by Tom Wood
The blonde woman in the passenger seat turned to face him. She had a triumphant expression on her face. ‘Put on your seat belt.’
She spoke with her British accent. She probably had been British, originally. Victor held up his bound wrists.
She smirked. ‘That won’t stop you.’
Victor reached behind his left shoulder and pulled the belt across his chest and fastened it. He did so as awkwardly as he could. When it clicked in place, the woman in the passenger seat turned away. She said something in Hebrew to the driver. None of the three Israelis in the car had on their belts to ensure speed of movement while he in turn was locked in place.
The Renault pulled away, following close to the Peugeot. Rehearsed moves. The driver kept the car a little above the speed limit, like anyone else who didn’t want a ticket and who had nothing to hide. They drove through the narrow streets of Sofia, staying directly behind the lead car at all times. The passenger periodically looked back to check on Victor. The Israeli on the back seat didn’t look away once.
Victor felt the adrenalin in his system speed up his heart rate. His pulse thundered in his ears. He looked up, staring through the window to his left. He saw the twinkling of lights in the night sky from an ascending plane and watched until those lights had disappeared into the darkness.
CHAPTER 63
The pain in Victor’s wrists continued to build. His wrists were locked together, skin to skin. The tingling sensation in his hands worsened. He could make fists with his hands but precious few other movements. Soon they would be too numb to move.
They took a right turn then two lefts, bringing the car out of the backstreets and on to a wide avenue. Traffic lights glowed up ahead. Red glimmered through the raindrops on the windshield.
The Renault slowed down and stopped. Victor could reach the door handle and be rolling on to the road before anyone could react, but a Kidon team was too professional to leave the child lock disengaged. He could try anyway — on the minute chance the lock was malfunctioning — but Victor didn’t want to make them even more alert by trying something destined to fail. Instead, he sat passive, defeated. His only chance was for them to underestimate him.
His knees pressed against the back of the driver’s seat. He was a tall, the other fake tourist, and had the seat back to compensate for his long legs. There was little room for Victor to manoeuvre. He looked to his right, at the guy with the gun. The Israeli had a slim build and pale face beneath dark curly hair. He wore jeans and a nylon jacket. He was calm if not relaxed. The muzzle of the Beretta was slightly inclined, angled at Victor’s centre mass. The guy looked like he very much wanted to squeeze the trigger, but his orders would be to only shoot if absolutely necessary. A dead man couldn’t talk, after all.
The light changed and the Renault pulled away, one car length behind the Peugeot, maintaining formation, but without looking like it. They drove in silence. The radio was off. No one spoke. The woman in the passenger seat turned to look at Victor again, this time smiling to herself, and looked away. It was becoming difficult to move his fingers.
He couldn’t see his watch, but he was good keeping track of time without one. Nine minutes had passed since he’d been captured. The scene outside his window changed as they left central Sofia. He saw factories and warehouses, open-air car showrooms, apartment blocks, areas of wasteland. Wherever they were taking him, he sensed it was close. When he reached it his chances of escape would drastically reduce.
The Israeli in the nylon jacket on the back seat continued to stare. He blinked regularly, keeping his eyes moist, removing the need to involuntarily blink at the wrong moment. Even if Victor could somehow get close enough to avoid the gun, he couldn’t disarm the man while his hands were tied and the seat belt locked him in place. And that was before the woman in the passenger seat got involved. Similarly, Victor couldn’t attack the driver while under the watchful gaze of the guy on the back seat. Maybe when the car stopped at their destination he would have a window of opportunity. The problem with that was the second car full of Kidon assassins that would have stopped too.
He took a deep breath, running multiple scenarios through his head. They all ended the same way.
The Renault continued its relentless drive. They joined a highway. The weather worsened. Rain pelted the car. Streams of water ran down the windows. Windshield wipers swung rhythmically back and forth. The pain in Victor’s wrists intensified to a throbbing agony. The Israeli to his right continued to stare.
The woman in the passenger seat turned her head to look at him again.
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘thank you for the photograph. It’ll make a great souvenir. I look really good in it.’
Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘And they say the camera never lies.’
She smirked.
The driver said a word in Hebrew and the woman quickly turned back. She stiffened in her seat and said something. The driver nodded in response. Victor saw headlights approaching fast on the opposite lane. He immediately saw why it had caused a reaction. A police cruiser, lights flashing, siren’s wail beating back the sound of the weather, responding to a call.
The woman said something else, probably intended to calm herself as well as the two men. Victor inhaled and rocked his head from side to side to crack his neck. Ready.
He watched the woman’s head turn to the right to follow the car as it sped past. It was habit, human nature. Everyone looked when a cop car rolled by. Especially when there was something to hide.
The Israeli on the back seat looked too. Human nature. His gaze left Victor. Just for a second.
A second too long.
Victor leaned forward, raised his hands, hooked them over the driver’s head, and tugged them sharply back. The hard edge of the plastic strap dug into the bridge of the Israeli’s nose. Victor’s wrists covered his eyes.
The driver cried out in pain, surprise, and panic as he lost his vision. The Renault swerved as he took one hand off the wheel and pulled at Victor’s wrist. But Victor had two arms against one, leverage and the will to survive. He sawed the plastic strap deeper into the driver’s nose. Blood ran down his face.
The guy in the back and the woman in the passenger seat both yelled at Victor to let the driver go as they fought against the force of the swerving car. Victor, knees pressing into the seat and his wrists locked around the driver’s face, kept himself steady. They weren’t wearing seat belts either. He was.
Victor pulled backward harder, the plastic strap cutting deeper into the driver’s nose. The man yelled in pain and fear as his head was forced against the headrest. The Israeli in the back tried to keep the Beretta trained on Victor, but he wasn’t firing. Killing Victor was the last resort. He didn’t want to have to explain to his masters why their investigation had permanently ended, and with the car swerving, it wouldn’t take much to throw a shot off far enough to hit the driver instead.
The passenger turned in her seat. She had her own gun out and pointed at Victor. She had a better angle on him, but the swerving car was having more of an effect on her. She couldn’t keep still or her aim steady.
‘ Let go of him,’ she shouted. ‘ RIGHT NOW.’
Victor’s gaze flicked between her and the guy in the back. He felt the car slowing. Nails drew blood from his skin but he didn’t let go. The driver screamed in Hebrew. Horns sounded from other cars on the highway. They were nearing an exit. If the driver took it, they could stop the car. Then it was over. The driver couldn’t see, but one of the other two could call out instructions.
Victor wrenched his hands downward, shearing skin from the driver’s nose, hooking the plastic strap under his chin, and pulled them against his neck. Victor’s wrists pressed into the flesh either side of the driver’s throat. He choked.
The car swerved again. Harder. The woman fell across the stick shift. The guy in the back tilted Victor’s way, completely off balance. The Israeli reached out with his left hand, pressing his palm into the centre back seat
to halt his fall before he got too close to Victor. Too late.
Victor released the driver, brought his hands back, grabbed hold of the Israeli’s wrist, wrenched him closer, let go, and smashed his right elbow into the guy’s face. Then twice more. The Israeli sagged on the seat, stunned and disorientated.
The passenger pulled herself back upright, swivelled her head in Victor’s direction. Her gun began to rise.
Victor grabbed the stunned Israeli’s right hand with his own two, heaved the arm up to tilt the Beretta in the correct direction as much as he could, and squeezed the guy’s finger down on to the trigger.
The suppressed clack was loud inside the car. The bullet caught the driver in the side of his ribcage, halfway between his armpit and hip. The car swerved again as the woman fired, throwing her aim. A hole blew through the back window. Pebbles of glass struck the back of Victor’s head. Wind and rain rushed inside.
The Renault careered into the other lane, hitting an SUV side-on. The force pushed Victor against the door to his left and he lost his grip on the Beretta. It dropped into the foot well behind the driver’s seat and between Victor’s feet. The dazed Israeli fell against him. Metal shrieked against metal. The driver groaned.
Horns blared. Other cars swerved out of the way. The woman grasped the wheel, one hand keeping the Renault from crashing while trying to retrieve her own gun, dropped in the impact, with the other. The guy in the back grabbed at Victor, who threw a sideways head butt into his already bloodied face, took hold of his jacket and shoved him between the front seats and into the woman.
Her hand was forced away from the wheel and the car swerved sharply. Tyres squealed against wet asphalt. Victor tried to grab the Beretta in the foot well but didn’t have the room with his legs in front of him and in the way. The driver slumped across the wheel, his weight turning it to the right this time. The woman seized the steering wheel again, this time with both hands, heaving it back to straighten the Renault out.
The Israeli between the seats twisted himself around and punched at Victor. The guy’s position was bad, and they didn’t connect with enough force to slow Victor down. He released the seat belt and drove his right elbow into his attacker’s stomach, then again, fingers locked together, left arm adding to the strength of the right. The Israeli gasped and doubled over. Victor hurled him on to the back seat, grabbed the driver’s headrest for support, swivelled in his seat, and kicked the Israeli in the neck while his head lolled back. Victor felt the larynx crush beneath his heel. The Israeli choked and grasped at his throat.
Without his legs in the way, Victor reached down into the foot well. The woman in the passenger seat saw what he was doing, let go of the steering wheel and scrambled for her own weapon lying between the slumped-over driver’s thighs.
Victor’s eyes locked with hers.
With no one holding the wheel, the Renault swerved erratically, causing the Beretta to slide around in the foot well, evading Victor’s stilted grasp. Rain lashed the back of his head. The woman pulled her gun out from between the driver’s legs as Victor felt cool metal in his fingers, grabbed the Beretta, lifted it up in both hands.
He watched as the woman brought her arms back to get the trajectory. She had to make half the distance he had.
He fired first, without aiming, squeezing the trigger rapidly, gun below seat level, angled upwards.
Nine millimetre bullets tore through the transmission box and the passenger seat and hit her in the thigh and hip. She screamed and flailed backward. Victor kept firing, increasing the angle, bloody bullet holes appearing in her stomach then chest. The gun fell from her fingers.
The car swerved right again. A horn blared. Victor saw oncoming headlights glimmering through the raindrops on the windshield. He swivelled back around and pushed his feet into the foot well. With his bound hands, he reached over his left shoulder and snatched the seat-belt buckle.
The sound of the horn’s continuous blaring and rubber screeching on wet asphalt filled Victor’s ears. He pulled the buckle across his torso. The lights glowed brighter, closer. He pushed the buckle into the clasp and heard it click in place.
The sudden collision sent Victor hurtling forward. The seat belt locked against him. The breath shot out from his lungs. His head smashed into the headrest. He heard metal screech and crumple. Glass shattered.
He fell back into the seat and grimaced. The driver lay limp against the steering wheel. The Israeli in the back had broken the passenger seat in the crash and lay slumped against it. He made slow, sucking breaths. Blood glistened across his face and streamed from his chin. The woman’s body was crushed beneath the seat. Her unblinking eyes stared at Victor.
He coughed and unfastened the seat belt. He used the Beretta to smash out the cracked window next to him, pulled himself through the opening and dropped down on to the cold and wet road surface.
He hauled himself to his feet and staggered away from the car. The Renault had crashed head-on into a similarly sized sedan. The driver of that car had been wearing his seat belt and Victor saw him rubbing the back of his neck.
Around Victor large warehouses and factories lined the four-lane highway. Other vehicles had stopped as far as he could see, behind him and ahead. A van had crashed through a chain-link fence. A few people were getting out of their cars. All eyes were on Victor.
Someone from a nearby Ford opened his door and headed Victor’s way. Victor ignored him and everyone else, spotted the blue Peugeot stopping fifty yards further back along the road. The Renault must have overtaken it in the chaos of the struggle.
Victor dropped to one knee, used his left hand to support the right as best as he could, lined up the Beretta’s iron sights over the glass of the windshield.
Cracks spread through the windshield as Victor fired at the Peugeot. He couldn’t see if he’d hit any of the Kidon, but he continued to shoot regardless. The Samaritan near to Victor fell over backwards in shock and fear. He scrambled away.
Four Israelis from the Peugeot — the big guy, two other men and the short woman with boyish hair — rushed out from the car and adopted firing positions of their own, but Victor was already running. He wasn’t going to win a four-on-one gunfight with Mossad assassins even if his hands weren’t bound together.
He sprinted in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER 64
Victor ran, cuffed wrists hovering before his chest, Beretta in both hands. He veered off the highway, across the parking space in front of a row of workshops, down an alleyway between buildings. It was narrow, dark, long, not much more than five feet wide from wall to wall, sheltered from the rain. He dodged around boxes and rubbish, eyes scanning for anything that could cut the strap between his wrists. He could barely see. He tripped on something metal, stumbled, grazing his arm against the rough brick as he kept himself upright.
The alleyway opened out to a wide expanse of asphalt, behind it a stretch of wasteland. He saw moonlight shining off a chain-link fence between the two. He was at the back of the row of workshops, all closed for the night. The only way to go was over the fence and across the wasteland beyond, but he wouldn’t make it over the fence if the Israelis from the Peugeot followed him.
He turned and positioned himself so his left shoulder was against the wall to the left of the alley’s opening. Six seconds passed before he heard the sound of a pursuer entering the alley. Victor gave it two seconds, enough time for someone to get far enough down the alley to trap themselves.
With his hands bound, he couldn’t just hold his gun arm around the corner and squeeze, so he twisted to the left as he stepped out to the right, realising his mistake as the moonlight cast his shadow on to the far wall of the alley ahead of him.
A gun fired first, a snapshot before Victor had fully revealed himself, the bullet blowing a chunk from the brickwork.
Victor lurched to the side, squeezing off a shot of his own, knowing it had missed without needing to look. He hurried along the wall, away from the alley, walki
ng backwards, gun up, but doubting the assassin would continue forward. He or she would backtrack and find another way around the buildings. The others could already be doing the same as the one in the alley. If Victor let them flank him, it was over.
He put two rounds into the very corner of the alley mouth to make sure his attacker did double back. Then he sprinted for the fence, running awkwardly, unable to pump with his arms, expecting a bullet in the back at any moment. Reaching the fence, Victor tossed the gun over while he was still running, leapt, grabbed hold of the metal links halfway up, pushing with his feet. He climbed the last few feet, one hand clutching on to the links while the fingers of the other hand stretched to take hold a few links up. He repeated the process rapidly, urgently, scrambling all the time with his feet.
Razor wire topped the fence but he had no choice. Holding on to the top links, he swung his right elbow up and hooked it over the wire. Edges of metal sliced through his clothes and skin. Victor ignored the pain, pushed up with his legs, got his left elbow over too and hauled the rest of his body up and over the fence.
He let go and dropped down to the other side. The razor wire shredded the sleeves of his jacket and shirt and the skin beneath. His feet hit the ground and he immediately went into a roll to disperse the impact. The earth was rocky and wet from the rain.
His fingers were slick with rainwater and blood. He couldn’t feel them. He located the gun, scooped it up into both hands, turned and rose to one knee. On the other side of the fence, the row of workshops stood seventy yards away. Moonlight sparkled off thousands of falling raindrops. Victor saw no one.
He heard a faint muffled shot and saw the sparks as the bullet clipped a fence post, but couldn’t see the shooter. There was too much cover, too many shadows. The assassin could be anywhere, approaching in the darkness to take a shot at closer range, while the others did the same. He heard another shot, but from a different origin, and heard the bullet strike the ground nearby.