by Tom Wood
• • •
Sinclair listened to Wade’s sputtering excuses as he strode outside the law firm. The black Audi had been abandoned on the street, driver’s door open and engine left running. No other door was open. Wade was still providing useless updates as Sinclair stepped forward to the edge of the steps, looking left and right along the street, seeing vehicles and pedestrians.
At the east end of the street, a cab had its turn signal on. Two human shapes sat in the back. At this range, no details were discernible.
I see you.
Sinclair shoved Wade aside and drew his pistol. He adopted a shooting position, one eye closed while the other peered along the weapon’s iron sights, focusing on the smaller of the two shapes, ignoring the blur of colors and shapes that surrounded it. His brow was creased in concentration. His lips were closed and his jaw set, nostrils expanding and contracting with each deep, regular breath. Beads of sweat formed along his hairline. He slowed his breathing and with it his heart rate. He timed the beats, index finger compressing on the trigger—two pounds of pressure, then four, six, and holding the tension there, ready to squeeze a little harder; just another half-pound of force to trip the trigger and activate the firing mechanism.
The world around him ceased to exist.
I was born to do this, Sinclair said to himself. Never miss. Never fail.
The recoil kicked and he felt the reverberations flow all the way to his shoulder. He loved that feeling. The mechanical caress, dull and strong. As a child, it had hurt. Now he missed the pain.
Life is pain.
The pistol’s suppressor caught the escaping superheated gases as they exploded from the muzzle, deadening the sound but not killing it. The rumble of city life did that, wrapping up and smothering the weapon’s bark in a blanket of car exhausts, voices, and footsteps.
Chapter 75
In the mirror, Victor saw the South African on the steps outside the law firm’s building, lit by streetlights, haloing the rain around him. He had a handgun drawn. They were out of conceivable range—an impossible shot, almost—but the man adopted a shooting stance. For a second, Victor didn’t believe he would take it.
He grabbed the back of Gisele’s head and forced it down.
The rear windshield cracked around a small hole.
The minicab driver contorted in his seat, dead the instant the round punctured his skull and penetrated his brain. The mess was absolute. The deformed and tumbling bullet blew out the front of his forehead, the pressure wave following it exploding the skull, spraying bone, brain, and blood in a wide arc that splattered over the windshield and the car’s interior.
The bullet continued its trajectory, leaving a fist-sized hole in the cab’s front windscreen. Another followed it, tearing through the passenger’s seat and dashboard and burying itself somewhere in the engine block.
Victor, keeping low, forced himself between the front seats and grabbed hold of the steering wheel. He heard horns and saw flashes of headlights and swerving cars. He felt the reverberations of more rounds striking the rear of the car. The side mirror shattered.
Metal screeched against metal as the right-side wheel well scraped along the door of a parked BMW. Shocked passersby stared as Victor fought to control the cab. The low whine of the engine and the wail of the BMW’s intruder alarm filled his ears. Next to him, Gisele made herself small in the seat. She was scared but she didn’t scream or panic or distract him with questions.
No more bullets hit the car as he pulled himself between the seats. They were now out of reach of even the gunman’s exceptional skills. Victor reached down to activate the driver’s seat adjuster to slide it back the full distance before climbing on top of the dead driver. He forced himself into a driving position and accelerated.
He kept as low as he could, which wasn’t much, but the driver’s body would provide some protection from further shots.
He took the first turn he saw, swerving left and onto a side street, clipping the bumper of a parked car, the roar of the revving engine echoed by the narrow distance between tall buildings. A guy in a suit went to cross the street ahead, but darted back when he saw the speeding cab.
Something was wrong with the vehicle’s handling—bullet damage to a tire, maybe—and Victor struggled to keep it straight.
“Seat belt,” he said to Gisele.
The wheel shed the peeling tire and it flipped and cartwheeled into the air. The bare wheel struck asphalt and sparked. Victor lost control on the slick surface, fought the erratic swerves, jolting in his seat as the car sideswiped a bus. He caught a flash of panicked faces through the glass before rebounding away, smelling the acrid stench of burned steel from the grinding wheel.
He fought to keep control as the nose of the cab exited the side street. He couldn’t stop it from careering into the lane of oncoming traffic. A horn sounded and the vehicle spun as another bus collided with a rear-wheel well. Tires screeched and left burned rubber on the tarmac. Glass pebbles from a broken window scattered across the road.
Stunned pedestrians stopped and watched as the car spun into a row of parked vehicles, denting bodywork and breaking more windows. Alarms sounded.
The bumper clipped the rear of a taxi, knocking that vehicle forward and further distorting the erratic path Victor was taking. The tire-free wheel collided with a curb at an angle and jumped it. He worked the wheel and punched the horn when he saw he couldn’t prevent the cab from crashing into a bus stop. The two men waiting for the next bus ran clear.
Headlights glowed and flared through the raindrops, leaving smears of red and light as the wipers, still working, swept them away. The front crumple zone had done its job and absorbed the majority of the impact, turning the cab into an unrecognizable misshapen heap of metal, but one that kept Victor alive, if not unscathed.
He heaved open the warped driver’s door and stumbled out of the wreckage, bloody and disorientated. Gisele climbed out too and he ushered her forward, shielding her with his body as he staggered away, heading for the cover of parked cars and storefronts. He reached for the gun in his waistband but grasped only air, realizing too late that he’d had it in his lap while driving and in the crash it must have ended up in the foot well or under a seat. He couldn’t go back for it.
They had to keep moving. Their pursuers were close but their line of sight was impeded by the bus that had hit the cab and now blocked the intersection. The other people on the street didn’t realize what had caused the crash but backed away from him anyway because he was covered in the cabdriver’s blood and walking with determination instead of staggering like someone scared or in pain and in need of help. The blood dispelled any chance of slipping away unnoticed, but the dispersing effect it had on other people meant he could walk faster through the crowd.
• • •
Wade managed to maneuver the Range Rover around the bus by going up onto the pavement. Ahead the crashed minicab sat, damaged and dented vehicles near it, glass glittering on the road. A crowd had gathered, watching from a short distance away as a few compassionate or ghoulish individuals edged closer, peering into the cab.
Beautiful chaos, Sinclair thought, savoring the scene before him, reveling in the panic and aroused by the sight of destruction.
He breathed in air both sweet and terrible.
“Ease up,” Sinclair said, gun clutched in both hands but held out of sight, ready to be snapped up and put into action.
Wade lessened the pressure on the accelerator pedal, slowing the vehicle as they passed the wreckage. No one inside.
“There,” Sinclair said, pointing to a crowd of people in the distance, a man and woman pushing their way through. He gestured to the two mercenaries in the back. “Pursue on foot. We’ll head them off.”
• • •
Gisele hurried. Her legs weren’t moving as fast as she compelled them—shock was taking hold. Vi
ctor took her by the arm and pulled her along, limping on his injured ankle.
A man in front of them stumbled and fell. The echo of the shot arrived a split second later. Victor just about made it out over the background noise. The man on the ground wasn’t dead, but the round had gone through a shoulder blade and exited through his arm. Blood quickly pooled under him. Another man screamed in shock and horror. Someone shouted for an ambulance.
Victor kept moving, accelerating into a jog and pushing through the crowd with one hand while the other held Gisele close to him. More shots sounded but no one was hit in front of him. Behind, he couldn’t be sure, with the screaming and panic.
He exited the street at the first available opportunity, heading right into an alleyway.
Gisele said, “I’m hit. I’m bleeding.”
He stopped and looked at her, pushing her back up against the wall of the alley so he could examine her. She touched her head. There was blood on her fingers and in her hair. He turned her head and separated her hair.
“You’re okay,” he assured her. “It’s a scratch. From before.”
At the end of the alleyway, Victor slowed to a walk and took Gisele’s right hand in his left. He relaxed his face and they stepped out together, side by side.
“Try to smile,” he said.
He didn’t look to see if she was. He kept his eyes moving—gaze sweeping the street, the cars, the pedestrians, the buildings—looking for threats. Traffic was heavy and slow, as were the crowds of walkers. London at any time of the year, overcrowded and congested. He liked that. Gisele slowed him down, and the packed street offered good cover. The shootings one block away were irrelevant here. No one knew what had taken place.
Victor led Gisele across the road, dodging through the traffic, and down a covered precinct. The street beyond was quiet—few passing cars; few scattered pedestrians. He looked both ways along it, looking for the Range Rover or any other vehicle that could be a threat. Nothing. He listened for the sound of pursuers. No rushing footsteps echoing. Yet.
The farther they walked, the denser the crowds became. Tourists were everywhere, identifiable by their casual pace at odds with and offensive to the harried Londoners.
Sirens wailed. Victor caught a glimpse of a police car passing across an intersection up ahead, heading to the site of the crash and shooting. More would be coming. Good. The more cops in the area, the fewer opportunities their pursuers would have and the fewer risks they would be willing to take.
He took her into an adjoining side street. He wasn’t sure where it would lead. He knew London well—as he knew any city where he had ever operated—but not every route.
The street exited onto a road lined with boutiques and coffee shops. Brave men and women sat at outside tables under retractable awnings and heat lamps, sipping steaming drinks and smiling and chatting. Victor led Gisele to the other side of the street, walking fast to slip through the traffic, ignoring the scorn of motorists who never got used to Londoners darting in front of them. A cyclist rang a bell in annoyance after swerving to miss them.
A woman in a woolen hat spotted the blood on Victor’s clothes and trickling down Gisele’s face. The woman nudged her partner and Victor read Look at those two on her lips. Her partner tilted up his reading glasses to get a better view. Victor reversed direction, heading north, away from the couple.
He saw a tall man some twenty meters away, a shadow of stubble around a mouth set with determination. Another mercenary followed a little way behind.
“In here,” Victor said.
He shoved open the door to a restaurant and pulled Gisele inside behind him.
Chapter 76
The restaurant had a high ceiling and ornate metal tables and chairs. Similarly ornate mirrors covered the walls. Victor waved a hand to dismiss a waiter’s “Table for two?” and hurried through the room, eyes picking out the ways in and therefore out, seeking an exit instead of a way deeper into the building. His instincts told him to head for the kitchen and an inevitable back door, but he felt a breeze on his face from an entranceway below a sign for the toilets.
A waitress overloaded with bowls and plates stepped out in front of him and was thrown out of his path, sending soup and salad across the floor. Gisele apologized on his behalf.
Through the entranceway, he turned to follow the corridor, saw doors leading off to the men’s and lady’s toilets and the fire exit at the far end propped ajar to let an air funnel inside.
From behind him, he heard the crash of the restaurant door being flung open.
“Run,” Victor said.
• • •
The two pursuing mercenaries charged through the restaurant, knocking diners and staff aside, jumping over the spilled food and puddles of soup, knowing exactly where their targets had gone, thanks to a waitress yelling in the direction of the toilets.
They entered the corridor, moving fast, the first leading with longer strides, heading for the open fire exit, the second following a meter behind, view blocked by the taller man.
He drew a pistol from beneath his jacket.
• • •
Which Victor batted out of his hand as he charged out of the adjacent men’s room, slamming the man into the wall with his momentum, elbowing him in the face, sinking him to his knees.
The lead man turned and snapped his pistol up, but not fast enough to stop Victor from stepping inside and striking him in the chest with a short left punch. He staggered backward, gasping, dropping his weapon to reach out with both hands, searching for purchase on the walls to his left and right.
The scrape of metal alerted Victor to the man behind him going for the gun while still on his knees. He scooped it up, twisted around one hundred eighty degrees, arms straightening and aiming.
A side kick sent the gun out of the mercenary’s hands for a second time. He rolled out of the way of Victor’s next attack, but Victor didn’t try for a third because he knew the taller man would be recovered behind him. Victor spun around, blocked the knife thrust meant for his back, dodged a second, grabbed an outstretched arm when the third came and swung his attacker face-first into the men’s-room door.
Victor disarmed the man of his knife, slipped the second man’s counter, then dropped him to the floor with a kick to the back of the knee, creating the space for him to strike the taller mercenary, catching him in the mouth with a right elbow. Then Victor sent him sprawling by hitting him in the jaw with the heel of his palm.
He went for the closest gun, but the prone man recovered fast and charged him from behind, powering him into a wall, making him toe the pistol away as he stumbled. He caught his attacker with a backward head butt, then twisted around to follow up with another head butt, with his forehead impacting the bridge of the mercenary’s nose—not shattering it, because he was already stumbling back, but sending blood streaming from the nostrils.
He ran because the tall man was rushing for the second gun and he was going to reach it before Victor got to him.
The gun clacked and a bullet took a chunk from the fire exit as Victor dashed through it. He veered out of the line of fire an instant before a second round buried itself in the brickwork opposite.
The fire exit led out into a narrow alleyway just wide enough for a car to squeeze down. Victor headed right, as he had instructed Gisele to do, and found her staring at him, tense from the gunfire.
• • •
Sinclair heard the gunshots too. They were muted by a suppressor and subsonic ammunition, but he heard them all the same. He stood outside the Range Rover, holding an MP5 out of sight behind the open rear door.
A voice through his earpiece: “We’ve lost him in the restaurant . . . In pursuit. He’s heading west.”
“Stay back until I say otherwise,” Sinclair replied. “I have him.”
The mouth of the alleyway was fifteen meters away on the far sid
e of the street. The gunshots had come from that direction. He waited. The target and her protector appeared. Sinclair stepped out of cover, began bringing up the submachine gun, when Wade said, “Careful. Cops.”
Sinclair glanced to where a police car had stopped at the end of the street, no doubt looking for the culprits responsible for the recent crash and shooting.
“Get in the motor,” Wade screamed. “We gotta move out.”
The siren grew rapidly louder as the police car sped closer. Sinclair didn’t look. He didn’t need to.
“Fuck ’em,” Sinclair said, raising his weapon.
• • •
Victor saw a man on the far side of the street, partially shielded by the open rear door of the Range Rover. The man wore khaki trousers and a leather jacket. The South African. The man called Sinclair, who had made the near-impossible shot that killed the cabdriver. Though mostly out of sight, Victor could see the fat, integrated suppressor of an MP5SD held in cover.
Sinclair wasn’t looking his way. He was glancing to his right, at the cop car pulled over at the mouth of the street. The MP5 started to rise.
“Gun!” Victor yelled, and pointed in the hope the police officers would see.
Instead of hanging around to find out, he darted to his right, away from the gunman, dragging Gisele down into the cover of a parked vehicle.
• • •
The cop car skidded to a halt near Sinclair before he’d found the shot. All he needed was an instant, a heartbeat, but it didn’t come. In his peripheral vision he saw the armed-response officers exiting their car, weapons up.
“Don’t fucking move.” They came forward. “Hands in the air. Drop the gun.”
“As you wish.”
He released the MP5 and it clattered on the road surface. The first cop approached Sinclair while the other stayed back, covering.
“Turn around. Keep your hands up.”
Sinclair did as instructed.
The cop came closer, putting his gun away to take out handcuffs. He stood behind Sinclair. The cop reached up and took hold of Sinclair’s right wrist, but didn’t complete the maneuver.