Wanted Read Online Free PDF Page A

trickled down his throat. He’d bitten through his own cheek and lips.
    Breathe.
    Breathe, dammit, breathe.
    A mesh of torch beams flickered across his face, across his body. In a moment of clarity, he glimpsed the tattoo of the fist and the star on his right arm.
    Remember who you are.
Spetsnaz.
Remember your strength.
    His nostrils flared. His breath came in growls. The woman remained squatted in front of him, her head cocked to one side, watching him curiously, as if searching for understanding, as if trying to learn and comprehend what might be going through his mind. Her mouth looked like a gunshot entry wound. Blood drops patterned her jaw like holly berries.
    My blood, Valentin realized. Not hers.
    She spat hard at him. Something wet hit his cheek and momentarily stuck, before dropping to the floor. He didn’t need to see it to know what it was.
    Now her eyes were smiling. They were shimmering. No longer seeking to understand, already
knowing,
already satisfied. They were shining with something less like triumph and more like sex.
    The first chance I get, I’ll wipe that smile off your face
whoever the hell you are,
Valentin promised her, with his eyes.
    And perhaps somehow she read his words. Because something in her expression altered. Her ecstatic mask cracked.
    ‘When you die, old man,’ she said, ‘I will be the one who slits your throat.’
    A click.
    The red beam of a laser sight shot out from the pistol she was holding. It settled on his neck as she aimed.
    The click of a trigger. Pain tore into his neck.

CHAPTER 6
RUSSIA
    Darkness. Valentin tried to scream as he woke, but he could not.
    Pain was spreading outwards from his head and enveloping his whole body now. He felt as if he were about to catch fire.
    And if he felt this bad now – with whatever drug they’d given him still in his system – how much worse would he feel once it had worn off? Hopelessness gripped him. Was this it? Was this the place where he would die?
    And
where
was he? He stretched out with all his senses. The air was cool. But he couldn’t feel motion, not like in the back of that truck. Only stillness. And silence, silent like the grave. He could smell nothing. But he could hear breathing. Was it just him? Was someone else here?
    Hello? Hello!Hello, is anyone there?
    His words came out as a growl. He couldn’t open his mouth. But the breathing – the other breathing – heightened. It became whimpers. It became gasps. And clinking. A
clinking
sound. It started up and did not stop.
    I am not alone. I am not alone. But who? Who else is here? Believe,
he told himself.
Hope . . .
    A thunder of footsteps. A terrible creaking sound. A burst of bright, flickering light. Valentin’s eyes screwed up involuntarily. He had to fight just to open them, to make himself look. A terrible glare. Bare bulbs on the ceiling. An open door. Dark shapes coming through it. Towards him. One reached down and jerked him to his feet.
    No.
    The bitch.
    She shoved him into the arms of someone else. They gripped his neck from behind. As she moved aside, a man took her place, stood before him and observed him. Behind, a wall loomed into focus, damp brickwork, no decoration. What was this? A cellar? Where had these people brought him now?
    The man watching Valentin was hooded, his face deep in shadow. But as one of the bare bulbs above his head flickered, pale yellow light flashed across his hooked nose and gaunt features, making him look like a gargoyle, like some devilish chimera, half remembered from a childhood fairy tale, half hawk and half human.
    ‘In case you were wondering,’ the man said in Russian, ‘we have already succeeded in securing the smallpox vial.’
    His accent was Muscovite, educated, just like Valentin’s.
Do I know you?
Valentin searched his memory.
Have I worked with you? Are you military, just like me?
    ‘The man you left there to protect it, the pharmacist, he did his best to lie to us, but he was a family man and, well . .