumphant grin and as we watched, he produced the radio and turned up the volume. Whitefield's familiar voice crackled out: "We're on our way down to you now, Goren, hold him…" Goren turned it down slightly.
"It's going to be your words, all of them…. They fixed the radio up there. I took Timkowski's radio with me, and Whitefield's been listening to you for the past ten minutes." Smith swore, struggled for a few more seconds, then finally gave up as Goren tightened his grip on Smith's arm and Davenport jabbed the gun barrel in deeper. Above us, further up the path, I could hear the very welcome sounds of Whitefield's voice and heavy feet tramping towards us. As I looked up through the rain which was just beginning to fall, Whitefield appeared, heading down the path towards us, accompanied by five hefty soldiers, guns drawn. He was holding a radio in his hand….
My legs suddenly went rubbery with relief, and if I hadn't already been kneeling down, I'd have fallen over. The next few minutes were chaotic, as Whitefield took Smith and Shorokogat's son into custody, arranged for two soldiers to go and retrieve Timkowski and the passenger from the beach and arranged for someone to carry Davenport and the unconscious Army medics up the path. Amid all the chaos, Goren & I ended up stood next to each other, breathing heavily and feeling an odd mixture of relief, fatigue and exhilaration. At least, I was feeling that, and I guessed he was too, to judge by his expression. We just looked at each other for a while, the shared experience bonding us.
"Next time… don't ever run towards someone with a gun," he said, eventually, but so calmly that I didn't take offence. Actually, I entirely agreed.
"Next time… I'm going to have a gun. You think the people we rescued are going to be okay?"
"They're being removed to the base," Whitefield interrupted our conversation. "That's where we're headed now. Go on up and I'll see you at the top." He stomped past us, yelling at the soldiers to be careful to keep hold of Smith on the way up.
We stared at the path in mutual weariness. It was newly slippery with rain, jagged edges of rock and steep climbs glinting in front of us in the weak light from the flashlights.
"I wonder if Timkowski and Davenport will be okay," I asked, trying to delay the evil moment.
"We won't know until we get back up there." We stared at the path for another minute. It didn't get less steep.
"We've got to climb back up there, haven't we?" I said eventually.
"Yes. If you're too tired… I could carry you."
Huh. "Thank you, I can manage," I said, not appreciating the implication that I was a weak female. I stomped off and got five paces before I turned round and met Goren's amused gaze. "Your reverse psychology skills really are second to none, aren't they?"
A weary smile that, amazingly, evoked a warm response in me, despite my fatigue. I called forth every last scrap of energy I had, and gave him the best smile I could manage. "Race you to the top."