The Hunter v-1

by Tom Wood

  She grunted, fell, but the window was still intact, the wall opposite unmarked. No sniper.

  The broker scowled. ‘ What the hell was that for?’

  He didn’t answer her, opened the balcony door, stepped out, looked around. There was a drainpipe. If it was strong enough, it would take him straight down to the ground in less than a minute. He grabbed it, pulled sharply. It moved, but not much. It would do for the short time it would take.

  Victor turned and saw the broker pulling herself upright and knew there was no way she would be able to climb it. He hated having to compromise his course of action to take into account the abilities, or lack thereof, of another. He had to find a different way.

  There it was. At the end of the building a black metal bar protruding from around the corner. A fire escape. There were two more balconies between them and it. Victor turned to the broker.

  ‘Take off your shoes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If you want to live just do as I say.’

  She kicked them off and he pulled her out onto the balcony. He pointed.

  ‘I’m going to jump across.’ He tucked the HK into the front of his waistband and climbed onto the rail, holding the drainpipe for support. ‘When I’m over there I’ll reach back for you.’

  She shook her head violently. ‘What? No way, I can’t do it.’

  ‘Then you stay here and die. Either way I’m gone.’

  He was glad she had a cheap apartment; there was only a gap of a few feet between each balcony. If he had no other choice, he could do a standing leap from the railing to the next balcony. But the railing was wet. If he pushed off too hard, there was a chance his shoes might slip and he could fall. He looked down. It was a long way.

  Instead of jumping, he stood on the railing, body twisted, facing the wall. He gripped the drainpipe hard with his left hand and reached out with his right leg until his foot touched the railing of the next balcony.

  Victor extended his right arm as far as it could until he had a grip on the brickwork above the other balcony. He then pulled with his right arm and pushed off with his left leg. His left foot touched the railing just in front of his right.

  He looked back to the broker. ‘Come on.’

  The broker climbed up onto the railing the way he had done, only painfully slowly. Her breathing was heavy. He could see her fighting not to look down.

  He reached out to her. ‘Give me your hand.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘He can’t hear you. Now give me your hand.’

  She reached out a shaking hand across the gap. He grabbed her wrist hard.

  ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘Then you won’t fall. Leave your left foot on the railing and reach out with your right. I’ll keep you steady.’

  She stretched, but couldn’t reach her foot all the way across. ‘It’s too far.’

  ‘It’s not. When I say, push off hard and I’ll pull you the rest of the way. Okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you ready?’

  She nodded.

  Victor tightened his grip. ‘Now.’

  He pulled hard, and she pushed, but she lost her balance, and her left foot slipped. She cried out. Victor grunted under the strain but managed to swing her into the railings. She banged into them — crying out — but he heaved her up, and she scrambled over them, finally collapsing onto the balcony.

  She lay gasping on the wet stone, eyes squeezed tight. He dropped down beside her and pulled her up by the armpits. He climbed up onto the railing on the far side.

  ‘Same again,’ Victor said. ‘And then it’s not so easy.’

  A figure turned into the hallway, his eyes staring down the iron sights of his MP5SD submachine gun. He was dressed in black combat fatigues, heavy Kevlar body armour, tactical harness loaded with grenades and spare magazines. A handgun was strapped to his right thigh. Over his eyes protruded night-vision goggles.

  Four identically equipped men followed fluidly down the corridor, each covering a different field of fire, no one crossing the path of another’s weapon.

  They reached the target’s apartment, taking up their positions, one on either side of the door, the others spaced out along the hallway, waiting for the ram to be brought over. The bearer was 240 pounds of muscle and temper and he hurried down the corridor, ram held in both hands. Sixty pounds of black steel with a crude white skull painted on the business end.

  He stopped in front of the door, saw his commander give the hand signal, and swung the heavy ram back.

  Victor heard the crash as he crossed to the second balcony. The broker, still on the previous balcony, started at the sound and immediately pressed herself harder to the wall, clearly terrified.

  Victor pointed. ‘Get onto the railing.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Do it.’

  The broker shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

  She’d barely made the first one without the pressure of enemies bearing down upon them. It would be even harder now. There wasn’t enough time as it was. He looked to the jutting bar of the fire escape. He could get to it or take a drainpipe and be on the ground in thirty seconds. But it would take minutes to get away with the broker slowing him down. Minutes they didn’t have.

  It would be so easy to abandon her. His instincts told him to leave her and just go. What else could she really know that would be of any use to him? A lot was the answer. But together they wouldn’t make it. She’d heard his voice, seen his face, knew more about him than probably anyone alive, and that was before they’d actually met. Victor couldn’t allow her to be taken.

  He looked at her. Her eyes were still closed. Victor drew the HK and levelled it at her head, took a breath. Held it. But didn’t fire.

  He kicked open the balcony’s French window and charged through even as shards of glass were still falling away. He hurried through the apartment’s kitchen, into the lounge. The layout was identical to the broker’s rental.

  Victor peered through the spy hole into the corridor outside. There was just enough light from a window farther along the hallway for him to make out the black-clad figure standing directly in front of the door. He could discern the shape of the MP5, the bulk of the bulletproof vest, the edges of the night-vision goggles.

  Victor took a deep breath. Assassins with pistols were one thing, a fully armed and armoured tactical team was another. He could hear the grunts and crashes as more were trying to fight their way through the barricaded door farther along the corridor. They were assaulting the wrong room, had no idea he wasn’t there.

  If he was going to do something it had to be now.

  Victor flung open the door, grabbed the stunned gunman by the arms, and pulled him into the room. He was taken completely by surprise, didn’t even cry out. Victor swept his feet out from under him and smashed the butt of the broker’s handgun into the floored man’s jaw.

  Victor slammed the door shut again, locked it.

  The other gunmen in the corridor heard the noise, spun around, saw that one of their own was no longer there.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’

  ‘Shit, shit, he’s got Xavier.’

  ‘He’s in a different fucking apartment.’

  ‘Withdraw, withdraw, he’s in 305.’

  In the broker’s apartment the gunmen withdrew before they’d completed the search. They hurried back out into the hallway, taking up new positions to assault the target’s apartment.

  ‘Right,’ the commander whispered. ‘Let’s nail this bastard.’

  Victor wedged a chair under the door handle and grabbed stun grenades from the gunman’s tactical harness, stuffing them into the pockets of his jacket. He took a handful of spare magazines for the suppressed MP5.

  The guy on the floor before was out cold, face bloodied. Victor pulled the night-vision goggles from him and put them on. His vision became a pixellated green blur. He took the sidearm and gave the unconscious man two swift kicks to the head to make su
re he wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon. If he fired a shot the team would assault immediately. As it was, he had a few seconds while they readied themselves and composed an ad hoc plan to rescue one of their own.

  He recognized the insignia the man wore on his uniform and drew a breath of relief. The gunmen weren’t CIA but French police, members of Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion, or RAID, the French police’s counterterrorist unit. Maybe they’d had the broker under surveillance or he’d been spotted at the airport and followed. Or maybe a civilian had recognized him and called it in. Either way he was paying the price for coming back to Paris.

  With the MP5SD in hand, Victor ran back through and out onto the balcony. He grimaced for a second, looking straight at a street lamp across the road, the goggles magnifying the light to uncomfortable levels. He saw the broker was as he had left her, pressed up against the wall on the other balcony, trying not to hyperventilate.

  Victor stood up on the railing and leaped back to next balcony, then did the same again to take him back to the first. His foot slipped on the railing, but he grabbed the drainpipe to stop himself from falling, dropping the MP5 to do so. He breathed a sigh of relief when the gun landed on the balcony.

  He scooped it up and hurried through the kitchen and into the lounge. He had the weapon up in both hands, the stock pressed firmly into his shoulder, his eyes looking straight down the sights, his head and gun moving in unison.

  The sofa, desk, and chair were broken, pushed to one side of the door. There were no RAID guys in the lounge. They were outside in the corridor.

  Preparing to breach the wrong room.

  Again.

  CHAPTER 50

  21:13 CET

  Two stood to one side of the door ready to go in, a third and fourth waited on the other side, the commander had a pump-action shotgun in hand, ready to blow the hinges off the door with Hatton rounds. The ram had been abandoned.

  The shotgun-armed commander held up five fingers, then four, three, two…

  Something rolled into the corridor from the apartment they’d just left. Something metal.

  Through the grainy-green night vision it took the commander a second to realize what it was. When he did he inhaled to scream a warning. It was too late.

  The stun grenade exploded with an excruciatingly loud bang and an incredible flash of light.

  The gunmen started yelling, blinded, disorientated, senses overloaded. One dropped his gun, another stumbled backwards down the corridor, bumping into walls, trying to get away. The commander screamed for his men to hold their positions, but his ears were ringing so much he couldn’t even hear his own voice.

  Amid the chaos Victor stormed out of the broker’s apartment and into the corridor, emerging through the stun grenade’s smoke, MP5 raised, set to three-round burst. He squeezed the trigger ten quick times, the MP5 making a series of rapid clicks, his aim shifting as targets fell. He aimed for faces and guts, where the heavy body armour offered least protection. The gunmen appeared out of the darkness with each shot, illuminated for an instant by the strobelike flickers from the MP5’s muzzle flash. Bodies flailed and contorted. Blood misted in the air.

  Within three seconds the breech on Victor’s MP5 had blown back for the last time, and all four gunmen lay slumped in the corridor. The smell of cordite and blood filled his nostrils. Smoking shell casings crunched underfoot.

  No one was moving, so he reloaded and slung the MP5 over his shoulder. He grabbed the commander’s shotgun and used it to blow the lock off the door to the apartment they had been about to breach.

  Victor threw the shotgun away and kicked open the door. He ignored a terrified Algerian woman huddled with two children in a corner and moved through into the kitchen. He opened the balcony door and grabbed the broker by the arm. She screamed for a moment until she realized it was him.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving.’

  Victor dragged her back into the kitchen and out into the corridor. She took a sharp intake of breath, stumbling over the bodies of the four gunmen.

  ‘Oh Christ.’

  ‘Hold it together; there’ll be more of them. Stay directly behind me.’

  Victor had the MP5 back in hand and the broker’s gun in the front of his waistband. He led her through the corpses and down the corridor towards the elevator. He hit the button and the door opened. Stepping inside, he pressed for the ground floor and stepped back out. The broker was left standing in the elevator.

  ‘Out,’ Victor ordered.

  ‘What?’

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the corridor. The doors closed behind her. Victor headed back towards the stairwell, moving quickly, staying to the right, his shoulder brushing the wall.

  ‘The elevator…’ the broker said.

  Victor ignored her, led her quickly to the stairs. He pushed her against the wall next to the stairwell door.

  ‘Stay here.’

  He squatted down in front of the door, gun ready in his right hand. He reached up and opened the door with his left, peering in. The stairwell was empty.

  ‘Come on.’

  He rushed down the stairs, gun up, pausing at each floor to stop, listen. The broker followed him closely. Victor stopped on the first floor, opened the door into the corridor, and guided her through.

  The broker looked back. ‘This isn’t the bottom.’

  ‘I know.’ Victor didn’t slow down. ‘Stop talking.’

  He could hear heavy footsteps rushing up the stairwell below. Victor pulled the pin from another stun grenade but kept the striker lever pressed down. He wedged the grenade behind the door handle so that the lever was held in place. At least until the door was opened.

  Victor hurried along the corridor to a window at the opposite end of the building. He smashed it with the butt of the submachine gun and knocked out the shards of glass left. He climbed through, dropped.

  He landed in an alley ten feet below, in a crouch, immediately going into a roll, absorbing the impact through his whole body. The soles of his feet stung, but there was no injury. He came to his feet, turned, looked up. The broker was leaning out the window.

  He gestured. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I–I can’t; it’s too far.’

  ‘Don’t jump out, just drop. When you hit the ground, roll. Do it.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Victor turned around, opened a Dumpster, grabbed half a dozen refuse sacks, and threw them underneath the window.

  ‘Come on.’

  She took a breath. ‘I’ll break my legs.’

  ‘In five seconds I’m gone. Now do it.’

  She did, landing awkwardly, feet first, falling backwards. The trash bags burst but slowed her fall. She groaned, tried to stand, failed and fell backward. Victor extended a hand to her and she took it. He heaved her onto her feet.

  ‘I think I’ve sprained my ankles.’

  ‘You can stand so you haven’t. Move.’

  A small explosion made the broker startle.

  She looked up towards the window. Victor didn’t react, moved to the mouth of the alley, and pressed his back to the wall, listening. The noises of any street: cars and pedestrians. He pulled out his wallet, taking out a matte-black metal tube with a small spherical mirror attached to the end. He extended it, held it up and looked in the reflection.

  There were several vehicles outside the front of the building, two assault-team vans, four marked police cars, three unmarked. There were around a dozen figures, some suits, some uniformed officers.

  He grabbed her by the wrist and hurried to the opposite end of the alleyway. He used the mirror again to look round the corner. One marked car. Two officers. Much better.

  ‘Listen.’ He pulled the broker closer. ‘They’re outside. As soon as we leave this alley they’re going to see us.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘You have a car?’

  ‘I rented one, but it’s a block away at least.’

&
nbsp; ‘That doesn’t matter. I’ll go out first and get their attention. They’ll come after me. Thirty seconds later you get to the car and get out of here.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll think of something. Here.’ He took out a newly purchased phone and gave it to her. ‘Get out of central Paris. Keep the phone on. I’ll call you.’

  ‘We shouldn’t split up.’

  ‘This is the only way.’

  ‘There must be something else we can do.’

  ‘If you have a better plan, now’s the time to tell me.’

  She shook her head meekly.

  He grabbed her by the shoulder. ‘You understand what you’re doing?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then say so.’

  ‘I understand.’

  He dropped the MP5SD. It was a shame to be parted from it, but his objective was to get away, not have a running gun battle. And walking around with an 800 rounds-per-minute submachine gun wasn’t the best way to go unnoticed.

  Victor gave the broker her gun back. ‘Just in case.’ He still had the knife, a 9 mm SIG P-228 with a full mag and a single stun grenade. Not much if he ran into more guys in body armour with submachine guns, but it would have to do.

  ‘Thirty seconds after I’ve gone, you go. Count the seconds.’

  He stepped out of the alley and ran.

  He heard the first shout as he reached the middle of the road, heard the shot when he was on the opposite side of the street. A chunk of brickwork blew out of a nearby wall.

  Across the road, Victor ran straight for a side street too narrow for the cars to drive down. They would have to chase him on foot. He ran down the alleyway, dodging around trash cans, boxes. He hurried around a corner, took another immediately, finding himself in a wide back alley that ran between a line of stores. He headed straight down its centre, veered off as soon as another way appeared.

  On a main street he slowed to a jog to avoid attracting too much attention. One of the best ways to find someone trying to run away was to follow the trail of confused pedestrians looking over their shoulders. He made his way around the block, doubling back to the broker’s street. If anything they would expect him to run farther away. The last thing they would expect him to do was head back.