away. He hurried through the apartment’s kitchen, into the lounge. The layout was identical to the broker’s rental.
Victor peered through the spy hole into the corridor outside. There was just enough light from a window farther along the hallway for him to make out the black-clad figure standing directly in front of the door. He could discern the shape of the MP5, the bulk of the bulletproof vest, the edges of the night-vision goggles.
Victor took a deep breath. Assassins with pistols were one thing, a fully armed and armoured tactical team was another. He could hear the grunts and crashes as more were trying to fight their way through the barricaded door farther along the corridor. They were assaulting the wrong room, had no idea he wasn’t there.
If he was going to do something it had to be now.
Victor flung open the door, grabbed the stunned gunman by the arms, and pulled him into the room. He was taken completely by surprise, didn’t even cry out. Victor swept his feet out from under him and smashed the butt of the broker’s handgun into the floored man’s jaw.
Victor slammed the door shut again, locked it.
The other gunmen in the corridor heard the noise, spun around, saw that one of their own was no longer there.
‘What the fuck was that?’
‘Shit, shit, he’s got Xavier.’
‘He’s in a different fucking apartment.’
‘Withdraw, withdraw, he’s in 305.’
In the broker’s apartment the gunmen withdrew before they’d completed the search. They hurried back out into the hallway, taking up new positions to assault the target’s apartment.
‘Right,’ the commander whispered. ‘Let’s nail this bastard.’
Victor wedged a chair under the door handle and grabbed stun grenades from the gunman’s tactical harness, stuffing them into the pockets of his jacket. He took a handful of spare magazines for the suppressed MP5.
The guy on the floor before was out cold, face bloodied. Victor pulled the night-vision goggles from him and put them on. His vision became a pixellated green blur. He took the sidearm and gave the unconscious man two swift kicks to the head to make sure he wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon. If he fired a shot the team would assault immediately. As it was, he had a few seconds while they readied themselves and composed an ad hoc plan to rescue one of their own.
He recognized the insignia the man wore on his uniform and drew a breath of relief. The gunmen weren’t CIA but French police, members of Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion, or RAID, the French police’s counterterrorist unit. Maybe they’d had the broker under surveillance or he’d been spotted at the airport and followed. Or maybe a civilian had recognized him and called it in. Either way he was paying the price for coming back to Paris.
With the MP5SD in hand, Victor ran back through and out onto the balcony. He grimaced for a second, looking straight at a street lamp across the road, the goggles magnifying the light to uncomfortable levels. He saw the broker was as he had left her, pressed up against the wall on the other balcony, trying not to hyperventilate.
Victor stood up on the railing and leaped back to next balcony, then did the same again to take him back to the first. His foot slipped on the railing, but he grabbed the drainpipe to stop himself from falling, dropping the MP5 to do so. He breathed a sigh of relief when the gun landed on the balcony.
He scooped it up and hurried through the kitchen and into the lounge. He had the weapon up in both hands, the stock pressed firmly into his shoulder, his eyes looking straight down the sights, his head and gun moving in unison.
The sofa, desk, and chair were broken, pushed to one side of the door. There were no RAID guys in the lounge. They were outside in the corridor.
Preparing to breach the wrong room.
Again.
CHAPTER 50
21:13 CET
Two stood to one side of the door ready to go in, a third and fourth waited on the other side, the commander had a pump-action shotgun in hand, ready to blow the hinges off the door with Hatton rounds. The ram had been abandoned.
The shotgun-armed commander held up five fingers, then four, three, two…
Something rolled into the corridor from the apartment they’d just left. Something metal.
Through the grainy-green night vision it took the commander a second to realize what it was. When he did he inhaled to scream a warning. It was too late.
The stun grenade exploded with an excruciatingly loud bang and an incredible flash of light.
The gunmen started yelling, blinded, disorientated, senses overloaded. One dropped his gun, another stumbled backwards down the corridor, bumping into walls, trying to get away. The commander screamed for his men to hold their positions, but his ears were ringing so much he couldn’t even hear his own voice.
Amid the chaos Victor stormed out of the broker’s apartment and into the corridor, emerging through the stun grenade’s smoke, MP5 raised, set to three-round burst. He squeezed the trigger ten quick times, the MP5 making a series of rapid clicks, his aim shifting as targets fell. He aimed for faces and guts, where the heavy body armour offered least protection. The gunmen appeared out of the darkness with each shot, illuminated for an instant by the strobelike flickers from the MP5’s muzzle flash. Bodies flailed and contorted. Blood misted in the air.
Within three seconds the breech on Victor’s MP5 had blown back for the last time, and all four gunmen lay slumped in the corridor. The smell of cordite and blood filled his nostrils. Smoking shell casings crunched underfoot.
No one was moving, so he reloaded and slung the MP5 over his shoulder. He grabbed the commander’s shotgun and used it to blow the lock off the door to the apartment they had been about to breach.
Victor threw the shotgun away and kicked open the door. He ignored a terrified Algerian woman huddled with two children in a corner and moved through into the kitchen. He opened the balcony door and grabbed the broker by the arm. She screamed for a moment until she realized it was him.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving.’
Victor dragged her back into the kitchen and out into the corridor. She took a sharp intake of breath, stumbling over the bodies of the four gunmen.
‘Oh Christ.’
‘Hold it together; there’ll be more of them. Stay directly behind me.’
Victor had the MP5 back in hand and the broker’s gun in the front of his waistband. He led her through the corpses and down the corridor towards the elevator. He hit the button and the door opened. Stepping inside, he pressed for the ground floor and stepped back out. The broker was left standing in the elevator.
‘Out,’ Victor ordered.
‘What?’
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the corridor. The doors closed behind her. Victor headed back towards the stairwell, moving quickly, staying to the right, his shoulder brushing the wall.
‘The elevator…’ the broker said.
Victor ignored her, led her quickly to the stairs. He pushed her against the wall next to the stairwell door.
‘Stay here.’
He squatted down in front of the door, gun ready in his right hand. He reached up and opened the door with his left, peering in. The stairwell was empty.
‘Come on.’
He rushed down the stairs, gun up, pausing at each floor to stop, listen. The broker followed him closely. Victor stopped on the first floor, opened the door into the corridor, and guided her through.
