skin. He had never experienced emotion towards a target before, but now it overwhelmed him. Reed turned his head, hearing a door opening behind him, and saw the target he was in Tanzania to kill enter the corridor from his room. He was heading for the elevator when he looked Reed’s way and spotted the gun in Reed’s hand.
Sykes backed off, wide eyed, open-mouthed, retreating inside his room.
Reed placed the ejected mag in a pocket, reloaded a full one. He opened the window and stood with the Glock out before him, aiming at where he expected Tesseract to appear.
In his peripheral vision he saw one of the target’s hulking hirelings emerge from same room where the target had just fled to. He moved well, fast, a pistol clutched in both hands, held down, and to the side, the safety grip people are trained to use to stop them shooting someone by mistake. The downside was that it took an extra split second to acquire a target.
Without moving his head Reed shot the guy twice in the chest. The impact sent him tumbling backwards, deflecting off the wall before hitting the floor as a dead man.
Reed re-established his aim on the street outside and waited patiently. It would have taken seconds to kick the target’s door open and fulfil the contract, but that would give Tesseract enough time to escape. Reed did not care about the job he was in Tanga to complete. He cared only about the man he had failed to kill. The man who had beaten him. He cared only about winning.
He cared only about killing Tesseract.
Two floors above, Aniskovach regained consciousness and pulled himself to his feet. Each breath was agony. He pressed his left hand against a wall for support while his right found the bullet embedded in his armoured vest. He checked underneath for blood, but the bullet hadn’t gone through the other side.
The SVR colonel had always been a cautious man, but after coming close to death in St Petersburg Aniskovach had adopted a safety-first approach to operations. Despite the pain, it felt good to be alive. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out for but hoped there was still time. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
The ringtone echoed throughout the lobby. It was some novelty tune that, if circumstances were not so perilous, would have made Victor frown. He saw one of the Russians reach into a pocket of his jacket to answer. Victor walked past, feeling the urge to increase his pace. The exit was directly ahead. He was so close.
The Russian answered the phone and a second later looked Victor’s way. Victor saw the reflection of the man’s face in the glass windows before him.
It took the Russian another second before drawing the breath into his lungs to shout, but Victor was already running. Two seconds to cover the distance to the main entrance, another to get through the door. Three more to reach cover outside. Six seconds. Too long if any of the Russians had a gun within quick reach. He would be dead with bullets in his back long before he reached safety. The bar was less than half the distance. He sprinted towards it.
The other Russians were slow to react to the unexpected commotion, and he reached and was through the bar entrance before he heard movement behind him — more shouting, the sound of bags opening, the metallic reverberation of weapons being drawn.
Victor dodged round the tables and chairs, making his way to the far end of the long room. He heard a Russian chasing after him, not as agile as he — knocking into tables, spilling drinks — but still fast.
Victor pushed open a service door at the far end of the bar and ran down the corridor on the other side. He headed for the kitchen, charging into the swing door, knocking it aside.
The kitchen was even busier than before, full of noise, steam, heat. The narrow walkways between work surfaces were blocked with people.
Victor backtracked, knowing he wouldn’t be able to force his way through before the Russians caught up and filled the kitchen with lead. Either that or he would give them the time to head him off.
He emerged back into the corridor to see the pursuing Russian sprinting toward him. Victor’s sudden appearance surprised him, and for a split second he hesitated. Victor didn’t.
He dashed forward, timing his attack so that the heel of his shoe connected with the running man’s stomach at the apex of the kick’s force.
The Russian gasped, doubled over. Victor grabbed him by the shoulders and sent his head crashing into the closest wall. There was a dull crack of plaster, and the Russian’s head bounced backward. He stumbled, arms flailing.
Victor leaped at him while he was dazed, driving his elbow into the Russian’s face, and the man collapsed silently.
He heard a noise, wasn’t sure where it originated, but drew the Browning and fired two shots at the door leading to the bar. Victor didn’t wait to see if he’d been right and started for an adjoining corridor.
Automatic fire tore through the bar door. Victor was already jumping out of the trajectory as bullets struck the walls and floor, blowing wood, plaster, and dust into the air.
He scrambled back to his feet, and a second later he was racing up the same stairwell he’d ascended earlier. Going up when he needed to get out was a bad idea, but his first two avenues of escape had been cut off and he needed another.
He moved fast but cautiously, gun held out straight before him, always in sync with where he looked. The Russians were below him, and the assassin above.
Trapped.
Sykes stood in the centre of his hotel room completely still, gaze locked on the door, the SIG clutched tightly in one sweaty hand. The sound of gunshots echoed around the room. He’d never been more afraid in his life.
One minute he’d been on his way to the bar to get a drink and the next he was staring at a seriously mean- looking guy with a gun. Wiechman, like an idiot, had charged out, gun in hand, to see what was happening. Then there had been the sound of silenced shots and the definite thump of a heavy man-sized object hitting the deck.
After that, there had been no more noise for what seemed liked minutes. Sykes wasn’t sure how long. He stood staring at the door, waiting for the guy with the gun to come and kill him.
Something crazy was going on, and Sykes was caught right in the middle.
A horrible realization started to take shape in Sykes’s mind. The man with the gun had recognized him.
No, it couldn’t be.
Dalweg burst into the room, and in his panic Sykes almost shot him. Dalweg’s face was twisted with anger.
‘Jack’s dead,’ he spat. ‘What the fuck is going down in this place?’
Sykes was about to say he didn’t know, but then more shooting started.
Reed heard the commotion in the lobby seconds after the moment when he judged Tesseract should have reached the street outside. He lowered his arm, turned, and headed away from the window and down the corridor. The sound of unsuppressed automatic fire echoed from below. A submachine gun by the high cyclic rate. Bizon probably.
The Englishman did a quick evaluation of the circumstances. The man Tesseract had been assaulting in the elevator clearly had friends, and those friends were armed and now after Tesseract. Reed remembered the foreigners in the bar. Russians. Why they were here in Tanzania Reed did not know, and neither did he have any interest in knowing. What did interest him was that they were trying to kill Tesseract and were interfering in his own attempt to do so. If they continued to, which was likely, they would find themselves between Reed’s gun sights. Reed would allow nothing to get between him and his adversary, and he would allow no one but himself to make the kill. Reed was the best. He had to prove that. If someone else killed Tesseract before Reed, his own life would continue on as a mere shadow of its former existence.
The Russians had prevented Tesseract from leaving through the main entrance. The only logical avenue of escape from the lobby would therefore be the hotel bar. That would lead him to the kitchen and the service stairwell.
Reed hurried. His prey was close.
CHAPTER 74
