Chapter 1: Prologue

Rain had been falling over the city for almost three hours, turning the abandoned industrial district into a maze of flooded roads, rusted warehouses and skeletal factories.

Near its center stood a seven-story pharmaceutical complex that had supposedly been abandoned years ago, making it an excellent place to hide someone who officially hadn’t existed for more than a decade.

Nearly four hundred meters away, Viktor lay flat against the rooftop of an unfinished building with a suppressed rifle pressed against his shoulder, rainwater streaming down his black coat as he watched one of the illuminated windows through his scope.

A silhouette finally passed behind the glass. Viktor adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger. The rifle gave a muffled cough beneath the rain, and three hundred and eighty-seven meters away, the window shattered inward as the man behind it disappeared from sight. "Seven," Viktor murmured as he pulled away from the scope.

"Confirmed. Seven hostiles eliminated," Kara answered through his earpiece. She had been monitoring the operation remotely since Viktor entered the district. "I’m reading another six heat signatures inside. Krauss should still be somewhere on the seventh floor."

"It is useless," Viktor replied while checking his magazine.

Kara stopped typing. "The intelligence or the people who gathered it?"

"Both."

"Good to know you’re in one of your cheerful moods."

Viktor ignored her and continued studying the complex. According to the briefing, Dr. Alexander Krauss was protected by no more than sixteen armed guards. Viktor had counted twenty-three before killing the first one, but the number wasn’t what concerned him.

When the shooting started, the guards hadn’t panicked. They had abandoned their patrols and retreated toward predetermined defensive positions as though they already knew an attack was coming.

Before Viktor could say anything, another voice joined the encrypted channel. "Blood Hound, Bravo Team has reached the southern perimeter. We’re ready to breach whenever you give the signal."

Viktor recognized Mason, commander of the six-man support team. He rose from the rooftop and slung his rifle across his back. "Don’t breach. Hold your position."

There was a pause before Mason answered, "You want to explain why? Command wants Krauss alive, and extraction arrives in twenty-seven minutes."

"Twenty-three."

"What?"

"The helicopter changed course four minutes ago."

Kara checked immediately. "He’s right. Extraction altered its approach vector without notifying us."

Mason sighed. "And that means what exactly?"

Viktor stared at the distant building. "They know we’re here."

Control entered the channel before Mason could respond. "Blood Hound, proceed with the operation. Bravo Team will breach through the southern entrance while you infiltrate from the west. Mission parameters remain unchanged."

"The intelligence was compromised," Viktor said.

"Negative. Krauss increased his security detail earlier this evening. Your objective remains his retrieval. Eliminate resistance and proceed to the eastern rendezvous for extraction."

Viktor’s eyes narrowed. He had spent twelve years taking orders from Control. A sudden increase in armed personnel around a high-value target would never have been omitted from a covert operation unless someone wanted it omitted. "Understood," he replied before disconnecting from the command channel.

Mason laughed through their secondary connection. "See? Extra security. Mystery solved. You almost had me thinking someone had finally scared the legendary Blood Hound."

"You should leave."

"You’re still on that?"

"Take your men and leave the district."

"Because Control forgot to mention a few guards?"

"Because Control lied."

Mason remained silent for several seconds before sighing. "Do you ever wonder why nobody likes working with you?"

Viktor stepped onto the edge of the rooftop. "You’re still alive."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Most people who work with me aren’t."

Mason cursed beneath his breath as Viktor sprinted forward and jumped.

---

The first guard inside the pharmaceutical complex never realized Viktor had entered through the window behind him. Viktor covered his mouth and drove a combat knife beneath his jaw, holding him until the struggling stopped before lowering the corpse behind several crates. "Eight," he murmured while cleaning the blade.

"Confirmed," Kara answered. "The walls are interfering with thermal imaging, so you’ll have to rely on the schematics."

"The schematics are wrong."

"You’ve been inside for twelve seconds."

"And they’re already wrong."

Kara sighed. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother talking to you."

"You talk enough for both of us."

"Oh, he makes a joke. Someone record the date."

Viktor ignored her and moved deeper into the facility. The supposedly abandoned building had new fluorescent lighting, expensive surveillance cameras and the faint smell of disinfectant.

More strangely, the nearest camera remained pointed away even as he passed beneath it. The security system wasn’t searching for an intruder. Someone already knew where he was.

Three footsteps approached from around the next corner. Viktor pressed against the wall and waited. The first guard appeared and died from a bullet through the forehead. Viktor shot the second through the eye, while the third retreated behind the wall. Viktor watched his shadow stop and fired through the partition. A strangled grunt came from the other side.

"Nine, ten, eleven," Viktor said as he passed the bodies.

"Did you seriously shoot him through a wall?" Kara asked.

"He stopped moving."

"You couldn’t see him." ℴ

"I didn’t need to."

"That’s exactly the kind of thing that makes everyone call you creepy."

"I thought they called me the Blood Hound."

"That isn’t better."

There was a reason the name had followed Viktor throughout his career, and it had little to do with brutality. He didn’t enjoy killing; he was simply exceptionally good at finding people who didn’t want to be found.

Over twelve years, he had completed two hundred and seventeen operations across fourteen countries. Politicians had changed identities, criminals had hidden behind private armies and intelligence officers had crossed borders believing distance would protect them.

Viktor had found almost all of them.

Officially, his success rate was ninety-nine percent.

He hated that number.

By the time he reached the sixth floor, subtlety was useless. Five guards opened fire the moment the stairwell door moved, but Viktor withdrew behind the concrete wall and waited until their weapons fell silent for a magazine change.

He entered low and fired three times, dropping three men before they could reload. A fourth fell moments later, while the last attempted to rush him. Viktor redirected the man’s rifle, drove an elbow into his throat and tore the weapon from his hands before shooting him through the chest.

"Nineteen," Viktor murmured after the last body struck the floor, but Kara didn’t immediately answer. The silence made him stop beside the corpse and touch his earpiece. "Kara, what’s wrong?"

"I’m here." Her voice returned without its earlier amusement. Viktor could hear rapid typing before she continued, "Something happened to Bravo. I was monitoring all six of them until about thirty seconds ago, but their signals disappeared simultaneously. I’ve tried reconnecting and I’m getting nothing from Mason or the others."

Viktor glanced toward the stairwell. "Where were they?"

"Southern entrance. Mason reported that they were preparing to breach, and then I lost everyone. I don’t know if their communications are being jammed or...."

"They’re dead."

Kara hesitated. "You don’t know that."

"If someone were jamming communications, you and I wouldn’t still be talking. Six operatives don’t disappear simultaneously because of faulty equipment."

"Give me a minute. I can try bouncing their signals through another...."

An explosion beneath them cut her off. The building lurched violently as dust and fragments of plaster rained from the ceiling. Viktor barely moved, staring toward the stairwell while Kara remained silent on the other end.

"You were saying?" Viktor asked.

Kara cursed quietly. "Fuck."

Control entered the channel almost immediately. "Blood Hound, continue toward the objective. Dr. Krauss remains on the seventh floor."

Viktor looked toward a surveillance camera in the corner. Its lens was pointed directly at him. "Bravo is dead, and you still want me to continue?"

"They encountered unexpected resistance. Your objective remains unchanged."

"Where is extraction?"

"Eastern rendezvous."

"Give me the extraction identification code."

Control fell silent.

Every extraction team received an identification code before deployment. Viktor waited several seconds before repeating, "Control, give me the identification code."

"Proceed with the mission, Blood Hound."

That was enough.

Viktor disabled the command channel. "Kara, disconnect from the network."

"What? If I disconnect, you’re blind in there."

"The mission wasn’t compromised. The mission is the trap. Check your secondary gateway."

Several seconds of typing followed before Kara’s breathing changed. "Shit. Someone’s inside the relay."

"They’re tracing you. Disconnect."

"I need thirty seconds."

"You have ten."

"That’s not how computers work, asshole."

"Nine."

"Stop counting! I’m disconnecting."

The connection vanished.

At least one person might survive tonight.

Viktor reached the seventh floor and entered a pristine laboratory hidden inside the decaying building. There were no guards protecting the objective and nobody attempting to evacuate him. Dr. Alexander Krauss simply sat behind a desk, calmly drinking coffee.

"Mr. Viktor," the grey-haired man greeted him.

Viktor raised his rifle immediately. Nobody outside the organization was supposed to know his real name. "You don’t look like a hostage."

Krauss placed his cup down. "Because I’m not one."

"Then why am I here?"

"To die."

Viktor’s expression didn’t change. "Whose order?"

Krauss studied him for a moment. "Does it matter? You’ve completed more than two hundred missions. Politicians, generals, intelligence officers, businessmen—you know where too many bodies are buried."

"I don’t care about their secrets."

"I believe you. Unfortunately, your employers don’t."

Viktor watched him carefully. "The Director?"

Krauss didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

A vibration came from Viktor’s wrist. Every external connection on his tactical display had disappeared, replaced by a timer.

00:59

Viktor looked at Krauss. "Bomb?"

"Several."

"How large?"

Krauss smiled tiredly. "Large enough that I stopped considering escape hours ago."

Viktor turned and ran.

He crossed the laboratory and threw himself through the seventh-floor window, catching a maintenance cable outside as glass exploded around him. Gunfire forced him through another window several floors below, where he killed two waiting soldiers before continuing downward. By the time he reached the street, seventeen seconds remained.

Three black vehicles blocked the eastern rendezvous.

Armed men stepped from behind them wearing equipment Viktor recognized immediately.

His own organization.

Now he understood why Control had insisted upon eastern extraction. The bomb wasn’t enough. They had stationed an execution team outside in case the Blood Hound escaped.

"Viktor! Drop your weapon and get on your knees!" one of them shouted.

Viktor checked his ammunition and looked at the men standing between him and the road beyond. Then, for the first time that night, he genuinely smiled. "Twelve years working for these bastards, and this is the best they could send?"

They opened fire.

Viktor moved.

Several men fell before the others adjusted their aim. He rolled behind a concrete divider and returned fire, but a bullet eventually tore through his shoulder and another entered his thigh. Viktor stumbled, killed one more attacker and heard the stolen rifle click empty.

With only seconds remaining, another soldier rushed from behind a vehicle, forcing Viktor to draw his final knife and bury it in the man’s throat.

Viktor looked toward the pharmaceutical complex as blood streamed from his wounds and mixed with the rainwater beneath his boots. Strangely, he wasn’t angry. Men in his profession rarely retired, and he had always known someone would eventually succeed in killing him.

He simply hadn’t expected his own employers to become frightened enough to sacrifice an entire facility just to guarantee his death.

The timer reached its final second.

His only regret was that the bastards had needed a bomb to do it.

The world turned white.

The pharmaceutical complex disappeared inside an expanding sphere of fire as concrete, steel and glass were torn apart. The shockwave ripped through the surrounding streets before Viktor could even hear the explosion, lifting him from the ground and swallowing everything beneath fire.

Viktor, the assassin feared as the Blood Hound, died beneath the pouring rain after twelve years and two hundred and seventeen missions spent hunting people who believed themselves impossible to reach.

In the end, death finally caught him.

It just needed an entire building filled with explosives to do it.