Rogue Wolves

by James Quinn

  She sprayed the German directly in the face. The man screamed and instantly threw his hands up to his eyes. The female kidnapper wasted no time. She clubbed him around the head with a wooden cosh and bundled him into the rear of the van.

  Gorilla stood there stock still, his gun still stuffed into the pocket of his jacket. The whole thing had taken twenty seconds and he hadn't even had a chance to move! He got a glimpse of the back of the female kidnapper before she turned around, and spotted the shock of red hair poking from underneath the knitted cap. He was still coming to terms with it when she looked at him directly from across the street and smiled that sweet, flirtatious smile of hers. Then she slammed the rear of the van doors before it drove off at speed into the night.

  It was definitely Eunice. He stood there in the darkness, bathed in the amber glow of the streetlight and wondered if, for the first time in years, he hadn't been taken for a ride by a pretty face.

  When he had returned to Paris, he had asked Sassi to find everything that he could on whoever 'Eunice' was.

  Sassi had searched the SDECE files and then had checked with liaison services. It hadn't taken long. “She's got a hell of a reputation by all accounts, although our service has never used her. She seems to operate mostly on the American and Asian markets,” he said.

  “So who the hell is she? How did she get to my target?” growled Gorilla.

  “She is a freelance bounty hunter with CIA connections. Name of Eunice Brown, her cryptonym is Nikita. She's one of the best hunters in the business, has a reputation for always tracking down and bringing in her quarry. Dead or alive.”

  “And what happened to Fritz the Nazi? Any ideas?”

  Sassi had shrugged. “Who knows? He could be anywhere. The Israelis would be my best bet, or maybe the relatives of one of his victims. Nikita was just the contractor to deliver him. Either way, head office isn't too concerned, they saved us the job of taking him out.”

  Over the following months, Gorilla had come across her name once or twice, an operation here or a rumour there. On a trip to Colombia, he had missed her by a few hours, but she had been playful enough to discover which hotel he was staying at and get a note delivered to his room. He had ripped it open, blinked once, twice then read it again and again.

  It had said, Hey Jack, why do we keep missing each other? You still owe me a drink? Love, Eunice xxxx. He could smell her perfume on the note, sultry, sensual hints of vanilla and sandalwood.

  She was like a nagging pain in the back of his skull. That red hair, that sassy manner, the way her eyes flashed when she was teasing him. Just the thought of her would drive him crazy. He wasn't sure what was the worst, the fact that he regretted not taking her up on her offer to meet again, or the fact that she had the drop on him during the hit in Paraguay.

  And now here she was again, once more in his life and once more having him exactly where she wanted him, with those green eyes teasing and the biggest revolver in the world pointing directly at his head.

  She had taken his gun and patted him down, finding the cut-throat razor in his pocket, and now she had him backed against the wall. “You know they don't bury the dead in New Orleans. The bodies have a tendency to get pushed back up out of the ground,” she whispered.

  “Did you kill him?”

  She shook her head and held a silent finger up to her lips. “Shhh…. No, I didn't. But I think whoever did is still here in the club.”

  Gorilla looked around. If the killer was still here, then he or she was still here for something else. The only thing that he could think of was something up in the manager's office, some piece of information – which seemed the most likely conclusion if this was connected to The Master.

  “What are you doing here, Jack?” she asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

  Gorilla shrugged. “I'm a tourist, just seeing the sights.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Can I have my gun back?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Okay, but we can't stay like this forever.”

  She considered this and reasoned that he was right. Time was ticking and they had a dead gangster in front of them and his killer somewhere nearby. “Okay. Work with me on this, Jack. I'll search down here, you take the upstairs level.”

  Gorilla looked up at the stairs leading up to the top floor. It looked dark and like a big old bear trap. He wasn't too enthusiastic about walking into it unarmed. “At least give me my razor?”

  She kept the gun trained on him, gave his request a moment's consideration and then took the razor out of her rear jeans pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it with his left hand and flicked it open to inspect the blade. Then, satisfied, he closed it and put it back into his pocket.

  “First one back wins,” she said and he nodded in agreement.

  They went their separate ways through the darkness of the club, he upwards and she heading towards the ground floor level. Before she disappeared out of sight, he cast an inquisitive eye over his shoulder to watch her – the graceful movements, the swaying of the hips, her jacket unzipped, the flash of her red hair over her shoulders, and the .38 revolver held professionally in her hand.

  Gorilla took his time moving forward, remembering what he'd learned on a close quarter battle course years ago. “When moving up wooden stairs, always tread on the edges nearer to the wall and not the middle. The middle creaks and can alert an enemy.” It was advice that had never let him down all these years.

  The stairs led up one flight and turned directly onto a small landing that held the manager's office – Guillame's, he guessed. The door was open and he could hear the faintest of noises from inside.

  He silently removed the razor from his pocket and opened it one-handed, letting it rest easy in his palm in anticipation of the violence that was sure to come. At the top of the stairs, he craned his neck to peer around the corner. He saw a small office space; desk, chairs, telephone, filing cabinet. It was usual, normal.

  What wasn't normal was the man who was kneeling down beside the desk in the small office and rummaging through a floor-mounted safe. Gorilla could hear the rustling of paper and assumed it was either money or documents.

  The man – the killer, he assumed – was small and slight of build, his jet black hair cut short. He seemed to be concentrating intently on whatever he was looking for inside the safe and then, almost too late, he became aware of a presence behind him, and started to turn his head slowly so he could see whatever was behind him. And there, standing in the doorway, was Gorilla Grant, glaring down in fury at the back of a black-suited assassin who had just murdered his next lead.

  The kick came out of nowhere and sent him reeling back down the stairs, landing on the stairwell handrail, sending the razor flying out of his hand. It was followed up with a punishing series of kicks to his hand and arm from the figure above him.

  Gorilla howled in agony, his arm rendered temporarily useless, before looking up and briefly seeing a dark-suited Chinese man. The man was frail, small, and nondescript, his face bland and impassive. He was like a black shadow on the stairwell.

  In the darkness, Gorilla was aware of the small, dark figure moving past him at speed and then turning and delivering a final open-hand strike. The strike shot into Gorilla's temple, and it was delivered with such power that he blacked out for a moment. He came out of the fog seconds later, but by that time he knew that the assassin was making his way out of the club. Maybe Nikita would be able to slow him down.

  He climbed to his feet, his head swimming, then he stopped for a moment and looked down. Something lay at his feet. He picked it up, glanced at it and dismissed it for later. Then, after retrieving his cut-throat razor with his left hand, he bolted after the little bastard who had worked him over.

  Chang, the assassin, ran.

  Though he was a small man, almost frail-looking, he had excellent fitness and speed. Even if his pursuers had numbers and weapons against him, Chang was still agile enough to be able to outrun ev
en the fittest of hunters. He had one block to run before he reached his vehicle parked in a side street.

  Killing the Creole had been no problem for a man of Chang's skills. For that, he had used his assassin's needle. It lay in a thin sheath and was hidden inside his waistband, running down the seam of his trouser leg. When he pressed a small button and then retracted the handle, it separated from its main body to reveal a thin steel spike about thirty centimetres long. The head of the spike was razor-sharp and was designed to penetrate via a small puncture into the vulnerable spots on a victim's body, such as the brain and the heart. For Mr Tai Loong Chang, it was a weapon of subtlety that appealed to his fastidious mind.

  The hardest part had been orchestrating getting into the victim's presence, but then again, his Control had taken care of that and had arranged the meeting. What had bothered him the most was the subsequent intrusion of the strangers. He had taken the Creole, had felt the life drain from him and no sooner had his body hit the floor than Chang had been aware of someone entering downstairs. He knew that it wasn't the cleaners or the employees; Guillame had been instructed to have nobody else present for the meeting.

  Chang had made his way quickly to the top floor office to complete the last part of this mission: to find any documents that linked Armand Guillame to the rest of the Caravaggio network. And find them he had. Wire transfers, phone numbers, even the address of one of the network's safe houses in Montevideo. Then he had heard movement on the floor below him, and then whispered voices. The operation had been compromised in some way.

  Chang was small and lithe enough to be able to virtually disappear into any environment. He had been taught well over the years, learning how to evade, how to be covert and how to kill silently. Silent killing was Chang's speciality. While some specialised in firearms and bomb-making, it was the traditional skills of the Asian arts of combat that Chang excelled at; hand-to-hand combat, the blade, the nunchaku, the garrotte.

  Chang had taken care of the man in the office and had disabled him with no problem. Then, when he had reached the ground level of the Pink Lady, he had been aware of a female over by the bar as he ran to the door. He had been even more aware of her steadying herself and aiming a firearm at him in the darkness of the club.

  Chang had hit the door at a run and was instantly out on the street, but not before the female had fired twice, hitting the door frame above his head as he exited. He moved fast, sidestepping pedestrians and street hawkers of every persuasion. He turned a corner without stopping and saw the Lincoln Continental parked where he had left it an hour earlier. Moments later, he was driving away.

  Chang was confident that he had put enough space between himself and the Pink Lady Club. He would drive out of the area, change cars and then make his way to the airport. He would report to his Control and await his next assignment.

  His training had taught him that when leaving the scene of an assassination, the assassin should always remain cool and collected; should walk and never run, in order to blend in and be one of the crowd. Running was for amateurs and…

  His chain of thought was abruptly broken as he heard a noise in the distance – a growl, guttural, mechanical, like an angry lion gaining fast and letting its quarry know that it was near. And then he looked in his rear view mirror and saw the red-haired devil in her flame-coloured Mustang hurtling after him and gaining speed. He knew, in that moment, that escape wasn't going to be as easy as he had first thought.

  It was a 1968 Mustang, flame-red and it reflected the personality of Nikita Brown perfectly. It was in-your-face and no-nonsense. Her knuckles were white as they gripped the steering wheel, the right hand occasionally moving down to the gear stick to either ramp up the speed or slow it down. She handled the turns expertly, slowing down and then speeding up to gain whatever advantage she could to catch the assassin.

  She had no doubts that she could catch the Lincoln; compared to her Mustang it was big and cumbersome. The real problem wasn't the speed, it was the fact that two cars having a drag race in the centre of downtown New Orleans did tend to attract a lot of attention. So she had to close the distance quickly between the two cars, but not look like she was in hot pursuit.

  In the passenger seat, Gorilla was being thrown from side to side. “Where the hell did you learn to drive? It's like bloody stock car racing!” he grumbled.

  Eunice spun the wheel and skidded round a corner. Up ahead, she could see the Lincoln moving onto a main road leading out of the city centre. “I don't know what that is – stock car racing? I guess the nearest equivalent we have is NASCAR.”

  “Still doesn't explain why you drive like a bloody madwoman,” complained Gorilla.

  “Ha! I had a good teacher, an old boyfriend of mine who used to run moonshine in his truck. I used to yell at him to 'Kick it, Ira!' when I wanted him to speed up. He taught me how to drive fast and handle tight corners.”

  She looked over at him and winked. “He taught me a few other things in that truck, too, not all of them to do with driving.”

  Gorilla, feeling himself flush, grunted, “Yeah. Stop, I'm gonna be sick.”

  “Because of my driving? Or because you are jealous of an old boyfriend?” she teased.

  “Just give me my bloody gun back!” he barked at her.

  A smile played at her lips. “Sure. It's in my purse. You know how to use it?”

  “Grrrr!” he growled, fumbling in the back seat and recovering the ASP.

  The smile spread wider this time. Even in these moments of the hunt, when her mind should be on business, she always knew that she would love the game of teasing Jack Grant.

  “Well, just so you know, Jack, I have a thing for blondes – even ones with a touch of grey. So it's your lucky day,” she said, as she slammed the Mustang into top gear with one hand, while with the other, she flirtily ran her fingers along the nape of his neck.

  Gorilla ignored her and chamber-checked the weapon. “Hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Let's get him out of the city and into the country, then I'll take out his tyres.”

  “What were you doing back there, Jack? What's your interest in the Creole?” she asked.

  Gorilla shrugged. “He's a link in a chain. I was hoping he'd move me further up that chain to the next link, all the way to the top.”

  “Is it a target?”

  “I can't discuss that, Eunice, you know that.”

  “Jack, what are the odds that we were both after the same dead arms dealer on exactly the same day? I think we are after the same High-Value Target.”

  “Bullshit. Don't be crazy! I work for the French now, you know that and you work for…?”

  “Let's just say for the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'm going to say a name to you, Jack. Caravaggio. Does that mean anything to you?”

  He snapped a sly look over at her and she knew that the name had meaning to him. “I knew it! That sonofabitch Gibbs… HANG ON!”

  She swung the car hard onto the freeway, as the guy in the Lincoln had upped his speed and had taken a sharp turn at the last minute in an attempt to lose her. But Eunice was better than that. She had him in her sights and she wasn't going to lose him now.

  “Maybe we are and maybe we aren't,” he said, “but that's something we can talk about later. Right now, let's just catch this killer and see what he knows!”

  They came come off the freeway and looped round onto the open country roads that ran along the levee. Once they hit the straight, both cars floored it. It was now a lethal drag race.

  “Pull up alongside him,” said Gorilla. “I'm gonna nail those tyres.”

  He wound the passenger window down and had the ASP ready, holding it in both hands. The Mustang surged and then shot forward, gaining on the Lincoln until, within a matter of seconds, both cars were nose to tail.

  Gorilla craned his body so that his left wrist rested on the sill of the window. He flicked off the safety and centred the Guttersnipe sights on the black tyre and aimed for the thinnes
t part of the rubber near the hub-caps. He went with a double tap and was rewarded with an explosion of air from the tyre. The Lincoln swayed, almost spinning out of control, but the driver kept it in check.

  Gorilla turned and yelled through the noise to Eunice, “All we have to do now is wait for that tyre to deflate!”

  “No time, Jack,” she called back, over the scream of the Mustang's engine. “We're almost out of road! Leave it to me. Just be ready!”

  The Mustang was dodging and swerving either side of the Lincoln, jockeying for position and trying to cut in to get in front and slow it down. A truck heading from the opposite direction forced Eunice to pull in sharply behind the Lincoln until it was gone, and then she was right back out into the road again, harassing the Lincoln like an angry hornet, with revving engines, heavy braking and the smell of burning rubber on the road.

  She swung the Mustang to the side so that it bumped the rear offside wheel of the Lincoln. The combination of the blown-out tyre and the impact of the bump caused the Lincoln to spin out and stop on a dusty roadside clearing.

  The Mustang overshot the other car, and then Eunice completed a textbook hundred and eighty degree skid and the car came to a stop, fifty feet ahead of the Lincoln. The passenger door opened immediately and Gorilla rolled out onto the hard road.

  Even in the roll, he had the ASP up, out and ready. He came to a stop in the kneeling position and fired immediately, throwing out rounds and peppering the door of the Lincoln. Inside, he could see the Chinese assassin flinching. Gorilla emptied the remaining rounds into the Lincoln.

  He went to slide-lock and was in the middle of a tactical magazine reload when the driver of the Lincoln took advantage of the pause in fire to gun the engine and shoot past him, heading back the way they had just come. Gorilla knew that if the Chinese assassin could make it back into the city and dump the car, they would lose his trail fast.

  He completed the re-load, decided against wasting any more bullets shooting at the fleeing car, and was about to turn back to the Mustang when he heard the squeal of rubber on the road as Nikita Brown and her Mustang sped off at in hot pursuit without him. Fuck!