by Tom Wood
With his new tools Victor lay on the floor and began prising up floorboards at strategic locations – before the front door, under the windows and in the threshold of doorways. Even without the freedom to replace the flooring he could create a range of tones that would allow him to identify the precise location of an enemy by which sound reached his ear; any warning was better than none.
Quality cameras were easy enough to get hold of through legitimate channels and he installed one to cover every window and door of the apartment. Like the replacement locks, they could be removed before the landlord returned. He couldn’t disguise them without considerable work knocking holes into walls or ceilings, but no one was going to spot the cameras unless they broke in. In which case it wouldn’t matter, because they would either succeed in killing him or would themselves be killed.
The cameras, marketed for covert surveillance, had extensive wireless ranges. Even with obstructions from thick old Serbian masonry, they provided clear images at twenty-five frames per second to the laptop Victor had bought to receive the signals and act as his security hub. He kept it by the sofa at all times. He had selected the model with longest battery life in case of an outage. The cameras themselves were motion-activated and so consumed an insignificant amount of power. They would last far longer than he might need them.
The building’s basement was as damp and mouldy as the landlord had claimed, but the space was valuable and the landlord was using it to store a multitude of items that were not susceptible to water damage: paint cans, synthetic brushes, rollers, sacks of cement and other building materials. There were also piles of rotting cardboard boxes, timber and wooden furniture.
He navigated the basement with a torch, looking for somewhere to hide the waterproof backpack over his shoulder. He heard the quiet drip of a leaking pipe, a constant three-second rhythm. Drip. One. Two. Three. Drip.
The stacks of paint cans would provide the best cover, but he didn’t know the state of the other apartments. He didn’t know what the landlord was planning. Decorators might arrive tomorrow to start work on a recently vacated apartment. Instead, he opted to stash the backpack in a narrow gap between some rotting boxes and an old dining-room table and chairs. A keen observer might spot the hiding place if they were looking for it, but anyone who came down to access the paint and brushes – which was the greater risk – would remain oblivious to its presence.
The backpack and its contents formed a go-bag that Victor could access without returning to his apartment, in the event he found it necessary to leave Belgrade in a hurry. Should that contingency arise, the go-bag held a passport and accompanying documents to get him across borders, five thousand dollars in a cellophane-wrapped package and a titanium Tag Heuer to exchange for currency, plus a shaving kit, deodorant and face wipes. The latter wouldn’t help if he was covered in blood, but he wouldn’t attempt to pass through airport security in such a state. The grooming kit would however guard against body odour and a face slick with sweat, both of which were certain to draw attention. He let his facial hair grow between jobs so it could be shaved off if he required a change of appearance. A beard changed the whole shape of the face and its presence or absence made a considerable difference to his chances of being spotted by enemies or the authorities. We’re looking for a man – tall, dark hair, beard.
There was no weapon because he had none yet available and a go-bag was to run with, not fight. If he grabbed it and ran straight into the cops, he was clean. They might be suspicious of the contents if they searched him, but he would be in far worse trouble if they found a firearm on his person.
With his safe house all set up and his go-bag secured, he could turn his attention to the next part of his preparations.
It was time to gather information.
THIRTEEN
Victor didn’t know Belgrade. He didn’t know its neighbourhoods and its idiosyncrasies, but he knew criminals. They were the same all over the world. They all wanted to make maximum money from minimum effort, same as everyone else. The ways they went about it might be different from regular citizens, but underground capitalism was universal.
He was well practised at asking the right questions, but finding the right people to ask was the difficult part. By the end of the first day he had gone from knowing no one to having half a dozen names in his head. Some had cost him money, others had been volunteered in exchange for a cigarette or anecdote. Different people had different needs.
After a second day on the streets he had narrowed those half-dozen names down to one.
Victor found the man in a back alley behind a traditional kafana bistro, sitting on an upturned beer crate, playing cards with a boy of maybe eleven.
As Victor neared, the man waved the boy away; he offered no protest but scurried through the open kitchen entrance.
The man didn’t look like a fixer. He looked like a no one. He was dressed in clothes that didn’t fit right and needed a wash. His hair was thinning and cut short. Even without seeing the dirty fingernails, Victor’s sense of smell told him the guy hadn’t showered in a while. He didn’t relate competence to cleanliness, however. Some of the fiercest and most dependable men he had known had cared least about their appearance and personal hygiene.
‘I heard someone was asking about me,’ the fixer said.
‘I’m told you know all about Belgrade,’ Victor replied. ‘I’m told you know how the city works.’
The fixer exhaled by way of an answer. His face was pallid – iron deficiency and lack of sunlight. His eyes were bloodshot. The skin of his cheeks was marked by acne and broken thread veins. His lips were thin and cracked. When he opened his mouth, Victor wasn’t surprised to see the man’s teeth were disgusting.
‘If you help me,’ Victor said, ‘I will pay you very well.’
‘What do you need?’
‘Many things, but I hope you can help me with a couple of them.’
The fixer looked him up and down. ‘No, I don’t think I can help you with anything.’
‘No problem,’ Victor said. ‘I’ll take my money elsewhere.’
The fixer shrugged like he didn’t care and watched Victor go. When Victor had made it to the end of the block he heard the sound of hurried footsteps behind him.
He turned to see the fixer jogging along the alley in his filthy trainers. The man moved with an awkward, almost pained gait – it was hard to tell whether it was the result of injury, or an utter lack of physical fitness. Only as he drew closer could Victor be certain it was the second. Victor didn’t understand that. No one expected a car to run without the right fuel and proper maintenance.
The fixer was panting when he stopped. He spat out a rope of saliva on to the pavement and wiped his brow with the back of a hand.
‘Are you going to vomit?’ Victor asked.
The fixer shook his head, but couldn’t answer. He fumbled in a pocket for a cigarette he’d rolled earlier.
‘That’ll help,’ Victor said.
The fixer ignored him and straightened out the roll-up that had become bent and creased. He lit it with a disposable lighter.
‘Take your time,’ Victor said.
‘I can help,’ the fixer said after he’d taken a couple of deep inhales. He coughed as smoke was expelled from his nostrils. ‘I know this city. Whatever you need, I can get.’
‘Why pretend otherwise?’
He shrugged. ‘In case you were a cop.’
‘Do I look like a cop to you?’
The fixer studied him as if seeing Victor for the first time. He shook his head, but it took a while for him to do so because if Victor wasn’t a cop the fixer had no idea what to make of him. He didn’t ask, however, which showed promise.
‘What should I call you?’ Victor asked.
‘Hector. What about you?’
‘Achilles.’
The fixer didn’t react. Victor didn’t know if Hector was the fixer’s real name or a fake one, but he thought it had been a pretty good joke. There was
no pleasing some people.
Hector offered his hand. Victor didn’t shake it. The Petri dish of microorganisms no doubt clinging to his palm didn’t encourage Victor to break protocol for the benefit of improving social connections.
Hector didn’t seem to be offended. ‘Were you followed here?’
Even for a man of Victor’s experience and skill such a thing was impossible to be sure of if there was a professional crew of watchers involved, but his response was a simple, ‘No,’ because the fixer would never have dealt with anyone approaching professional standards. His only concern was avoiding cops or fellow criminals.
‘What do you need?’ Hector asked.
‘The same thing everyone needs: love.’
The fixer said, ‘I can get you a woman. No problem. Blonde? Tits. Whatever. Or a boy, if you like. Or both even. I don’t judge.’
‘I was joking,’ Victor said. ‘I want a car.’
Hector looked dumbstruck.
‘You do know what a car is, don’t you?’
Hector shook himself out of the daze and nodded. ‘Of course. You can’t rent one?’
‘I don’t want the paperwork.’
For this job Victor was operating under a Hungarian legend that was clean and he wanted to keep it that way if at all possible. Albert Bartha was a thirty-five-year-old resident of Taksony, a town to the south of Budapest. He had been born with a prolapsed umbilical cord that had caused severe oxygen deprivation leading to long-term cognitive problems. He required twenty-four-hour care and had never had a job, been to school, or owned a passport until Victor had applied for one in his name using a copy of Albert’s birth certificate and forged documents. Victor had used Bartha’s identity before and would again if this job was completed without complications – genuine identities were hard to come by and difficult to maintain, so he preferred not to discard them after use. If compromised, however, the Bartha ID would be buried like so many others had been over the years.
He had a spare identity, a backup, that he had picked up from a post office in the city centre, having mailed it to himself days before leaving London. It was the safest way to travel with multiple identities. Victor had a few ways of limiting the odds of being searched by airport security, but there were no guarantees and getting caught with bogus identification was not a risk worth taking, especially when he had no genuine identification. The spare was now in his go-bag should he need it.
‘You don’t know how to steal a car?’ Hector asked.
Victor said, ‘Do you want my money, or not?’
The fixer shrugged. ‘Sure, if you want a car I’ll get you a car.’
‘I’m also looking for work.’
If Hector thought he was stupid before, now he thought he was crazy. ‘You think I’m hiring people? For what? To run my empire?’
‘I didn’t say you,’ Victor pointed out. ‘But maybe you know people. Maybe you can put the word out.’
‘What kind of people are you talking about?’
Victor said, ‘You know exactly the kind of people I’m talking about.’
‘They don’t hire men in suits.’
‘So you do know such people.’
The fixer didn’t respond.
‘Get me a car,’ Victor said. ‘Something that won’t be missed. And while you’re doing that you can make enquiries on my behalf, for which you will receive a substantial finder’s fee.’
‘How substantial?’
‘Enough to get your teeth fixed at the very least.’
Hector said, ‘What kind of work can you do? You look like a lawyer to me.’
‘I’m a man of many talents. If there’s work going, I can do it. You know exactly what I’m talking about.’
The fixer swallowed. He nodded. ‘I’ll ask around. See what I can do.’
Victor took out a roll of cash. ‘Just make sure everyone knows I’m not cheap, but I’m worth every penny.’
FOURTEEN
A cab dropped him half a mile away from his destination because Victor wanted the driver to know where he was heading about as much as he wanted to turn up there without proper recon. It was cold and wet and the cab had been warm and comfortable, but some rules could never be broken.
Victor trusted no one. He expected to be betrayed. Even when logic suggested betrayal was improbable, his caution persisted, fuelled by protocol, necessity and the knowledge that no one was dependable. A kind man had once told him he should never assume malice when he could assume incompetence. The philosophy, like many, made a lot of sense in the normal world, but would get a professional killed in record time.
Georg, like Hector, was an underworld fixer. But whereas Hector was a middleman of sorts, Georg’s speciality was trading in illicit materials. Victor had first dealt with her when the requirements of a particular contract demanded explosives only she could supply. She’d had protection in the shape of a couple of heavies with guns, but had Victor not been present when her former business partner’s crew had ambushed her, she would now be dead. He was confident that not only would she remember her debt to him, she would recall that he had been the only person to walk away unharmed that night. Even if she viewed Victor as a serious threat – which made sense, because he was – she had neither the resources nor stupidity to attempt to neutralise that threat. Doing what he asked was a simpler and more effective way of staying alive.
However, there was a German assassin out there who had found him once and an unknown number of others seeking to claim the large remuneration offered in return for his life. Biggest I’ve ever competed for, Abigail had said. Maybe someone had found out about his connection to Georg. The odds were against it, but caution hadn’t killed him yet.
The neighbourhood was quiet. It was an industrial area along the river. Between a junkyard and a martial arts dojo was a strip of brownfield land guarded by a high chain-link fence topped with a spiral of razor wire. A length of heavy chain bowed between two posts created a gate of sorts. Victor stepped over. Disused shipping containers, old tyres and rusted car body shells formed an uneven backdrop against the dark sky.
Cracked concrete on the ground told of some building long-since demolished, but the land had been left to rot, used as a dumping ground and place for drug addicts and the homeless to loiter. Victor watched his step, avoiding broken bottles and the occasional syringe. Now, in the dead of winter and without shelter, it seemed empty of humanity. Which was why Victor had chosen it. The icy wind blowing in from the river would ruin any junkie’s fix.
He took his time, regardless. Maybe those sleeping rough or seeking the blissful escape only narcotics could deliver were absent, but the cold would not deter Victor from striking a target so it would not deter someone like him.
Hampered by lack of ambient light and a howling wind he moved at a slow pace, unable to rely on his eyes or ears to detect an enemy until he was in close proximity. He circled the shipping containers and stripped-down cars, checking the best ambush spots. He checked the worst ones too, because he couldn’t know who might be waiting; being killed through overestimating an enemy’s competence was an indignity he couldn’t bear.
When he was confident he was alone – because it was impossible to be certain – he found the bald and frayed tyre he had carved with a letter G earlier that day after learning the shipment was imminent. It sat alone, but near to a pile of other tyres that had been abandoned here. The tyre lay flush to the ground, and an observant person might note the G, but the likelihood of such a person having passed through here in the intervening hours was negligible.
He examined it for tampering and saw nothing amiss. The courier had returned it to its rightful place, as per Victor’s instructions. Behind the nearby pile of tyres was a beam of rotting wood about two metres in length. It was there because Victor had placed it there after carving the G. He used it now to prise up the tyre and flip it over while keeping his distance.
He backed off and waited ten seconds in case any explosives set beneath the tyr
e had a built-in delay once a pressure sensor was tripped. No bomb went off so Victor dropped the beam and approached.
Beneath where the tyre had rested was a hole that he had dug. The rocky soil had been deposited far away so as not to draw attention. The hole was wide and deep enough for a medium-sized suitcase to sit within, and that’s what he found.
The case was a hard-shell Rimowa made of grooved aluminium magnesium alloy still with its price tag and a set of two keys attached. He lifted it out of the hole. Even empty, the case weighed three kilos. Victor estimated the contents weighed almost twenty more.
He used the telescopic handle to roll the case out of the shadow of the shipping containers, pleased the Rimowa had large multi-direction wheels to traverse the uneven terrain so he didn’t have to carry it. He placed it flat on the ground and examined it with both sight and touch for any sign of tampering. He then used the four-number sequence given to him to unlock the two combination locks and open the case. The leverage lock had not been engaged.
Georg hadn’t been able to acquire his first choice, or even his second or third, but she had managed to get him a sniper rifle. It was a Nornico EM351 rifle, a Chinese version of the Russian Dragunov he had asked for. Close enough, he thought. The Chinese copy would be sufficient for his purposes. Both were designed for a battlefield marksman, not an urban sniper, but Victor needed a rifle that would kill at up to five hundred metres and this weapon would do that.
The case also contained a parabolic microphone and a smaller case made of black polycarbonate. Inside this case was a handgun suspended in foam rubber. The weapon was a Five-seveN made by Fabrique Nationale of Belgium. It was as close to Victor’s preferred firearm as there could be. Circumstance usually dictated what weapon was available for use, but the Five-seveN would be his choice to use in most situations. It fired an unconventional 5.7 mm round that was tiny in bore compared to more common pistol rounds almost twice the diameter, but the small size and considerable gunpowder charge combined to create a supersonic bullet with exceptional range, accuracy and stopping power.