Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) (24 page)

Sinclair exited the hotel via the main east entrance and cut through the car park, moving south. He crossed the road beneath the overhead railway line and headed for the other hotel where Anderton assured him the killer was waiting. He made sure to avoid the north-facing façade of the new hotel and therefore the watchful gaze of the girl’s protector.

If Anderton was right, it wasn’t a bad trick. Not Sinclair’s style, but he could see the merits of it. He preferred to meet his threats head-on, on his terms, not those of his enemies. Hiding was weak and it was stupid.

He felt liberated without the cumbersome presence of the mercenaries. He was on his own in the hunt. Just the way he liked it.

Wade’s team had been useful taking out Norimov’s retinue of thugs, but they were no longer required. Two of them had got themselves killed already. It proved what Sinclair had known from the start: that the others were B-team quality. They had served in elite military units, sure, but they had lost the edge that came with constant training and discipline. Sinclair had never lost that edge because he had possessed it long before his time in the armed forces. He wouldn’t have survived the slums of Johannesburg without it.

He had learned early on to rely on himself alone. Sinclair could operate from the shadows, unseen and unheard; by the time his adversaries noticed him, it was too late. Sinclair felt only excitement. Combat jacked him up like nothing else in the world. A perfect drug.

He entered the hotel via its east entrance and took the elevator to the fourth floor.

From his position at the window Victor could see little of the happenings across the street at the other hotel. The mirror told him the woman and the mercenaries had exited his room. He pictured them searching the hotel in case he and Gisele were in the fitness suite or business centre or bar. Once they realised they weren’t in the building, what would they do?

He couldn’t be sure. No doubt one or more would be left on site as watchers in case they returned, the others waiting nearby for the order to move in.

‘Talk to me,’ Gisele said. ‘I’m freaking out here.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll go now. We’ll slip out of the hotel via the south entrance. Chances are, the bulk of them will be gone. Those who’re left won’t see us.’

She gulped and nodded. She looked terrified.

He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ll be fine. Okay?’

She relaxed a little at his touch. ‘Okay.’

There was a knock at the door.

Gisele startled. Victor snapped a palm over her mouth to catch any noise.

Shh
, he mouthed.
It’s okay
.

It wasn’t. He didn’t believe in coincidences – he couldn’t afford to – but the knock could be innocent. His enemies were in the wrong hotel. He could see two of them watching the perimeter. They didn’t know he was here with Gisele. No one did. He approached the door, stopping two metres away, out of a direct line of sight from the fisheye spy lens. The gun was in his right hand.

‘Who’s there?’

A voice answered. Male. South African accent. ‘Mr Quinn, sir. I’m from hotel management. I’m sorry to disturb you at this late hour.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Quinn?’

‘I’m afraid I need to perform a quick check on the smoke detector in your room. It’s purely routine.’

Victor made a cursory glance behind him at the device on the room’s ceiling. It was a small white plastic box containing a CO2 detector. ‘It looks fine to me.’

The man called Quinn said, ‘I’m sure it does, but we’ve had a few false alarms and I wouldn’t want it going off by mistake and interrupting your sleep.’

The tone was of a man with too much work to do and not enough time, a little impatient at the hold up.

‘Like you’re doing now?’ Victor said.

‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid it is important. I’d hate for it to go off and startle you.’

‘I’ll risk it, thanks.’

A pause, then a second knock: ‘I promise, I’ll be quick as a flash.’

Quinn didn’t sound as if he would take no for an answer and each second Victor had to deal with him meant time he wasn’t watching out for his enemies. Unless that was the point. He approached the door, footsteps silent on the room’s carpet. He gestured for Gisele to stay still and stay quiet.

She nodded. Looking at her, he understood how they had been caught off-guard. He was at his best operating alone. Alone, he was always aware; always ready. He could rely on himself to do what had to be done. He’d relied on allies in times past, but Gisele was no professional. She was a civilian. But that wasn’t it either.

He was responsible for her. More than that, he wanted to be responsible for her. He’d known her a matter of hours but he cared whether she lived or died. That made them both vulnerable. He’d told her she had to have a totally selfish attitude to survival. He no longer had that.

Sinclair waited on the other side of the door. He stared at the pinprick of light at the centre of the spyhole. It was impossible to see through it from his side, but he didn’t have to. All he needed to see was that dot of light extinguish when the killer brought his eye to the lens.

Then he would know exactly where the killer’s head was located. Sinclair had his pistol drawn and pointed at the spyhole, index finger on the trigger, ready to squeeze.

A guaranteed kill shot.

Victor stood to one side of the door to keep his body protected by the interior wall. He used his hand to signal to Gisele to move back and away from the door so she was out of the line of fire. He swapped his gun into his left hand and with his shoulders to the wall aimed it at the door.

‘Can you come back later?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir. It has to be done now.’

Victor angled the muzzle to where he thought the man stood, based on the sound, but it wasn’t an exact science. Without looking he couldn’t be sure of his position or even if he was an enemy.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I haven’t long come out of the shower. How about you come back in ten minutes when I’m dressed?’

He pulled the hammer back with his thumb.

‘All right,’ the South African said. ‘I’ll return in ten minutes.’

Victor listened to footsteps quieting. He peered through the spyhole. No one stood in the corridor outside. He stepped away from the door and eased his finger off the trigger.

‘
Oh my God
,’ Gisele breathed. ‘How have they found us?’

‘Yigor.’

‘He wouldn’t. I know him. Shit. What are we going to do?’

‘Get out of here. Fast.’

He moved away from the door and over to the window. The two Range Rovers were still there. There were still gunmen positioned nearby, trying to look inconspicuous. Victor didn’t understand why they were there and not in his hotel. To distract him, maybe. But then the mercenary at the door wouldn’t have needed to knock to find out if he was inside because they would already know that to have men positioned to distract him.

Which meant the man at the door and those outside were not operating together. At least at this moment. The South African had seen through Victor’s ruse, but the others had not. He would no doubt be passing on his discovery, but it would take a few minutes for the other mercs to arrive. That delay gave Victor and Gisele a chance.

He returned to the door and peered through the spyhole. The corridor outside was empty but he knew the South African was out there, either waiting for Victor and Gisele to show themselves or preparing to attack.

Inside the room, they were vulnerable. It was small and impossible to defend. The window didn’t open. It would be toughened glass and hard to smash. The noise of trying would alert his enemy. Even if Victor and Gisele could get through it without taking a bullet in the back, they were too high up to drop and the hotel exterior would be almost impossible to climb with any speed. At any moment the mercs across the street could spot them or the blonde woman would lean out of the window to shoot him and Gisele while they descended.

He needed another way out. He needed a distraction. There was a plastic kettle on the sideboard along with cups and sachets of coffee, sugar and teabags. Victor unplugged the kettle, laid it on its side on the floor and stamped on it with his heel until he could pull it apart to expose the element at the bottom and the electric thermostat integrated into the base. He prised the thermostat away and tossed it aside. He plugged the kettle’s remains back into a socket and switched it on. Without the thermostat to regulate the temperature, the element would eventually become so hot it would melt. Victor didn’t require it to get that hot. He dropped a handful of sachets on to the element.

Gisele watched him.

After ten seconds the paper began to smoulder and smoke. Victor kept his gaze on the door and the gun aimed and ready to shoot. He didn’t have to watch the smouldering paper. He knew what would happen. He grabbed both towelling robes from the bathroom and pushed them into Gisele’s hands.

‘Hold these and follow my lead,’ he said.

She nodded.

An excruciating wail filled the room as the smoke alarm on the ceiling detected the elevated concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the air.

Victor waited. He knew alarms would be sounding throughout the hotel. Behind him, the paper sachets caught fire. He let them burn.

He figured thirty seconds would be long enough and approached the door. A glance through the spyhole told him what he wanted to know. He opened the door. The alarm’s wail was even louder with those in the corridor and from other rooms sounding simultaneously. Several guests were in the corridor, having exited their rooms. They wore pyjamas and robes. They were sleepy and squinting. Others were following. The same scene would be unfolding in every corridor on every floor of the hotel.

‘This is outrageous,’ someone was saying.

Another said, ‘It’ll be a false alarm.’

Victor looked past the guests, all shuffling in the direction of the elevators and stairs, to where, at the end of the corridor stood a man not in pyjamas or a robe. He wasn’t sleepy or squinting. He had a strong, stocky build, around six feet tall. He was tanned and dressed in khaki trousers and a sports jacket zipped up to his sternum and half-hiding an armoured vest beneath.

He stared straight at Victor.

Sinclair’s unblinking gaze burned into the black eyes of the killer. Bastard had pulled off a good trick with the alarm. Lots of people were between them, shielding the killer and the girl and preventing Sinclair from taking a shot.

The corridor extended around the hotel floor in a rough square. The section where Sinclair stood was on the opposite side to where the elevators and stairwells lay. That was the only way out, but the killer would no doubt try and play hide and seek. Sinclair had no intention of letting him do that with the girl.

They backed away because – presumably to their surprise – they saw Sinclair reach under his sports jacket. Through the shifting mass of guests, he saw the killer and the girl turning, then running.

Sinclair drew his weapon, a Glock 18 fitted with an extended magazine and long suppressor. It was a handgun, but one capable of fully automatic fire. A single squeeze of the trigger would release five bullets in the same time that a conventional pistol fire took to fire one.

An elderly woman in front of Sinclair gasped when she saw the gun.

‘You might want to duck,’ he told her.

Despite the civilians between them, the South African mercenary opened fire. The wailing alarm drowned out the noise but Victor saw bullets taking chunks out of walls and sending blasts of dust and debris. Behind him, a woman was caught in the line of fire. Atomised blood misted in the air. A round caught the shoulder pad of Victor’s suit jacket.

He half-fell, half-slid around a corner, pushing Gisele ahead of him, a hail of bullets following, noiseless but no less deadly. A wall-mounted light fixture exploded.

He scrambled back to his feet, drawing the SIG, waiting for the firing to stop. Even with an extended magazine the Glock expelled its load in five short bursts. Victor didn’t waste the opportunity.

‘Stay here.’

He rushed back out into the corridor to catch the target as he reloaded.

But Sinclair wasn’t reloading. The empty Glock was in his right hand and he had drawn his backup handgun into his left.

I knew you were going to do that.
 

Both men moved and fired at the same time, bullets smacking into walls around them. Guests were already down on the floor or had fled back into rooms. Their screams were silent with the alarm blaring. One of the killer’s bullets caught Sinclair’s handgun and sent the weapon flying out of his fingers.

He dived around a corner.

Victor took the opportunity to scramble backwards, trying to get out of the corridor before his enemy returned with a fully loaded weapon in his primary hand.

‘Come on,’ he said to Gisele.

He dodged around and pushed past terrified guests, reloading the SIG as he ran. The magazine wasn’t empty but he wanted it at full capacity if he faced the mercenary again.

He was aware of people looking at him; the ripped suit jacket; the gun. He couldn’t do anything about that. Getting out alive meant more than going unnoticed. He hurried to the end of the next corridor; leaned round the corner.

Bullets struck the wall next to him, sending plaster exploding into his face. He recoiled, eyes filling with water. He wiped them furiously on his sleeve until he could see.

He pushed Gisele clear, dropped into a crouch and leaned round again. The South African was at the far end of the corridor, the Glock now in both hands.

Victor managed to squeeze off a single inaccurate shot before more rounds came his way. Chunks were blown out of the floor and wall around him. A man, emerging from his room because of the alarm, but unaware of the firefight, walked straight into the path of bullets. He was hit twice and fell to the floor in a tangle of splayed limbs.

Victor fired, but his target was already moving, dodging back into cover, an empty magazine falling from his gun, Victor’s bullets striking the wall where his enemy had been a moment before.

He moved, firing as he did so to keep the South African pinned down while he made for the stairwell, ushering Gisele to follow him. People were screaming and shoving each other out of the way to escape the gunfight.

Victor took a robe from Gisele and touched her on the arm. ‘Put it on and hurry to the bottom.’

She nodded.

He put down covering fire in the mercenary’s direction until Gisele had descended a couple of floors, then charged through the panicking crowd, vaulting over the banister to drop down to the next level, doing the same again, and again, until he landed on the ground floor a moment after Gisele, stumbling to keep his balance then throwing open the stairwell door and dashing through into the lobby. He heard his enemy above, yelling at people to get out of his way.

Victor slipped on the robe and kept moving, Gisele, also robed, at his side. They couldn’t exit out of the front with the other mercenaries likely to approach from that direction so he headed for the rear of the hotel, slowing down to attract less attention and avoid signposting his route. Panic from the floors above was spreading fast. The crowds of guests were agitated and becoming scared. The fire alarm continued to wail.

He eased Gisele and himself into a mass of people wearing dressing gowns and robes and let them both be crowded towards the exit. Security personnel were as panicked as the guests. They didn’t know how to deal with a gunfight. For minimum wage, they had no intention of getting involved. He kept his eyes moving, looking out for threats, but no one paid him or her any attention. They were lost in the anonymity of the crowd.

The rear doors were held open by hotel staff to let the guests out faster.

‘Keep moving, keep moving,’ one was saying. ‘We’ll have you back inside soon. There’s nothing to worry about.’

He stepped outside into the cool night air. It was raining, but not heavily. The hotel was shaped like a letter V and they stood in the courtyard between the wings where vehicles were parked and guests were gathering. To the north a line of trees shielded elevated train tracks. On the other side of the tracks, some seventy metres away, stood the other hotel. It had been approximately three minutes since the South African had knocked at the door. If they weren’t here already, the other mercenaries soon would be. He saw no black Range Rovers but they could have covered the distance on foot.

‘This way.’

They set off to the west, keeping people all around them, scanning for threats. The chaos of the ever-expanding crowd of guests helped keep them hidden but simultaneously hindered his attempts to spot his enemies before they spotted him or Gisele.

Victor made sure to act like the people around him – walking at a frightened pace, distressed expression, wide eyes. Gisele didn’t have to pretend. He led her in a zigzagging path through the mêlée so they didn’t provide easy targets for someone taking aim. After a minute they had passed the west wing of the hotel. It was quieter on the far side. A sparse crowd of mostly hotel employees had gathered here. They were happier than the guests because this was an extra break from work. They didn’t yet know why they had been told to exit the building.

Another line of trees marked the boundary of the hotel’s grounds. Victor and Gisele cut across to them, walking at a casual pace so they did not catch the eye of enemies looking on as easily as they would if hurrying. On the other side of the trees lay a long car park of maybe five hundred spaces. Most seemed occupied. Beyond the car park stood a huge hotel complex. Victor disrobed and gestured for Gisele to do the same. He tossed the garments aside.

Within a minute he had selected a medium-sized Renault that was too old to have an alarm as standard. He used the SIG like a hammer and smashed out the window of the driver’s door. He reached inside and opened it, then leaned across the glass-covered seat to open the passenger door for Gisele.

‘Get in.’

She did while he tore off the covering from the steering column and hotwired it blind, gaze constantly sweeping the area for mercenaries. The engine rumbled into life.

Two men were running their way.