I stepped out onto the gravel, my arms out to the sides like a cross and my palms open. ‘Get your men to lower their weapons,’ I said. ‘We can sort this without any more violence or bloodshed.’ I thought I’d try the diplomatic approach first. It rarely works, but it buys me more time. Ketranovich laughed. ‘You have some balls, Adrian Hell, I give you that,’ he said. He motioned for his troops to lower their guns, which they all did. Apart from Natalia. She kept hers trained on me the whole time. Our paths had crossed before, and she knew better, it would seem. And she was right. If it came to it, I could have both pistols drawn and the first bullets fired in less than two seconds. You can be damn sure I’d take out Ketranovich and Salikov before I was cut in half my machine gun fire. I’d count that as a victory as well. If you cut off the head, most organizations like this will simply crumble. But let’s try and remain optimistic and hope it doesn’t come to that, yeah?
