The Final Hour (Victor The Assassin 7)

by Tom Wood

Surveillance outside, but the set-up had failed. The plan hadn’t worked. They had no need to stay hidden any longer. There was no need for stealth. She readied herself for an assault.

  Raven thumbed the mag release, tucked away the released clip, and slammed home a second. If there were two shooters, there were more, and she wanted a full clip before she faced anyone further.

  If they killed her it wouldn’t be because she was two rounds short. Oh, the indignity.

  She dashed across the room to stand with her back flat against the wall as she knocked the half-open door with her heel, hard and fast.

  A sudden movement, enough to encourage a storm of bullets in response.

  She turned her face away as splinters thickened the air.

  Another two shooters, based on the rhythm of muzzle reports. She let them waste rounds and damage their hearing. The gun smoke in their immediate vicinity would also be a hindrance.

  The firing stopped and the door sizzled. The burnt polish stank.

  Raven looked at the windows leading to the balcony.

  The two shooters in the hallway were cautious. They had shot in haste, high on adrenaline, but were now controlled. Calmer. The woman was inside the master bedroom, still alive; so they were down two, but she was as good as trapped. They were a freelance mercenary outfit, all battle-hardened and experienced. They had worked together as a team many times, with roles determined at random, not by merit, because they were all competent. Once they had been part of a legitimate private security outfit with action in all the usual places. Now, they weren’t on anyone’s books. They were hired out by cartels and warlords, multinationals and individuals. They went anywhere the money was good. They didn’t ask too many questions and never expected to finish a job with a clean conscience. They brutalised and tortured, assassinated and massacred. As such, they were in demand. They had a good rep. Which was why a mysterious old American had hired them to clear a villa of whomever was present, and then to wait for a woman – a pro – to arrive. Alive was the preferred condition, but dead if not. The old guy had supplied them with a location and orders to stand by and not much else. She would show up there to interrogate the home owner, a man named Totti, and wouldn’t be expecting much resistance. He left them alone after that. They were mercs, not soldiers, and put together their own tactics. They had an objective, but they didn’t take orders. Money had been paid up front, based on their reputation. All cash. No traces.

  The two men had been there primarily for surveillance, to provide intel to the designated shooters. They had been positioned in the villa’s grounds to keep watch on the target’s movements – they couldn’t predict her approach – and to secure the perimeter. The surveillance had supplied the two inside the master bedroom with constant updates.

  They had listened to the gunfire, knowing the ambush had gone wrong. Now, they were no longer surveillance. They were no longer securing the perimeter. They were clean-up.

  Two choices: wait for her to come out, or breach?

  Those were the only options. The two shooters had the advantage if she emerged from the bedroom, but they gave that away to her if they tried to gain entry. Always easier to defend than to attack. Two-to-one odds in their favour, sure, but a good chance one of them would take a bullet or several in the process of breaching. They both wore good-quality armour, but better not to test its effectiveness. Especially given it hadn’t saved the previous couple of guys. The two gunmen were no strangers to a firefight, but they weren’t reckless and they weren’t braver than they were paid to be.

  They glanced at one another. They were thinking the same thing: stay put. Let her come to them. She had to, sooner or later.

  One gestured to make clear, and the other nodded. Same page.

  Glass smashed. Then more followed.

  ‘Balcony,’ one whispered.

  They rushed forward along the hallway, rushing into the bedroom, rushing past the corpses on the floor towards where the French doors to the balcony had been shattered.

  Raven, lying on the floor in the shadow of the first corpse, shot the two new gunmen in the back of the head.

  She could take an extra split-second to make sure her aim was true, because even in the darkness she had nice clear targets as they silhouetted themselves against the night sky.

  She rose to one knee as they dropped, then stood, gun trained on the open doorway as she listened for more. She heard nothing, but she had heard nothing the first time. These guys knew how to stay quiet.

  Two fire teams of two men. One primary, one secondary. But each was hidden in place, attacking only when she had reached the designated ambush point – the master bedroom – and the second revealing themselves only after the first had failed. Good tactics. Four guns were better than one, but not possible for them all to hide in Totti’s room, and it was too small to accommodate them; a stray bullet from a crossfire was just as fatal as one intended.

  She searched the bodies, finding weapons and comms equipment, and night-vision scopes on the second two, which would have been used to track her approach to the villa.

  She used the balcony and the first-floor windows to peer out into the night, utilising the vantage of higher ground. The night-vision scope was state of the art and amplified the available ambient light to enable her to spot a vehicle parked on the periphery of the villa’s grounds, on a lane some 400 metres away. She could even make out a figure sitting in the driver’s seat.

  That the driver was still there told her he hadn’t been in direct communication with the other four, otherwise he wouldn’t still be there. So he couldn’t be any kind of commander. He needed updating only when the job was complete. He might not even have an earpiece. He might not know about the operational specifics.

  But he would know where he had driven and where he had driven from, and where he would be driving to.

  ‘We’re going to play a game,’ Raven said as she rose out of the darkness next to the van.

  The window was down and she aimed the P7’s muzzle at the driver’s face. He stayed cool, despite the inevitable surprise and panic. His hands rose, slow and obvious.

  ‘Do I need to explain the rules?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Good,’ Raven said. ‘In which case, you might just survive this.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The three Italian brothers had a car parked a short walk from the osteria in a narrow side street with parking restrictions they were happy to ignore. The vehicle was a classic Jaguar polished to a perfect sheen. Victor waited, leaning against the boot so he would see them coming and they would see him.

  He heard them long before he saw them, because they had been drinking all day and all evening and were loud as they sauntered back to the Jag. They slowed when they saw him, not because they recognised him from the bar, but because he was leaning on the car.

  ‘Hey,’ one shouted as they drew near, ‘get off, get away from my baby.’

  Victor didn’t move. He checked his watch.

  The speaker was enraged, but his two brothers thought this was funny. They laughed and mocked him.

  ‘It’s a beautiful vehicle,’ Victor said. ‘XJS. Classic. Racing green, cream interior. Probably my favourite combination. I almost stole it, just to take it for a spin, but I didn’t have the heart. You can’t steal a car like this without damaging it.’

  The speaker came forward. He was the eldest brother, and had a solid build, almost squashed. His neck was so thick it appeared as one with the head and blended without seam into his trunk. His elbows jutted out, unable to fall in line with the shoulders with so much underneath competing for space. He walked with an awkward gait. Victor reckoned the man went through trousers fast, worn threadbare by rubbing thighs. His clothes had all been chosen to show off the physique to best effect. They were tight and restrictive. The sleeves of his T-shirt pinched his arms so hard that veins looked fit to burst down his forearms. Intimidating to some, maybe, but to Victor those veins formed a roadmap of how to
kill the man in record time and with minimal effort if he had a blade.

  ‘Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea who we are?’

  Victor nodded. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘You’re the idiot who is going to get his head caved in,’ another said.

  ‘Giordano’s debt,’ Victor began. ‘I’m clearing it.’

  This surprised them and confused them in equal measure.

  The third brother said, ‘We don’t want you to pay it off. It’s his debt and his alone.’

  ‘We’re reasonable,’ the first said, ‘we let him pay in instalments.’

  ‘You mean you want to keep the debt as leverage over him,’ Victor said.

  The second shrugged. ‘He’s a useful guy to know. What’s this to you? Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘I’m not unreasonable either,’ Victor said. ‘So I’ll tell you what: cancel the debt and I’ll let you have the car back. That’s the best I can do.’

  None of them answered, but it didn’t matter. They all stepped forward, until they were standing about a metre away – a show of strength, unity in case he was serious, which they still couldn’t quite comprehend.

  Victor said, ‘The debt is cleared. You need to leave him alone, and his sister. One last chance to take my offer.’

  ‘No way,’ the third said.

  The second added, ‘Not in a million years.’

  Victor’s gaze passed over the three. They were a crew, but they were also brothers. Family. They were close. It didn’t seem like anyone was in charge. They had all spoken to him. No one had looked to either of the others for guidance. No one had contradicted another. They were a democracy. They were a collective. There was no leader.

  Victor said, ‘Someone pick a number between one and three.’

  ‘Why?’ the first said. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘One of you has to pick. It would be unfair if I did it for you.’

  ‘Three,’ the third one said with a grin, playing along because he didn’t care.

  ‘That’s you,’ Victor said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I hope you’re paying attention,’ Victor said to the two others.

  He walked away from the car and towards those two brothers so that when he pivoted on the spot and whipped out the edge of his palm, the third brother was caught unawares, too surprised to block or even flinch.

  He staggered back a step. The other two hadn’t seen the blow strike. They didn’t understand what was happening.

  The third brother clutched at his throat and his face reddened. He gasped and sputtered and made a soundless cry. The other two rushed to his aid.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ the first shouted.

  The third brother’s face flushed from red to purple as his eyes turned the colour of blood. His lips became blue.

  ‘His trachea is crushed,’ Victor said. ‘He’s suffocating.’

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ the second screamed to the first.

  ‘They won’t get here in time,’ Victor said. ‘He’s got less than a minute.’

  The third man became limp in their arms. They called his name and tried mouth-to-mouth. He shuddered and trembled and was still.

  ‘Now,’ Victor said, ‘about that debt.’

  The gun came out, fast and in sure hands, but Victor had been expecting it. He intercepted the weapon before the muzzle was anywhere near him, twisting and ripping it from the man’s hands, tossing it away because he didn’t want the sound of gunshots alerting nearby cops or witnesses. Besides, he didn’t need it.

  Two swift elbow strikes put the disarmed man on his knees. A third, downward elbow to the temple dropped him face-first to the ground. A stamp to the back of his neck made sure he would never get up again.

  The first brother, the eldest and the biggest, was also the slowest to react, overcome by shock, and could think about fighting back only as Victor’s arm wrapped around his throat. By then it was far too late to make a difference.

  A quick and easy way for Victor to pay off Giordano’s debt and in some small way pay off his own. At least it would have been, had Victor waited against the boot of the car.

  He hadn’t. He had stood nearby, just watching them. He had mentally rehearsed the encounter as they approached the Jaguar, imagining how the failed attempt to get them to agree to cancelling the debt might go; then the moves necessary to disable and kill.

  They were joking amongst themselves as they neared the car. They had no idea he was close to them. They had no idea he could kill them all in seconds. But they weren’t targets and weren’t threats. He had no reason to kill them and every reason not to. They were connected to Giordano, and so was Victor. His goal was to stay unnoticed, not attract further attention. Giordano was right: Victor wasn’t going to put himself at risk, whatever debt of honour he owed.

  When they reached the vehicle, the brothers were near enough to see him, if not his face. They paused, eyeing him with suspicion.

  The eldest brother said, ‘Get lost, creep.’

  Victor did.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Sykes didn’t like to drink in social situations. He liked to drink to get drunk. It wasn’t acceptable in polite company to get shit-faced and pass out like guys at a bachelor party, like teenagers after prom. So he had a seltzer or a Coke, because one drink was a waste of his time and he could never stop at two. A soft drink meant he could maintain his façade of sobriety and then leave under the pretence of an early night. That was acceptable. People couldn’t judge what they didn’t know.

  But he’d had a crappy day and had found himself with colleagues at a bar. So he had a drink to take the edge off, to wash away the stench of kissing ass. Then another. Then the inevitable third. Then everyone had made their excuses and gone and he had found another bar because he couldn’t wait to get home to have the fourth drink he needed, and then lose count of those that followed.

  The bar was some corner-block dive he had never set foot in before. Warped linoleum lined the floor and the bar itself hadn’t been polished in years. There was a poor selection of draught beers and a limited range of spirits, but they all contained alcohol so were all good with Sykes. He started with beers. Going into a bar and ordering bourbon seemed too eager, too needy, even a few drinks in, so he began with a cool glass of something imported. Then, when he asked for something stronger next, it made it look as if he had worked up to it; a natural progression, not desperation.

  He hadn’t planned on staying, but then again he had no plans. Plans were things he used to have and care about. There had always been some goal to work towards, something to achieve; promotion, recognition, wealth or power. That was the Sykes that Alvarez had talked about, had mocked the current incarnation for its weakness, its imitation.

  Worthlessness and failure. Regret and longing. Darkness awaiting.

  He realised both his elbows were on the bar and he had been talking for a long time. Drinking alone meant he didn’t have the problem of oversharing, except maybe to the mirror or the idiot who read the news at one a.m. There was no comeback to that. They didn’t remind him the next day what he’d said. They didn’t remind him of what he couldn’t take back.

  Sykes stopped talking.

  He had spoken in generalities only, he was sure. He was drunk, but he wasn’t stupid.

  ‘I hear what you’re saying,’ a voice said.

  The man sitting nearby – the man Sykes had been talking, not to, but at – was maybe twenty years older and had a face marked by weariness, but his eyes were full of energy and mischief.

  ‘You know, friend, this is why you shouldn’t drink.’

  ‘Explain,’ Sykes said, trying to push himself back towards vertical.

  ‘Makes you sad when you don’t have to be,’ the man said.

  ‘Not if you’re already down. It can’t make you sad if you’re not.’

  The man shifted his stool a little closer, as if in conspiracy. He said, ‘A man over fifty can pick and choose his reasons
to wash away the melancholy because they are legion. A man under fifty has no real reason to be down, but that young man with a drink will believe any problem he has is both unique and insurmountable.’

  Sykes listened.

  The man continued: ‘He will believe each inevitability of life is a cruel twist of fate engineered purely for him.’

  Sykes stared.

  ‘That young man with a drink will convince himself not only of his own insignificance, but paradoxically of his own exception, because he cannot comprehend that everyone else is just as trivial, their problems equally as ordinary.’

  ‘What’s the solution then?’ Sykes asked after a time, seeking further wisdom.

  ‘I would have thought that was the most obvious thing in the world,’ the man responded with a wry smile. ‘Have another drink.’

  Sykes puked his guts up in the alleyway outside. It was over fast, however; a sudden and unexpected unleashing. A good deal of snot and tears followed. He wasn’t crying – he wasn’t the sort – but once one tap was turned they all were. He had staggered outside with the intention of going home when the need to urinate had compelled him into the alley instead of back into the bar, which had seemed beyond acceptable levels of effort.

  ‘Ah, shit,’ Sykes said, seeing his right shoe.

  Without thinking, he raised his foot to wipe the toe of his shoe on the back of his left trouser leg.

  ‘Shit,’ he said again, when he realised what he was doing.

  He stepped – stumbled – away from the splatter of yellow vomit on the ground, and found that staying upright was an incredible tax on his energy and balance. Better to take a seat.

  He slumped on the asphalt, back against the exterior wall of the bar, opposite the vomit. It was steaming in the cool night air. He couldn’t look away. The steam was a ghost, his ghost, ascending into blackness…

  Sykes heard footsteps. He looked away from the mouth of the alley, trying to hide himself. He didn’t want to be seen like this. He wanted the ground to open and drag him beneath.