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. The Mercedes driver was still lying on the front seat, unconscious. It was fair to assume no other car had been by, or, if one had, it had kept going.
Zhilev inspected the damage to his car. The back wheel was buckled and unusable. Changing the wheel would not be a cure. The Mercedes was also inoperable, not that he would have used it anyway.
There was no choice but to walk, a decision he accepted without a second thought.
He took his walking boots from the car, sat on the bumper and pulled them on, stowing his shoes in the backpack.
He pulled his pack on to his back, hoisted the large, heavy bag out of the boot, looped an arm through the carrying straps and hung it from his shoulder. It felt comfortable enough to walk with and he lowered it back down on to the road along with the backpack. He looked at the mess of cars and bodies. If he was going to ensure his security he would have to clean up before leaving.
He went to the driver’s door of the Volvo, took the brake off, leaned his shoulder into the doorframe and, with a powerful shove, moved the old car forward. As it got going, he turned the wheel and steered it across the road and towards the lip of the hill. He increased his speed to get it up the slight rise on the edge of the road and then its nose suddenly dipped and carried on under its own momentum. Zhilev stepped away and watched his car trundle down the steep slope, picking up speed, then crunch heavily into the pine trees, coming to an abrupt stop a few metres into the wood. It could not be seen by anyone driving by in a car. Someone in a lorry or coach might see it perhaps, or a passer-by. There was nothing he could do about it now anyway and it would have to do.
He walked over to the Turk with the broken skull and knelt by him.The man looked dead. Zhilev prodded him in the chest and to his astonishment, he murmured. Zhilev never ceased to be impressed with the resilience of the human body.The man was probably a vegetable since there were tiny bits of his brain leaking from the crack in his skull, yet it was possible he might live, a chance he could not take. He was not following his own operational procedures for leaving witnesses behind as much as those of the Spetsnaz, and, since he was imposing those operating standards on himself, he could not divert from them. It had been a long time since he had killed a man, and never this cold blooded.
Zhilev reached for the man’s jacket collar with both hands and placed his fingers inside, the knuckles against the man’s neck directly below the ears, as if he was going to punch him from both sides simultaneously. With his thumbs outside the collar, he gripped the shirt strongly and twisted his wrists inwards forcing the knuckles of both index fingers deep into the neck using the collar as leverage. The move clamped shut the carotid arteries that fed blood from the heart to the brain thus depriving it of oxygen, which would lead to a speedy death. As soon as he applied pressure, the man began to choke and wriggle. Zhilev increased it further,