by Tom Wood
The first man leaned forward as he approached, lowering his eye line in an effort to peer beneath the first carriage. Did something catch his eye? He wasn’t sure. It would be a stupid place for someone to hide—trapping himself somewhere with no easy means of escape—but desperate people made mistakes. The thought of scaring someone to stupidity appealed to him.
He moved on, slowing as he reached the carriage, checking the ground ahead for anything that might make noise underfoot and give away his position. He kept close to the front of the container, brushing the weather-beaten metal with his shoulder, blending his own shadow that extended before him into the carriage’s own.
The gun rounded the corner first, moving fast but smooth, his hands and arms following as he turned through ninety degrees until he was facing along the shadow side of the carriage. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom, but the darkness was still dense.
He didn’t see the girl’s protector—crouched no more than two meters in front of him—until he was springing forward, coming up from below the pistol’s muzzle. By then it was too late to aim and get off a shot.
With both hands gripping the pistol, he had no way to defend himself after his attacker pushed the barrel to one side as he closed the distance between them and snapped out a straight punch to the man’s throat.
He gasped—airless and soundless—trachea crushed, and had no strength to resist as his attacker hyperextended his right wrist, pulled the gun from his grip, and dragged him to the ground and held him there. He spent the last seconds of his life in silent agony.
• • •
Victor held him prone while he struggled. His mouth was wide open in a vain attempt to suck in air. A knee pinned his legs and a hand on each arm kept him from writhing too much and making more noise than could be avoided. At the far end of the carriage the silhouette of the second man appeared against a backdrop of overgrown vegetation. Victor watched the man, unconcerned, knowing that if the dying man hadn’t seen him at a distance of two meters, the second wouldn’t at twenty. Noise posed more danger of discovery, but every passing second meant the dying man grew weaker and struggled less.
When the man on the ground became limp, Victor released him. He checked the gun—a 9 mm SIG Sauer—and the load. The magazine was full and a subsonic round was in the chamber. He made sure the suppressor was screwed on tightly, and stood.
The second man had already passed out of sight, moving between two carriages as he continued his search. Victor didn’t follow. Whether the man had seen him or not, he wasn’t prepared to funnel himself between the carriages, leaving himself exposed at both flanks as he emerged. There would be no way of knowing if the man had doubled back or was setting an ambush.
Instead, Victor stalked parallel, rounding a clump of long grasses and discarded oil drums until he was on the far side of the next two carriages. He peered into the darkness, but couldn’t pick out a human shape in the mix of shadows. He waited, focusing on the sounds reaching his ears, disassembling the ambient noise until he identified the quiet footsteps. Twelve, maybe fifteen meters away.
Then they stopped. Victor pictured the man waiting in the darkness, until he heard another noise—quieter, shuffling.
He realized his enemy was crawling under a carriage. But which one? He could be moving either to Victor’s left or right. No way to tell without moving himself, but it would be down to chance if he chose the right direction. He opted to stay put. He lowered himself into a crouch, scooped up a handful of gravel, and hurled it forward.
The gravel pinged off the metal hulls of some carriages and scattered on the ground.
It wasn’t meant to sound like someone moving to tempt his enemy to move back, but it would distract him and disguise the noise of Victor dashing to the right. He peered around the edge of the carriage, seeing and hearing no one. He grabbed another handful and threw it up into the air so it rained down on top of the carriage.
Again, he used the noise to disguise his movements as he hurried back to his previous position. He reached down to grab and throw more gravel, then went to the left, moving fast because he now knew where the man had to be, and rushed around the back of the carriage, into darkness. He saw the man’s silhouette against the distant vegetation.
Victor squeezed the trigger three times and the silhouette dropped into the shadows.
He approached, walking fast, to check that the man was dead, as he hadn’t seen where the bullets impacted or even if they had all hit. When the man came into view he saw one had struck him high on the chest, shattering the clavicle, while another had drilled a hole in his face through the left cheek a couple of centimeters below the eye.
The man was alive. The subsonic bullet hadn’t had the velocity to pass all of the way through the skull and blow an exit wound out of the back. Victor figured it had deflected as it passed through the cheekbone and followed the curve of the skull, missing the brain. A fatal wound if left untreated, but the man was at no immediate risk. He probably couldn’t even feel it. A miracle he was still alive, some might say. His good fortune would be short-lived.
He lay on his back, breathing rapidly, arms straight by his sides, either not daring to move or believing he couldn’t. He wasn’t screaming, so the adrenaline surge hadn’t yet faded.
Victor walked closer.
“Help,” the man said. British accent.
“You’re asking the wrong guy.”
“Please.”
“I heard you the first time.”
Victor squatted next to him and searched through his pockets. The man didn’t try to stop him. Unsurprisingly, he was clean. Operating sterile. A pro.
It took a moment of searching in the dark until Victor found something appropriate to his needs. He would have preferred a piece of wood, but the square of rotting cardboard would do. He folded it in half and then again. The man watched him.
“Aren’t you going to ask me anything?”
“In due course.”
Victor squeezed the cardboard in his hands, making it thinner and denser.
“If you let me live,” the man said, “I’ll tell you everything.”
“You don’t know everything,” Victor replied, compressing the cardboard one last time, forming it into a small plank about five centimeters wide by ten long and two centimeters thick. “And I don’t have the time to make sure what you say is truthful. We need to act fast, don’t we?”
The man swallowed. “I won’t lie to you.”
Victor held up the cardboard. “It’ll save me a lot of time and you a lot of pain if we make sure of that at the very start.”
The man shook his head. “We don’t need to make sure.”
“Bite down.” He lowered the piece of cardboard to the man’s mouth.
“Please . . .”
“Trust me, you want this.”
Breathing hard, the man opened his mouth. Victor lowered the cardboard between the man’s teeth. He bit down on the cardboard.
“Ready?” Victor asked.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He used the edge of his palm to strike the shattered collarbone.
The man’s scream was louder than even Victor expected. It was a high-pitched wail that echoed between the carriages. The man tensed and went into spasm.
Victor checked his flank while he waited for him to finish, then took out the cardboard. The man had bitten through it. “Are you going to lie to me?”
“No.”
“You see, now I believe you. What’s your name?”
“Joe.”
“Joe what?”
“Forrester.”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Victor looked over his shoulder to see Gisele approaching. He said, “I’m interrogating him.”
“You’re torturing him.”
“No, I’ve tortured him. Now I’m interrogating him.”
&nbs
p; She came closer. “I don’t think the distinction is important.”
Victor said, “I assure you that it is to him.”
“I won’t allow it. It’s a war crime.”
“I don’t suppose there is any point reminding you that we’re not at war here?”
“You could have fooled me, and you’re being facetious. I won’t let you commit torture in my name.”
“Fine.” Victor rose to his feet.
He shot the man named Forrester between the eyebrows.
Gisele startled. She stood gasping, hand over her mouth. She glared at him, angry and disgusted despite the surprise and revulsion. “What did you do that for? You murdered a defenseless man. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I’ll tell you all about it some other time. Right now we need to get out of here.”
Chapter 40
The air smelled divine—blood and gun smoke. Perfume of the gods. Sinclair sucked in a big lungful as he stepped forward. Spent brass cartridges crunched underfoot. The insidious blare of sirens grew ever closer. The mercenaries were getting restless. They were keen to withdraw. Sinclair was unhurried. He had no fear of the police, even without Anderton’s power over them.
Besides, he required answers.
Peering through the scope of his rifle from across the street, he had watched the flashes of gunfire play out through the windows of the first-floor offices and listened to the radio chatter of the assaulters with keen interest.
He’d dropped the first Russian as soon as the opportunity had presented itself—and a fine shot, if he did say so himself—much to the irritation of the assaulters, who would have preferred more time to get into position. Sinclair operated on his timescale, not on the whims of fools. That first kill had elevated his bloodlust, but the Russians had refused to cooperate, annoyingly staying out of the reach of his rifle. With enormous self-restraint he had avoided taking shots based on muzzle flashes alone, to avoid killing one of the assaulters by mistake. No tragedy in itself, but Sinclair didn’t want the hired mercs questioning his skills as an exceptional operator. He wanted only praise. Only glory.
“It’s time to get the fuck out of here,” Wade was saying.
“Soon,” Sinclair said.
The plan had not been for a prolonged firefight. Two two-man fire teams were supposed to clear the warehouse and overwhelm the Russians with flashbangs and automatic fire. A two-minute assault. Three, tops. Based on the assumption they were up against an outgunned and surprised resistance. But that was not what Sinclair had seen or heard. The Russians were not supposed to put up much of a fight, if any. Certainly not engage the assaulters into a prolonged gun battle.
Sinclair had intervened to save the attack.
Want a job done right . . .
Only it hadn’t worked out like that. Sinclair wanted to know why. He wanted to know about the man he had fought—the man who had escaped with the girl.
Rogan said, “This one’s still alive.”
Sinclair turned and approached. One of the giant Russians lay slumped on the floor, unmoving, but his eyes were open and alert.
“Dmitri, yes?”
The Russian didn’t respond, but Sinclair knew he’d understood.
He squatted down next to him. “I’ll give you a choice, sport. Tell me who your friend in the suit is and I’ll put you out of your misery.” He drew his KA-BAR combat knife and began cutting. “Or don’t, and we’ll get to find out just how much pain you can take.”
Chapter 41
The car was a rust-stained Ford that was almost as old as Gisele. It barely looked roadworthy but her companion selected it over newer, better vehicles. At first she didn’t understand why, but then she knew: it had no alarm as standard and was too neglected to have acquired one. She watched, a little in awe, as it took him six seconds to jimmy the lock and less than twenty to cross the wires beneath the steering column to get the engine started. She’d known cars could be hot-wired, but had never seen anyone actually do it. The ease with which he managed it surprised her.
“Get in,” he said.
She didn’t care for the way those two short words sounded suspiciously close to an order, but now was not the time to discuss his manners. She did as instructed, reluctantly at first because she knew it was stolen. She saw that he noticed she didn’t like getting into a stolen car any more than she’d liked him torturing and executing a man. He didn’t comment, though.
Gisele slumped in the passenger’s seat and closed the door. She fastened her seat belt and he pulled away from the curb, accelerating hard. Cars and buildings flashed past the window. She glimpsed smudges of people and the blur of bright signs glowing through the rain and night. Her companion drove like a race-car driver—fast but in control, effortlessly weaving through the traffic while Gisele braced against the forces trying to fling her from side to side. He braked sharply to avoid a turning bus and the seat belt stopped her from hurtling forward. Before she had taken a breath the force of the car’s acceleration pushed her back into the seat. From the corner of her eye she saw him glancing at her—concerned for her or what she might be doing, she didn’t know. She kept her own gaze forward and her mind on making sure the contents of her stomach stayed where they belonged. Thank God she hadn’t eaten for hours.
She looked at his face. It was as blank as it had been when she had first met him in Yvette’s flat, as if nothing had happened between then and now.
“Aren’t you scared?” she said.
He didn’t answer her. It didn’t matter. She was scared enough for both of them.
“I . . . I’ve never seen anyone die before. I’ve never even seen a corpse. . . . This is crazy.”
“There’ll be time to reflect later. For now we need to put as much distance between us and the warehouse as possible.”
A horn blared as they overtook another car. She looked over her shoulder to see the silhouette of the car’s driver gesticulating his anger. She turned back, reaching out to grab the dashboard in an effort to steady herself as he performed another fast overtake.
A moment later, Gisele noticed the car was slowing down.
“Why are you . . . ?”
She stopped because she saw lights flashing ahead, and seconds later the wailing of sirens reached her ears and a police car sped past them in the opposite lane. She twisted in her seat to watch it disappear into the distance.
“Do you think they’re heading to the warehouse?”
“Most certainly.”
“Will those gunmen still be there?”
He shook his head. “They’ll be long gone by now. Like us. That’s why we have to keep moving.”
She thought of the terror she’d felt hiding behind the desk, waiting to be killed.
Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped them away with a sleeve before he could notice. She was determined not to cry. She didn’t want to be weak. Tears were losing control of emotions and she had to stay in control. She felt strange, not exactly scared but hyperalert and aware of every sound and sight and sensation assailing her. She’d experienced something similar while experimenting with drugs at university. This was real, though, not some chemical artificially changing her consciousness. Her ears were hot. She placed a thumb to her neck to feel her pulse. The bursts of pressure were so fast she couldn’t count them.
“Are you okay?” the man asked as he accelerated again now that the police car had vanished into the distance behind them.
A moment ago the answer would have been yes. Now she felt panicked. “My pulse,” she said. “My heart is beating too fast. I’m scared.”
He reached across and put the tips of two fingers over her carotid artery, driving one-handed. He held the fingers there for a few seconds. “Your pulse is about one hundred and thirty-two beats per minute. That’s fast, but nothing to be scared of. Breathe deeply and hold before releasing slo
wly.”
She did. Nothing to be scared of, she repeated in her thoughts.
“There you go,” he said. “It’s dropping already. You’re fine.”
She nodded. She didn’t feel fine but she felt slightly better.
“What you’re feeling is perfectly normal.”
“Then why aren’t you going through the same?”
“This isn’t my first time in combat.”
“Are you saying you’re used to it? How do you get used to it?”
“Like anything else: with experience.”
Gisele stared at him. She wanted to ask what other experiences he’d had, but at the same time she also didn’t want to know. She kept her lips closed.
She watched the man as he drove, studying his expressionless face and rigid posture. Whoever he was, whatever his name, however he claimed to be protecting her, could she really trust him? No, she told herself. He glanced her way and she had been too lost in thought to look aside before their gazes met. His eyes were as black as the night outside. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know where he was taking her. She swallowed her fear before it could smash through her facade of composure.
She sat upright. If he wasn’t going to suggest it, then she was. “We ought to go to the police.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Because of what just happened. The shooting. The killing. Armed men attacked us. This is a huge deal. We were involved. We have to explain what happened.”
“It won’t do any good.”
She stared, incredulous. “How did you work that out?”
He said nothing.
She looked at him. “You mean it won’t do any good for you, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Because you killed two men. Shit, you tortured one too. Oh God, this is crazy. You’re psychotic.”
“I did it to protect you.”
“Then tell them that. I’m a witness. I can back you up—”
He was shaking his head. “I’m not going to the police under any circumstances.”
