Now his wound was clean and had stopped bleeding it could begin healing properly. He was going to have another scar, but when he already had so many one more wouldn’t make too much difference. He wasn’t in the habit of taking off his shirt in public, but if the scar turned out to be too prominent yet more of his money would end up in the pocket of plastic surgeons. Aside from rich women, assassins were probably their best customers.
Good as teabags and sugar were at patching up injuries, it would have been better to use proper first-aid equipment. He hadn’t been able to risk trying to find an all-night pharmacy so soon after the attack as the police would be at their most watchful. Victor doubted they would know they were only looking for one man, at least so far, but if he was out on the streets he could be stopped at random. They would probably be smart enough to put hospitals and drug stores under surveillance.
The police presence would be huge all night, with the hope of catching the culprits as they fled. Running was the expected course of action. It was what criminals did in such situations. And Victor considered it a fine tactic in a crisis. If a location was compromised, withdraw. Once out of the initial danger area stop, regroup, formulate a plan. But a hasty withdrawal in this case was too risky with his wound. At night there were few people on the streets to disappear among and less means with which to escape with speed. While so fresh, the injury would be hard to disguise and would hinder him if he was spotted.
He felt tired. The adrenalin hangover was at its peak and he had to fight to keep his eyes open. Images of the attack flashed through his mind. It couldn’t have gone worse: Yamout had escaped, Victor had been forced to kill someone’s surveillance team, and he’d been wounded in the process.
He didn’t know much about the team, but he knew they had been there to record the meeting between Yamout and Petrenko, yet had no affiliation with either despite their intervention when Victor had started massacring everyone. If they had been associates of Yamout or Petrenko they would have responded to the cries for help. They weren’t Belarusian security services either. The watcher’s Russian hadn’t been good enough for a local, and cops or domestic spies would have identified themselves as such, and tried to arrest Victor instead of shooting at him.
He pushed the thoughts out of his mind for the time being. He wasn’t going to work anything out lying in the tub, and it was all moot if he didn’t get out of Minsk.
The taps pressed uncomfortably into his shoulders but it was necessary to face the bathroom door. He had it open so he could see into the bedroom and the small mirror positioned on the floor and angled so he could watch in it the reflection of the hotel room door. He didn’t expect anyone would be coming through it, but precautions only paid off if they were taken every time.
He spent twenty minutes in the bath enjoying the heat and the alcohol in his bloodstream. His tolerance was high enough that the intoxicating effect was minimal. A jolt of adrenalin would easily override it if it came to it, but the effect was just enough to help him unwind. He kept the watcher’s SIG in his left hand at all times.
When he was dry, Victor tidied and cleaned the bedroom and bathroom. Where blood had been, he wiped with a strip of T-shirt dampened with more vodka from the mini bar. The bloody towel and evidence of his ad-hoc first aid went into his attache case. He set out a clean set of clothes and ordered room service, then got dressed while he waited for his food to arrive. After he’d refuelled and ensured all of his effects were packed and he was ready to flee at a second’s notice, he tucked the SIG into the front of his waistband and lay down atop the bedclothes.
If his employer at the CIA hadn’t already found out what had happened, he would soon. Maybe the voice would be more forgiving if he knew that only the intervention of a third party had prevented the contract’s fulfilment. Or maybe killing those men would prove to be costly and put his paymaster under too much pressure.
And make Victor a liability he could do without.
CHAPTER 27
Danil Petrenko was as angry as he was scared. It enraged him that someone would dare try to take him out in the middle of his own city, and it terrified him that they had very nearly succeeded. As a precaution Petrenko clutched a. 50 calibre Desert Eagle as he paced about his apartment, barking orders or just venting his frustration and anxiety. His lieutenants had called every man under his control and had them rush to his residence to provide protection. If whoever had attacked before tried again, they’d have a small army to get through.
He had men outside the building, in the lobby, and guarding the elevators and his front door. Six of Petrenko’s biggest, meanest gangsters were with him in the apartment itself. All were armed. Every window was locked closed, all blinds or drapes shut, every light was switched on and candles had been set and lit in every room in case the power was cut like last time. Like Petrenko himself, his men were on edge, aware that mere hours before three of their own had been killed in a merciless assault.
Aside from his men now acting as guards, there were more out on the streets banging on doors and snapping fingers, all trying to find out who was behind the attack and why. Every other criminal he knew or cop he paid off was doing their part, some out of fear, others because they were scared of losing income if Petrenko was killed. Motives were irrelevant to Petrenko. All he cared about were results.
The Lebanese bastard hadn’t been behind it. That was pretty obvious to Petrenko. He had seen the look in Yamout’s eyes as they had climbed through the bathroom window and on to the precarious ledge. No one could fake that kind of terror.
It had been about three hours since he’d fled the Europe with his only surviving man. His apartment was the penthouse of a ten-storey block in one of Minsk’s most expensive and desirable neighbourhoods. He lived with his glamour-model girlfriend, who had locked herself in the guest bedroom to keep out of the way of Petrenko and his men.
One of his men came out of another room. He had a shotgun in one hand and a cell phone in the other, held with the speaker against his chest.
‘I’ve just had a call from downstairs,’ the man said. ‘He’s here.’
‘Okay,’ Petrenko said, nodding. ‘Send him up. But make sure him and his men have no weapons. And don’t take your eyes off them for a second. Got it? Not for a second.’
While his man gave the go-ahead to the guards in the lobby, Petrenko splashed some water on his face, swiped his sweaty hair back from his forehead, had another fat line of Bolivia’s finest. He wiped the white residue from his nostrils, took a deep breath and waited in the lounge for his guest’s arrival.
A minute later, there was a knock on the door and Petrenko heard his men taking guns and ushering the guest through to where he sat. He stood up the moment Tomasz Burliuk entered. The tall, handsome, immaculately groomed Ukrainian, Vladimir Kasakov’s closest advisor, was followed by two bodyguards.
‘Danil,’ Burliuk began and took out his asthma inhaler. ‘What’s with the lack of manners?’
‘I’m sorry, Tomasz, but I can’t be too careful. You don’t know what it’s been like for me. I almost died tonight. I almost died.’
Burliuk put the inhaler to his lips and breathed in as he depressed the mechanism. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Petrenko flopped back on to a chair. He shrugged and gestured as he assembled his thoughts. ‘We were just beginning negotiations when all the damn lights went out. I thought it was nothing. A fuse maybe. But no more than thirty seconds later my men started dying. Damn it, Tomasz, someone tried to kill me. In my own city. I had to climb through a window just to get away. Look — ’ he gestured to his wrists, which were lightly scabbed where the broken glass had grazed him ‘- I almost killed myself in the process.’