Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) (11 page)

Blake Moran’s café was located between a kebab shop and a narrow single-lane road, on the other side of which lay a bowling alley. Like the kebab shop next to it, the café was no chic eatery or coffee shop. It looked the kind of place that non-regulars hurried past, concerned by the hordes of unsavoury men that hung around inside all day long. Metal tables and chairs stood outside on the pavement. A freestanding blackboard listed today’s specials in indecipherable script. Victor thought he made out the word soup.

He waited at a bus shelter thirty metres away, on the other side of the street. He pretended to study the route and timetable listings while he performed the last stage of his surveillance. The cover was probably excessive. No one inside the café seemed to pay any attention to the goings-on outside. Intermittently, men would come out to smoke. Often they had lit up before they made it to the door. Victor didn’t envy the public health inspector who would have to give the proprietor a verbal warning.

He’d operated against, and been around, enough organised criminals in his time to recognise a front. The café was a bad establishment in a worse area, filled with gangsters. Any hapless passer-by who had the misfortune of stepping inside for a drink or meal would never elect to go back a second time. But the custom, or lack thereof, didn’t matter. Cafés had a high percentage of cash turnover, which meant they were good places to launder money through. Every cup of surprisingly expensive espresso or bottle of mineral water the goons inside ordered would be delivered with a receipt. No money would change hands, but the day’s take equivalent in illicitly gained cash could be put through the books and come out the other end clean and declarable.

The same went for the kebab shop next door, judging by how friendly those who ran the two establishments were. Combined, the two likely gave Moran a tidy legitimate income that covered his everyday expenses and kept the tax man and the police off his back. So, he was reasonably smart. The three men he’d sent after Gisele had one pistol between them. If they regularly carried guns, they would have had them on them in the apartment, or at least in their car. If those four only had one gun between them, Moran’s crew were not universally armed. A few knives, coshes and knuckledusters, no doubt, but light on firearms. That made things a little easier for Victor.

As was typical for London, there were a couple of CCTV cameras in the immediate area, but neither would impede his plan. From what he could see, the men inside the café seemed relaxed. They were joking and drinking coffee: killing time between actions. The man Victor stabbed had called Moran a drug dealer. That seemed an inaccurate term. The thugs in the café didn’t look like dealers and in the time Victor had been conducting surveillance he had seen only a handful of men come or go. That didn’t equate to dealing drugs. The men were thugs, like the four in Gisele’s apartment had been. They were muscle. Soldiers.

Moran was a trafficker, not a dealer. His men could sit around in the café all day because the work was irregular. They would go into action when a shipment was due – whether coming in or going out. Moran bought in bulk and shipped in bulk. He needed his men to protect his business from being ripped off by those above him in the pyramid or below him. No business would be done in the café. That was just a front. And no wholesaler could ship product as soon as it was received. So Moran had a distribution centre.

Like his residence it would serve as a better location to confront him, but there was no telling when he would head to either. Each hour that passed meant more chance of him finding out about his three dead men. In some ways that might help, as he was likely to mobilise his soldiers to find out what had happened. The number in the café would certainly fall as a result. But those that remained, and Moran himself, would be alert and on guard. Maybe not thinking further attacks were imminent, but a natural rise in awareness and readiness would be an automatic response.

More problematic though, would be what Moran might do. He was no small-time dealer, but he wasn’t about to expand his territory to St Petersburg. He wasn’t preparing to usurp Norimov. He hadn’t been the one to send an old Russian blood threat. Someone had asked him to kidnap Gisele. Either that person was the direct threat to Norimov or he was a link to it. Regardless, when Moran discovered he’d lost his crew because of that he would report this fact and whoever was targeting Norimov would know they had competition to find Gisele. Victor only wanted them to know that when he was ready.

He crossed the road and headed towards the café. There were a dozen of Moran’s soldiers inside. There might be others scattered around the rest of the establishment. Guns or not, they created a near impassable barrier. An easier way existed. He entered the access road adjacent to the café, walking on the same side of the road as the bowling alley. Across the narrow street was the side of the café. A quick glance gave Victor an accurate picture of numbers, positions and their readiness. So far so good.

The street was a single lane. No pavements flanked it. The bowling alley occupied the entire side Victor stood on until the road turned after about seventy metres. There were a few shabby signs for businesses further along on the opposite side, all closed. Between them and the café was a short driveway for deliveries and a high metal gate blocking access to the uneven area of asphalt that lay behind the café. Victor could see two vehicles parked there: a van and a Mercedes-Benz. The soldiers’ vehicles had to be parked elsewhere: either along the access road or similarly close by. A single CCTV camera overlooked the gate.

Victor doubted it would be manned full-time but scaling the gate under full view of the camera was still too much of a risk. He walked along the access road. A three-storey office building stood adjacent to the metal gate. The ground-floor windows were reinforced with mesh and covered in posters for local nightclubs and events. They were several layers thick. Frayed corners flicked in the breeze. There were no lights on anywhere in the building but the premises were protected by a security firm according to a couple of signs. Maybe that meant there was a guard somewhere inside or it could just refer to an alarm system. Next to the office building was a row of small businesses. Three of the four businesses on the same side of the street as the café had either obvious alarm boxes or security grilles. The odd one out had neither. It had whitewashed windows because it had closed down. A long time ago, judging by the letting agent’s faded sign. No lights were on, either on the ground floor or two floors above. Perfect.

The improvised lock picks were still usable. The torsion wrench would last a good while longer, but the pick was marked and bent a little from the previous usage. Victor used his fingers to bend it back into shape as much he could and crossed the street.

No one was around to witness him pick the closed-down business’s front door. There were two locks. He was inside within forty seconds.

Dust and mould spores reached his nostrils. He stood in the darkness and let his eyes adjust and his ears take in every sound for his brain to separate and analyse. He could hear the tick of pipes and noise of the outside city filtering in.

He was in a short hallway. A frosted glass door led deeper into the ground floor. He ignored it and ascended the stairs, making his way to the back of the building as soon as he reached the first floor. A pebbled window let in a little light. He unlatched it and heaved it open. It took some effort. The paintwork had eroded and the wood had swelled and warped.

He opened it as far as he could without risking damage, creating a gap higher than necessary for him to slide through, head first, on his back, until his hips lay across the sill. Cool wind ruffled his hair. He looked around.

Below was a narrow alleyway, barely shoulder-width across, marked on the far side by a spiked metal fence. On the other side of the fence lay a loading bay for a removal firm. The alley didn’t link to the open space behind Moran’s café because the office building was deeper than the two of businesses next to it. Victor had expected as much. He set his fingertips on the top of the outside window frame and slid backwards and up into a sitting position. He then pulled up his feet and set them on the window sill, shuffling back until his heels had reached the edge of the exterior sill and then hung over it. He stood, walking his palms up the wall until they gripped the lip of the flat roof above.

Victor set one foot against the inside of the brickwork surrounding the window and pushed off with both feet at the same time as he pulled with his hands, muscles straining all along his forearms, biceps and shoulders until he was high enough to swing a leg around on to the roof to make the last heave easier. He rolled on to his back and stood.

He’d reduced his profile to a crouch by the time he reached the roof of the office building. It was about a metre higher than the current roof. He stepped up on to it and over the small parapet. Skylights dotted the roof. He moved across until he overlooked the rear entrance of Moran’s café and the parking area behind it.

A back door was open and music from a radio drifted out through it. From the little he could see from his elevated position it looked as though it led into a kitchen. There were no windows on the ground floor at the rear of the café, but several on the two floors above. Some had lights on. Behind the closed blinds would be the headquarters of Moran’s organisation. Probably no more than an office or two with an air of legitimacy. The man himself would be in one of the lit rooms.

Victor changed position so he could see the van and the Merc parked outside the café. The space led behind the office building. Parking spaces were clearly defined in white paint, but all were empty aside from broken pallets and other junk presumably dumped there by Moran’s men. A fire escape was fixed to the office building’s back wall. A useful way of getting down, except Victor had no plans to.

He used the grip of the handgun to chip away at the roof’s concrete parapet until he had a handful of fragments. He hurled them at the Mercedes-Benz.

It was Moran’s car, Victor was sure. With all his men in the café a few metres away, and protected by a locked gate, there would be no need to engage the alarm. But the car had a huge price tag. If he parked it anywhere else he would only do so with the alarm switched on. That would become habit.

The concrete chips pelted the Merc’s bodywork.

The alarm blared. Lights flashed. Habit.

Victor moved back to where he overlooked the café’s kitchen door. Within seconds Moran’s men began rushing out of it – fuelled by espressos and excitement from the break in monotony that the alarm’s excruciatingly loud wail provided. It wasn’t a ruse to draw Moran out of the building. It wasn’t to distract his men. It was to mask the noise he was about to make.

Victor backed off a couple of metres, ran, and leapt off the roof.

The gap between the office building and the café was about four metres. The office building was three storeys high. The café only two. For a moment, Victor sailed through the night air, right foot extended, left trailing behind, arms out at right angles for stability, then arching forward as he tilted his head and gravity pulled him down, bringing his feet together and bending at the waist so when the balls of his feet hit the roof he was absorbing the fall’s energy and using it to bounce into a roll, moving on to his shoulders and elbows, hips and legs following over his head and coming back on to his feet.

Below him, the alarm ceased.

He heard a voice – Moran’s or one of his lieutenants – shouting, ‘It’s nothing. Get back inside and make sure you’re ready. We’re moving out in ten.’

The sound of Victor’s landing had been reduced by the roll but would have been registered by everyone outside if not for the car alarm. Someone in a room directly below him might still have noticed it. But he had leapt to and landed on a room without lights on at the windows. He’d stacked the odds in his favour as much as he could hope to.

There were no skylights, but Victor hadn’t expected to find any. There was no fire escape either. But there was a drainpipe.

He tested its stability. Good enough. He lowered himself off the roof, pressing his shoes either side of the pipe, then took hold. He felt it give a little as his weight pulled on the screws, but it held. He climbed down, taking his time to both limit noise and so as not to put any sudden strain on the pipe. When he was level with the sash windows, he took a hand from the pipe to try the window to his left. He wedged his palm beneath the centre cross-beam and heaved. It didn’t budge. He tried the one to his right. This one didn’t lift either, but he felt less resistance. He braced himself and tried again. His arm shook under the strain, but the window lifted a couple of inches. He took a breath and tried again. This time it lifted further and he felt warm air from inside flow out. Sounds followed it – music and talking, but both muted, from beyond a closed door.

Victor pushed the window as far up as it would go, then lowered himself further down the pipe. He reached through the gap with his right hand and gripped the inside sill. Then he pulled himself across as he pushed off the pipe, jerking his left arm over to grab hold too. A moment later, he was inside the room.

It was an office. Two desks occupied opposite corners. Filing cabinets lined one wall. Maps of London tacked to corkboards filled the other. Victor eased the window until it was nearly closed, but left a couple of inches to slip his hands under. He straightened down his jacket and brushed the grit and dirt from his suit. He didn’t want his appearance to give away how he’d entered.

He waited at the door, listened, and slipped outside the room when he heard no one in the immediate proximity. The music from downstairs was louder now. It drifted up a staircase at the end of the hallway. Between the staircase and the office was another door. It led to a room where he’d seen lights on.

Two voices on the other side of the door.

He drew the pistol, cocking it as he turned the handle so the click of the door opening disguised the noise.

The two men were both looking at him as he stepped inside. They were slow to react because the last thing they expected was for an armed stranger to walk through the doorway. Moran sat on a leather sofa, slouched back with his feet up on a glass coffee table. He was stripped to the waist and wearing a pair of spotted boxer shorts and sports socks. He faced a huge, but switched off, TV mounted on a wall. Next to the dirty soles of his socks were bags of cocaine, a mirror smeared with residue and a slim chrome tube. Another man stood near the doorway. He was talking about:

‘— the importance of maintaining a unified front when dealing with—’

Victor dropped him with a backhanded pistol whip, and brought a finger to his lips. ‘Shh.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Moran breathed. His eyes were as red as his nostrils.

Victor eased the door shut with his free hand and stepped forward. ‘I’m all your nightmares rolled into one.’

‘How did you get in here?’

‘Magic.’

Moran hadn’t moved. He hadn’t even sat up. ‘Do you have any idea who the fuck I am?’

‘You’re the man who wishes he was anywhere else but here.’

‘I’ve got fifteen hard fucktards downstairs. You pull that trigger and you’re dead. Do you get me, boy?’

‘No, if I squeeze the trigger, you’re dead. And you have twelve men downstairs, not fifteen. The other three won’t be coming back.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Do you recognise the gun in my hand?’

Moran didn’t speak, but his eyes answered for him.

‘You may have twelve men downstairs, but they’ve done you exactly zero good so far. And once you’re dead, what does it matter to you what happens next?’

Moran said, ‘What do you want?’

‘That’s better. I want to ask you a few questions.’

Moran sat up, pulling his feet from the table and setting them on the floor. ‘Go on then, ask.’

‘Gisele Maynard. I take it you recognise the name?’

No answer.

Victor said, ‘It’s really not in your interest to play games with me.’

‘So what are you going to do about it? You’ve showed your hand, boy. You want answers. I have those answers. You can’t torture them out of me. You can’t risk the noise or the time. Not unless you want my lads charging in here. You can’t shoot me either. You’ve gone to all this trouble for answers. Kill me, and you’ll get none.’ He smiled. ‘I think I’ve just owned you.’

Victor nodded. ‘You’re right. But your outfit is already down the three-man crew you sent after Gisele.’ He took a step and stamped his heel down hard on to the temple of the unconscious man. ‘Now you’re down four men.’

Moran shrugged away his shock and kept himself composed. ‘They’re company assets. You think they’re irreplaceable? You think I can’t put more guys on the payroll?’

‘Again, you’re right. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘I can’t shoot or torture you, so if you don’t answer my questions I’m going to turn around and walk out of here.’

‘Quelle surprise. Run along now, bitch. Consider this a free lesson in who not to fuck with. Next lesson, I’ll have to charge. The price is your worthless life.’

Victor continued, ‘Then, after I’ve disappeared into the night, you’re going to hear from me again. The four you’ve lost so far will become ten by this time tomorrow. And I won’t stop there. I’ll keep picking them off. On the streets. In their homes. When you’re collecting product. When you’re delivering it. You’re going to struggle moving and protecting the same quantity as before. You’ll be spread thin. Thin means vulnerable. You can hire more men, sure, but as quickly as I can kill them? And before word hits the street that your organisation is haemorrhaging numbers? Can you rebuild your strength before your rivals decide it’s the right time to move in and take over? How are your suppliers going to react when they learn you’re being picked apart? How are you going to convince more men to put themselves into my crosshairs when new guys don’t survive the first twenty-four hours in your employment? How are you going to keep the loyalty of your existing men when you’re willing to let them die? And for what? To protect whoever hired you? Did they really pay you that much? Are you that scared of them?’

Moran didn’t blink. ‘You’re nuts.’

‘There’s a good chance of that, yes. What’s it going to be? Am I going to walk out of that door or am I going to walk out of that door and come back later?’

‘Sod it,’ Moran breathed. ‘It’s just a job. I didn’t get paid that much. It was a favour, okay? Whatever this is about, whoever you are, I’ve got nothing to do with that girl. I was asked to snatch her. That’s all. Bundle her into the back of a car and drop her off.’

‘Who asked you for this favour?’

‘Andrei Linnekin.’

‘Who is that?’

‘One of my suppliers. My main supplier. He ships the shit over here from wherever the hell it comes from. Afghanistan or some other hole. He asked me to get the girl as a favour.’

‘Where can I find Mr Linnekin?’

‘I don’t know. I swear I don’t know where he lives or operates from.’

‘Then how were you supposed to contact him when you had Gisele in your possession?’

‘Phone him, of course.’

‘Give me his number.’

Moran hesitated. ‘Look, if I do that and you go and fuck up his shit, he’s going to know I told you, isn’t he?’

‘And?’

‘What do you mean
and
? He’s Russian mafia, isn’t he? He’s with one of those commie outfits that own half of London.’

‘So?’

‘Are you soft in the head? You mess with him and he’s going to put a straight razor through all my tendons and leave me in the sewer for the rats to eat. Do you know how I know he’ll do that? Eh? Because I’ve seen him do it to someone else who betrayed him. Why do you think he had me there to see it? So I would know to never do the same.’

‘You’ve already told me his name, so my incentive for keeping you alive is rapidly diminishing. Either you give me his number or I look for it myself while you try to keep your guts inside your body.’

Moran picked the mobile phone from the glass coffee table and tossed it to Victor. He caught it in his free hand.

‘His number is in there,’ Moran said.

‘You’ve made the right choice.’

‘You are crazy, aren’t you?’ Moran asked. ‘You kill my men, break into my place of business, threaten me and now you’re going after the Russian mafia. And all for some woman. I take it she’s your girlfriend or your sister, right? She has to be, for you to do this.’

Victor shook his head. ‘I’ve never met her.’