Victor glanced over his shoulder. The man walking on the opposite side of the street was tall, six-four, and strongly built. Buzz cut. The shadows hid any other details. The Peugeot was slowing down further behind him as the second car accelerated hard.
Two cars, two pedestrians. Victor couldn’t keep eyes on them all. Which was the point.
He snapped his gaze back to the woman, and needing no other evidence, drew his gun. The woman was already reaching into her coat to do the same. Victor didn’t need to look back to know the big guy across the street would be readying his own weapon. Positioned on opposite sides of the street meant they could safely shoot at him without endangering the other.
Headlights swept in his direction, momentarily blinding Victor as he took a shot. The crack from the unsuppressed Five-seveN echoed between the overlooking buildings.
He didn’t see if he’d hit, and had no opportunity to check as the second car hurtled closer, straight at him. Another French sedan. A Renault. Ten yards away, then five. There was only time to fire at the driver or jump out of the way. If he killed the driver, it wouldn’t stop the car slamming into him. Victor leapt right, into the road.
The car roared past where he’d been standing, and Victor rolled on the asphalt, absorbing the energy that would otherwise induce injury.
Doors were opening before the Renault had even stopped. Two people charged out. A woman from the passenger seat, a man from the back. Victor rose into a kneel, drawing a bead on the man, who was closer, but shouts from the big guy on the far side of the street and the woman with the plain face stopped him squeezing the trigger. Covered from two angles, there was nothing Victor could do. If he fired, he died.
The FN clattered on the road surface and Victor showed his palms.
The Peugeot had stopped sixty yards at the end of the street to block off the intersection from other vehicles. The Renault was less than ten yards away.
He recognised the woman now hurrying towards him from the Renault’s open passenger door. She looked markedly different with a gun instead of a camera, the friendly smile replaced by a cold stare. She covered him from a distance of five feet. The driver stayed behind the wheel. The man from the back had a pale, gaunt face and held the same gun. Beretta 92FS. Suppressed. Victor glanced over his shoulder to see the slender woman with the plain face remained stationary near the streetlamp, in a combat stance, gun aimed at his back.
The man with the Beretta aimed it at Victor and shouted, ‘ Don’t move.’
He spoke in Russian, just as Victor had spoken in Minsk.
The big guy approached. He was strongly muscled but a lean two hundred and twenty pounds. No excess bulk. Loose trousers, open sports jacket, T-shirt beneath. He searched Victor, locating the all-ceramic folding knife in seconds and tossing it away.
‘Hands,’ he demanded.
Victor held them out, shoulder-width apart. The big guy grabbed Victor’s wrists. The strength of the grip was huge. The guy looped plasticuffs around both of Victor’s wrists and fastened it tight enough for the skin to bulge white around the straps.
He took Victor by the right triceps, pulled him to the car. Victor didn’t let the pain show or resist as he was thrown into the back of the Renault. The big guy gave some order in Hebrew and the original two from the car climbed in — the man on to the seat next to Victor, the woman into the passenger seat. The short woman under the streetlight slipped her gun away, and rushed over to the Peugeot, climbing into the back. The big guy got into the passenger seat.
Already Victor could feel the tingling in his hands caused by the blocked circulation. He sat himself upright. He was behind the driver. The guy on the back seat with him kept as much distance between them as possible, but didn’t take his gaze off Victor. He kept his gun pointed at Victor at all times. The Beretta was chambered for 9 mm rounds, double action, safety off, hammer cocked. All he had to do was squeeze and Victor would take one in the sternum. The Israeli held the gun in his right hand and kept it parallel to his chest. It was too far away for Victor to risk grabbing, even if his hands weren’t bound.
The blonde woman in the passenger seat turned to face him. She had a triumphant expression on her face. ‘Put on your seat belt.’
She spoke with her British accent. She probably had been British, originally. Victor held up his bound wrists.
She smirked. ‘That won’t stop you.’
Victor reached behind his left shoulder and pulled the belt across his chest and fastened it. He did so as awkwardly as he could. When it clicked in place, the woman in the passenger seat turned away. She said something in Hebrew to the driver. None of the three Israelis in the car had on their belts to ensure speed of movement while he in turn was locked in place.
The Renault pulled away, following close to the Peugeot. Rehearsed moves. The driver kept the car a little above the speed limit, like anyone else who didn’t want a ticket and who had nothing to hide. They drove through the narrow streets of Sofia, staying directly behind the lead car at all times. The passenger periodically looked back to check on Victor. The Israeli on the back seat didn’t look away once.
Victor felt the adrenalin in his system speed up his heart rate. His pulse thundered in his ears. He looked up, staring through the window to his left. He saw the twinkling of lights in the night sky from an ascending plane and watched until those lights had disappeared into the darkness.
CHAPTER 63
The pain in Victor’s wrists continued to build. His wrists were locked together, skin to skin. The tingling sensation in his hands worsened. He could make fists with his hands but precious few other movements. Soon they would be too numb to move.
They took a right turn then two lefts, bringing the car out of the backstreets and on to a wide avenue. Traffic lights glowed up ahead. Red glimmered through the raindrops on the windshield.
The Renault slowed down and stopped. Victor could reach the door handle and be rolling on to the road before anyone could react, but a Kidon team was too professional to leave the child lock disengaged. He could try anyway — on the minute chance the lock was malfunctioning — but Victor didn’t want to make them even more alert by trying something destined to fail. Instead, he sat passive, defeated. His only chance was for them to underestimate him.
His knees pressed against the back of the driver’s seat. He was a tall, the other fake tourist, and had the seat back to compensate for his long legs. There was little room for Victor to manoeuvre. He looked to his right, at the guy with the gun. The Israeli had a slim build and pale face beneath dark curly hair. He wore jeans and a nylon jacket. He was calm if not relaxed. The muzzle of the Beretta was slightly inclined, angled at Victor’s centre mass. The guy looked like he very much wanted to squeeze the trigger, but his orders would be to only shoot if absolutely necessary. A dead man couldn’t talk, after all.
The light changed and the Renault pulled away, one car length behind the Peugeot, maintaining formation, but without looking like it. They drove in silence. The radio was off. No one spoke. The woman in the passenger seat turned to look at Victor again, this time smiling to herself, and looked away. It was becoming difficult to move his fingers.
He couldn’t see his watch, but he was good keeping track of time without one. Nine minutes had passed since he’d been captured. The scene outside his window changed as they left central Sofia. He saw factories and warehouses, open-air car showrooms, apartment blocks, areas of wasteland. Wherever they were taking him, he sensed it was close. When he reached it his chances of escape would drastically reduce.
The Israeli in the nylon jacket on the back seat continued to stare. He blinked regularly, keeping his eyes moist, removing the need to involuntarily blink at the wrong moment. Even if Victor could somehow get close enough to avoid the gun, he couldn’t disarm the man while his hands were tied and the seat belt locked him in place. And that was before the woman in the passenger seat got involved. Similarly, Victor couldn’t attack the driver while under the watchful gaze of the guy on the back seat. Maybe when the car stopped at their destination he would have a window of opportunity. The problem with that was the second car full of Kidon assassins that would have stopped too.
