Chris Ryan - Killing for the Company

Suze stared down on the street. Chet could sense her trembling.

‘Believe me,’ he said quietly. ‘If it was me that wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now. I don’t know who this woman is, but she’s armed, she has access to information and she’s a professional assassin. We have to get away from her, and we have to do it right now. Is there any way out of here, other than the front door? A fire exit? Can you get on to the roof?’

‘No… I don’t think so… no, I’m sure.’ She looked like all her worst nightmares were coming true.

Chet tried to keep a clear head. ‘Do you know anyone else in this block? Do you have friends here? People you can trust?’

It took Suze a moment to reply, as though the question hadn’t quite sunk in. ‘An old couple,’ she said finally. ‘Flat 5. Vern and Dorothy. Not friends, exactly, but… but… they’re not there anyway…’

‘Are you positive?’

‘They’ve gone away… on a cruise… I’ve got their keys.. ’

‘Give them to me. Now.’ Chet looked out of the window again as Suze put the knife down on the windowsill and rummaged in her colourful patchwork handbag. The police had created a cordon around the white Golf; the woman was still loitering thirty metres down the street, leaning against a tree and watching.

‘You’ve got thirty seconds to get ready,’ Chet told Suze as she handed him a set of keys.

‘Thirty seconds… I can’t… I…’ Chet grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the door. She started to struggle. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘The tape.’ She broke free and scrambled towards the bookshelf where a Dictaphone was lying at an angle. When she came back with the tape, he gripped her arm again and dragged her out of the flat and down the stairs.

By the time they reached the door to the flat below, Suze was crying, but she’d stopped fighting so much. Chet unlocked the door and pushed her inside before quietly closing it behind him. Flat 5 was bigger than Suze’s attic studio. They were in a long hallway, lined with oil paintings and even a small alabaster statue on a pedestal of a cherub peeing. Suze’s sobbing was noisy. ‘Get away from the door,’ Chet whispered. ‘Stay away from all the windows, don’t switch on any lights and don’t make a fucking noise.’

Suze stared at him. She was breathing in short, frightened gasps.

‘ Get away from the door! ’

She staggered back along the hallway, and collapsed on the thick carpet.

Chet grabbed the figurine. It was small enough to grip in one hand, heavy enough to do some proper damage to someone’s skull. He stayed by the entrance. There was a spyhole in the door, through which he could see the landing outside. He kept his eyes on the exterior of the flat, gripping the statue in his right hand. ‘Shut up,’ he said. When it was clear the girl couldn’t stop crying, he tried to block out the sound so that he could concentrate on any noise that came from the stairwell.

Two minutes passed. There was a brief commotion — voices talking excitedly — that sounded like it came from the floor below, though it was difficult to be sure. It was followed by the banging of the door, and then silence.

‘What’s happening?’ Suze asked.

‘Shut up.’

‘Who are you?’

‘ Sshh! ’

Someone was coming. He found himself holding his breath.

It was fleeting — the black-clad figure of the woman slipping past like a ghost before heading up to the top floor — but it was enough. Enough for Chet to see the determination on her face and the weapon in her fist.

Chet turned to Suze. She’d recovered a little, but she still looked shit-scared. He tried to sound reassuring, but it was difficult, given what he had to say. ‘She’s going into your flat,’ he whispered, ‘and she’s got a gun. We have less than a minute before she realises you’re not there. We’ve got to go now, and we’ve got to go quietly. OK?’

She looked up at him and nodded. Chet helped her to her feet, and pulled her gently towards the door.

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

He opened up as quietly as possible, and they stepped out into the landing and towards the stairs. Chet nodded at Suze to go first, and followed close behind as she descended. He was still grasping the cherub. Not much use against a nine-millimetre, but it was all there was. Every four or five steps he looked back over his shoulder, but he saw nothing. The further they got towards the ground floor, the faster and more panicked Suze’s steps became, until it was difficult for Chet to keep up. By the time they were both on the ground floor, she was sobbing again.

‘You’re doing fine,’ Chet said, out of breath, as he opened the street door. ‘Keep going.’

They stepped outside. There were still two policemen by the cordoned-off Golf, but they were talking so casually it was clear they’d found no weapons and didn’t consider the situation serious. Chet kept hold of Suze’s arm and guided her across the street.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘My car.’

‘Where then?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why are you limping like that?’

Chet sniffed. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll explain later.’

Suddenly he stopped. He didn’t know why. Just a feeling. An uneasy one. He turned around and looked back towards Suze’s block. He could clearly see the top-floor window, the one he’d looked out of just minutes previously.

There was a face at the window, looking out on to the street. It might have been indistinguishable at this distance, but somehow Chet knew, with absolute certainty, that the face was watching them leave.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. Keep going.’ He continued to walk. And as he walked, his mind turned over. Whoever this woman was that they’d just escaped from, she was skilled and she had resources.

She was dangerous. And she wasn’t the type to give up.

A good thing, then, that neither was he.

Chet’s face was grim as he led Suze to his car and opened the door for her before looking up again at the window in the distance. He could still see the woman there, and that meant she had clocked his car. Nothing he could do about that now, though. He climbed in and drove off.

The woman standing at the window watched her two targets disappear. Her face was expressionless.

She turned away. Things had not gone well at all. She had killed the wrong man at the station that morning. That was a bad error, and as they had drummed into her during her training, one mistake invariably leads to another. A kitchen knife lay on the windowsill. Her fingers sought it out, almost of their own accord, and she gripped the handle. With a sudden burst of rage, she raised the knife in the air and drove the point down so heavily into the sill that the wood split. ‘ Ben zonah! ’

Her eyes flashed and it needed every ounce of self-control to stop the anger from once more bursting out of her. She took a couple of deep breaths and ran her hands through her hair.

Think, Maya, she told herself. You have to think.

She closed her eyes. She forced herself to become calm.

When she was a little girl, her parents had told her the story of Hansel and Gretel and how they were able to retrace their way through the forest because they had dropped little bits of bread behind them. It frequently struck her that most people dropped bits of bread behind them, even if they didn’t know they were doing it. If you wanted to find the person, all you had to do was follow the crumbs.

She looked around the flat. It was a tiny place — smaller even than her safe house in Tel Aviv — but that didn’t mean it held no secrets. She continued to breathe deeply so as to calm her temper, and started to search.