Free The Pure by Jake Wallis Simons

nauseous. He was right.
    ‘Fuck.’
    ‘That’s another point to me, then,’ crowed Squeal, displaying his own clean plate. ‘You’re only two ahead now.’
    ‘I told you, I’m not well. I’ve been cut, for fuck’s sake. By your friend.’
    ‘No excuses.’ Squeal’s burst of energy subsided and he slumped back on the sofa.
    Uzi’s head drooped forwards, and once again he was standing on the edge of a cliff outside Beirut, watching a fireball consume a car below, the wind stripping him of his thoughts.

 
9
    ‘Fuck, man. What happened to you?’ said Avner, in French, as Uzi opened the door of his apartment.
    ‘I haven’t got the strength,’ Uzi replied in Hebrew. ‘Let’s just speak our own language like normal people, OK?’
    ‘Whatever you say,’ Avner said, in Hebrew this time. ‘So who did you piss off?’
    Uzi shut the door, double-locked it, then, limping slightly, went into the kitchen.
    ‘You’ve got an infestation,’ said Avner, accepting a coffee and nodding to the worktop where a line of ants stretched to the window. ‘What are they, crabs? Pubic crabs?’
    Without a word, Uzi took a cloth and swept the insects to their deaths. With the movement he winced slightly.
    ‘Looks bad,’ said Avner, ‘your shoulder.’
    ‘I got Waxman to patch it up.’
    ‘Waxman the Sayan?’
    ‘Waxman the Sayan.’
    ‘With the ambulance?’
    ‘With the ambulance.’
    ‘You cheeky bastard,’ said Avner, ‘you’d better be careful. The Office will have your balls.’ Avner’s phone rang. He allowed it to ring until it went silent.
    ‘Have you heard of Liberty?’ said Uzi.
    ‘Liberty?’
    ‘Liberty. American woman running a Russian drugs gang. You should know. You were stationed in London for long enough.’
    ‘Ah yes, Liberty. I remember now.’
    ‘I thought you might. What is she, CIA?’
    ‘Used to be. Her name is Eve Klugman. Served as a covert operations officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, then resigned when she had a child. A year later her husband and baby were killed in a traffic accident. She spun out, married a Russian drug dealer based in London. Then he was killed, too, and she took over his gang.’
    ‘I ran into her last night,’ said Uzi.
    ‘She can be pretty brutal. She’s got a reputation.’
    ‘Can you get me her file? From the Office?’
    ‘I can’t do that any more than you can, Adam. You know that.’
    ‘Stop bullshitting me. What about all these horses you keep talking about? You’re in London Station. Get me the file.’
    ‘Horses can only do so much. Why do you want to know, anyway? Did she do this to you?’
    ‘Don’t be stupid. It was some Poles, small-time. Only three of them.’
    ‘You’re losing your touch, Adam.’
    ‘The knife only needs to get through once.’
    ‘It’s never got through before. And you got cut twice.’
    There was a pause. Uzi wondered when Avner was going to mention Operation Regime Change. But he said nothing.
    ‘I need your help,’ Uzi said.
    ‘I knew this was coming.’
    ‘I can’t just sit back and do nothing. It would kill my business.’
    ‘So this was about business?’
    ‘I’ve got to do something to show them I’m not someone they can fuck with. Otherwise they’ll all be at it. I’ll be dead by the end of the year.’
    ‘Why don’t you just give it all up? Come and work for me.’
    ‘It’s got to be proper, hard revenge. A real deterrent. This can’t happen again.’
    ‘I could use a man like you.’
    ‘I don’t want to work for you.’
    ‘You need to get a stable job, Adam. Something to give you some structure. Leave all this low-level stuff behind.’
    ‘I told you, I have a day job. I’m a protection operative.’
    ‘That’s too similar to the Office. Psychologically speaking.’
    ‘What are you, a fucking therapist?’
    ‘Come on.’ Avner turned his attention to his coffee.
    ‘Look, will you help me or not?’ said Uzi after a time.
    ‘You haven’t told me what you’re going to do