by Tom Wood
Before the shooting had started, Krausse was at Victor’s one o’clock, Shotgun at his two, and the two other men at ten and nine. Victor figured that if he moved fast and Krausse and Shotgun hadn’t strayed too far, he could drop them both before they could return fire. The problem was the guys at nine and ten o’clock, and the fact that if Victor killed Krausse and Shotgun he would get bullets in the ribs from the other two in return. Alternatively, if he killed those two, shotgun pellets would shred him instead.
Victor heard whispering but couldn’t decipher the words. He could guess the topic of conversation well enough however. Him, or more specifically, how best to kill him. They were unlikely to be students of military tactics, but it wasn’t difficult to pull off a pincer movement when outnumbering the enemy four to one. And even Sun Tzu would find it hard to come up with a workable defence against such an attack. Think, Victor told himself.
Overhead, a strip light flickered.
He heard footsteps approaching from either flank. In moments they would attack from both sides at once. He’d be dead in seconds. No time left to formulate a plan.
He fired.
CHAPTER 7
The first strip light exploded in a shower of sparks and glass. Victor took out another three lights with his next three bullets, needing an extra shot to destroy the fifth. The last to go was the strip light directly above him and he used his left arm as a shield against the raining shards of glass that followed its destruction.
The floor plunged into darkness.
Victor threw himself to the floor on his right, head and arms now out of the cover of the crates. He couldn’t see anyone but fired at where Shotgun had been standing a few seconds before. Two shots, a double tap, torso height.
The yelp and sound of stumbling told him he’d scored a hit but not a fatal one. The Glock’s muzzle flash gave away his position and he immediately rolled clear before the returning fire blew holes through the wooden floor.
Victor was on his feet and moving fast, not caring about the noise he made, only concerned about putting some distance between him and his enemies. He knew there was a corridor of clear space through the stacks of crates and he blindly headed down it. He heard bullets strike crates behind him. Sparks flew as one struck a metal pillar.
He stopped moving after a few seconds, crouched, paused, evaluated. He was somewhere on the other side of the elevator. Though he couldn’t see exactly where, he referred to the image of the layout in his head to get some bearings, reaching out a hand to guide himself into cover.
Victor could hear Shotgun grunting and cursing, Krausse trying to get him to shut up. The other two weren’t speaking. Their careful footsteps were quiet but still audible. Glass crunched under shoes. Maybe thirty feet away.
Victor did a quick ammo count. The Glock held seventeen rounds in a full magazine. He’d used six bullets to take out the lights and two on Shotgun. Nine left. Krausse’s men had all fired a few rounds and so far no one had reloaded. He expected they would only after they’d depleted their magazines. Most people did. When that happened Victor might gain a window of opportunity, but he knew it could be a long wait until that opportunity presented itself.
Shotgun’s grunting ceased. Either he had taken control of his pain or someone had clasped a hand over his mouth. Victor had heard no sound of him collapsing to the ground so he was still on his feet, and if he was on his feet he was still dangerous. He didn’t have to have a good shot to hit Victor with a spread of buckshot.
He looked around. The central area of the warehouse was in complete darkness. Visibility was so limited that Victor could barely make out the Glock in his hand. The tall windows on each wall allowed some artificial light from the streetlights outside into the area, but not enough to see by unless someone strayed close to the walls. The light penetrated no more than a couple of yards and Krausse and his men weren’t so stupid as to go near those areas.
Victor untied his laces and slipped off his shoes. He took one into his left hand. With just socks on his feet, he made no sound when he moved. The glass from the exploded strip lights lay along the centre of the space, and Victor planned to go nowhere near there. He stayed low, his left hand outstretched to guard against any collisions, and crept over to the wall on his right. He was careful to move along the exact centre between the two areas of light shining through the windows.
He pressed his back against the wall and peered into the dark. If he couldn’t see his enemies then at least he couldn’t be seen either. It would take maybe fifteen minutes until his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, but he doubted he could remain hidden from four men for that length of time or sightlessly find his way to an exit undiscovered. His only option was to kill them before they killed him.
He concentrated on listening. He could hear tentative footsteps and the creaking of floorboards in several places. No more glass crunched, so Victor knew they were staying away from the centre space. He estimated the origins of the noise but he didn’t have enough bullets to trust to sound only. That was why he had the shoe.
As soon as he had a good idea of the location of the closest gunmen, he threw the shoe lightly towards where he’d been previously crouching near to the elevator. When it landed, it didn’t sound much like a person moving, but to guys high on adrenalin it was close enough.
Muzzle flashes broke the darkness.
Twin bullseyes.
Victor put two rounds in close proximity to where the nearest flash had appeared, switched his aim, fired another two at the second, and dropped to the floor.
A shotgun blast took a chunk from the wall a couple of feet to the right of his head and sprayed brick dust into his face. Before he could shoot back, the shotgun fired again, and again, blowing holes in the masonry above him. Small pieces of brickwork dropped down over him.
He kept low until the shooting had stopped. Brick dust and grit covered his head and shoulders, and was in his eyes and mouth. Apart from the pain and irritation, he wasn’t concerned about his eyes. He couldn’t see anyway. But he was fighting back coughing from the dust in his throat. He spat it out as quietly as he could.
Someone started wailing and thrashing about, agony overriding the need for stealth. Krausse wasn’t trying to shut his man up this time. He didn’t want to give himself away and end up in a similar situation. Victor didn’t know if the other guy he’d shot at was dead or if he’d missed. He had to assume he was combat-ready. Shotgun had shown he could still shoot and Victor imagined Krausse now had a gun in his hands too. That made three enemies. The Glock had five rounds left. Not even enough for two shots at each. A slim margin for error, considering he was virtually blind.
Victor kept low and moved away from the wall, found some more cover. His eyes streamed water. He kept his left hand out before him to feel his way around obstacles so he could blink rapidly to try to flush the dirt from his eyes.
He changed position, proceeding slowly, conscious he was heading towards the line of broken glass. With the shot guy’s screams masking every other sound, Victor needed to be careful not to collide with one of Krausse’s men. He didn’t know if they were stationary or moving about. If the stairs were on Victor’s side of the floor, he would have made a break for them, but the only exits were the far side of his enemies.
Whoever was shot continued to scream, though the volume of his cries gradually diminished as the life drained from him. Another few minutes and he’d be silent. Hurry up and die so I can hear again, Victor silently encouraged.
He managed to blink away the last of the grit from his eyes and could once more make out the Glock. The screams reduced to little more than a whimper until Victor could hear his own breathing. He held the Glock outstretched and waited for some indication of where Krausse and his men were located. He heard no movement, no panicked breaths, only the shot guy’s moans. Victor changed positions, moving towards the far side of the elevator.
The floor creaked beneath his foot.
In response two shotgu
n blasts hit a nearby stack of crates. Splinters of wood flew off in all directions. He felt some snag his suit jacket. He dropped prone as two handguns opened fire an instant later. Bullets thudded into the crates shielding him, zipped over his head.
The firing didn’t cease. They were shooting at the general area, trusting to firepower and hoping to score a lucky hit. The noise was deafening. For Victor it was either stay put or make a break for it. Moving into the line of fire was a bad tactic, but lying still and hoping not to be hit seemed like an even worse course of action.
Rounds continued to strike his position, hitting the floor, crates, and pillars. Shotgun pellets made a crater in the floorboards close enough for Victor to feel vibrations through the wooden planks. He knew he was running out of time.
There was a lull in the shooting. A handgun stopped firing. At first, he thought someone was reloading, but he heard another sound between the other gunshots. Water Music by Handel.
Victor didn’t let the advantage escape. He made his move, quickly peering around the stack of crates. He saw nothing. He tried the other side, and a split second before the phone went silent, Victor saw the faint blue of the screen glowing through the thin fabric of Krausse’s cheap suit trousers.
Victor angled the Glock and fired. Krausse screamed.
Victor was up on his feet and moving before Shotgun returned fire. The huge flash from the end of the barrel briefly illuminated him and Victor shot back with a double tap. Shotgun fell sideways into an area of light near one of the windows. Very dead.
The last gunman took a shot at Victor. The muzzle flashed on the far side of the warehouse, maybe sixty feet away. Victor fired, on the move, rushing closer. Too eager.
He knew he’d missed before the returning muzzle flash made it obvious. The bullet sparked off a metal pillar to Victor’s left. He headed right, not risking firing back again at this range with only one bullet in the Glock.
Forty-five feet and the gunman fired at him again. He hadn’t changed position, somewhere near the sink. The bullet didn’t come close. He was shooting at noise only and Victor was a fast target. He headed back to the right, clipped a crate with his leg and stumbled. The next round blew a hole through a windowpane.
Less than thirty feet. His enemy fired again, this time from a different position, behind a pillar. The bullet came close enough for Victor to hear the sonic snap. Fifteen feet. Another shot missed and Victor braced for the next one that he felt sure was going to hit.
No shot. Empty gun.
Victor heard the magazine clatter on the floor and the gunman frantically trying to reload. Victor closed the last few yards fast and the gunman came into view — a blurry shape of near black against the darkness. Victor heard a new magazine slammed into place and the shape moved, collapsing backwards, Victor’s last bullet embedded in the gunman’s chest.
Victor stopped, took a much-needed deep breath, and listened. He heard one man groaning somewhere in the dark. Everyone else was dead or dying silently. Victor dropped the empty Glock and prised the fully loaded one from his enemy’s hand. He checked the corpse’s pockets, finding a wallet and a lighter. He took both, glad there hadn’t been any cigarettes as well to test his resolve.
He followed the map in his head to where his shoes lay, slipped them on, and then to where Georg had fallen, the groans growing louder the closer he got. Victor used the lighter to push back the darkness and saw Georg lying on her back, hands pressing down over the bloody mess of her abdomen. Blood pooled on the plastic sheeting beneath her and trickled on to the floor and drained through the gaps in the narrow boards. She stared up at Victor, her ghost-white face contorted by agony. Tears glinted on her cheeks.
‘ Please…’
Careful to avoid the blood, Victor checked Georg’s pockets. ‘Please what?’
‘Help me.’ Georg’s voice was thin. ‘I’ll pay you… Anything you want.’
Victor held open Georg’s empty wallet. ‘What with?’
Georg didn’t answer. Victor put back the wallet, ignored a cell phone, and pocketed a set of van keys.
‘ Help me,’ Georg begged again.
‘You’re wearing body armour,’ Victor explained, ‘which is why you took a twelve-gauge to the gut and are still alive. But it’s a concealable vest, so it has maybe nineteen layers of Kevlar. Enough to stop a nine mil travelling at twelve hundred feet per second, but not nine pellets of buckshot at the same speed. Maybe absorbed fifty per cent of the energy though, so none of those pellets reached your spine, but plenty of power left to shred your intestines. And that’s without the slug in your shoulder. You’ll be dead in fifteen minutes maximum. There’s nothing I can do to stop that.’
‘Phone… an ambulance.’
‘And have my voice recorded by the emergency services? I don’t think so.’
He found the guy he’d stabbed and pulled the knife free. Custom-made, all ceramic, with a kris edge and gladiator point. Far too good a weapon to waste in a corpse even without its sentimental value. Victor wiped the blade on the dead man’s jacket before folding it away.
‘I’m sorry… this… happened,’ Georg said.
Her tone of voice really did sound sincere, but in Victor’s experience excruciating pain had a habit of making people very apologetic. He stood.
‘Help me… please,’ she spluttered between grunts, ‘or kill me… it hurts…’
Victor approached and stopped a few inches short of the blood pool. He angled the Glock.
Georg’s gaze tracked the gun, but her eyes closed so she didn’t have to watch. Not that there was enough time to register a muzzle flash and fear the ensuing bullet before impact, or enough time for the brain to recognise its own destruction. But Victor didn’t fire.
Instead, he squatted down and reached into Georg’s duffel coat. He withdrew the cell phone, dialled 112, switched it to speakerphone, and placed it in one of Georg’s hands. Her eyes opened and stared at Victor, shocked.
‘Remember to forget me,’ Victor said before the line connected.
He headed to the elevator as the emergency operator politely asked which service Georg required.
CHAPTER 8
Central Intelligence Agency, Virginia, USA
Associate Deputy Director for the National Clandestine Service Roland Procter took a seat in one of the four black leather armchairs positioned in the corner of his office. The area was set to create an informal space for meetings and discussion, but Procter was usually happier to talk from behind his big desk. His current guest, however, warranted a more even playing field.
Enjoying the chair across from Procter was Clarke, who, though the same age, was at least eighty pounds lighter, several shades paler, and looking not too dissimilar to a French fry in a suit. But if Clarke was a French fry, Procter had to admit he was definitely the hamburger on their collective plate. Though Procter wasn’t sure how much he weighed, it had to be north of two fifty. It wasn’t genetics, it wasn’t big bones, it was just that Procter liked to eat.
Clarke wasn’t CIA and his credentials said Pentagon, but whatever his laminate proclaimed, Procter wasn’t sure exactly who Clarke worked for these days. Clarke could have worked for none of the big agencies or all of them at once, or maybe one that was so secret Procter hadn’t even heard of it. It didn’t matter. What mattered was Clarke shared the same principles as Procter and the same balls to put those principles to good use.
‘I’ve received word from my man,’ Procter began. ‘It seems there was a minor problem last week with the supplier in Hamburg.’
Clarke’s eyebrows rose. ‘What kind of a problem?’
‘The fatal kind.’ Procter gave a quick explanation of the facts as he knew them.
‘Did Tesseract get away clean?’
‘He claims so, and our people in Germany back up his story. The police have the killings down as a gangland incident. Georg, who is in fact a woman, was shot up pretty bad, but she’s had three surgeries and is going to make it. I’m told
she’s conscious, and keeping her mouth closed. Not that it would make much difference either way. The cops over there aren’t too concerned about a bunch of criminals blasting holes in each other. Privately, they’re celebrating the destruction of two local gangs. They aren’t looking for anyone, let alone our boy.’
‘Good.’
‘You sound almost disappointed,’ Procter said.
Clarke ignored the barb. ‘We have a real problem though. Regarding Bucharest.’
‘Which is?’
‘One of Kasakov’s people heard Tesseract’s shot. A Russian guy has spoken to someone inside Bucharest PD. They’d found the assassin’s headless corpse by then. It was lying on a rooftop next to a sniper rifle, six hundred yards and a clear line of sight from the front door of the Grand Plaza where Vladimir Kasakov happened to be staying.’
‘So what did Bucharest PD tell him?’
‘What they knew about the shooter. Croatian freelancer, on Interpol’s files. Guy was a real bastard, did mob hits for different people. And now Kasakov knows for sure someone tried to kill him. And he must know that someone intervened on his behalf. Maybe he knows who wants him dead or maybe he doesn’t. But one thing’s for certain: he’s going to want to know who came to his aid and he’s going to keep his head down.’
Procter shrugged. ‘Doesn’t bother me.’
‘It bothers me.’
‘It shouldn’t. We’ll just spin it to throw him off the scent. We’ll make him think that the Croatian guy was killed for some other reason, and Kasakov’s survival was nothing more than a lucky coincidence.’
Clarke had already thought of that, of course, Procter knew, which was why his returning point flowed so easily. ‘True,’ Clarke said, ‘though it would have been better for him to carry on thinking he was beyond threat. Knowing how near he came to being bones in a box could complicate matters for us. Kasakov might change his plans, increase his security, reduce his profile. Hell, he could retire from arms dealing and take up politics.’