The Killer

FIFTY-FIVE

London, United Kingdom

Tuesday

16:46 CET

It was getting dark outside when Elliot Seif and his bodyguards reached the parking garage beneath the building. His spot was in an area reserved for the building’s elite, and there were only a scattering of cars under the hard white glare of the fluorescent lights.

Seif would be arriving home late tonight. Work rarely kept him beyond his scheduled hours, but his latest mistress-the very young and very nubile Isabella-often ensured he missed dinner with his wife. After years of serial adultery, he was as discreet as ever and believed his wife still had no idea of his escapades. Although Seif could lie and mislead with the best of them in the boardroom, he was utterly unconvincing when lying to his wife. He knew it; she knew it; but they both pretended otherwise.

The smell of exhaust fumes hung in the air. There had been some ventilation problems earlier in the week, and it still wasn’t quite fixed. Seif had complained on several occasions. It screwed with his asthma, and he needed every ounce of stamina his aging body could muster to keep up with Isabella’s youthful insatiability.

He knew she was only his for the endless stream of expensive gifts he lavished on her, but Seif didn’t care. He was well aware he had no charm to go with his frail body and wrinkled face, but a certain breed of woman found his wallet irresistibly erotic. Money, he had long ago discovered, was the world’s number one aphrodisiac. He considered it perfectly fair that Isabella desired him only for his money as he wanted her purely for her tight young body. Above all else, Seif was a deal maker, and he considered theirs to be a very good arrangement.

The echoes of heavy footsteps interrupted the silence as the bodyguards stepped out of the elevator. They took the most direct route across the expanse of concrete, one bodyguard walking in front of Seif and to the right, the other behind and to the left. Under normal circumstances they could get Seif from the elevator to the car in under forty-five seconds. Seif never walked fast.

His bodyguards were alert. The underground garage was a dangerous space, but they knew it well. Their gaze constantly shifted between potential places of concealment where someone might be hiding. Just because they’d done the same thing a thousand times and more without incident didn’t mean they ever got complacent.

Any face or vehicle they didn’t recognize in the area was watched closely. More than once Seif had found himself apologizing on his bodyguards’ behalf after they’d been rough with someone who’d made a seemingly threatening action. It may have been a ballpoint that time, one of the bodyguards had told Seif, but next time it might be a gun. Did he really want to wait to be sure? Better to apologize for a mistake than to die for one. Seif had readily agreed.

They were there for show more than anything else. Seif dealt with plenty of less-than-reputable individuals, some of whom were uncouth enough to try to intimidate their way into a better deal, or at least they would do so if Seif didn’t have two mean motherfuckers in his corner. And if one day any of the Euromafia scumbags realized he was stealing their money, to get to Seif they’d have to get through five hundred pounds of pure badass first.

Neither of his bodyguards liked the location. It was designed to be as pleasant a space as possible with no mind to security. As such, it was full of blind spots that had to be watched with care. Still, it was far safer than an exterior parking area. In here they could protect their client.

At least that’s what they believed.

The silver Merc SUV was parked at the far end of the garage in the most secure location. It had been reverse parked so that Seif, who rode in the back, had the bodyguards in front of him and the wall behind him when they were most vulnerable, as well as for a quick exit. In addition, the car was armored and all windows fitted with bulletproof glass by a specialist firm in Germany.

Seif gripped his mobile phone to his ear and gulped as he listened to Isabella describe in lurid detail exactly what she was going to do to him when he finally arrived at her apartment. The volume on the phone was turned high to compensate for Seif’s poor hearing, and his bodyguards listened to every explicit word and groan Isabella uttered. They never let on that they could, except to each other.

The first bodyguard unlocked the car with an electronic key fob while Seif waited with the second bodyguard a few yards away. Alongside the driver’s door, the first bodyguard peered through the windows before lowering himself into a press-up position to check underneath the SUV for explosive devices. The bodyguard had done it hundreds of times. It was boring, a pain in the ass. And a waste of time.

Suppressed gunshots echoed in the close confines of the parking garage.

The bodyguard collapsed onto his stomach, screaming.

There was a second of stillness before the other bodyguard went for his gun, struggling to pull it out from under his jacket. It was tight against his chest to better show off his muscles.

He yelled at Seif, “GET DOWN, GET DOWN.”

The bodyguard dropped to one knee, unsure where the shot had come from. His first instinct was to look behind them for the shooter.

Seif just stood there, open mouthed, unable to react, staring at his injured bodyguard. He was lying on the concrete, face down, right arm and leg thrashing around but his left limbs, those alongside the Merc, were bizarrely still. Seif realized the man had been shot in both his left arm and leg. He was too big, too heavy, and in too much pain to right himself. He tried to get his one good hand beneath his jacket, to his gun, but his arm was too bulky to squeeze beneath his chest. He was trying to speak, but he couldn’t get his words out among his cries. Glistening blood crept along the ground.

The second bodyguard kept a tight hold on his own gun. He looked around frantically, eyes searching their surroundings, checking the likely points from which someone could have taken a shot. Aside from cars the place was empty. He could see no sign of any attackers. Where the hell were they?

He gestured to Seif. “Get back to the elevator. I’ll-”

He cried out, bullets catching him in the knee, thigh, and ankle, rounds shattering bone and sending explosions of blood across the concrete. He fell backward, all thoughts of the.45 forgotten as he clutched at the bloody mess of his legs.

Seif hadn’t moved. He looked on with horror at the two guys writhing around on the ground. He heard a noise, saw a man in a suit slide out from underneath the Merc and come to his feet. He was wearing a black ski mask. He had a gun. With a silencer.

Seif still had the mobile phone clutched to his ear, the incessant sexual drone of his mistress not missing a beat. His gaze was locked on the masked gunman. He couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t even think. He’d hired bodyguards so they could protect him from a day like this, but he’d never seriously entertained the notion that anything this bad might actually happen.

The gunman walked past the face-down bodyguard, who had given up trying to get his weapon, and now lay still and quiet, tilting up his head as much as he could to watch what was happening. The other bodyguard stayed where he was, on his back, face screwed up with pain. Blood soaked his trousers. He was trying to hold his splintered knee together with his left hand while his right stretched across the ground for his pistol.

Victor walked slowly toward Seif, angling his gun for a second at the guy reaching for his.45.

“Don’t be stupid,” Victor said.

The bodyguard pulled his hand back, and Victor kicked the gun away as he passed. He stopped directly in front of Seif, holding the handgun at arm’s length, the end of the suppressor no more than an inch from the terrified accountant’s face.

Victor’s request was straightforward. “Computer.”

His eyes unblinking, Seif didn’t hesitate and raised his left arm up toward Victor. His right still held the cell phone to his ear. Victor took the computer from him.

“Password?”

“Isabella.”

Seif was sweating. Somehow he managed to speak. “Is that all you want?”

On the other end of the phone his mistress thought he was speaking to her. She groaned louder. His eyes never leaving Seif’s for an instant, Victor took the laptop from him with his free hand. He saw no harm in replying.

“What do you think?”

Seif gasped, trembled, misunderstanding. The phone fell from his fingers. “Don’t hurt my family.”

Victor didn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t.”

He gave Seif a moment to process the remark, stepped back, lowered the gun, and turned around, watching Seif’s and the bodyguard’s reflections at all times on the Merc’s bodywork. No one tried anything. Groans emanated from Seif’s cell. Victor took another step, stopped, turned back, and shot the phone. It exploded into a thousand pieces.

He considered shutting up Seif’s mistress for the price of a bullet to be money well spent.