by Tom Wood
He had the Browning tucked into the front of his waistband with his shirt hanging loose to cover it. His right hand hovered by the grip as he walked cautiously forward. His gaze was fixed to the stairwell entrance, figuring the assassin would race down after him. It would take him considerably longer than Victor to reach the lobby, but still not long.
The assassin would know that too, and he would also calculate that Victor knew it. Taking the stairs would be the fastest way down, but in doing so the assassin would have to take the risk that Victor was waiting for him. There were other safer ways to the ground floor that would take longer. If their roles were reversed, Victor wasn’t sure what he would do.
He had no time to think about it further since he saw a group of men exit the hotel bar. They were all white, skins sunburned or shiny and starting to tan. The men were dressed as civilians but had the unmistakable bearing of military types. Victor knew they were Russians even before he heard them speak.
A couple of them glanced his way, but the others didn’t pay Victor any attention. Some carried rucksacks and looked weary from travel, while the rest seemed fresher. They’d obviously travelled separately in two groups to avoid suspicion. It made sense. It was the largest hotel in town and close to the port. Tourists were commonplace here, making it the ideal location to remain anonymous.
Any desire Victor had to wait and ambush the assassin disappeared now that there were seven, most likely armed, Russian soldiers in the lobby. The new arrivals started walking towards the elevator. Victor headed straight for the exit at a measured pace, just a guest hurrying on his way into town. A few of the Russians looked his way but nothing more. The ones without rucksacks congregated in the centre of the lobby.
As Victor passed the first group he hoped none of the seven had been involved in the St Petersburg’s incident. They would have seen that photo Norimov mentioned. If they had and Victor was recognized, he wouldn’t have much chance of escaping. He approached the middle of the lobby, veering to the right to avoid the Russians, estimating there had been enough time for the assassin to reach the bottom of the stairs. But the door remained closed.
The assassin clearly had something else in mind.
*
Reed made his way down the stairwell, taking deep, quick breaths as anger threatened to explode through his calm exterior. Tesseract was alive. Reed had failed to kill him. He had survived the bomb. No, Tesseract had found the trap and set it off to fool Reed into thinking he had been successful. The Englishman’s teeth ground together. He remembered thinking of Tesseract as an amateur, but if Tesseract was an amateur, what did that make Reed?
Reed could not remember the last time he had lost his temper, but now he felt the purest rage. Tesseract had beaten him, made a fool of him. Reed needed vindication.
He knew he would never beat the elevator to the lobby, and, if he took the stairs to the ground floor, Tesseract would be waiting to ambush him. Reed had no intentions of rushing into a trap.
He reached the third floor and entered the corridor. He quickly moved towards a window at the opposite end that he knew would give him a perfect vantage point. It overlooked the street outside the front of the hotel, and from that position Reed could wait for Tesseract to emerge from the main entrance and place two hollow points into the back of his skull.
Reed ejected the half-empty magazine from the Glock, the muscles in his jaw flexing periodically beneath the skin. He had never experienced emotion towards a target before, but now it overwhelmed him. Reed turned his head, hearing a door opening behind him, and saw the target he was in Tanzania to kill enter the corridor from his room. He was heading for the elevator when he looked Reed’s way and spotted the gun in Reed’s hand.
Sykes backed off, wide eyed, open-mouthed, retreating inside his room.
Reed placed the ejected mag in a pocket, reloaded a full one. He opened the window and stood with the Glock out before him, aiming at where he expected Tesseract to appear.
In his peripheral vision he saw one of the target’s hulking hirelings emerge from same room where the target had just fled to. He moved well, fast, a pistol clutched in both hands, held down, and to the side, the safety grip people are trained to use to stop them shooting someone by mistake. The downside was that it took an extra split second to acquire a target.
Without moving his head Reed shot the guy twice in the chest. The impact sent him tumbling backwards, deflecting off the wall before hitting the floor as a dead man.
Reed re-established his aim on the street outside and waited patiently. It would have taken seconds to kick the target’s door open and fulfil the contract, but that would give Tesseract enough time to escape. Reed did not care about the job he was in Tanga to complete. He cared only about the man he had failed to kill. The man who had beaten him. He cared only about winning.
He cared only about killing Tesseract.
Two floors above, Aniskovach regained consciousness and pulled himself to his feet. Each breath was agony. He pressed his left hand against a wall for support while his right found the bullet embedded in his armoured vest. He checked underneath for blood, but the bullet hadn’t gone through the other side.
The SVR colonel had always been a cautious man, but after coming close to death in St Petersburg Aniskovach had adopted a safety-first approach to operations. Despite the pain, it felt good to be alive. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out for but hoped there was still time. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
The ringtone echoed throughout the lobby. It was some novelty tune that, if circumstances were not so perilous, would have made Victor frown. He saw one of the Russians reach into a pocket of his jacket to answer. Victor walked past, feeling the urge to increase his pace. The exit was directly ahead. He was so close.
The Russian answered the phone and a second later looked Victor’s way. Victor saw the reflection of the man’s face in the glass windows before him.
It took the Russian another second before drawing the breath into his lungs to shout, but Victor was already running. Two seconds to cover the distance to the main entrance, another to get through the door. Three more to reach cover outside. Six seconds. Too long if any of the Russians had a gun within quick reach. He would be dead with bullets in his back long before he reached safety. The bar was less than half the distance. He sprinted towards it.
The other Russians were slow to react to the unexpected commotion, and he reached and was through the bar entrance before he heard movement behind him — more shouting, the sound of bags opening, the metallic reverberation of weapons being drawn.
Victor dodged round the tables and chairs, making his way to the far end of the long room. He heard a Russian chasing after him, not as agile as he — knocking into tables, spilling drinks — but still fast.
Victor pushed open a service door at the far end of the bar and ran down the corridor on the other side. He headed for the kitchen, charging into the swing door, knocking it aside.
The kitchen was even busier than before, full of noise, steam, heat. The narrow walkways between work surfaces were blocked with people.
Victor backtracked, knowing he wouldn’t be able to force his way through before the Russians caught up and filled the kitchen with lead. Either that or he would give them the time to head him off.
He emerged back into the corridor to see the pursuing Russian sprinting toward him. Victor’s sudden appearance surprised him, and for a split second he hesitated. Victor didn’t.
He dashed forward, timing his attack so that the heel of his shoe connected with the running man’s stomach at the apex of the kick’s force.
The Russian gasped, doubled over. Victor grabbed him by the shoulders and sent his head crashing into the closest wall. There was a dull crack of plaster, and the Russian’s head bounced backward. He stumbled, arms flailing.
Victor leaped at him while he was dazed, driving his elbow into the Russian’s face, and the man collapsed silently.
H
e heard a noise, wasn’t sure where it originated, but drew the Browning and fired two shots at the door leading to the bar. Victor didn’t wait to see if he’d been right and started for an adjoining corridor.
Automatic fire tore through the bar door. Victor was already jumping out of the trajectory as bullets struck the walls and floor, blowing wood, plaster, and dust into the air.
He scrambled back to his feet, and a second later he was racing up the same stairwell he’d ascended earlier. Going up when he needed to get out was a bad idea, but his first two avenues of escape had been cut off and he needed another.
He moved fast but cautiously, gun held out straight before him, always in sync with where he looked. The Russians were below him, and the assassin above.
Trapped.
Sykes stood in the centre of his hotel room completely still, gaze locked on the door, the SIG clutched tightly in one sweaty hand. The sound of gunshots echoed around the room. He’d never been more afraid in his life.
One minute he’d been on his way to the bar to get a drink and the next he was staring at a seriously mean-looking guy with a gun. Wiechman, like an idiot, had charged out, gun in hand, to see what was happening. Then there had been the sound of silenced shots and the definite thump of a heavy man-sized object hitting the deck.
After that, there had been no more noise for what seemed liked minutes. Sykes wasn’t sure how long. He stood staring at the door, waiting for the guy with the gun to come and kill him.
Something crazy was going on, and Sykes was caught right in the middle.
A horrible realization started to take shape in Sykes’s mind. The man with the gun had recognized him.
No, it couldn’t be.
Dalweg burst into the room, and in his panic Sykes almost shot him. Dalweg’s face was twisted with anger.
‘Jack’s dead,’ he spat. ‘What the fuck is going down in this place?’
Sykes was about to say he didn’t know, but then more shooting started.
Reed heard the commotion in the lobby seconds after the moment when he judged Tesseract should have reached the street outside. He lowered his arm, turned, and headed away from the window and down the corridor. The sound of unsuppressed automatic fire echoed from below. A submachine gun by the high cyclic rate. Bizon probably.
The Englishman did a quick evaluation of the circumstances. The man Tesseract had been assaulting in the elevator clearly had friends, and those friends were armed and now after Tesseract. Reed remembered the foreigners in the bar. Russians. Why they were here in Tanzania Reed did not know, and neither did he have any interest in knowing. What did interest him was that they were trying to kill Tesseract and were interfering in his own attempt to do so. If they continued to, which was likely, they would find themselves between Reed’s gun sights. Reed would allow nothing to get between him and his adversary, and he would allow no one but himself to make the kill. Reed was the best. He had to prove that. If someone else killed Tesseract before Reed, his own life would continue on as a mere shadow of its former existence.
The Russians had prevented Tesseract from leaving through the main entrance. The only logical avenue of escape from the lobby would therefore be the hotel bar. That would lead him to the kitchen and the service stairwell.
Reed hurried. His prey was close.
CHAPTER 74
17:24 EAT
Victor reached the second floor and rushed down the corridor, Browning gripped in both hands, arms extended and bent slightly at the elbow, gaze looking directly along the 9 mm’s iron sights. The fire alarm started blaring. He could hear people screaming. He couldn’t be sure what they were screaming at, but the voices sounded more scared or horrified than pained.
He turned a corner, found a door in the right location, kicked it open, entered fast, completed a quick sweep of the room. A single, neatly made bed, no personal effects. Unoccupied. Empty. Victor headed straight for the window, grabbed a chair, hurled it.
The glass shattered. He stepped forward, leaned briefly through the open space. Below him was a row of neatly parked cars glittering with shards of glass, behind them the chair, smashed. The parking lot extended for maybe twenty yards. A low wall marked the edge of the hotel compound. No Russians. No assassin.
The drop was too far to risk, even with the cars to break the fall, but next to the window was a drainpipe. Victor slipped the Browning into his waistband, climbed up onto the windowsill, balancing on the balls of his feet, using his hands on the frame for support. He swivelled round so he was facing into the room, reached for the drainpipe.
A shadow appeared on the wall through the open doorway. The shadow of a man with a gun.
Victor immediately let go, lurched backward, seeing the assassin appear and the brief muzzle flash off the handgun as it fired.
The bullet snapped through the air above him and for a serene split second Victor fell, the broken window rushing away from him. He landed on a parked sedan, crumpling the roof with the force of his impact. Side windows exploded, the windshield cracked, air was forced from his lungs.
He sucked in a breath, ignoring the pain, and pulled the Browning from his waistband, limbs aching but still working, so no bones broken.
He squeezed the trigger the instant Reed showed himself, but he was still shaken, his posture awkward. He missed. Victor shot again twice more, missing but forcing his enemy back into the room before he could return fire.
Victor rolled off the car roof, landing on his feet. He spun around, gun trained on the window, crouching to steady his aim. Adrenaline surged through him. He breathed steadily in a futile attempt to control its effects. If he was injured he felt no pain. Five seconds past. Ten.
No. The assassin had withdrawn, moving to another position. Victor scanned the other windows on the same floor overlooking the parking lot. The next attack could come from any of them. There was no way he could watch them all. Wherever he looked created a blind spot from which the assassin would receive a perfect shot.
His gaze searched for a way to escape. The parking lot was too empty, running through it would leave him too exposed. There was a door, but too far to risk making a break for. A fire exit was closer, but closed.
The fire door swung open, banging against the wall as two Russians emerged, both armed with PP-19 Bizon submachine guns.
Victor dropped down behind the wrecked car, his body positioned behind the back wheel on the driver’s side. He felt vibrations through his back as bullets struck the bodywork. He didn’t wait for the firing to stop, dropped onto his stomach, and extended his arms under the car.
He fired twice, one bullet catching the closest Russian in the shin. Both retreated back through the open fire exit, and Victor sprang to his feet, put another round their way, and ran across the lot, weaving between parked cars, heading toward the road, hoping the assassin was similarly distracted.
Asphalt exploded around his feet.
He took cover behind another car, pivoted. Victor returned fire, but the uninjured Russian had ducked back into the cover of the doorway.
Movement on the floor above caught Victor’s eye, and he reacted in time to avoid the bullets that came his way. One smacked into the uneven ground where he’d been kneeling, another blew out a window of the car next to him.
Victor threw himself out of the line of fire, going onto his front. He took a breath, considered his choices quickly. He had two separate attackers at two different firing points, one with the higher ground, and there were more enemies nearby who would join the fight in mere moments. It was a battle he wasn’t going to win. He needed to move. And fast.
Victor slid beneath an SUV, grazing his elbows on the hard ground. He did the same under another. No more bullets were fired. No one knew where he was.
He sprang up, shot at the window where the assassin had been and into the fire exit without waiting to acquire targets. A bullet struck the uninjured Russian as he moved out of cover.
Victor ran, heading straight across the pa
rking lot, away from the hotel, trusting to speed to keep him from being hit. He covered the remaining ground fast, leaped onto the small wall that divided the parking lot from the street beyond. He heard the spit of the suppressed shot and a piece of brickwork disintegrated under his shoe. He lost his footing, fell forward, off balance, landing awkwardly, stumbling into the road to keep his momentum from knocking him over.
A horn blared. Tyres screeched. The bumper hit him mid-left thigh, catapulting him up onto the car’s hood. He slammed into the windshield, cracking it, tumbling up and over the roof, bouncing off the trunk before hitting road, instinctively rolling to ease the impact.
The car skidded and lost control, mounted the sidewalk, and continued over the low wall, crashing into a stationary SUV on the other side.
Everything seemed slow and quiet. Victor pulled himself from the hot ground and to his feet, grimacing as he put weight on his left leg. He hurt all over. He tasted blood in his mouth. His vision was blurry. He squinted through the haze, his eyesight returning, shapes coming back into focus. There were maybe four or five people standing open-mouthed nearby. He saw the crashed car, steam rising from the hood, the shocked female driver stumbling out. Behind her a man was climbing down a drainpipe on the side of the hotel.
Victor realized the Browning wasn’t in his hands. He frantically looked around.
He saw it lying near the crashed car. He limped hurriedly over to the gun, vaulting awkwardly over the wall, aware that his whole body was moving more slowly than he was telling it to. He scooped the 9 mm up into both hands and spun round to where he had seen the assassin.
Victor fired, his aim terrible, the bullets striking the wall well to the side of his target, who dropped the last couple of yards, disappearing out of sight behind the row of parked cars. He reappeared an instant later, firing and moving, using the vehicles as cover. Victor shot back, taking cover himself behind the crashed car. Bullets thumped into bodywork.
