by Tom Wood
Sinclair wrenched his arm down and spun to the right before the cop had a chance to act. Now facing him, Sinclair slammed his knee into the cop’s groin and with his left hand pulled the pistol from the holster in one fluid move.
Even if the other cop had reacted fast enough he couldn’t have taken the shot. Sinclair was using his partner as cover.
He pushed the Glock’s muzzle against the closest cop’s ribs and fired three times. Before the corpse had hit the ground the gun was raised and the second officer was flailing backward, taken out with a double tap to the sternum. A third between the eyes followed.
Sinclair turned back toward his prey, but they were gone. At the end of the street, the two guys who had pursued on foot were boarding Wade’s Range Rover. Sinclair approached.
“You lunatic,” Wade yelled at him. “You’ve fucked us all. I’m done with this shit.”
Sinclair executed him with a single shot to the face.
He looked at the remaining two mercenaries. “Anything to add?”
They shook their heads. Sinclair pulled Wade’s corpse from the driver’s seat and onto the road. He climbed in.
“This is Unit Two,” Anderton’s voice said through the radio. “I see them.”
Chapter 77
The second Range Rover turned onto the street ahead of Victor and Gisele. They couldn’t turn back—that would mean heading in the direction of their pursuers. There were no alleys or side streets leading off. To the right lay an impassable wall of brick with barred windows. To the left plywood rose two and a half meters, securing a construction site beyond.
“This way,” Victor said.
He stood before the plywood with his hands cupped as the Range Rover accelerated toward them. Gisele didn’t hesitate. She used her left foot to push off and he heaved her up. She cried out as she landed on the other side. He followed, leaping up and hauling himself over. He dropped down and pulled Gisele to her feet.
He grimaced, his injured ankle worsening from the drop, but they pressed on, scrambling down a slope onto an expanse of cracked asphalt stained with red building sand. There were huge piles of sand and gravel at one end of the area, a portable office cabin at the other. Directly ahead was the steel frame of a ten-story building.
Behind them, a section of plywood collapsed as one of the Range Rovers crashed through it, blasting chunks of wood into the air. The vehicle tipped forward and dropped a meter before its front tires hit the slope and its suspension absorbed the impact.
The only way to go was onward into the shelter of the partially constructed building. The Range Rover roared down the slope behind them. Victor and Gisele passed between steel columns, stepping up onto the poured concrete floor. The ceiling above was concrete too. Construction materials and cables lay everywhere. Some walls had been erected. In places, plastic sheeting formed temporary barriers. He glanced over his shoulders to see their pursuers gaining with every second.
“Keep going through until you reach the other side,” Victor said to Gisele. “Then find somewhere to hide. Don’t come out until you hear my voice.” He gave her the mercenary’s knife. “Take this.”
She tried to push the weapon back into his hand. “No. You take it. You need it.”
“Do as I say, Gisele. Or we’re both dead.”
She looked at it, then at him. “What are you going to do?”
He didn’t answer because she already knew. “Go.”
Victor watched her hurry away. In seconds she was lost in the darkness. He turned around, eased himself into position, side-on behind a support column, and waited. Their enemies were near, frantically chasing for them, high on the thrill of the hunt—there was nothing quite like it—and intensified by the fear of failure. Victor would use that against them.
He rocked his head from side to side to crack his neck. His hands tingled.
Death was close.
• • •
The Range Rover had blown a tire and collided with a horizontal stack of girders. Steam billowed from under the hood and it struggled to reverse, wheels throwing out great sprays of wet red building sand that painted its black bodywork and coated windows. The mercenaries inside abandoned it.
There was no denying it: the vehicle was a wreck. The noises emanating from the engine were of a beast wounded and succumbing to the cruel hand of mortality. They drew their weapons and waited for Sinclair to join them.
Using hand gestures, he told them what to do.
He moved noiselessly through the construction site, silenced MP5 out before him, gaze focused along the iron sights. Where he looked, the muzzle pointed. He was eager to kill, to finish this. Not for fear of police intervention, but for his own personal satisfaction. He lived only to see death. He breathed slow, regular breaths. He was excited but calm in battle. The sweat tasted like honey on his lips.
He had heard the sound of plastic sheeting flapping in the wind. Somewhere in the darkness was a killer with a gun. Sinclair moved slowly. He had all the time in the world. He knew this was it. His enemy was lying in wait, ready to ambush.
Not that Sinclair felt at risk. He was the predator. He sat at the very top of the food chain, every other living thing below him. His prey.
He pictured the killer, gambling that they would be rash or stupid. Hoping they were going to walk into his trap.
Praying, more like.
Sinclair had set a trap of his own.
He’d signaled for the two mercs to move forward while he circled around the flank. However good Norimov’s assassin was, he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.
The two men would die, serving as bait to bring Sinclair’s prey out into the open.
He would feast on them all.
Chapter 78
Victor waited in the shadows. He crouched low, where it was darkest, listening to the quiet scrape of shoes on concrete or the crunch of heel on gravel, noting when they broke apart and formed to separate sounds, one growing increasingly quieter while the other grew louder. The sounds were close, but they overlapped and echoed around the space. Victor waited. The two men were moving too fast. They were attempting caution but too anxious to make it work. Adrenaline and limited visibility were not conducive to accurate special awareness.
If he could take the first out without the second’s knowledge, the second wouldn’t be a problem. He changed positions, closing the distance between himself and the first man. He stood side-on to another column, watching the man’s shadow approach.
Victor sprang out of cover, but his ankle slowed him. He took the man by surprise, but was not fast enough to take him down noiselessly.
The mercenary managed to squeeze the trigger, but the weapon was already twisted away from Victor. Muted muzzle flashes brightened the darkness before Victor knocked the gun out of his hand an instant later. It clanged off a steel column.
Victor dropped his forehead into his enemy’s face, darting back at the same time as the man recoiled, then turning to intercept the second gunman, who was responding to the noise, hurrying through the darkness, gun up. The second gunman failed to get his sights lined up on Victor, who was moving laterally, disappearing behind columns and partially constructed walls. He reappeared a moment later, coming at the gunman from his flank.
Victor caught the second man in the face with the edge of his right palm, then across the top of the gun-holding hand with his left forearm. Shock and pain overloaded his nervous system, jolting the weapon from the man’s grip. The mercenary fought back, fast and strong, trying to hit Victor with hooks and elbows.
He slipped aside, waiting for his opponent’s overeagerness to create an opening, too slow and weak to exploit the man’s lack of skill until he left himself exposed. Victor slammed him with an elbow. The man lost his footing and collapsed to the floor, down but still conscious, cheekbone broken.
Victor grabbed the pisto
l, not hearing the first mercenary until he was already on him, grappling, trying to get the gun out of his grip. He was not the best fighter but was bigger and stronger and uninjured.
The weapon was pushed upward, forcing Victor’s arms above his head, using his extra reach and strength in an attempt to free the weapon. A kick to the side of the man’s knee took four inches from his height as he sank downward. Victor exploited the momentary weakness to pull their arms down and slam his enemy’s fist against a steel column.
A smear of blood was left on the metal, but the man didn’t let go, so Victor did, letting the gun fall from his fingers. It struck the ground and the toe of his shoe sent it skidding away.
His enemy released him as he knew he would and went for his throat, but Victor was already moving, using his greater agility to slip from the grapple and land a solid punch to the man’s chest.
The impact knocked the mercenary back a step, but he was as tough as he was strong and within a second he’d recovered. He rushed Victor, who timed the inevitable takedown attempt and stepped aside, letting the man stumble into space, losing his balance and recovering too slowly to stop Victor from leaping onto his back and snaking an arm around his neck until the pit of his elbow was at the front of the mercenary’s throat.
The second man was on his feet already and going for his gun, so Victor released the choke and went after him, grabbing the outstretched pistol and fist as they turned his way, then wrenching them down and pulling toward him, muzzle harmlessly pointed at the floor, tipping his enemy off-balance. The man yelled in surprise and then in pain as Victor ripped the gun from his grip and smashed it into his face. The first impact dropped him to his knees. The next opened up his skull.
Victor turned, seeing the surviving mercenary going for his own disarmed pistol and scooping it up into his hands, but immediately letting it fly from his grasp as he contorted from the four bullets Victor put into him.
He glimpsed Gisele in the darkness and motioned for her to come to him. She did, keeping low and moving fast. He led her back the way they had entered.
A noise. He pushed her into the cover provided by the crashed Range Rover as an MP5SD opened fire.
“Keep down. Get behind a wheel.”
Gisele did, cowering as bullets slammed into the vehicle shielding them, puckering the bodywork with holes, cracking glass, making the car reverberate with multiple impacts.
The subsonic nine-millimeter rounds fired from the MP5 had too little power to pass all the way through the car, but it wouldn’t protect them for much longer. Victor didn’t need to put his head into the line of fire to know the gunman was stalking closer. There was nowhere to run to.
He returned fire, shooting blindly to keep the mercenary at bay, before the pistol jammed, the slide not locked forward. Blood on the weapon had dirtied the chamber and the next round failed to seat. Victor abandoned it and shuffled to where the car’s fuel inlet was located. He gestured for Gisele to give him back the knife, reversed his grip, and drove the blade through the car’s bodywork approximately twenty centimeters below the inlet. Metal squawked as he tugged it free. He waited a second. Nothing.
Gisele whispered, “What are you doing?”
Victor stabbed with the knife again, five centimeters lower to account for the fuel tank being approximately a quarter full. Which was more useful to him than a fuller tank. This time when he pulled the blade free, petrol trickled out of the hole.
He stabbed twice more to widen the hole and soaked a handkerchief in the petrol. He stuffed it into the hole and looked at Gisele.
“When I say go, run like you’ve never run before. Okay?”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere that’s not here. Find somewhere to hide and don’t come out until the police arrive.”
She nodded. He lit the handkerchief with Rogan’s lighter.
• • •
Sinclair kept his index finger depressed on the trigger until the magazine emptied. Brass clinked on the ground and crunched underfoot as he moved to get a better angle, releasing the spent magazine and slamming in a second.
He stalked closer to the road. He had the MP5 up, stock comfortable against his shoulder, eyes peering along the iron sights.
Without losing focus on his prey he continued to move in a semicircle, seeking a line of sight. He released a quick burst to keep them in place, to make them hesitant to leave the protection of the vehicle. Then the killer yelled, “Move!” and he rose from cover, sprinting away from the bullet-riddled car as the woman did the same. They set off in opposite directions and it made Sinclair hesitate for an instant, unsure who to aim at first.
He swung the MP5 to track the girl, putting the iron sights in front of her to account for the speed of her movement. Hitting a moving target was not about aiming at the target, but knowing where the target would be by the time the bullets reached their mark.
But he hesitated because orange light glowed in the darkness, casting flickering shadows. Fire. Near the vehicle’s fuel inlet.
That’s not good.
He turned and ran.
The burning handkerchief ignited the petrol vapor, which ignited the liquid petrol and oxygen inside the enclosed fuel tank.
The resulting explosion sent a huge gout of flame flowing from the car. The overpressure wave picked Sinclair from his feet and tossed him to the ground. Searing heat washed over him.
He coughed as black smoke and fumes flowed over him. He didn’t know he’d been knocked down until he tried to move, but his body wasn’t responding as it should. With difficulty, he managed to sit up. He then stood, a little wobbly but strength and coordination coming back to him as the sounds reaching his ears grew louder.
He retrieved his submachine gun and headed after the girl. However much he wanted to kill Norimov’s assassin, that guy was a pet project. It was the girl who truly mattered.
Another time, sport.
Through the swirling black smoke, a figure leaped at him.
Chapter 79
Sinclair used the MP5 to parry Victor’s thrust, knocking the knife from his grip but leaving himself exposed to the punch Victor connected with. The South African grunted and flailed forward, twisting around as he stumbled, bringing his submachine gun up, aiming at Victor—
Who was fast enough to grab the weapon before Sinclair could aim it, one hand on the barrel, the other on the stock, directing it upward, muzzle pointed at the ceiling, but also twisting it against the rotation of Sinclair’s wrists. He had no option to release it or suffer a break.
Victor tossed the weapon. The gun was too long and therefore too impractical to employ at such close range. If he tried, he would only be disarmed as his enemy had been.
It sailed through the air, hitting a wall, crunching broken glass as it hit the floor somewhere in the darkness.
“You should have taken the bullet,” Sinclair said. “It would have saved you a lot of pain.”
Victor had his guard up in time to ward off the subsequent attack, and they traded blows, some scoring hits, others parried, neither landing anything meaningful until Victor was hit with an open-palm blow to the chest, knocking him off his unstable balance. He slipped and blocked another. A third hit him in the side of the ribs. He sagged, and risked a sweep at Sinclair’s load-bearing leg.
The lingering effects of his injuries slowed him and the sweep was checked with a kick, jolting him off-balance, restricting his movement enough for Sinclair to grab him by the jacket and swing him ninety degrees and into the wall. Victor responded with a head butt now that they were close, but again he was too slow or his enemy expected it, and the attack missed, only glancing the South African’s skull, causing no real damage.
Sinclair backed off to create space and responded with a forward kick. His heel missed Victor’s pelvis by an inch as he sidestepped and grabbed the outstretched leg before Sincla
ir could withdraw it, pulling him closer, feinting another head butt that made Sinclair twist away, putting himself farther off-balance. A short sweep put him on the ground, hard.
Victor stamped down but Sinclair caught the foot before it could crack ribs and twisted to break Victor’s one good ankle, but Victor turned with the movement to save the joint.
The South African released him, rolling away from his vulnerable position on the ground and was fast on his feet, attacking even faster, going for the takedown.
Victor had been expecting it, but couldn’t react in time to avoid it altogether. He broke the fall by rolling with the impact, going for where lay a section of pipe. Sinclair’s grip was not secure enough to stop him, but he was on top of Victor before he could employ the weapon. Sinclair batted it out of Victor’s hand, who then blocked the first punches aimed at his head, twisting and rocking to lessen the damage of those that got through his guard.
Sinclair pushed his forearm against Victor’s throat, leaning forward to apply extra pressure but leaning too far. Victor grabbed him by his jacket and wrenched him off-balance. He gave up the choke to stop himself from falling, but Victor bridged with his hips and pushed the South African clear. As he rolled onto his back, Sinclair tugged a knife free from a belt sheath and stabbed the point down at Victor’s chest.
It caught his triceps as he scrambled away, grabbing a woven rubble sack as he rose to his feet, more slowly than his enemy. He took another slash to his arm before he had the sack stretched between both hands. He used it as a shield to turn away attacks as he backed up, creating distance, waiting and timing. He knew he was too slow and too weak to match his opponent otherwise.
His timing was good, but his reflexes were dulled. He caught the incoming thrust with the sack, stopping the blade from puncturing his ribs and the heart beneath, but he couldn’t prevent it from slicing through his shirt and skin. He gritted his teeth and his arms shook with the strain of keeping the knife point from puncturing farther. Sinclair was slightly shorter but far stronger than Victor in his injured state. He had the advantage of leverage, though—better braced, while Sinclair was coming forward, head not in line with his hips.
