Tom Hinshelwood - The Killer

Alvarez saw what was happening, let go of Dalweg, and scrambled after Sykes. He caught up with him before Sykes reached the weapon, wrapped his arms around Sykes’s thighs, hoisted him off his feet and brought him back down to ground. Hard.

Sykes’s arms cushioned the fall, but not enough to stop his face from finding the asphalt. He went limp and groaned quietly.

Alvarez got to his feet. He turned around to face Dalweg, only to see him heading back to the cab. The door was already opened, and he reached inside. When Dalweg pulled his arms back out, he had an Uzi in his hands.

Alvarez scooped up the Beretta and sprinted out of the line of fire before Dalweg had the submachine gun raised. Alvarez looked around frantically for some cover, realized there wasn’t any close enough for him to get to in time, turned back, and shot at Dalweg through the truck’s canvas backing, hoping for a lucky hit.

The Uzi roared in response, and a cluster of smoking holes appeared through the canvas. Rounds blasted chunks out of the masonry around Alvarez. He dropped down to his hands and knees, bending low to see underneath the truck. Dalweg was behind one of the rear wheels, only his shadow visible. The Uzi rattled off another burst, and more bullets sailed over Alvarez’s head.

Alvarez steadied his aim as much as he could and squeezed off a round.

The bullet blew out the truck’s tire, passing through the rubber and striking Dalweg in the leg on the other side. He howled in pain and abandoned his position. Alvarez fired another shot after him, but Dalweg was out of his field of view.

Alvarez got himself vertical, moved closer to the back of the truck, and tucked himself behind one of the big wheels like Dalweg had done. A second later more rounds came his way.

He stuck his head out of cover long enough to see that Dalweg was positioned behind a small wall on the other side of the road, and then pulled his skull back down. He felt the reverberations as bullets struck the truck and silently prayed that an unlucky round wasn’t going to set one of the warheads off. Alvarez didn’t know if they were armed or duds, and it had to be a long shot anyway, he told himself, but he didn’t want to wait around to test the theory.

He shuffled to the side and reached his arm backward and around the wheel to fire off a couple of shots in the general direction of Dalweg. His odds of hitting were probably longer than those of one of the warheads going bang, but he couldn’t have done too badly since the Uzi stopped blasting for a few seconds.

Alvarez didn’t waste the opportunity and changed positions, hurrying to the front of the truck and taking cover behind the wheel there. In a hunched-over crouch he moved around the front fender, leaned out of cover, and took a shot. He watched as the bullet plugged a hole in the wall shielding Dalweg.

The returning hail of 9 mms forced Alvarez back to behind the wheel. Rounds pinged off the truck’s hood, cracked the cab windows, whacked into the ground. Alvarez heard what sounded like running water and looked to his left to see fuel spilling out from a ruptured fuel tank, bullet holes through both sides.

Alvarez would be first to admit that his understanding of chemistry was nothing special, but he knew that diesel had a higher flashpoint than gasoline and was much harder to ignite. Even a match wouldn’t do it. But that fact was little comfort when a pool of the stuff was forming next to him.

He edged away from the diesel, wanting to make a run for it but aware he was completely pinned down. Moving out of the cover of the truck meant braving a storm of lead. Alvarez was brave, but he wasn’t stupid.

He popped out from behind the truck to fire another bullet at Dalweg, but, before he could fully squeeze the trigger, he felt a searing pain in his right shoulder and his legs gave way underneath him.

Alvarez landed on his back, grimaced against the unbelievable pain when he tried to move his right arm. He put his left fingers to the wound, feeling a small entry hole in the front of his outer deltoid. He stretched his fingers around to touch the much-larger exit wound at the back of his shoulder. A through and through. No bone damage, but when Alvarez withdrew his left hand, he saw that it was drenched with blood.

“Oh shit.”

19:26 UST

Victor followed the dusty road as it curved around and away from the hotel complex. Up ahead it joined onto the main road leading deeper into the city. The main road would be the quickest route out of the area, but it was also the most obvious choice. It would have to do. Victor didn’t know the area well enough to take to the side streets unless he had to.

He slowed down to blend in, joining the traffic waiting at the intersection. He checked the rearview.

Two pickups, a Toyota and a Ford, raced toward him.

Victor accelerated, maneuvered out from the line of cars onto the wrong side of the road, changed up a gear, and sped out across the intersection. He swerved around the cross-traffic, switched back to the right side of the road, and changed up again.

The pickups followed his lead, speeding across the crossroads, leaving clipped and crashed cars in their wake.

Victor released the throttle; slammed the brakes, power sliding the Jeep into a right; then immediately accelerated, the rear end slipping, vehicle rattling under the strain. He raced down a side street. Seconds later he saw the pickups following, taking the corner more slowly, glancing off parked cars as they tried to keep up with him.

Victor took another corner, sped across an intersection. He kept his eyes on the road, following it as it rounded a block of densely packed buildings, whitewashed stone colonials interspersed with shanties. Bald truck tires lay discarded in loose heaps on the side of the road. He moved around slower vehicles, hearing horns and seeing drivers expressing their anger at him.

The road straightened out and split in two. For a second Victor hesitated, but then he veered left onto a wide street that sloped downward. He looked in the mirror. Behind him the pickups overtook other cars or barged them out of the way.

Looking forward again he saw a grime-smeared taxi speed out from a side street, pulling onto the road directly ahead of him. There was no time to brake, no room to dodge. Victor floored it, smashing into the taxi’s front end, the bigger, heavier Jeep knocking the taxi back, sending it spinning into an oncoming car, wrecking both. Victor was thrown forward in his seat, but the seat belt kept his head from colliding with the steering wheel.

He struggled to keep the Jeep under control, swerving wildly, finally straightening out in time to see the first pickup, the Toyota, fifty yards behind, swerve onto a sidewalk to avoid the mangled car and taxi. Sparks flew off the wall as the truck scraped along, side mirror obliterated. It skidded back onto the road, dust pouring from its wheels.

The second pickup slowed down earlier, easily avoiding the crashed vehicles, and was gaining. In the rearview Victor could see the face of the Russian behind the wheel, grim and determined.

Ahead of Victor the street banked to the left. He followed it onto a wide tree-lined avenue full of traffic. The road surface was smooth and even. Rundown two-story residences with pillared verandas flanked the street. Some were painted in flaking pastel shades-creams, yellows, and blues. Vervet monkeys played in the vegetation alongside the road.

Victor, hands locked on the wheel, flicked the Jeep through the slow-moving cars, denting a wheel arch as he squeezed through a gap just before it closed again. The pickups were right behind him now, smashing their way through the other smaller vehicles. Horns blared.