by Jan Domagala
Stryder placed his left hand on the guard’s wrist and twisted it free of his chest. The guard went down on one knee, his face contorted in a kind of rictus of alarm from the pain in his wrist.
Stryder released his grip and stepped over the guard towards the VIP area.
The guard was up straight away coming after Stryder. He placed a hand on his left shoulder to stop him. Stryder grabbed it with his right hand and brought it over his head turning towards him. The guard’s arm was held rigid giving Stryder the advantage, he placed his left hand on the guard’s shoulder to gain further control and because the arm was twisted against the joint there was nothing he could do to prevent what was happening.
Stryder again forced him to the floor, let go and walked past him.
This time when the guard got to his feet he bellowed his rage and frustration wanting to tear Stryder apart.
Stryder turned to face him and put up a finger to halt him. The effect was almost comical, the giant guard pulled up short unable to believe what was happening.
Calmly Stryder said, “Look, all I want to do is talk, so be kind to yourself and introduce me to your boss before you make me hurt you.”
The guard was completely flabbergasted, didn’t know what to do or say, he just knew he wanted to destroy him.
Bane’s attention had been grabbed when his guard went down the first time and he continued watching avidly, since he couldn’t help but notice the stunning beauty with the man giving his guard so much trouble.
“Tony, why don’t you bring them over here, you’re scaring the customers,” he said before anything else could be done or said.
Tony, the man mountain, grudgingly tore his eyes from Stryder’s to look around him at his boss.
“Okay Boss,” he said; then returning his gaze to Stryder said, “This ain’t over.”
“You just name the time and place and I’ll be there,” Stryder replied calmly locking eyes with him.
Tony, unused to not being able to intimidate, didn’t know how to react to Stryder’s calm indifference. Finally, he broke eye contact and gestured towards the booth where Bane sat.
“Go ahead,” he said.
Stryder, flanked by Hardy, walked towards the booth and stood at the entrance waiting for Bane to invite them in. He allowed Bane to keep some semblance of control here on his own turf. The display with Tony showed that he was not to be messed with, but by waiting for the invite from Bane, he demonstrated some respect for the man. Stryder would not make him lose face in front of his men.
“Okay, so you got my attention, I just hope it was worth it. Who are you and what do you want?” Bane asked after a short pause during which he finished his meal, carefully wiped around his hard mouth with a napkin then slowly pushed his empty plate away. He was in his fifties with a large frame that still looked in good shape for his age. Salt and pepper hair was combed straight back from a prominent forehead, below which deep brown eyes looked out at the world. A long, flat nose lay close to his face, a testament to a fight he lost in his youth. It was the last fight he ever lost. He became a student of a fighting arts master and used his prodigious strength and thirst for knowledge to learn what he could to gain revenge on the man who had bested him. He quickly climbed the ranks of the criminal underworld to become the leader of the largest gang in Jacksonville.
“My name is Kurt Stryder and I used to work for Col Sec. What I want is a little more complicated,” Stryder said by way of introduction.
“Go on, you still have my attention, you’ll know when you don’t, trust me.” Bane said.
“Can I, trust you, I mean?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I need the truth from you about something that happened recently, something you possibly had a hand in or at least knew about. Can I trust you to be truthful about it?”
“Why don’t you ask, and then decide when, or if, I choose to answer?”
“Okay, earlier today, five local muscle were sent to my house to force me to go with them and be handed over to whoever hired them. I chose not to go.”
“And?”
“What I need from you is the name of the guy the muscle worked for.”
Bane looked at Stryder trying to figure him out. Finally he said, “What makes you think they didn’t work for me?”
“Well, whoever sent them would’ve come to you looking to hire muscle for a job. Now I figure he’d be someone you didn’t know so you wouldn’t trust sending your own people. You’d pass him onto someone else, possibly a rival, and let them take the risk. That way you’ve given this guy what he wants, where to get the muscle he needs. You get what you want, your fee and, if it went sour, you retain your safety and your rivals forces are depleted.”
“Sound reasoning, but why would I tell you anything?”
“I used to work for Col Sec, I still have contacts there and they will want to know what happened, so if you don’t tell me I can’t guarantee you won’t have them crawling all over this place looking for answers.”
“That sounds like a threat to me, have Col Sec crawling all over this place wanting to know what happened,” Bane said getting a little angry, but Stryder knew it was mostly for show. He knew he could ill afford to have Col Sec mount an investigation centred on him.
“What did happen anyway?” he asked finally.
“To the five men, the muscle?”
“Yea, what happened to the muscle, they in the cells?”
“No, the morgue,” Stryder replied.
“The morgue?” Bane asked as if he’d misheard.
“Yes, I killed them,” Stryder said calmly.
* * * * *
Norsky was just wondering what he could do to get Stryder and Hardy away from Bane. They had been there far too long for his liking, when he noticed that there was a disturbance over by the entrance.
Alexander Brown and a number of his men had arrived.
All hell was about to break loose.
14
“What the hell is going on now?” Bane said as he spotted the group of men force their way past the Maître d’ and into the club.
When he saw who was leading them he said just one word, “Brown.”
Stryder and Hardy both turned to see to whom Bane was referring.
“Who’s Brown?” Stryder asked, spotting the guy in charge of the large bunch of intruders.
“Alexander Brown. He hates me and if what you’ve just told me is true, you killed five of his men,” Bane replied.
“Why are they here?” Stryder wondered.
“Why don’t you go ask him?” Bane asked calmly.
“No, I mean why are they here now, at this particular time? Don’t you think it just a little strange they turn up just as you and I start talking?” Stryder said, elaborating his point a little. “Almost as if someone didn’t want us to meet,” he added.
Bane looked at him wondering how the hell he’d come to that conclusion. Yes, it was a bit of a coincidence, but Stryder seemed utterly convinced he was right.
How?
Just as Bane was silently asking himself those questions, Stryder was doing the same. He didn’t know how, he just knew that Brown had turned up to kill him in revenge for his five men, and to trash the club.
Knowing that fact threw up another series of questions such as, how did Brown know he’d be there? Whoever hired him must’ve contacted him with the information, but how did that person know where he was? How had they been discovered when he’d covered his tracks so carefully?
The only possible explanation he could come up with at such short notice was that they had a mole in Col Sec somehow leaking data to the Alliance asset on the ground, but that didn’t explain how they found him. Only Hardy knew where he was, and he’d kept her in the dark until they left the safe house for the club.
There could only be one explanation of how the Alliance had learned of their whereabouts; they were under surveillance, possibly even now. He could be in the room with th
em at that very moment.
Stryder scanned the faces of those people at the tables. They were all looking towards Brown and his men, all except one.
* * * * *
Norsky had seen Brown and his men push through and thought that it was about time. He’d watch what was about to happen and see for himself just how good this Stryder was. He would need this information for when he made his move against him. The Alliance wanted him and he was under orders to handle it personally. Failure was not an option, so he would have to watch closely.
He was watching Stryder, trying to gauge his reaction to the intrusion and gain some measure of the man when he did something quite unexpected. He turned from Brown and looked straight at him.
As their eyes locked, Norsky knew in that instant he’d been made.
Stryder knew who he was and panic, irrational and uncontrollable, ran through him churning his insides so that all he wanted to do was escape.
With a Herculean effort of will he remained seated and stared back at him. Stryder might know his face but this face was temporary and would be gone in a few hours. Stryder would be looking for someone who didn’t exist, if he survived the next few moments that is. His attention would be on his own survival and not on Norsky.
* * * * *
“That’s him,” Stryder said.
“Who?” Hardy asked tearing her gaze from the large number of angry men heading directly for them.
“Kurt, what’re we going to do?” she asked.
“That’s the guy who sent them after me,” Stryder said.
“Who? These guys? I don’t understand!” Hardy asked, more than a little confused at his apparent rambling.
“No, the first five at my house, he’s the one who wants me captured. He’s the one who works for the Alliance,” Stryder explained, his eyes still locked on Norsky’s.
Hardy tore her eyes from Brown’s advancing mob and followed Stryder’s gaze. “That’s the guy who’s behind all this?”
Bane, overhearing what was said between the two of them glanced over to where they were looking. The guy staring back at them wasn’t anyone he recognised and he said so.
“That’s not him, that’s not the guy who I met,” he said.
Stryder turned to him and asked, “Are you sure?”
“I never forget a face,” Bane answered.
“Er… guys, can we talk about this later, we have another more urgent problem to discuss right now, like what do we do with an angry mob,” Hardy said, bringing their attention back to the approaching group of men.
“Not my problem, it’s you they want,” Bane said calmly.
The group was half way across the room and the farther they got into the club the more panic they caused. Guests started to move out of their way, some hurriedly heading for the exit. When Bane saw that he said, “Okay, they’re intimidating my customers, now it’s my problem too. Tony, you and some of the boys go tell Brown and his party we’re fully booked.”
“Yes, boss,” Tony said, pressing a finger to his ear where his comm unit was inserted. When he spoke the others in the circuit could hear and he summoned some back up from other rooms in the club.
In total five men came from the other rooms and stood with Tony who said, “We’re a bit short staffed tonight boss.”
When Stryder saw the odds were in Brown’s favour he knew he had to do something. Bane would be a useful ally to have on his side and if he was going to make that happen he had to do something to prove he was worth the trouble.
Stryder stepped around Tony and his reinforcements and walked towards the advancing group.
Before the changes due to the project had occurred he would never have even considered facing off against a group of this number. It was clearly foolhardy and yet as he stopped in front of them he felt no fear, a tingle of excitement perhaps, but mostly he felt supremely confident.
“Alexander Brown, I think it’s me you’re looking for,” he said looking at each face in turn.
“I’m Brown and if you’re the guy responsible for the deaths of five of my men then, yes, it’s you we’re looking for,” said the oldest guy in the group. Where the rest were well muscled, hard looking customers, Brown looked soft, but mean. Not as tall as his men and in his fifties, he had a body that at one time had been lean and hard, now though, it ran more to fat than muscle. His hair was still jet black but his face was worn, like that of a prize fighter long past his prime. Battle scars lined his face like a road map of his life. Eyes full of hatred stared at Stryder and when he had finished speaking his thin lips formed a sneer of contempt.
“I’m responsible, they came looking for me and found trouble instead,” said Stryder.
“You don’t look that hard,” said the guy standing next to Brown.
“I’m sure that’s what they thought too and yet I’m here and they’re in the morgue,” Stryder said looking him square in the eyes.
“Now, if you’re still interested in talking to me then we can take this outside. There’s no need to scare the customers any more is there?” Stryder added to Brown.
“Oh, there’s every reason. If it hadn’t been for Bane passing my name on to the guy who wants you, then I wouldn’t have lost five of my crew,” Brown replied full of malice.
“You do know that that guy was an Alliance agent, don’t you? If Col Sec find out about you helping him, I don’t think they’ll look too kindly on you. Treason is the term they use,” Stryder said.
“The Alliance you say?” Brown said, slightly taken aback. This had added a new dimension to the situation. He thought about it for a second then said “Well, I’ll never tell, I’m sure Bane won’t either and you won’t be able to once we’ve finished.” He gestured with a wave of his hand for his men to grab him.
Stryder saw the gesture and his reactions went into hyper-drive. All movement around him seemed to slow down a fraction, whereas he was outside of it moving as always, so that when the first attack came he saw it coming and could take action.
The group had bunched around Brown, standing to the side and behind him as he spoke with Stryder. As soon as the guy standing next to Brown made his move the rest of them surged forward allowing Brown to retreat behind them to safety.
The blow was a simple straight right to the jaw except that Stryder saw it coming from the first twitch of the attacker’s shoulder.
He simply moved to the right allowing the punch to sail past his head. Then, dipping his right shoulder, he hit the thug with a right uppercut that lifted him off his feet to sail backwards and land on his back, although Stryder didn’t have time to actually see him land because he was kept busy with the rest of Brown’s muscle.
Two more rushed him aiming punches at Stryder who deftly stepped out of the way of each blow dropping each man with a punch to the jaw.
Before he knew it he was blocking punches left and right, delivering blows of his own, both punches and low kicks at knees, as more and more of Brown’s men threw themselves into the fray.
Already he had taken care of three of Brown’s men, laying them on the floor unconscious, but the odds were stacking up against him. He was strong and fast but when surrounded by so many men intent on beating him to a pulp it was just a matter of time before the blows began to get through.
Hardy watched in fascinated horror as Stryder took on the entire group. Bane had come to stand next to her and watched clinically as if it was some prize fight. Tony and the reinforcements just stood ready to intervene if Bane judged it necessary.
Although the club had emptied once the fight started, so far there had been no damage so Bane was quite happy to just watch the show, to see what this guy had got.
Hardy couldn’t stand by any longer and do nothing. She made to step forward but Bane placed a restraining hand on her arm and, without taking his eyes off the melee, said, “You don’t want to go and get yourself mixed up in this, not a pretty thing like yourself.”
She tore his hand away and pushed past Tony grabbing on
e of Brown’s men who was about to attack Stryder from behind and, spinning him around, punched him flush in the face with a straight right. The guy’s nose exploded in a spray of blood as his head was snapped backwards. Before he could vent his fury on her she kicked him between the legs, which wiped the anger from his face to be replaced with a rictus of agony. Then she finished him off by bringing up her right knee into his already damaged face as his head came down. The blow lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing to the floor.
Stryder turned, having sent another thug to the floor, to see Hardy finish off the thug behind him and he felt enormous pride swell inside him, but then his peripheral vision caught sight of another attacker coming at her from her blind side.
She saw Stryder glance at her and she smiled when she saw him smile, but then she saw his expression change to one of alarm.
The attack was from her blind side, but because she’d seen the direction of Stryder’s glance she had an idea where it was coming from. The punch caught her on the left side of her face but as she rode it the effect was diminished, it just served to anger her rather than take her out.
Her attacker continued with a left cross to the stomach but by that time she had recovered enough to bring both arms up to cover her torso and deflect the blow. Then she hit him a terrific punch to the face with a left back fist, which he never expected, and this snapped his head around almost sending him to his knees.
Hardy followed up with a right cross to his jaw, putting all her body weight behind it and the man went down, lights out.
Stryder felt like applauding but instead he received a terrific blow to the back of his head as someone smashed a chair across his shoulders. Pain erupted across his back, shoulders and head as the chair splintered across him. The force of the blow sent him to his knees and within seconds there were three more men kicking and stamping on him.
He went down as the blows continued.
For the first time during the fight he was in a position where all he could do was cover up and try to defend himself.