Sonja walked behind Ryker as he moved for the exit. He was braced and ready. He stepped out into the dark night. One, two, three men, standing in the road outside, an arc around the bar entrance.
‘This way.’
A gravelly voice off to Ryker’s side. Erling.
Ryker turned. Erling was a couple of yards away. Standing tall, but not looking like he was about to make a move. The other three men remained motionless. Ryker had expected an ambush the second he’d stepped over the threshold. He’d been ready for it. Kind of wanted it.
So what was this?
Erling turned and walked. Ryker hesitated for a second before he moved in tow behind him.
He glanced to the other men. Caught sight of movement directly behind, from the bar.
Sonja.
WHACK.
Ryker stumbled from the blow to the back of the head. A hard strike. Club? Stone? His vision blurred but he managed to stay on his feet. Yet the hit he’d taken was enough to have the desired effect. Erling faced Ryker, a grin on his face now. Finally, the other men rushed him. A short tussle followed as Ryker’s arms were secured behind him and his legs kicked out from underneath.
They dragged Ryker along, down a side street – an alley? – that was near pitch black, so dark Ryker, through his blurred vision, couldn’t tell if it was a dead end or not.
They tossed him to the ground. He had enough focus to bring his arms out to prevent his face from smacking into the hard surface. But no time for respite. Feet crowded around him. A boot crushed his hand and ground it down into the tarmac. Ryker grimaced in pain.
He craned his neck to look up, and found himself staring into the dark eyes of the Bulldog. Around him, in the blackness, all he could make out of the others was the glimmer of the whites of their eyes – like a pack of wolves circling its prey in the bleak wilderness.
A voice from the dark.
‘Who are you?’
English, but the accent...? Not a local.
Ryker tried to see where the voice came from but the angle was too acute and Bulldog ground his foot down harder as if warning him not to look. To who? Silver Fox?
Ryker said nothing.
‘I asked you a question.’
‘I didn’t like how you asked it.’
WHACK.
Ryker grimaced again as pain shot through his back. Who’d hit him? He had no clue. Erling? Sonja? One of the others? He could hear them breathing. Hear them shuffling around him.
‘Don’t think this situation isn’t real,’ said the voice from the dark. ‘I can make you suffer like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘If you believe that, then you really don’t know me at all.’
WHACK.
Another strike across the back, and Bulldog ground his foot down harder still. Ryker’s hand was wet and sticky and he imagined the skin was already torn.
‘Why are you here?’
A short pause as Ryker thought of a suitable response.
‘Let... me up. I’ll tell you.’
A short pause on the other side of the stilted conversation this time. Then an instruction. Not English. Not Norwegian. Not Russian – Ryker could speak that language fluently – but something close to it. Balachka, possibly. A fluid dialect, commonly a blend of Ukrainian and Russian, spoken by the Cossacks of the North Caucasus.
The Bulldog lifted his foot and a wave of pain shot through Ryker’s arm as he pulled his mangled hand close to his side. He was grabbed under the armpits by unseen figures and hauled upright.
He couldn’t see them. But he could feel them. Could sense them.
He’d held back. He’d wanted to see what was at play. Now was the time to move.
Ryker summoned his inner focus and spun low. Kicked out. Next, elbow out, arced up, he made solid connection with the pointed joint and received a howl of pain in response. He spun again, opposite elbow pounding down like a hammer this time. He shimmied. Reached out and grabbed. Shouted out in pain. He’d grabbed with his injured hand. He fought through it. Twisted the arm around. Carried on twisting until the figure it belonged to crumpled to his knees, groaning as his arm was pushed to bursting point.
‘No,’ came the simple command from behind Ryker. He winced when he felt pressure on his side. An arm – vice-like – wormed around his neck. He barely resisted. The risk wasn’t worth it. Not with the knife pushed right up against his kidney. A nasty blow if the threat was followed through. Even with his clothes and coat on, a long enough, sharp enough blade would slip through the layers and his flesh with ease. A potentially fatal blow.
‘Let him go.’ The same voice. The same accent as the Silver Fox. Bulldog. The local hardmen were one thing, but Ryker was already far more wary of these two. After all, it was clear they were calling the shots.
Ryker released the arm and kicked the man beneath him to the ground. Just enough light seeped in from the road, onto the man’s pain-filled face, to show it wasn’t Erling, but one of his friends. The other lump that Ryker had felled rose back to his feet, nursing his skull where Ryker had hammered with his elbow. Erling and the others remained somewhere in the darkness.
Ryker’s biggest problem, though, was Bulldog, and the knife he held to Ryker’s side. The arm around his neck remained firm but not choking. He imagined Bulldog had plenty more effort to give if he wished.
‘No games now,’ said Silver Fox. ‘Who are you, why are you here?’
Ryker didn’t answer. He only thought about how he could fight back. Except every option he pondered had the prospect of fatality. For him.
Then came a police car siren behind him. He hadn’t heard the approach. Lights flashed, blue and red, the beams illuminating the space around him in strobe. Bulldog whipped Ryker around so they were facing the new arrivals.
Doors opened. Shouting. A man. Woman.
Bulldog released Ryker’s neck. A stampede ensued as Erling and crew sought to escape.
Ryker spun on his heel, looked down the alley. No one there in the darkness. The two Russians – or whatever they were – had vanished.
‘Stop!’
Pettersen.
Ryker turned to face her. The boot of the police car was open. She stood by it, shotgun in her hands. She flicked the barrel from Ryker, to the man to his left. Then to the one to his right. The two he’d fought with, both of whom had been too slow to leg it. Everyone else had already scarpered.
‘What the hell have you done?’ Pettersen questioned, glaring at Ryker as her colleague edged forward.
‘Self-defence,’ Ryker said.
‘Huh,’ was all she said to that, clearly not convinced.
Ryker held up his mangled hand. In the flashes of blue and red he could see the damage for the first time. The skin was dark and glistened with blood and was torn, flesh gaping in places. Bad, but perhaps not as bad as he’d at first feared. It’d heal.
Ryker glanced to the two men beside him in turn. One looked like he needed a lie down. The other, who’d nearly had his arm snapped in two, looked a little too smug for Ryker’s liking.
‘Seven on one,’ Ryker said. ‘At least I think it was.’
‘Seven?’ the policeman said. ‘I don’t see seven.’
‘That’s because you let them get away,’ Ryker said, turning his gaze to him. The officer had his hand on his hip, though nothing but a baton and handcuffs in his belt. The shotgun had come from the car. These officers weren’t otherwise armed.
‘We have to bring you to the station,’ Pettersen said. ‘All of you.’
‘Fine with me,’ Ryker said, not really feeling it. ‘But on one condition.’
‘You don’t give us orders,’ the policeman said.
‘What condition?’ Pettersen asked.
‘The bar. They have two security cameras inside. One on the outside. There’s also one on the outside of that office building over the road. You check all of those recordings. They’ll back up what happened here.’
Pettersen and the policeman glanced to one another. So, too, did the two chumps either side of Ryker.
‘You two. Go home,’ Pettersen said, looking to the two men. ‘I know where to find you.’
They didn’t question her instruction. Ryker wanted to but decided against it. Pettersen pulled the gun down and placed it back into the boot.
‘Now, get in the car,’ she said to Ryker.
He did as he was told.