by Tom Wood
“If this was just about the money then we could be dealing weed and earning more. It was never about that.” The leader glanced at the two brothers. “Was it?”
They didn’t answer, but they agreed with him with their silence.
The leader massaged the nervous guy’s shoulders. “We’re outlaws, remember? That’s what we all agreed. That’s what we all wanted. Outlaws to the end.”
The nervous guy was nodding now. Smiling. Reassured. Convinced. An outlaw to the end.
The leader released his shoulders and addressed them all at the same time. “So, some dumb bitch got herself killed, so what?”
“So, me,” Victor said as he emerged from the darkness.
Seven
They didn’t have their guns or Victor would have seen them by now. He expected they were hidden somewhere. Not at the leader’s home or the flat above the betting shop. Somewhere they couldn’t be connected with. They had no other guns because they probably couldn’t afford a second set of weapons. Even cheap guns weren’t cheap.
The square formation fell apart and they formed a line as they faced him, the leader in the middle, the nervous guy to the leader’s right and the brothers to his left. Their faces showed their surprise, their confusion. The nervous guy was sweating again. Maybe he had a medical problem.
“Who the hell are you?” the leader asked.
“I’m the guy gone by dawn, whatever happens.”
They didn’t ask for an explanation.
The calm brother remembered him, however. “He was in the café.”
“Five points,” Victor said. “You can double it if you tell me the other piece of salient information.”
“Whatever you think you know, whatever you might have heard,” the leader said, “it doesn’t matter. We’re simply four friends discussing a night out. You’ve misheard. You’re mistaken. Go now, while you can.”
The nervous guy used a sleeve to wipe perspiration from his forehead. “He might have a wire. He could be recording us.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the leader said in a loud, clear voice, “because we’ve done nothing wrong. Well, trespassing here. But if anyone’s listening then we’re really sorry.” He turned around on the spot, shouting out to whoever might be nearby. “We won’t do it again. Promise.”
Victor stepped closer. “I have no recording device. No one’s listening.”
“You’re all alone?”
Victor said, “All by myself.”
The leader smiled. “Not the brightest bulb in the lamp shop, are you?”
“The light that burns half as bright burns for twice as long.”
The nervous guy said, “What does that mean?”
The calm brother said, “He’s stalling. He’s waiting for backup.”
“No one’s coming,” Victor assured them. “No one knows I’m here.”
The leader broke the line to approach, to get a closer look because he couldn’t quite understand, he didn’t quite believe what was unfolding. “What’s your story?”
The nervous guy gasped. “He was with the girl. He came in with her.”
Victor nodded again. “Ten points for that man.”
The leader didn’t remember him at all, but he knew his crew. He trusted their recollections. “How did you find us?”
“That’s the least important question you could ask right now.”
The leader was young, maybe even younger than the other three, but he looked older now, he looked ten years older, his face creased and pinched with bewilderment as he tried to understand what was taking place.
The weak brother asked, “Why are you here?”
“He storms into the lead,” Victor said. “Anyone want to guess the answer and win the game outright?”
No one spoke. No one answered. No one wanted to answer because they all worked it out at the same time.
“A tie,” Victor said in response. “Which means we go to sudden death.”
The calm brother lost patience. He approached Victor, walking fast, a taut bundle of energy about to be unleashed. “This has gone on long enough.” He stopped a few feet before Victor. “Leave now or don’t leave at all. Forget this. Forget us. Pray we forget you.”
The other three edged forward to back him up, to emphasize the threat.
Victor didn’t move an inch. “You’re never forgetting me.”
The calm brother may have delivered the ultimatum, but the leader recognized it was his job to enforce it. He took a step forward. He reached out to Victor, either to push or to grab. It didn’t matter which, because Victor seized the guy’s wrist, locked out the arm and had him on his knees before any one of them knew what was happening.
They weren’t pros. The other three should have rushed him, but they were too surprised, too passive. Amateurs.
“Before,” Victor began, speaking to the leader on his knees but keeping his gaze on the other three, “you said it didn’t matter, whatever I thought I knew. Why doesn’t it matter?”
The leader grinned up at him. “We’re going to hurt you.”
In his left hand, Victor took hold of the leader’s little and ring fingers, and grasped the index and middle finger in his right fist. He squeezed both hands, hard.
There was no pain, but the leader’s grin faltered. He stayed silent because he didn’t know what was about to happen. If he had, he would be begging, he would be hysterical.
Victor made sure he had everyone’s full attention, then wrenched the leader’s fingers in opposite directions, tearing the hand in half all the way down to the wrist.
The leader didn’t scream. His face paled to white and he dropped to the ground as Victor released the fingers and the two separate halves of the hand.
The nervous guy vomited.
The calm brother died first. He was the closest. No other reason. Death by proximity.
Victor snapped out his left hand to grab the guy’s jacket and wrench him closer and into the right elbow Victor propelled forward, multiplying the energy delivered to the calm brother’s jaw, snapping the head back and knocking the target unconscious so fast that he tipped back with no reaction, limbs trailing at his sides.
The sound of the back of his skull striking concrete was both hard and wet. Victor knew that sound well. No one who made it ever made another one.
The nervous guy turned out to be the smartest of the four because he was running as soon as he had stopped vomiting.
The weak brother tried to fight. He pulled a small knife, confidence through ignorance. Victor let him attack. He let him try. He let each easy sidestep, each simple block diminish that confidence and replace it with desperation, then hopelessness.
The weak brother was drenched with sweat and panting by the time Victor said, “Are you done?”
There was no answer, and he had no strength to resist as Victor choked him to death. The leader watched the whole thing from where he lay on the ground, cradling his hand as the two disconnecting halves flopped around with the slightest of movements. He was in shock. Victor didn’t bother to ask him any follow-up questions and pushed the calm brother’s knife through the nearest temple.
The nervous guy didn’t get far. He made it back to the car he had arrived in, but he didn’t have the keys. One of the two brothers had driven, so the nervous guy had broken a window and was trying to hotwire it, but he was shaking too much, sweating too much.
“It’s not as easy as it looks, is it?” Victor said. “Hard to do it under pressure. Damp fingers don’t help, do they?”
The nervous guy shook uncontrollably, teeth chattering at a ferocious rate. He had nowhere to go. He had trapped himself in the car.
“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll make it quick.”
The nervous guy needed no further convincing.
Eight
Todorov lived alo
ne, which made things simple. Victor already knew where, so he parked the gray Subaru nearby, but not where Todorov might see it on his way home. For a cop, his security was minimal. His precautions nonexistent. His job, his badge had always protected him before. Not any longer.
Victor was sat in an armchair when Todorov arrived. The front door was unlocked and slow, heavy footsteps entered the hallway beyond. Keys clattered in a dish by the door, which clicked shut a moment later. A weary groan, then a grunt, and shuffling. Victor pictured Todorov taking off his shoes, perhaps using a wall as support. Todorov wasn’t much older than Victor but it sounded as though the simple task pushed the limits of his athleticism.
The soft footsteps of socks on carpet followed, and then Victor heard Todorov enter the kitchen. Cupboard hinges creaked. A refrigerator door opened and closed.
Todorov stepped into his lounge carrying a bottle of local rakia and a glass. No ice. No mixers. Straight and pure.
“It won’t help,” Victor told him.
There was no fear in Todorov’s expression, but there was surprise, suspicion. The glass and bottle remained firm in his hands, however. Most people would have made a mess on the floor.
“What are you doing in my house?”
Victor said, “You haven’t forgotten me then.”
“What are you doing in my house?” Todorov asked again. He set the bottle and glass down on the coffee table between himself and Victor.
“I thought you couldn’t find a way to get that crew because there wasn’t a way,” Victor said. “I didn’t know you were simply ignoring it.”
Todorov went to remove his jacket.
“Leave it,” Victor said, knowing there was a pistol at Todorov’s belt. He had seen it outside the restaurant, when it hadn’t mattered to him.
“Whatever you think you know, you’re wrong.”
Victor said, “I’m here. I’m in your house.”
Todorov understood. He changed tack. “One’s my nephew. My sister’s boy. He’s an idiot. He’s . . . He fell in with the wrong crowd. Listen, I never intended to cover for him, but I couldn’t let him go to prison for trying to fit in with his friends. Anyone would do the same to protect a family member.”
The nervous guy, Victor realized. There was no physical resemblance, but there didn’t need to be one. He believed Todorov. He even understood.
“I never thought they would kill anyone,” Todorov said. “I tried to get them to stop. I swear to you, I really did.”
Victor believed him.
“They’ll never do it again.”
“That’s something we can agree on,” Victor said.
“They’re just dumb kids. They made a mistake. We all make mistakes when we’re young, don’t we?”
“I made plenty,” Victor admitted. “But I never killed anyone I didn’t need to kill.”
Todorov looked at him with new eyes.
“They’re all dead,” Victor explained.
Todorov bowed his head. He sighed. He swallowed. His eyes were moist when he raised his head again. “I . . . I don’t believe you. They can’t be.”
“It doesn’t matter what you believe. It only matters what I believe.”
Todorov just stared at him.
“You may take your jacket off now,” Victor said. “And you should know by now that’s all you may do.”
Todorov took off the jacket. He ignored the handgun holstered to his belt. It was in easy reach, but it was clasped, it had its safety engaged. Victor was far too close. Todorov went to drop the jacket over an armchair but Victor raised a palm to stop him.
“Pass it to me.”
“Why?”
Victor said, “Because I told you to.”
Todorov hesitated, but he obeyed. He was reluctant only because he was confused. Victor took the jacket from him. He patted down the pockets until he found what he was looking for and pulled free an envelope. Standard letter sized but fat with its contents.
“I almost believed you,” Victor said.
He turned the envelope upside down. It hadn’t been sealed, and banknotes dropped free and onto the coffee table.
“You took more from them this time, didn’t you? You took more because they’ve made more work for you.”
Todorov was silent.
“I almost let you go.”
Todorov’s eyes were still moist. “He really is my nephew.”
“Was,” Victor corrected. “And protecting him and profiting from his activities weren’t mutually exclusive, right?”
Todorov didn’t answer. He went for his gun. He had practiced his quick draw, that was clear. Each of the necessary movements was fast and smooth, but there were too many to make: reach, unclasp, grab, draw, raise, aim, squeeze.
Victor used the bottle of rakia to bat the pistol from Todorov’s hand before he was halfway through the process.
Todorov grimaced and clutched at his injured wrist. “Why are you doing this? Are you trying to be a hero?”
“I assure you, I’m the opposite.”
“Then why?”
Victor didn’t answer. He hadn’t considered the why before now. He wasn’t the self-reflective sort.
“Why?”
“She was nice to me,” Victor said, finally. “She bought me food.”
Todorov’s eyes were almost as large as the girl’s had been. “What? That’s it? That can’t be it.”
“I didn’t get the chance to thank her,” Victor said. “This is my way of making up for that.”
Todorov’s bones were dense. Plenty of calcium in his diet. Plenty of magnesium. It took three hits with the gin bottle before his skull broke apart.
It was light when Victor stepped outside again.
Dawn had come, and gone.
Nine
Sometimes you needed to catch a lucky break. Otherwise, certain cases just couldn’t be solved. That was the sad reality of police work. Even with fingerprints, even with DNA, even with ever-advancing technology, some motives could not be rationalized, some perpetrators could not be understood. Some victims went unavenged.
Stoyanova was used to all that. Didn’t make it any better, but acceptance was everything.
Detective Todorov had not been a good man. More officers than not were corrupt in her experience. Some were outright criminals. Others still were pure villains. Stoyanova treated all victims the same, however. Innocent or guilty, a victim was a victim.
So she was disappointed to consign Todorov’s murder to the archives. Unsolved. Unavenged. No doubt murdered by one of the many criminals he associated with, but she would never know. That made her sad. Not for him, but for the lack of justice. The same night a young girl had been killed by armed robbers, the same night four young men almost certainly those robbers had been slaughtered, one of whom was Todorov’s nephew. The bloodiest night in recent memory. It could very well be the bloodiest night Stoyanova would ever witness in her career. News of it reached far. A national talking point. The town police couldn’t cope, especially after losing one of their detectives in the process. Maybe it was the alignment of the stars. Stoyanova was a little superstitious. She believed not everything could be explained with science alone.
She toasted Todorov that evening in his favorite bar, remembering the best of him and drowning the worst with plenty of rakia.
Maybe too much, but her whole family had the constitutions of mountain bears. She drank a lot but it was rare for her to get drunk. She still had her wits when a stranger took the bar stool next to her.
He was in his early forties. A neat man in smart trousers and a blazer. He introduced himself, a detective from Sofia. He showed his credentials and asked if she would answer some informal questions, off the record because it was a sensitive case he was working, a perpetrator only he cared about finding. He would get in trouble if his superiors knew
he was chasing ghosts.
“Sure,” she said, happy to help. She had plenty of cases like that, ones which she wasn’t supposed to be working on but which she worked on all the same.
He asked a lot of questions about that bloodiest of nights, about the armed robbery, about the girl, about the four young men, about Todorov.
“It’s my understanding that the girl was in the company of a man.” He checked a notebook. “Thirties. Suit. Perhaps a wooly hat. Maybe injured.”
She remembered the witness. “Yeah, he was passing through. I don’t recall any injury, however. I spoke to him about the incident and he was cooperative but ultimately unhelpful.”
“I’d like you to tell me everything you recall about this particular witness. Leave nothing out. Nothing at all. Every single detail is important to me.”
“Hey,” she said. “Where are you from? Originally, I mean. I can’t quite place your accent.”
He smiled at her, impressed. “You have a good ear. I’m from Chechnya. Originally.”
She was pleased with herself. “Thought so. I have family there so I can hear those little traces. So, why do you want to know about the witness?”
Ishamel Basayev was honest in his answer, “He and I have unfinished business.”
Lethal assassin Victor lands in the middle of a Guatemalan cartel war in the latest nonstop thriller from the international bestselling author of THE FINAL HOUR.
Keep reading for a special preview of KILL FOR ME, available from Berkley November 2019!
Chapter 1
The beach was white sand, stretched in a crescent around the bay. Dark waves lapped against the shore as feral dogs foraged along the water’s edge, searching for scraps left by backpackers. On the farthest spur of sand two wild horses ran back and forth in some ritual Victor couldn’t hope to comprehend.
The seller he was meeting called himself Jairo. He was old and tanned, short and hairy. He had a beard that rose to his cheekbones, pure white and bushy. His shirt was opened to his sternum, revealing a thatch of colorless chest hair. Gold neck chains gleamed from among the curls. His eyebrows were still black, and almost met in the middle. He smelled of rum, or else local aguardiente—Victor hadn’t spent enough time in Guatemala to be able to differentiate between them by scent alone.