AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT THE NEW THRILLER: A Prophet’s Tears

A few feet behind him, a bloke with pinched face and grey razored hair, flanked by two enormous bodyguards. Illustration WordPress

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by Craig Sterling

Andy Harris woke to the tick of a heart-rate monitor. Must have been some night out.

A hospital bed. A drip in his arm, bandages across his head and chest. On the wall in front of him, an Orthodox cross and a colour photo of the Russian President, fading in the heat.

He was still in Gabon. Still in the sick bay of the Russian Embassy. So no night out after all.

He’d been dreaming of men with wolves’ faces, monkey’s hands. Men trying to kill him. Must be the morphine. He rested his head on the pillow, listening to the hum of the room fan in the rising early heat.

That freighter. Those waves. His friends: corpses, eyeballs rotting in water.

Harris heard noise in the corridor. If anyone came in, he wanted to look like he was half dead. The door opened. A pretty nurse with white-blonde hair and a green hospital uniform bustled in. She reminded him of Xenia. Xenia: making love on the marble floor of a hotel bathroom in Dubai, the sweat, the scent of lust.

It seemed a universe away. But it was only two weeks gone.

“You awake?”

Andy felt the bandage tight round his skull. He opened his eyes, tried to sit up.

“You lost much blood. Seventy-three stitches. In two days, we begin rehab.”

Andy reached out and pulled at the nurse’s hand like a last wish of the dying. She hesitated. Harris took in her nail varnish and rings, smelled her perfume.

“I suppose a bourbon’s out of the question?”

Arching his brow, he felt the stitches on his scalp. The nurse didn’t reply, busying herself with her tray of medicines. No bourbon, then. She turned to face him, a syringe of golden-brown liquid in her hand.

“Piotr was right – you are naughty devil. Now rest.”

Andy tried to remember who Piotr was, offering a guilty-schoolboy smile. The nurse’s eyes softened.

“Maybe a drink tomorrow, OK? Now back to sleep.”

He shut his eyes as the nurse injected a brown liquid into his forearm. She drew the curtains and turned out the light, then closed the door. A breeze whispered, blowing in the musty smell of rain. Seconds later Harris gave in to morphine’s welcoming embrace.

As he slept, monsters flashed across his mind, teeth and fangs and claws, in forms unknown to man. And memories of Xenia and his dead comrades. He had to get out of here. Bring hell to whoever killed them.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

A fey New England accent sang from the loudspeaker on Gregory MacFarlane’s phone.

“Greg? Is that you?”

“What up, Todd?”

As usual, the CIA routed calls through a dummy apartment in a non-aligned state. This time, Colombia. Next time, Libya – wherever. If the dial code was unusual, Greg knew who it was. Todd, a lapsed Mormon intelligence analyst he’d never met, calling from Virginia to drone on about his latest successes with the decryption of signals from Hizbut-ut-Tahir’s sleeper cell in Hackney.

“Right…right”, Macfarlane muttered every few seconds as Todd’s voice pitched and yawed over the ether, a soliloquy of self-promotion. He’d stopped the cell. He’d spotted the signals they were bringing in weapons. And so on.  

As Todd raved about himself, Greg clocked the geez walking into the bar of the Ritz Continental Dubai. East European, 6’6’’, 240 pounds and a killer’s face. Trouble. But Greg was fast. And he’d killed more men than he cared to remember.

“So Todd: when you coming round my manor? I’m in Dubai.”

Greg’s long body arched back against the booth. The Eastern European ordered beer and a chaser, heavy frame encased in an expensive grey silk suit. Greg narrowed his eyes, spoke low.

“Listen Todd – I gots to go, mate. Say less.”

Todd had one more thing – an English bloke connected to the missiles in Africa. How they were going to take this guy out because he was “an embarrassment to the coalition.” Harris, the guy’s name was. Andy Harris.

Macfarlane knew exactly what Harris did on that freighter near Sao Tome. But he wasn’t going to tell the CIA.

He flipped his phone shut and looked over to Mr Crew-Cut at the bar. Head like an upside-down beetroot. He still couldn’t see his face.

Greg stood up nice and slow, stretched and yawned. He strolled towards the bar, phone out to pay for his drinks. The Eastern European spoke without looking up.

“He not here.”

“What?”

“You are looking Kalle Farien, yes?”

The corporate types in the bar, all dressed in “business casual” Polos, Chinos and Ts, shivered over their Negronis and Vespers in the gusting air-con.

The burly dude repeated: “You look Kalle Farien. But he is gone, who knows where. And thanks God – he bad for business.”

“Mate – who are you?”

“He works for me.”

A voice behind them. Macfarlane rolled round slow, taking in the polished chrome, wood panelling, European golf pictures. A few feet behind him, a bloke with pinched face and grey razored hair, flanked by two enormous bodyguards.

Macfarlane didn’t need his pusher’s nose: this guy was the kingpin. Russian Federal Security Bureau. The skinny guy walked over, bodyguards looking right and left as they kept tight on their boss.

“I am Pavel Bulgakov. I know why you here.”

“I’m here on business, like everyone else.”

“Me too.” – Bulgakov indicated the three heavies – “What a shame we can’t find business partner, yes?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Macfarlane. You were picked for skills in fighting, survival, bartering – and lying. I know MI6 today don’t do public schools and Cambridge: but you are impressive. Let’s have a drink.”

Greg felt a hand on his back. On his left, Mr. Beetroot-head looked like he wanted to flatten Greg’s balls into blinis. Beetroot opened his jacket, showing off the butt of a Ruger S.

Bulgakov gestured to an empty table in the corner. Two brown leather sofas, deep enough to drown in. Somewhere no-one would notice if they took him outside and slotted him. The Russian’s eyes were glaciers of hate.

“There’s no drugs here like you sold as teenager. But drink might help you remember why you here, MacFarlane. Name your pleasure?”

Greg shoved his sunglasses back on his head and threw himself on the sofa. Bulgakov’s men sat down on either side, Bulgakov pulling up an armchair. A waiter approached in white shirt and black bow tie.

“Double vodka on the rocks”, said Greg, not looking up.

Bulgakov snapped his fingers.

“Just bring bottle, ice, five glasses” – the waiter bowed, then walked away.

Greg settled back in the chair. Admit nothing. Look straight ahead. Maybe all those police interviews back in the day would come in handy after all.

Harris rode a horse beneath a giant volcano. Rows of men walking out from a cave as if he wasn’t there. They all looked the same – rags, bandages, tattoos and body armour against their skin. The hollow eyes and wild stares of empty minds.

Lava bubbled from the volcano’s lip: a muscled abomination wailed, beating a drum, screaming orders to the incarnated ranks marching from the crater. As they strode past Harris, their faces twisted between man and dog, man and horse, man and monkey while lava raged and spat around them.

Approaching the volcano’s summit, Harris saw that abomination had his face: tired, scarred, battered, bloodied. Ordering these de-natured creations to commit unimaginable evils.

Then he was back again on that freighter off Africa: Xenia and Tertius Duys tooled up with guns, grenades, knives. Containers bolted to the deck, missiles loaded with VX gas, primed for launch. Ready to destroy London. Harris ran towards the containers as bullets inched across the deck like slow-motion mosquitos, leaving trails as they ripped into Xenia’s chest.

He held up a hand to stop them, screaming …

***

Harris woke, kicking away thin sheets crumpled and stained with sweat. The rattle of a trolley outside his room. Must be the nurse.

He could move one arm, the other a little. Legs rubbery from lack of use. Fit enough to escape. But how? Those faces in his dreams – was he paying for his failure to stop Xenia’s death?

The trolley rattled closer. Harris lay face down, grimacing as his wounds chafed against the bed. The door opened and he feigned sleep, hoping she’d lay a hand on him.

Then someone jumped on his back. Harris felt for his knife, turning his face to his attacker.

“Remember me, mister?”

That face: last seen two weeks ago. The guy he’d attempted to murder in a Dubai hotel: totalled him with a 15Kg weight and left for dead. Scarred cheeks, Chinese tat on his neck. Mad, staring eyes. The same roid-rage bastard he’d left in a mess.

“It’s return of the Mack, makiwa – Ghana style.” – another voice.

Little Guy. The one whose head Harris rammed against a steam vent in the same fight.

Harris craned his neck. There he was – short and wiry, the same tribal scars and Chinese neck tattoo. Dirty jeans, thick gold chain.

“Thanks for dropping by”, said Harris, his voice strangled by Big Guy’s weight on his back. “You want a drink?”

Big Guy sneered.

“No-one will hear you scream. Like Alien! Bountyman here will deliver a bush court-martial…”

Little Guy unbuckled his belt, dropped his jeans.

“And when he’s done, I am next, pretty!”

Harris pulled out his knife and drove it into Big Guy’s neck, blood erupting as the thug fell backwards clutching his throat. Little Guy grabbed the trolley and launched it, medicines and glass smashing across the sun-and-bleach floor.

Harris rolled off the bed and hit the corridor, slamming the door shut behind him. He heard the nurse screaming for help in her office. He got the office door open and went inside, Little Guy chasing.

Little Guy tried to jam the door open, but Harris shut it on his forearm. Harris pushed, the veins on Little Guy’s forearm swelling. He scratched at air in his efforts to break through, kicking and bashing as the nurse watched, face stuck in horror.

“Injection!” Harris shouted. “Morphine! Where’s the morphine?”

Screams and threats came from Little Guy on the other side. He was kicking the door, weakened by his trapped arm but still hand-grenade level noise echoing down the corridor. Keep going and the whole embassy turns up.

The door-frame rattled, fit to blow. Arms shaking, the nurse pulled the cover on a 100ml morphine jab. Harris grabbed the hypodermic. Little Guy slammed with his legs and free arm, trying to get his other arm free. Harris leaned in harder. The nurse stood up and leaned on the door too.

Harris rammed the needle into Little Guy’s forearm. Within seconds, Little Guy had honey and fire exploding in his veins. Then he slumped in dishrag mode against the nurses’ door.  More voices outside – Russian guards. Harris shoved Little Guy’s flaccid arm out the door, shut it and locked it. He turned to the frozen-faced nurse, chest aching with the effort.

“Who you really are?”

Harris ignored her. “What floor is this?”

“First. But guards kill you.”

Harris heard voices outside: Natalya! Natalya! The door rocked in its frame as the guards started kicking it in. Blood seeped down Harris’s chest, welled from the gouge in his arm. He checked his pockets. Got the wallet, no passport. No gun – bollocks.

At least he’d kept the knife. He scooped up a handful of morphine pods from the trolley, unlocked the window, threw it open and shimmied onto the ledge. Hanging off the frame, Harris eased himself to within three feet of the grass, then let go.

He dropped and started running. The guards broke into the office as Harris hit the Embassy’s seven-foot perimeter wall and screamed in agony. Then he pulled himself up, muscles on fire, stitches straining.

He scrabbled for a hold on the top, ignoring the thin reel of razor-wire gouging his arms. Now pull … the whine of a bullet buzzed the tree he’d used to pull himself up. He fell over the wall into the street. Now run. Run like hell …

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