Better Off Dead

SEVEN

Victor opened his eyes to the view provided by his hotel room’s ceiling. No alarm had woken him. No alarm ever woke him. When his consciousness first booted up and took control of his body he needed his senses. Of those senses his hearing was the most important. He needed his ears to collect every creak of floorboards and brush of shoe on carpet and the click of a door jamb and a whisper of released breath that might save his life. Hearing could detect an enemy long before sight. Victor knew this because many times he had been the paid enemy of someone aware of his presence only when their eyes informed them. By then it was always far too late to matter.

He heard nothing that presented any cause for concern. Regardless, he removed the SIG Sauer from the front of his waistband, and kept it in hand after checking it for tampering. He wore a navy suit over a white shirt. The tie was folded and rested inside a pocket. His shoes were Oxfords, their soles brushed clean to leave no dirt or telltale residue on top the bedclothes.

The curtains were closed. The inner folds overlapped to ensure not even a sliver of the outside world could be seen, or could see in between them. A lamp cast the room in a glow of warm orange light as sight was his second-best defence. Hotel corridors were always lit, so an assassin’s eyes would struggle inside a pitch-black room, but technology could render night as day and a torch shone into eyes adjusted in that dark room would be blinded worse than by night alone.

There were three means of entry: the bedroom door, the sash window and the door leading to the en suite bathroom. The bedroom door was locked and barricaded with the room’s wardrobe. It was heavy and awkward but he was strong and patient and valued his life more than the time and energy it took to move it. It provided a nigh-on impassable barrier of greater height and width than the doorframe. He used his sense of touch to check around its feet. The indentations in the carpet did not extend beyond their dimensions. The sash window opened to a gap of less than fifteen centimetres. A skilled assailant could conceivably manipulate it to provide a large enough space to climb through, but the curtains were as he had left them and the postage-stamp size of toilet tissue had not been moved by the ripple of fabric or flow of air. He checked the bathroom door. A fine fibre of wool remained in place, stuck across the gap between door and frame, at the very bottom where it would fall quickly to the floor if the door opened and disappear against the carpet because that is where he had taken it from. A hair had once been used by professionals for the same purpose, but Victor never chose to increase the chances of leaving DNA behind. For the same reason he had stuck the fibre in place with a tiny drop of shower gel from one of the complimentary bottles and not saliva.

The bathroom window was small, but large enough for a slight man or woman to climb through. Such an entry would be his preferred route. Further from the sleeping target meant less chance of being heard, especially with a closed door in between. Victor was not slight, but a lifetime of stretching meant his joints had the limberness of a gymnast. The window’s size would not have stopped him.

He positioned himself to the side of the bathroom door, flicked on the light switch with his elbow to blind an assailant who had been waiting in the darkness as he turned the handle with his free hand, flung open the door and entered fast, gun leading, seeing it was empty then focusing on the mirror behind the sink directly opposite the open door to check no one stood behind it. Victor lowered the gun.

He was safe. At least until he stepped outside his room.

He checked the time. He’d been asleep for a little over four hours. A combination of necessity, experience and training meant he rarely slept for much longer in a single period. His body required as much rest as the next man to function at one hundred per cent, but he spread out his requirement whenever it was possible. Most assassins would elect to strike when the target was most vulnerable, and deep in the slow-wave Stage 3 of non-REM sleep was just about the best way of ensuring that. At that point the target would suffer the highest arousal threshold — the lowest chance of waking. For the majority, that point was halfway through the sleep cycle, four or five hours after drifting off, in the early hours of the morning. He made sure never to be asleep during that time and sleeping approximately four hours increased his chances of being awake when most killers would think it best to strike.

Victor stripped, stretched and exercised, then ignored the sensory deprivation of the shower and took a bath. It was freestanding, deep and long, and he could relax without his limbs bunched up. Good hotels were a huge drain on his resources but the monetary expense was almost offset by the ability to bathe in comfort.

The hotel was a beautiful Regency building with a grand façade, high ceilings and magnificent chandeliers. Exploring it for the purposes of operational security had been nothing short of a pleasure. The lack of CCTV cameras — presumably for aesthetic considerations — was also to his particular tastes. He checked out, chatting banalities with the friendly clerk so as not to appear rude and therefore memorable, and took a cab deep into the city.

He considered the unexpected email seeking his assistance while he entered a metro station, taking the train at platform three because he saw three ticket booths were open, alighting at the second stop because two other people stood like him inside the car, heading across to the southbound platform because a woman smiled at him as she approached the elevators.

A year ago he had deactivated several email accounts through which independent brokers would contact him in the days when he had worked regularly as a freelance professional. People he had never met either offered him contracts or if he had operated for them before might ask to pitch him for particularly lucrative jobs. He would only have more intimate contact with them if they had misled or betrayed him, and then they would never have contact with him — or anyone else — ever again. It had been a dangerous but profitable existence and one he had believed himself to have mastered, but ultimately the isolation that kept him alive had led to a period of servitude. A slave with a gun, he had thought of himself at that time. After that, an independent contractor. Now, he wasn’t sure what he was. Unemployed, maybe.

His last client had passed him no work recently. He didn’t know if that was noteworthy beyond a lack of jobs that required his particular talents. He wasn’t about to ask. Unemployed or not, the fallout from those contracts of the last few years — as well as those of his freelance days — meant he could not let his guard down for even a single day. His enemies were legion, and some possessed great power and means. Others did not, but a solitary bullet was the sum total of all the power any enemy would ever need. He accepted and had expected such threats. Only dead assassins had believed they could operate their trade with impunity. The astronomical fee he charged for his services reflected the danger he lived with on a day-to-day basis.

A teenage girl sitting nearby chewed on the nail of her fourth finger, so Victor disembarked the train at the fourth station. This time he elected to leave, because a keen-eyed security guard watching CCTV monitors might note he had had gone north, then south, then north again. Even a tourist wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. Especially one who didn’t look like a tourist.

Outside the station, he took a cab, pretending he didn’t speak the language, mispronouncing landmarks until the driver had some idea of where he wanted to go. He gave it ten minutes, because the last two digits of the driver’s licence number were five and two, and had him stop the car. The driver pulled over behind a BMW, so Victor took the next two right turnings because B was the second letter of the alphabet reading left to right, then continued walking, following the road he found himself upon, ignoring the next thirteen junctions as M was the thirteenth letter, before alternating left and right for the next four turnings because W was the fourth letter reading right to left.

He had detected no one, but that didn’t mean he was unobserved. If he was being followed the shadows would find no significance in his movements and ultimate location because he had never been there before and this end location was as close to a random result as any human could hope to create. The street was pedestrianised and lined with restaurants and bars. The crowd of people was dense and ever moving. It was a good place for drawing out shadows and losing them by entering one of the establishments. It was a poor location for an ambush, and until moments ago he had no idea he would be here, so any aggressors planning violence would have had no time to prepare. Nothing would happen here. For now, he was as safe as he was ever going to be.

He walked slowly along the street, listening to the sounds of joy and merriment surrounding him.

A young boy caught his eye. The kid was too young to be working in the area but old enough to be unaccompanied. His clothes were shabby and unclean, but he moved with purpose, sometimes walking fast, other times slow. The kid was malnourished and thin; the lack of calcium and calories in his diet had stunted his growth. A shame for all the obvious reasons, but beneficial for one.

The boy was a pickpocket. Victor didn’t see him make any attempts, but that was only because the boy was waiting for his best opportunity. He was patient and considered, and used his short height to good advantage. People barely noticed him, whereas in return his eye level was not far above that of trouser pockets and handbags. Victor respected the poise with which the kid conducted himself. He was a survivor. He was just like Victor had been at that age having broken out of the orphanage, living on the streets, doing what he’d had to. Surviving.

Memories were distraction, so Victor cleared his mind. He moved his wallet from his inside jacket pocket and into the left pocket of his trousers.

The kid was good. He didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. Victor respected that.

Using his knuckles, he pushed open the door to a bar he liked the look of and stepped into a wall of heat and noise. It was closer to full than empty and had a pleasant atmosphere. Victor was never concerned by the kind of trouble that bars encouraged, but he tried to steer clear of ones where it was more likely to occur. He did everything in his power to avoid a confrontation with a civilian, but a man drunkenly determined to prove his masculinity would respond with equal aggression to passivity as he would intimidation. Easier to shun those bars where such a man was likely to pass their time than try to pull a punch so that when it landed it did not kill that man.

He picked a spot at the bar and made eye contact with the barman, noting in his peripheral vision a short-haired Asian woman looking his way. Victor sipped an orange juice while he thought about the email. Subject: I need your help. The body of the message consisted of nothing but a coded phone number. He knew the number because he knew the code because he knew the man who had sent it. He didn’t have to call the number to know it was a request for a face-to-face meeting. Something Victor rarely did, and rarer still when it was requested of him. It was uncommon for people who knew him to want to spend time in his company. Especially when the previous engagement had not ended well. Victor couldn’t help but be intrigued. The person who sent it knew enough about him to know exactly how big a request it was.

The email had arrived in one of the few accounts he kept active. Scattered around the world were a number of contacts that he used to fill the gaps in his skill set that he could not afford to leave blank. Such contacts included document forgers, gunsmiths, language coaches, hackers, doctors, smugglers and experts in other specialist fields. Of those, only a handful knew the true nature of his profession, and only then because he had encountered them while plying his trade and recognised their value. He maintained certain email accounts so that he could contact them via prearranged means, but also so they could contact him on rare occasions. Some debts could not be paid in money alone.

Those accounts were hidden and protected as any could be, disguised by proxy servers and complex webs of ownership, data redirections, duplicates, decoys, encryptions and ciphers. Victor never accessed the same account more than once from the same city in the same year and regularly tested the integrity of the anonymity they provided. Any account he had the slightest doubt about would be deactivated.

One crack in his security might be all it took to put an assassin just like him on his trail or bring a police tactical team to his door. Prevention over cure was one motto he had no choice but to live by. An enemy first had to successfully track him down. Having done that, they needed to corner him while remaining undetected. And should they manage that there still remained the difficult task of actually killing him.

He had no doubt it would happen. He conducted himself as though death’s touch was only a hand’s breadth away. He would never make it to old age. Each job he undertook created more danger and added new enemies. But it was an impossible cycle to break free of. Working kept him sharp. Retirement meant the certain erosion of his skills and there was nowhere on the planet he could hide where no one could ever find him. Life was short. Time was precious. Which was why he took enjoyment from it whenever he could.

He checked to see the bar had a card reader and said, ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ to the Asian woman with the short hair.

She smiled. ‘Sure, why not?’

EIGHT

The night air was cold on Victor’s tongue. He liked winter. He liked the taste of it. He walked along the path pedestrians had carved through an ankle-high layer of snow that covered the pavement, his footprints blending into those imprinted before him. The snow was days old and crunched beneath his shoes. His breath clouded with each exhale but his hands hung loose by his hips; cold, but hands confined in warm pockets were useless.

His destination was close. He knew where it lay at the centre of a neighbourhood of social housing built during the communist era. Most had been deserted and derelict when he had last visited, years before. Now, some of the crumbling tenements had been torn down and replaced by newer buildings that were cleaner but no less unattractive than their neighbours. Cars crawled past, headlights filtering through the falling snow that kept the road white. Black slush lined the gutters, a product of the day’s traffic, now frozen.

Victor kept to the shadows, avoiding the spill of streetlights, and stopped when he was sure the two guys waiting outside the bar entrance were not regular doormen. They had the right dimensions but their coats were too expensive. He watched them for a moment. The light coming from inside the bar illuminated them well enough that Victor could estimate their ages and when they had last shaved. They didn’t see him in return. He couldn’t read their lips because they weren’t talking. They were alert and concentrating on the vehicles and pedestrians that drove and walked by.

He had expected to find guards. He would have been concerned if he hadn’t seen any. That would mean they were skilled enough to avoid his detection and had the motivation to. The two meatheads would not be the full contingent of heavies. There would be more inside the bar and others out back.

An alleyway took him to the narrow street behind the bar that ran parallel to the one in front. Two more guys stood outside the bar’s rear entrance. One leaned against a stack of crates, smoking a cigarette, but he still looked just as focused and wary as his partner or the two out front. Victor couldn’t enter the bar without first being spotted. The person he was here to meet did not want Victor getting close without being aware of it. But the guards didn’t need to be so obvious to do that. They were stationed out in the open to ensure Victor saw them. There were two reasons for this. The first was the most obvious one: it was a show of strength to dissuade him from any violent intentions he might have. The second was to say this wasn’t an ambush. The guards were in plain sight in attempt to convince him there was nothing to be concerned about.

Victor wasn’t convinced. He trusted no one. He alone would decide whether to be concerned or not, but his guard wouldn’t drop in either case.

He approached the rear entrance. His contact would have expected that and put his best men before it. Victor usually preferred to do the unexpected, but not this time. The person he was here to meet would be reassured by his calculation proving correct. He would feel confident in his management of the encounter. Victor would seem more predictable and controllable. Less dangerous. Victor liked people to think that.

He approached the two guards.

When he was twenty metres away the closest spotted him and used the back of a hand to bat the other man on the arm. Both looked Victor’s way. They straightened as he grew nearer and they were surer of his identity. They stood with feet shoulder width apart, hands by their hips but tension in their arms. He walked at a slow, measured pace, his gaze moving back and forth from one to the other. Their lips stayed closed. The one with the cigarette tossed it away. There was half an inch of white paper between the burning end and the filter. It landed on the road and extinguished.

When he was ten metres away their nerves showed. One clenched his fists. The other shuffled. Neither had spoken a word since they had spotted him. Which meant they weren’t in constant communication with those inside. Which reduced, if not eliminated, the chances of the meeting doubling as an ambush.

They were both taller than him, the first by an inch, the second by three. Both had the wide shoulders and thick arms of guys who spent a lot of time in the gym. He wasn’t sure if they swallowed or injected their anabolic steroids, but they were long-term abusers. Growth-hormone users too — they had the telltale good skin but enlarged skulls with prominent eyebrow bones and protruding abdomens full of artificially distended intestines. They were more than just muscle though. Victor’s contact only ever hired ex-military. He wanted men who could shoot as well as punch.

‘Stop right there,’ the bigger one said when Victor was less than three metres away.

Victor did as he was told. He kept his hands at his side, palms open. A passive posture.

‘You’re him, yes?’

‘That depends,’ Victor answered in Russian.

The man nodded to himself. ‘Yeah, you’re him all right.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Weapon?’

Victor shook his head.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Then you’d better search me.’ Victor held out his arms in invitation.

For a moment no one moved. Then the bigger one gestured at the shorter man to do so. He didn’t. He motioned for his companion to do the searching himself. They stared at each other, gazes and facial expressions doing the silent arguing but reaching no mutually agreeable conclusion. So neither man held a position of seniority. No one had to follow the other’s orders and neither wanted to search Victor. They had been well briefed.

He sighed loud enough to interrupt the power struggle and began unbuttoning his overcoat. Only the bottom two of the four buttons were fastened. That snapped their attention back to him. They stiffened, unsure what was happening, but Victor was moving too slowly and deliberately to be threatening. The smaller man reached into a pocket regardless, and kept it there when Victor took off the coat and let it fall to the pavement.

He stood there for a moment, passive and docile. Then, just as slowly, he held open his suit jacket. The two guards stared; concentration and confusion in their eyes.

Victor turned around on the spot, lifting the jacket tails as he gave them his back so they had an uninterrupted view of his waistband. He faced them again and exposed the linings of his empty trouser pockets. He pulled up the cuffs of his trousers, one at a time. He did the same with his sleeves.

‘See, no weapon.’

They looked at each other again, this time more relaxed as they now didn’t need to get any closer to him than they had to.

‘So, are we good?’ Victor asked with a lightness in his voice and a half smile, making fun of the situation.

The smaller man exhaled. The other shrugged. Then both nodded.

Victor extended the smile as he retrieved his overcoat from the ground. ‘Too cold for messing around longer than necessary, right, guys?’

He brushed off the snow with the back of his hand. They were smiling too now — three men finding humour after a moment of unnecessary tension.

He closed the distance to the two guards, still smiling, and held the coat out in both hands, elbows bent and near his waist, and gestured with it to the smaller of the two.

‘Hold this for me until I come back out.’

He asked no question so there was no need for the man to decide on an answer. They were all smiling and relaxed now there was no threat. The man didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think to analyse the request. He took a step nearer and reached for Victor’s coat, bringing his hand out of the pocket so he could take it in both. His fingers gripped the coat.

Victor released it, grabbed the guard’s wrists and yanked him closer.

He stumbled, off balance, into the headbutt that Victor launched at his face.

The strongest part of Victor’s body — the curve of the forehead — collided with the bridge of the man’s nose. Bone crunched. Cartilage flattened. Blood exploded from the nostrils in two downward jets and drenched the man’s shirt.

Victor sidestepped away to let him stagger forward under his own momentum. That he didn’t go straight down was testament to the man’s toughness, but unconscious or not, he would be out of the fight for as long as Victor needed him to be.

The larger man was quick to react but slow to move under the enormous weight of his unnatural musculature. He swung a well-executed punch that would break Victor’s jaw with a significant bone displacement should it connect, but it was too slow to have any chance of hitting its mark. Victor dodged it, struck the Russian in the sternum with his right fist, over the liver with his left, twisted around the man as he reeled from the blows and tried to grapple, and kicked him in the back of the knee as he turned, trying to follow Victor’s movements.

He collapsed on to his knees, breathless and grimacing. Victor wrapped his right arm around the man’s neck, bracing with the left, and squeezed until he stopped fighting and fell face first into the snow.

The other man had turned and was staggering Victor’s way, blood streaming over his mouth and raining from his chin. The Russian’s eyes were wide in an attempt to see through the haze of pain and tears. He threw a straight punch that Victor slipped, stepping inside the man’s reach and hitting him on the point of the chin with an open-palmed strike. His head snapped back and he dropped next to the other guard.

He patted them down, finding phones and crushing them under his heel. Both were armed — Baikal handguns and telescopic coshes. Victor tossed the weapons down a nearby storm drain. The two guys would wake up within a few minutes or not at all. It made no difference to Victor. He hadn’t tried to kill them, but he hadn’t tried not to.

He pulled open the bar’s back door and stepped inside.

NINE

The air was hot and heavy and loud. There was no music playing, but the dense mass of people, discretion eroded by alcohol, all shouted to be heard over each other. It was warm, heating on full blast to fight off the winter outside, and several dozen people packed inside, drinking and eating bar food. Coat stands near the main entrance were overloaded. A barman mixed cocktails while flirting with a group of young women in heels that could easily kill if employed with a modicum of skill. He wore a bowtie. An ice sculpture of what Victor guessed used to be a naked woman slowly melted behind the bar. The patrons wore stylish clothes and business attire, now wrinkled and dishevelled after a few hours of post-work partying. Victor had never had a day job. He’d never worked nine-to-five. He knew he would go insane confined in an office all day. Assuming he wasn’t already insane.

There were no unoccupied tables and only enough room at the bar itself for one elbow. That wasn’t an accident. The man he was here to meet could have selected any number of quieter locations. He wanted to be surrounded by people. This time it was purely for his own protection and nothing to do with trying to convince Victor his intentions were not angled towards violence.

Experience suggested to Victor this wasn’t a set-up. Had he any intimation that it was, he wouldn’t have come this far. But he maintained a heightened vigilance. He kept himself ready to act — to fight and run. In his line of work it was the unexpected that was most dangerous. There was nothing to lose if taken by surprise by innocent actions.

Dropping the two outside had been insurance. If he had to make a fast exit he would not be interrupted going out of the rear entrance. Or, should things go bad before he had the opportunity to get out, there would be two less goliaths to flank him. A quick scan of the room revealed another four guards. They were all as big and serious-looking as the two standing out front or the two prostrate ones out back had been. That made a security detail of eight. A serious display of strength, but Victor had expected more. If there were others here he hadn’t identified or if they were hidden elsewhere, things could get ugly. But if eight was the total, then so far the situation was manageable. He’d already disabled twenty-five per cent of the opposition.

The closest stood up, surprised and unsettled as he noticed Victor without a heads-up from the sentries outside the rear entrance. The guard called out to be heard over the din of patrons and gestured to a nearby guard, who then did the same to another. Within twenty seconds all four were standing and staring Victor’s way. They were aggressive and ready to attack, but restrained — attack dogs behind a fence.

Victor made eye contact with each in turn so they knew he was aware of them and approached the corner booth they shielded in a loose semi-circle. He weaved his way through the crowd and between tables. He was intercepted by one of the guards. He was a giant, even compared to the rest of the security detail. He was a shade off six-six and almost three hundred pounds. He’d been around twenty pounds lighter when Victor had first met him a couple of years beforehand. He’d also been somewhat less ugly.

‘How’s the ear, Sergei?’ Victor asked.

To his credit, Sergei maintained an even expression. He pivoted his head to the right so Victor could see his right ear. It was twisted and unsightly where it had been sewn back together with a ragged knot of discoloured scar tissue across the centre.

Victor said, ‘You can’t even tell.’

Sergei frowned. The bunched-up jaw muscles looked as though they might pop through the skin. He gestured for Victor to raise his arms.

‘I was searched outside.’

‘And now we are inside,’ Sergei countered. ‘So raise your hands. Please.’

Victor did. He stood motionless while he was patted down. Sergei’s hands were huge and his technique was rough, but also effective. He now knew Victor had no weapon and to which side he dressed.

Sergei said, a measure of surprise in his tone, ‘You’re clean.’

‘Then why do I feel so dirty?’

Something resembling a smile creased Sergei’s face. ‘Some of the boys had a bet on whether you’d show.’

‘Did you?’

‘I don’t gamble. I’m not stupid. But I didn’t think you would.’

Victor waited a moment in case Sergei had anything else to say, then asked, ‘Are we done?’

‘I want to tear your face off.’

‘You’ll have to join the queue, I’m afraid.’

He stepped past Sergei, who did nothing to stop him, and approached the booth where Aleksandr Norimov sat.

TEN

Norimov was nearly as big as the guys guarding him but he was more out of shape than Victor had ever seen him. The once huge shoulders now relied on the pads of the good suit to square his posture. That suit did its best to conceal the excess bulk stored elsewhere but couldn’t disguise the white shirt stretched taut across his stomach. Light pooled on the Russian’s bald head. The face beneath was lined and pale. His expression was blank. He knew how to hide his thoughts as well as Victor. He had been a good intelligence officer before turning to organised crime. He could have been scared or delighted or anything in between. Victor wouldn’t know until he started talking. Maybe not even then. He reminded himself that Norimov was perhaps the best liar he had ever known.

The Russian acknowledged Victor with a slight raise of the chin. ‘You’re earlier than I expected.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Even after your call, I didn’t think you’d really show.’

‘Neither did I.’

Norimov nodded, thoughtful. ‘Thank you for doing so.’

Victor said nothing to that.

Sergei stood close by, behind Victor. Within grabbing distance, should he need to.

To Norimov’s right, a young woman at least twenty-five years his junior slouched on the cushioned bench. She was barely clothed and heavily made up. Her chin was close to her chest. She didn’t look up but Victor could see the struggle it was for her to keep her eyelids from closing. A few millilitres of a cosmopolitan with a sliver of burnt orange rind sat in the bottom of a martini glass on the table before her.

‘Give us some privacy,’ Norimov said to Sergei.

He hesitated. ‘Are you sure, boss?’

‘I said so, did I not?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘And take Nadia with you.’

Victor stepped aside to let Sergei pass, one arm wrapped around Nadia’s tiny waist and carrying her as effortlessly as Victor would an attaché case. She made a low murmur, but no words passed her lips. Her arms and legs hung as loose as her hair.

‘Charming lady,’ Victor said as he slid on to the padded bench opposite Norimov.

The Russian sat back, and in doing so gave Victor the first indication of his mindset: he was instinctively creating distance, because he was afraid. Or pretending to be. Scared or calculating and manipulative. There was no way of knowing.

‘I hate bars like this,’ Norimov said. ‘We’ve adopted the West’s pretension with a disturbing amount of relish. A bar should be a hole. It should be a dark, squalid place full of stinking, hairy men. You should go there to get drunk and talk nonsense and fight, not sip cocktails and pose half-naked.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t think you would come.’

‘You’ve already said that.’

‘Take it as an indicator of my surprise that you’re here. I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘You said something similar when last we met.’

‘I did?’ He sighed again. ‘You don’t know it yet, and no one ever told me at your age, but eventually you’ll reach a point in life where you have no new thoughts; you experience no new sensations. Everything you do, everything you say, you’ve done and said a thousand times before. And then you have the indignity of spending the rest of your days as a broken fucking record.’

He pushed the martini glass to one side, using the back of his hand out of the same habit as Victor had. There were no other glasses on the table.

Norimov said, ‘I apologise for the language.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘I forgot how you feel about it. I truly am sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘What was it you used to say? Swearing is an expression of anger. When we swear we’re admitting we’ve lost control. Something like that, right?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Sounded like rubbish then. Now, I’m not so sure. You might have a point. Your Russian is still excellent, by the way. I thought it might have suffered with your absence.’

Victor didn’t comment. He caught the gaze of a waitress who had finished serving a nearby table and motioned her over. He said to Norimov, ‘You don’t mind if I eat, do you?’

The Russian looked shocked, but shook his head. ‘You never cease to amaze me, but be my guest.’

‘Hi,’ the waitress said.

Victor said, ‘Can I trouble you for a steak, please?’

‘Of course you can. How do you want that cooked?’

‘Extra rare.’

The waitress raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Extra rare?’

‘If it’s not still mooing, then I’m sending it back.’

She smiled, but he didn’t know if she thought he was funny or crazy. Either was acceptable. ‘Anything to drink with that?’

‘Black tea and a large bourbon — whatever’s cheapest. No ice.’

She scribbled the order down on a little pad. ‘Sure.’

Norimov shook his head when she faced him. After she’d left, he said to Victor, ‘There’s no reason to slum it. Drink whatever you want. I’ll get the bill. I’d planned to cover all your expenses. You can have a bottle, if you want.’

‘That isn’t necessary.’ He gestured to the empty tabletop before Norimov. ‘It’s not like you to be without a Scotch.’

‘I don’t drink.’

‘Since when?’

Norimov shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A while.’

‘Then why meet in a bar?’

‘You know why.’

‘I know two reasons why,’ Victor said. ‘But they’re not mutually exclusive.’

‘Then why even come if you’re convinced I want you dead?’

‘Let’s call it curiosity.’

‘Curiosity?’

‘You know me well enough to know I’d expect an ambush. And the last thing you want is for me to think this is an ambush. It’s far too soon for you to have forgotten what happened when you helped organise that attempt on my life.’

Norimov shifted on his seat. ‘You must know I had no choice.’

‘You mean when you set me up? There’s always a choice.’

‘If you really believe that then why are you here?’

‘I have nothing better to do.’

‘If that’s true, Vasily, then I feel sorry for you.’

Victor started to rise from his seat. ‘I’m happy to go and find something more fun, if you’re so concerned about me. The manager of my hotel finishes her shift soon.’

Norimov tensed. His eyes widened. ‘No, no. I’m sorry, Vasily… Please stay.’

Victor sat back down. Test complete and a little more knowledge of the situation acquired.

‘It is still Vasily, isn’t it?’ Norimov asked.

‘You know it’s not. I haven’t used that name for a long time.’

Norimov placed his palms on the tabletop and shuffled into a more comfortable position. ‘You should stick with it. I like it. It suits you.’

‘It served me well enough in its time, but that time has passed. A name is just a tool and no tool endures for ever.’

‘I don’t know how you do it. Who do you see when you look in the mirror?’

‘I see the specular reflection of light.’

Norimov huffed and almost smiled. A few years ago he would have laughed. Victor was curious as to what had changed.

‘Let me pay for your meal. Please. It’s the least I can do after you’ve come all this way to see me. I know you’ve put yourself at risk.’

‘Every day carries risk. This is no different.’

‘Regardless, I appreciate it.’ When Victor didn’t respond, Norimov said, ‘So what shall I call you?’

‘Vasily, of course.’

‘“Of course” he says, as though there is no other option; as if there is no other name you go by; as if there are not a hundred of them.’

‘One name is as good as any other.’

‘Tell that to my father,’ Norimov said. ‘He named me after Alexander the Great. He believed that a name defines who we are. He believed naming me Alexander would mean I strived for the greatest.’

‘And did you?’

Norimov smirked a little. ‘Maybe once. But it was a heavy mantle to wear around one’s neck. Maybe I…’ He stopped himself and regarded Victor for a moment. ‘I wonder what your father thought when you were named.’

‘I don’t believe I had a father.’

‘Mother then.’

‘I don’t believe I had one of those either.’

Norimov smiled. ‘How’s that uncle of yours?’

‘I buried him a long time ago.’

‘Did you. ⁠. . ⁠?’

Victor shook his head.

Norimov said, ‘You should have.’

Victor didn’t respond.

‘If I remember correctly you chose Vasily because of the sniper. Yes? Vasily Zaytsev, wasn’t it? I seem to recall you always had your head in some book about some old war or soldier.’

‘Reading is exercise for the mind.’

‘People used to be terrified of the name Vasily. Sometimes just saying it was enough to get what I wanted. You were a legend, my boy.’

‘The reason I left.’

‘I know.’ Norimov’s gaze seemed to peer through him, as if he could read the lie as easily as he could lie himself. Then the Russian’s face softened and he said, ‘It was the right thing to do. That reputation, that infamy, was going to get you killed eventually. Good that you realised that before it was too late.’

‘A lesson I’m never going to forget.’

‘You enjoyed it for a while though, didn’t you? Vasily the Killer. Death himself.’

‘The arrogance of youth.’

‘The young should be arrogant. If we’re not full of ourselves when we don’t know any better, then when can we be?’ Norimov sat back. ‘You’re a little bigger than when I last saw you. In a good way, I mean. You look good, generally. You look healthy.’

‘You don’t.’

The Russian turned up a corner of his mouth. ‘I stopped drinking. I stopped taking care of myself. I stopped doing a lot of things.’

‘No wonder you look so happy.’

He grunted. ‘And what about you, my boy? How are you spending your life? And don’t say work. Even you take time off now and again.’

‘In the solace of wine, women and the certain knowledge that life is pointless.’

‘That sounds uncharacteristically melancholy of you.’

‘You haven’t seen the women.’

Norimov chuckled — a deep throaty sound.

Victor said, ‘I thought you’d given up laughing too.’

The smile slipped from Norimov’s face. Victor stared at him for a moment. Norimov looked old. He was some ten years Victor’s senior, but in that instant he seemed double that. His skin had always been pale, but now it was also thin and fragile. His eyes, small and permanently shadowed in deep sockets, were dull. The only sign of life in them was pain and fear.

‘What’s this about, Alex?’

Norimov didn’t answer straight away. His lips parted and he inhaled, but only a sigh escaped them. He tried again, and said, ‘Someone wants me dead.’

ELEVEN

Victor said, ‘I know how they feel.’

‘I’m being serious.’

‘So am I.’

The Russian stared back. He wasn’t angry. He was sad. Sad at the truth in the words. Victor had never seen him like this.

‘Tell me,’ he said.

Norimov nodded and reached down to the seat next to him. He picked up a folded newspaper and unfolded it on to the table between them, revealing the backside of a sheet of photographic paper. He gestured towards it.

Victor didn’t need to use just his fingernails to avoid leaving fingerprints on the paper, but he did so anyway. He didn’t want Norimov to know that he regularly coated his hands in a silicon solution that dried to leave a transparent waterproof barrier on his skin that prevented oil from his fingertips leaving prints behind on whatever he touched. Norimov knew more about Victor’s past than he liked anyone to know and he didn’t want that knowledge updated.

The light caught the glossy surface as Victor flipped it over. It was a black-and-white print, shot from an elevated position, looking down on the entrance to a restaurant on the opposite side of the street. Victor knew the establishment. It was one of Norimov’s businesses, or at least it had been in the days when Victor called Russia home — as much as anywhere would ever be known as such. It was a daytime shot of a car pulled up outside the restaurant’s entrance. A tall, heavy man was approaching the vehicle, coming from inside the restaurant: Norimov. Another, bigger man — his driver or bodyguard — was holding the car’s nearside rear door open for him.

It could have been a surveillance photograph taken by the St Petersburg police or Russian domestic intelligence. But it wasn’t because of the Cyrillic script that had been scrawled across it in red marker pen.

‘Smert,’ Norimov said. ‘Death.’

‘I know what it means.’ Victor put the photograph down. ‘Which of your rivals sent it?’

Norimov shrugged. ‘Any of them. All of them. I don’t know. But it doesn’t have to be another outfit. This could be personal. It could be anyone. Who knows how many people I’ve wronged? I’m talking to one of them right this moment.’ Victor sat still. ‘Maybe ten years ago I had some dipshit dealer executed for ripping me off. Now, his kid’s all grown up and he wants payback for his dead daddy.’

‘It must have happened before. You’ve made more enemies than me. You’re still here though, aren’t you?’

‘This is different.’

‘Why?’

Norimov hesitated. He opened his mouth to speak, but the waitress returning with Victor’s order interrupted him. She placed the steak down before Victor and the tumbler of Scotch next to his plate. Cutlery and condiments followed. He thanked her.

Norimov stared at the steak for a moment. ‘I remember you preferred it more burnt than bloody.’ He met Victor’s gaze.

‘You remember right.’

‘Extra rare so you would get it quickly.’

‘Correct,’ Victor said and lifted his glass.

‘Why the cheap liquor?’

‘I hate to waste the good stuff.’

Norimov frowned. ‘Waste it?’

‘That’s right.’

The frown lines deepened. ‘I don’t. ⁠. . ⁠’ He looked at Sergei standing nearby, watching, but from a discreet distance. Then he looked at the back door through which Victor had entered.

For cheap whiskey it really wasn’t bad. Victor kept the tumbler in hand.

Norimov clicked his fingers to get Sergei’s attention and motioned to the bar’s rear entrance.

‘Everything okay?’ Victor asked.

Norimov ignored him. He spoke to Sergei. ‘Have Ivan come in here.’

Sergei stood to pass on the order to someone else so he could stay in close proximity to his boss. He shouted at the nearby man to be heard over the other patrons.

Victor’s untouched steak cooled before him. He held the glass in a high grip, his thumb and index finger circling the circumference near the rim.

The back door opened. The bigger of the two men Victor had knocked out entered, hurrying but stumbling, his expression full of urgency and anger but his sense not quite returned.

‘What did you do?’ Norimov asked, head pivoting to look at Victor.

‘What I had to.’

Sergei turned too as his hand slipped inside his coat. He made eye contact with Victor in time to see him hurl the tumbler.

The heavy bottom of the glass struck Sergei in the face. His head snapped back and blood splattered on the table next to him. He stumbled and fell into it.

Victor grabbed the steaming cup of black tea — served hotter than coffee — and tossed it into the path of one of Norimov’s men as he shot from his chair and rushed to intercept. He screeched and put his hands to his scalded face.

Patrons closest to the commotion sat frozen with shock or backed away. Those further from the mêlée were slower to react, the volume of loud chatter and merriment disguising the sounds of violence.

In his time as a government agent Norimov had been fast for his size, but that had been some fifteen years ago. Now, he was older, fatter and slower. He was only standing after Victor had grabbed the steak knife from the tabletop; only reaching for his own weapon as Victor flipped the table over between them; only gripping the gun in the underarm rig as Victor sprang towards him.

With steroid-bloated thugs guarding him for the best part of a decade Norimov was so out of practice that he was powerless to stop Victor disarming him of the pistol, locking his arm behind his back and putting the sharp tip of the steak knife to his throat, directly over the carotid.

‘WAIT,’ Norimov yelled to his uninjured men, up from their seats and powering forward to aid their boss.

The volume of Norimov’s voice commanded the attention of the whole bar. Shocked and horrified faces stared. Norimov’s men did as ordered, coming no closer but tensed and ready to charge.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ Norimov asked.

‘That’s the only reason I’m here.’

A swallow. Heavy breathing. ‘Then why haven’t you yet?’

‘I’m in no particular rush.’

The Russian was breathing fast because he was scared, but he was keeping his composure because he knew he would never see another dawn if he succumbed to panic. ‘If you kill me you’ll never get out of here alive.’

‘I killed you just by ordering dinner. Now that I have a gun in my hand I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay.’

‘Pretty sure?’

‘I was being modest.’

‘Just hear me out,’ Norimov said. ‘Afterwards, if you want me dead, I’ll make it easy for you.’

‘I’m not sure you could make it any easier.’

Victor could feel Norimov’s pulse vibrating through the knife.

‘Please, Vasily. Hear me out. Please.’

‘You once told me that you’d rather die than beg.’

‘I would. If the choice was to beg you for mercy or have that blade buried in my neck, I would gladly thrust myself upon it.’

Victor hesitated. He resisted asking the obvious question and Norimov swallowed, then answered it:

‘But I’m not begging for my life. I’m begging for the life of my daughter.’

TWELVE

Victor, gaze fixed on Norimov’s guards, said, ‘You don’t have a daughter.’

‘She’s Eleanor’s daughter. From her first marriage. She had her long before she met me.’

Victor kept the knife point against Norimov’s pulsing carotid artery. ‘You mentioned no stepdaughter to me.’

‘I never invited you into my home, either. That didn’t mean I slept on the street.’

It was a good point. Victor’s eyes flicked between the Russian guys, telling each one he was watching and would give them no opportunity to act without him knowing.

‘Do you mind taking this blade from my throat?’ Norimov asked.

‘It stays. You’re auditioning for your life, so keep talking.’

‘Okay,’ Norimov said. ‘Are you really surprised I didn’t tell you about Gisele? I always considered you a friend, Vasily, but that didn’t mean I forgot you were a paid murderer.’

Victor nodded. He understood. He would never trust anyone in this business with personal information, least of all about a loved one. But even so, he didn’t like it that Norimov had not trusted him in return.

‘Under no circumstances would I have hurt your family.’

Norimov didn’t respond to that. Whether he believed Victor or not was irrelevant now. Sergei and the other heavies were still braced and ready to attack should Victor thrust the knife into Norimov’s neck. People were filing out of the bar’s front and rear entrances. Some were too scared to move. Others were enjoying the show.

Victor said: ‘If you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about your daughter back then when I had no reason to harm you, why tell me now when I have all the reason I could ever need?’

‘Because this threat is not limited to me. You know how things work here. They aren’t just coming to kill me. They want to destroy me. If they have their way they will erase me from existence and anyone I care about too. They’ll kill my men. They’ll burn down my businesses. After I’m gone they’ll rip out the tongue of anyone who dares mention my name. I’ll be nothing but a memory. The best way to do that is to take Gisele and use her to get to me. Which will work, won’t it? If they have her I’ll do anything they want to save her. But that won’t work, will it? After they’ve used her to get to me then they’ll kill her too. I could cut off my own head and they still wouldn’t show her mercy. That Gisele does not share my blood is irrelevant. She is my stepdaughter — my daughter — and she is marked for death because she had the misfortune of having a mother who married a criminal.’

Victor remained silent.

‘Now do you understand why I asked you to come?’

‘Yes,’ Victor said, easing the knifepoint away from Norimov’s neck. ‘You’ve convinced me. I’m not going to kill you tonight. I can’t promise the same will be true tomorrow.’

The tension left Norimov’s muscles. He looked over the sparse crowd of remaining patrons and bar staff. ‘Maybe we should find somewhere else to continue this conversation.’

‘Agreed.’

Norimov stepped away from the booth.

‘What are you doing?’ Victor asked. Before Norimov could respond, he added, ‘You said you’d pay for my meal.’

Norimov’s eyebrows rose and his lips parted, but he reached for his wallet.

‘Leave a nice tip,’ Victor said.

An alley lay off the street at the back of the bar. It was an uneven, twisting gap between two tall buildings. Bags of rubbish were strewn throughout. Victor stood with Norimov in the shadows at its centre. Even in the darkness Norimov looked tired and scared. Victor wasn’t used to seeing him that way. He didn’t like it, but it reminded him why he had no one in his life. He would never look as Norimov did now.

‘Whoever is out there thirsting for my blood can take it for all I care. My whole life I’ve been a criminal. Whether I worked for the crooks who run this country, or for myself. My list of offences is too long to remember. I am, and always have been, a wicked man. When my death comes, however it comes, I will know with utmost certainty that I deserve it. But not Gisele. She has not committed a wrong in her entire life. When she was young, when I first knew her mother, I kept my business a secret from her. But children are curious and eventually she worked out how her stepfather could afford to buy her everything she desired. Then, she hated me. She’s never stopped hating me.’

‘If you don’t know who wants you dead, why contact me?’

‘I want you to protect her.’

‘How can I protect her if you don’t know where the threat is coming from?’

‘Because you are a killer. Because every time you go to work you dance on Death’s scythe. Because your enemies are everywhere and your allies non-existent, yet still you stand before me. True, I don’t know who will come for Gisele and I, but I do know that when they do you can kill them before they kill her.’

‘You have plenty of men working for you. Why do you need me?’

‘When you last worked for me I had more than thirty good men in this city and beyond. Men who would risk their lives for me, not just because I paid them, but out of respect. When you came to see me at my train yard there were no more than twenty who would still show me such loyalty. Now, I have ten, just ten men who I can rely upon to follow my orders. Of those, only two I trust enough to be alone with. Once, I was a general with an army. Now, I’m a thug in a suit trying to convince the other thugs that I’m still worth protecting. I have already been usurped by those with bigger balls and stronger stomachs. The Aleksandr Norimov you once knew would laugh at what I have become. Too old, too weak to rule. Now, the vultures circling overhead are not patient enough to wait until I’m dead before they swoop down to feast on my remains.’

‘You’re asking the wrong man to pity you.’

‘Asking you for pity would be like asking a fox to guard the hens. I’m not asking for that. I’m asking for help.’

‘Then sell everything you can, take Gisele, and go. Get out of St Petersburg. Leave Russia far behind. They won’t find you if you know what you’re doing; I’ll tell you how. And they won’t try if you don’t give them a reason.’

Norimov was shaking his head even before Victor had finished. ‘No. I have to stay here. I must learn who has initiated this vendetta, otherwise Gisele will never be safe. I’m not like you. I can’t live the life of a fugitive and I won’t ask Gisele to either. And if I did opt to run, she would never come with me. She would not see past her hatred of me to be convinced of the need until she was staring into the barrel of the gun pointed at her head.’

‘Then you put both your lives at risk.’

‘Not if you do as I ask.’ Norimov stared at Victor. ‘Not if you protect her while I do what I have to do. I have been a bastard all of my life. When I first fell in love with Eleanor, I did so despite her daughter. I never cared for Gisele. I never cared that she grew to hate me. But if I could change anything, I would be a better father to her. I would…’ He took a breath to compose himself. ‘I can’t change the past. But I can try to change the future. Once this threat has been dealt with then I’m getting out of this life for good. I’ll go somewhere far away and never put Gisele at risk again.’

‘There’s no guarantee you’ll find out who is coming after you, nor that you can neutralise the threat even if you do.’

‘Do you think I don’t already know that, Vasily? But I have to try. My organisation may be a crippled shadow of its former power, but I still have eyes and ears spread throughout this city. Given enough time and enough expenditure I can uncover any secret. But I can’t do that and protect Gisele at the same time.’

‘And what happens when you learn who your enemies are? How do you defeat them when by your own admission you have only a fraction of your former strength?’

Norimov said nothing, but his eyes answered.

‘I can’t fight a war for you,’ Victor said. ‘Even if I wanted to.’

‘Then don’t. Just keep Gisele safe until it ends. Whatever that end is.’

Victor looked away. ‘You’re asking me to risk my life for someone I’ve never met on the request of someone who conspired to have me killed.’

‘No,’ Norimov said, reaching out a hand to grip Victor’s shoulder but stopping himself — whether through fear of what Victor would do should contact be made or simple hesitation, Victor didn’t know. ‘No,’ Norimov said again. That’s not what I’m asking. At least, that’s not how I’m asking.’

‘You’re not making any sense.’

‘I know you won’t help me after what I did to you, even if the distaste of an innocent’s death could pierce that black heart of yours.’

‘Then why ask?’

‘Because my dead wife can’t ask you instead.’

Victor stood as still as he could. He knew what was coming.

Norimov continued: ‘You have no loyalty to me any longer, I get that. I understand it. I don’t blame you. I always told you to never forgive a betrayal. No doubt that lesson has kept you alive more than once. But what did Eleanor ever do to warrant you turning your back on her daughter?’

Victor didn’t answer. Eleanor’s beautiful face flashed in his mind’s eye. Smiling, as always.

‘She was kind to you, was she not?’

‘That’s because she didn’t know who I was — who I am.’

‘And she died still believing you were the good man you pretended to be. I did not tell her otherwise.’

‘Thank you for that.’

Norimov was silent for a moment. The soles of his shoes scraped on the ground as he paced. When he turned back, he said, ‘She talked about you, from time to time.’

Victor waited. It took all of his will to keep his thoughts on the present exchange to stop doors opening in his mind that he had shut and locked long ago. He didn’t want Norimov to see any more than he wanted himself to feel.

‘She didn’t understand why you had to leave the way you did. Just like she didn’t understand why you never came back.’

Norimov stepped a little closer. The instinct to back away was strong. Victor managed to fight it. ‘From time to time in the first couple of years after you’d gone, although she always denied it, I would catch her crying. I only worked out why once she’d died. At least, I didn’t allow myself to before then.’

Victor did everything in his power not to blink. In a way, it didn’t matter. Norimov knew. Whatever Victor did or said made no difference now.

The Russian stood close enough for Victor to feel the warmth of his breath. ‘Tell me, Vasily, if Eleanor was alive and standing before you as I am now, would you turn down her request for help? If she stared into your eyes and begged you to save her daughter’s life, would you even pause long enough to take a single breath?’

‘I… I need time to think about this.’

‘No,’ Norimov hissed, poking Victor in the chest with a finger he should have snapped, but could not bring himself to. ‘There is no time for fucking deliberation. You answer me now, you piece of shit, or you walk away from here and condemn my daughter — Eleanor’s daughter — to death.’

He had looked sad and scared earlier, but now he was desperate and angry. He was no longer afraid of Victor because he feared for Gisele above himself. He hated Victor and needed him. Victor could hear the shuffle of footsteps and crunch of snow on the side street between the alleyway and the bar where Sergei and another of Norimov’s men waited. They were anxious because of their boss’s raised voice.

‘ANSWER ME,’ Norimov yelled.

Saliva struck Victor’s face. Around him, the wind howled. The sky above was black and starless.

‘ANSWER ME,’ Norimov yelled again.

Victor did.

THIRTEEN

‘Okay.’ Victor nodded. ‘For Eleanor.’

‘Thank you,’ Norimov said, words expelled on the rush of a heavy sigh. ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me. I’m doing this for Eleanor.’

‘I don’t care why you’re doing it. Just that you are.’

‘Where is Gisele?’

Norimov shook his head. ‘I… I don’t know. She lives in London, as far as I’m aware.’

‘As far as you’re aware?’

‘She hasn’t spoken to me in years, and I don’t where she is. I tried to contact her straight away but I can’t reach her. She’s missing.’

‘Then you need to consider she might already be dead.’

‘No,’ Norimov hissed through bared teeth. ‘Not yet. She’s still alive, I know she is. If those bastards who sent me that photograph had killed her, they would mail me a box containing her heart. And if they had her, I would already have received the footage of them torturing her. Until that happens, I have to believe she’s out there and okay.’

‘How am I meant to protect her when you don’t know where she is?’

‘You can track her down, Vasily. I know you can. Not even the most elusive of targets could hide from you when you had their scent. Go to London and find my daughter before those animals do.’

Victor nodded. ‘After I’ve done this I never want to hear from you again.’

‘Of course. Anything you want. Just please help my daughter.’

‘I’ll take the first flight in the morning. Let me have a number I can contact you on. I’ll update you as and when I learn anything.’

‘Yes, yes. Absolutely. We’ll do it your way.’

‘Tell me exactly what has taken place since you received the threat.’

‘As soon as the photograph arrived I sent one of my men to London. He’s been looking for Gisele for the past week, but he’s an enforcer, not a detective. When you arrive, he can help you. He’ll meet you at the airport. I have a place where you can stay there. Everything will be provided for you.’

‘No. I’ll make my own arrangements. You can give me his number and I’ll contact him after I’ve arrived.’

‘There’s no reason for you to be concerned about me or my men.’

‘Do you think I would have agreed to find Gisele if I was concerned?’

‘Then why the precautions?’

‘Because I would be dead without them.’

Norimov listened, then nodded. ‘Sure, I understand. I can give you money to help with your expenses. I don’t know how long this will take. I don’t want you out of pocket on my account.’

‘I’m not doing it for you, remember?’

‘I’m not likely to forget. If Eleanor was here, she would insist and you would take the money instead of offending her.’

Norimov reached into his coat. He had a shrink-wrapped brick of hundred-dollar bills. A glance told Victor the brick contained one hundred bills. ‘It’s clean.’

‘Regardless,’ Victor said. ‘I don’t carry that much cash.’

‘Your choice,’ Norimov said, putting the brick away again.

‘You do realise that they might have her already? They might be keeping her alive while they smuggle her back to St Petersburg. Better leverage that way, and here is where they are strongest. That’s what I would do. I would call you and make her scream down the phone for you to save her and I would tell you to come alone — and you would.’

Norimov put his face in his hands. ‘For all my crimes, I have never been so sadistic. I am a sickly lamb surrounded by wolves because my compassion is weakness. Ironic, because my criminality bred Gisele’s hatred of me. Had I been crueller, she would now be safe.’

‘Almost certainly,’ Victor agreed. ‘You forgot the first rule.’

The Russian stared at him, red-eyed and weak. ‘Survival before everything. I know. I did forget. I allowed myself a life. But is it worth it, Vasily? Is surviving enough?’

Victor thought about all the corpses he had seen; all the dead faces of those who had failed to survive because he had instead.

‘Each breath is worth it.’