Apollo Road

by Cliff Roberts

  Bill readied to toss a flash bang when I noticed something on the staircase at the back of the salon. I slid down behind a chair and looked over at Bill. He was still standing and giving me a weird look. I simply pointed toward the rear of the salon. He understood and dropped down behind a chair himself. He then gave another hand signal—a flattened hand—and he dropped flat on the floor. Of course, I followed his example and lay flat on the floor myself. Slowly, two men stepped up the back staircase and looked around. Bill readied to fire, and I was going to follow his example again when I noticed a shadow creeping across the windows behind the shades. It wasn’t a very dark shadow—just enough to scare me senseless as I lay there.

  I tried to get Bill’s attention as he lay there focused on the stern staircase, but I couldn’t do it. I was nearly frozen with fear and apprehension as I knew I had to shoot the guy to protect Bill. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but now it had come down to the moment of truth, and I only had the one option. If I didn’t kill the guy, Bill would die, and shortly thereafter, I would die as well.

  The man outside suddenly stopped as if he had a sixth sense about where Bill might be and he aimed his machine pistol downward. I surprised myself and reacted without thinking. I fired. The window shattered as the gun phiffed twice, and the man pitched backwards over the side. Bill fired at the same time at the two men at the rear stairs. I quickly swung back to fire on the two men as well, but they were already down. Bill hadn’t needed any help with them. Bill glanced at me with a look of shock upon his face. Apparently, he didn’t think I’d be able to fire on a person. I felt sick to my stomach but managed to smirk at him in return as if I was a stone cold killer now.

  While we exchanged glances, Bill spotted a man moving up my side of the ship on the outside walk. When he came to a stop, Bill fired twice shattering another window and killing yet another security man. I snapped my head to see what Bill had fired at but couldn’t see a thing, so I looked back at Bill only to find he was crawling out from under the chair. When he saw me start to do the same, he held out his hand to stop me by pointing to the stairs leading down below deck.

  According to the plans, the stairs were semi-circular and began in the center of the room and swung out and then down to the deck below. Bill crawled across the floor to roughly the center of the room. He had a couch providing cover to both the front and rear, but he stayed flat on his belly. With a hand signal, he told me to get out two flash bangs. Then he directed me to drop one down the staircase next to me and then throw the other one toward the rear staircase. He then held up his gun and pointed at the stairs opposite me, acting out firing his gun at them as a way to explain to me what he wanted me to do. I nodded because I thought I understood. He then turned toward the rear staircase. I pulled the pin on the first grenade and tossed it down the staircase. Then, as quickly as I could, I pulled the pin on the other and tossed it toward the rear staircase. I then closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears.

  Bam! Bam! The flash bangs detonated. I know there was bright, white flash followed by an ear piercing bang. I grabbed my gun again and rolled slightly to my right, which allowed me to get my gun in a good shooting position, and I waited for someone to come up the stairs opposite me.

  Bill immediately had jumped up and tossed a second flash bang down the rear stairs and then raced to the top of them and began firing. Bill had caught four of the crew members about to make a charge up the stairs and killed them. By Bill’s count there were now ten dead, leaving just three or four more security men to deal with.

  Instead of returning to the salon, Bill went down the stairs to the lower deck and began slowly creeping up the companionway to the foyer at the bottom of the stairs at the front of the salon. There were two security men in the foyer and they were quite disoriented by the flash bangs. One of the two men managed to remain standing by leaning against the wall. He was struggling to focus and was confused by the fact that no one had attacked immediately after the flash bangs went off. With every second, his senses were returning to normal. His partner was down on his knees groping for his gun, which he had dropped in the momentary panic he experienced when the grenades went off. As he continued to feel around for his gun, he was wiping his eyes with the back of his other hand or poking his fingers in his ears trying to get them to pop to clear the ringing he was experiencing.

  Bill had come up the starboard side of the ship and was about to shoot the man kneeling on the floor when another man popped out of a hidden doorway on the port side of the ship in plain view of Bill. Bill and the man both saw each other at the same moment and both fired their guns instantaneously. At the sound of the unsilenced gun being fired, the two men already in the foyer dropped flat on the floor. The man in the mystery door pitched back against the wall having been hit square in the chest, then dropped to the floor blocking the door open. Bill was struck in the shoulder and the blow spun him around, but he held his feet until he had gone a good fifteen feet down the companionway. Realizing he had no place to go and that he was an easy target in the companionway, he dropped to the floor as if his wound had caused him to pass out or perhaps drop dead. Playing possum was his only chance.

  The two security men had been unaware of Bill’s presence until the exchange of gunfire with the third security man. A few moments after the exchange of fire, they first checked out their comrade and found he was dead. They then slowly crept to the corner of the opposite companionway and peeked around the corner. All they could see was that a man was down on the deck, and he was dressed in a black wetsuit.

  Keeping a watchful eye on Bill, the two security men prepared to go down the companionway and check the body. They took opposite sides of the narrow companionway and began slowly moving toward the body. The lead man was standing while the second man was crouched on one knee so that he could cover his partner.

  Bill wasn’t hurt that badly despite the wound stinging like hell and the blood that was starting to puddle on the floor next to him. He lay as still as he possibly could. When the man had moved to within ten feet of Bill, Bill rolled a flash bang down the companionway towards the man.

  “Son of a bitch!” the man blurted out as he turned his head to follow the rolling grenade. When he swung his head back to Bill, he was waiting for him, his gun at the ready. Having heard the man’s comment, Bill quipped loudly as he fired, “Let’s leave my mother out of this!” Then he ducked down and covered his eyes and ears as best he could.

  The flash bang went off, and even with his eyes and ears covered, at this close range, Bill was still affected by the flash and sound. Despite being slightly dizzy, Bill quickly sat up and began looking for the second security man, but he was gone. The second man, having seen the grenade rolling down the companionway, jumped up and ran for the stairs to the salon before Bill even sat up and fired on the other man.

  Bill scrambled to his feet and leaned against the wall for support for a few moments, then he started down the companionway to the foyer. He stopped just a few feet short of the corner and quietly dropped to the floor to peek around the corner. To his surprise, there was no one there. He crawled around the corner and then rolled quickly across the foyer to the far wall where he had a clear view of the other staircase leading up to the salon. He lay perfectly still for several seconds, just listening to the sounds of the boat. He heard voices in the salon overhead and regretted not telling Jake what he had been up to. Bill hesitated for a moment and then hurried to the small hidden staircase. Slowly, he crept up to the second deck and the grand salon. When he arrived, he found Jake in a tough spot. He was pinned on the floor with his back to the corner, and in front of him, also on the floor, was what appeared to be the second man from downstairs. Jake had tripped him as he entered the salon, and now he was face down on the floor with Jake holding a gun to his head.

  When I noticed the wall move across the salon from where I was lying, I almost peed my pants until I realized it was Bill. Then I almost felt giddy, until I saw that he was wo
unded in the left shoulder. He mouthed the words, “How many?” and I quickly called out to the men who had me trapped.

  “The three of you can’t wait all night. The FBI will wonder what the hell is happening over here when no one goes out on deck to do whatever people do on big yachts like this in the morning.” I sounded like a total idiot. Bill nodded and rolled his hand as if to say keep talking.

  Spread out across the room from me were three crew men, and they all had their guns pointed in my direction. The guy in the center of the room was demanding that I let the guy go and surrender.

  “Do I look stupid to you? No, wait. Of course I look stupid. I tell you what. Let me out of here, and I’ll just swim away. I won’t be back, I promise.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “You’re a fucking moron, aren’t you? You aren’t getting out of here unless the man downstairs says so,” the man in the middle stated curtly.

  “Doesn’t give a guy much incentive, now does it?

  “Don’t let this guy shoot me,” the guy in front of me blurted out.

  “We won’t. Just hold tight. Throw your gun out, asshole, and I promise I’ll kill you quick. You won’t feel a thing.”

  “Oh, shut up!” I yelled at the man I was using as a shield. “If I shoot you, I lose my bargaining chip. So, shut the hell up before I give up.”

  “Drop your gun! Asshole, you’re a dead man no matter what. You can’t get us all,” the man in the middle stated as the guy to the left of me, the one with the clearest shot, started to stand up slowly. I knew if he managed to stand up, I was dead. Then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the guy on the opposite corner of the room start to stand as well.

  I yanked my gun from the hostage’s neck and swung it up and fired. The guy who would have had a clear shot pitched over backwards. I wasted no time getting the gun back to my hostage’s neck, where I jammed it tightly against his skin. The guy at the other corner dropped back down twice as fast as he had stood up.

  “I don’t know if shooting my way out isn’t a reasonable expectation, after all,” I spouted sarcastically, now that I was feeling rather tough and nearly invincible.

  “Son of a bitch!” The guy in the middle just popped up and fired in my direction.

  Before I could react, Bill burst from the hidden staircase and fired, yelling, “Enough of this shit!”

  The man in front of me jerked and then blood ran out of his mouth, and I knew Bill had killed him. I ducked as best I could as the other two crew members were firing randomly in my direction. It was like a bad cowboy movie as the two crew guys started to rush my position, despite Bill standing there not twenty feet away having just shot their workmate. They fired several times, each shot leaving my ears ringing. Bill stood ramrod straight and fired three times. Both men dropped to the deck, and Bill trotted over to them and shot them in the head just to be sure they were dead.

  “Get your ass off the floor, Jake, and let’s go. I still need you.” It was Bill ordering me around again. Then in the next breath, he was complementing me.

  “Pretty impressive. You didn’t wimp out and let them kill you. I especially liked the defiant tone of voice and how when that guy started to get up, you shot him. You didn’t skip a beat. I’m proud of you.” His voice quieted as he stepped over to the guy I shot, and he stood there with his gun pointed down at the body. “There’s only one problem, Jake. You didn’t kill him.” He then bent over and yanked the guy off the floor. I hobbled over to see and found I had hit him in the arm and the guy was playing possum.

  Bill held his wounded arm tightly and nodded toward the stairs, and I knew we had to go back down. I started to walk over there only to have Bill stop me. “No, not you, Jake,” he stated.

  He looked at the guy he was holding at gunpoint and said, “You ain’t dead yet. In fact, if you play this right, you just might live though this. Where is Generilli?” The guy remained silent. Bill just smiled. He then tightened his grip and the guy became weak-kneed and almost fell to the floor, but Bill held him up.

  “Care to tell me now?” Bill asked with that wicked grin crossing his face. I knew the guy was in for it if he didn’t tell Bill what he wanted to know. The guy was tough. After he recovered slightly from Bill’s squeezing of his wound, he still remained quiet. Bill then turned the guy and shoved him face first into the wall. He let go of the guy’s arm and jabbed his straightened hand into the guy’s lower spine, causing the guy to howl in pain. His eyes rolled back into his head, and Bill let him drop to the floor like a stone. When he hit the floor, his whole body twitched and wiggled, like he had suddenly been struck with a seizure.

  After a minute passed, Bill yanked the guy up to where he had been standing more or less and asked the same question. “Where is Generilli?” The guy tried to spit in Bill’s face, and so Bill instantly jammed his hand into that spot in the guy’s lower back again and the same thing happened, only it lasted longer this time. Bill stood over the guy the whole time, grinning from ear to ear.

  When the guy’s eyes returned to normal and the pain had dropped to a bearable level, Bill bent down and spoke softly to the guy as the spasms faded. “You know, I can do this all night. I get a kick out of watching your eyes roll back and your tongue poke out as you crash to the floor and then you get all spasmodic on the floor. The only drawback is that the human body can only take so much. I can only do this once, maybe twice, more and then I’m afraid it’ll be permanent. They’ll feed you through a tube. You’ll piss and shit through a tube. You won’t be able to speak in more than small bursts. Your friends and family will come visit you in the home for a while, but then they’ll stop coming. You’ll want to die, but that’s against the law, so you’ll slowly waste away in your own private hell.

  “The worst part of all of this is the guy you think you’re protecting. He’s a dead man by morning whether you tell me where he is or not. The only difference is you don’t have to be a vegetable. I can tell it hurts. There are tears running down your face. Do you think his family will care you’re a vegetable if he dies? I’m just asking. Somehow, I don’t think so.” Bill stopped and yanked the guy up once again. He looked in the guy’s face, and he was still defiant. Bill took a deep breath, pulled back his arm, and suddenly the guy was coughing up a lung trying to tell him where the Young Turk was.

  “He’s…he’s in the master suite. He’s got tw…two guys with him,” the guy coughed out.

  “There. Now, see? That wasn’t anywhere near as painful as the alternative, was it?” Bill looked at me and nodded his head toward the staircase, and I moved a little closer but stayed well back from the edge making sure no one below would have a shot at me.

  Bill began walking the guy toward the staircase, and the guy got extremely wide-eyed. With his back still in spasm, he couldn’t pull free; he couldn’t scream. He made lots of deep breathing sounds, and he kept looking back at Bill, hoping for mercy, but that wasn’t going to happen. Bill held him up as they followed the staircase down. I brought up the rear four steps behind. When Bill reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard his gun phiff and then there was a thudding sound as a body hit the floor.

  I jumped and hurried down to the bottom of the staircase, slipping down as low as I could go in order to peek around the corner. Bill was standing offset from the double doors and looking back at me. At his feet was another of the Turk’s security guys. Bill smirked at me and shrugged as if to say, ‘It just happened. It wasn’t my fault,’ and then he pointed to the opposite side of the doors. I moved up next to the doors and stood looking at Bill for the next instruction. He rolled his eyes and made another gesture that I think meant kick the door open. So I backed up and got prepared.

  Again, the guy he was holding went into panic mode, his breathing becoming rough and ragged. He began shaking and trying to make eye contact with Bill, but again, nothing doing. Bill looked at me and counted down silently, nodding his head for each number—three, two, one…

  Bill ran forward with the guy
in front of him and burst through the doors just as I kicked the left one open. The gun fire was instantaneous. I was shooting at the guys across the room. Bill was shooting at them, as well. They were shooting back with their mini-machine guns. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bill go down. He rode the body of the now dead guy he was carrying and rolled right into the Young Turk’s wife and kids. Before they could pick him out of the group, he had pulled the Turk’s wife in front of him and had his gun against one of the children’s heads. I fired the last shot, hitting the guy the Turk was hiding behind in the upper left chest, knocking him down and knocking the gun from his hands.

  Anthony Generilli was now defenseless and standing across the room from the man who had his wife and children at gunpoint. I jumped to the wall opposite Generilli and pointed my gun at his protector.

  “Well, now, that took some doing, but yet here we are. Anthony Generilli, the boss of the Miami Crime Syndicate, the main man. Just one snap of his finger and you’re dead. It’s his city. What he says, goes. His daddy made him king in South Florida. His daddy is the man in New York and New Jersey. Why, he’s made more pillars of the community out of the pillars of the community than Payless has shoes. What? You’re like sixth generation American Mafia?” Bill asked Generilli, but he said nothing. He just stared at Bill as if that was going to somehow affect the situation.

  “Yeah, I know all about you,” Bill continued. “You should have known all about me before you came down here and had my old man whacked. He worked his ass off making the family rich, and what does the family do? They disrespect him the first chance they get and then they whack him.”

  Generilli suddenly spoke up as if he realized who he was dealing with. “Please, I’ll do anything you say, just let my wife and children go. They aren’t a part of this. Surely you can show mercy to the innocent.” Generilli did a good job of begging.