The Other Woman. Daniel Silva

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СКАЧАТЬ Hughes, MI6’s Vienna Head of Station, had expressly forbidden him to carry a weapon. Keller had a well-deserved reputation for violence; Hughes, for caution. He had a nice life in Vienna—a productive network, long lunches, decent relations with the local service. The last thing he wanted was a problem that would result in him being recalled to a desk at Vauxhall Cross.

      Just then, Mikhail’s BlackBerry flared with an incoming message. The glow of the screen lit his pale face. “The train is in the station. Kirov is on his way out.”

      “Heathcliff,” said Keller with reproof. “His name is Heathcliff until we get him inside the safe flat.”

      “Here he comes.”

      Mikhail returned his BlackBerry to his coat pocket as Kirov emerged from the station, preceded by one of Eli Lavon’s watchers and followed by another.

      “He looks nervous,” said Keller.

      “He is nervous.” Mikhail was drumming his fingers on the center console again. “He’s Russian.”

      The watchers departed the station on foot; Konstantin Kirov, in one of the taxis. Keller followed at a discreet distance as the car moved eastward across the city along deserted streets. He saw nothing to suggest the Russian courier was being tailed. Mikhail concurred.

      At twelve fifteen the taxi stopped outside the Best Western. Kirov climbed out but did not enter the hotel. Instead, he crossed the Donaukanal over the Schwedenbrücke, now trailed by Mikhail on foot. The bridge deposited the two men onto the Taborstrasse, and the Taborstrasse in turn delivered them to a pretty church square called the Karmeliterplatz, where Mikhail closed the distance between himself and his quarry to a few paces.

      Together they crossed to an adjacent street and followed it past a parade of darkened shops and cafés, toward the Biedermeier apartment house at the end of the block. Light burned faintly in a fourth-floor window, enough so that Mikhail could make out the silhouetted figure of Gabriel standing with one hand to his chin and his head tilted slightly to one side. Mikhail sent him one final text. Kirov was clean.

      It was then he heard the sound of an approaching motorcycle. His first thought was that it was not the sort of night to be piloting a vehicle with only two wheels. This was confirmed a few seconds later when he saw the bike skidding around the corner of the apartment block.

      The driver wore black leather and a black helmet, with the dark visor down. He slid to a stop a few yards from Kirov, dropped a foot to the street, and drew a gun from the front of his jacket. It was fitted with a long cylindrical sound suppressor. Mikhail couldn’t discern the model of the weapon itself. A Glock, maybe an H&K. Whatever it was, it was pointed directly at Kirov’s face. Mikhail allowed the phone to fall from his grasp and reached for his Jericho, but before he could draw it, the motorcyclist’s weapon spat twin tongues of fire. Both shots found their mark. Mikhail heard the sickening crack of the rounds tearing through Kirov’s skull, and saw a flash of blood and brain matter as he collapsed to the street.

      The man on the motorcycle then swung his arm a few degrees and leveled the gun at Mikhail. Two shots, both errant, drove him to the pavement, and two more sent him crawling toward the shelter of a parked car. His right hand had found the grip of the Jericho. As he drew it, the man on the motorcycle raised his foot and revved the engine.

      He was thirty meters from Mikhail, no more, with the ground floor of the apartment block behind him. Mikhail had both hands on the Jericho, with his outstretched arms braced on the boot of the parked car. Still, he held his fire. Office doctrine gave field operatives wide latitude in utilizing deadly force to protect their own lives. It did not, however, allow an operative to fire a .45-caliber weapon toward a fleeing target in a residential quarter of a European city, where a stray round might easily take an innocent life.

      The motorcycle was now in motion, the roar of its engine reverberating in the canyon of apartment buildings. Mikhail watched its progress over the barrel of the Jericho until it was gone. Then he clambered over to the spot where Kirov had fallen. The Russian was gone, too. There was almost nothing left of his face.

      Mikhail looked up toward the figure in the fourth-floor window. Then, from behind, he heard the rising engine note of a car approaching at high speed. He feared it was the rest of the hit team coming to finish the job, but it was only Keller in the Passat. He snatched up his mobile phone and hurled himself inside. “I told you,” he said as the car shot forward. “Nothing ever happens here.”

      Gabriel remained in the window longer than he should have, watching the shrinking taillight of the motorcycle, pursued by the blacked-out Passat. When the two vehicles were gone, he looked down at the man lying in the street. Snow whitened him. He was as dead as a man could be. He was dead, thought Gabriel, before he arrived in Vienna. Dead before he left Moscow.

      Eli Lavon was now standing at Gabriel’s side. Another long moment passed, and still Kirov lay there alone, unattended. Finally, a car approached and drew to a stop. The driver climbed out, a young woman. She raised a hand to her mouth and looked away.

      Lavon drew the blinds. “Time to leave.”

      “We can’t just—”

      “Did you touch anything?”

      Gabriel searched his memory. “The computers.”

      “Nothing else?”

      “The door latch.”

      “We’ll get it on the way out.”

      At once, blue light filled the room. It was a light Gabriel knew well, the light of a Bundespolizei cruiser. He dialed Oren, the chief of his security detail.

      “Come to the Hollandstrasse side of the building. Nice and quiet.”

      Gabriel killed the connection and helped Lavon bag the computers and the phones. On the way out the door, they both gave the latch a thorough scrubbing, Gabriel first, then Lavon for good measure. As they hurried across the courtyard they could hear the first faint sound of sirens, but the Hollandstrasse was quiet, save for the low idle of a car engine. Gabriel and Lavon slid into the backseat. A moment later they were crossing the Donaukanal, leaving the Second District for the First.

      “He was clean. Right, Eli?”

      “As a whistle.”

      “So how did the assassin know where he was going?”

      “Maybe we should ask him.”

      Gabriel dug his phone from his pocket and called Mikhail.

       5

       FLORIDSDORF, VIENNA

      The Passat sedan was equipped with Volkswagen’s newest version of all-wheel drive. A right turn at one hundred kilometers per hour on fresh snow, however, was far beyond its abilities. The rear tires lost traction, and for an instant Mikhail feared they were about to spin out of control. Then, somehow, the tires regained their grip on the pavement, and the car, with one last spasm of fishtailing, righted itself.

      Mikhail lightened his hold on the armrest. “Have much experience driving in winter conditions?”

      “A СКАЧАТЬ