The Darkest Day

THIRTY-SEVEN

He turned side on and smashed the driver’s window of the closest car with an elbow. Glass shattered into hundreds of pebbles that scattered across the car’s interior. The intruder alarm sounded, loud and shrill. He ignored it and pulled open the door before he tore away the housing from the steering column, separated out the correct cables, exposed the copper wires and crossed them.

The starter motor whined into life and the engine rumbled.

White smoke from the spinning tyres mixed with exhaust vapour and Victor shot out from the parking space.

A black Audi sped towards him. In his rear-view mirror he saw the silhouette of the passenger lean out of the open window.

A muted flash of yellow flared in the darkness and glass cracked in the rear windscreen, ruining his line of sight via the rear-view mirror.

Victor ducked down as far as he could while still being able to see where he was going. More bullets struck the car, punching holes in glass and bodywork. But they were subsonic rounds; the damage was superficial.

A white minivan screeched to a stop ahead of him, blocking the route out. The sliding panel door opened to reveal a man in a dark jacket and woollen hat.

He had a UMP sub-machine gun clutched in both hands, muzzle swinging Victor’s way.

He released the accelerator, hit the brakes and swung the steering wheel, sliding the car to a stop so the passenger side faced the gunman, putting as much space and metal between Victor and the automatic weapon as possible.

He threw open the driver’s door and was diving out into the haze of tyre smoke as the shooting started.

The UMP was a fierce weapon and heavy .45 calibre rounds thumped into the car, which continued to slide, leaving crazed lines of burnt rubber on the smooth floor, before it spun and veered into a parked SUV.

Victor slid as well, rolled and scrambled to his feet, then ran as the gunman saw him and changed his aim, fire spitting from the UMP’s muzzle as the weapon tracked Victor’s run.

Fat holes appeared in nearby cars and fragments blew from exploding window glass as he reached the exit and darted through the door into the stairwell beyond.

Victor made it outside, coming on to Fifth Avenue to a chorus of horns. Traffic was gridlocked as far as he could see. He saw no accident or other incident to explain it until he noticed the traffic lights were neither green, amber nor red. The power was out here too.

A huge inconvenience to all those stuck in unmoving traffic, but a benefit to him because he was on foot and his enemies could not follow him out of the parking garage in vehicles. He saw worried civilians looking in his direction or hurrying away from the entrance. Word of gunshots had spread fast. A cop was talking into a radio and heading his way.

I see him, Victor read on the cop’s lips.

It was too fast for his description to have filtered from witnesses or CCTV to an operator and been passed to a dispatcher and then to officers on patrol. Something else was going on.

He glanced around. He could see no lights at all from any building. Daylight was fading but the electricity seemed to be cut as far as the eye could see. Maybe the whole city had lost power.

He dashed out into the street and between the stationary cars. On the opposite pavement a woman wearing a bright blue tunic and hat tried to stop him to talk about the charity she volunteered for. She laughed as he took her by the shoulders when she held open her arms in a comic bid to block his path. She stopped laughing when he pushed her out of the way.

He headed across a small plaza where tourists took photographs of one another by statues, and business people drank coffee and toyed with their phones. He maintained pace, resisting the instinct to break into a run. They had vehicles. He could not outrun them. His best chance was to hide and wait and slip away unnoticed.

He headed deeper into the crowd. The more people, the more chance of going unnoticed. His gaze scanned in a continuous back-and-forth manner, searching for threats, whether cops looking for perpetrators of a gunfight in a parking garage or enemies with lethal intent.

Victor walked fast, but no faster than anyone around him. He needed speed to take him away from his enemies, but too much speed would tell them his route by way of the annoyed or staring pedestrians he had knocked or elbowed out of his path or those curious enough to watch the hurrying man. He stayed on the boulevard, eyes moving but head remaining still. He had anonymity in the crowd but only as long as he blended into those around him.

He slipped off his jacket as he walked, again taking his time so as not to draw attention to himself. He folded it in half and rested it over his left forearm, as if to carry, but he let it fall into the next rubbish bin he came across.

An intersection lay ahead. Traffic was gridlocked. The streets were dense with New Yorkers and tourists. Keeping east was the quickest way of creating distance, but also the most obvious. Pursuers expected prey to flee, not double back.

He cut into an alleyway that opened up next to him, rounding the corner at a measured pace as might someone following a pre-planned route. He did not look back to see if the action had been noted. If it had, he would find out soon enough. If not, the action of looking back for confirmation might alert them.

Europe was Victor’s primary area of operation. He knew the cities there far better than he knew those that lay to the west of the Atlantic. He knew how to use the piazzas of Bologna to lose shadows and draw out enemies. He knew which streets in London were most saturated with CCTV cameras. He knew how to use the back alleys of Paris to ambush targets out of sight and sound.

He was no stranger to New York City, but its layout and idiosyncrasies had not ingrained in his memory the same way. But he was far from lost. Manhattan’s organised and planned layout was easier to navigate than a European city that had grown and developed in an organic sprawl over a millennium or more. Before he had reached the age of eighteen the importance of navigation had been instilled into him, so that knowing which way north and south lay came as naturally as knowing his left from right. Combined with Manhattan’s layout of regular city blocks and numeric street names, that sense was as good as any memorised map or satnav.

The alleyway opened up into a market, teeming with browsers and buyers and stalls packed together. He had no choice but to press on, squeezing and pushing and shoving through the crowd until he had made it out on the far side.

His pursuers were quicker through the market, following his path and using their greater numbers to barge through.

He dashed across a street, weaving through the passing traffic and the chorus of horns and abuse. He dodged a braking cab, but not fast enough to stop the bumper clipping his thigh and knocking him off balance.

Victor rolled and broke the fall to avoid injury, but it took a couple of seconds before he was back on his feet and his enemies had made it halfway across the street by then.

He turned into a narrow arcade lined with fashion boutiques and tailors’. He heard sirens growing louder. He saw police cruisers rush past the far opening of the arcade, on their way to some call. Not coming for him. At least for now.

Had his lead been greater he would have entered one of the boutiques, convinced or bribed or threatened the owner or clerk inside to let him out through the back. But there was no time. He pushed on.

He hurried down stairs, footsteps echoing throughout the confines of the stairwell. He reached the bottom, moving fast, using a palm to stop himself colliding with the opposite wall.

Victor reached the end of the alleyway and paused, looking behind for pursuers. He could see all the way to the other end some fifty metres away. No one. He’d lost them.

He exited the alleyway, hearing someone shouting, ‘Move, move,’ and saw a couple of cops pushing their way through the crowded street. They hadn’t seen him.

He fled into a shopping mall, rushing down steps, pushing people out of the way. In Europe he might have received abuse for doing so, but Americans had far less tolerance for rudeness and shoved him and cursed and threatened him.

Inside the mall entrance he stopped. He stood as if he was waiting, drawing no attention as he watched through the plate glass for anyone following. A cop ran past, glancing Victor’s way, but moving too fast to see him. No other police followed, nor did any of the kill team.

Victor released a breath. For the moment, he had lost both sets of enemies. But it was far from over yet. He was far from safe. It would be foolish to think otherwise. While he was in the city, he was trapped. He had to get out of Manhattan, but he could not leave without understanding his enemies. He had come here to eliminate one threat, and in doing so had embroiled himself in another. If he left, he still had two problems: Raven and Halleck’s kill team.