to its source – which lay behind the corner of a shelving unit stacked with bottles.
Dietrich grinned in the darkness. You’re going to have to do better than that, he thought as he edged forwards. Less than three metres to go before he was in position to strike. Just before he reached the corner, before he exposed himself to Kooi’s position, Dietrich would angle the AK and spray rounds through the pallets of bottles. Maybe he would aim low and try to incapacitate Kooi with bullets in the legs. Then he could have some fun with him. Two metres to go.
Something clattered behind him and Dietrich spun around in the direction of the sound.
His gaze swept from darkness into light focused and magnified by one of the convex mirrors. He grimaced, the light stinging his eyes with their dilated pupils and ruining his night vision. Purple spots blinded him. He pivoted back around, knowing he’d been tricked.
There was an explosion of light and sound.
Dietrich didn’t know he’d been hit at first, but he sucked in a breath and felt warm liquid in his throat. He squeezed the AK’s trigger and nothing happened. His fingers didn’t move. The spots cleared from before his eyes and he realised he was staring up at the night through the mill’s skylights.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel anything. He breathed again and liquid entered his lungs. Then Dietrich understood. He’d been shot in the neck. The bullet had ruptured his spinal cord and severed his jugular.
He lay paralysed from the neck down and drowned in his own blood.
Leeson flinched at the sound of the single gunshot and made his move. He couldn’t wait any longer. He hurried out of the old mill and ran across the open ground to where his limousine was parked, the last Chechen jogging behind him. He should have thought of it before. The moment he knew something had gone wrong he should have got inside the Phantom. The protection it offered was immense. Even the high-powered bullet storm of an AK-47 wouldn’t pierce the armoured sides or windows. Leeson had insisted on that when he had the car outfitted. His enemies were well armed, so he had to be even better protected.
He unlocked the driver’s door and tossed a set of keys to the Chechen, and instructed him to open the gate. Once it was open, Leeson shot him. He didn’t want to have to explain to the man why he wasn’t going to be striking the promised blow against the Russian imperialists he so hated.
Leeson climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut. The heavy thunk it made sounded divine. It meant he was safe. He turned the ignition key to start the engine and noticed the valet key was missing from the ring. Someone had taken it, but it didn’t matter now – Leeson was inside the vehicle. In the rear view monitor he saw Kooi exiting the new mill building. Leeson felt a surge of rage, but there was nothing he could do now to take revenge against the man who had destroyed months of careful planning. But that didn’t mean it was over. Leeson knew everything there was to know about Kooi’s life. He would hire people to deal with him and his family another time.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sound behind him. The partition window opened. Panic flooded through him and he twisted in his seat to see Kooi’s wife. She had a gun, pointed through the little window and at his head.
‘We can talk about this,’ Leeson said, swallowing. ‘I can make you a very wealthy woman.’
She said, ‘Put your hands over your ears, Peter, and close your eyes.’
SIXTY-FIVE
Two weeks later
Muir was waiting in the Piazza del Popolo before the archway of the grand sixteenth-century gate that led to the Via Flaminia. She stood sipping from a cup of coffee, dressed casually, sunglasses over her eyes. Victor had arrived early, but so had she. It was midday and the sky was blue and cloudless. The piazza was busy with Romans eating lunch and tourists taking more photographs than they could ever possibly need. They were densest around the Egyptian obelisk that stood, twenty-three metres tall, in the centre of the square, but they also congregated near the ornate fountains and before the symmetrical churches of Santa Maria del Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto. The amount of people made it more difficult to check she was really alone, but the crowd