by Tom Wood
He eased the door closed behind him. Conversion flats had thin floors. The resident below might hear otherwise, even above the incessant thump of electronic drums. When the door clicked shut, the hallway fell into darkness. Victor stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom and listening. He’d seen no evidence of another intruder but that didn’t mean a skilled operator was not already inside the apartment. Victor knew nothing about the threat Norimov and his daughter faced, but he also knew it could materialize at any moment.
He maintained his vigilance, but moved on when he was as close to sure that he was alone as he could be, clearing the rooms one by one until he was certain he was the only one there. Then he made sure all the curtains and blinds were closed and turned on the lights.
Gisele’s apartment consisted of a narrow hallway with doors on either side that led to two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a storage room before leading into an open-plan lounge and kitchen. French doors led out onto a small balcony that overlooked the shared garden. She had simple but expensive tastes. The furniture was functional but high quality. He liked the minimalist approach. If he had his own taste, this would be it.
There were no signs of a confrontation. If Norimov’s enemies had found and taken Gisele, it hadn’t been from here. He sat down on a bespoke couch to examine Gisele’s mail. The couch was as comfortable as it looked, but he sat perched on the very edge, head in line with his hips, ready to spring to his feet should the need arise.
He’d ignored the flyers and other hand-delivered circulars, leaving them by the entrance downstairs. There were a couple of letters to the previous occupant, but he paid attention to them as he did the ones addressed to Gisele. He wasn’t interested in the contents of the letters but the postmarks. The earliest date was the ninth—two days before Norimov received the threatening photograph. The postmark stated the letter had been sent first class. At the earliest it would have slid through the mailbox on the tenth, but could have arrived on the eleventh or even twelfth. So he knew Gisele hadn’t been home for at least seven or eight days.
On the opposite side of the lounge, an ergonomic mesh chair sat before a desk made of glass and chrome. A computer rested on the desk. It would no doubt be able to tell him when she had lasted logged on, but he didn’t have to power it on to know it was password protected. He was no hacker. Instead, he turned his attention to a three-tier document tray next to the computer monitor. On the bottom level were bills and statements, all at least two weeks old. The middle tray contained more recent correspondence. Unopened letters sat in the top tray. The most recent letter had a postmark for the eighth. It had most likely arrived on the ninth or tenth, narrowing down Gisele’s absence to no more than seven days. She hadn’t been home since the day Norimov received the photograph.
In Gisele’s bedroom, Victor went through her things. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find, but time spent being thorough was never wasted. Her clothes were good-quality garments. She had a large, sliding wardrobe. The dresses, blouses, and suits inside were hung on wooden hangers and coordinated by color and type. She liked color, but there were few daring items. There were four trouser suits: gray, charcoal, brown, and black. Victor appreciated their quality. An empty hanger hung between the brown and black suits, so he knew she’d worn her navy on the day she didn’t return home. There was too much color elsewhere in her wardrobe for her not to have that classic shade.
He searched through all her drawers in every room. He opened every box and case. He had a glass of water in the kitchen area of the open-plan lounge, washing and drying the glass after he had finished and putting it back exactly as he had found it. The kitchen was at the rear of the building, overlooking the garden. The blinds had fat wooden slats. Even closed, Victor could just about see the world outside.
Her phone sat on a table near the couch. He used the knuckle of his little finger to punch out Norimov’s number. He answered after a few rings. It was after midnight in St. Petersburg.
“Have you found her?”
“You have a lot of faith in me,” Victor replied. “But even I don’t work that fast. I’m in her apartment.” He explained what he’d found—and hadn’t. “She’s been gone for a week. You need to accept the fact they have her. Or they tried to take her and something went wrong. She could very well be dead.”
“I won’t believe it until I see her body.”
He didn’t press the issue. “Have you had any further threats? Any attacks on your businesses? Any of your men assaulted?”
“Nothing since the photograph. The only men injured are the ones you hurt.”
Victor thought about this for a moment. He looked between the blind slats. “You can relax for the time being. She’s not dead.”
“But you just said . . . How can you know for sure?”
“Because I can see three men climbing over the wall of the garden.”
“What?”
“They must have been watching from the street behind and saw the lights on in the flat. They think I’m her.”
Norimov’s voice was quiet when he said, “Then I almost feel sorry for them.”
Chapter 18
Victor replaced the handset and switched off the lights. The apartment fell into darkness. He judged the angle and cracked open the curtains covering the balcony doors. He looked over his shoulder to check. A swath of dim light cut through the darkness of the lounge, illuminating the opening where it joined the hall leading to the front door. Outside of the swath there was almost no visibility. He wouldn’t see an enemy two meters away. But they wouldn’t see him either.
They had probably been waiting in a car, interior lights off, eyes adjusted to the night. But the communal hallway and staircase were well lit. By the time they reached Gisele’s apartment they would have lost their night vision. That put them on even footing with Victor. In a few minutes his eyes would adjust to the lack of light and he would see as well as he needed to, but by then it would all be over. They would be across the garden by now and moving past the entrance to the garden flat, circling around to the front of the building.
Victor heard the muted crash of the door being forced open below. He felt the vibration, which had traveled up through the building, in the balls of his feet. He pictured the startled face of the resident below.
Streetlamps outside cast a dull orange glow between the open curtains. Motes of dust drifted lazily across the path of light. He stood motionless in the darkness, listening. Ready. Content.
His ears captured sound from many different sources: the rumble of traffic outside, the soulless melody thumping its way through the floor below, the murmur of a heated argument far away. He concentrated to pick out the footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Initially faint; phantom sounds that grew and intensified with speed as the men ascended to the first floor, then the second. They were moving fast. This was no stealth operation. They were aggressive and loud. Not professionals.
He counted three sets, so none of them were staying back to protect their escape route from interfering residents. Few, if any, would respond to the noise of the forced door. They would be shocked, then scared, then would convince themselves it wasn’t as they had first thought. They would seek to rationalize the danger away. Humans put their heads in the sand just like ostriches. Victor exploited that often.
They stopped outside Gisele’s front door. They weren’t about to pick it. They were passing on last-minute instructions because they didn’t have anything that resembled a proper plan. Sloppy. Nowhere near professional standards. They were street criminals. Thugs. They could even be psyching themselves up. Maybe: On the count of three . . .
The front door burst open and smacked into the wall.
Victor remained standing in the same position. He didn’t have to move. The three guys were going to do the hard work for him.
They had kicked in the door. It made a lot of noise. Even submissive re
sidents might not talk themselves into thinking there was a reasonable explanation. The police could already have been called. Now they were against the clock and they couldn’t know where Gisele—or who they thought was Gisele—was located.
So they had to move fast. They had to spread out. There was no danger in that.
They were three dangerous men after one civilian female. Easy.
Wrong.
He stood motionless, listening. He didn’t have to do anything yet. He had only to wait. They would come to him. He could hear the urgent exhales of the three men. They weren’t out of breath but were breathing hard as they rushed through the apartment. One would check left—the two bedrooms. The other would check right—the bathroom and storage room. Which left the third to head straight into the lounge, into the swath of light and into—
Victor, as he leaped from the darkness onto the guy from behind as he hurried forward, wrapping his right arm around the man’s neck, the crook of his elbow pushing against the trachea, applying pressure on the carotid arteries on each side of it, shutting off the blood supply to the brain. His left palm covered the man’s mouth and nose, muffling his cries, inaudible over the heavy footfalls of his two companions.
Ten seconds without oxygen was sufficient for the brain to shut down nonessential functions like consciousness, and the man slumped to the ground. There wasn’t enough time to induce brain death and a snapped neck was too loud to risk, so Victor left him where he lay.
With two rooms each to check, the other two would arrive in the lounge in close succession, but not together because one had two bedrooms to check with space to hide in—under the beds, in wardrobes—while the other had smaller, barer rooms to clear.
He took down the next man in the same way as the first, but the six seconds of the choke hold weren’t quite enough to induce unconsciousness before the third man appeared behind him.
He didn’t have to look back to know the third man hesitated when he saw his two companions prostrate and Victor standing over them, and hesitation was as good as surprise in Victor’s line of work.
It enabled him to close the distance before the man could grab the handgun from his pocket and point it Victor’s way. A snapshot from the hip might have had some success, but the man didn’t have the reflexes, skill, or even courage to try.
Victor used a forearm to push the muzzle clear, grabbed the wrist and triceps to lock the arm, but the gunman knew how to fight and was throwing an elbow with his free arm before Victor could break the joint. He caught the attack on a raised forearm, pushing it up, exposing the man’s chest for an elbow of his own that he drove into his enemy’s ribs. He didn’t have the leverage to crack any, or the room to aim for the solar plexus, but a whoosh of air left the man’s mouth. In that moment he didn’t have the strength to stop Victor from ripping the pistol from his hand.
He tossed it away because he had no need of it—and it would only make noise and mess Victor could do without—and there wasn’t time to adjust his grip on the weapon and get his finger inside the trigger guard and have the muzzle pointed at his enemy, because the man had recovered from the elbow to the chest and was fighting back. He was good. He had speed and strength but Victor had more of both.
He backed off to avoid a head butt, slipped a hook and the elbow that followed it, blocked a kick to his thigh with a raised shin. He retreated another step, encouraging his attacker to continue the assault and tire himself out as he increased the ferocity of his attacks in an effort to make up for the gulf in skill until fatigue and frustration created an opening to—
Snap his opponent’s head back with an open-palmed blow to the face, breaking his nose and sending him stumbling backward.
Victor easily knocked aside the man’s panicked defensive punches and shoved him to keep him off-balance until he tripped on the leg of one of his unconscious companions. His arms splayed in an attempt to stay standing, but in doing so left him defenseless.
Victor’s takedown dropped the man facedown onto his head and his whole body slackened.
He stamped on the back of the man’s neck. The crack told him he’d broken vertebrae. His enemy’s limp body told him he’d transacted the spinal cord.
The second man—who had not quite been rendered unconscious—had managed to get to his hands and knees.
A kick between the legs put him back on his stomach.
Victor switched on a lamp and squatted down next to the man to wait until the pain had subsided enough for him to be useful.
“Who sent you?” Victor asked when the man finally stopped writhing and opened his eyes.
“No Anglais.”
“Then I’m afraid to say that you’re no use to me.”
Victor put a hand on the man’s throat and squeezed. A raspy scream escaped his lips. He stared into Victor’s eyes.
“Wait . . . I’ll talk.”
“I should be a language teacher.”
The man was average height but solid and strong. He stank of body odor from sitting in a warm car for perhaps hours, the morning’s shower long ago. He seemed about twenty-five. Prison tattoos were visible on his neck. He had a scar on his cheek.
“If you promise to cooperate,” Victor said, “I’ll take my hand away. Deal?”
The man nodded as much as the hand around his throat would let him. “Deal.”
Victor removed his hand, pretending he didn’t notice the man’s right fist in his jacket pocket; pretending he hadn’t noticed it slide inside the pocket when he’d begun strangling the man.
The instant Victor took his hand from the man’s neck, the man pulled a knife from the pocket and stabbed up at him. He didn’t know whether the man was going for his spleen, stomach, or heart, or even whether he was just thrusting with little care to where the wound ended up. It didn’t matter. The blade didn’t get anywhere near Victor’s skin.
He caught the knife-holding fist, applying pressure with his thumb while twisting with his fingers to lock the wrist joint and relieve the weapon from the man’s weakened grasp.
Victor said, “That was a really bad idea.”
Chapter 19
He reversed his grip on the knife so the blade protruded from the bottom of his fist and drove the point down into the man’s abdomen.
It made a popping, sucking sound as the skin was pierced and sliced. The man’s face contorted in shock and horror more than from pain. Adrenaline kept the agony away. That respite was temporary. The pain would come soon.
The man gasped and bucked as Victor tugged the blade free of the vacuum’s hold.
Blood so dark it was almost black bubbled out of the wound. It soaked his shirt, spreading fast, glinting in the gloom.
Victor said, “I don’t suppose you believe me when I say that in less than one minute you’re going to beg me to stab you again.”
The man just stared. Shock was pulling the color from his face. Beads of sweat were appearing over every inch of skin. His hands pressed flat over the wound. Both were drenched with blood.
Victor showed him the blade. “The blood’s dark because I’ve stabbed you in the inferior vena cava. Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s one of the most important blood vessels you have. It carries all the blood from your lower body up to your heart. The blood’s dark because it’s deoxygenated because it hasn’t reached there yet. Now it’s pouring out of your belly. It can’t enter the right atrium of your heart. It can’t be pumped to your lungs. It can’t pick up oxygen. In about four minutes there’s not going to be enough oxygen in your blood to keep you alive. Your whole body is going to crave it. But you’re going to lie there and bleed to death. The pain is going to be horrendous. I can’t stop the pain, but I can keep you alive. Do you want me to keep you alive?”
The man nodded frantically, the whites of his eyes large and bright and full of tears.
“Then I have to put the blade ba
ck inside the wound. It’ll create a vacuum and stem the bleeding. More important it will let the blood flow up to your heart. Pressure on the wound won’t be enough. Look.” Victor gestured to the blood coating the man’s hands. “Do you want me to stab you again?”
The man didn’t answer. He stared and cried.
“I’ll give you a few seconds to think about it,” Victor said.
He left the man for a moment to break the neck of the first one he’d choked because he was coming round, then returned.
“It’s a straight choice,” Victor continued. “There are no variables. Either the blade stays in my hand and you bleed to death in a matter of minutes, or I slide it back in and you make it to the hospital. London has some great trauma surgeons. They deal with knife wounds a lot. This is a routine job for them. But you need to decide right now which way it’s going to be. Each second you delay is a minute less you’ll have to live when you eventually decide there really is only one option. You don’t want to die. You want to live. So, shall I put the knife back in?”
“Yes,” he begged.
“I won’t say I told you so.”
Victor slotted the knife blade directly into the wound. The man bucked and thrashed and screamed. The adrenaline was all used up now.
“You made the right choice,” Victor said. “The blade has plugged the hole and will slow the bleeding long enough for me to ask you some questions and for me to call an ambulance and for the paramedics to arrive and keep you alive until you get into an operating room with a surgeon to stitch you up. But you don’t have a lot of time, so you’re going to have to answer me without hesitation or stalling. You need me to believe you. If I have a single doubt about any answer you give, then I’m going to pull the blade out again and I’ll only put it back in when you convince me you’re telling the truth. That’s fair, isn’t it?”