Bad Luck in Berlin

by Tom Wood

  Victor thought about Basayev, waiting in the corner. He was waiting for Anika’s shift to end. He hadn’t been pretending to have no interest in Deák. He had no interest in anyone but Anika. It was a simple matter of time. He knew her schedule. He was careful and prepared. He would leave five minutes before she did. Either he would wait near her car or somewhere else along her journey home. He didn’t want to kill her inside her house or apartment otherwise he would be waiting there now for her return. Maybe she lived with other people or had a dog, creating unnecessary obstacles when he could simply execute her out on the streets, but if that was his plan he wouldn’t need to wait in the bar where she would notice him.

  ‘I could be penniless,’ Victor said.

  Her gaze briefly passed over him. ‘Your suit suggests otherwise.’

  If Basayev was waiting where she would notice him then he wanted her to. He wanted Anika to recognise him from the bar so when they bumped into each other in some dark alleyway she would not be suspicious until it was too late. Basayev needed to get close to her. Because he didn’t want to kill her. He was going to take her back.

  Victor said, ‘So by your logic I must be a thrill seeker.’

  ‘One who gets his thrills drinking water and orange juice?’

  ‘Maybe I just know to quit while I’m ahead.’

  ‘An invaluable trait,’ Basayev said as he neared. ‘Most people don’t know their limitations. They get arrogant. They get greedy. They don’t know when to walk away.’

  Anika nodded. ‘He’s right, you know. I see it all the time in this place. People push their luck too far.’ She looked back to Basayev. ‘Same again?’

  He nodded. She knew his drink. She knew his face. He was familiar. He was predictable. She wouldn’t be concerned when she saw him walking towards her.

  ‘Any more words of wisdom?’ Victor asked.

  Basayev stared at him, his pale green eyes small and unblinking. ‘I’m not sure I can tell you anything that you don’t already think you know.’

  ‘I guess I’ve got it all figured out.’

  ‘Do you happen to know what the line is called where confidence ends and arrogance begins?’

  ‘Isn’t that the point when we start giving out unnecessary advice?’

  Basayev smiled. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes deepened. His teeth were even and yellow. He stepped closer to Victor, who was sitting on a stool, forcing Victor to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact. He stared while he smiled, but said nothing.

  Anika returned with his Coke. Basayev paid and left.

  ‘How’s your new friend?’ Anika asked.

  Victor watched him go. ‘He likes the sound of his own voice a little too much.’ He looked at Anika. ‘What time do you get off work?’

  She thought for a moment, not to remember when her shift ended, but to decide whether or not to tell him. He wondered if she’d even had a date since her captivity.

  Eventually she answered with a question: ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Would you like to go to dinner with me?’

  She took her time responding. He’d expected that and didn’t say anything further. He didn’t want to make her feel pressured.

  ‘Won’t it be too late to have dinner?’

  ‘I can eat at any time,’ Victor answered. ‘And I’m sure if you work until late then you eat late too. And if you don’t want to eat we can get a drink.’ He gestured to his orange juice. ‘I’m about ready to have a real one.’

  ‘Why do you even want to go to dinner with me?’

  ‘Because I want to get to know you better.’

  She shifted the weight between her feet. ‘Maybe you wouldn’t like what you found out if you did.’

  ‘Maybe you should let me be the judge of that.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m not supposed to see casino clientele.’

  ‘By the time I take you to dinner I won’t be any longer.’

  She smiled a little. ‘I don’t think that’s how the rule works.’

  ‘I’ll never come here again, if that’s what it takes.’

  ‘You’re stubborn, aren’t you?’

  ‘I prefer to think of it as persistent.’

  ‘I didn’t realise I was so irresistible.’

  ‘It’s the way you fix iced water,’ Victor said. ‘I told you, the best I’ve ever had.’

  She laughed. ‘Maybe you should ask me again in an hour.’

  ‘Why in an hour?’

  ‘Because that’s when my shift ends.’

  It was 23.36, which meant her shift ended in fifty-four minutes, 00.30, because when it came to time civilians always rounded up or down. Basayev knew that time. He knew how she got home. He would leave in forty-nine minutes to wait at a point he’d already chosen, having followed her several times to determine where best to set his ambush. Abductions were even harder to pull off than assassinations and someone who had been in captivity before took some precautions, which was why Basayev was waiting in the bar so she wouldn’t fear him until it was too late. He was bigger and stronger and armed with a gun. She would have no choice but to do exactly as he wanted, to get into a vehicle or hold still long enough to be bound or drugged or knocked out.

  But none of that would happen if she was in some other bar or restaurant.

  Basayev would try again, of course, the following night or the night after or however many it took. That wouldn’t matter. When Victor had her alone he would say it was time to start running again. This time she would be more careful. Victor would tell her how to be. Knowing how close she’d come to being taken back, she might never be the same again, but at least she would be free.

  Victor watched Anika while she served other customers. If she didn’t agree to go out with him, if Victor didn’t get her somewhere private to talk alone, she wouldn’t listen when he tried to warn her. She would get scared and think he was crazy or it was a trick to kidnap her himself. Security would throw him out and maybe one would walk her home to make sure she was all right. The next day she would play the incident down to save face and no one would walk her home.

  He couldn’t say anything else. Further attempts to convince her would only make her feel pressured. She would say no, and by the time it got light she would be locked in a corrugated cargo container on a ship to Grozny. He just had to wait.

  At 23.55 he couldn’t wait any longer.

  The Turk with the brawler’s nose checked his phone and left the bar.

  CHAPTER 11

  The crew’s leader met the Turk by the slot machines. Victor watched them converse for a moment and the Turk left for the exit. The man with the grey hair left a moment later. There was no sign of Deák but this was it. No more false starts. They were leaving because the leader knew Deák’s departure was imminent. In the restaurant, he would have seen or heard him ask for the bill.

  Victor waited a minute and left too. He exited the casino and saw a black Audi parked on the opposite side of the road, thirty feet to the right of the trashcan hiding Victor’s gun. Its paintwork was clean and polished and bounced back the orange glow of the nearby streetlights. The glare on the windshield stopped Victor from fully seeing the occupants, but none of the crew were on the street. The tall young guy with the slicked receding hair would be in the driver’s seat because he had left earlier. The older man would be in the passenger seat because he was the boss. Which put the Turk on the back seat, behind the crew’s leader, because the tall young guy would have his seat slid way back for the leg room.

  All three were in the car because it was the best place to wait should Deák get a taxi for himself and the blonde. They must have anticipated that Deák might have used one, even before he was joined by the blonde, so they were either happy pulling up alongside the taxi at a light and shooting car to car, or would gun Deák down as soon as he climbed out at his destination. They didn’t much care where the kill occured, just so long as it didn’t happen right outside the casino where they’d spent the la
st few hours.

  Victor crossed the road and retrieved his gun from the trashcan. The crew didn’t notice. They were too focused on the casino entrance, waiting for Deák to emerge, and a car restricted lines of sight with bodywork and seats and other occupants and the simple fact that those inside were sitting and not standing. Victor could have used those facts to deal with the crew in a matter of seconds, but they were too close to the casino. If Deák did use a cab then Victor couldn’t let the Audi follow, but if Deák was true to form he would walk instead.

  Victor began to stroll away in the direction of Deák’s hotel, at a slow pace, checking his phone and dawdling like a man in no hurry to get anywhere.

  Deák emerged with the blonde a moment later, a big grin on his face. He’d beaten the odds and had a pretty young thing on his arm that was going to show him the time of his life. He had no idea that four pairs of eyes watched him.

  He ignored the cabs and turned left, one hand cupping and squeezing the blonde’s behind as they walked. Victor didn’t know how the crew would respond. They could more easily execute a drive-by from the Audi now Deák was on foot, but it would be better to take care of him in some less conspicuous manner. Even a trio of dumb street thugs would know that.

  It was 00.02. Anika’s shift ended in less than thirty minutes.

  When Deák had walked twenty yards, all three men climbed out of the Audi. The one with grey hair then got back into the driver’s seat while the tall young guy and the squat Turk crossed the road to Deák’s side. They walked at a faster pace to close up some of the distance.

  The Audi pulled away from the kerb and soon passed Deák. The two on foot each had a phone in hand, set to speaker so they didn’t have to make it obvious, on a continuous call to the boss to keep him informed of Deák’s route so he could make slow circuits of the immediate area, keeping close, never more than a minute away, either to block Deák off or provide a getaway for the two killers. At last the crew were displaying a level of competence, but it was inevitable that they would be smarter outside the casino, in their element, on the streets.

  Deák continued walking, passing lively bars and glancing inside. Victor willed him to take the blonde into one, to give Victor more time, but more alcohol wasn’t going to tempt him when he had something far better to look forward to.

  Victor followed the two men following Deák, staying on the opposite side of the road, matching their pace and keeping no closer than twenty feet behind at any time. They stayed fifteen feet behind Deák, who continued groping the blonde and walked slowly, utterly certain of his own invincibility. The street was a wide four-lane boulevard, with cars frequently passing in both directions. There were bars nearby and enough pedestrians using the sidewalks to keep the crew from going into action.

  That would change soon. Victor knew that the route Deák would take back to the hotel provided plenty of secluded locales for the crew to get their work done. They’d know all the possible routes Deák might take. They were local. They knew which roads were busy and which weren’t. They knew where they could kill a man without witnesses. They hadn’t anticipated the blonde though, and weren’t yet sure if she was leading Deák back to her place, but even if she wasn’t with him they would still be trailing Deák instead of waiting at some ambush point. They didn’t know the exact route he would take, and they had only one night to kill him. They couldn’t afford to guess incorrectly.

  Victor pictured the journey to the hotel – the side streets and back alleys – trying to determine the likely strike point for a crew who had no concept of tactics. Somewhere dark wasn’t necessary when they had the advantages both of mobility from the Audi and greater numbers. They needed somewhere their car could get to, to enable a fast withdrawal, but not where a police cruiser was likely to pass by.

  The option that would meet their criteria was the multi-storey parking garage Deák had cut through earlier. It was a 24-hour establishment, but at this time of night would be mostly empty. It wasn’t manned either. The crew’s leader could drive the Audi inside or pick the other two up from either of the exits. There would be CCTV, of course, but if these guys were concerned about cameras they would have been more careful in the casino. The cameras would have dissuaded Victor from using it, at least without disabling them first, but he reminded himself who he was dealing with.

  Victor couldn’t let them reach the parking garage. But he couldn’t make a pre-emptive move while Deák was in the vicinity. He had to get between the crew and Deák. He had to separate them. And he had to do so without Deák’s knowledge.

  The parking garage was approximately a quarter of a mile walk. Even if Deák quickened his slow pace to three miles per hour he wasn’t going to reach it for five minutes.

  Victor took the first turning off the boulevard he came to and ran.

  He needed to run three times faster than Deák to get ahead of him by circling around the block, if the block was roughly square and had no alleyways bisecting it.

  There was, and Victor reached the side street into which Deák would turn with plenty of time to spare. He examined the area, looking for advantages. The street was about eighty feet long and joined the boulevard at one end and an entrance to the parking garage at the other. There were a few storefronts with security grilles down, but nothing open and no pedestrians or traffic. A chain-link fence stretched between the exterior of the parking garage and the building next to it. Near to the fence were two sets of steps leading down to public restrooms. Lights denoted they were still open. Twenty-four-hour, like the parking garage.

  Victor backed off into the alleyway, took out his gun and thumbed the catch to release the magazine, then pulled back the slide to eject the 5.7mm shell from the chamber. He caught it and dropped it into a pocket of his suit trousers, the magazine following.

  He heard a man’s footsteps and the scrape and clatter of stiletto heels and waited. He heard two more sets of footsteps a few seconds later, but quieter because they were muffled by those that were closer. Deák and the blonde passed the mouth of the alley without glancing Victor’s way. Victor waited a moment and stepped out, turning left to face the two men following.

  They were five feet in front of him. The tall young German on the left, the Turk with the flat nose on the right. They were momentarily surprised by his presence, but unconcerned by it. They went to walk around him but stopped when Victor raised the handgun.

  They didn’t panic. Which was good. They didn’t do anything stupid. Which was better. Their eyes darted between the gun and his eyes. He remained silent, listening to Deák and the blonde behind him, walking further away. Fifteen feet, then twenty. If they happened to look over their shoulders they would just see three men standing together. They wouldn’t see the gun.

  Victor held it at arm’s length, obvious and threatening, stepping forward, stepping closer.

  ‘Deák,’ he whispered.

  He didn’t need to say more. He watched as they tried to put the pieces together. Their whole reason for being there was Deák. By saying the name Victor told them he knew their job. Pointing a gun at them said he wasn’t going to let them see it through. He was a friend of Deák, or a mob associate, or some sort of bodyguard; someone in contact with him, someone they hadn’t been told about, someone they had missed at the casino. Deák and the blonde were thirty feet behind Victor by now, entering the parking garage.

  The two men were nervous, expecting Victor to shoot at any moment. The tall German seemed angry too – angry at himself for walking into an ambush. Sodium light reflected from his furrowed forehead.

  Victor spoke in Hungarian, some basic sentences irrelevant to the current situation. The two guys didn’t understand. Victor spoke again, louder, angrier, as if he wanted answers. Deák and the blonde would be forty feet behind him, now inside the garage. Another twenty seconds and he was far enough away not to turn around at a commotion, or not to see one if he did.

  Victor didn’t react to the muffled noise that emanated fro
m a hand of each man.

  The tall young guy was first to realise. His shoulders involuntarily squared and his brow relaxed. It was the kind of body language that took a huge amount of practice and discipline not to display. The squat Turk came to the same conclusion a moment later, and he glanced at the road. It wasn’t involuntary, it was a conscious action, and one he should have thought twice about.

  Victor gave no indication he’d seen either man’s reaction, but even if he had he didn’t expect they would have picked up on it, and even if he had given an indication and they had seen it he doubted they would have understood the significance. But better to be cautious, to assume competence, to overestimate.

  He saw headlights sweep on to the street, fifty feet away, behind the two men, as a black Audi turned at the intersection with the boulevard. They couldn’t keep the relief from their faces. They even looked at each other to wordlessly check the other had reached the same conclusion.

  Victor edged a step forward, the FN at arm’s length, held one-handed, the muzzle now barely a foot from the two men. He let it drop down a few inches, pointed at the squat man’s chin.

  Behind them, the Audi rolled closer. The two men stood still, trying and failing to disguise their anticipation and readiness. Eleven seconds until Deák was far enough inside the parking garage for line of sight to be blocked by cars and pillars and walls should he react to what was about to happen.

  Victor spoke again in Hungarian.

  The Audi sped up as the driver realised exactly what he was looking at on the sidewalk ahead of him. Three seconds.

  Close enough.

  Victor glanced away from the two men, looking at the car as it approached, turning his head instead of just his eyes, the muzzle of the gun dropping again.

  It was all the invitation needed.

  He had the gun pointed at the Turk with the brawler’s flat nose and scarred eyebrow because he was the one more familiar and comfortable with violence and its consequences. He grabbed the FN and Victor’s right hand, wrenching it upwards, muzzle pointed at the sky. The tall young guy might not have had the same confidence to try such a move.