Muted sounds of traffic and fleeing diners coming from the right. He tossed the can through the doorway so it sailed diagonally to the right. It was dark in the alleyway but the reflective metal sheen of the can caught what little light there was.
Muzzle flashes illuminated the alleyway in strobes of orange and yellow.
Bullets chipped brickwork and tore through the open door.
Leeson stumbled backwards away from the door, his soaked suit leaving a bloody smear on the wall as he leant against it, his legs weak with fear. Victor pushed past him and dashed back into the kitchen.
Overturned tables and chairs lay strewn throughout the restaurant. The body of the maître d’ lay face down near where Victor and Leeson had sat, the back of her clothes a mess of blood and torn fabric. The room was empty except for the corpses. Diners and staff alike streamed out of the restaurant exit or climbed through the destroyed window. There was no sign of the Jeep or the Georgian mobsters. But they were out there, waiting for the crowd to disperse and ready to open up with automatic fire if Leeson or Victor was amongst them.
‘Go back into the corridor,’ Victor said. ‘Lie down facing the exit. Aim the shotgun halfway up, at the centre. You’ll see a shadow on the alley wall an instant before anyone enters. They’ll be hurrying, so squeeze the trigger as soon as you see the shadow. Do you understand?’
Leeson nodded. He spoke in disconnected bursts. ‘Lie in the corridor. Aim at the door. Shoot the guy who comes through the doorway.’
‘No. Shoot the shadow. Don’t wait for the guy to appear. You’ll be slower to react than you think because you’re scared – he’ll be faster because he isn’t. If you wait, he’ll kill you.’
Leeson nodded again. ‘Shoot the shadow. Don’t wait. What are you going to do?’
Victor didn’t answer. He grabbed the first Georgian’s shotgun. Broken glass and crockery crunched beneath Victor’s shoes as he stepped across the destroyed room. The last of the fleeing crowd – the kitchen staff who had been furthest away – scrambled faster when they saw him coming behind them.
‘Get across the road,’ Victor called after them. ‘Don’t go to the left.’
Those fleeing were already going straight ahead or to the right because guys with automatic weapons were to the left, but Victor didn’t want anyone to go the wrong way in the elevated panic caused by his proximity. They were even more afraid of him than they were of the Georgians.
He looked over a shoulder to check Leeson had moved as instructed, saw him lying on the other side of the open kitchen door, turned left side on to the restaurant’s exit, stepped out and immediately squeezed the Mossberg’s trigger.
It roared and a huge blast of white-hot gases exploded from the muzzle. The recoil kicked in his hands, jerking the unsupported barrel upwards.
He missed because he hadn’t aimed. His eyes took in a snapshot of the scene before him – the rear of the big Jeep stationary in the centre of the road eleven metres away – a guy with an AK-74SU covering the alleyway – another, kneeling in the gutter, aiming the sub-machine gun Victor’s way – and he retreated back into the restaurant before the crew could respond.
The kneeling Georgian fired, reacting a fraction of a second too slowly – though fast enough had Victor taken the time to aim. But he only wasted a few rounds as he controlled the burst. A calmer operator than the guy in the Jeep’s passenger seat, and therefore a more dangerous one.
Victor racked the Mossberg and fired it again single-handed, extending only the gun and his arm through the door. He didn’t expect to hit either of the men, and he couldn’t see if he had, but the minuscule pause before the return burst from an SU told him he hadn’t.
‘What’s happening?’ Leeson yelled over the din of automatic gunfire.
‘Stay where you are,’ Victor called back as he racked the shotgun. ‘Remember what I told you.’
He fired blind again. Another smoking shell landed among the debris on the restaurant floor. After the roar of shot dissipated he heard a clattering – windscreen glass pebbles raining on the road.
He glanced at Leeson. ‘Be ready.’
The Rome police would have been called by now. Average response time for reports of gunshots was sub three minutes across the developed world. Less than two minutes left. The Georgians might not know the statistics,