Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) (32 page)

Sinclair followed a moment later, eyes burning and full of water, but he could still see well enough to shoot and hit. She was a canny fox, this one. He liked that. He liked that his eyes stung from the pepper spray. But there was no target to hit. She could not have run the full length of the law firm in the few seconds it took for him to give chase, so must instead be hiding. Multiple doors lined the corridor. He tried the handles as he moved, opening the unlocked doors and checking the rooms beyond without success until he reached the open-plan area.

He hoped to find her under a desk, huddled in a trembling ball. If she was hiding so, he could save the bullet and strangle her. She had a small neck and he had large hands. Perhaps one hand would be enough. He imagined her panicked gasps as he crushed her trachea between his fingers.

He decided against keeping his weapon drawn. Doing so would only be an admission of his inability to control the situation. He was in control. This was his moment.

Sinclair remembered a cold night in Helmand, terrorising a car of Afghans at a checkpoint, pretending he didn’t understand them as they begged and pleaded him not to shoot. He hadn’t, but a man in the back of the vehicle had beat his wife around the head until she spat out teeth in an attempt to stop her screaming. When Sinclair told the story, he never made it to the end without cracking up.

Sinclair stepped towards the door to a stationery cupboard.

He opened it. Nothing.

A noise behind him. He turned to see Gisele running across the far side of the open-plan area.

He followed. No need to run. It was too much fun to have a premature end.

Gisele ran, rounding desks and chairs, passing the water cooler and the colour laser printer. She knew he was behind her, but daren’t look to see him chasing. She made it down a corridor and around the corner into the reception area. No Caroline behind the desk as Alan hadn’t given the all-clear for people to return after the alarm.

For a second, she considered hiding behind the desk, thinking the man with the shaved head wouldn’t think to look there, but decided against it. She had to get out. Fast.

She pushed every lift button.

‘
Come on, come on
.’

She heard the man’s approaching footsteps. She hurriedly pushed the buttons again.

The man appeared. He smiled at her. ‘You’ve caused us a lot of bother, missy. But this is the end of the road.’ He reached under his jacket.

The lift doors opened next to Gisele.

Her nameless companion stepped out and shot the approaching mercenary three times in the chest.

Victor led Gisele down to the ground floor and kept his palm on the small of her back as they crossed the vast lobby.

‘My God,’ she breathed. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

He didn’t answer. Even though he’d cleaned off much of the blood, his injuries were obvious.

When they neared the exit, he said, ‘There are more of them outside. They didn’t see me come in, but they’ll see us when we leave.’ He gestured towards a security guard near the revolving doors. ‘Stay next to him until I return.’

‘Hurry back,’ Gisele said.

Victor heaved open the door and left the office building, leaving the warm and still interior air behind and stepping into the freezing night wind that toyed with his hair and brought moisture to his swollen right eye. A page of discarded newspaper tumbled and swooshed along the pavement. On the far side of the road a young woman climbed into a taxi.

He looked both ways, surveying the locale, ready to move and shoot and fight and die if necessary. He seemed relaxed because he was relaxed. If there was any place in which he truly belonged it was in the heart of violence. He had no fear of it because he knew it was who he was.

They were waiting in case Gisele appeared. They couldn’t know what had happened inside. They would only make their move when she did. For now, they would leave him be, although they would not let him out of their sight. But that was exactly what he wanted.

He descended the stone steps. The wind hid the sound of his footfalls. The Range Rover was parked against the kerb some thirty metres away. The lights, exterior and interior, had been extinguished, but Victor could see the shapes of three men. No features were visible, but they didn’t need to be. The men who sat there were mortal enemies who would be dead before the night’s end or would be Victor’s killers. Victor had had many enemies. Many were still alive. But almost without exception they were a threat to him as he was to them because of his work. Hazards of the profession. Now was different. Victor would kill these men or be killed by them because of someone else.

In the Audi, Victor took the handgun from his waistband and set it between his thighs, grip up for quick access. He let the engine idle. He wanted the man in the Range Rover and anyone else watching to see the exhaust gases clouding in the cold air. He had the interior light on. He wanted his hands to be seen gripping the wheel. They would assume he was waiting. They would assume he was waiting for Gisele. They would shift physically and mentally from standby into readiness – from warm-up to poised in the starting blocks. He could feel their elevated heart rates and the buzz of adrenalin and other hormones flooding their bloodstream. He could feel theirs because he had no such sensations. His pulse thumped slow and steady.

He continued the act by glancing at the building’s entrance, knowing they would see it, knowing it would only intensify their readiness. He felt their body temperatures rising, sweat beading, pupils dilating, vision focusing, hearing becoming selective. Almost.

One last misdirection: he took out his phone and held it briefly to his ear.

He mouthed
Okay
.

Now or never.

He dropped the phone into his lap, released the handbrake, put the car in gear, stamped the accelerator and yanked the steering wheel.

The tyres squealed for traction, releasing a puff of burnt rubber, then found their grip and the car launched out from the kerb.

In the rear-view he saw the driver of the Range Rover spring into action after a split-second’s delay, surprised by the sudden change in proceedings but reacting to it with impressive speed.

As Victor shot across the intersecting road, cutting through the flow of traffic and hearing thumped horns and braking tyres, he pictured frantic messages and hasty improvisations. They were chasing him because they thought they had been fooled. They had, but not as they thought. They would work it out soon, but he only needed to buy Gisele and himself a moment.

He braked hard and turned left, back end sliding out but turning into the skid to control it then accelerating again as he drove along the north side of the office building, knowing they would think him heading to a rear exit, hoping to pick up Gisele before they could catch up.

Victor grabbed the phone as he worked the wheel in one hand, thumbed for her number, and when the line connected, shouted, ‘
Go
.’

He didn’t wait for a response. He dropped the phone and focused on the road ahead and the Range Rover he’d allowed to catch up behind.

Oncoming headlights brightened – two blurs of pale light enlarging and disappearing as they swerved through the traffic.

An orchestra of horns sounded. Brakes shrieked and tyres squealed. Anticipating a collision, he fought the instinct to tense, instead allowing his body to stay relaxed and loose to lessen the chances of injury and death in event of a crash. He worked the wheel and the brake pedal, avoiding a head-on as he cut into the opposite lane to disrupt the narrative of the attacker, to make him have to think about his own survival and not just that of his target.

It worked because the oncoming Range Rover slowed – only for a second, but that hesitation told Victor his attackers, however reckless, cared more about living than winning.

Victor kept his foot on the accelerator, closing the distance to the Range Rover fast – forty metres, thirty, twenty, ten.

At five his enemy blinked in their game of death and heaved the wheel as Victor had known with certainty he would. They passed within inches, tearing off each other’s wing mirror, making both cars rock in the change of air pressure.

Victor stamped the brake and pulled up on the handbrake as he sped towards a coming junction. Smoke and screaming was released from the tyres and the car’s back end swung around. Victor didn’t try and fight it and let the vehicle go into a spin until it had performed a one-eighty, then accelerated hard and controlled the wheel until he was racing back to the law firm.

Sinclair groaned as he climbed to his feet. His Dragon Skin vest had caught the three rounds meant for his heart, but he’d still blacked out. He didn’t know what had happened with Norimov’s hired killer and Rogan, but the specifics mattered little.

The assassin was trouble and he was good. The presence of the killer necessitated the drawing of Sinclair’s pistol. He could not afford to run into him unarmed and defenceless. He knew Gisele’s protector would not offer him the kind of sportsmanship he would offer in return. Sinclair would not hunt a tiger from the elevated safety of an elephant’s back. He would meet him on the ground, in undergrowth, man to beast. Shame on the hunter who hung his trophy without earning it.

He moved, content to hurry now he was pursuing an equivalent and not a child. Properly employed haste, like the unflinching application of violence, was necessary here.

Another man might find rage in the continued interference of the assassin, and indeed Sinclair knew well his own capacity for emotion. Getting shot, even armoured, was no fun, but the dull ache of the blunt-force trauma to his chest energised him instead. He savoured the pain and the thrill of base savagery; it fermented in his soul.

Sinclair rushed through the offices. Wade’s voice barked through his earpiece:

‘
We’ve lost him. We’ve lost him
.’

Sinclair said, ‘What about the girl?’

‘He left alone. He —’

‘You idiots,’ Sinclair spat. ‘It was a trick. He’s doubled back.’

Victor braked hard outside and dashed up the steps as fast as his injured ankle let him. Gisele saw him before he reached the doors and came out, still scared but glad to see him.

‘Where are they?’

‘Close. We don’t have much time.’

She headed to the car, knowing it was the one he’d driven because of the open driver’s door and running engine.

‘No,’ Victor said, stopping her. ‘They’ll be looking for it.’

He went to hail a taxi but saw a minicab against the opposite kerb. He grabbed Gisele’s wrist and they hurried across the road. He pulled open the rear door and bundled Gisele inside. He climbed in after her.

‘Oi,’ the driver said. ‘Bookings only, fella. You’ll have to sling your hook.’

‘Drive us a mile south and I’ll pay you for a day.’

The driver thought about it for a moment. ‘No bullshit?’

Victor put his hand on the door handle. ‘If we don’t get going this instant then the deal’s off.’

‘All right, all right,’ he said as he released the handbrake. ‘Just don’t tell the guv’nor.’

The car pulled away from the kerb. Victor scanned the area. In the rear-view mirror he saw a black Range Rover turn on to the street.

Gisele sat behind the driver. Victor sat close to her so he could use the rear-view mirror with an unobstructed view. He grimaced against the pain of many wounds while he watched the reflection of the Range Rover. It accelerated until it reached the law firm, then came to an abrupt halt outside, near to the abandoned Audi. They thought he was inside.

He noticed the driver looking at him in the rear-view – looking at his battered face and the blood on his clothes.

‘What’s going on?’ Gisele asked, breathing hard. ‘How did they know?’

‘The plan didn’t work. It’s my fault. I underestimated her. I’m sorry, I should never have left you alone.’

‘It was my choice as much as yours.’

He kept his gaze on the mirror, seeing doors open on the Range Rover and two men rush out and up the steps to the building. He must have looked for a second too long because Gisele saw him and her head began turning.

‘Don’t,’ he told. ‘Keep looking forward.’

She did, her face tense and her lips locked. He saw her palms rest on her thighs.

‘It’s okay,’ he said to her, even though it was not.

She nodded. She didn’t believe him. She trusted her own instincts more than his words even if no one had ever wanted her dead until a week ago. Victor couldn’t remember such a time.

The driver noticed the tension. ‘Is everything okay back there?’

Victor said, ‘We’re fine.’

He saw in the mirror as the driver’s gaze flicked to Gisele and lingered a moment.

‘Are you all right, love?’

Victor reached out a hand to rest on hers, to tell her what to do, but she’d already said, ‘I get travel sickness.’

The driver said, ‘Don’t worry, darlin’. I’ll take it nice and smooth.’

Sinclair listened to Wade’s spluttering excuses as he strode outside the law firm. The black Audi had been abandoned on the street, driver’s door open and engine left running. No other door was open. Wade was still providing useless updates as Sinclair stepped forward to the edge of the steps, looking left and right along the street, seeing vehicles and pedestrians.

At the east end of the street, a minicab was indicating. Two human shapes sat in the back. At this range, no details were discernible.

I see you
.

Sinclair shoved Wade aside and drew his pistol. He adopted a shooting position, one eye closed while the other peered along the weapon’s iron sights, focusing on the smaller of the two shapes, ignoring the blur of colours and shapes that surrounded it. His brow was creased in concentration. His lips were closed and his jaw set, nostrils expanding and contracting with each deep, regular breath. Beads of sweat formed along his hairline. He slowed his breathing and with it his heart rate. He timed the beats, index finger compressing on the trigger – two pounds of pressure, then four, six, and holding the tension there, ready to squeeze a little harder; just another half-pound of force to trip the trigger and activate the firing mechanism.

The world around him ceased to exist.

I was born to do this
, Sinclair said to himself.
Never miss. Never fail
.

The recoil kicked and he felt the reverberations flow all the way to his shoulder. He loved that feeling. The mechanical caress, dull and strong. As a child, it had hurt. Now, he missed the pain.

Life is pain.
 

The pistol’s suppressor caught the escaping superheated gases as they exploded from the muzzle, deadening the sound but not killing it. The rumble of city life did that, wrapping up and smothering the weapon’s bark in a blanket of car exhausts, voices and footsteps.