by Unknown
Ramm ducked the solid edge of the hand, felt the wind that was displaced by the massive forearm behind it, and he swung with the barrel of his gun to check the follow up blow that came at his throat. The big man continued to move forward behind his blows, and he came chest to chest with Ramm. Taking a lead from his bestial namesake, Ramm butted his forehead into the man’s face and felt the squish of breaking nose cartilage. Such a blow would slow – if not totally disable - most men, but the big Russian seemed unfazed. He merely spat the blood out that streamed into his mouth, half-blinding Ramm. Then the killer’s knife hands jammed at Ramm’s torso. Ramm managed to knock an arm aside, but one stiffened set of fingers stabbed him in the gut, and it was almost as if he’d been speared by a lance. He exhaled harshly, but only in anger. Then, using the Makarov as a bludgeon he cut an arc through the air that ended on the Russian’s skull. The raised sight on the barrel tore a furrow through the buzz cut, while the barrel itself landed with blunt force. The Russian’s knees lost some of their bounce. Ramm disengaged, took a step to one side and delivered a roundhouse kick to the man’s testicles. As the man folded further over, Ramm holstered his Makarov, then plucked the AK47 off the brute’s shoulder, reversed the butt and slammed it repeatedly against the nape of his bull neck. The man fell prone in the dirt: he wouldn’t be getting up again.
Ramm cast away the AK, plucked the radio and earpiece from the corpse and then moved on. The Russian was the first to die tonight, he told himself, more would follow. He fed the earpiece into his left ear, listening for clues of where he might find Missy or Gitchsler. The radio at that time was silent.
Ahead, a trail wound through woodland, and he could see some sort of hut straddling the path about fifty yards in front. He padded along the trail. A word was spoken in his earpiece. It came too quickly to translate, but its tone told him enough to throw himself aside. Tracer rounds burned the air where he’d been a second before, and screaming projectiles tore the foliage to shreds around him. Ramm tucked and rolled, came to one knee, and in the same motion his hand found the Makarov and brought it up. He fired twice, the two rounds coming in such close succession that it sounded like a single crack. The shooter in the hut let out a cry, and his shots went skyward as he fell back into the darkness. Ramm thought the man dead – or severely wounded at least – but made sure. He rushed for the hut, vaulted through the open window and fired two more bullets into the prone figure on the floor, all before the man’s cry had stopped echoing between the trees.
Gitchsler had many enemies. His normal routine would be to surround himself with armed guards. But it was apparent that the security levels had been raised. When Gitchsler’s people had come for Missy, it was with prior knowledge of whom she’d sought protection from. If the Russian mobster had checked him out, then he’d have learned that Ramm wasn’t the kind who’d let things lie. He’d mounted a defence in full expectation of violent retaliation. Proof of that was the way in which his men were primed for assault, and by the heavy artillery they’d brought to the fight. Unlike he had with the first guard’s AK47, Ramm picked up this one’s gun, a Heckler and Koch MP5, a weapon he was more familiar with. He grabbed spare clips of ammunition from the dead man’s coat pocket, then was out of the hut and running through the woods before anyone could corner him.
The big house loomed large in a clearing in the woods. Manicured lawns, topiary, fountains, the business. Beautiful in their way, but all that Ramm recognised the decorations as were barricades he could use as he approached the house. If Gitchsler had any sense he’d have had the woods felled, the grounds laid to gravel and given no cover to an invader. Ramm sprinted for a fountain, and crouched down behind the granite bowl, placing a statue of water-spraying nymphs between him and the gunman that opened up from a parapet on the roofline. Stinging shards of granite spritzed the air around him, buckled and spent bullets whining off into the topiary hedges nearby. Ramm waited a pause, then shouldered the MP5, and came out shooting. He didn’t go sideways, where was the sense in that? He made progress. Ever forward, that was his motto. He fired as he rushed fearlessly for the front of the house, forcing the man on the roofline to seek cover. Another man appeared to his right and Ramm cut him down without remorse. Blood hung in the air like a mist after the man had fallen.
The huge door of the house felt the impact of Ramm’s size twelve’s, and it swung inward and slammed against the supporting wall. Ramm sprayed the interior with the MP5 on full-auto. Men who’d been kneeling in the hall, in anticipation of launching an ambush were cut to shreds. He snapped in a fresh clip of ammo, slapped the bolt to charge the gun and entered as he fired another volley of rounds. Voices called from the back of the house, and were played in stereo by the earpiece. He pulled the radio loose and threw it away now it was of no use to him. A man appeared, tall, skinny, pale eyed: Ramm put him down with a selected shot to the throat.
Another two gunmen were partway up a staircase. The stairwell was opulent, looking like something out of Gone With The Wind. Ramm frankly didn’t give a damn. He tore the stairs, the oak bannisters and the two gunmen to pieces with a sustained burst of gunfire. The MP5 ran dry. He threw it aside. Brought out his Makarov. It was apt in his mind that the Russian gun should slay the Russian mobster.
He’d lost count of the number of Russian mobsters he’d killed. Didn’t really matter. So far as he was concerned he’d keep on killing until there was no more Russian mobsters left in the world. It was the Russian Mafia who’d murdered his parents and younger brother five years earlier, and Ramm had been seeking those responsible ever since. For all he knew any of the men who lay in tatters at his feet could have been among the hitters who’d indiscriminately murdered his loved ones, as well as the other twenty-three tourists on the coach they’d shot to pieces. Reputedly Moscow was safe for tourists, and it had been sheer misfortune that saw the tour bus drive into the middle of a gang war having taken a wrong turn for St Peter’s Square. Ramm thought otherwise, and that the coach had been specifically targeted when it was learned that his folks were on board. Ramm, five years ago, had gone by another name – Codename Battering Ram – and he’d been the most feared guided weapon in the CIAs arsenal. Following the murder of his family, and the subsequent Burn Notice handed down by his former masters, Ramm had taken war to the Russian Mafia in his own inimitable way. Notwithstanding her current predicament, he wouldn’t have ignored Missy Dolan’s plight even if the Russian Mob hadn’t been involved, but he had to admit that it made this fight all the more personal.
From above Ramm heard a scream. It wasn’t the shout of another of Gitchsler’s men coming to the fight. It was female, and a voice he recognised. When Missy had shared his bed she’d called out similarly, though at the time her voice had been throaty and less tinged with pain.
He took the stairs three at a time.
A burly man appeared from a doorway to his left, holding a large machete. He was as big as the first thug Ramm had killed tonight, but his skin glistened as darkly as the first man’s was pale. He was an unusual man to be in cahoots with the Red Mafia. Perhaps he’s one of those Black Russians he’d heard about, Ramm thought whimsically as he placed a round in the black guy’s forehead. He gave the dead man little notice as he tumbled over the banister and down the stairs.
At the head of the staircase was a wide landing, and at its centre a huge double set of doors. From beyond the huge portal came the yelp of Missy Dolan once more. Also Ramm could hear the bark of Gitchsler, and the corresponding replies of a gathering of men. He was under no illusion: he’d been drawn to this place, Missy being the bait. But it had always occurred to Ramm that, once his identity had been discovered, this was as much about drawing him into a trap as anything else, rather than it was Gitchsler simpler getting his main squeeze back. He wondered who was waiting for him behind those doors. Not nickel and dime punks like those who’d been sacrificed already, he bet.
Ever forward, he told himself.
But not by the direct rout
e.
Going through those doors was tantamount to instant death.
He checked and saw another door to the extreme left and he went through that way instead, finding himself in a narrow stairwell that should take him to the roof. He recalled that there was a gunman up above. So what, he decided, last place anyone would expect him was up there. He went up the stairs and pushed out onto a balustrade that ran the length of the side façade of the big house. Crouching near the front corner was the rifleman who’d tried to kill him out by the fountain. The guy didn’t see or hear death coming for him. Ramm shot him in the back of the skull. Then he checked for what was a feature of this style of steepled roof: an access hatch into the attic space. He discovered it at the back of the house and went inside. The attic was jet-black darkness and the footing precarious, as he would be traversing beams. Walking along the balustrade from front to back after killing the shooter, he’d counted his steps. He now stepped out three quarters of the same number along the central wooden beam. He checked his Makarov, held it close to his side, even as, with his other hand he eased out his Tanto blade. Then he took a jump to one side, snapped both heels together and plummeted through the fragile ceiling of the room where his enemies had gathered.
His surprise entrance was both noisy, and disconcerting. While he bent his knees to absorb the fall of more than fifteen feet, his gun was already on its way up and he capped two shooters with their eyes screwed shut against the fall of plaster and dust. He pivoted, shot another man, then another. The rubble he’d knocked loose hadn’t even finished clattering to the hardwood floor before four men beat it to it. Shouts rang out; Ramm remained silent. His Makarov spoke for him. It barked once, twice, three times, and another trio of would-be killers had the tables turned on them.
Ramm moved.
The initial surprise appearance was spent and guns began tracking him.
Ramm counted figures.
Eight still living: one of them Missy.
A round hit him in the chest.
Ramm staggered, but fired back, and his attempted killer fell with a gaping wound in his skull.
Two men to his left, two to the right. They opened up, their handguns belching death. Sadly their target was no longer in their bullets’ trajectories because Ramm had tucked and rolled again. Crossfire took out a man to each side before those still living realised their error. By then it was too late for the man on the right. Ramm fired on him, took out his left kneecap, and as the guy crumpled in agony, Ramm put another round in his bean. That only left one of the original four standing, but Ramm was quick to charge in, taking another solid punch of lead into his chest on the way. The guy should have aimed higher, because his heart shots didn’t stop Ramm, only left him open to a swipe of the Tanto across his throat. Blood fanned the air around him. Ramm grabbed the dying man by his gun arm and twisted with him, placing the body between him and the other bullets seeking his life. Ramm felt the impact of half a dozen bullets in his human shield, even as he sucked in oxygen to shake off the wounds he’d taken.
Dust still billowed in the room.
More plaster fell from above, jagged lumps that thudded on the hardwood floor. In the moving dust clouds Ramm checked for his remaining three enemies. One suited and booted guy was crouching behind a plush couch, his silver hair bobbing up and down as he shouted orders. The silver crown belonged to Brandon Gitchsler and Ramm was tempted to put an extra splash of colour in it with a well-placed bullet, but he resisted the temptation: he wanted Gitchsler for last. The final two hitters had concluded that their sharpshooting skills weren’t as good as they’d hoped. They’d figured it out that Ramm was wearing a ballistic vest of some kind beneath his sweatshirt, and that they were wasting their time shooting at centre mass. They didn’t know that Ramm was wearing an experimental Israeli nanocomposite anti-ballistic/stab suit beneath his entire clothing, and that bullets to his legs wouldn’t stop him either. They wasted a few seconds figuring that out too.
Ramm fired over the corpse’s shoulder, taking out one of the men. Then it happened: the dead man’s click. The slide on his gun locked open as his ammunition ran dry.
Ramm threw aside the now shattered human shield, and re-holstered his Makarov. The dead man’s gun was on the floor at his feet, but to bend for it would place Ramm’s unguarded skull firmly in the shooter’s sights. He gripped his Tanto and leapt for the man. The mobster wasted what little opportunity he had left in firing his gun at Ramm’s head. But the target was too elusive, the bullets missing entirely or whacking off Ramm’s burly shoulders. By the time the gunman changed tactics and kicked out at Ramm, it was too late. Ramm’s blade danced in and out, slicing the tendons at the back of the thug’s knees, then as he collapsed like a clipped puppet, ended in the juncture of throat and breastbone. During Ramm’s vicious assault, he’d snatched the gunman’s pistol out of his dying fingers. He turned it on Gitchsler as the mob boss stood up, showing placating palms.
‘Don’t shoot, Ramm. I’m unarmed.’
‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.’
‘Because I’m not your real enemy here.’
‘What are you talking about, punk? You kidnapped Missy. Laid this trap for me. Now you’re trying to tell me it’s all been some big mistake?’
‘No,’ Gitchsler said. ‘None of this was a mistake. It was indeed a plot to draw you here and kill you. There’s a rather large bounty on your head. But I wasn’t the one who wished to claim it.’
Ramm frowned at the man’s words. If not Gitchsler, then who?
‘It was me,’ Missy Dolan said from behind him as she brought down a heavy vase on Ramm’s head.
Stunned by the blow, Ramm staggered. Missy followed quickly, tripping him with one of her finely turned ankles. He sprawled on the floor in a billow of dust and plaster particles. Gitchsler bounded at him, stamping down on his gun hand and pinning it to the floor. Missy snatched the Tanto out of the throat of the nearby corpse and placed it against the nape of Ramm’s neck.
‘Fight me,’ she warned, ‘and I’ll do worse than kill you. I will insert this blade between your vertebra and leave you a cripple from the neck down.’
‘Damnit, Missy, what’s this all about? You telling me you played me like a fool and set all this in motion? For what…Money?’
‘The money means nothing to me, Ramm. I am only interested in satisfaction.’
‘I gave you more satisfaction than this old man could, I bet,’ Ramm growled.
‘Is that all you think about? Sex?’
‘With you, Missy? No. There was more than the great sex, I actually thought I liked you too.’
‘Liked me, ha! Was that your big dream, Ramm? That we’d fall in love, live happily ever after? Did you really think I could love a man like you?’ Missy sneered. ‘You are a fool and an egotist to boot. I was only playing a part.’
‘So that wasn’t my name you were whispering during the throes of passion, you were just giving me instruction?’
‘Your ego is about the most inflated thing about you, Ramm. Now shut up and listen to me. It’s as I said: I want satisfaction.’
Missy stood up relaxing the blade from his nape, but it was only a split-second before Gitchsler had the gun out of his hand and aimed at his skull.
‘Turn over on your back, but keep your hands where I can see them,’ Gitchsler warned.
Ramm rolled over.
He folded his hands over his abdomen. Prone, as he was, it was evident how many bullets had struck him from the number of charred holes in his sweatshirt and the strands of faux spider silk padding sticking out of them. The super tensile silk, and the nano-gel inserts beneath, had halted all the bullets. They had stopped the murderous projectiles if not the pounds per inch impacts and - beneath his suit - Ramm knew he’d be black and blue from neck to navel. The pain of his bruises would follow soon, if he was allowed to live that long.
Gitchsler grinned down at him.
‘To think that some of the Red Mafia’s best
have failed to stop you, and all it took to bring down the dreaded Battering Ram was to lay a honey trap.’
Ramm ignored the mob boss’s taunting, looking instead at Missy. She mugged at him, hands at her throat, letting out a pealing scream the likes of which drew him to this room.
‘That was always your weakness, Ramm. Never could turn down a damsel in distress, could you?’ she said.
‘Actually, I don’t see it as a weakness,’ Ramm said. ‘In my book it’s a virtue.’
‘Yes, but when was that book written…the goddamn Victorian era?’
Ramm smiled at her misplaced humour.
‘You know something, Missy. You’re even more beautiful like this. A little anger in your eyes, instead of the tears you used to suck me in to your trap.’
She snorted at him.
Ramm wasn’t telling lies. He did indeed believe she looked incredibly beautiful. But then Ramm always found serpents beautiful too, and he was under no illusion that she was as deadly as a nest of rattlesnakes.
‘What’s your real name, Missy?’
Missy balanced the hilt of his Tanto in her left palm as she teased the diamond tip with a well-manicured fingernail. ‘So you’re not as dumb as you look. You’ve figured it out, eh?’
‘You said you wanted satisfaction,’ Ramm explained. ‘If you weren’t talking about in the sack, then that leaves only one other thing: Revenge.’
She flipped the blade, caught the hilt in her left hand, tossed it to the right, the blade projecting below her fist. She knew how to handle his weapon, Ramm noted. But that, he now understood, was always a given.
‘Missy Dolan. I get it now: You’re Mizinovskaia Dolohova? Daughter of Petrov Dolohov?’
‘The same Petrov Dolohov that you murdered, Ramm,’ she reminded him.
He had no excuse. He had indeed murdered her father, albeit as payback for the murder of his own parents and brother.
‘You did not recognise me when I came to you like this.’ Missy ran a languid hand down her voluptuous body. ‘Not surprisingly, I suppose. I was only fifteen years old the last time you laid eyes on me. Aah, I see now that you remember. Yes, I was that plain looking child, yet to flourish into full womanhood, when you left me crying over the body of my dead father. I swore then that one day I would have the satisfaction of seeing you lying dead at my feet.’