The Hunter

CHAPTER 72

Tanga, Tanzania

Monday

17:17 EAT

The kitchen was even hotter than outside and carried the loud noise of busy work. There were maybe a dozen members of the kitchen staff working frantically, preparing and cooking food, washing up, cleaning. A huge chef was shouting orders with the vigour of a drill sergeant. Victor, with a small crate of fruit on his shoulder, drew neither looks nor words as he dodged around the working bodies. He appeared to have a purpose and a reason for being there, and busy people rarely interrupted their work to challenge someone else who also seemed to be working.

Victor kept his head tilted slightly forward so it was hard for anyone to see his eyes. Eye contact helped people remember. His gaze passed over the work surfaces as he moved, trying to find a knife to palm. He saw none and didn’t want to risk loitering and attracting attention just to get one. A weapon was always useful, but for what he was planning he could go without. He left the crate on the floor by the interior door before he slipped through.

The assassin had still been waiting outside when Victor left him. He’d taken the same flight to Tanzania, flying coach while the assassin flew first, and had followed the man since. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have fancied his chances at shadowing so skilled a target, but Victor had one considerable advantage. He was supposed to be dead.

Victor had imagined sliding a knife into the assassin’s flesh alongside the spine and piercing the heart or maybe hamstringing the man first to watch him writhe on the ground before finishing him off. But that wasn’t what Victor did, even if he had been able to. He didn’t stab people in the street in front of dozens of witnesses, no matter how much he wanted to. That’s what amateurs did, and amateurs got themselves killed.

Even if the opportunity presented itself, Victor couldn’t kill him, at least not yet. The assassin was nothing more than a hired gun, a paid killer no different than himself. Victor hated the comparison. The man he’d followed wasn’t his true enemy; he was just a limb. Victor wanted to cut off the head.

The back corridors of the hotel were narrow but reasonably cool. In places the plaster on the walls was cracked and the doors thin and poorly painted. There were no cameras in this part of the hotel. No security guards either.

Victor stopped when he came to a door and passed his ear close to it for a few seconds. He heard people talking. He moved on, pausing to listen at another door. This time there was no noise. He moved on. He tried three more before he heard the quiet hum of electronic machinery. He slowly tried the handle. It was unlocked.

Inside the room was tiny, barely more than a closet. There was just enough room for the chair, table, two television monitors, and accompanying recorders. On the TV screens were the simultaneous live feeds from the hotel CCTV cameras. Each screen carried four feeds; one at the front entrance, lobby, elevator, and one for each of the floors.

Victor sat down and pressed rewind, watching the time until he reached midday. He then hit play and watched. A couple of minutes later he saw the assassin’s target and two companions enter through the front. They disappeared from one feed and appeared on the other as they crossed the lobby. The elevator took them to the third floor, and the camera there recorded them as they entered their respective rooms.

The picture quality wasn’t good enough to see the room numbers, but Victor counted how many doors were between the camera and the rooms, specifically the room where the lone man entered.

He was the key. It was obvious the other two were just the hired help. Victor’s first instinct was that they were bodyguards, but he had seen how the three operated together and dismissed that idea. Earlier in the day Victor had followed the assassin while he in turn followed the man to the harbour, where the target had joined the other two men. The equipment Victor saw on the boat indicated that the men were divers.

That the nameless target was being shadowed by the assassin meant he was important. By the way he carried himself, he wasn’t a case officer. He was someone’s subordinate sent out to personally oversee the last part of the operation. To salvage whatever was on that sunken ship that was so valuable and that was no doubt now in the truck outside.

He left the room and closed the door behind him. He made his way to the stairs and began ascending to the third floor. The assassin’s target knew something, something that made him a target, something that was a liability to whomever was in charge. And that something Victor needed to hear.

He just had to get to him before the assassin did.

*

Reed closed the email and stood. He placed the smartphone back in his trouser pocket. He left the water on the table. The lobby was peaceful. Noise of merriment drifted out from the bar as he reached the stairs and took them to the fifth floor. He walked down the corridor and entered his room.

The gun was under the pillow as he had left it, and he pulled back the slide, loading a bullet into the chamber. He tucked it into the front of his trousers so the suppressor extended down along his left thigh. His shirt, hanging loose, disguised the gun’s grip.

The trousers were likewise loose enough so that, if he was careful how he walked, no one would notice he was armed. Though descending stairs was not possible with a big piece of metal down the front of his trousers. No matter, he could take the elevator down the two floors instead.

Reed took the spare magazines from the satchel and placed them in the pockets of the trousers: two in the left, one in the right. He did not expect to even use a single magazine of bullets, and only then if circumstances were truly against him. But Reed had risen to the very top of the killer’s ladder by being meticulous and prepared for the worst at all times. He was not about to change his habits now.

He left the room and headed for the elevator. He pushed the call button and waited patiently. Reed knew himself to be very good at waiting. He also knew, however, that he was considerably better at killing.

Victor reached the third floor and stepped out into the corridor that formed a rough square around the hotel. He walked around the circumference, getting his bearings while he located the camera. There were around fifteen rooms per floor. The corridor was wide but uncarpeted. The floorboards were polished and clean.

He found the camera near the elevator, positioned so it could see the elevator doors and the adjoining corridor. Victor counted the doors and saw the room he wanted halfway between the elevator and the far intersection. Victor knew the man was alone, but there was always the chance that one or both of his companions had joined him in the room since Victor had watched the CCTV footage.

If they had guns, which Victor had to assume, things could quickly turn bad. But if he was fast he could get the information he needed, probably just a name or an address or maybe a phone number, and, he hoped, get out before anyone else realized he was there.

It took mere seconds to reach the door, but, before he had a chance to make a move, another door opened farther along the corridor. Victor kept walking as one of the two big guys exited his room. He was marginally shorter than Victor with blond hair and a scrappy beard. He wore long shorts and a loose T-shirt. His strength was obvious. The man’s gaze stayed on Victor as they passed each other.

Victor kept his pace and turned the corner at the end of the corridor, resisting the natural urge to look back. The man would be watching him until he left his vision. Victor stopped when he was out of sight and listened. He heard a knock, then a few seconds later a door opened. Hushed voices before the door closed again.

Two in the same room complicated things, but at least it meant each would be a distraction to the other. It would give him a better chance of gaining the element of surprise. Victor carried on down the corridor instead of doubling back. He didn’t want the camera to get a shot of his face, poor quality or not.

He walked as fast as he dared without appearing to hurry. The hotel seemed relatively empty. He didn’t imagine it did much business even at the best of times. His pulse was slow and steady.

Victor approached the turning where the elevator was located. He heard the chime as it reached the floor. That was all he needed, another guest or hotel employee nearby to give him more problems. He slowed, wanting the person to leave the elevator in front of him instead of behind. He heard the doors open.

The man who stepped out was in his early forties, tall, fair skinned, with Slavic features, carrying a suitcase. He could have been considered handsome but for the recent wound stitched shut on the right side of his face.

That face Victor had seen before a week ago in St Petersburg through the scope of a sniper rifle.

Victor didn’t slow his pace or react in any way. He hoped he was somehow mistaken, even though he knew he wasn’t. The SVR were here. The first thought that entered his mind was that they’d tracked him down, but that made no sense. The organization had a fraction of the resources and technology of the CIA, and outside the old Soviet bloc its influence was limited. Unless they had been shadowing him since Russia, it was beyond their capabilities. And if they had followed him here he wouldn’t have just encountered one of their number by chance.

The Russian turned his head and looked Victor’s way. Just a casual glance, and for a few seconds it seemed as if he’d failed to recognize him. He turned his head away and took another step from the elevator. Then his head involuntarily snapped back to look in Victor’s direction, whole body stiffening, expression changing as he identified the man walking toward him.

They were no more than three yards apart when Colonel Gennady Aniskovach thrust a hand inside his jacket. Victor sprinted forward, closing the distance fast. Aniskovach drew his handgun, but Victor was within his reach before he could fully extend his arm.

Victor grabbed the Russian’s wrist and twisted sharply. At the same time he threw his free fist at Aniskovach’s face. The punch connected on the nose, breaking it instantly and sending a spray of blood from the nostrils. Aniskovach grunted with pain, and the gun dropped from his hand. His eyes filled with water. Victor kicked the gun into the elevator and flung the dazed Russian in too.

Inside, Victor grabbed Aniskovach by his shirt and slammed him against the mirrored wall. Blood flowed from his nose, dripped rapidly from his chin. Water spilled from his eyes. Victor frisked him, finding a spare mag and pocketing it.

‘How did you find me?’ he demanded in Russian.

It took a second for Aniskovach to speak. ‘I… didn’t.’

Victor took a hand from the Russian’s clothes and grabbed his throat, Victor’s fingers on one side of his oesophagus, thumb the other. He started to squeeze, hard, cutting off the air intake. Aniskovach choked.

Victor gave him ten seconds without oxygen before releasing the pressure enough for him to talk. He coughed for a moment. ‘I’ve only just got here…’

He started coughing again. Victor understood — they weren’t here for him. The flash drive. The SVR had found out what it contained and had come to collect whatever was on that sunken ship. That meant they had taken it from Norimov. The elevator doors closed and it started to ascend.

Victor tightened his grip on Aniskovach’s neck. ‘Did you kill him?’

The Russian looked confused. ‘Who?’

With his free hand Victor pressed his fingers into Aniskovach’s wounded cheek. He screamed and Victor squeezed harder on his throat. The Russian gasped and spluttered, his face reddening until Victor eased his grip enough for him to talk.

‘You know who.’

Aniskovach spat phlegm and blood from his mouth. ‘Norimov?’

‘Yes.’

‘We didn’t kill him.’ The Russian took a series of deep breaths and raised his head. ‘He was working for us.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Norimov… sold you to us.’ Aniskovach took great delight in the effect his words had. His face twisted into a smile, thin lips shining with blood. He spoke between coughs. ‘And he did so… for much less than… I would have paid.’

Victor’s grip unintentionally weakened. For a moment he couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything. Norimov, the only person he would even come close to considering a friend, had betrayed him. For nothing more than money. He felt hollow.

The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor and the noise brought Victor crashing back to the world. He glanced over his shoulder, ready to incapacitate whoever was waiting. A man stood outside the elevator. He had a lean, muscular physique, dark hair, and blue eyes, dressed casually.

Reed.