It was months since Knox’s last fitness test, and longer since he’d had any close combat training. He prepared himself for a messy fight. But before he could land a first hit or take a blow, Williams launched himself past him.

He was incredibly fast, and precise. He slammed his left elbow into the nose of the man in front of Knox, breaking it with a single, wet crunch that sprayed the old meat store with fresh blood. Then he stamped his foot down on the toes of the second man, distracting him with pain so he could inflict more by driving his opposite knee into his crotch.

Knox could only watch, stunned, as Williams spun back, grabbed the man with the broken nose, who was now stumbling round in a daze, and slammed his head against the bare brick wall. Then he did it again, and again, until the would-be attacker’s body crumpled onto the floor.

Knox couldn’t tell if the man was unconscious or dead, and neither could his accomplice in the leather jacket, who had bolted for the staircase. He made it to the second turn in the stairs before Williams caught his trailing ankle, pulled his leg out from under him, and sent him crashing onto the concrete. Then Williams leaned over him and somehow used his own slight weight to pivot and twist the man over the old rusty handrail and down into the void. The sound of his neck cracking as he landed in front of Knox echoed up and down the stairwell.

Knox looked up at Williams just as his face turned from cold, hard determination to a cool curiosity about what had just happened.

‘Time to go, I suppose,’ Williams said.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Knox caught up with Williams at the dark halfway point of the stairs, where the glow of the electric bulbs faded but the weak light from the jimmied-open door to the street couldn’t quite reach. Williams was slowing down. Whatever energy he’d managed to summon in the cold store was already draining away. That was good, but also bad—Knox needed him calmer but not worn out, because they still needed to put some distance between themselves and the bodies at the bottom of the stairwell.

Knox had had a few seconds to check if the man in the cold store was dead. He was. Knox had also gone through his clothes to see if they gave any clues about where he was from or who had sent him, but there were no telltale foreign labels or scraps of paper in his pockets. Knox didn’t know if the men had been KGB, or CIA, or someone else. Or if there were more of them waiting outside.

They reached the top of the staircase and Williams doubled over, against the wall and away from the handrail and five-floor drop, trying to catch his breath.