Sergei removed his shirt and threw it to the side. Ryker continued to stare at the tattoos that covered his body. Upside down they looked misshapen and jagged. Or maybe that was the way they were pulled across Sergei’s sinewy skin. Sergei wasn’t a big guy, but what there was of him was pure muscle, not an ounce of fat anywhere.
‘You see,’ Giorgi said. ‘The farmer thought if he killed the animals, I couldn’t take them from him. And if he killed himself, it would make me go away. There would be no way for me to get this land from him: it would pass to his children – a boy and a girl – and I would move on to someone else. They were just ten and eight. His wife, she’d died many years before.’
Sergei took a metal knuckle-duster from his trouser pocket.
‘The farmer was wrong,’ Giorgi said. ‘He should have made the simple choice. I killed his son. He died the same way his father did and I buried him out on the farm. I sold his daughter. She killed herself aged fifteen. An overdose. By that point, she was unrecognisable as the sweet young girl I’d first met here.’
Giorgi reached into his pocket. His hand came back out grasping onto a small red book. Ryker’s dazed mind took a few seconds to figure out what it was. A passport.
‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Giorgi said. ‘But this place? I imagine I can still hear the calls and the screams of the animals that night. I can hear the blood spitting and hissing from a hundred necks. I can still smell death in here. It seeps through the blood-stained walls. Can you hear it, Mr Ryker? Can you smell it?’
Giorgi opened the passport and held it up, opened to show the small square picture of Ryker.
‘Like the farmer, I’m going to give you a very simple choice too. And I’d advise you take it. I’m going to be asking you some questions. I want you to answer them, truthfully. That is all. Do you understand?’
Ryker pursed his lips. He knew what was coming. He’d been tortured before. Many years earlier, he’d been trained to withstand interrogation, both physical and mental intimidation. That training had been necessary. As an asset for the secretive JIA, Ryker’s silence had been an imperative.
The training had worked, to a degree: everyone breaks eventually. Ryker had, at the hands of the Russian FSB – a devastatingly deviant snake of a woman by the name Lena Belenov. Following that a series of events had led to Ryker leaving the JIA and assuming his new identity.
The way he saw it now, he didn’t have the same need to hold his silence anymore. His only loyalty was to himself and to Lisa.
Self-preservation.
‘I said, do you understand?’ the old man asked.
‘Yes,’ Ryker said. ‘I understand.’
Giorgi smiled. Upside down, it made his face look manic.
‘Good,’ he said. He nodded to Sergei. ‘Then let us begin.’
CHAPTER 58
Ten minutes later, Ryker’s vision – through his one remaining good eye – was tinged red from the blood dripping down his body onto his swollen face. The beating from Sergei was relentless. Animalistic. With the knuckle-duster, the Vor pulverised Ryker’s gut and chest, back and face.
Ryker was certain ribs were broken, and he was seriously worried about his left eye, which was swollen shut. But he knew what was still to come would likely be much worse than the straight-forward beating Sergei was inflicting.
Sweat droplets rolled down Sergei’s face and covered his body. He was panting from the exertion of the pounding he was delivering. Spatters of Ryker’s blood added ominous colour to the black ink tattoos that cloaked him.
‘Okay. That’s enough,’ Giorgi said, holding up his hand.
Sergei stopped mid-strike, pulled back his fist and relaxed.
‘Get yourself cleaned up,’ Giorgi told him. Sergei nodded and walked over to pick up his shirt. Then he left the room. The two goons remained, flanking Ryker. ‘First question. Who are you?’
Ryker snorted. He’d tried to laugh but hadn’t realised how dazed and detached he’d become. ‘I’m James Ryker.’
‘But there is no James Ryker.’ Giorgi paused. ‘Don’t forget I have some very talented men at my disposal. We know how to find out about people.’
‘Yeah. You use fifteen-year-old kids and then you shoot them.’
‘I can only assume you’re referring to young Miguel. It was his own fault. His mouth was too big. He had to be silenced. And when we realised you were on to him, it was the only choice we had.’
Giorgi’s words made Ryker’s brain whir. He again wondered how the mob had known Ryker was on to Ramos. Had Ryker been followed, or bugged?
No, he couldn’t believe that was the case. Otherwise they certainly wouldn’t have let Ryker travel to Algeciras and attack those men at the warehouse. Most likely Ramos’s home was bugged.
‘But yes, you’re right,’ Giorgi said. ‘We use talent wherever we see it. Even if it’s fifteen-year-old boys. And we’ve been trying to find out who you are. James Ryker? Nothing. You’re not with MI5, or MI6, or the CIA, the FBI, or Interpol. So why are you here?’
This time, Ryker just about managed a mocking laugh. ‘To kill you of course.’
And Ryker meant his words. The mission, according to Winter, was to find the Red Cobra, but Ryker was working for himself now. His job – his life – for the JIA had always been about taking out the bad guys. And these guys were definitely bad.
‘Kill me?’ Giorgi said. ‘But what did I do to you? Do we know each other?’
‘No. But I’ve seen enough of who you are.’
‘But you know nothing, I suspect, of who I am.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You’re dead. I’m nothing, just a man. You can do what you want to me. But she’s still out there.’
‘Ah. The Red Cobra. I think that’s who you mean. Isn’t that very exciting. What an enigma that girl is.’
Ryker held his tongue. What was the story that linked the Red Cobra with the mafia boss and Kim Walker?
‘Do you know what I hate about life?’ Giorgi continued. ‘Sometimes the best intentions get you nowhere. In fact sometimes they get you into serious trouble. This all started because I tried to help a friend. Patrick Walker pissed off the wrong man by fucking that little slut Eva. Andrei Kozlov is loyal to me, he’s one of us. Walker should have kept his cock to himself.’
‘You killed Kim Walker because of the affair?’
‘No. I killed Kim Walker because I thought she was the Red Cobra.’
Ryker said nothing.
‘Kozlov wanted to punish Walker,’ Giorgi said, ‘for sullying his daughter like that. And Walker owed me a lot of money. So who was I to say no to Kozlov? I don’t know why, but hurting Kim was the punishment he asked for. We weren’t going to kill her. But there was a problem, you see. Because like you, James Ryker, Kim Walker didn’t really exist.’
‘No. She didn’t. So you had Miguel Ramos try to find out who she really was.’
‘Of course. I mean, I didn’t even know Kim or her husband personally. It was Kozlov’s territory. But he came to me with the problem. Who was this woman? I helped him. And when we found out–’
‘What did she do to you? The Red Cobra?’