Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(56)

I had too much history with this. Too many encounters. Standing in that room, there was no shaking the feeling. One of us was about to die.





CHAPTER 78


JULIAN HAD been listening the entire time. I knew he didn’t want to say anything, not even a whisper, lest he distract me for even a millisecond. But there was one question he had to ask. “Do you want backup? Clear your throat if you do.”

I didn’t clear my throat.

I was sure Julian understood why. That’s why he asked. Otherwise he would’ve already made the call.

He knew the circumstances of how Elizabeth and I were in Viktor’s apartment. As operations went, this was beyond unsanctioned. Even worse, I had involved the mayor. He was an unwitting accomplice.

So, no. Elizabeth and I would take our chances. Roll the dice on our own.

“We just need to grab one thing,” said the Mudir, dragging Viktor a few steps back toward his desk. He winked at me. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“We already know where the payments are coming from,” I lied.

The Mudir didn’t ask What payments? It was maybe the first mistake he’d made. Or maybe there was simply no point in his playing dumb. We all knew who everyone was in the room.

“Perhaps you do know. All the same, I think we’ll take it with us anyway.” The Mudir jerked Viktor toward his laptop. “Pick it up,” he said.

Viktor’s hands were trembling. He nearly dropped the laptop twice before securing it against his stomach. I could tell he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. It was as if he were drowning. A man suddenly realizing that he truly was out of his depth.

Elizabeth caught my eye, mouthing the word No. That’s how well she knew me.

I had the shot. I could put a bullet through the middle of the Mudir’s forehead, ten times out of ten. Eight of those times he’d die without even a twitch, never pulling his trigger. Those were pretty good odds.

But not good enough. Especially because I was nothing more than a civilian. The real reason Elizabeth was saying no was to protect me, not Viktor.

Still, something had to be done. A deal.

“You can’t take him with you,” I said. “We stay and you can go—but only if you go alone.”

The Mudir jammed the barrel of his gun even harder into the side of Viktor’s head. “I’ll do whatever I want.”

“No. You won’t,” I said. “If you take him, you’re taking all of us.”

That seemed to get him thinking. “Maybe if you lower your guns first,” he told us.

It was a lousy counteroffer and he knew it. He was stalling. He began moving for the hallway with his arm still wrapped around Viktor’s neck.

“He stays,” I repeated.

“After he shows me to the door,” said the Mudir. “I am a guest, after all.”

I joined Elizabeth in the hallway, but we stayed back as the Mudir headed for the front door of Viktor’s apartment. He walked backward, his eyes never leaving us, and the sights of our guns never leaving him. When he reached the door, Viktor knew enough to open it for him, shifting his laptop from one hand to the other.

“Now let him go,” I said.

Standing with one foot out in the foyer, the Mudir nodded. “As you wish,” he said. But it was the way he said it.

Only by then it was too late.





CHAPTER 79


LIKE A magician, the Mudir made a show of reaching for Viktor’s laptop while releasing him from his grasp. All eyes were where the Mudir wanted them to be. On the laptop. Not his gun.

By the time Elizabeth and I blinked, the Mudir had sidestepped out of the apartment. Now all we could see was the gun.

Viktor was staying, all right, along with everything he could tell us about the Mudir. It was all staying with him forever.

Bam!

The shot was so clean, so straight, that the blood didn’t splatter. It gurgled. Then poured.

Viktor’s right temple turned into a spigot of red as he spun downward, his legs collapsing beneath him. It was impossible not to watch, and again the Mudir was banking on it. We were frozen. Only for a few seconds, but it was all the time he needed for his head start. That and the length of the hallway that separated us.

“Me!” I said to Elizabeth, finally taking off. Me, as in, not you. As in, the one with the badge stays with the body.

“I can’t see him,” came Julian’s voice in my ear. He was checking all the security cameras. He didn’t need to be told what had happened. “Watch your front.”

The Mudir could’ve been right by the elevator waiting for me. Only he wasn’t. By the time I slid to a stop—damn these socks—and peeled around Viktor’s front door, the only thing to be seen beyond the barrel of my gun was the door to the stairwell closing shut. As much as the Mudir wanted me dead, he wanted out of that building more.

“Shit!”

“What is it?” asked Julian.

I’d reached the stairs only to suddenly stop on the landing. “He took my shoes.”

I could practically hear the Mudir laughing. It wasn’t that I couldn’t chase him without shoes, it’s that he knew I’d come to a stop once I saw they were gone. That’s just the way the mind works.

The Mudir’s racing footsteps floors below were echoing all around me now. There was still a slim chance I could catch him. But I didn’t budge.