by WOOD TOM
The handcuffs still locked around Victor’s wrists.
Rogan glanced up in time to see a blur of movement before Victor’s forehead collided with his nose.
The rest of his body was weak, but no punch or kick could damage the strongest bone in the human body. The mercenary’s nose was paper-delicate in comparison and he’d created the perfect amount of space between them for Victor’s to generate the momentum to crush it flat.
Blood exploded across both Rogan’s face and Victor’s. The man’s hands retreated from their hold on Victor to protect himself as he stumbled backwards. Victor stumbled too, unable to properly support himself, but he grabbed the man’s belt with both cuffed hands as he put his left leg behind Rogan’s and they fell to the floor together.
His enemy was stunned from the headbutt and blinded by the tears and blood in his eyes. Rogan didn’t know what Victor was doing until palms pressed down over his mouth and teeth sank into the thin layer of skin and tissue to the right of his trachea.
The palms muffled the man’s scream as Victor ripped a chunk out of his neck.
He turned his face away to spare it from the arcs of pressurised blood from the severed carotid artery.
Rogan was too overwhelmed by pain and terror to fight back but thrashed in panic as blood escaped his neck in machine-gun blasts.
Victor’s weight pinned him down for the few seconds it took until Rogan lost consciousness. Victor rolled and lay for a moment, recovering from the exertion while the mercenary bled out next to him.
His hands were slick with blood and he wiped them on the man’s clothes. He then searched through Rogan’s jacket pockets, then through the pockets of his jeans. He found keys for the Audi, a Zippo lighter and cigarettes, but no handcuff key. He found the man’s knife, but it was no good against his restraints. He spread his palms across the ground through the pool of bright arterial blood, but still no key.
He cleaned his hands again and forced himself on to his knees and tried to stand. A buzz of pain rushed through his head and his balance faltered. He managed to stay standing, weight balanced on his right foot. It was an improvement to be able to remain upright. Every part of his body seemed to be sending pain signals to his brain but the damaged ankle and bruised ribs appeared to be the worst of his injuries. Anderton had spared him before any irrecoverable damage had been done.
He glanced around the hangar. No sign of any handcuff keys or where they might be. He would have dislocated his thumbs, but the cuffs were on too tight and his hands too big to make such a means of escape possible. He staggered to where the Audi was parked. He opened a door and checked the glove compartment and door pockets, but still no key.
He used the vehicle to support himself and shuffled until he could rest his elbows on the bonnet. He reached out and with both hands twisted and pulled until he detached a windscreen wiper. With the aid of his teeth he tore away the rubber wiper to reveal the long, slender wiper blade.
He turned around and leaned against the bonnet to prop himself up while he fed one end of the wiper blade into the narrow gap where the handcuff bow fed until it could go no further. Despite the pain, he forced the cuff tighter so the teeth drew the end of the wiper blade further into the mechanism, covering the next tooth and stopping it locking. The bow could then be pulled back out of the mechanism and Victor had one hand free.
In seconds, his other hand was released and the cuffs clattered against the hard floor.
SEVENTY-TWO
Lester’s computer was password protected. Gisele had expected as much, but was still hoping for a minor miracle. She tried a few guesses: his date of birth; his wife’s name; the usual kind of thing people had. She gave up after a couple of minutes. There was no telling how much time she had before someone would catch her. The alarm still sounded, but inside Lester’s office it was a little more bearable, muted by the walls and door.
Having given up with the computer, she turned her attention to hard copies of case files. He had a filing cabinet full of them, but she limited the search to the priority cases – those with upcoming deadlines – and ones she had assisted with by scanning or copying documents or filing. She found herself reading about a man named Adeib Aziz, an Afghan policeman currently imprisoned at Bagram Airbase for killing a British intelligence officer named Maxwell Durant. She read the case against Aziz, or the lack thereof. He had been convicted based on the testimony of a single witness who had not been contactable since the conviction. Lester had taken on Aziz’s appeal, working pro bono on behalf of an international human rights charity. Lester was as ruthless and driven a barrister as Gisele knew, but he’d had a good heart too. If Aziz’s case was not heard in a week’s time, his appeal would be turned down by default and he would spend the rest of his life in an Afghani prison.
Could this be why the blonde woman had killed Lester, and was mistakenly after Gisele, to stop Aziz being released?
She searched further into the file, reading between the lines.
The blonde didn’t want Aziz released. She’d had Lester killed to stop it happening. But why? What was so important about keeping him in prison? Unless he was innocent. If she knew he was innocent then maybe it was she who was guilty instead. Were Aziz’s conviction to be overturned, the investigation into Maxwell Durant’s murder would be reopened.
Assuming Aziz had taken the fall for killing Durant, for the intervening years the woman must have thought she’d got away with it, that she was safe. But then Lester took on the case no one wanted. Now, she was trying to protect the truth.
Gisele read on, because she couldn’t believe anyone would go through so much purely to prevent Aziz being released, regardless of the questions that might follow. There had to be something more concrete.
The file contained an after-action report pertaining to the arrest of Aziz. The investigation and arrest had been carried out by a three-person team consisting of a private military contractor, William Sinclair, and two officers of the Intelligence Corps, Marcus Lambert and Nieve Anderton.
Gisele smiled to herself. The plan was working.
The fire alarm ceased blaring. The sudden silence startled her, snapping her attention from the file in hand. She dropped it. Pages scattered across the floor.
‘Shit.’
She tried gathering them up, but paused when she saw a line of shadow under the door to Lester’s office. She held her breath as the handle turned and it opened.
‘Christ, Alan,’ she breathed, palm moving to her chest. ‘You scared the hell out of me.’
Big, kind Alan the security guard stood in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Maynard. I didn’t mean to startle you. Just checking out the… hey, why didn’t you head to the lobby when the alarm went off?’
‘Yeah, sorry about that. I assumed it was another false alarm. I’ve got so much work to catch up on.’
He looked at her and she saw the suspicion in his gaze. ‘As it happens, it was the switch around the corner that was set off. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’
‘I . . . ’ She shook her head. ‘I thought it was a drill. I’m sorry, I know I should have gone downstairs.’
His searching eyes took in her hair, non-office attire and file pages scattered across the floor. ‘Perhaps you should come downstairs with me, miss.’
She stood, gesturing to the door and saying, ‘Sure, okay. Let’s go,’ so Alan looked away for a second, giving her time to pocket the after-action report without his knowledge.
He ushered Gisele ahead of him into the corridor. She turned in the direction of the exit and saw a man walking through the open-plan area.
She knew he was one of them as soon as their eyes met. He had tanned skin. He was stocky and wore khaki trousers and a leather jacket. An image flashed in her mind. This was the man who had shot at them in the hotel corridor.
Alan emerged from the office and saw the approaching man. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Never seen him before,’ Gisele said,
making no attempt to disguise the fear she felt.
Alan picked up on it and stepped towards the man in the leather jacket.
‘Be careful,’ Gisele said.
‘Don’t worry about me.’
For a moment she was comforted by Alan’s presence. He was so big he seemed indestructible. But then she remembered Dmitri and the others: bigger and tougher than Alan, and now all dead.
‘Run along, and try not to set off the alarm again, eh?’ He winked at her.
She did. As she turned the corner she heard Alan’s commanding voice: ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m the computer guy,’ the man replied in a South African accent.
Gisele pushed open the heavy swing door into the lady’s room. She heard a muted thump from somewhere behind her as she stepped inside.
The man who wasn’t a real computer guy was in the corridor outside. Gisele didn’t have to look to know that he was following her. She hoped he hadn’t hurt poor Alan too much. She pictured him waiting a moment to ensure Gisele was preoccupied when he entered in maybe twenty or thirty seconds. She breathed fast and hard, trying to think what to do. She was trapped. What would her companion do?
He wouldn’t waste time so neither did Gisele. She entered the furthest cubicle, closed and locked the door, shut the toilet lid and stood on it, then climbed up on to the cistern and over the partition wall.
She landed awkwardly on the other side, grimacing as she banged her knee against the toilet bowl. She hurried out, leaving the door wide open and rushed into the first cubicle, put the toilet seat down, took off her shoes and then stood on top of it. She nudged the door to, far enough so it hid her from view but not so far that it might appear closed or locked.
The heavy swing door opened and a man’s shoes clicked on the tiled floor.
Gisele’s teeth clenched and her nostrils rapidly flexed and contracted as she fought to control her fear and stay balanced on the toilet seat. She rested her shoes on the cistern lid and slowly took the can of pepper spray from her handbag. The footsteps paused and she heard the door clunk shut.
For a terrible moment she thought the man would simply shoot her through the thin cubicle wall, but the shoes clicked again. A different sound this time, softer – the man taking a sidestep to view the cubicle doors. She willed him to see that the far door was the only one closed and locked and not see her deception.
Gisele listened to the sound of slow footsteps growing louder. As they came closer she could make out his shadow. She had to stop herself crying out with relief when the shadow moved past the first cubicle without slowing. She waited. Her hands were so damp with sweat the can of pepper spray began slipping from her grasp. The harder she squeezed it, the faster it slid.
If she dropped it and it hit the hard floor tiles…
She lowered her hands and caught the bottom of the can between her thighs, for the first time ever she was glad she carried plenty of weight there. While her thighs kept the can steady, she wiped the sweat from her palms.
The sound of shoes clicking on tiles ceased. Gisele pictured the man standing before the last cubicle door, maybe raising his pistol, ready to shoot.
This was it. I trust you, he’d said.
A loud crash indicated the man had kicked open the cubicle door.
Gisele was dropping off the toilet seat while the sound of the door banging still echoed around the room. She dashed out of her cubicle as the man was backing out, realising he had been tricked.
She pushed the can up towards his turning face and pressed the button.
He roared as the vapour found his eyes.
His hands rose to protect them and Gisele ran for her life.
SEVENTY-THREE
Sinclair followed a moment later, eyes burning and full of water, but he could still see well enough to shoot and hit. She was a canny fox, this one. He liked that. He liked that his eyes stung from the pepper spray. But there was no target to hit. She could not have run the full length of the law firm in the few seconds it took for him to give chase, so must instead be hiding. Multiple doors lined the corridor. He tried the handles as he moved, opening the unlocked doors and checking the rooms beyond without success until he reached the open-plan area.
He hoped to find her under a desk, huddled in a trembling ball. If she was hiding so, he could save the bullet and strangle her. She had a small neck and he had large hands. Perhaps one hand would be enough. He imagined her panicked gasps as he crushed her trachea between his fingers.
He decided against keeping his weapon drawn. Doing so would only be an admission of his inability to control the situation. He was in control. This was his moment.
Sinclair remembered a cold night in Helmand, terrorising a car of Afghans at a checkpoint, pretending he didn’t understand them as they begged and pleaded him not to shoot. He hadn’t, but a man in the back of the vehicle had beat his wife around the head until she spat out teeth in an attempt to stop her screaming. When Sinclair told the story, he never made it to the end without cracking up.
Sinclair stepped towards the door to a stationery cupboard.
He opened it. Nothing.
A noise behind him. He turned to see Gisele running across the far side of the open-plan area.
He followed. No need to run. It was too much fun to have a premature end.
Gisele ran, rounding desks and chairs, passing the water cooler and the colour laser printer. She knew he was behind her, but daren’t look to see him chasing. She made it down a corridor and around the corner into the reception area. No Caroline behind the desk as Alan hadn’t given the all-clear for people to return after the alarm.
For a second, she considered hiding behind the desk, thinking the man with the shaved head wouldn’t think to look there, but decided against it. She had to get out. Fast.
She pushed every lift button.
‘Come on, come on.’
She heard the man’s approaching footsteps. She hurriedly pushed the buttons again.
The man appeared. He smiled at her. ‘You’ve caused us a lot of bother, missy. But this is the end of the road.’ He reached under his jacket.
The lift doors opened next to Gisele.
Her nameless companion stepped out and shot the approaching mercenary three times in the chest.
Victor led Gisele down to the ground floor and kept his palm on the small of her back as they crossed the vast lobby.
‘My God,’ she breathed. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
He didn’t answer. Even though he’d cleaned off much of the blood, his injuries were obvious.
When they neared the exit, he said, ‘There are more of them outside. They didn’t see me come in, but they’ll see us when we leave.’ He gestured towards a security guard near the revolving doors. ‘Stay next to him until I return.’
‘Hurry back,’ Gisele said.
Victor heaved open the door and left the office building, leaving the warm and still interior air behind and stepping into the freezing night wind that toyed with his hair and brought moisture to his swollen right eye. A page of discarded newspaper tumbled and swooshed along the pavement. On the far side of the road a young woman climbed into a taxi.
He looked both ways, surveying the locale, ready to move and shoot and fight and die if necessary. He seemed relaxed because he was relaxed. If there was any place in which he truly belonged it was in the heart of violence. He had no fear of it because he knew it was who he was.
They were waiting in case Gisele appeared. They couldn’t know what had happened inside. They would only make their move when she did. For now, they would leave him be, although they would not let him out of their sight. But that was exactly what he wanted.
He descended the stone steps. The wind hid the sound of his footfalls. The Range Rover was parked against the kerb some thirty metres away. The lights, exterior and interior, had been extinguished, but Victor could see the shapes of three men. No features were visible, but they didn’t need to be. The men wh
o sat there were mortal enemies who would be dead before the night’s end or would be Victor’s killers. Victor had had many enemies. Many were still alive. But almost without exception they were a threat to him as he was to them because of his work. Hazards of the profession. Now was different. Victor would kill these men or be killed by them because of someone else.
In the Audi, Victor took the handgun from his waistband and set it between his thighs, grip up for quick access. He let the engine idle. He wanted the man in the Range Rover and anyone else watching to see the exhaust gases clouding in the cold air. He had the interior light on. He wanted his hands to be seen gripping the wheel. They would assume he was waiting. They would assume he was waiting for Gisele. They would shift physically and mentally from standby into readiness – from warm-up to poised in the starting blocks. He could feel their elevated heart rates and the buzz of adrenalin and other hormones flooding their bloodstream. He could feel theirs because he had no such sensations. His pulse thumped slow and steady.
He continued the act by glancing at the building’s entrance, knowing they would see it, knowing it would only intensify their readiness. He felt their body temperatures rising, sweat beading, pupils dilating, vision focusing, hearing becoming selective. Almost.
One last misdirection: he took out his phone and held it briefly to his ear.
He mouthed Okay.
Now or never.
He dropped the phone into his lap, released the handbrake, put the car in gear, stamped the accelerator and yanked the steering wheel.
The tyres squealed for traction, releasing a puff of burnt rubber, then found their grip and the car launched out from the kerb.
In the rear-view he saw the driver of the Range Rover spring into action after a split-second’s delay, surprised by the sudden change in proceedings but reacting to it with impressive speed.