the inevitable mistake. But Victor, bleeding from both arms, stomach, and ribs, knew that as things stood he would reach that stage sooner.
The pain was extreme. He could no longer keep it from his face even for a second. His arms felt heavy. The shirt was shredded, soaked with river water and blood — more of a hindrance than anything else. Victor released it and shook it off his arm. He thought about throwing it at his opponent, but it would be a pathetic gesture. He wasn’t about to humiliate himself.
His chest heaved; his mouth hung open. He blinked the sweat from his eyes. Reed lunged forward. Victor used his left bare forearm to block the blade, feeling it enter his skin. Reed felt it too, and his eyes glimmered. Victor threw him backwards, went to attack but stumbled, his face contorting in sudden agony. Both actions faked.
Reed lunged again, sensing the kill, lured into overeagerness. He neglected protocol, overextending his thrust. Victor sidestepped easily, pushed the blade away with his right forearm, and brought his left fist across and into Reed’s face.
There was a satisfying smack, the blow knocking Reed sideways. Reed’s arms sagged, stunned. Victor twisted, throwing another heavy punch, trying to capitalize on the change in initiative while he had the chance, but Reed was already dropping into a low crouch, and Victor realized he’d been fooled, his own tactic used against him.
Reed sprang up inside of Victor’s reach, the knife racing straight towards his neck.
Victor did the only thing he could and threw his left arm into its path.
He felt the knife point pierce the underside of his forearm, slicing through skin, muscle, and blood vessels, scraping between his ulna and radius bones.
The gladiator point came right out of the other side of his arm, the matte-black blade utterly red. Drops of his own blood splashed Victor’s face. He gasped, fought not to scream. His legs buckled.
He grabbed hold of his enemy’s wrist, tried to pull the knife free but his strength was gone. Reed pushed the knife from side to side, increasing the size of the wound, magnifying the agony. Blood poured from Victor’s arm. It took all his will to keep standing. He had nothing left. A cruel grin formed on Reed’s face.
That smile stung Victor more than the blade in his arm. It stabbed something deep inside him, reminding Victor he wasn’t dead yet. He had one last chance to save his life.
He tipped himself backwards, deliberately falling.
Reed grabbed hold of Victor with his free hand to stop him, to keep him upright and impaled, but he didn’t have the leverage. Letting Victor fall meant letting go of the knife, but falling too meant he would land on top of Victor, cushioning his own fall and trapping his prey underwater. It would make finishing him off all the more easy.
Reed fell too.
Before they hit the water, Victor brought his right leg up and managed to wedge his knee at the base of Reed’s breastbone.
Victor disappeared beneath the river, taking the pain of their combined weight, the water cushioning the fall but the rocky riverbed intensifying it. That force was directed straight through Victor’s knee and right into his Reed’s solar plexus.
Reed let out a cry as his diaphragm went into paralysis and the breath expelled from his lungs. In that instant his strength left him completely.
Immediately Victor pushed upwards with his left arm. It emerged from underneath the water, and he drove the point of the knife protruding from his forearm into the Reed’s exposed neck. The inch of blade disappeared entirely into the Englishman’s flesh.
Reed’s eyes went wide.
Victor, head still underwater, wrenched the blade from side to side, crying out against the agony in his own arm as he tore through his assailant’s neck. Reed gagged. For a moment there was resistance against the blade. The thick walls of the carotid artery.
Reed threw himself away, pressing his hands to his neck, but it was too late.
A torrent of blood erupted from the wound.
Victor’s watery sky turned red. Reed fell into the river, water splashing up around him.
Victor heaved himself up and sucked in precious air. He struggled to his feet, cradling his impaled arm. Reed was floating in the river before him, a crimson cloud rapidly expanding around him, both palms pressed over his throat, trying desperately to stem the spray of blood and do the impossible — stay alive.
Victor ignored him. The knife was buried to the hilt in his arm, blood leaking out from the top and bottom, all around. Using only his right hand, Victor slid off his belt and wrapped it around his upper-left bicep as tightly as it could go. He forced the metal catch through the leather to create a new hole to fasten it.
It would be suicide to remove the knife, so he left it in place. The belt would help, but it was only a temporary respite. At the rate it was coming out, most, if not all, the major blood vessels in his arm had been severed. At his weight, and with just the belt to help him, Victor estimated he had less than half an hour before he bled to death. He would probably be unable to walk after fifteen minutes, twenty if he was lucky.
Reed was making a croaking sound, blood bubbling from his mouth. His face was white, blood vivid, almost black against his skin. He looked up at Victor without blinking. There was no fear in his eyes, no hatred, just a cool acceptance of his fate. Victor wondered what his own eyes would betray when his turn eventually came. He turned away from Reed for the last time and thought of Rebecca.
He waded through the water and up the bank, unsteady on his feet. He made his way through the trees, following the path the Jeep had carved until he saw the Russian’s pick-up parked along the road. He stumbled towards it. The keys were still in the ignition.
Victor’s eyes flicked between the analogue clock on the dash and the road ahead as he drove back to the city. Ideally he needed to get as far away as possible before going to a hospital, out of the country preferably. But there wasn’t time. He would bleed to death behind the wheel if he tried.
He drove with heavy eyelids, feeling colder and colder. He was yawning as he pulled up outside a Tanga hospital. He felt himself going as he stumbled into the emergency department. He was greeted by a brief scream.
A nurse’s hand gripped his right arm and pulled him down a corridor. He sagged to his knees as he struggled to keep up with her. She was shouting and asking him questions. He couldn’t understand what she was saying. Then he heard English and somehow Victor managed to make his mouth work and he shouted out his blood type as loud as he could. He would have fallen, but unseen hands pulled him on his feet. His vision was failing as he lay down on a bed. There were other people around him, more nurses, maybe doctors.
He heard wheels squeak.
CHAPTER 80
Dar Es Salam, Tanzania
Wednesday
12:03 EAT
Sykes did everything in his power to maintain a calm persona, but he knew that he was failing. He had barely slept for two days but was too on edge to feel any tiredness. Despite the fact that the building was perfectly air conditioned, Sykes was trying to ignore the dampness gathering under his armpits.
After the disaster at the hotel, Sykes had raced out of the country, crossing the northern border into Kenya. He’d rolled options around in his head while throwing antacids down his throat and vomiting periodically when they ran out. In the end he realized he didn’t have the balls for life as a fugitive or the know-how to last as one.
If he really tried, there was a slim chance he might be able sort things out enough to survive the inevitable fallout. But Reed had been at Sykes’s hotel. He was sure of it. The man who had shot Wiechman. And the only explanation for Reed being there was that Ferguson had sent the assassin to kill Sykes. It was enough to change Sykes’s priorities. Getting rich and his career came a clear second to staying alive.
He gave himself up at the embassy and had been in CIA custody since then. Ten minutes ago he’d been led
