sometimes lost control, and on that day, because they had jumped him, he did not stop even after three of them had been laid unconscious and the other two were begging for mercy. He continued to stamp on and kick them, and when he walked away one had permanent brain damage, one a broken neck and the other three a dozen major bones broken between them.
The rear door of the Mercedes opened and a foot touched the ground. This was the moment Zhilev was waiting for and the furthest he was prepared to let things develop beyond what till then could possibly still have been innocent.
The door opened fully and the man’s other foot came out. Zhilev gauged his moment. He noticed the man was concealing something and, as he leaned out of the car to stand, Zhilev planted a foot forward like a javelin thrower, cocked the rock behind his head, and, with all the might he could muster, launched it. The rock left his hand as if released by a catapult and flew across the road with such speed none of the Turks had time to react. The rear passenger began to turn away as the rock hit the top edge of the door, bounced off and struck him in the jaw. He rolled back on to the rear seat and the driver pushed the accelerator to the floor and the Mercedes screeched away, the man’s feet dragging along the road. At the same time the front passenger leaned across the driver and fired a single bullet from a revolver, which struck Zhilev’s car a metre from him.
Zhilev picked up another rock as he considered his options but there were not any that did not call for him leaving his car, which he was loath to do. He could grab his bag and run but that would put him in the position of the hunted and he felt he was in the strongest position by his car. Besides, that would mean leaving behind the rest of his equipment without which he could not complete the operation as planned.
The Mercedes drove to where the road dropped out of sight, turned sharply, and headed back towards Zhilev.
Zhilev gauged the oncoming car, weighed the rock in his hand and decided on a more unpredictable tactic.
He stepped on to the rear bumper of his Volvo, on to the boot and then up on to the roof. Legs apart, he faced the oncoming Mercedes as it bore down on him. The passenger leaned out of his window with the gun in both hands and aimed with one eye shut while trying to hold it steady. It was plain the man had little experience with a pistol. He fired. Zhilev felt the bullet pass but held his ground, the rock raised behind his head. As the car came into range and before the man could squeeze off another shot, Zhilev hurled it through the windshield and into the driver’s face. The vehicle careened out of control and Zhilev watched with horror as the Mercedes lurched towards his Volvo. He jumped the instant of contact, landed on the boot, and, as the Mercedes bounced away, swerved across the road and smashed into a pile of rocks, Zhilev hit the tarmac, falling heavily on to his hands and knees. He got to his feet, moving towards the Mercedes quicker than his legs could get under him; he fell down and ran on all fours a few paces, before getting to his feet to run forward.
The front passenger door opened on the other side of the car and the man with the gun climbed out groggily, stepping backwards, the revolver dangling heavily in his hand. As Zhilev got up speed, the man started to raise the gun. Zhilev jumped on to the bonnet, more athletically than seemed possible for him, pushed his feet forward and slammed them into the Turk’s chest as the revolver went off wide. Zhilev followed through and landed hard on to the man’s chest with his knees, knocking the wind out of him. Then he held his head, picked up a rock and brought it down with such force on the man’s forehead, he split it. Despite the awful injury the man still struggled, purely a survival reaction as there was no fight left in him. Zhilev raised the rock once more and smashed open what he had already cracked.
Zhilev’s eyes immediately searched inside the car for the other occupants.
The driver was lying across the seats, unconscious, his head gashed open, the rock sitting in his lap like a pet, but the back seat was empty and the far door open.
Movement caught his peripheral vision and he looked towards his own car. Shock flooded his heart. The boot was swinging on its sprung hinge, popped open by the impact with the Mercedes, and the Turk was running down the road.
Zhilev dropped the bloody rock, pushed away from the Mercedes and loped across the road to look in his boot in the vain hope the backpack with the log inside was there, but it was not. He broke into a run.
The Turk glanced over his shoulder to see the big man coming after him and suddenly he was no longer sure this was such a good idea. It quickly became obvious that running along the road was not going to lose the man who might be slower, but the Turk was weighed down with the backpack. To the right the landscape was rocks and harsh vegetation requiring even more effort and probably a broken ankle to cross.To the left the ground dropped steeply to a line of pine trees, which appealed to the Turk. He left the road, dropped over the lip and immediately picked up speed down the slope as gravity aided his forward momentum.
Zhilev left the road at the same time on a converging path, like a large, old cat, determination etched into every thrust of his powerful legs. He was running as if at the head of a charge of fierce warriors, the pedigree in his genes ten thousand years old, driven on by an unshakable force, focused, unswerving and unforgiving.
As the Turk swept into the wood, smashing his way through branches with little care for his eyes, a glance over his shoulder at the beast bursting through the trees just rows away confirmed his suspicion that this was indeed a very bad day.
The heavy backpack dropped from his hands as its priority withered, and as it bounced on the ground the log flew out ahead of him.The Turk found himself following it because they were both taking the natural line down the steep hill. For a second, part of the Turk’s mind wondered why he had stolen a log, and why there was a maniac chasing him for it. Then something gripped the back of his neck brutally from behind and the various factions of his consciousness joined in a single screaming thought. But Zhilev did not pull him back. As the two men continued at top speed down the hill, his fingers wrapped themselves tightly on either side of the Turk’s neck and squeezed, not to strangle but to control. If the Turk thought the next move was to be brought down, he was wrong. A shove pushed him slightly faster to match the speed of his pursuer. Then came a thrust to the side, a subtle change in direction at first, followed by a more aggressive push off course, and, for an instant before his head struck, the Turk saw the tree that was to kill him. There was a series of loud cracks, the sounds of his nose, jaw and forehead breaking, an instant of pain and then it went dark for ever.
Zhilev continued down the hill, releasing the body as it slammed against the tree, his eyes locked on to the log as it bounced ahead of him. It was unlikely the device would explode because of the safety features built into it, but as Zhilev watched it take the pounding he wondered how reliable those features were.
Zhilev was several trees behind the log when it burst out of the bottom of the plantation, rolled across a patch of open ground, hit a wickered fence and came to a stop. Zhilev put the brakes on and slipped on to his backside, skidding the last few feet to end up alongside his atom bomb.
He put a hand on it, fearing it might fly off again as he fell back to gulp the air. He could not remember the last time he had run so fast and so far, probably on his Spetsnaz selection course a thousand years ago. He rolled over on to his side, his face in the grass, gasping heavily, mucus and saliva dribbling from his mouth, then pushed himself up on to his knees. A bolt of pain shot through his neck to punish him further but he used it to mask the hurt of the exhaustion and forced himself to get up.
The sound of a goat bleating focused his mind. Goats were domestic and that meant humans could be close by. He looked around and saw several of the small, rugged animals the other side of the wicker fence munching calmly while looking at him.
A scan further afield revealed an old man outside a simple, run-down hut, and, like his goats, he was slowly munching something as he watched Zhilev.
Zhilev looked back up the hill to see if the Turkish bandit was visible. He could just make out the man upright behind the tree on which he was impaled, but the wood was too dense from the old man’s perspective to see that far.
Zhilev picked the log out of the damaged wicker fence and glanced at the old man who was no doubt its owner. Zhilev pulled on the fence in an effort to put it back into place but when he let go of it, the section collapsed completely. He glanced at the old man again who had not moved. Zhilev chose to ignore him and the fence and headed back up the hill and into the wood.
A few minutes later, he emerged from the plantation carrying the backpack, the log inside, and climbed back on to the road.The cars had not moved and he walked at a brisk pace towards them, focusing on the open boot of his Volvo, praying the contents were untouched.The Turk with the smashed skull was still lying on the roadside beside the Mercedes. As Zhilev closed on his car he could see the top of a large bag and breathed a sigh of relief.
