Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) (28 page)

Outside, as they walked away, Gisele said, ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

Victor nodded.

‘But why? I don’t understand. What did he do? Something he was working on? Someone he was representing?’

‘That’s what we need to find out. Whoever this woman is, she’s connected to one of Lester’s cases – and that case must have the potential to destroy her. If she thought killing the lawyer working the case would prevent it going ahead, that suggests no other lawyer could step in. So, either Lester is the only barrister on the planet who was able to take the case, or there won’t be enough time for another to continue it now he’s out of the way. So, which case did you work on with Lester that has an inbuilt deadline? Possibly a case that he picked up only recently.’

‘I don’t know.’ She saw the scepticism in his eyes. ‘I don’t. I said I worked for him sometimes. I didn’t say I knew the details of everything he did. I filed, I researched, I photocopied and made him cups of Earl Grey. It’s not as if I even met the clients. He would work on dozens of different cases at any one time. Like I said, he was a maverick. He did things his own way. He didn’t even like to share with the other seniors. He would never tell me anything important. To have any idea what this might be about I’d have to go to the firm and check through his case files.’

Victor shook his head. ‘You can’t do that. They’ll be watching.’

‘Then we’ll never know what this is about. We’ll never know why Lester was killed. We’ll never know why I’m… Hold on.’ She stopped and turned to face him, forcing him to stop too. ‘If Lester is the barrister on a case that could, as you say, destroy her, why does she want me dead?’

He said, ‘Because you worked on the case too, even if you don’t know you did. Lester must have told her that. He must have given her your name.’

‘Why? That makes no sense.’

‘I’m afraid it does make sense. They must have tortured him or threatened to kill him or his family. Before he was killed, he gave them your name. They asked him who else knew what he did and he said you.’

‘No. He wouldn’t do that. Not Lester. There’s no reason to. It was a lie. I don’t know anything.’

‘Everyone talks in that situation. And you do know. There’s a piece of information you have that she can’t risk getting out. Lester was the original target, but you’re a loose end.’

‘What the fuck does that mean? That I have to be killed
just in case
?’ She put her face in her hands. ‘So all this is a
mistake
? Oh my God, people are trying to kill me for
no fucking reason
.’

‘You scared them,’ Victor explained. ‘When they tried to kidnap you and you escaped, they panicked. They couldn’t question you. They couldn’t find out what you did or didn’t know. They assumed the worst, which was that you indeed knew everything and could destroy them. It doesn’t matter what the truth is. Lester gave her your name and the fear of exposure is enough for her to send a team of mercenaries after us. Whether you are a genuine threat to her is irrelevant. Now, it’s gone too far. They can’t let you live.’

‘What information could be so important to go through this, but so insignificant that I don’t have any idea what it might be?’

‘Her name,’ Victor said. ‘That’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s there in a file, innocuous and unimportant, but it connects her to something. And you’ve seen it: filing, photocopying, whatever.’

‘How could she have got away with it? Lester and me both being murdered? It would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?’

‘People like this don’t get caught for crimes against civilians. They would have spun a story to hide the truth: maybe you and Lester ran off together before tragically dying in a car accident.’

‘That couldn’t work, could it?’

‘These things happen all the time. The reason you don’t know about it is because it works.’

‘Then fuck her. We can’t let her get away with this.’ Her hands were tight fists at her sides. ‘I want to bring her down. What else can we do? Keep running and hiding until they catch up with us again?’

‘No,’ Victor said. ‘That’s no plan. You’re right, we have to go after her.’

‘Please tell me you know how.’

He nodded. ‘Go through Lester’s files. You have to figure out who she is and what she’s scared of.’

‘But you said they’d be watching the firm. How can I?’

‘We’ll find a way. But first, I need to speak to your stepfather.’

The address Victor gave Norimov corresponded to a brownfield site on the south side of the river, between a long-disused power station and a development of new apartment blocks. There was a single route into the stretch of wasteland: a narrow path topped by loose gravel, just wide enough for a car to traverse. The land was uneven but flat. Signs near the path advertised the future homes that were to be built on the site.

Victor had been waiting with Gisele since eleven a.m.

A rented Subaru pulled off the road at five minutes past twelve. Late, despite Victor’s warning. The car slowly navigated the wasteland in a slow circle before coming to a stop in the approximate centre.

A moment later the phone in Victor’s pocket vibrated. He answered.

Yigor said, ‘I here. Where you?’

‘Nearby,’ Victor answered. ‘Step out of the car, open all the doors.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m telling you to.’

‘You crazy.’

‘Do it. Stay on the line.’

Victor watched as the Russian climbed out of the driver’s seat and proceeded to walk around the car, opening the passenger door and both rear doors. No one else was inside.

‘Happy now?’

‘Deliriously so. Stay on the line. I’m coming over.’

He stood up from where he lay on a verge between the old power station and the wasteland, some five hundred metres from where Yigor was parked. He returned to his own stolen Fiat and climbed inside. Gisele sat in the passenger seat. Victor said nothing and she obeyed his earlier request to stay silent. He activated the phone’s speaker and set it in his lap so he could listen to Yigor while he drove the short distance to meet him. He parked ten metres away from the Subaru, climbed out of the car. He hung up and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

Seeing this, Yigor did the same. ‘What was that for?’

‘To make sure you couldn’t contact anyone.’

‘Why would I?’

Victor didn’t answer.

‘You hurt my feelings, Mr Bad Man. I never —’

‘Save it,’ Victor said, drawing his pistol. ‘Give me your gun.’

Yigor looked shocked, then offended. ‘Why? You see I bring no one. You can trust me.’

‘I don’t trust anyone. Give me your gun and I won’t distrust you as much.’

‘You paranoid, man.’

‘The gun,’ Victor said. ‘Now.’

The Russian screwed up his face and with big exaggerated movements drew out his weapon. He threw it at Victor’s feet.

Victor tucked his own gun away and retrieved Yigor’s from the ground. He passed it to Gisele through the open passenger-door window.

She said, ‘I told you that you could trust him.’

‘What now?’ Yigor asked, hands in pockets.

Victor said. ‘You’re going to answer some questions.’ He aimed his gun at the Russian’s left knee. ‘You need to tell me everything you know if you enjoy the ability to walk.’

The mobile phone vibrated against his hip. He fished it out and checked the screen, thinking Norimov was calling. He wasn’t. It was a different number displayed. For an instant he didn’t understand. Then he did. The sender was Yigor, who was edging closer, then charging, the scrape of his shoes and the blur of movement in Victor’s peripheral vision providing a split-second of warning – enough time for Victor to drop the phone to free his hands and bring them up in defence.

The big Russian slammed into him. Even properly braced Victor would have no chance to resist the momentum. Being only half ready, the impact jolted him backwards, ruining his balance, giving Yigor the opportunity to grab his jacket and fling him at the stolen car where Gisele sat. Victor collided with the bonnet, toppling back on to it, then rolling laterally to avoid the elbow driven down at his skull. The sheet metal buckled and dented from the monstrous force.

Yigor’s muscle was gym-built and steroid-fuelled, but he had the speed of a lighter man. He grabbed Victor as he rolled off the bonnet, lifting him up and slamming him on to the ground, going down on top of him to crush and smother. Victor took the impact of their combined weight, losing the air from his lungs, but scooped up a rock into his left hand and drove it into Yigor’s face, tearing a gash across his forehead.

Victor twisted and pushed out from under him as Yigor recoiled from the blow, creating some distance and releasing the rock as he came to his feet. He reached for the gun but it had fallen from his waistband in the struggle and lay unseen near his enemy’s feet.

He attacked to distract him from noticing the weapon, the Russian blocking the punch and grabbing Victor’s jacket as he followed through with another, pulling him closer and launching a headbutt that Victor slipped and turned from, taking hold of the hand attached to his jacket, twisting it clockwise, forcing the Russian to release him or have his wrist locked. He chose the former. Victor backed off to create space, but circling so his enemy turned away from the gun on the ground.

Yigor used the pause to pull a folding knife from a coat pocket. Blood from the forehead wound seeped down the left side of his face.

Victor ducked low to avoid a slash at his neck, darting to Yigor’s left to keep out of the knife’s arc, and slipped around his exposed flank. A hook to the ribs caused the Russian to cry out and attempt a wild backhand attack. Victor batted the weapon from Yigor’s grip. It whistled through the air, clattering on the hard ground too far away to risk going for.

Yigor ducked low and threw himself at Victor, pushing him into the car’s driver’s side and pinning him there with his superior weight. He had to outweigh Victor by sixty or seventy pounds.

Hands went for Victor’s throat, palms wrapped around the neck, fingertips pushing against his spine, thumbs pressing down on his windpipe, cutting off his air supply. He punched up in return, striking Yigor’s face, adding to the blood from his forehead and cheek wounds, but they were arm punches with no power generated from planted feet and twisting hips. Yigor smiled through them, asking for more, happy to take them. They both knew Victor would be dead long before Yigor’s face broke apart.

Victor’s chest burned for oxygen as he grabbed the man’s hair in his right fist to lock it in place and drove his other thumb into Yigor’s left eye socket. The Russian tried to pull away from the pressure on his eyeball but Victor could stretch his arm further than Yigor’s two could extend while maintaining the choke.

The Russian grimaced, then roared, lifting him off the ground by his neck and slamming him into the car’s bodywork, but Victor didn’t release Yigor’s hair or lesson the pressure on his eye. Yigor slammed Victor down again, harder, then, having no other option to avoid losing his eye, snapped his hands free to tear away Victor’s own.

An anticipated move and Victor was already acting, kicking Yigor in the sternum and propelling him backwards a few steps. It exhausted Victor to do so. He gasped and coughed, weakened by the strangulation.

He was still fast enough to block the first punch, but not the second. Victor’s vision darkened. His head swam. He almost didn’t see the next one. He jerked his head to the side, slipping it – just – Yigor’s thumb scraping across his ear before the fist smashed into the edge of the car’s roof where it met the driver’s door.

He howled and jumped back, letting Victor slide along the bodywork and out of range, sagging from the effects of the punch and oxygen deprivation.

The Russian clutched at his broken fist and snarled in pain and rage because he knew he was beaten with his primary hand now useless, no matter how temporarily weakened Victor was at that moment. He came forward anyway, turning side on, ready to fight to the end with only his left hand.

‘
Stop
,’ Gisele shouted.

She was out of the car and looking at Yigor, holding the pistol Victor had given to her in shaking hands. The Russian faced her, good hand rising, passive. Victor blinked, trying to put the world back in focus.

‘No…’ he managed, because he saw what was going to happen.

Yigor shuffled towards Gisele, hand still raised. By the time she realised he wasn’t surrendering it was too late. He tore the gun from her hand and aimed it at Victor.

The Russian said, ‘I win.’

Yigor held the gun in his left hand because the right had to be broken in more than a dozen places. It hung uselessly at his side, bloody and swollen. He used the gun to usher Gisele and Victor together and then over to his car.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Gisele asked.

Yigor said, ‘I want money. I sell you both and make all the money.’

He walked a couple of metres behind Victor and Gisele. It was the textbook distance in such circumstances – too far for the captives to turn and take their captor by surprise, but close enough for the captor to respond should their captives try to escape. At that range, no one missed, even someone shooting from their offhand. Only amateurs pushed a muzzle into someone’s back, and even an amateur could turn around fast enough to disarm someone who did. Yigor was no professional in Victor’s sense of the word, but he wasn’t stupid, and more than that he was afraid of Victor. That was unusual. Victor’s manner was carefully constructed to appear unthreatening. Such a disguise of normalcy meant enemies were apt to underestimate him. That wouldn’t happen here. Yigor’s battered face and broken hand were painful reminders not to drop his guard.

Gravel crunched underfoot. Victor stopped when he reached the Subaru. He saw Yigor’s reflection in the window glass and Gisele next to him.

‘Open the door and get behind the wheel,’ Yigor said.

Victor stood still.

‘No stalling. Just do it. Or I kill you both now.’

‘Then you won’t get paid,’ Victor said.

‘You want to find out? No, you don’t. You want to keep alive long as you can. So open door.’

There was no option but to obey. If there had been, Victor would already be acting. Driving the car was something he did not want to do. In the back he had a number of workable plans of action he could implement. But Yigor wasn’t stupid.

Yigor waited two metres away with a clean line of sight. Even if Victor had a key he couldn’t get the engine started and accelerate fast enough to avoid Yigor’s shot from such a short distance. A guaranteed hit for anyone even remotely competent with a sidearm. A guaranteed kill shot for someone like Yigor, even left-handed. Victor couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t allow Gisele to be alone.

He opened the driver’s door and climbed in.

‘Seat belt?’ he asked as he pulled up the lever to edge the seat forward a couple of notches.

Yigor hesitated because he hadn’t thought that far ahead. There were pros and cons. Seat belt on meant Victor was bound to his seat, preventing sudden movement, but gave him a far better chance of surviving a deliberate crash. Off meant he couldn’t risk any reckless driving but provided freedom of movement to try something else. It was a difficult choice. Which was why Victor had asked Yigor to make the decision for him, because the answer would reveal more about Yigor’s thought processes than was smart to let an enemy like Victor know.

‘No belts.’

Victor nodded.

Yigor pointed the pistol at Gisele. ‘Get in the passenger seat or I shoot your boyfriend.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘And he never will be.’

She did. Then Yigor climbed into the back, sitting directly behind the driver’s seat. It was the best place for a captor to sit in these circumstances. The Russian pulled the door shut behind him.

‘Don’t forget I have gun,’ he said. ‘Try anything and you will be shot. Maybe I don’t get paid all the money, but that’s life. But not for you. You’ll be dead. Don’t forget.’

‘I won’t forget.’

‘That’s good. You fight pretty well for a little man. I cannot lie. You hurt me. But I hurt you more, yes?’

‘Tell that to your hand.’

Yigor frowned. ‘I only need one to pull trigger.’

‘Don’t do this,’ Gisele pleaded. ‘Alex will pay you.’

Yigor laughed. ‘Norimov has no money. He’s the poor man. Why you think I work against him all this time? She pay me plenty money to tell her about warehouse. She will pay even more for you two. I sorry, Gisele. You nice girl, but money is money.’ He gestured at Victor with the gun. ‘Now, you in front: drive car. Remember this gun. Do anything I don’t first tell you to do, or try acting the crazy, and bang-bang in your back. Maybe I get lucky and you don’t die. Maybe you become the cripple. Then you can watch me hurt the girl before I hand her over. You wouldn’t want to miss that, would you? I’m pretty good at making people hurt. And you know what? I like doing it.’

‘A shocking revelation,’ Victor said. ‘You’ll be telling me next you have trouble forming meaningful relationships.’

‘Relationships are for the pussies. Now start engine.’ He dropped the keys over Victor’s left shoulder. ‘Keep thinking of the gun at your back, okay, Mr Smart Mouth?’

Victor inserted the key and started the engine. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the warehouse.’

‘What for?’

‘To wait. Nice and quiet there, yes?’

‘I don’t know the way from here.’

‘You stupid. I’ll be the guide.’

‘Thank you.’

Yigor laughed. ‘Nice try, my friend. I see what you want to do. You think if you are Mr Polite then I will be nice to you. You think maybe I will let you both go? You are the funny man. You a coward. I don’t know why Norimov thought you could help. Look how you ended up.’

‘Manners cost nothing.’

‘Drive, Mr Dead Man.’

Victor did. Gisele kept her gaze on the road ahead. Her eyes were wide and full of fear. He wanted to say something to reassure her, but kind words were not his forte and he respected her too much to placate her now.

Yigor said, ‘And so you are knowing, if you try crashing car then you will be the one who hurts. I’m not wearing the belt back here. So, you stop fast and I use you as my airbag.
Crunch
. You’ll be flat like a worm. And me? I’ll laugh. Maybe do it anyway. I want to see what you look like after I crush you.’

‘I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you,’ Victor said.

Yigor laughed. ‘I like that you are the Mr Funny Man even when you are in the biggest trouble. You won’t be so Mr Funny Man soon, yes?’

Victor remained silent.

‘Please, Yigor,’ Gisele said. ‘Let us go. Please.’

He growled and raised the gun as if to pistol-whip her. ‘Keep silent or I hurt you.’

She recoiled.

‘Do as he says,’ Victor said.

‘Yes, listen to your boyfriend the hero. But not a very good hero, yes? When I was little long time ago I wanted to be the hero like in the movies. What about you?’

Victor said, ‘Me too.’

‘But now I am the bad man. Same as you. Sometimes, I wonder why that happened. Do you?’

‘All the time,’ Victor said.

‘Makes me sad, tell the truth,’ Yigor said. ‘Messes with my head. But too late now to be good. You know what I tell myself, make myself feel better?’

‘What do you tell yourself?’

‘Fuck it,’ Yigor said with a laugh. ‘That’s what I say. Kids they know shit. I knew shit. If I known you make the money being bad I would have wanted to be bad. But you, you’ve been bad but it’s good you helped Norimov. So you been bad but die as good. Nice shit, yes?’

‘Beautifully put.’

‘Maybe I write poem about it.’

Victor continued driving. Yigor called out directions, guiding Victor through the urban streets. Gisele didn’t speak. The hands of the analogue dashboard clock ticked around. Five minutes passed, then ten.

‘Next right,’ Yigor said.

Victor slowed and indicated. ‘You realise they’ll kill you when you hand us over, don’t you?’

‘Tell me: why do you bother? I know they won’t. They want the girl and now they want you. They don’t want me. I make the money because I help them. You should have helped them too.’

‘Dmitri’s dead. So are the others. Gisele and I will be next. Do you really think you’ll be the only one who walks away from this?’

Yigor stayed quiet.

‘You’re a dead man, Yigor,’ Victor said. ‘And you’re too stupid to see it.’

The Russian’s lips were pressed together and his nostrils flexed with each angry breath.

Victor laughed and laughed.

‘Hey,’ Yigor said, ‘you missed the damn turn.’

Victor glanced back. ‘I’ll take the next one.’

‘No, you fucked up. Turn the car around.’

‘The road is too narrow.’

‘Then back up.’

Victor slowed to a stop and put the gear into reverse. ‘Watch the road for me.’

Yigor laughed. ‘You keep trying, don’t you, Mr Funny Man? I keep my eyes on you all the time. Use your mirrors.’

Victor pushed his foot down on the accelerator. Five miles per hour. Then ten.

‘What’s with the hurry?’ Yigor asked.

‘I’m bored of waiting,’ Victor answered.

Fifteen miles per hour. Gisele looked at him. At first in surprise that quickly began to warp into understanding. Twenty miles per hour.

Yigor frowned. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘Do you remember what you said before, Yigor? About the airbag?’

The Russians eyes widened in confusion, then fear when he realised how fast they were going. ‘Stop the car.
Now
.’

Victor did. He released his foot from the accelerator and slammed the brake pedal and wrenched up the handbrake. But before he did that, he pulled up the lever to adjust his seat, and kept hold.

The car came to a stop within two seconds. But the unlocked driver’s seat was still moving backwards, only stopping when it slammed its weight and Victor’s directly into Yigor’s shins.