A Quiet Man (Victor Book 9)

by Tom Wood

  It was a lost cause.

  I never pick a fight I can’t win, he had once said to explain the fact he was still breathing despite endless enemies.

  He couldn’t win this fight.

  But he could still buy Joshua more time.

  Victor surrendered.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  He didn’t rush, however. He waited. He dragged it out as long as possible. He sat in the bathtub with a wet towel draped over his head and cold water from the shower raining down over him. His eyes still stung and he still coughed, but the CS gas couldn’t reach its full effect.

  The bounty hunters stormed the house after about two minutes, once it was clear the gas alone wouldn’t clear out the cabin.

  Five entered.

  They wore state-of-the-art masks with charcoal filters that sucked the CS out of the air. They wore body armour – Kevlar vests backed up with ceramic plates over the heart. They had kneepads of toughened polymer, tactical gloves, quality footwear. They wore earpieces and throat mics. They had sidearms holstered at their thighs, ammunition pouches with spare magazines for their pistols and primary weapons. The latter were a range of advanced firearms, suitable for close quarters: Heckler & Koch UMPs, Fabrique Nationale P90s and SCAR carbines, and Mossberg SPXs.

  The bounty hunters cleared the ground floor like the pros they were before they came upstairs.

  Victor heard their boots on the creaking steps, then on the landing.

  He had left the bathroom door open so they would hear the shower and see someone beneath it.

  He had his hands up. He had left the Benelli in the doorway so they knew he was unarmed, so they wouldn’t come in shooting or throwing grenades.

  He couldn’t see them when they entered the room, but he heard them, he felt their presence.

  A shadow fell across the towel. Then the shower ceased spraying down water.

  ‘What have we here?’ a voice asked.

  Not Garrett.

  The towel was pulled from Victor’s head and he only caught a glimpse of the man before the CS gas burned his eyes. He instinctively squeezed his eyelids shut.

  ‘Where’s the boy?’ the man said.

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed hold of Victor and dragged him out of the bathtub.

  Victor fought every instinct he had that compelled him to go for joints, pressure points, to grapple and disarm, to choke and strike and kill.

  He let the bounty hunter pull him from the tub and shove him to the floor.

  He expected a kick and was tensed before the toe of a boot struck his abdomen. He grimaced and grunted.

  ‘The boy?’ the man demanded.

  Victor acted passive. He didn’t resist as the man took a handful of his hair to drag him across the floor. Victor opened his eyes to take a brief look through the burning and the tears to see three other bounty hunters on the landing.

  ‘What is it?’ a voice called from downstairs.

  This time Victor recognised Garrett’s voice.

  ‘White male,’ the bounty hunter called back. ‘Thirties. Possible match for Naël Lebel. Rest of the upstairs is clear.’

  ‘Bring him to me,’ Garrett ordered.

  Strong hands hoisted Victor to his feet and marched him down the stairs. He expected to be shoved but they didn’t want to hurt him any more than necessary. The Frenchman wasn’t the prize and couldn’t tell them where to find Joshua with a broken neck.

  Victor stumbled on the descent, unable to open his eyes and see where he was planting his feet. Only the hands gripping his arm and shoulder kept him from falling.

  On the ground floor, he was pushed through the front door and out of the cabin.

  His eyes were still pinched shut by the CS gas.

  ‘You have got to be kidding,’ Garrett said.

  ‘He was in the shower,’ the bounty hunter who found him in the bathroom said. ‘Had a towel over his head.’

  ‘Of course he did.’

  Another bounty hunter said, ‘Cabin is empty. No sign of the kid or the mother.’

  ‘And no boyfriend either,’ Garrett said, tugging down the soaked sleeve covering Victor’s nose and mouth.

  ‘Then who’s this guy?’

  ‘Claims to be Wilson Murdoch, salesman from Nevada. Here on a fishing trip yet can’t seem to keep his nose out of business he has no business sticking his nose in.’

  Garrett stood close enough that Victor could smell the coffee on his breath.

  ‘Here,’ Garrett said, pushing a water canteen into Victor’s hands.

  Still blind, he twisted off the cap and poured water into his eyes to wash away the traces of chemicals, trying to open them as much as the pain let him.

  ‘Where are they, Fisherman?’

  It took almost the full canteen before Victor could open his eyes fully. They still burned but he could see again.

  He glanced around.

  Including Garrett, six bounty hunters surrounded him. He imagined the others were either inside the cabin, searching for hidden rooms or compartments, or scouring the perimeter.

  Garrett said, ‘I won’t ask you again.’

  Victor remained silent.

  Garrett didn’t react. At least at first. He didn’t speak. He didn’t blink. He maintained eye contact with Victor for many long seconds.

  Then Garrett nodded, accepting the silence as a definitive answer.

  He took a step back, turned, stepped away.

  Then he pivoted back around as he drew his sidearm in a swift, smooth motion—

  And shot Victor.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  He dropped to the dirt, clutching his left thigh, experiencing no pain but feeling the warmth of blood pumping out of the wound and welling between his fingers. That blood was bright red, full of oxygen, and he pressed hard over the hole to stop it spraying out in geysers.

  ‘Femoral artery,’ Garrett said.

  Victor didn’t need to be told. He knew the human vascular system as well as a haematologist.

  ‘You’re fucked,’ Garrett said.

  Victor didn’t need to be told.

  Even with the pressure he was applying, the flow of blood was only slowed, not stopped. All they had to do was pull his hands away and he would be dead within three minutes.

  Adrenalin numbed the pain but caused his heart rate to soar. The frequency and pressure of the geyser he was holding back intensified. More blood bubbled out from between his fingers.

  ‘I won’t ask you again,’ Garrett repeated.

  When there was no reply, Garrett gestured to his men.

  One bounty hunter grabbed Victor’s right arm.

  The other took hold of Victor’s left arm.

  He tried to resist but it was futile. He couldn’t match the strength of two strong men. They both pulled simultaneously, wrenching his hands away from the wound.

  Arterial blood spurted out of Victor’s thigh.

  It drenched his jeans and arced through the air at a ferocious rate.

  Victor heard it pattering down on the bodywork of the Escalades, several metres away.

  Garrett raised his left wrist to make a show of looking at his watch.

  ‘Tick tock,’ he said.

  For the second time today, Victor knew he was dying. Each geyser of blood arcing from his thigh took him a little closer to death. He weighed about eighty-five kilograms, so there would be about 5.7 litres of blood inside his body. Each pulse sent into the air enough blood to fill a double shot glass.

  Garrett waited. He was patient. He was in no hurry.

  He didn’t need to tell Victor he had no choice.

  He didn’t need to tell Victor if he wanted to live he had to give Garrett what he wanted to know.

  He didn’t need to tell Victor how long he had left alive. Victor knew his life expectancy to the very second.

  He watched himself weakening. He watched himself dying. Every pulse of blood meant lower blood pressure, meant fewer red blood cells to transport oxygen, meant le
ss energy, less speed, less strength.

  Less capacity to save Joshua.

  ‘I’ll talk,’ Victor said.

  ‘I know you will,’ Garrett replied, nonchalant. Then he smiled. Triumphant. ‘But do you remember last night when you told me you never would?’

  Victor remained silent.

  Garrett gestured and the two bounty hunters gripping Victor’s arms released him. He pressed his palms back over the bullet hole to stem the flow of blood. There was pain now; when he applied pressure to the wound he grimaced. The adrenalin couldn’t hold it back any longer.

  The burning in his eyes ceased to bother him.

  ‘We have a case of medical supplies,’ Garrett said. ‘We have tourniquets and bandages and sutures and disinfectant. We have an extractor. We have plasma. We have bags of every blood type under the sun. We even have Quick Clot. We’re battlefield ready here. We’re always prepared. You can be right as rain in no time.’

  Victor controlled his breathing to stave off the shock his body wanted to go into.

  Garrett lowered himself to a squat so he could look Victor in the eye easier.

  ‘I confess I don’t understand why you’re doing this,’ Garrett said. ‘And I don’t really care beyond a passing curiosity. That curiosity can wait. But what absolutely, fundamentally cannot wait is the completion of my objective. I gave you an out before and you didn’t take it. I was fair. I was decent. Now, look at you. You’re alone. You’re bleeding to death. You’re nothing. Whatever you thought you could do, you were wrong. Whatever your goal, you failed. Don’t let pride kill you. Pride is just an open wound. All you have to do is let it heal.’

  ‘They’re heading south to the border,’ Victor said. ‘They’re going to keep going south all the way to Mexico. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Michelle’s car is still parked outside her house,’ Garrett said back. ‘The Frenchie’s Rover is right there.’

  ‘I gave them my truck. So you wouldn’t be able to follow.’

  ‘What a charitable gesture. When did they leave?’

  ‘An hour ago.’

  ‘An hour ago,’ Garrett echoed. ‘Then why are you still here?’

  ‘To slow you down.’

  ‘You’ve slowed us down all of a few minutes, Wilson. Great job. Really excellent work.’

  Victor remained silent.

  Garrett continued: ‘You shouldn’t have bothered when they had an hour head start.’ He stared at Victor, thoughtful. He stood. He rubbed his stubble. ‘Why did you bother?’

  Victor didn’t answer. He was thinking too. He realised his mistake. He was thinking hard in an attempt to find a way out of it before Garrett worked it out himself.

  ‘Had you not been here to tell me,’ he said, ‘how else could I have found out what vehicle they were in?’

  The other bounty hunters were growing restless, glancing at one another.

  ‘You screwed up,’ Garrett said. ‘You screwed up big time.’ He paused. ‘Which doesn’t seem like you. Does it?’ He paused again. ‘Does it?’

  He approached Victor, used the heel of his boot to knock him on to his side.

  ‘Where are your preparations?’ Garrett snarled. ‘You had an hour to get ready for us, yet you didn’t even nail a single door shut?’

  His voice was growing louder with every word.

  He stamped his heel down hard on Victor’s hands, compressing the wound beneath, increasing the pain.

  ‘What have you been doing all of this time?’

  Blood bubbled out between Victor’s fingers.

  ‘They’re not driving to Mexico, are they?’ Garrett said, pushing down harder and harder. ‘They were right here, weren’t they?’

  Victor roared from the agony.

  ‘Chief,’ a bounty hunter called, rounding the side of the cabin, coming from the back.

  Garrett didn’t ease the pressure. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Tracks,’ the bounty hunter answered. ‘Leading into the trees, going north.’

  ‘How fresh?’

  ‘Fresh,’ the bounty hunter said.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  Garrett took his foot from Victor’s hands, but only to give orders to his men, communicating a lot with only a few words and gestures. The bounty hunters were already split into three teams, one for each Escalade and these three teams were further divided into six two-man units. Garrett sent three of these fire teams to search the woods to the north.

  ‘Track them down,’ he told them.

  Victor could do nothing but watch the six heavily armed men nod and hurry away. They rounded the cabin and were gone. Into the trees. Hunting.

  Another of the bounty hunters took a plastic-covered map of the area from a pocket in his harness. He folded it out and showed it to Garrett.

  ‘There’s nothing that way for a hundred klicks,’ the bounty hunter told him, pointing. ‘Just the hill and a whole lot of forest. No habitation. No roads.’

  Garrett examined the map. ‘Where does that creek end up?’

  ‘They could follow it to the lake.’

  ‘But why go north first if they need to go east, ultimately?’

  The bounty hunter couldn’t answer.

  Garrett glanced at Victor. ‘Where’s your truck?’

  Victor remained silent.

  The bounty hunter said, ‘Creek’s shallow enough if the truck can handle it.’

  ‘It can,’ Garrett said. ‘Isn’t that so, Fish?’

  They studied the map, following the route of the creek, looking for—

  ‘There,’ Garrett said. ‘That trail.’

  The bounty hunter said, ‘Creek, trail, road, highway.’

  Garrett clicked his tongue. ‘That’s what you did, didn’t you, Wilson? You drove all the way up that creek and came at the cabin through the trees. And that’s where they’re heading, isn’t it? Your truck is parked right there waiting for them on the other side of that hill.’

  The bounty hunter folded away the map while Garrett used his radio to relay the information to the three two-man units who had already left in pursuit. Then, along with three of his men, he headed to the Escalade that was still driveable, telling the two remaining guys: ‘Plug that wound. I want him conscious in case there’s anything else he can tell us. We’re getting that kid.’

  The two bounty hunters nodded.

  Garrett opened the driver’s door and called back to Victor, ‘Don’t go dying on me, Fish.’

  Victor said, ‘I’m not dead yet.’

  Garrett climbed inside the vehicle, his closest men following. The doors slammed shut and mud sprayed as the tyres spun, and the Escalade turned and headed down the track.

  In seconds, it was gone.

  Even if Joshua, Michelle and Naël made it to his truck before the six men on foot caught up with them, Garrett would head them off. Either on the creek or on the track that led from it to the highway.

  They were trapped.

  One of the two bounty hunters left with Victor was the guy he had shot in the flank. He still wore the body armour and had a palm over the area embedded with pellets. He carried a camo-painted carbine, a SCAR, in his other hand.

  ‘We should let him bleed to death,’ he told the other bounty hunter.

  ‘You heard G.’

  He grimaced as he rubbed at his side. ‘Maybe we can’t stop the bleeding. It happens.’ He stood over Victor. ‘Sometimes you can’t plug the leak. Sometimes no matter what you do, they don’t make it.’

  The other bounty hunter was resolute. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Lex.’

  Victor, slowly bleeding to death, just listened.

  The bounty hunter named Lex went wide-eyed with faux outrage. ‘When have I ever done anything stupid?’

  He was lean and strong, wearing a dark brown corduroy shirt over his body armour. Khaki combat trousers covered his legs. His walking boots were worn and well used. He wore a khaki cap with anti-flash goggles perched on the visor. Each arm was attached to the other with a neck co
rd to ensure they wouldn’t be lost.

  ‘Trick question,’ the other bounty hunter said. ‘So no need to start now. Go get the med kit.’

  ‘Why don’t you go get it?’

  ‘Are you serious? That’s funny. I leave you alone for two minutes and I’ll come back to find this guy has somehow bled out in the interval.’

  Lex grunted, stood for a moment in protest, then approached the disabled Escalade, opening up the back to take out a medical kit the size of a cool box.

  While they waited, the other bounty hunter said to Victor, ‘What’s your story, friend?’

  Victor looked up at him.

  ‘I know why I’m here,’ he continued. ‘But the child’s not yours, is he? Then why did you get yourself involved in all this?’

  ‘I had nothing better to do.’

  The bounty hunter shook his head in response. Not in disagreement or disbelief but in pity.

  Lex returned with the box of medical supplies. He dropped it down on the ground next to Victor.

  ‘You fix him up,’ Lex said. ‘I’ll watch your back in case he tries anything.’

  The other bounty hunter sighed and lowered himself to one knee. ‘His femoral artery is severed. What’s he going to try?’

  Lex didn’t answer.

  Victor watched as the guy on one knee opened up the box and removed a sachet of Quick Clot and a compression tourniquet.

  ‘Keep your hands down on the wound until this is in place,’ he said, readying the tourniquet.

  Victor nodded, grimacing. ‘I’m feeling lightheaded.’

  ‘I’ll be quick,’ the bounty hunter said.

  It was going to be difficult to apply. The bounty hunter had to place one knee between Victor’s legs and the other to the outside of the wounded thigh. He had to lean right over Victor, whose grimacing intensified, and thread his arms in and around Victor’s own to get the band under the wounded thigh.

  Victor ceased grimacing.

  He glanced over the bounty hunter’s shoulder to where Lex was waiting nearby. He was scratching at the back of his head, bored. Not watching.

  Victor pulled both palms away from the wound, and a pressurised geyser of arterial blood jetted from the bullet hole and struck the bounty hunter in the face.