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

  Her phone sat on a table near to the couch. He used the knuckle of his little finger to punch out Norimov’s number. He answered after a few rings. It was after midnight in St Petersburg.

  ‘Have you found her?’

  ‘You have a lot of faith in me,’ Victor replied. ‘But even I don’t work that fast. I’m in her apartment.’ He explained what he’d found – and hadn’t. ‘She’s been gone for a week. You need to accept the fact they have her. Or they tried to take her and something went wrong. She could very well be dead.’

  ‘I won’t believe it until I see her body.’

  He didn’t press the issue. ‘Have you had any further threats? Any attacks on your businesses? Any of your men assaulted?’

  ‘Nothing since the photograph. The only men injured are the ones you hurt.’

  Victor thought about this for a moment. He looked between the blind slats. ‘You can relax for the time being. She’s not dead.’

  ‘But you just said… How can you know for sure?’

  ‘Because I can see three men climbing over the wall of the garden.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They must have been watching from the street behind and saw the lights on in the flat. They think I’m her.’

  Norimov’s voice was quiet when he said, ‘Then I almost feel sorry for them.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Victor replaced the handset and switched off the lights. The apartment fell into darkness. He judged the angle and cracked open the curtains covering the balcony doors. He looked over his shoulder to check. A swathe of dim light cut through the darkness of the open-plan lounge, illuminating the opening where it joined the hall leading to the front door. Outside of the swathe there was almost no visibility. He wouldn’t see an enemy two metres away. But they wouldn’t see him either.

  They had probably been waiting in a car, interior lights off, eyes adjusted to the night. But the communal hallway and staircase was well lit. By the time they reached Gisele’s apartment they would have lost their night vision. That put them on an even footing with Victor. In a few minutes his eyes would adjust to the lack of light and he would see as well as he needed to, but by then it would all be over. They would be across the garden by now and moving past the entrance to the garden flat, circling around to the front of the building.

  Victor heard the muted crash of the door being forced open below. He felt the vibration in the balls of his feet, having travelled up through the building. He pictured the startled face of the resident below.

  Streetlamps outside cast a dull orange glow between the open curtains. Motes of dust drifted lazily across the path of light. He stood motionless in the darkness, listening. Ready. Content.

  His ears captured sound from many different sources: the rumble of traffic outside; the soulless melody thumping its way through the floor below; the murmur of a heated argument far away. He concentrated to pick out the footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Initially faint; phantom sounds that grew and intensified with speed as the men ascended to the first floor, then the second. They were moving fast. This was no stealth operation. They were aggressive and loud. Not professionals.

  He counted three sets, so no one was staying back to protect their escape route from interfering residents. Few, if any, would respond to the noise of the forced door. They would be shocked, then scared, then would convince themselves it wasn’t as they had first thought. They would seek to rationalise the danger away. Humans put their heads in the sand just like ostriches. Victor exploited that often.

  They stopped outside Gisele’s front door. They weren’t about to pick it. They were passing on last-minute instructions because they didn’t have anything that resembled a proper plan. Sloppy. Nowhere near professional standards. They were street criminals. Thugs. They could even be psyching themselves up. Maybe: On the count of three…

  The front door burst open and smacked into the wall.

  Victor remained standing in the same position. He didn’t have to move. The three guys were going to do the hard work for him.

  They had kicked the door in. It made a lot of noise. Even submissive residents might not talk themselves into thinking there was a reasonable explanation. The police could already have been called. Now, they were against the clock and they couldn’t know where Gisele – who they thought was Gisele – was located. So they had to move fast. They had to spread out. There was no danger in that.

  They were three dangerous men after one civilian female. Easy.

  Wrong.

  He stood motionless, listening. He didn’t have to do anything yet. He only had to wait. They would come to him. He could hear the urgent exhales of the three men. They weren’t out of breath but were breathing hard as they rushed through the apartment. One would check left – the two bedrooms. The other would check right – the bathroom and box room. Which left the third to head straight into the lounge, into the swathe of light and into —

  Victor, as he leapt from the darkness on to the guy from behind as he hurried forward, wrapping his right arm around the man’s neck, crook of the elbow pushing against the trachea, applying pressure on the carotid arteries either side of it, shutting off the blood supply to the brain. His left palm covered the man’s mouth and nose, muffling his cries, inaudible over the heavy footfalls of his two companions.

  Ten seconds without oxygen was sufficient for the brain to shut down non-essential functions like consciousness and the man slackened. There wasn’t enough time to induce brain death and a snapped neck was too loud to risk, so Victor left him slumped where he lay.

  With two rooms each to check, the other two would arrive in the lounge in close succession, but not together because one had two bedrooms to check with space to hide in – under the beds; in wardrobes – while the other had smaller, barer rooms to clear.

  He took down the next man in the same way as the first, but the six seconds of the choke hold weren’t quite enough to induce unconsciousness before the third man appeared behind him.

  He didn’t have to look back to know the third man hesitated when he saw his two companions prostrate and Victor standing over them, and hesitation was as good as surprise in Victor’s line of work.

  It enabled him to close the distance before the man could grab the handgun from his pocket and point it Victor’s way. A snapshot from the hip might have had some success, but the man didn’t have the reflexes, skill or even courage to try.

  Victor used a forearm to push the muzzle clear, grabbed the wrist and triceps to lock the arm, but the gunman knew how to fight and was throwing an elbow with his free arm before Victor could break the joint. He caught the attack on a raised forearm, pushing it up, exposing the man’s chest for an elbow of his own that he drove into his enemy’s ribs. He didn’t have the leverage to crack any, or the room to aim for the solar plexus, but there was a whoosh of air leaving the man’s mouth. In that moment he didn’t have the strength to stop Victor ripping the pistol from his hand.

  He tossed it away because he had no need of it – and it would only make noise and mess Victor could do without, and there wasn’t time to adjust his grip on the weapon and get his finger inside the trigger guard and have the muzzle pointed at his enemy – because the man had recovered from the elbow to the chest and was fighting back. He was good. He had speed and strength but Victor had more of both.

  He backed off to avoid a headbutt, slipped a hook and the elbow that followed it, blocked a kick to his thigh with a raised shin. He retreated another step, encouraging his attacker to continue the assault and tire himself out as he increased the ferocity of his attacks in an effort to make up for the gulf in skill until fatigue and frustration created an opening to —

  Snap his opponent’s head back with an open-palmed blow to the face, breaking his nose and sending him stumbling backwards. Victor easily knocked aside the man’s panicked defensive punches and shoved him to keep him off balance until he tripped on the leg of one of his unconscious companions. His arms splayed in an attempt
to stay standing, but in doing so left him defenceless.

  Victor’s takedown dropped the man face down on to his head and his whole body slackened.

  He stamped on the back of the man’s neck. The crack told him he’d broken vertebrae. His enemy’s limp body told him he’d transacted the spinal cord.

  The second man – who had not quite been rendered unconscious – had managed to get himself to his hands and knees.

  A kick between the legs put him back on his stomach.

  Victor switched on a lamp and squatted down next to the man to wait until the pain had subsided enough for him to be useful.

  ‘Who sent you?’ Victor asked when the man finally stopped writhing and opened his eyes.

  ‘No Anglais.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid to say that you’re no use to me.’

  Victor put a hand on the man’s throat and squeezed. A raspy scream escaped his lips. He stared into Victor’s eyes.

  ‘Wait… I’ll talk.’

  ‘I should be a language teacher.’

  The man was average height but solid and strong. He stank of body odour from sitting in a warm car for perhaps hours, the morning’s shower long ago. He seemed about twenty-five. Prison tattoos were visible on his neck. He had a scar on his cheek.

  ‘If you promise to cooperate,’ Victor said, ‘I’ll take my hand away. Deal?’

  The man nodded as much as the hand around his throat would let him. ‘Deal.’

  Victor removed his hand, pretending he didn’t notice the man’s right fist in his jacket pocket; pretending he hadn’t noticed it slide inside the pocket when he’d begun strangling the man.

  The instant Victor took his hand from the man’s neck, the man pulled a knife from the pocket and stabbed up at him. He didn’t know if the man was going for his spleen, stomach, heart, or even if he was just thrusting with little care to where the wound ended up. It didn’t matter. The blade didn’t get anywhere near Victor’s skin.

  He caught the knife-holding fist, applying pressure with his thumb while twisting with his fingers to lock the wrist joint and relieve the weapon from the man’s weakened grasp.

  Victor said, ‘That was a really bad idea.’

  NINETEEN

  He reversed his grip on the knife so the blade protruded from the bottom of his fist, and drove the point down into the man’s abdomen.

  It made a popping, sucking sound as the skin pierced and sliced. The man’s face contorted in shock and horror more than pain. Adrenalin kept the agony away. That respite was temporary. The pain would come soon.

  The man gasped and bucked as Victor tugged the blade free of the vacuum’s hold.

  Blood so dark it was almost black bubbled out of the wound. It soaked his shirt, spreading fast, glinting in the gloom.

  Victor said, ‘I don’t suppose you believe me when I say that in less than one minute you’re going to beg me to stab you again.’

  The man just stared. Shock was pulling the colour from his face. Beads of sweat were appearing over every inch of skin. His hands pressed flat over the wound. Both were drenched with blood.

  Victor showed him the blade. ‘The blood’s dark because I’ve stabbed you in the inferior vena cava. Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s one of the most important blood vessels you have. It carries all the blood from your lower body up to your heart. The blood’s dark because it’s deoxygenated because it hasn’t reached there yet. Now, it’s pouring out of your belly. It can’t enter the right atrium of your heart. It can’t be pumped to your lungs. It can’t pick up oxygen. In about four minutes there’s not going to be enough oxygen in your blood to keep you alive. Your whole body is going to crave it. But you’re going to lie there and bleed to death. The pain is going to be horrendous. I can’t stop the pain, but I can keep you alive. Do you want me to keep you alive?’

  The man nodded, frantically, the whites of his eyes large and bright and full of tears.

  ‘Then I have to put the blade back inside the wound. It’ll create a vacuum and stem the bleeding. More importantly it will let the blood flow up to your heart. Pressure on the wound won’t be enough. Look.’ Victor gestured to the blood coating the man’s hands. ‘Do you want me to stab you again?’

  The man didn’t answer. He stared and cried.

  ‘I’ll give you a few seconds to think about it,’ Victor said.

  He left the man for a moment to break the neck of the first one he’d choked because he was coming round, then returned.

  ‘It’s a straight choice,’ Victor continued. ‘There are no variables. Either the blade stays in my hand and you bleed to death in a matter of minutes, or I slide it back in and you make it to the hospital. London has some great trauma surgeons. They deal with knife wounds a lot. This is a routine job for them. But you need to decide right now which way it’s going to be. Each second you delay is a minute less you’ll have to live when you eventually decide there really is only one option. You don’t want to die. You want to live. So, shall I put the knife back in?’

  ‘YES,’ he begged.

  ‘I won’t say I told you so.’

  Victor slotted the knife blade directly into the wound. The man bucked and thrashed and screamed. The adrenalin was all used up now.

  ‘You made the right choice,’ Victor said. ‘The blade has plugged the hole and will slow the bleeding long enough for me to ask you some questions and for me to call an ambulance and for the paramedics to arrive and keep you alive until you get into theatre for a surgeon to stitch you up. But you don’t have a lot of time so you’re going to have to answer me without hesitation or stalling. You need me to believe you. If I have a single doubt about any answer you give then I’m going to pull the blade out again and I’ll only put it back in when you convince me you’re telling the truth. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

  The man’s face was pale and soaked in sweat and tears. ‘Yes,’ he yelled. ‘Hurry the fuck up and ask me.’

  ‘Tell me you understand.’

  He nodded. ‘I do. I understand. Please hurry.’

  ‘Just so we’re clear: who are you here for: me or Gisele?’

  ‘The woman. We saw the light on. We thought —’

  ‘I don’t care what you thought. And you should only care about answering my questions because you haven’t got enough life left to waste even a second of it.’

  ‘Okay. Okay.’

  ‘How long have you been looking for her?’

  ‘A few days.’

  ‘Be more specific.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘A week.’

  ‘Be more specific,’ Victor said again.

  ‘I don’t know. Christ… Since last Tuesday.’

  ‘Eight days?’

  ‘Yes. Fuck. Eight fucking days.’

  ‘I’ll forgive you the language because of the circumstances. But don’t push it. Who are you working for?’

  A half-moment of hesitation. ‘Blake Moran.’ He spoke the name with reverence and fear, even with a knife in his abdomen.

  ‘That’s nothing but a name. Who is he? Tell me about him.’

  ‘I don’t know… He’s the boss man. He’s… God, it hurts so much.’

  ‘A drug dealer?’

  The man nodded. ‘The biggest.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Victor said. ‘At this moment who are you more afraid of: him or me?’

  The man didn’t answer fast enough so Victor took hold of the knife’s grip and twisted it – just a little, but enough. He muffled the resulting scream with a palm over the man’s mouth.

  ‘YOU,’ he yelled when Victor removed his hand.

  ‘Remember that before you answer my next question. Where can I find Moran?’

  ‘He has a big house in Bromley. Like a fucking fortress with guards and dogs —’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I get the idea. What about businesses? Clubs, bars…?’

  The man grimaced and gulped. ‘A café. In Lewisham. Near the station.’

  ‘What’s it called?’


  ‘I can’t remember. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’ll find it.’

  ‘Please, that’s all I know. Call me an ambulance.’

  ‘Remember what I said about not having time to waste?’ The man nodded. ‘So stop wasting it. Who told Moran to find the woman?’

  ‘No one. No one tells him what to do.’

  ‘Everyone takes orders,’ Victor said. ‘Even men like Moran. What were you going to do with the woman, had you found her here?’

  ‘Secure her and take her someplace safe.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘One of Moran’s sites. A derelict house. The address is on my phone.’

  ‘That’s bad form. Even someone like you should know that. Once you’d taken her to this house, then what was the plan?’

  ‘Call Moran. Tell him we had her. Wait for further instructions.’

  Victor patted the man down until he’d found the phone. He checked it, then showed the man the screen. ‘Is this his number?’

  The man nodded. ‘That’s him. I’m starting to get cold. Please, call the fucking ambulance.’

  ‘Are you supposed to use a password or some sort of code?’

  ‘I… I don’t understand. The ambulance, man.’

  Victor slipped the phone into a pocket. He considered for a moment. ‘I think that’s it. Thank you for your honesty. It’s saved me a lot of time and hassle. I appreciate that.’

  ‘So… you’ll call me an ambulance now?’

  Victor looked down at him. ‘You didn’t seriously believe me, did you?’

  The man’s eyes widened. ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not going to call you an ambulance. And even if I did, they’re not going to be able to keep you alive.’

  ‘But you said… What about the surgeons?’