Victor released the driver, brought his hands back, grabbed hold of the Israeli’s wrist, wrenched him closer, let go, and smashed his right elbow into the guy’s face. Then twice more. The Israeli sagged on the seat, stunned and disorientated.
The passenger pulled herself back upright, swivelled her head in Victor’s direction. Her gun began to rise.
Victor grabbed the stunned Israeli’s right hand with his own two, heaved the arm up to tilt the Beretta in the correct direction as much as he could, and squeezed the guy’s finger down on to the trigger.
The suppressed clack was loud inside the car. The bullet caught the driver in the side of his ribcage, halfway between his armpit and hip. The car swerved again as the woman fired, throwing her aim. A hole blew through the back window. Pebbles of glass struck the back of Victor’s head. Wind and rain rushed inside.
The Renault careered into the other lane, hitting an SUV side-on. The force pushed Victor against the door to his left and he lost his grip on the Beretta. It dropped into the foot well behind the driver’s seat and between Victor’s feet. The dazed Israeli fell against him. Metal shrieked against metal. The driver groaned.
Horns blared. Other cars swerved out of the way. The woman grasped the wheel, one hand keeping the Renault from crashing while trying to retrieve her own gun, dropped in the impact, with the other. The guy in the back grabbed at Victor, who threw a sideways head butt into his already bloodied face, took hold of his jacket and shoved him between the front seats and into the woman.
Her hand was forced away from the wheel and the car swerved sharply. Tyres squealed against wet asphalt. Victor tried to grab the Beretta in the foot well but didn’t have the room with his legs in front of him and in the way. The driver slumped across the wheel, his weight turning it to the right this time. The woman seized the steering wheel again, this time with both hands, heaving it back to straighten the Renault out.
The Israeli between the seats twisted himself around and punched at Victor. The guy’s position was bad, and they didn’t connect with enough force to slow Victor down. He released the seat belt and drove his right elbow into his attacker’s stomach, then again, fingers locked together, left arm adding to the strength of the right. The Israeli gasped and doubled over. Victor hurled him on to the back seat, grabbed the driver’s headrest for support, swivelled in his seat, and kicked the Israeli in the neck while his head lolled back. Victor felt the larynx crush beneath his heel. The Israeli choked and grasped at his throat.
Without his legs in the way, Victor reached down into the foot well. The woman in the passenger seat saw what he was doing, let go of the steering wheel and scrambled for her own weapon lying between the slumped-over driver’s thighs.
Victor’s eyes locked with hers.
With no one holding the wheel, the Renault swerved erratically, causing the Beretta to slide around in the foot well, evading Victor’s stilted grasp. Rain lashed the back of his head. The woman pulled her gun out from between the driver’s legs as Victor felt cool metal in his fingers, grabbed the Beretta, lifted it up in both hands.
He watched as the woman brought her arms back to get the trajectory. She had to make half the distance he had.
He fired first, without aiming, squeezing the trigger rapidly, gun below seat level, angled upwards.
Nine millimetre bullets tore through the transmission box and the passenger seat and hit her in the thigh and hip. She screamed and flailed backward. Victor kept firing, increasing the angle, bloody bullet holes appearing in her stomach then chest. The gun fell from her fingers.
The car swerved right again. A horn blared. Victor saw oncoming headlights glimmering through the raindrops on the windshield. He swivelled back around and pushed his feet into the foot well. With his bound hands, he reached over his left shoulder and snatched the seat-belt buckle.
The sound of the horn’s continuous blaring and rubber screeching on wet asphalt filled Victor’s ears. He pulled the buckle across his torso. The lights glowed brighter, closer. He pushed the buckle into the clasp and heard it click in place.
The sudden collision sent Victor hurtling forward. The seat belt locked against him. The breath shot out from his lungs. His head smashed into the headrest. He heard metal screech and crumple. Glass shattered.
He fell back into the seat and grimaced. The driver lay limp against the steering wheel. The Israeli in the back had broken the passenger seat in the crash and lay slumped against it. He made slow, sucking breaths. Blood glistened across his face and streamed from his chin. The woman’s body was crushed beneath the seat. Her unblinking eyes stared at Victor.
He coughed and unfastened the seat belt. He used the Beretta to smash out the cracked window next to him, pulled himself through the opening and dropped down on to the cold and wet road surface.
He hauled himself to his feet and staggered away from the car. The Renault had crashed head-on into a similarly sized sedan. The driver of that car had been wearing his seat belt and Victor saw him rubbing the back of his neck.
Around Victor large warehouses and factories lined the four-lane highway. Other vehicles had stopped as far as he could see, behind him and ahead. A van had crashed through a chain-link fence. A few people were getting out of their cars. All eyes were on Victor.
Someone from a nearby Ford opened his door and headed Victor’s way. Victor ignored him and everyone else, spotted the blue Peugeot stopping fifty yards further back along the road. The Renault must have overtaken it in the chaos of the struggle.
Victor dropped to one knee, used his left hand to support the right as best as he could, lined up the Beretta’s iron sights over the glass of the windshield.
Cracks spread through the windshield as Victor fired at the Peugeot. He couldn’t see if he’d hit any of the Kidon, but he continued to shoot regardless. The Samaritan near to Victor fell over backwards in shock and fear. He scrambled away.
Four Israelis from the Peugeot — the big guy, two other men and the short woman with boyish hair — rushed out from the car and adopted firing positions of their own, but Victor was already running. He wasn’t going to win a four-on-one gunfight with Mossad assassins even if his hands weren’t bound together.
He sprinted in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER 64
Victor ran, cuffed wrists hovering before his chest, Beretta in both hands. He veered off the highway, across the parking space in front of a row of workshops, down an alleyway between buildings. It was narrow, dark, long, not much more than five feet wide from wall to wall, sheltered from the rain. He dodged around boxes and rubbish, eyes scanning for anything that could cut the strap between his wrists. He could barely see. He tripped on something metal, stumbled, grazing his arm against the rough brick as he kept himself upright.
The alleyway opened out to a wide expanse of asphalt, behind it a stretch of wasteland. He saw moonlight shining off a chain-link fence between the two. He was at the back of the row of workshops, all closed for the night. The only way to go was over the fence and across the wasteland beyond, but he wouldn’t make it over the fence if the Israelis from the Peugeot followed him.
He turned and positioned himself so his left shoulder was against the wall to the left of the alley’s opening. Six seconds passed before he heard the sound of a pursuer entering the alley. Victor gave it two seconds, enough time for someone to get far enough down the alley to trap themselves.
With his hands bound, he couldn’t just hold his gun arm around the corner and squeeze, so he twisted to the left as he stepped out to the right, realising his mistake as the moonlight cast his shadow on to the far wall of the alley ahead of him.