Chris Ryan - Who Dares Wins

Mac looked about, as casually as he could. There were probably thirty people milling around the statue of Eros, tourists mostly. He didn’t know why they felt the need to be there. His eyes scoured the late-night crowds spilling into Piccadilly Circus from Regent Street. Hundreds of people. This place was like a jam jar. The people were like wasps. They swarmed to it.

It had been six years since he last saw Jacob, but Mac felt confident that he would recognise him. The dark hair. The serious eyes. His stomach turned. Nerves. Nothing to do with the operation. He could handle that. But seeing J. again. Especially when he had so many questions to answer.

And if Mac was nervous, what the hell was Sam feeling?

He took a last drag on his cigarette before stamping it out on the ground. Dolohov hadn’t moved.

He wanted to look at his watch again, but stopped himself. Clockwatching would make him look suspicious. And anyway, Jacob would come when he came.

It was only a matter of minutes now.

The neon billboards flickered on the edge of Mac’s vision.

He lit another Marlboro Light, and waited.

Sam held a copy of Nuts magazine in front of him as he leaned against the shop window. Plenty of naked flesh on the pages, but had anyone asked him what he was reading, he wouldn’t have been able to say. His eyes didn’t even brush the text or pictures in front of him. In the distance, on the other side of the statue, a neon digital clock counted down the seconds.

21.57.

Dolohov was in position. It had almost been a relief to see him – it meant at least that Jacob had not yet fallen into the Firm’s hands. But Sam’s mouth was dry, his blood hot with anticipation. He double-checked Mac: there he was, lighting another cigarette. That was two, now. He cursed under his breath. Two cigarettes in two minutes. Damn it, Mac looked like a guy waiting for something to happen.

He breathed deeply. He kept watching. His fingers felt for the Browning strapped into his ops waistcoat underneath his loose, hooded top. It was comforting to have it there.

21.58.

His brain burned with concentration, with the strain of trying to stop the crowds morph into one impenetrable blur. He looked for evidence of the Firm, but saw nothing suspicious. That figured. Unmarked cars, plain-clothed agents – they’d have pulled out all the stops to make sure they looked like part of the scenery.

21.59.

Mac had finished his second cigarette. He was blowing into his hands as if to warm them. But it wasn’t cold. Or maybe Sam was sweating for other reasons. His eyes darted around. He could taste the anticipation. His brother was here somewhere. He had to be.

Damn it, Jacob. Where are you? Where in the name of…?

Sam’s breath caught in his throat.

Everything around him – the noise of the cars, the chattering of the people – dissolved into silence. The world went by in slow motion.

Someone was approaching Dolohov.

In the distance the neon clock announced the time: 22.00 hrs.

Sam could only see the figure sideways on. He wore a black raincoat. Long. Down to his knees. It had a hood, pulled up to cover his head. Dark glasses. He stepped confidently. He was five metres away from Dolohov.

Everything happened so quickly; and yet, in Sam’s mind, so painfully slowly.

Dolohov looked up, recognition in his face. He knew he was being approached.

From two metres away Mac took a step towards the Russian. As he did so, he looked across the road and directly at Sam. Sam waited for the signal. Five fingers. But Mac was hesitating. Dark glasses and a hood – they stopped him from giving a positive ID. He looked unsure. Sam’s hands slipped into his top, ready to pull out his Browning. Ready to defend Jacob from whatever was to come.

A bendy bus blocked Sam’s vision for three or four seconds. He cursed. When the bus slipped out of view the figure was only a metre from Dolohov; and Mac was looking at Sam in panic. Fuck it, thought Sam. We need the diversion. Now! He put his hand to his gun.

But before he could spin round to blast out the shop window, he stopped. For three reasons.

The first, a screeching of tyres. Vehicles everywhere. A crunch as two cars hit each other. Men sprinting across the road and towards the island. Weapons being pulled.

And the second, a sudden, twisting realisation that something was wrong. The figure, dressed in black. It was the same height as Jacob. Almost the same build. But something wasn’t right. The gait? The slope of the shoulders? Sam didn’t know what, but he did know one thing.

The figure in black wasn’t his brother.

It was a dummy. A decoy.

The third reason, that was something he should have seen. Something he should have noticed. It had been right there staring him in the face all the time, after all. It was a small thing. Just a length of red ribbon, tied to a lamppost to the right of Eros and fluttering in the wind.

A sickening feeling in his stomach. He knew what the ribbon was, of course. A wind marker. There to make sure a sniper knew exactly what kind of breezes he was up against.

‘ Mac! ’ he screamed at the top of his voice. ‘ Shooter! ’ But too late. Mac had already realised something was wrong. He stepped back, then looked over at Sam as if to say, ‘What the hell do I do now?’

But Sam couldn’t answer. He didn’t have the time. All he could do was watch what happened…

21.57.

From the roof of the former record store, Jacob Redman looked down on to the statue of Eros. By his feet there was a dead body.

It had been dead for ten minutes and blood still flowed from its head wound. The corpse’s comms set was now fitted to Jacob’s head, and it was Jacob who responded into the microphone every two minutes, when the sniper unit’s commander checked that all was okay. And when the commander had reminded them that if Jacob Redman was positively ID’d they should shoot to wound, he had replied with a curt ‘Roger that.’

Through the telescopic sight attached to his Armalite, he viewed the red ribbon. It fluttered slightly to the south-east. A steady wind. Gentle. But enough to swerve a round off-course. He redirected his aim towards Dolohov, then moved it fractionally to the left. Experience told him that this would be a direct hit.

The Russian appeared frozen. Fear? Jacob didn’t care. It made it easier for him to keep his target in his sights.

Earlier in the evening he’d visited the hooker again. Another two hundred quid in cash and the promise of a third payment once the job was done. In the back of his mind there was a niggling worry that she wouldn’t show. He suppressed it. Jacob had seen the way the girl’s eyes had lit up at the prospect of more cash.

Money. Sometimes it was the only thing you could trust. She’d be there.

21.58.

It had been straightforward getting up here. An external staircase – a fire exit – leading down into a small alley off one of the mews streets between Piccadilly and Regent Street. If you didn’t know these places were there, you’d never notice them; but Jacob had been party to enough rooftop stakeouts to know how to gain access.

He kept his gun trained on Dolohov.

21.59.

He had told her to be on time. Not a minute early, not a minute late. They had synchronised their watches. Jacob pulled away from the telescopic sight and looked down with the naked eye. An ordinary London scene. No sign of spooks or police of any kind. Maybe there weren’t any. Maybe Dolohov was clean. Safe. Uncompromised. If that was the case the girl would lead him away to the RV point. If not…

Jacob put his eye back to the telescopic sight.