The Darkest Day

by Tom Wood

  Then the guy in the blue suit gestured and the three others began to move closer. They converged on him well, not heading to where he was now, but where he would head to if he made a break for it. He glanced at each in turn to identify the weak link, but found none. All three looked tough and fast, confident in their ability to take him.

  He saw what they were doing while the opportunity to act was still there, but they were smart to come at him several metres apart so the three trapped him in a triangle formation. To act against one would mean leaving his back facing the other two.

  Good operators. Pros.

  When he sidestepped between two cars, the one ahead of him moved to the open space at the end of the row, cutting him off. Victor slowed as if to give himself time to determine the man’s intentions, which gave the two behind him time to catch up while his attention was elsewhere.

  They were already committed to making their move, so he had nothing to gain by pretending he wasn’t going to make one himself.

  He continued for the exit and the one blocking it. He pictured snapping out a jab, fingers extended for the eyes, to blind or at least distract, buying him a split second to close that last distance, breaking the nearest knee with a stomp kick or the nose with an elbow that would become a lock, then choke; turning the man round and shoving him at the two others.

  The two behind increased their pace, sensing he was intending to fight his way through.

  The man blocking the exit put his left foot forward, turning side on and bringing up his hands in a fighting stance, reacting as Victor strode towards him, violence in his eyes.

  The two behind him could not see Victor’s eyes, but they could see the man’s reaction. Victor heard their pace increase again, breaking into a jog. He pictured them rushing closer between the parked vehicles and then coming out into the open, converging on him.

  Which was what he wanted them to do.

  Victor stopped, spun round to face them, now no longer two points of a wide-based triangle, but close to one another.

  He exploded into action, leaping at the first, swinging a roundhouse kick that connected his shin with the side of the man’s knee.

  It folded inward with a crack and the man dropped, wailing.

  The other man reacted fast, drawing a suppressed Ruger pistol that was batted from his hand, and then attacking with an open-handed strike. Victor blocked it on a forearm, grabbed the wrist before it could recoil and the triceps for an arm bar, but the man’s reactions were too quick and he curled his arm to prevent the arm bar, so Victor went with the man’s movements and instead locked the arm behind the man’s back.

  He twisted him round one hundred and eighty degrees, so he took the pistol-whip meant for the back of Victor’s head, thrown by the third man.

  Teeth and blood splattered on a nearby windscreen.

  Victor shoved his captive into the third man. They both collapsed, the closest concussed from the pistol-strike to the face and trapping the other guy beneath him.

  The one in the blue suit had his own weapon drawn and was lining up a shot while speaking into a wrist mike.

  Victor read We need backup now on the guy’s lips before dashing into the cover of parked cars.

  He drew Raven’s handgun and kept low and out of sight and snaked his way between vehicles, trying to put as much distance between him and the guys in suits. He’d disabled two, but that still left two, with backup arriving at any second.

  A suppressed shot sounded, loud and close by, but it was impossible to pinpoint its source in the echoing underground parking garage. He dropped low, out of sight behind a wheel, while more shots came his way. Bullets punched neat holes in the bodywork of surrounding vehicles and took chunks from nearby support columns.

  He stayed down and waited until he heard footsteps, hurrying closer, nowhere near as loud and echoing and easier to determine the origin as a result.

  He popped up to fire in the direction of the footsteps, spotting the approaching shooter – a man in his thirties, tall and wearing a leather jacket with the collar up and cream scarf tucked inside, but the tall man – ready, aiming – shot first.

  The incoming rounds distracting Victor from acquiring the target and lining up the pistol’s iron sights. The gunman’s bullets pinged close by. Victor’s missed.

  The tall man in the leather jacket shot again, this time striking even closer, bullet cracking windscreen glass as Victor shuffled along the car to get a better angle for his own.

  The gunman, seeing he was exposed, sidestepped as he shot twice more, seeking cover while putting rounds Victor’s way. Victor crouched low behind the protection of the car and returned fire, tracking the guy as he sidestepped, aiming not at him, but ahead, because even a bullet travelling at six hundred miles per hour took a thirtieth of a second to cover the ten-metre distance. The man, sidestepping at four miles per hour, moved forty-six centimetres in that same time. A shot aimed at his head would miss every single time.

  So Victor aimed ahead and for centre mass for the best chance of hitting and the second squeeze of the trigger resulted in a round striking the man high up on the right shoulder.

  He twisted and cried out, losing his grip on the gun, which flew from his hand. He threw himself down into cover before the third shot could finish him off.

  Victor moved closer. He was cautious, staying close to cover in case the man had a backup and could still shoot.

  The echo of squealing tyres and revving engines alerted him to new threats, coming fast.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  He turned side on and smashed the driver’s window of the closest car with an elbow. Glass shattered into hundreds of pebbles that scattered across the car’s interior. The intruder alarm sounded, loud and shrill. He ignored it and pulled open the door before he tore away the housing from the steering column, separated out the correct cables, exposed the copper wires and crossed them.

  The starter motor whined into life and the engine rumbled.

  White smoke from the spinning tyres mixed with exhaust vapour and Victor shot out from the parking space.

  A black Audi sped towards him. In his rear-view mirror he saw the silhouette of the passenger lean out of the open window.

  A muted flash of yellow flared in the darkness and glass cracked in the rear windscreen, ruining his line of sight via the rear-view mirror.

  Victor ducked down as far as he could while still being able to see where he was going. More bullets struck the car, punching holes in glass and bodywork. But they were subsonic rounds; the damage was superficial.

  A white minivan screeched to a stop ahead of him, blocking the route out. The sliding panel door opened to reveal a man in a dark jacket and woollen hat.

  He had a UMP sub-machine gun clutched in both hands, muzzle swinging Victor’s way.

  He released the accelerator, hit the brakes and swung the steering wheel, sliding the car to a stop so the passenger side faced the gunman, putting as much space and metal between Victor and the automatic weapon as possible.

  He threw open the driver’s door and was diving out into the haze of tyre smoke as the shooting started.

  The UMP was a fierce weapon and heavy .45 calibre rounds thumped into the car, which continued to slide, leaving crazed lines of burnt rubber on the smooth floor, before it spun and veered into a parked SUV.

  Victor slid as well, rolled and scrambled to his feet, then ran as the gunman saw him and changed his aim, fire spitting from the UMP’s muzzle as the weapon tracked Victor’s run.

  Fat holes appeared in nearby cars and fragments blew from exploding window glass as he reached the exit and darted through the door into the stairwell beyond.

  Victor made it outside, coming on to Fifth Avenue to a chorus of horns. Traffic was gridlocked as far as he could see. He saw no accident or other incident to explain it until he noticed the traffic lights were neither green, amber nor red. The power was out here too.

  A huge inconvenience to all those stuck in unmoving
traffic, but a benefit to him because he was on foot and his enemies could not follow him out of the parking garage in vehicles. He saw worried civilians looking in his direction or hurrying away from the entrance. Word of gunshots had spread fast. A cop was talking into a radio and heading his way.

  I see him, Victor read on the cop’s lips.

  It was too fast for his description to have filtered from witnesses or CCTV to an operator and been passed to a dispatcher and then to officers on patrol. Something else was going on.

  He glanced around. He could see no lights at all from any building. Daylight was fading but the electricity seemed to be cut as far as the eye could see. Maybe the whole city had lost power.

  He dashed out into the street and between the stationary cars. On the opposite pavement a woman wearing a bright blue tunic and hat tried to stop him to talk about the charity she volunteered for. She laughed as he took her by the shoulders when she held open her arms in a comic bid to block his path. She stopped laughing when he pushed her out of the way.

  He headed across a small plaza where tourists took photographs of one another by statues, and business people drank coffee and toyed with their phones. He maintained pace, resisting the instinct to break into a run. They had vehicles. He could not outrun them. His best chance was to hide and wait and slip away unnoticed.

  He headed deeper into the crowd. The more people, the more chance of going unnoticed. His gaze scanned in a continuous back-and-forth manner, searching for threats, whether cops looking for perpetrators of a gunfight in a parking garage or enemies with lethal intent.

  Victor walked fast, but no faster than anyone around him. He needed speed to take him away from his enemies, but too much speed would tell them his route by way of the annoyed or staring pedestrians he had knocked or elbowed out of his path or those curious enough to watch the hurrying man. He stayed on the boulevard, eyes moving but head remaining still. He had anonymity in the crowd but only as long as he blended into those around him.

  He slipped off his jacket as he walked, again taking his time so as not to draw attention to himself. He folded it in half and rested it over his left forearm, as if to carry, but he let it fall into the next rubbish bin he came across.

  An intersection lay ahead. Traffic was gridlocked. The streets were dense with New Yorkers and tourists. Keeping east was the quickest way of creating distance, but also the most obvious. Pursuers expected prey to flee, not double back.

  He cut into an alleyway that opened up next to him, rounding the corner at a measured pace as might someone following a pre-planned route. He did not look back to see if the action had been noted. If it had, he would find out soon enough. If not, the action of looking back for confirmation might alert them.

  Europe was Victor’s primary area of operation. He knew the cities there far better than he knew those that lay to the west of the Atlantic. He knew how to use the piazzas of Bologna to lose shadows and draw out enemies. He knew which streets in London were most saturated with CCTV cameras. He knew how to use the back alleys of Paris to ambush targets out of sight and sound.

  He was no stranger to New York City, but its layout and idiosyncrasies had not ingrained in his memory the same way. But he was far from lost. Manhattan’s organised and planned layout was easier to navigate than a European city that had grown and developed in an organic sprawl over a millennium or more. Before he had reached the age of eighteen the importance of navigation had been instilled into him, so that knowing which way north and south lay came as naturally as knowing his left from right. Combined with Manhattan’s layout of regular city blocks and numeric street names, that sense was as good as any memorised map or satnav.

  The alleyway opened up into a market, teeming with browsers and buyers and stalls packed together. He had no choice but to press on, squeezing and pushing and shoving through the crowd until he had made it out on the far side.

  His pursuers were quicker through the market, following his path and using their greater numbers to barge through.

  He dashed across a street, weaving through the passing traffic and the chorus of horns and abuse. He dodged a braking cab, but not fast enough to stop the bumper clipping his thigh and knocking him off balance.

  Victor rolled and broke the fall to avoid injury, but it took a couple of seconds before he was back on his feet and his enemies had made it halfway across the street by then.

  He turned into a narrow arcade lined with fashion boutiques and tailors’. He heard sirens growing louder. He saw police cruisers rush past the far opening of the arcade, on their way to some call. Not coming for him. At least for now.

  Had his lead been greater he would have entered one of the boutiques, convinced or bribed or threatened the owner or clerk inside to let him out through the back. But there was no time. He pushed on.

  He hurried down stairs, footsteps echoing throughout the confines of the stairwell. He reached the bottom, moving fast, using a palm to stop himself colliding with the opposite wall.

  Victor reached the end of the alleyway and paused, looking behind for pursuers. He could see all the way to the other end some fifty metres away. No one. He’d lost them.

  He exited the alleyway, hearing someone shouting, ‘Move, move,’ and saw a couple of cops pushing their way through the crowded street. They hadn’t seen him.

  He fled into a shopping mall, rushing down steps, pushing people out of the way. In Europe he might have received abuse for doing so, but Americans had far less tolerance for rudeness and shoved him and cursed and threatened him.

  Inside the mall entrance he stopped. He stood as if he was waiting, drawing no attention as he watched through the plate glass for anyone following. A cop ran past, glancing Victor’s way, but moving too fast to see him. No other police followed, nor did any of the kill team.

  Victor released a breath. For the moment, he had lost both sets of enemies. But it was far from over yet. He was far from safe. It would be foolish to think otherwise. While he was in the city, he was trapped. He had to get out of Manhattan, but he could not leave without understanding his enemies. He had come here to eliminate one threat, and in doing so had embroiled himself in another. If he left, he still had two problems: Raven and Halleck’s kill team.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The blackout made it harder to slip away, yet also gave him an advantage, but it was only temporary. At some point the power would come back on, and with it street lights and CCTV cameras and facial recognition and more efficient communication between police officers. There would be less chaos to hide within.

  He asked to move past a couple arguing, switching his accent to sound like an American – a generic Midwestern lilt, like Muir’s, indistinct and commonplace. It was not hard to change his voice. He was good at languages and dialects and colloquialisms because he had to be. He had to be because he worked all over the world. He had to blend into and disappear within all manner of places and situations. He maintained his language skills in the same way he maintained his strength and endurance – with consistency and the continued dedication only possible when existence might rely on the result.

  Everywhere he walked he saw people were using their phones, their faces up-lit by glowing screens, trying to make calls or to find out information via networks that were down because of the blackout or struggling to cope with the demand because everyone was doing the same thing at the same time. He carried no phone himself unless in specific circumstances. They were too easy to track. They presented too much of a risk. Now, he felt exposed without one. He stood out from the crowd because he was not staring at a little screen.

  He saw no cops, but did not allow himself to relax. They were still looking for him, but the blackout was hindering their efforts. With the electricity down, emergency services were overstretched dealing with people trapped in elevators or on the subway system or in any number of problematic situations. Police switchboards would be jammed with calls. Dispatchers would be overwhelmed. Even slick and well-funded org
anisations as the NYPD, FBI and Homeland Security would be disorganised. They had not yet been able to coordinate their efforts to track him down, least of all with one another.

  He kept to the ground floor of the shopping mall, seeking the far exit. Going up would mean trapping himself in the building. Some instinct buried deep told humans that higher ground was safe. In most natural instances, it was. But not in the artificial urban wilderness. Even if he made it to the roof unfollowed and unnoticed, there was nowhere to go from there. No other building would be close enough to leap to. He would be hidden from eyes below him, but trapped, and exposed to aerial surveillance that could relay his whereabouts to forces on the ground.

  Hiding was never as good as escape, least of all when trapped on an island swarming with security services and hired guns.

  His gaze, sweeping over the crowd, fell across a man with a moustache and wearing a uniform.

  A rent-a-cop security guard was looking his way.

  There was no ambiguity. The guard was looking straight at him, but he wasn’t yet acting. He must have received some information about a fugitive with a vague description that matched Victor’s, but he wouldn’t have access to anything more.

  Victor did nothing. He maintained his composure. It required no effort because he needed to and was used to staying calm when others panicked. He had to fight the same physiological responses as the next man or use them to his advantage, but his mental reaction to danger was that of a problem solver, detached and emotionless.

  When that very first bullet, years before, had zipped past his head he had remained in position because he knew his cover was good despite the incoming rounds, and had kept his head up as more shots came his way while his teammates had dropped to the ground, scared and overwhelmed. He had kept his head up to look for muzzle flashes so he could return fire, because he had known to survive the ambush meant fighting out of it.

  He had known then that what he possessed was not normal, but he had known long before that he was different, that there was something inside him others did not have.