The Emperor of Vegas

by Ryan Stygar

  The Russians, who were crouched low and leaning against two opposing nooks in the hallway, nodded solemnly. One formed a cross over his heart.

  Down the hall, the pair of attacking Lieutenants eyed the Russian corpse on the floor and decided that they liked their chances against the intruders. They reloaded their silver weapons and got ready to advance to the next nook toward Lukas Petrov and his men.

  Lukas saw two Lieutenants advancing up the hall with their silver pistols, then quickly ducked beneath the flying hollow-point rounds.

  “They’re on the move!” Lukas said. “I want one man to keep them back with an AKS while two others advance with side arms to eliminate them. Copy?”

  “Copy!” the men repeated at once. One man raised his AKS-74U and started firing well-aimed bursts of three over his comrade’s heads – forcing Jordan’s Lieutenants to take cover. Two other commandos drew their CZ-75 pistols and ran side-by-side down the hall while the stream of fire kept the Lieutenants’ heads down.

  Lukas and Peter aimed their semi-automatic shotguns at Dimitri Jordan’s door to prevent any gangsters from catching them off-guard again.

  Acrid smoke stung their noses as the AKS crackled steadily behind them. Slowly but steadily, black wisps of smoke billowed up from the craters where the Semtex had detonated. Flames licked up from the rubble, and the entire floor grew hotter as the fires grew larger. Behind the smoke and inside Jordan’s villa, white flashes lit up the doorway as the SWAT team threw flashbang grenades to cover their advance.

  Lukas kept his shotgun aimed right at the center of the door to protect his team behind him. After ten seconds of steady bursts, the AKS fell silent, followed by the simultaneous crack of two nine-millimeter pistols. When Lukas turned to look over his shoulder, the Russians down the hall were holstering their CZ-75s and swinging their compact assault rifles into the combat-ready position.

  “Targets neutralized,” one of them said.

  Lukas grunted in acknowledgement and looked toward Jordan’s door again, noting with some interest that the gunshots inside seemed to be growing louder and more numerous.

  “Zipper formation,” he ordered. “We wait until the shooting slows down, then we enter with maximum firepower.”

  59

  Inside Dimitri Jordan’s Villa

  O ne hundred and seventy decibels is loud… insanely loud. Like, knock you on your ass and make you forget your own name loud. It’s louder than standing directly behind a jet engine during takeoff.

  One hundred and seventy decibels is so mind-shatteringly loud that a person exposed to that level of noise is stunned into a state of complete helplessness for at least fifteen seconds.

  So when Sergeant Adrian Ramirez tossed two high-powered flashbang grenades into Dimitri Jordan’s villa, the blasts that followed were enough to knock Jordan’s guard flat on his back. Without firing a shot the gangster collapsed to the ground and shrieked like an animal while he clutched at his bloody ear canals. The constant, high-pitch ringing in his head was so loud that he couldn’t even hear his own screams as two tan-clad SWAT officers pounced on him.

  The other four SWAT officers charged through Jordan’s villa, sweeping their MP5s up and around to clear the room.

  “One hostile down!” a voice called as Jordan’s guard was cuffed and separated from his weapon. Ramirez led the way to the white-stone staircase that led up from the main living area and to the office and bedroom upstairs.

  Dimitri Jordan was still dizzy and barely gripping his AK-107 when he became aware of the heavy boots storming into his living room below. He had spotted the two black flashbangs rolling across his floor just in time to cover his ears – reducing the sound of the blast from debilitating to merely painful – but the magnesium flash that followed left him blind and disoriented as he struggled to regain his bearings.

  Jordan gripped his rifle and tried to get a visual on the police, but the flashbang had ruined his vision. Everything glowed green in front of him as if he’d just been staring at the sun. Blinking rapidly, Jordan found a wall and retreated deeper into his hallway as the shouts of the LVMPD officers grew closer. When he heard the thuds of boots approaching the top of his stairs, he raised his assault rifle and squeezed the trigger.

  Ramirez dropped to a knee and hugged the corner between the top of the stairs and the hallway to his left as Jordan’s high-caliber bullets flew past him.

  Ramirez pointed at the wild spattering of bullet holes in the tall walls over the living room.

  “Spray and pray – I think we blinded him!” he yelled over the roar of the AK-107. Swinging his MP5 behind his back and drawing his Mossberg tactical shotgun to his shoulder, he peeked around the corner to get a visual on the fearsome gangster.

  “What do we have?” Zebra Two asked, quickly arriving at Ramirez’s side with the others.

  “It’s just him…” Ramirez said. Tilting his shotgun to one side he quickly replaced his twelve gauge-slugs with bean-bag rounds. He swapped his ammo in less than five seconds with the smooth precision only seen in the most elite levels of law enforcement. “I’m going in for a non-lethal take-down. I want you on my six with your side arm ready. The rest of the team will maintain control of the high-ground in case the red berets outside try to pay us a visit.”

  All nodded. Ramirez waited for a lull in Jordan’s shooting before pumping his shot gun and leaping into the hallway. Jordan was just barely beginning to regain his vision when he spotted a tan blur performing a combat-roll across his hall. The figure was followed shortly by another, and Jordan decided to stand his ground. He squeezed the trigger and waved his rifle wildly to cover the entire hallway with gunfire.

  Zebra Two instantly caught a round to the chest and tumbled back over the balcony’s railing. He was dead before his body slammed against the stone floor below.

  With his vision slowly sharpening, Jordan then swung his rifle down to blow Ramirez away, but the ex-Marine popped up on a knee and pumped four heavy bean-bag rounds right into Jordan’s center of mass within seconds.

  The black titan bellowed in pain as the lead-filled bags slammed into him. The deadly AK-107 fell to the floor and Sergeant Ramirez pounced on Dimitri Jordan like a panther.

  Ramirez threw all his weight right into the bigger man’s hips to try and bring him down while Zebra Three ran down the hall to back him up. Ramirez pushed Jordan back a full yard, but the gangster didn’t fall. Instead, a heavy fist came crashing down on Adrian’s spine, punching the air from his lungs and pinning him to the ground like a slab of meat beneath a sledge hammer. Jordan looked up at Zebra Three ahead of him and let loose a hair-raising growl.

  Even with the pain of four heavy bean-bag rounds throbbing against his abdomen, the three hundred pound juggernaut of a man easily hoisted Ramirez up like a bag of potatoes and hurled him down the hallway.

  Zebra Three screamed as he raised his MP5. “Get on your knees or I will shoot!”

  Jordan glared at the man with pure bloodlust. Broad shoulders. Bulging arms. Tree-trunk sized thighs. The fearsome machine that was Jordan’s body thundered down the hallway like a charging rhinoceros. Zebra Three pulled the trigger, but gun blasts behind his back caused him to flinch and miss high at the critical moment. In an instant, Jordan closed the gap between them and threw a fist right into Zebra Three’s upper chest so hard that the officer’s clavicles snapped like twigs as he was hurled backward. Courageous to the last moment, the SWAT officer tried to get to his feet and rejoin the fight, but the massive internal hemorrhaging caused by Jordan’s blow eventually overwhelmed him. He was dead in less than a minute.

  On the ground, Sergeant Ramirez was struggling up to a knee as Jordan scooped up Zebra Three’s MP5 and started firing down at something under the balcony in his living room.

  Ramirez was having a hard time regaining control of himself. Jordan’s powerful fist had not only punched the air from his lungs, it also caused his diaphragm to spasm uncontrollably, making it almost impossible for him to bre
athe. Placing a hand on the wall beside him, Ramirez wobbled up to his feet and tried to compartmentalize the pain as he reached for the shotgun beside Zebra Two’s body.

  Downstairs, five Spetsnaz commandos charged through the door and took cover behind various pieces of furniture by the main entrance. The three-way battle for Jordan’s villa had just reached a new level of ferocity.

  “Son of a bitch.” Jordan gasped when he saw Lukas Petrov charging inside. “I’m being attacked by ghosts!”

  Spotting the bodyguard floundering about on the floor with his wrists and ankles cuffed, Lukas swung his semi-automatic shotgun down and blew him away with a single twelve-gauge slug. He then glared upward and locked eyes with Jordan.

  “The bell tolls, Dimitri!” he roared in English. He then looked back at his own men. “Kill them all!” he screamed in Russian.

  The sudden attack trapped two Las Vegas SWAT officers in the living room. The other surviving SWAT officer, who was on his way up the stairs when the attack began, was forced to shelter in place while Russian bullets flew over his head. In the upstairs hallway, Sergeant Ramirez stood alone against Dimitri Jordan.

  “Deploy smoke grenades!” Lukas ordered. Peter pulled the pin from one of his olive-green canisters and rolled it across the floor.

  “Attack in V-formation with me at the lead!” Lukas said to his team as the white smoke billowed up from the ground. “I will take out the enemy on the high ground while the rest of you cover me and kill the others.”

  They nodded and prepared to make their final assault.

  Above them, Dimitri Jordan sprayed the last of his bullets at them and then turned to flee. He hated running away from a fight, but he could see no other alternative. All the Lieutenants and bodyguards in the living quarters were now dead, his lover was on the run with only a single man to protect her, and now the entire top floors of his tower were burning while Las Vegas SWAT was fighting the ghost of Lukas Petrov his army of Russian commandos. It was chaos. Jordan had no choice but to try to escape.

  Lukas Petrov gave the order for his men to attack. The five-man Spetsnaz team raised their weapons and leaped out from their cover in perfect unison.

  The SWAT team was outnumbered and outgunned, but they were still a force to be reckoned with. When the Russians were halfway across the living room, a flashbang grenade rolled into the center of their formation while the police fired like mad through the smoke.

  The flash of bright white light blinded Lukas fractions of a second before the one hundred and seventy decibel blast ripped into his ears and sent the room spinning around him. Peter stumbled into him from behind and then fell down; a nine-millimeter round had flown through the smoke and slammed into his thigh. “Shoot! Shoot!” Peter screamed. He squeezed the trigger of his AKS assault rifle and sprayed automatic gunfire at the police as he collapsed into a growing pool of his own blood.

  Zebra Five had just popped up to fire at the Russians when one of Peter’s wild bullets struck his shoulder and sent him flying down the stairs.

  “I’m hit!” Zebra Five cried out, landing on the bottom step with a thud. He clasped a gloved hand over the bloody streak on his uniform to check the damage.

  “Bad?” Zebra Six asked as he ran to his side to help him.

  “Negative – flesh wound. I can still fight!”

  Zebra Five raised his MP5 and fired a quick burst to keep the Russian’s heads down. “We have to regroup with Zebra One!”

  While the SWAT team pulled back, Lukas was writhing on the ground.

  One of his sutures ripped and caused him terrible agony as blood seeped from the wound. His ears were ringing as if a high-pitched siren was screeching just inches away from his face. He was in a world of hurt, but he didn’t earn the Spetsnaz patch by succumbing to pain so easily. Rapidly compartmentalizing his agony, Lukas told himself that the rest of his sutures would hold, that his old wounds made him strong because they made him angry, and that he was still a threat to his enemies. He drew his CZ-75 and fired back at the SWAT team just six seconds after the flashbang had gone off.

  No amount of mental toughness, however, could compensate for the disorienting effects of the flashbang grenade. Lukas did his best to take down the retreating SWAT officers as they picked up their wounded comrade and ran up the stairs, but his sense of balance was so devastated by the flashbang that not a single one of the ten rounds he fired came even close to hitting their targets. Lukas cursed as the tan uniforms retreated away from him.

  “Peter!” Lukas called out. His second-in-command’s blonde hair was matted down against his flushed red forehead. Peter was panting through gritted teeth as he pressed hard against the bloody mess on his thigh.

  “Artery!” Peter growled as Lukas crawled up to him. “I’m going to bleed out!”

  “No you are not!” Lukas said. He quickly unsnapped Peter’s belt and pulled it from his pant-loops, then he wrapped the Kevlar belt above the wound and cinched it tight. As he did this he looked up through the dissipating smoke at the two surviving Russians ahead of him.

  “Where is Yosef??” Lukas barked. Both men shook their heads sorrowfully. Lukas spotted the bloody red beret laying upturned on the ground behind him; the green-camouflaged body slumped beside it wasn’t moving.

  Lukas swore under his breath. He wanted revenge for his father’s murder, but not at the expense of every one of his friends’ lives. Jordan’s gang had been seriously damaged, that was good enough for now. In the meantime, the American SWAT team was proving to be a much tougher opponent than he was prepared for; he didn’t want to risk further confrontation.

  “How much Semtex do we have left?” Lukas asked.

  “More than half.” one of the two unwounded men said.

  “Good.” Lukas said, his palm still pressed hard against Peter’s bloody thigh. “I want you two to plant the explosives against as many load-bearing members on this floor as you can while I protect Peter. We’re pulling out.”

  “Don’t give up now!” Peter protested. He drew his CZ-75 pistol. “You go and fight. Leave and let me take some of these bastards down with me!”

  His face was pale, his hands and lips were taking on a bluish tint. Lukas tried to cinch the tourniquet tighter but it was no use; the nick in Peter’s femoral artery continued to bleed.

  “Leave!” Peter said, his voice quavering. With a wince he angled his body toward the grand entrance. “I’ll protect your rear as long as I am able. Go! I want to die knowing that our comrades have been avenged! Go!”

  It took a lot willpower for Lukas to relent to Peter’s demands. With a pat on the dying man’s shoulder, Lukas told Peter that he was a good friend and an honorable man. The other two men did the same. With painful effort, Peter raised his CZ-75 and kept a dedicated but fading lookout for any new threats at the door while Lukas and the other’s went off to pursue Jordan.

  “I will not risk any more Russian lives in pursuit of revenge,” Lukas said to his two surviving men as they made their way up the stairs. “I want extreme caution and conservative tactics, understood? We cannot avenge our dead if we too are slain.”

  “Aye,” both men agreed solemnly.

  Lukas checked the ammunition in his Saiga and was satisfied that he had enough to finish the job.

  “I’m going after Jordan. You two will follow me and plant your explosives along the way. Once Jordan is dead we’ll blow the top off of this fucking hotel.”

  60

  Meanwhile, at the Venetian

  A dam ran down the halls of the Venetian like he was running from a pack of wolves. Casino security took notice of him and they were beginning to pursue him when Ty Marcus and his squad of almost ten men charged into the casino with their guns raised high.

  Screams drowned out the regular din of chimes and music from the thousands of slot machines. While most people sprinted for the exits at the first sight of the armed hit squad, a few of the greedier guests took the distraction as an opportunity to scoop up as many casino ch
ips from the tables as possible. Instant mayhem ensued.

  Ty led the way with his silver gun aimed at Adam’s back, taking pot-shots whenever his ironsight crossed over his target. The bullets punched through the slot machines with a burst of sparks and shattered glass, but the panicking crowd made getting a clean shot harder and harder as Adam weaved away from him.

  “Dammit!” Ty screamed. He whipped around to give orders to his men, “You four go to the shops and make sure he doesn’t escape to the Strip, the rest of you stay with me!”

  The small army of gangsters split up to pursue Adam Friend. Adam nearly slipped on the polished stone floors as he made it to the end of the casino and sprinted up the escalator to the next floor. He had to push and shove to get up the crowded, moving stairway as the Lieutenants’ shouts behind him grew closer and angrier.

  An elderly woman on the escalator, who was turning to see what all the screaming was about, got knocked flat on her face when Adam stiff-armed her to get away from Ty Marcus. She let out a weak cry as she tumbled down, knocking over the other tourists as her purse and her oxygen tank clunked down the metal steps.

  Ty reached the bottom of the escalator right as Adam made it to the top. Aiming high, Ty squeezed off two shots in an effort to kill him. One bullet flew a mere fifteen inches over Adam’s head and shattered the window of a boutique shop ahead of him.

  The other struck the elderly woman’s oxygen tank.

  There was a loud ping! followed immediately by a bone-jarring blast. Razor-sharp shards of metal flew in every direction like a shrapnel grenade, shredding the flesh of any bystander unlucky enough to be in the area. Ty dove to the ground to avoid being hit, but Adam caught an inch-long shard to the thigh and tumbled down.

  Grunting in pain, he flung about on the ground like a fish shot with a spear gun. With a yelp of pain he yanked it from the meat of his thigh and tossed the bloody shard away. His leg hurt like hell, but he could still run.