Wanted Read Online Free PDF Page B

Your Russia, old man? The one that no longer exists? Or today’s Russia? The oligarchs’ playground? What has
that
Russia ever done for me? Has it invited me onto a private yacht where prostitutes with legs longer than gazelles’ suck my
hui
until I’m dry? Has it even bought me a ticket to see dumb shitting Chelsea play Manchester United in the cup? No, it has given me fucking nothing at all.’
    The hawk-faced man gripped Valentin’s jaw and twisted it sideways, examining his mouth in the same way he might do with a horse he was considering buying or having put down.
    ‘But you know what?’ he said, letting go. ‘You look like a tough old bastard, eh? And time is short. So I’m thinking that perhaps we should leave you for now and we’ll start with your colleagues instead.’
    ‘They will tell you nothing either,’ Valentin said. It was a warning, as much as a hope.
    His interrogator ignored him. He slid a foot-long cylindrical metal contraption from inside his jacket. ‘In the temporary absence of SP-17,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to resort to more primitive methods to get the information we desire. And, luckily, back there in that slaughterhouse, there was something just as good.’
    Fresh adrenalin coursed through Valentin’s veins, making them stand out on his neck like wires. SP-17 was a sodium pentothal-based truth serum, which had been developed especially for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR. To have had access to that before, these bastards must have had contacts within the SVR, or had even been Russian intelligence agents themselves.
    And poor Nikolai, Valentin thought. The effect of SP-17 was irresistible. If these bastards had used it on him, no wonder he had talked.
    The blonde woman moved close to the hawk-faced man, her body pressing up tight to his. He did not move away, Valentin saw. Meaning they were lovers, he assumed. Not only did they kill together, they fucked.
    The hawk-faced man handed her the metal contraption, and as he did so, Valentin saw something pass between them, the same ecstasy he’d seen in her eyes before, that same frisson of desire.
    ‘Do you know what this is?’ she said, holding up the cylinder for Valentin’s benefit.
    He said nothing.
    ‘A stun-gun,’ she said. ‘It fires a recoil-action stainless-steel bolt and is used to kill or knock cattle out cold, depending on what velocity it’s set at, so that the beasts do not struggle or feel pain while they are being drained of their blood.’ She slowly licked the contraption’s metal tip, as if she were tasting ice cream. ‘I’m guessing it’ll make a big fucking mess of your friend.’
    She moved out of sight.
    The hawk-faced man’s eyes stayed locked with Valentin’s.
    A whimper.
    Valentin’s eyes flicked right. Gregori and Lyonya. He saw them then. Both had been stripped naked and were manacled to a wall.
    The
clinking
noise . . .
    Both men were gagged, their heads lolling, their wrists and ankles bloodied where the metal manacles dug in. Their muscles were inflamed and black with bruises. How long must they have been struggling to break free? And how long had he been there too? How long had they kept him drugged? What were they going to do next?
    A terrible thought occurred to him. The fact that they were no longer in the truck meant that these people had escaped from the village where they’d stolen the vial. Wherever they were now, it was possible that no one else knew they were there.
    As the woman drew nearer, Gregori’s body twisted hard against the wall, as if he were somehow attempting to force himself through. Fresh blood poured from his wrists and ankles.
    Valentin saw a flash of white, as his red raw eyes rolled backwards in their unprotected sockets. The blonde woman was on top of him now. She pressed the barrel of the stun-gun to his head. A high-pitched whimper escaped Gregori’s bound mouth. But instead of depressing the weapon’s primitive firing