A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1) (27 page)

There was no scream, she was far too terrified for that, but just for insurance, the big man had clamped a large, meaty hand over her mouth as he continued to drag her further down the alleyway and into its dark recesses. They were no more than fifteen feet from the alley's opening, nothing really, but it might have been the far side of the moon as far as anyone seeing them and coming to her rescue. She found herself lung back into an alcove covered in rubbish, animal waste and rat droppings. Then the man pressed against her; his forearm holding her chest and his other hand covering her mouth until she was pinned and silent.

“Don't scream, or I'll snap your neck like a twig,” he said in a rumbling whisper, his breath smothering her.

She looked into his weather-lined face, noted his head of grey hair, and took in the piercing coldness of his blue eyes. He spoke in French, but the accent was definitely German.

“
Who
are you! Why have you been following me for the past fifteen minutes?” he demanded.

The question was barked at her, like a prison guard ordering a prisoner. He saw the fear in her eyes; and she knew in that moment that
he
knew that
she
knew that
she
had been following him. No pretense, no subterfuge; the guilty look in her eyes confirmed it for him in an instant. He glanced behind him briefly. “Are you alone?”

Nicole gave nothing away. Silence was her best ally. She knew she'd fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book; she'd been 'made' and then lured to a choke point and then… this. She felt a fool.

The German changed his grip and moved his hand from across her mouth, instead clamping it tightly around her throat. She gulped in air, getting as much into her mouth as she could before he shut off her windpipe completely. The German moved his head in closer until his mouth was almost touching her ear. “Are you Israeli? A Jew? Are you and your people hunting me still?”

“Get off me, let me go, just let me go,” she spluttered for something to say, something that would stay his hand of execution for a few moments longer. “Or… or my team will come and get me!”

He laughed, not a harsh laugh, but a pitying laugh; as a parent might find amusing the lies of a child. “No, little Jew-girl, I don't think that's the case, I don't think anyone's coming to get you. I think it's just you and me and this back alley. I think you are out of your depth; solo surveillance on a subject is notoriously hard to do.”

She knew then that she would never make it out of here alive unless she fought. She tried to move against his weight, wriggle out, plead for mercy, anything – but his strength was too much and was backed up by a gentle squeeze of her delicate throat, like a vice holding an eggshell.

“Shhh, don't fight,” he cooed. “It will go worse for you; better to stay calm, you are in good hands.”

She looked into his eyes; they were alive, dancing like fire. She felt him swap arms, his left forearm now pinning her to the wall, leaving his right hand to move under her dress and up the length of her thigh. She felt his fingers begin to scrape away at the lining of her underwear and she shuddered.
No, God, please don't let it be like this,
she thought.

“I don't think I've ever fucked a girl as pretty as you before.” His voice was deep with anticipation.

Nicole's reality had condensed and slowed and consisted of the man's heavy breath pumping into the side of her neck and his fingers fumbling under her dress. She could feel his hardness pressing against her stomach, felt him move his hand down and free himself from the confines of his trousers as he pushed himself upwards in the hope of consummating his attack.

She started to cry, more out of shame than fear or pain, and that weakness hurt her more than any physical assault could ever have done. Do something, anything, her Dad would have said. And in those few moments the fear of never seeing her papa's face again was too much to bear.
Move! Now!

Her right arm had become free when the German had unzipped his fly, and his head was leaning to one side, exposing the left side of his face. It was a glorious target. She did the only thing she knew how to do, one of the few things she'd learned on the new intakes unarmed combat course. It wasn't terribly amazing, exotic or even useful in most situations. But right here, right now it was all she had and all she needed.

She bunched her small delicate hand into a fist, extended her thumb with one beautifully manicured nail protruding from the end like a talon, and thrust it deep into the corner of the man's eye, dragging the thumb deeply from left to right across the surface of the eyeball. She felt cold liquid running down her thumb, and for a brief moment, caught the sight of blood oozing from the man's eye socket.

And in that moment, she wasn't certain what was sweeter; the release of pressure across her chest, allowing her to breath, or the virulent howl of pain from the animal in front of her.

* * *

If it hadn't been for the howl of pain which echoed around the brick-lined alleyways, Gorilla would have moved onto the next street and missed them completely. He was lost, had no visual marker on either Nicole or the man she'd been following, and the backstreets had suddenly turned into a maze which snaked out in multiple directions.

His mind was whirling frantically, his eyes constantly searching out the most likely route Nicole, or indeed the man she was following, could have taken. He felt like a parent who temporarily loses a toddler in a department store; panic-ridden and bewildered with a kaleidoscope of nightmarish scenarios playing through his mind.

But the scream – a man's scream of pure agony – had brought him back. He slowly retraced his steps along the small side street, no more than twenty feet from the alleyway he knew had to be the place.
Bloody hell, I nearly missed it,
he thought. It was then that he saw it; a shoe, one perfect woman's high heeled shoe in fawn, half hidden among the boxes which had been dumped out for garbage collection. It was Nicole's shoe. He heard a raised voice in German; someone was being called a
ficken fotze
and in that moment, he knew he had only seconds left to find her.

He raced down the alleyway, spotting another shoe before he turned a corner and there, with his hands around her delicate throat, was a man, a huge man, attempting and possibly succeeding in strangling Nicole. Her face was contorted with the pressure and the color was draining from her fast.

No time for the gun,
Gorilla decided,
too noisy and the last thing he needed was witnesses.
He needed to act fast. Gorilla finally got to do what he was both paid to do and what he was good at, and as the German belatedly became aware of a presence behind him and started turning to face the potential threat, Gorilla set his mind to very carefully, and very precisely, killing the other man.

* * *

Alfred Nadel had once strangled a member of the Dutch Resistance to death with the man's own belt. True, the victim had been tied to a chair and was unable to move or resist, thus making the physical act of strangulation that much easier, but he had never shied away from the immense physical effort needed. In fact, he relished it far more than using a machine gun or a blunt instrument on his targets.

Over the years, he had fashioned himself a number of garrotes and ligatures, and on more than one occasion, in a professional capacity, he'd chosen the art of garroting as his chosen method of assassination. No such luxury was available here, though. It was to be his bare hands for the elimination, never murder, of this female he'd spotted tailing him for the past half an hour. He had no idea who she was, possibly police or possibly one of the teams of Israeli agents from Mossad, who still hunted men like him.

Whoever she was, he'd spotted her clumsy attempts at surveillance straight away. It was embarrassing, actually. He had been a hunted man for virtually all his adult life; been followed by policeman, soldiers and spies, so he knew the signs of what to look for and he also knew the signs of amateur surveillance, especially by one person.

When he'd turned the tables on his watcher and made eye contact on the street, he knew instantly that it wasn't just his imagination. Her eyes had said one word to him; guilty. The rest was simple. Trail the bait and lead them into an isolated location with no witnesses; after that, well, he could do as he pleased.

He was a big, powerful man, and despite his age, was more than capable of dealing with amateurs, especially where violence was to be used.

So it had surprised him – shocked would be a better word – that she'd fought back. She was, to his eyes, a frightened slip of a girl, almost stick thin and yet she'd taken his eye from him with a ruthlessness which belied her small frame. He'd experienced the searing pain in his eye and knew then that his 'fun' would no longer be an option – but her death definitely would be.

He slapped her across the face, sending her sprawling to the ground – fucking bitch – then he lifted her to her feet and slowly began to squeeze at her throat. An eye for an eye, wasn't that one of the Israeli's mottos? How very apt. But now, as he began to deal out his chosen method of murder, he was aware in his heightened state of something, or someone, coming up behind him.

* * *

Gorilla had been on all manner of unarmed combat courses during his time in the Army and with the Service. Most of them, in his opinion, were next to useless. Overcomplicated and unnecessary techniques designed to trip, sweep or put someone in a wristlock weren't like anything he'd ever encountered during his more 'active' assignments.

He thought them bullshit.

As a boy, he'd been taught by his uncle about the harsh reality of street fighting. Fists, boots, elbows, knees and head-butts had been the order of the day, especially for the small-framed new lad with the funny accent, growing up on the terraced streets besides the docks. Thus far – and Gorilla himself would be the first to admit that he was no sportsman or world class athlete – they had never let him down. He trusted them, knew how to use them, and despite his small build, could generate enough power into his punches to fell a mule. And a punch, or more accurately, a hook punch from the rear was what he used now against Nicole's attacker.

He moved fast, grabbing the collar of the big man with his left hand and throwing a hook punch right into the man's jaw line; once, twice, three times – each time sending the man further down and onto the ground. A kick to the man's face made Gorilla feel that little bit better. The man was down, but certainly not out.

Gorilla moved over to Nicole and sat her up. The finger marks on her throat were starting to bruise and the slap mark across her face was glowing red. “Nicole, Nicole, talk to me. Come on, love.”

Slowly, she began to come round. She opened her eyes and looked at him, blinked once and then came the tears; of relief, joy, fear or shame, even she didn't know, but they came nonetheless. “Jack, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… I should never have…
Jack
!”

Her warning had come a fraction too late. As she came around, she was aware of Gorilla kneeling over her and then a blurry movement from behind his left shoulder as the German's foot arched towards and then crashed into the side of Gorilla's head, sending him colliding into the wall. The kick was good, but not powerful enough to completely finish Gorilla, only stun him, and then both men were jumping to their feet, ready to fight again.

Nadel charged and slammed Gorilla back into the wall, sending a blast of air out of the smaller man's lungs, winding him. Gorilla, for his part, more out of survival instinct than having a clear shot, was desperately trying to head butt the German's nose, in the hope of disrupting his attack. But Nadel was twice Gorilla's size, both in build and weight, and simply spun the smaller man until his back was facing the German's front. The German resembled a grizzly bear hugging a small child.

The German's arms changed position, coiling around Gorilla's neck like a boa constrictor, ready to tighten and strangle; something that Alfred Nadel was very accomplished at. Gorilla felt the rear strangle go on, one meaty forearm across his windpipe and the other running across the back of his neck to tighten everything up, and he made a move for the pistol on his right hip.

Just as his fingers touched the base of the pistol's handle, Nadel also became aware of the surreptitious movement, assumed that a weapon was about to be brought into play and simply crushed his opponent against the wall, pinning Gorilla's weapon arm and rendering the weapon useless. Gorilla knew from experience that once a committed choke was applied, it was only a matter of seconds before unconsciousness and death came knocking on the door. With his firearm beyond reach, and with only seconds to spare, he used the last of his energy in the only way that he could; by slamming his heel into the German's instep and flinging his head back in the hope of smashing the man's face, anything to give him some leverage or room to breathe.

Both were in vain and slowly, ever so gradually, Gorilla began to feel the big man's powerful arms tighten up and then the inevitable blackness started to envelop him.

* * *

Nicole aimed for the German's back, and fired twice. The first round had hit the wall and skidded off down the alley, but the second shot caught the German's upper arm. A spray of blood emerged as did another cry of pain from the big man. Two shots, one miss, one hit.

She had seen Gorilla taken by the monster of a man, and even from her prone position on the floor, she knew he wouldn't be able to survive against the German. The man was just too big, too strong and too adept at killing with his hands. They were both simply outmatched.

She put her hand down to the ground to try and lift herself to her feet; maybe escape, call for help, anything, and there at the touch of her fingertips among the filth and rubbish, was the answer to her prayers. The handbag…her handbag, with the pistol inside.

Nicole ripped open the bag, rummaged inside and pulled out the Walther. Gorilla's tutorial at the Paris base during their less than active moments came back to her with breathtaking clarity. “Make sure the magazine is seated properly… pull back the slide and let it run forward… flick off the safety… point, aim and…”