The Hunter

by WOOD TOM

  He promised himself it would be the first and last one today. He’d been trying to keep up a one-a-day rate for the last week and was determined to stick with it this time, maybe even cut down further in a couple of weeks. Or maybe not. Either way, he wasn’t going to ruin the postbattle elation worrying about his little addiction. Victor discarded the smoked cigarette, momentarily feeling bad for littering but eased his guilt by conscientiously disposing of the toiletries, but in several different trash cans.

  The hotel lobby was simple but tasteful, thankfully quiet. He caught the eye of a happy-looking receptionist behind the desk who was scratching his bleached goatee and walked over.

  ‘Puis-je vous aider, monsieur?’ the guy asked.

  ‘Oui, avez-vous un téléphone public?’

  The receptionist pointed to the far end of the lobby, toward the sign for the bathrooms. ‘Là-bas.’

  Victor thanked him and crossed the lobby. Around a corner there were two outdated payphones. Victor checked the inside line number for room service and called it. A cheery female voice answered.

  ‘Hi,’ he said back. ‘I have some laundry to deliver, but I can’t read the room number.’ He gave the reference code on the receipt.

  There was a strained sigh. ‘I wish they’d sort that out.’ Victor heard fingers punching keys with rapid efficiency. ‘Mr Svyatoslav.’ It took a couple of attempts to pronounce. ‘He’s in room 210.’

  It was a pleasant room with a comfortable-looking bed, spacious en suite bathroom, and elegant decor. Victor switched on the TV and used the remote to flick to a news channel. So far nothing about the shootings. He doubted it would be long before a story about the killings aired. He turned the set off and looked around the room. The assassin hadn’t been in any hurry to leave. Clothes hung on the outside of the wardrobe, toiletries still lined the sink in the bathroom. Maybe he had planned to do a little sightseeing after he’d shot Victor. A foreigner in Paris, why not take in some of the culture? Now the only sightseeing he’d be doing would be in hell.

  Victor looked forward to the postcard.

  He expected the other assassins would have rooms at different hotels throughout the city. Less conspicuous that way, especially for a multinational group whose members, Victor believed, didn’t know one another before they had been assembled to kill him. Without any clues to where they had been staying, he would have to make the most of his current location.

  There was nothing on the tables by the bed or in the drawers next to it. He ran his fingers between the mattress and the frame, finding and removing a brown leather wallet that was empty except for a few euros. No passport or plane ticket. He supposed that would have been too easy.

  Victor searched the room thoroughly, first checking the toilet tank to see if the assassin used the same security methods as himself, but nothing was hidden there. A shame. It would have been nice to share a little kinship with the man he’d killed.

  Every other feasible hiding location proved to be empty. The hotel safe then. That made sense. No chance of the maid or anyone else walking away with something valuable or incriminating.

  The assassin had made a telling error in having personal items with him on a job. It was inexcusable, if understandable. After all he did not plan on being killed. And dead it hardly mattered anyway if someone found out who he was. That reaffirmed what Victor already knew about the team. They were independent contractors, not affiliated with any organization. If they had been, the assassin would have been more careful. So who assembled them? Someone with resources, someone with means. Hiring assassins wasn’t as simple as flipping open the phone book and looking under A.

  Victor made enemies just doing his job, but only someone who knew he was going to be in Paris could have had killers stationed in the city. As far as he knew only two people fell into that category. His client and his broker.

  The person who had supplied him with the job he knew only as the broker. This was the individual who acted as the middleman between Victor and the person who actually wanted the job done. The client. Victor didn’t know the identity of either. Victor likewise didn’t know why the client wanted the target dead, except it had something to do with the item now in his jacket pocket.

  What association the broker had with the client Victor didn’t know. Sometimes brokers were individuals, free agents; other times they worked for a country’s intelligence services, private security firms, organized crime, or other groups. Or they might be associated with the client through other business practices, such as a lawyer or consul, or the client may have been passed to the broker through other intermediaries.

  There was always the risk a broker was in fact some member of a police or intelligence force who had somehow found out about Victor and was hiring him so they could apprehend him. One of the many dangers of the freelance trade. The broker who had passed this job to Victor had been a first-timer, at least in his dealings with Victor. He knew nothing about the broker except that the efficiency and professionalism demonstrated suggested they had dealt with hired killers before.

  Victor took out the flash drive and examined it closely. Just a memory stick – not very exciting, but he guessed the information it contained was to someone. He was supposed to stash the drive at a secure site of his choosing and contact the broker with the location so it could be picked up.

  The broker had petitioned for a personal handover of the drive, but Victor never met anyone directly connected to his work unless he also planned to kill them. Not only did he want to avoid having anyone see his face, but a prearranged handover would always present a perfect opportunity to ambush him. Now it appeared an ambush was exactly what would have occurred had Victor gone along with the broker’s request. Since he’d refused to comply, they’d been forced to try to kill him immediately after he’d killed Ozols, while they still knew his location. If they had waited until he’d stashed the drive and contacted the broker, they might have lost him for good.

  If the motive for wanting him dead was to ensure that any subsequent investigation or reprisals could not be traced back to them, then it was understandable but stupid. Aside from communiqués over the Internet there was no connection between Victor and the broker and absolutely no connection between Victor and the client. This method protected all parties. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe they just didn’t want to pay him the second half of his fee. Still, hiring a whole team of assassins couldn’t have been cheap, even for ones he doubted charged anywhere near as much as he did.

  In the lobby he gave Svyatoslav’s details to the desk clerk and asked to check out before adding, ‘You have some of my things in the safe.’

  If the clerk decided to check the photograph in the passport against the man standing in front of the desk there could be no mistaking the two. Victor reached into his coat to flick off the .45’s safety but decided against it. The clerk was young, skinny. He wouldn’t put up much of a struggle.

  The clerk returned a few seconds later and handed Victor a passport, plane ticket, and credit-card wallet. There was no change in the clerk’s cheery expression. Victor was satisfied he hadn’t bothered to make any checks. Victor had a look at the items, as might anyone concerned about leaving something behind. He noted the plane ticket was for Munich, business class. Inside the wallet were two credit cards. Both cards and plane ticket were for Mikhail Svyatoslav. Victor placed the wallet and ticket in his pocket. No keys. Too late to worry about where they might be now.

  He signed out and paid the bill with the more worn looking of the assassin’s credit cards after subtly checking the signature on the back. His forgery wouldn’t get past a handwriting expert but it was close enough for a clerk who looked like he would have trouble reading the articles in a porn magazine.

  The clerk handed him a copy of the bill, which Victor saw included the assassin’s address, and said, ‘We hope you had a pleasant time in Paris.’

  He sounded genuine. Victor considered how genuine he would have been had he known t
hat moments before Victor had been deciding how best to kill him.

  Victor raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s been stimulating.’

  CHAPTER 9

  13:15 CET

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’

  Alvarez and Kennard stood on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. In front of them the crowd was three ranks deep before a police barrier. The road had been cordoned off on either side of the hotel. Alvarez could see numerous uniformed and plain-clothes officers and crime-scene personnel going about their duties.

  Kennard got off his phone and turned to Alvarez. ‘From what I can make out something crazy happened here this morning. I’m hearing eight people dead – shot – and one suspect at large who may sound familiar.’

  ‘Holy crap, John.’ Alvarez looked at Kennard expectantly. ‘Are we sure it’s the same guy who capped Ozols?’

  The younger man nodded. ‘The shooter shares the same taste for exotic projectiles. Apparently several people were shot with 5.7 mm subsonics. It’s too early for them to have matched the bullets yet, but …’

  ‘The chances of two separate gunmen both using that specific round in Paris on the same morning—’

  ‘Are slim at best.’

  ‘Skeletal, even.’ Alvarez did his best to peer over the heads of the spectators who were eager for a glance at something juicy. ‘When did all this go down?’

  ‘Sometime in the AM is the best anyone can tell me. So not long ago.’

  ‘Before Ozols got clipped?’

  ‘Not sure, at least an hour later I think.’

  ‘We’ve got to get inside there.’

  Alvarez pushed his way through the crowd. He was a big man by anyone’s reckoning. He had wrestled his way through college, strictly Greco-Roman, and at six even and two ten he still looked like a warrior, even if his black hair had developed more than a few grey friends. His size could be intimidating, and he had exploited that plenty of times before, but these days Alvarez realized it was far better for people to underestimate him than to be afraid of him. At times like this, though, he put his bulk to good use.

  He met a palm the instant he reached the line. Alvarez showed his credentials. After examining them for a moment the guy gestured for his superior. The Frenchman who sauntered over was middle aged, short, meticulously groomed, looking annoyed at actually having to do something. Alvarez still had his hand up and the policeman squinted at the opened wallet for a few seconds.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked simply in English.

  ‘Are you in charge here?’

  The guy nodded. ‘I’m Lieutenant Lefèvre.’ He paused. ‘What can I do for you?’ He added the second part almost as an afterthought.

  Alvarez put his wallet away. ‘I’m with the United States Department of State working out of the American embassy here in Paris. I believe your suspect for this shooting may be the same individual who killed a contact of mine earlier today, a Latvian national by the name of Andris Ozols.’

  Alvarez could tell Lefèvre knew of the connection already, but he doubted Lefèvre knew what Ozols had been doing in Paris. ‘So?’ he asked simply.

  Alvarez wasn’t exactly surprised, but he would have liked a more encouraging response. ‘So,’ he echoed, ‘it’s in both our interests to pool our resources on this. If I can take a look around the hotel I—’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible.’

  ‘Why, did you not hear what I just said?’

  Lefèvre shifted the weight between his legs, which, judging by his gut, was considerable. ‘This is our investigation. You have no jurisdiction in this country.’

  Alvarez resisted taking the bait; instead, he took a breath and said evenly, ‘I’m not looking to steal your suspect from you or your credit, I just want to help find him. And crazy as this sounds, I thought we might help each other to achieve that.’

  ‘Thank you for the offer,’ Lefèvre said, with no attempt at sincerity. ‘If your assistance is required you can be assured we’ll ask for it.’

  He turned around and headed back toward the hotel.

  ‘What a dick,’ Alvarez muttered after he’d gone.

  He pushed his way out of the crowd less politely than he had made his way in. He got out his cell phone and looked at Kennard.

  ‘Okay, time for plan B.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Charleroi, Belgium

  Monday

  17:02 CET

  The kid behind the counter took Victor’s money without looking up from his graphic novel. With one hand he opened the register, dropped in the euros, and handed Victor a slip of paper without speaking a single word. Victor took a seat at one of the computers farthest from the entrance, selecting a position where he could still see the door without having to turn his head.

  The computer monitor seemed a recent purchase, but dust had collected in the grooves of the keyboard. The plastic was yellowed and shiny from overuse. Victor, typing quickly, entered the tendigit code from the piece of paper and hit enter.

  The Internet café had half a dozen other customers. They were all young. A Chinese teenager, her hair streaked with pink, entered while Victor waited for the browser to appear. An exchange student perhaps. After a cursory glance he paid her no attention.

  He would have preferred a more crowded establishment to provide anonymity, but no one paid him a second of attention. The kid by the door hadn’t taken his eyes from the comic since Victor had paid. The front cover was all huge breasts and curved swords. In five minutes Victor would be gone, and five minutes after that he would be forgotten entirely.

  A light rain fell. Through the window Victor could see pedestrians hurrying along the street outside, some with umbrellas, the unlucky without. No one seemed to be observing the café.

  The rational part of his brain told him that no one could have followed him across the border, but there was a certain level of paranoia necessary for survival in Victor’s work. He understood that he was most at risk not when he was obviously vulnerable but when he felt safe.

  After leaving the second hotel Victor had spent an hour on the Paris metro going back and forth between stations and changing trains at random to elude any possible shadows. It was highly unlikely that there were yet more people available to follow him, but protocol demanded caution at all times. And this was no time to abandon methods that had kept him alive for almost a decade in a profession as unforgiving as they came.

  The Heckler and Koch he’d taken from the female assassin was thrown into the Seine after being wiped down thoroughly. A mile upstream his second FN Five-seveN suffered the same fate. The passport he’d been travelling under was burned and another taken from a safety-deposit box he rented under a false name. He had boxes in several European capitals and other cities around the world. In Victor’s experience prevention was always better than cure, and his earlier encounter vindicated this philosophy.

  He’d discarded the nonprescription glasses and taken out the blue contact lenses before having a backstreet barber cut his hair clipper short and shave him with a cut-throat razor. On a wallmounted television Victor had watched a news item about the hotel shooting. So far the police had released few details. The dead man in the alley received no mention, probably because a mass murder was far more exciting to the viewers.

  Victor had purchased a new suit from a department store and another shirt and a pair of shoes, each from a different shop. If he purchased them all from the same place the shop assistant might remember him. His other clothes were bagged and left in an alleyway to be recycled by the city’s tramps. The only physical evidence that he’d ever been in Paris were the corpses he’d left behind.

  Perhaps if he’d stayed he might have found more out about his attackers, but while he remained in France he had to protect himself against both his hunters and the authorities. Outside it was one on one. Much better odds.

  He had been careful at his hotel to make sure the security cameras hadn’t captured a good shot of his face, but maybe the
receptionist or a guest would remember his features. The beard, glasses, hair, and coloured contact lenses would all help corrupt any artist’s sketch, but even so he would probably need surgery to change his face. He sighed heavily. It was a necessity that over the years he’d been forced to accept, even if he would never fully get used to it. The face that stared back at him in the mirror was no longer his, altered so many times he couldn’t remember what he truly looked like. Sometimes he was glad of that.

  The Internet browser finally loaded up, and he entered the address for a proxy server where he had an account under a false name. Then, using the proxy server to disguise the computer’s IP address, he typed in the Web address for an online role-playing game forum based out of South Korea.

  The game was hugely popular, and the forum had hundreds of thousands of registered users. The forum had its own sophisticated security system to prevent hackers disrupting its service. Not so good against governments, but with the amount of traffic that passed through the forum’s server it would be near impossible for anyone to intercept his communications.

  Victor entered his login details and selected the instant-messaging option. He preferred it over a traditional message board, where posts can be stored almost indefinitely. With instant messaging the data passing between the computers left no trail at the forum for someone to discover. The only traces left would be at his computer and at the receiving computer his broker used.

  Once he’d logged in he saw that the only name in his contact’s list was online.

  The broker.

  Victor double-clicked the name, opening up a chat window. He typed a message. To further hamper the odds of the NSA or GCHQ picking up on such conversation, he always avoided any of the obvious tags government supercomputers were programmed to look for. No Allahu Akbar or the like.