He shouted over his shoulder, ‘Kooi’s in the other building. I’ve got him trapped.’
Leeson appeared with his Chechen bodyguard. He held a hand up to shield his face from the heat of the burning ambulance. ‘What about his family?’
‘I don’t know. They must be in there with him.’ Dietrich risked taking his gaze off the door Kooi had gone through to glance back. ‘If I’m going in there I want more money.’
‘Kill them all, Mr Dietrich,’ Leeson said. ‘And I’ll triple your fee.’
Victor backed away from the new mill’s side entrance. Fat bullet holes had been torn through it. He had the handgun up and pointed at the door, waiting for Dietrich to storm in after him. But he wasn’t taking the bait. Victor backed further away, giving Dietrich more credit, realising he’d gone for another way in or sent one or more of the Chechens to do so instead.
He entered the corridor that led to the planning room, handgun leading. The corridor ceiling had a sprinkler every three metres and Victor rushed through a continuous shower of icy water that drenched his clothes and plastered his hair to his forehead. He hadn’t seen another way in apart from the great rolling shutter doors at the front of the building, but he knew there would be another entrance in this direction, if only a fire door.
Victor hurried past the planning room and turned a corner into another bare corridor, splashing through puddles and swiping water from his face when it threatened to blind him. He heard only the spray of the sprinklers and the fire alarm’s shriek. He saw an exit sign ahead, took a final right-angle corner and saw the double doors of a fire exit ten metres away at the end of it. They had been forced open from the outside. The fire alarm had drowned out the noise.
A man was kneeling down before it. The spray from the sprinklers disguised his features, blurring the man’s face, but Victor made out easily enough the paramedic’s overalls and the weapon clutched in both hands. One of the Chechens, armed with an AK-47 that he already had aimed Victor’s way, waiting for him to appear.
Victor reacted first, diving to the side before the Chechen could fully depress the rifle’s trigger. Muzzle flashes exploded through the rain of the sprinklers. He heard the sonic snap of bullets flying past him before they took chunks out of the walls and floor. The fire alarm was temporarily muted by the roar of automatic gunfire.
He hit the floor in the adjacent corridor and scrambled to his feet, throwing his back to the wall perpendicular to the corridor where the gunman knelt, right shoulder an inch from the corner.
The shooting stopped. Victor estimated that the Chechen had released a third of his magazine of thirty rounds. It had been the panicked burst of someone surprised and untrained.
He shot again, trying to anticipate Victor’s reappearance. This time the burst was shorter and more controlled. Maybe three or four rounds. It was hard to be sure. Holes blew in the partition walls, which were made of glazed ionised aluminium covered in cheap white wallpaper. The powerful 7.62 mm rounds punched holes through them big enough for Victor to put his thumb inside. The two walls converging to form the corner behind which he hid offered no protection from the gunfire, only concealment.
The Chechen had about half a magazine of bullets left before he had to reload. Victor didn’t know the exact amount, but there were three or four bursts’ worth. If Victor made his move after the gunman had fired three he might find himself facing down the corridor, trying to make a ten-metre headshot in poor visibility against an enemy with enough ammunition left to shred him. Alternatively, if he waited until after the fourth burst that might be too long – he would be attacking against an enemy already reloaded and with thirty more rounds at his disposal.
Withdrawing wasn’t an option. If Dietrich hadn’t already entered the mill through the side entrance he would have done so by the time Victor got back there. Dietrich would have heard the gunfire. He wouldn’t wait any longer. While Victor was engaged against one enemy it would be the perfect time to attack from his flank.
Another burst sent more rounds along the corridor. One round hit the corner, tearing through both aluminium walls and passing within inches of Victor’s shoulder. He had no more time to wait.
He switched the gun to his left hand and with his back still pressed against the wall, reached across his chest and past his shoulder and pointed it around the corner.
He squeezed the trigger rapidly, adjusting his aim with each shot to spread the paths of the bullets throughout the corridor.
Victor thought he heard a scream after his seventh shot. He pivoted on his right foot and swung himself around one hundred and eighty degrees out of cover and into the adjacent corridor, his left arm extending to acquire the target.
A smear of red marked one wall, already turning orange as water from the sprinklers diluted the blood and washed it down towards the floor.
The Chechen lay on his side, right hand clutching his abdomen, the other stretching for the rifle that had dropped from his grasp and slid out of reach. The right shoulder of the paramedic’s overalls was frayed where another bullet had hit and splashed blood on the wall. That was why he’d dropped the gun, but the round to the stomach had dropped him. The fingers of his outstretched left hand wrapped around the stock of the AK and he dragged it closer.
Victor shot him between the eyes.
Dietrich walked down the corridor towards the sound of gunfire. It had stopped thirty seconds ago. He hoped he wasn’t too late. Kooi must have guessed the plan, or more likely tried to flee like the coward he was. Dietrich kept his rifle up and ready, gaze focused along the iron sights. Where he looked, the gun pointed. He breathed slow and steady in an attempt to control his soaring heart rate. He stepped over the corpse lying in the doorway of the planning room. His feet kicked up water. The sprinklers had stopped and the alarm was silent.
He moved at a fast walk. He didn’t want Kooi to get away, but neither did he want to walk into a trap. The caution was unnecessary. Kooi wasn’t inside the mill. The fire escape doors were open and before them lay the Chechen sent by Dietrich to flank Kooi. The back of the corpse’s skull was missing and fragments of bone and chunks of brain were scattered across the floor behind him. All around the body the water was stained red.
There was no evidence Kooi had been hit, but he must have fled from the fire escape. He would be rushing for the vehicles, Dietrich was sure. He turned around and headed back the way he had come. It would take less time than circling the building as his foe would be doing. With a little luck Dietrich might reach the vehicles first, or else he would catch Kooi while he tried to escape with his brood and then gun them all down in a hail of automatic fire. It would be beautiful.
He reached the main mill floor.
The lights went out.
Dietrich didn’t panic. He smiled. Kooi hadn’t looped around the mill to head for the vehicles. He’d looped around and come back in via the side entrance and killed the lights. He was playing dirty. Dietrich respected that, but it wasn’t going to matter. Dietrich had hunted and killed in the dark before. This was nothing he couldn’t handle. He stepped away from the doorway and peered into the darkness. Skylights in the roof let in a little ambient light and metal gleamed where the light touched the great hunks of machinery: presses, conveyor belts, tubes, centrifuges. Metal shelving units protruded at ninety degrees from one wall, and upon them sat pallets of shrink-wrapped bottles, empty ready for filling. Barrels and vats glinted. Convex mirrors were mounted on roof supports and on the ends of the shelving units to aid the driving of the forklift truck.
There were numerous places where no light reached and where the coward could hide. Dietrich knew he would be hiding. Kooi wouldn’t face him head on, like a man. Somewhere in the darkness, Dietrich’s prey waited. He wanted to call out, to mock Kooi, but satisfying as such a thing would be it would also needlessly give away his position. Kooi had killed a couple of the Chechens, but they weren’t experienced operators like Dietrich. Kooi knew that, which was why he was hiding now, waiting for Dietrich to make a mistake and walk into an ambush.
He took one careful step at a time, considering likely points of attack, checking them, evaluating and eliminating, then moving on. He was patient and methodical. Despite his racing heart and aggressive temperament, in combat Dietrich found peace. He felt a calmness that he could never duplicate when he was not close to killing or being killed. He’d tried to explain it once to an army shrink, but the shrink had looked at him like he was crazy. Dietrich knew he wasn’t crazy. He was simply evolved. He moved on through the darkness, all the time narrowing down the potential locations where Kooi could be hiding, all the time getting closer to the kill.
He stayed away from the dim beams of light that filtered through the skylight – to protect his night vision, which was improving with every passing second, as well as to hinder Kooi’s attempts to line up a shot.
Dietrich paused to examine his immediate surroundings. He’d searched approximately half of the main mill area. Nearby, corrugated steel drums were stacked in rows and piles that created a mini labyrinth of blind spots and areas of concealment. A good place to hide. Dietrich waited and searched with his eyes until he saw it.
The dim light coming through the skylight cast a shadow on the floor that did not belong to any manmade object. It blended into those of the drums but the dimensions were wrong. Dietrich studied the shadow and followed it back to its source – which lay behind the corner of a shelving unit stacked with bottles.
Dietrich grinned in the darkness. You’re going to have to do better than that, he thought as he edged forwards. Less than three metres to go before he was in position to strike. Just before he reached the corner, before he exposed himself to Kooi’s position, Dietrich would angle the AK and spray rounds through the pallets of bottles. Maybe he would aim low and try to incapacitate Kooi with bullets in the legs. Then he could have some fun with him. Two metres to go.
Something clattered behind him and Dietrich spun around in the direction of the sound.
His gaze swept from darkness into light focused and magnified by one of the convex mirrors. He grimaced, the light stinging his eyes with their dilated pupils and ruining his night vision. Purple spots blinded him. He pivoted back around, knowing he’d been tricked.
There was an explosion of light and sound.
Dietrich didn’t know he’d been hit at first, but he sucked in a breath and felt warm liquid in his throat. He squeezed the AK’s trigger and nothing happened. His fingers didn’t move. The spots cleared from before his eyes and he realised he was staring up at the night through the mill’s skylights.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel anything. He breathed again and liquid entered his lungs. Then Dietrich understood. He’d been shot in the neck. The bullet had ruptured his spinal cord and severed his jugular.
He lay paralysed from the neck down and drowned in his own blood.
Leeson flinched at the sound of the single gunshot and made his move. He couldn’t wait any longer. He hurried out of the old mill and ran across the open ground to where his limousine was parked, the last Chechen jogging behind him. He should have thought of it before. The moment he knew something had gone wrong he should have got inside the Phantom. The protection it offered was immense. Even the high-powered bullet storm of an AK-47 wouldn’t pierce the armoured sides or windows. Leeson had insisted on that when he had the car outfitted. His enemies were well armed, so he had to be even better protected.
He unlocked the driver’s door and tossed a set of keys to the Chechen, and instructed him to open the gate. Once it was open, Leeson shot him. He didn’t want to have to explain to the man why he wasn’t going to be striking the promised blow against the Russian imperialists he so hated.
Leeson climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut. The heavy
thunk
it made sounded divine. It meant he was safe. He turned the ignition key to start the engine and noticed the valet key was missing from the ring. Someone had taken it, but it didn’t matter now – Leeson was inside the vehicle. In the rear view monitor he saw Kooi exiting the new mill building. Leeson felt a surge of rage, but there was nothing he could do now to take revenge against the man who had destroyed months of careful planning. But that didn’t mean it was over. Leeson knew everything there was to know about Kooi’s life. He would hire people to deal with him and his family another time.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sound behind him. The partition window opened. Panic flooded through him and he twisted in his seat to see Kooi’s wife. She had a gun, pointed through the little window and at his head.
‘We can talk about this,’ Leeson said, swallowing. ‘I can make you a very wealthy woman.’
She said, ‘Put your hands over your ears, Peter, and close your eyes.’
Muir was waiting in the Piazza del Popolo before the archway of the grand sixteenth-century gate that led to the Via Flaminia. She stood sipping from a cup of coffee, dressed casually, sunglasses over her eyes. Victor had arrived early, but so had she. It was midday and the sky was blue and cloudless. The piazza was busy with Romans eating lunch and tourists taking more photographs than they could ever possibly need. They were densest around the Egyptian obelisk that stood, twenty-three metres tall, in the centre of the square, but they also congregated near the ornate fountains and before the symmetrical churches of Santa Maria del Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto. The amount of people made it more difficult to check she was really alone, but the crowd provided enough anonymity that he could take his time to be sure.
She didn’t acknowledge his presence until he was standing right next to her. He’d allowed her to see him before then.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’
‘Neither was I.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
Victor remained silent. He kept his gaze on the crowd, searching for signs of watchers he might have missed, or who had only now arrived. It was a near impossible task, but he did so all the same.
‘How are they?’
Muir blew out some air. ‘They’re doing okay, considering what they’ve both been through. There’s a long way to go, I’m sure. But we have some great people. We’ll take care of them, I promise. It was good thinking, dropping them off at the consulate. That’s made things a lot easier.’
‘What do the Italians know?’
‘Everything.’
Victor looked at her.
‘Not about you, obviously. No point trying to bluff our way out of this one when you left seven corpses at that mill.’
‘I’m only responsible for six of them.’
Muir smiled. ‘Whatever. Six or seven, it hardly makes a difference. The Italians know about the embassy plot and, unofficially at least, they’re pretty grateful not to have had a major terrorist attack in their capital. Perhaps not unsurprising when you think about it.’
‘What about the Russians?’
‘Same thing. They’re happier than the Italians. Putting four embassy security in the hospital is a lot more palatable than having a hundred staff and guests blown to pieces, ambassador and head of the SVR among them. They’ve got you on CCTV but they don’t know who you are. They’ve been told that you’re one of ours. A NOC. Which is pretty close to the truth, I guess. Prudnikov would like to thank you personally.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That you’re a very private person. He took it with a smile, and passes on his sincere appreciation.’
‘Noted.’
Muir said, ‘Lucille has asked about you.’
‘Does she know?’
‘That you killed her husband on the Agency’s behalf?’
‘Yes.’
Muir shook her head. ‘She doesn’t even know he’s dead at this point in time. They didn’t have any contact. Kooi paid her money, regular as clockwork, but she hadn’t seen him in for ever. And I’m not sure what good it would do for her to know who Kooi really was. Better for Lucille to believe this was all some big misunderstanding and that Kooi was the victim of a mugger and not killed because he was a piece-of-shit contract killer.’ She paused. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken.’
‘Listen,’ Muir said. ‘I want to say I’m sorry.’
‘I already said I didn’t take offence.’
‘Not that. I’m sorry I put you through all this. I never would have sent you after Leeson had I had any idea what you were going to walk into.’
‘Yes, you would.’
‘Okay,’ Muir conceded. ‘But I wouldn’t do it again.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m glad you came out of it in one piece.’
‘So am I.’ He started walking out of habit. He didn’t like to stand in one place for long. Muir walked alongside him. ‘Any progress on the client?’
‘There is no client. At least, the broker and client are not different people. Robert Leeson, otherwise known as Ruslan Lisitsyn. He was SVR, privileged background, educated in the UK and the US, and was hotly tipped to make director someday. He fell off the grid a couple of years ago after a botched assignment in Odessa where he was running an operation that tried and failed to kill the head of the Georgian mob. They’ve been after him ever since according to the guy you left in that trunk. He also claims Leeson’s own people set him up.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I have a theory: let’s say Lisitsyn made himself an enemy of Prudnikov, perhaps he found out something he shouldn’t, but whatever, our boy Lisitsyn was too slick for the set-up. He goes underground, only travelling by boat or car to keep hidden from his hunters in the Georgian mob and SVR. He uses his private wealth and contacts in the intelligence world to reinvent himself as a broker, but all the while working on a plan to erase the threat posed by Prudnikov without the blame turning his way. He bides his time and to make his plan into a reality he assembles a team of killers from those he’s been hiring out to other people.
‘Rome police found the body of a Clarence James Coughlin in an apartment overlooking the Russian embassy. He killed himself. Slit his own wrists. No sign that anyone else was in there with him and no trace of anyone going by the name Hart matching your description.’
Victor nodded. ‘Coughlin didn’t kill himself.’
‘I believe you. Hart’s still out there, but he must be long gone by now.’
He reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew an object wrapped in acid-free tissue paper. He handed it to Muir, who unwrapped it.
‘Would you give it to Peter for me?’ Victor asked. ‘It’s important.’
‘Sure,’ Muir said as she turned the carved wooden figurine over in her hands. ‘But it looks like it’d give the kid nightmares.’
‘It won’t. Trust me. He’ll like it.’
‘Okay. Should I tell him it’s from you?’
Victor shook his head. ‘Just say it’s a present.’
Muir nodded and rewrapped the figurine. ‘You ever thought about coming to work for us full time?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Take care of yourself, Miss Muir.’
She offered her hand and he shook it.