they?
He didn’t have long to get an answer but he’d been forced to kill three more men than he’d been paid for. Those men had tried to kill him and stopped him fulfilling his contract, a fact that could have fatal consequences. He needed an explanation.
‘Don’t move,’ a voice said in Russian from behind Victor. The voice carried the confidence gained from the possession of a firearm. A firearm Victor presumed was aimed directly at his back.
He stopped. Two feet from the doorway.
‘Drop the gun.’
There was nothing to tell him exactly where the speaker stood, so if Victor tried anything he would be trusting to speed only, relying on the fact he could turn around, raise his gun, acquire the target, and score a fatal hit before the speaker had time to apply a few pounds of pressure on his weapon’s trigger.
Victor let the USP fall from his fingers and thud quietly on the carpet.
‘Now lose the goggles.’
Victor lowered them to the floor.
‘Turn around.’
Victor did.
A man stood in front of him, no more than ten feet away, equidistant between Victor and the stairwell. The cupola provided enough light to illuminate the suppressed pistol in the man’s hands and the sheen of sweat on his face. He looked out of breath, having probably sprinted up several flights of stairs. He had a long face, stubble. Victor recognised him even without the brown suede jacket. The watcher.
‘Who the hell are you?’ the watcher asked.
The words were in Russian but it wasn’t the speaker’s native language. Victor couldn’t place the accent. He didn’t answer. He wanted to ask the same question.
‘Kick away the gun,’ the watcher ordered.
Victor complied, but only hard enough for it to skid a few feet.
The watcher stepped nearer. He moved at a cautious speed, glanced at the two dead bodyguards outside the door of the Presidential.
‘Cops will be here soon,’ Victor said.
The watcher ignored him and gestured with his pistol. ‘Lose your backup too.’
Victor reached around to the back of his waist where the P22 was holstered.
‘Do it very slowly,’ the watcher prompted.
Victor drew out the Walther and brought it round to the front.
‘This time don’t drop it, toss it away.’
Victor did — but he threw it forward — at the watcher. Not to inflict injury, just to distract. The watcher’s eyes instinctively glanced at the gun sailing towards him and he flinched to move out of the way. By the time he recovered, Victor was through the open doorway.
He flung the door shut behind him and saw that the source of green light was a laptop monitor, as he’d expected. It was divided into six windows, five displaying a different image from what had to be hidden night-vision cameras next door in the Presidential Suite.
He didn’t think any more about it. All his thoughts were centred on the man on the other side of the door, the man who had a gun while he had nothing.
CHAPTER 24
Victor crouched in the darkness, balancing on the balls of his feet. The air in the room was warm and stale. He could smell cologne and sweat. His right arm throbbed. The only light entered through thin gaps between the drapes, but there was enough to see the lounge area of the suite around him. It was different from the Presidential in both size and layout, smaller and less opulent. There were two interior doors leading off from the lounge that he guessed led to bedrooms. The bedrooms probably had their own bathrooms, but otherwise there was nowhere else to go. He could steal Yamout’s trick and go through one of the windows and on to the exterior ledge, but that strategy relied on his enemy standing idle and letting him.
Victor didn’t move. He waited. If the watcher wanted him, he would have to come and get him. The lounge was the largest open space and the easiest to defend himself within. He could see the silhouettes of a large sofa, sideboards along two walls, a coffee table, the desk where the computer sat and two chairs before it. All obstacles for an attacker and potential weapons to be used against one.
He heard quiet footsteps outside the main door, a few moments before suppressed gunshots sounded and six holes blew through it. Two high, two low, two in between. But all in straight lines. Victor was far enough out of trajectory not to be concerned.
For a second he thought the watcher might not have a keycard, but the latch clicked and Victor felt the faint pull of a draught as the door opened. There were four clack sounds as the watcher spread rounds across the lounge. Again, Victor didn’t need to move.
The watcher stepped into the room, slow and controlled because he knew his enemy was unarmed. As expected, the watcher wore the discarded thermal imaging goggles. The dark lounge would appear to him as shades of light grey with Victor as a distinct dark grey shape with a black head and hands. The watcher didn’t see him.
But Victor saw the watcher.
The single infrared gathering optic on the goggles protruded several inches from the eyes, greatly limiting peripheral vision at very close range. Victor, standing to one side of the door and no more than twelve inches from the watcher’s flank, was in his blind spot.
Victor made his move, going for the outstretched gun, but the watcher must have realised the problem with his peripheral vision because he whipped the gun away before Victor could grab it.
Instead, Victor adjusted his footing and collided with the man, knocking him backwards and into the door hard enough for him to grunt with the impact. Before he could recover, Victor slammed an elbow at his face, coming from below, aiming under the goggles, and felt it connect with cheekbone and drag across the side of the face while his left hand grabbed the watcher’s right wrist and kept it, and the gun, locked against the wall.
Victor took a fist to his abdomen in response, a short punch, not enough leverage to really damage him but enough power to still hurt. The Kevlar took something out of the blow, but not much. It was followed by several more left hooks. Victor grimaced and responded with elbows that didn’t hit squarely. The watcher’s head was an elusive target, deftly rocking from side to side.
Victor changed tactic, took a half-step back, let go of the wrist, grabbed the man by the shoulders with both hands, and swung his knee upwards. The watcher moved in time and the knee caught him just above the groin, making him wince but not striking enough nerve endings to take him out of the fight.
The goggles collided with the side of Victor’s head, delivered on the end of a solid butt. He saw stars and lurched backwards, recovering enough to grab the gun and holding hand before it was in line to fire. The watcher powered forward while Victor was still dazed, throwing his bodyweight at him, forcing him backwards, off balance.
He stumbled a few steps before his hips found the back of the sofa and his attacker pushed him over. Victor let go of the gun, tumbled backwards over the sofa and on to the floor, landing on his feet, took two fast steps away into the darkness, dodging to the side before the watcher could squeeze off a hasty shot.
Victor leapt straight at the watcher, going low, taking the man’s legs out from under him with a takedown that sent them both crashing to the floor.
The watcher took the brunt of the fall and Victor heard the gun bounce across the carpet. He ignored it, used his weight to pin his enemy down while he tried to get his left arm hooked around the guy’s neck. The watcher fought back, hammering fists and elbows into Victor’s sides and lower back. They were well placed, striking his kidneys and vulnerable ribs. Victor grimaced against the pain but kept on working his left hand under the watcher’s head.
He forced it around and under the back of the neck so that the crook of his elbow was wedged behind it. He
