Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) Read online

  Tom Wood is the author of The Hunter, The Enemy and The Game. He was born and raised in Staffordshire and now lives in London.

  Also by Tom Wood

  The Hunter

  The Enemy

  The Game

  Ebook short story

  Bad Luck in Berlin

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Sphere

  978-1-4055-1459-0

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Tom Hinshelwood 2014

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  SPHERE

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Better Off Dead

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Tom Wood

  COPYRIGHT

  Dedication

  A PRICE WORTH PAYING

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SUBJECT: I NEED YOUR HELP

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOR ELEANOR

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  SIXTY-FIVE

  SIXTY-SIX

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  SIXTY-NINE

  SEVENTY

  SEVENTY-ONE

  SEVENTY-TWO

  SEVENTY-THREE

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  SEVENTY-SIX

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  SEVENTY-NINE

  AFTERMATH

  EIGHTY

  EIGHTY-ONE

  EIGHTY-TWO

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For my parents.

  A PRICE WORTH PAYING

  BONN, GERMANY

  ONE

  Today was all about waiting. Some things could not be rushed. Patience and preparation were necessary for the successful completion of even the most routine of professional killings. Such jobs could only be considered routine because of the preparation that went into them and the patience displayed in their execution. If corners were cut in the lead-up to the job – should any contingency not be considered and planned for – mistakes would surely follow. Mistakes would also occur if the job was undertaken with anything less than the requisite calm and diligence. In this instance, considering the target, adherence to these two protocols was not only necessary but imperative.

  He was a man somewhere in his mid-thirties, but maybe older, maybe younger. It was hard to be sure because almost all of the intel on him was unverified. It was either speculation or hearsay, rumour or guesswork. He had no name. He had no residence. No friends nor family. His background was non-existent. He was not a politician or drugs baron or war criminal. He was not military or intelligence – at least actively serving – but he could not be called a civilian either. The only thing that was known with any certainty was his profession. He was a killer. The client had referred to him as the killer, warning that he had recently dispatched another team sent after him. If a book had been written on the art of professional assassination, he had authored it. No such book existed, of course. If it had, the team getting ready to murder him would have memorised every word.

  He had an unremarkable appearance. He was tall, but no giant. He had dark hair and eyes. The team’s women could not decide if he was handsome or not. He dressed like a lawyer or banker in good quality suits, though ones that were a little too big for his frame. When first they had seen him he had been clean-shaven, but now sported a few days’ beard growth. The only notable thing about him was the slight limp he walked with, favouring his right leg over the left. Not severe enough to take advantage of, they agreed.

  A million euros sat in a Swiss escrow account. It was theirs upon providing proof of the killer’s death. His intact head, preferably, or at the very least irrefutable photographic or video evidence.

  They were a tight quartet – two men and two women. All Scandinavians: two Danes, a Swede and a Finn. They had worked together for years. Always the four of them. Never using anyone else. Never operating if any of them could not be present. They were friends as well as colleagues. It was the only way to guarantee trust in the business of contracted killing. When they were not working, they socialised whenever they could. They took it in turns to host the others for barbecues, dinner parties and movie nights. They had been more than friends at various times, but those times had passed. Inter-team relations were bad for business, they had eventually agreed. Their assignments were inherently dangerous. They could not afford to be distracted.

  There was no leader because they each had unique skills and talents and therefore inherent superiority in their own fields of expertise. When a bomb was used it was used under the instruction of the Danish demolitions expert who named his devices after former lovers. When performing a long-range kill the Finnish woman, who had the most rifle experience, held seniority. When poison was required the Swedish chemist made the decisions in his authoritarian baritone. When shadowing a target the second Dane, who was an exceptional actress and knew most about surveillance techniques, gave the orders. They operated democratically when no single team member held an obvious authority. The arrangement worked well. Egos were kept in check. Jobs ran smoothly. No one got hurt – except the target. But never more than they were paid to be. The Scandinavians were not sadists. Except when they were hired to be.

  It had been a unanimous conclusion that today they could only wait. The target was even more difficult to corner than they had been led to believe from the intel provided. He had no idea he was under surveillance, but his routine preventative measures bordered on the obsessive. Yet he was smart to use them. He was, after all
, being hunted, and so far had given the team no opportunity to strike. Not only was he reputed to be an exceptional killer, he was proving exceptionally hard to kill. A good combination of talents, they all agreed, similarly agreeing that they should adopt some of his precautions into their own repertoire when this was over. Like him, maybe one day they would find themselves on the wrong end of a contract.

  He was staying in a grand hotel in the city’s central district. Aside from the main entrance, the hotel had three other ways in and out. They could watch them all, given their number, but in doing so spread themselves out too thinly to act when he showed. He never departed via the same exit nor returned through the same entrance twice in a row – until he did, obliterating any chance they had at predicting his next choice. The Finn, who was something of a statistician in addition to being an accomplished sniper, snapped a pencil in annoyance.

  The target had a deluxe guestroom on the second floor. He had also booked the room next to it. That made it problematic to know in which he slept. The door that joined the two rooms together made it impossible. It seemed he slept during the daytime. At least, he spent most of his time at the hotel during daylight hours, though never for a duration that would be conducive to a proper sleep pattern. The single longest period of time he could be verifiably in either of his rooms was five hours. Often, he was in the hotel considerably longer, whether in the bar, restaurant, fitness centre or just reading a newspaper in the lobby. He never arrived or left the hotel at anything close to the same time. The only habit he showed was in opting for the stairs, never the elevator, despite the limp.

  Not that the hotel was a good strike point. The rooms he’d booked were located near to the elevators where foot traffic was common. They had little to no chance of orchestrating a kill without the interruption of other guests. It was hard not to become frustrated. They were used to choosing where and when to finish a job, not having their target decide for them where not to make it. They kept their annoyance in check, reminding each other to stay cool. This was all to be expected. Preparation and patience.

  He appeared to have no routine outside the hotel. Sometimes he patronised street vendors peddling artery-clogging junk food. At other times he dined in restaurants serving the most exquisite and expensive cuisine. One afternoon he might spend several hours browsing exhibits in a single museum. The next he’d read a book, moving from café to café with it, never staying in any one establishment for more than an hour at a time, and sometimes only a matter of minutes. When they had figured him so impersonal as to be almost a recluse, he then spent an evening charming women in a cocktail bar.

  He had no mobile phone, but at what the Finn deemed random intervals he used internet cafés or payphones. They found no traces of his activities when the Danish surveillance specialist then used the same terminal or phone booth. They debated whether such activities were even necessary for him or were they merely for show, to trip up and distract any undetected tail?

  ‘It’s working,’ the Swede said.

  They had no idea why he was present in the city. It could be for any number of reasons. Perhaps he was preparing for a job of his own, getting to know the city and his area of operations. Maybe he was on the run and keeping incognito where he hoped his enemies could not find him. Or could this even be how he lived day-to-day when he was not himself working? It was no life, they all agreed, however many zeroes he could command for his services. If every waking moment had to be spent in a perpetual sense of alertness then there had to be better ways of making a living. It made them appreciate how fortunate they were. They looked forward to this job’s completion and their next get-together. It was the Swede’s turn to host and his wife was universally adored. She taught physics, but could be a professional party planner as they would often tell the Swede to his pride.

  A hit on the move proved just as troublesome to organise as one based on location. The target used buses, taxis, subways, overground trains and walking with no discernible pattern. Distances were irrelevant. He might walk three miles to visit a coffee shop, yet take a cab for two blocks or spend an hour on the subway only to exit via the same station. How much the limp bothered him on such journeys, they could not tell.

  In open areas he stayed in crowds and never walked in straight lines. When on narrow streets he kept away from the kerb and close to storefronts. His hands were always outside of his pockets. When he drank coffee on the move he did so by holding the cup in his left hand.

  ‘So his primary hand is always available,’ the Finn observed.

  ‘What if he’s ambidextrous?’ one of the Danes asked.

  The Finn replied: ‘Less than a one per cent chance of that. For all we know, he uses his left hand to make observers think he’s left-handed.’

  ‘Let’s assume he is ambidextrous,’ the second Dane said. ‘Whatever hand is occupied, we consider him just as dangerous.’

  The other three nodded.

  They operated from a vehicle that was changed daily, renting a different van each morning. They would take turns in sleeping in the back compartment while the others worked. They had multiple changes of clothes and other accessories to make sure he never recognised who followed him on foot. Sometimes they lost him to maintain their cover, but that was to be expected. Take no risks, they would tell each other. They knew he would return to the hotel at some point because the Danish surveillance expert had hacked into the hotel’s registry system. They knew how long he was staying, how much he was paying for the two rooms, even what he ordered from room service and that he had requested feather-free bedding and smoking rooms.

  ‘But he hasn’t smoked a single cigarette in all the time we’ve watched him,’ the Swede noted.

  ‘No assumptions,’ the Finn reminded him. ‘This guy’s only consistency is inconsistency.’

  ‘You sound like you respect him.’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘He’s a lion.’

  ‘A lion?’

  She nodded and grinned. ‘His head will look great mounted above my fireplace.’

  TWO

  Two days later, the voice of the female Dane, who was one of the pair shadowing on foot, sounded through the speaker of the mobile radio unit set up in the back of the rental van:

  ‘He’s buying camping supplies.’

  The Swede pressed the send button on the radio control panel and spoke into the microphone. ‘What kind of supplies are we talking about?’

  ‘A stove, solid fuel, waterproof sleeping bag, bungee cords, padded sleeping mats, a walking cane… Items like that. I can’t see everything he’s loaded into the trolley.’

  The Finn was also shadowing, but currently outside the store. Her distinctive red hair was hidden beneath a wig. ‘Any cold-weather gear?’

  The Swede waited for the Dane to respond when there was no danger of being observed. After a moment’s silence, she answered: ‘Not from what I can see. Shall I get closer?’

  ‘Maintain a safe distance,’ the Swede replied. ‘This could be a ruse to draw out potential surveillance. We make no assumptions about this guy. Take no risks. Okay?’

  ‘Got it.’

  The Finn said, ‘I think he’s planning for a job.’

  ‘You can’t be certain of that,’ the Swede replied.