Peter hadn’t looked at him, but Victor tucked the pistol into his waistband so he didn’t scare the boy any more than he presumably was already. Victor approached him.
‘Where’s your mother?’ he whispered.
Peter didn’t answer.
Victor squatted down. ‘Is she here?’
Again, Peter didn’t answer, but a scraping noise alerted Victor to a presence in the darkness. Lucille stepped into the light, moving fast, a chunk of masonry in her hand. She swung at Victor, a wild attack fuelled by terror and desperation, but her wrists were bound together and the stone was never going to reach Victor’s head.
He took hold of her by the arms and removed the improvised weapon from her grip. She would have collapsed to her knees had he not held her upright.
‘Who are you?’ she sobbed.
‘That’s not important. You have to trust me.’
‘Where’s Felix? Why do those men think you’re him?’
Victor pushed the hair from her face. ‘There’s no time to explain. You and Peter need to come with me. If you don’t those men are going to kill you. Do you understand?’
She nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes.
‘It’s going to be okay, Lucille,’ Victor said. ‘Just do as I say and I promise I’ll get you both out of this. I’m going to take out a knife, but that’s just so I can cut your wrists free. Is that okay?’
Lucille nodded, and Victor took out the Chechen’s knife and sawed through the tape that linked her wrists together.
‘Thank you.’
‘Are we safe now?’ Lucille said.
Victor shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
Lucille managed to nod in response. She hugged Peter and kissed the top of his head. He didn’t hug her back. He just stared at Victor.
He handed her the Makarov. ‘For protection.’
She hesitated, then took it.
‘It’s ready to fire,’ Victor explain. ‘All you have to do is squeeze the trigger. Aim for the centre of the torso.’
She nodded.
‘Bring Peter,’ Victor said. ‘I need to put you somewhere safe till this is over.’
Peter resisted when she took his hand, and pulled backwards when she tried to lead him away. ‘Come on, honey. We need to go.’
He made a keening sound and pulled harder. The noise got louder.
‘Shh,’ Lucille pleaded. ‘You need to keep quiet.’
But Peter wasn’t quiet. Victor didn’t know much about children, but he knew what fear looked like. ‘I like your dinosaur T-shirt, Peter,’ he said. ‘I used to like dinosaurs too at your age. I still do. Which is your favourite? Mine’s always been T. Rex.’
He didn’t respond, but the noise stopped.
‘Some people don’t believe he hunted. They say he wasn’t a fearsome beast but a scavenger,’ Victor continued. ‘I don’t agree. I think he was a hunter. I think he was big and scary and chased all the other dinosaurs around. What do you think?’
Peter hesitated. He looked to his mother and then back at Victor. ‘That he was big and scary.’
‘King of the dinosaurs, right?’
Peter nodded.
‘Do you think you can come with your mother and me and be very quiet?’ He nodded again and Victor gestured to Lucille. ‘Let’s go. There isn’t much time.’
The AK-47 was a fine weapon. Developed by Yuri Kalashnikov in 1947, it had proven itself as the rifle of the twentieth century. Frequently copied and hugely popular for its low cost, ease of use and extreme reliability in any and all conditions, Dietrich liked it because the bullets ripped huge chunks out of those unlucky enough to be hit by one. He’d used one plenty of times as a mercenary on the circuit and was a little envious that the Chechens were going to have the fun of using them tonight and not him. It was a waste. A fine weapon in the hands of an amateur who probably couldn’t hit a man-size target beyond twenty metres.
It was a waste, to which insult had been added by the fact Dietrich didn’t even have a firearm. Not that he needed one to kill Kooi’s bitch wife and bastard son, but that wasn’t the point. He sat in the pressing room of the old mill, throwing playing cards at a bucket, one at a time. He missed five or six for every one that went in. The boredom was killing him. Leeson was no kind of company and the Chechens were preparing to assault the embassy. At least it was almost over now. A clock that looked so old Dietrich was surprised it still worked showed the time as 8.45 p.m. Not long until the