No Tomorrow (18 page)

V
ictor heard the second team before he saw them. A door—leading to the warehouse itself—was kicked open in a room behind him. He spun around and moved laterally because that room was divided from his only by glass. He managed to snap off two shots before the assaulters spotted him, but missed because he was moving and so were they.

MP5s opened fire, bullets following him, punching holes through the glass until it gave way and collapsed in a shower of glittering shards. He shielded his face with an arm as he ran and slid through a doorway, shooting back under his armpit to buy some time.

He gained only a couple of seconds before he heard, then saw, a grenade bounce off the doorframe and then a wall, and then roll along the floor toward him.

He dived over a table, trailing a hand to tip it over as he fell, bringing the tabletop down on its edge behind him.

The flashbang exploded.

His eyelids were already squeezed shut but still he saw white. The overpressure wave thumped against the table and pushed it, and him, across the floor.

Shrapnel embedded in the tabletop. The plastic veneer melted and the chipboard beneath smoldered and burned. The grenade wasn't manufactured to kill, but at close range could do so or maim. Had the table not protected him, he would now be out of the fight.

His eyes could just about focus and he heard nothing, but knew the two men were moving the second after the explosion, thinking him incapacitated.

He waited a moment, picturing them headed through the doorway, fast and well trained, hesitating because they couldn't see him behind the table, then rolled to his side, arms and head coming out from behind it, squeezing off rounds.

The first man was hit in his center mass, falling backward into the second assaulter, bringing him down too as he fell.

Victor was up and moving, not risking further engagement because he had to get back to Gisele.

•   •   •

Muzzle flashes illuminated the first-floor corridor in intermittent bursts of light. The loud reports of the Russians' handguns drowned out the suppressed automatic fire from the submachine guns that hissed through the air and tore through the thin interior walls.

Lumps of polystyrene fell from the ceiling. Dust swirled with the smoke from the flashbang. The air stank of cordite and fear.

The Russians backed off under the relentless stream of
automatic gunfire, shooting back blind as they darted between doorways.

The lead assaulter ejected the empty magazine, slipped it back into the assigned pocket of his tactical vest, pulled out a full one, and slammed it home. He worked the breach and resumed shooting.

The second put down suppressing fire while the other man was vulnerable, then reloaded while the first covered him.

The Russians were not elite but they had picked their positions with a frighteningly good tactical sense. The two-man fire team had expected to clear the office floor within sixty seconds. That wasn't going to happen. This was going to drag on for at least another two minutes before the inevitable victory was achieved.

•   •   •

Victor hurried through the ground-floor offices, staying in the center of rooms and corridors despite the natural inclination to seek safety near walls, because in close-quarters battle it was along walls that bullets tended to travel.

He took a circuitous route through the offices to avoid any pursuers and to prevent rushing blindly into another fire team.

The din of the shooting upstairs intensified as he neared it—the loud pops of the Russians' handguns above the suppressed automatic fire of the submachine guns, the clinking of expended brass and the thump of bullets striking walls, urgent commands and desperate screams.

He could tell the assaulters had taken the stairs and were fighting back the defenders. It wouldn't be long before the Russians were killed—or fled. He didn't know
the strength of their courage or how deep their loyalty to Norimov or Gisele went.

Victor slowed as he neared the hallway where the staircase was located. He saw no one on the ground level.

He approached the staircase, gun leading, aiming up as he moved before it, stepping through a swath of orange gloom spilling through a window on the west wall. He smelled the acrid odor of cordite and the sulfur of the flashbang smoke. The assaulters were out of sight above him, but the suppressed fire of their submachine guns was loud and distinctive to his ear. The return fire from the Russians was sporadic.

“Gisele,”
he called. “I'm coming up.”

There was no response. He didn't know if that meant she couldn't hear him over the gunfire or because she was dead. He ascended the first step but stopped. A noise.

Footsteps in the hallway leading to the rest of the ground-floor level—where he'd come from a moment before.

He made out a man-sized shape in the darkness, realizing at the same time that with the nearby window he was more visible than the new arrival—who would have seen him first.

Victor leaped from the staircase as another MP5SD opened fire. Rounds buried into the wall and staircase where he'd been standing, blowing out splinters of wood and a cloud of paint dust.

He hit the floor in a roll to disperse the impact, scrambling into the cover of an arrangement of office desks and chairs. Bullets chased him, taking chunks out of the cheap veneer-and-plywood furniture.

He dodged out of the line of fire, popping up to shoot back as his attacker moved forward to the mouth of the
hallway, driving him back. Bullets sparked on steel supports.

Victor moved again—staying in one position would only make it easier for his assailant—and aimed where the gunman would next appear.

O
n the upper level the two assaulters moved positions, putting bursts along the hallway, outnumbered but not outgunned, suppressing the Russians until they were in cover. At random intervals the Russians returned fire, shouting indecipherable instructions to one another, maybe coordinating their attacks or just keeping the others informed that they were still alive.

Another one was hit as he popped out of cover, caught in the throat and face with a long burst that made the Russian dance, a geyser of blood spurting from him, before he dropped. That left two. There was no danger of not triumphing, but they were burning through time they didn't have. This warehouse may be empty but other units in the industrial estate were not. Each second the firefight continued increased the chances of a passerby or a worker on a cigarette break hearing the gunshots.

The police would be on the way soon after that, if they weren't already.

•   •   •

Victor waited, drawing a bead on the darkness where the
room met the hallway. Any movement would be greeted with a double tap. Another flashbang exploded on the floor above him. He was unable to move to the stairs and ascend to help the Russians above because he had to cross through the path of his attackers' vision. But five seconds waiting became ten.

He moved because he knew his enemy was in the process of outflanking him. The gunman was the aggressor, better armed and with allies nearby. He would press the attack, not wait for a defender to engage him.

There were two other ways into the room—one door on the west wall leading directly into the main warehouse, and another to the north that fed into a series of storerooms that were also accessible from the rest of the warehouse. The gunman could come through either.

No way to know which, and it wasn't possible to cover both effectively. Victor dashed toward the hallway, away from both, throwing himself into a dive when he heard a door kicked open behind him.

Bullets whizzed over Victor's head and sparked where they struck the steel supports. He zigzagged as he ran, knowing his attacker would be in pursuit. He weaved ten meters along the hallway, shouldering a door open and half running, half falling into the room on the other side.

Nine-millimeter rounds cut through the air behind him. He could feel the change in pressure and air temperature on his neck. Splinters of doorframe caught in his hair.

The firing stopped, the shooter no longer able to keep him in his gun sights. He could be in pursuit, closing fast, but had already proven himself smart enough not to rush into an ambush.

Victor grabbed anything he could and threw it in the
direction of the door to create obstacles to slow his enemy.

He needed time. He had to maintain distance. He kept moving, utilizing the cover provided by desks and tables, chairs and cabinets, running in diagonal lines, ducking as he heard the rapid spit of the MP5SD opening fire somewhere in the darkness behind him.

Glass smashed. Metal sparked. A fluorescent ceiling light exploded.

Victor ran, relying on speed, distance, and angles to make himself a target too hard to hit. He hurried, knowing his way through the offices better than his pursuer, who would move at a slower pace, expecting an ambush.

“Gisele,”
he called as he powered to the top of the staircase.

He exchanged glances with Dmitri, who had retreated here from his original position.

Victor said, “The others?”

The Russian shook his head in way of an answer. He was drenched in sweat and bleeding. “Get her out of here,” he panted.

Victor nodded, knowing what Dmitri meant and respecting his sacrifice. “There are others downstairs. They'll breach this staircase soon.”

Dmitri said, “Then hurry,” and squeezed off some rounds down the corridor.

Victor hurled the desk aside, expecting to see Gisele dead from a stray round, but instead she lay in a huddle, hair disguising her face, and for a moment Victor saw not Gisele but her mother, Eleanor. She had Ivan's pistol clutched in both hands but her eyes were shut. She didn't even know he was there.

He pulled the gun from her grip before he touched her on the shoulder so she didn't shoot him by mistake.

“Are you hurt?”

She shook her head.

“We have to go.”

She nodded and he heaved open a window. “Climb through after me,” he said.

She nodded again.

He hauled himself through and dropped. It was four meters to the ground. Far enough to break bones, but he slowed himself with the wall and rolled to disperse the energy of the impact.

“Hurry,” he shouted up. “I'll catch you.”

He figured she would take some coaxing, but she didn't need any. She dropped and he caught her, falling with her into a half roll to spare them both injury. She took a second longer getting to her feet.

“Come on,” he urged. “It's not over yet.”

V
ictor had to assume Dmitri's car was disabled or covered. At the very least reaching it would put them both at risk. Instead, they ran. They headed away from the warehouse, steering clear of the main roads, sticking to alleys and side streets. He stayed behind Gisele, both to shield her from any pursuers and to better listen out for them, guiding her with his hands, forced to move slower as a result. But he couldn't risk it the other way and have her falling behind or taking a bullet in the back. Sirens blared in the distance.

She was fit but already slowing under the pace Victor was pushing her to. After a few minutes she was breathing hard and stumbling as much as running, but they had covered a lot of distance.

“Stop,” he said. “Catch your breath.”

He pulled her into an alleyway before she could rush past.

“Okay?”

She nodded but couldn't speak for a moment because her heart was racing and she'd lost her fine motor skills.

“Are . . . we . . . safe?” she managed to ask between gasps.

Suppressed gunshots echoed off the buildings, answering for him. Brickwork crumbled at the mouth of the alley.

“Move.”

There was no crack from the bullets so they were subsonic, but the muted bark from the muzzle wasn't the distinctive click of an MP5SD. It was louder, duller. A handgun. Whoever was behind them wasn't part of the assault force that had stormed the warehouse. They had probably been watching the perimeter or providing surveillance or backup and had chased them the whole way, or were sweeping the area and found them.

He risked a glance behind—saw two men—and pushed Gisele onward, knowing their enemies were catching up with every step. Alone, he could outrun them, but she limited his pace and enabled their pursuers to stay close enough that he knew they would never create enough distance to hide.

“That way,” he hissed, and pushed her down a bisecting alley.

At the end was a chain-link fence on top of a low wall. He slipped ahead of Gisele and interlaced his fingers, palms up.

He didn't have to tell her what to do. She understood and used his palms as a step as he propelled her upward. She was no athlete, no climber, but she caught hold of the top of the fence and pulled herself over. No hesitation. No asking for aid.

Victor followed, leaping, grabbing hold, hauling himself up and over, dropping down to the other side a split second behind Gisele and pushing her to the ground
because he knew their pursuers were right behind them and lining up their sights.

The twin gunshots were louder in the alley's confines. Gisele flinched, but they were already lower than the wall. A bullet hit a fence post and made the chains rattle and sway.

Victor waited until he could hear the scrape of feet running before pulling Gisele up and away. They were on a railway track siding, overgrown and uneven. He led her over the tracks, not looking out for trains because it was easy enough to hear a hundred-plus-ton locomotive. On the far side of the tracks stood a number of train carriages, stationary and disused, covered in graffiti and stinking of rust and decay. A bullet pinged off the exposed frame of a carriage, far enough away that Victor had no immediate concern, but a reminder that their pursuers were relentless and had lethal intent.

He came to a stop and ushered for Gisele to follow suit. He pointed. “Get on your stomach and shuffle under that carriage and crawl so you're hidden by the wheels.”

She nodded. “What are you going to do?”

“Don't get out under any circumstances, unless it's me telling you to. Anyone who tries to crawl under the train after you, wait until you can see their face and go for their eyes. Okay?”

She nodded again and dropped to her stomach and did as he instructed.

He stood and moved to the corner of the carriage, settling into the darkness, waiting for their pursuers to follow.

•   •   •

The two men hurried across the train tracks, arms out,
eyes peering along the barrels of their handguns. Unlike the others who had assaulted the warehouse, these two wore civilian clothes. They'd lost sight of their targets but knew where they had to be. The abandoned train carriages formed the only concealment. The two men would have seen them had they tried to make a break for it along the tracks. The alternative was a nine-meter drop that would surely kill them. No one was that stupid.

Communicating with hand signals only, they split up, one going left while the other went right, intending to approach the rusting carriages from either flank. They had no concern for the woman. She was a civilian. Which meant there was only her protector who offered any threat, and he couldn't ambush them both if they split up. They were cautious because they were professional, but neither was scared.

The thrill of the chase was strong in both.

They lived for moments like this.