by Tom Wood
He kept the choke on with his left while he scanned the immediate area, gun back up now he no longer needed his right arm to maintain the lock. He saw a shadow, twisted and turned using the unconscious man as a shield as —
The third gunman appeared, coming out of the trees.
Victor shot first, bullet hitting the man in the throat, but he returned fire as he fell. Victor’s human shield took a spray of rounds to the chest, but the big 7.62 mm rounds were designed to tumble soon after leaving the barrel, to continue doing so inside the human body to create extensive internal trauma, so they did not exit out of the man’s back as a conventional high-velocity round might have done.
The human shield flinched and jigged, hit multiple times, his AK firing on full-auto into the dirt as his dying central nervous system sent his muscles into spasm.
Victor released the man – soon-to-be-corpse – because the one thirty metres away was joining the firefight, shooting as he ran closer. Victor dropped the Dragunov and scooped up his human shield’s AK.
He loosed off an unbraced burst – no time to adopt a proper firing position – that missed, but came close enough to make the charging Slovak think twice and head for cover.
Victor shot again, the AK low on rounds after the muscle spasms, and searched for a spare magazine from the jacket of the corpse at his feet. Nothing. The man must have used up the rest of his rounds chasing Rados.
He tugged the magazine free and saw he had nine rounds remaining. He thumbed the selector back down to single shot and peered out of cover. Swaying bracken told him the gunman had moved position. He had learned by the death of two of his comrades that this foe was no easy victim.
Victor could neither see nor hear him, but moved to where the man he’d shot in the neck lay twitching on the forest floor, seeking more ammunition. His eyes were open and staring. His lips trembled in some post-death activity of the nervous system, still responding to signals sent while there had been a working brain inside his skull.
At a noise from behind him, Victor leapt to the side, diving into the undergrowth as a gun roared and bullets tore through the air where his head had been.
The fourth gunman – the one who had gone after Zoca – had changed his priorities.
Victor took a shot at the new threat, aiming through the mist and undergrowth, unable to see if the bullet found its mark. Return fire gave him the answer, muzzle flashing, the rounds hitting far wide of his position, the gunman a poor shot even without the mist and limited visibility. Victor adjusted his aim and shot again. He couldn’t see whether the bullet hit, but the gunman flinched and dropped to his knees. Maybe from a glancing hit, or maybe just through fear.
Hanging around to find out would only increase the risk of being flanked by the Slovakian at his back, so Victor hurried away, moving from tree to tree, knowing his enemies had no comms and scant tactical sense but could still catch him in crossfire without even trying.
He heard one AK47 shooting at him, bullets following him because the shooter was unskilled and chasing him with rounds instead of aiming ahead, and then a second rifle – the flanking gunman lured into exposing himself.
Victor changed direction, still moving fast, aware the fourth man had managed to get around his flank and would be nearing with every passing second, not yet knowing two of the others had been killed by Victor, not yet knowing that Victor was the aggressor now.
He changed positions while the second shooter was reloading, moving to where he could ambush the newcomer. The timing was crucial. It was impossible to face them both at once, and while he dealt with one, the other had his back.
Victor found a cluster of trees with little space between them, and settled into place. While the AK’s rounds were excellent at piercing flesh and bone, the thick tree trunks around him provided impenetrable cover. But only from one direction at a time.
The new guy appeared through the mist. He was cautious and wary but as unskilled as the others, moving along the corridor of space, not utilising the cover as well as Victor –
– who squeezed off a double-tap that hit the man in the chest. He contorted but stayed on his feet, so Victor put a third bullet through his forehead. The man dropped to his knees, wide-eyed, then disappeared into the undergrowth.
Victor was already rolling backwards over his shoulder, facing the opposite way in time to see the other gunman pop out of concealment in response to the gunshots.
They fired at the same time, muzzles flashing, cordite and gunsmoke perfuming the air, rounds slicing leaves and fragmenting bark.
All misses.
Victor ran because he was down to his last bullet.
The gunman lost line of sight and the firing stopped, but only for a moment. He chased after Victor, shooting as he moved, the resulting spray wide and inaccurate. The gunman ran and fired in erratic bursts. There was more danger of being hit by a ricochet than a deliberate shot. Victor kept moving, not seeking cover because he was counting the bursts. The AK47 had a cyclical rate of six hundred rounds per minute, which equated to a fraction over nine every second. The gunman was firing in quick squeezes of the trigger, quarter-second bursts, sending three or four rounds at a time.
Victor stopped running after the seventh burst, turning to see the gunman tugging free the empty magazine. His eyes were wide with panic because he had been caught out by the dreaded dead man’s click.
Victor approached him. The gunman was fumbling with the fresh magazine, struggling to get it out of his jacket pocket and into the weapon’s feeder. He was high on adrenaline, his heart rate probably 90 per cent of maximum, fine motor skills impeded, not used to reloading when his life depended on it.
Victor waited until the man had the magazine in the feeder and the breech knocked forward before shooting him in the face with his final round. It saved him reloading the man’s rifle himself.
With the fully loaded weapon, Victor hurried back through the forest to where Rados had dropped.
He found blood glistening on bracken leaves, but no Rados. With the AK up and his gaze peering along the iron sights, Victor stalked through the forest, moving from tree to tree as he approached the track, following the route marked by bent branches, crushed foliage and the occasional drop of blood.
He heard, and then saw, Rados clutching his bloody shoulder, wounded but alive and safe, protected by the second Range Rover of Varangians who had arrived in response to the firefight. Zoca had returned too. The women weren’t there. They had used the chaos to make their escape.
Victor considered for a moment, then lowered the rifle. Rados’ Varangians were a league above the Slovakian guys. He wasn’t going to engage a whole group of them in a gunfight for the sake of completing his job.
He stepped out on to the track.
‘You’re alive,’ Rados said when he saw Victor.
He nodded in response.
‘The Slovakians?’ Rados asked.
Victor shook his head.
Rados smiled. ‘Shame you didn’t spare the one who shot me.’ He grimaced, taking his hand away from the wound. ‘Through and through, but let’s say that pain is a woefully insufficient word.’
‘It could have been a lot worse,’ Victor said, thinking a hit three inches down would have been enough to puncture a lung and rupture major blood vessels.
‘These were amateurs,’ Rados agreed. ‘Thankfully.’
‘But it would have gone a lot smoother,’ Victor said to the quartermaster, ‘had you given me a working firearm.’
Rados laughed. ‘I think you’ve earned that at the very least. But there’ll be time for a proper after action report later. Now, we need to take our leave.’
FORTY-FIVE
London, Krieger thought, was not all it was made out to be. He was no fan of the city. It wasn’t because of the weather – not as bad as some said. It wasn’t the people – dour, but not sour. It was the lack of character. London was a city of history and culture, of civilisation itself, but its identity was its
very lack of anything resembling cohesion. He heard a dozen different languages on the street. He saw magnificent historic buildings in the shadow of monstrous skyscrapers. It was an indescribable mess of peoples, cultures and architecture.
Krieger felt as if he were trapped in a maze of dirty mirrors.
He was here to work, not discover, but he couldn’t wait to leave. The proper preparations of a professional meant he journeyed far and wide throughout the city for counter surveillance and in doing so felt as though he’d traversed a hundred different towns and not one would he wish to return to.
His target lived on a quiet leafy street on the north side of the river, far away from the congestion of the inner city, where the air was crisp and people crisper. This was more Krieger’s kind of environment. He could even imagine settling down in a place such as this when he hung up his boots. If the fates played fair with him, he might be able to soon.
Krieger waited in his stolen car – a fine German vehicle – until his target pulled on to the driveway in a vintage MG coupe and came to a halt next to a sensible family people carrier. Krieger rolled the stolen car forward so that he was alongside the target’s driveway at the same time the man climbed out of the MG.
Three measured squeezes of the lightweight trigger were all that was required. Krieger’s weapon was a .22 calibre pistol, equipped with a high-quality suppressor. He timed the first two shots to coincide with the MG’s door shutting, and the quiet thwack-thwack did not even cause a dog to bark. Krieger then took a third shot, as insurance, as he revved the car’s engine. He fired from within the vehicle, so the ejected shell cases were contained and rattled in the footwell.
Job done, he drove away in a pleasant mood. The ease of completion helped soothe the lingering pain of the failure on the train to St Petersburg. He could now turn his attention back to that unfinished contract.
I’ll see you again soon, he had told the man they called Cleric.
Krieger was a man of his word.
FORTY-SIX
The doctor was young and short and had to muscle his way through the Varangians to get to Rados. They formed a shield around their emperor, who lay on an examining table, grimacing and holding gauze to his wound. Victor stood in one corner of the doctor’s office, quiet and watchful.
The doctor frowned when he examined the twin bullet holes on either side of Rados’ shoulder.
‘You boys really shouldn’t play so rough.’
‘Golfing accident,’ Rados replied.
‘This is why I prefer tennis. You’re a lucky man, Milan. A clean-up and a few stitches and you’ll be fine.’
‘Scars?’
‘Oh yes,’ the doctor said, ‘but we can take care of those once you’ve healed. For now, the priority is to make sure the wound is sterile. We don’t want a nasty bacterial infection to complicate matters and ruin your, uh, golf swing, do we?’
‘No, we do not.’
The doctor said, ‘Incidentally, I’m a pretty sharp putter myself.’
‘Of course you are.’
The doctor gestured to the Varangians. ‘Do you think we can have some privacy?’
Rados told his men to wait outside, then addressed Victor.
‘Take some down time, and I’ll contact you in a few days,’ Rados said. ‘And thank you. You saved my life.’
Victor remained silent.
Zoca was lounging in the upstairs lobby of the massage parlour when Victor arrived. He sat toying with a lighter, snapping it open with a thumb and forefinger, and extinguishing the resulting flame with his palm.
He didn’t look up. ‘I take it you are here to see the Armenian woman? The one with the sad eyes.’
Victor nodded. ‘That’s correct.’
‘Again?’ Zoca asked, as if surprised by Victor’s answer, though he wasn’t.
‘Again,’ Victor agreed, as if he didn’t notice the man’s tone.
‘That’s twice in one week.’
‘Your powers of arithmetic are second to none.’
Zoca smirked at that. ‘You must like her.’
‘I take back my previous statement,’ Victor said. ‘Your powers of deduction are even better.’
The smirk became a chuckle and Zoca stood. ‘What makes her so special? Is her vagina so deliciously tight?’
Victor went to step past Zoca, who sidestepped to block him.
Zoca said, ‘Are you in love with her or it?’ When no answer came he added, ‘You’re an outsider. You shouldn’t forget that. You think because Rados talks with you that somehow you are special, but you are no Serb. You are nothing.’
‘If I am nothing then why do you take the time to watch me and talk with me? If I am nothing then I should not be worth your time, yet you always find time for me.’
The lighter flame continued to burn.
‘But I understand what you are saying,’ Victor said. ‘You are concerned that Rados will find out that you set him up. You are worried that I’ll tell him. You don’t need to be. I don’t have any proof and he wouldn’t simply take my word for it.’
Zoca said nothing, but the beginning of a smile formed.
‘Of course,’ Victor said, ‘what you should really be concerned about is why Rados has recruited me in the first place, so soon after you failed him with the shipment. What you should be concerned about is the answer to a very simple question: did he hire me so that there would be someone to replace you?’
Zoca snapped the lighter shut.
Victor knocked on the door before he opened it. She looked up from the bed with eyes even more absent of hope or life than on his previous visit because he wasn’t rushing to rescue her.
‘He’s still alive then?’ she said.
Victor was quick to close the door behind him. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course he’s still alive.’
Her eyes were red and the dark beneath them was deeper. He saw she had new bruises on her upper arms.
She was somewhere between angry and sad. ‘He took you to some deal. You said you needed to be close to him to kill him. Surely you were.’
It was a simple equation for her: he had said what he needed in order to kill Rados, so if he had had that, it meant Rados should be dead. She had been working without variables.
‘It’s complicated,’ he said, thinking of the firefight in the forest. ‘These things take time.’
She was shaking her head, refusing to accept this. ‘Why? How? Kill that monster. What are you waiting for? You have a gun, don’t you?’
‘You think I should draw my weapon the next time I see him and shoot him in the head? Bang. Bang. Like that?’
‘Yes,’ she insisted, ‘just like that.’
It was his turn to shake his head. ‘That’s not how it works, I’m afraid. If I do that, I’ll be gunned down by Rados’ men within seconds.’
She tried to hide it but he read her eyes: So what?
‘While I appreciate your single-mindedness,’ Victor said, ‘you need to think of the long game. If I’m killed after I kill Rados, who do you think is going to get you out of here? Have any of Rados’ men hinted that they would come to your aid?’
Her eyes dropped to her clawed cuticles.
‘I requested your assistance for a reason,’ Victor continued. ‘I need to find a way to kill Rados without killing myself in the process. I’m working on that. He doesn’t yet trust me enough to let down his guard in my presence, and he might never, so I need to engineer a way to get him alone or vulnerable.’
‘He’s never without his men. He doesn’t trust anyone.’
‘Good for him. Given my intentions, he’s right not to trust people. Least of all me. But that’s where the problem lies. That’s why he’s not yet dead.’
‘Can’t you poison him?’
He stopped himself sighing. ‘Listen, poisons aren’t as easy to use as you might think – I would need access to his food or his drink, which I don’t have – and they don’t just make someone drop dead. More importantly, I don’t have any
, and I have no way of acquiring some here. I’m no chemist. I’m no botanist.’
She slumped rather than sat on the bed, depressed and defeated.
Victor said, ‘You don’t need to concern yourself with how. Leave the methodology to me. That’s what I do.’
‘You need to work faster. I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t.’
He nodded. ‘I understand your desire to leave this place, but you’re going to have to wait. Rushing these things rarely ever works. Hurrying almost always leads to mistakes. And mistakes in this business are usually fatal. That would be no use to you, and it’s certainly no use to me.’
She sat quiet for a moment, head bowed, hands in her lap, her fears made worse because the hope that had buoyed her up before had been deflated. There was nothing Victor could do about that, even if he knew how. He wasn’t prepared to expedite his methods and it wasn’t his nature to placate. He could lie to her – he’ll be dead in a few days, I have it all worked out – but that seemed an unnecessary cruelty.
‘I came close,’ he said to reassure her, stepping closer. ‘But it didn’t work out. Next time could be better, but you need to be patient.’
She didn’t respond. Only Rados’ death was going to make any difference to her mindset.
‘Do you have any new information for me?’
‘Rados doesn’t trust you,’ she said.
Victor nodded. ‘I know he doesn’t.’
‘He’s having you followed.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I heard it from the young one who works here. Zoca told him.’
Victor had seen no signs of surveillance since he had been in Belgrade. That didn’t mean there wasn’t any, but Rados’ guys stood out even on their home turf. There was no way they could follow him without his being aware of it.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘that’s useful to know.’
