by Sean Black
The three men on the couch glared at the man standing over them as he continued talking. “That’s what you were doing, right? Little bit of late night remodeling.” He turned back to Michael. “Now, can Tyrone here let go of you without any further incident?”
The iron grip around Michael’s mouth, loosened just enough that he could nod his head. The massive scoop of a hand fell away. Slowly he half-turned to see the man who had grabbed him. He was bigger than the man with the gun, a tall, dark sheet of muscle that towered over everyone else in the room. He exuded a controlled menace. It came off him in waves. The three thugs sitting quietly on the couch suddenly made sense.
There was the sound of footsteps. A young Hungarian women with dark hair walked through from the master bedroom. She ignored Michael and addressed the man with the gun. “Ryan, a car just pulled up outside with four men inside.”
Chapter Twenty-five
As Yuksia watched, Lock flicked a coin in the air, caught it, and slapped his right hand down on top of it. He looked at Ty. “Heads or tails?”
Ty called heads. Lock pulled his hand away to reveal that it was tails.
“Best out of three?” he said to Ty.
“No,” said Ty. “Don’t have time for that bullshit. I got this.”
The decision made, Lock grabbed Michael’s elbow and guided him back towards to the apartment door. Yuksia followed close behind. At the door, Lock glanced back towards Ty.
“You sure?” Lock said to his partner.
Ty squared his broad shoulders and glanced towards the balcony. “Get the hell out of here.”
The last thing Lock, Yuksia, and Michael heard as they stepped out into the dimly lit corridor was the sound of Ty racking back the slide of his SIG Sauer 229.
Michael looked back anxiously at the apartment. “I’m sorry for putting you guys in this position,” he said to Lock.
Lock pulled his weapon, and made sure he stayed in front of Michael as they started to climb the stairs. “You want to make it up to us? Do exactly what I tell to you do, when I tell you.”
“Of course,” said Michael.
As soon as they were gone, Ty walked across the living room, and hit the switch to raise the electrically powered shutters. The smaller of the three men was moving his head from side to side, and trying to speak. Ty crossed to him and pulled the sock from his mouth.
The man stared at him. “Our friends will be here soon. When they get here we will take you into the room back there. You have not experienced pain like we will make for you,” He rocked his head back in the direction of the spare bedroom.
Ty loomed over him. He opened his left hand and tapped the man’s face with his open palm, just hard enough to get his attention. “Whatever you say, Chief. As for pain, you ain’t met some of my ex-girlfriends. You ever date a girl from Long Beach called Kwaneesha? Now that’s pain.”
Ty grabbed the sock and jammed it back into the man’s mouth. He grabbed the back of the man’s collar, and pulled him up from the couch. With his hands tied behind his back, the man’s own weight took him forward, and he fell face first onto the floor. There was a crunch of bone as his nose made contact with the walnut hardwood floor. The man let out a muffled cry of pain. Ty jammed the heel of his boot down into the small of the man’s back for a brief moment.
The other two men were looking at Ty. He turned towards them, the barrel of the SIG pointed at them. “Anyone else have anything they want to share with me?” Ty asked them.
They shook their heads frantically back and forth.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” said Ty.
Ty opened the door that led out onto the small stone balcony as a fire alarm out in the corridor began to wail. Next, he walked back into the master bedroom, and began stripping the sheets from the bed. He took out his Gerber and began cutting the sheets lengthways into strips. When he was done cutting, he began to braid the strips together.
The broken glass from the fire alarm on the top floor corridor lay at Lock’s feet. He crossed to the three apartment doors and began to bang on them with his fist. Lights flickered on, and people began to shout behind the frosted glass doors. Before anyone could come out, Lock pointed towards a door on the other side of the corridor. “That go to the roof?” he asked Michael.
“Yes, I’ve been up there with…” said Michael, breaking off. “Yes, it takes you onto the roof.”
“And there’s one of the other side of the building?” Lock asked him.
“Yes,” Michael said.
“Perfect,” said Lock, taking a step back and aiming a kick at the door.
The door flew open. Lock grabbed hold off Michael and they pushed through. Directly ahead of them was a ladder leading upwards into darkness. “You go first,” Lock told Yuksia.
Yuksia grabbed for the ladder and started to climb. Michael went next. Lock went last.
It was a short climb. Fifteen rungs. They reached the top. There was another door. It was unlocked. They were on the roof. Michael and Yuksia followed Lock as he walked across the roof to a matching door. Beyond the door was a ladder leading down to the top floor of the building’s other side. Because the building was split, and perfectly symmetrical, they could walk down the stairs on the other side without any risk of running into the men who were heading for Michael’s apartment. Of course, that was assuming they hadn’t split up. If they had, thought Lock, he had fifteen rounds in his clip, more than enough to take care of the situation if he absolutely had to.
Ty leaned over the edge of the balcony and looked down to the street below. He could see the car that Yuksia had warned them about. The driver was smoking a cigarette with the window down. He had a skinhead haircut and was squeezed into a dark suit that looked like it had been tailored for a man ten pounds lighter. That meant, if Yuksia’s count was correct, that there were three men on the way up to the apartment to check on their compatriots.
Right on cue there was a banging on the door and a man shouting urgently in what Ty assumed was Hungarian. Ty pulled out his cell phone and hit Lock’s name. It took a moment to connect. “I got them here. You should be clear.”
Marching back into the living room, Ty walked across to the man lying face down on the floor, blood still pouring from his nose, and hauled him up onto his knees. “Okay, I know you speak English, so I’m going to take the gag out, and you’re going to tell your buddies outside that everything’s cool and that they’re not needed. You cross me and you’re going to be minus one of your knee caps. You feel me?”
The man nodded.
Lock holstered his gun as they headed back down the stairs on the opposite side of the building. On every floor, residents were appearing from their apartments in pajamas and dressing gowns, reluctantly making their down to the front entrance. Lock, Yuksia, and Michael fell in with them. One or two people shot them a suspicious look, but no one said anything.
They reached the ground floor, and headed, along with everyone else, for the lobby. A fire truck had just pulled up outside.
“Keep your heads down, and keep walking,” Lock instructed.
Ty yanked the sock from the man’s mouth. He tapped the barrel of the SIG against the man’s temple.
“Okay, tell them it’s cool,” Ty whispered.
The man immediately started screaming in Hungarian. Whatever he was saying, Ty was certain that it didn’t translate to, “Everything’s cool.”
Ty pushed the man’s head back down. He pressed the barrel of the SIG into the back of the man’s left knee and pulled the trigger. The man let out a high-pitched scream.
The near wall shook as one of the men standing outside threw themselves at the door. The frame shuddered, but the door held. The two men on the couch began to bounce around, no doubt aware that when their buddies made it through the door, they would likely be caught in the crossfire. Ty turned and ran for the balcony, where he had already tied off the braided sheets to a balustrade.
Holst
ering his SIG, he swung a long leg over the edge of the balcony, and hauled himself over the lip of the railing. He grabbed the sheet with both hands and began to move down, hand over hand. He could feel the fabric strain as soon as he let go of the concrete lip. His stomach churned with the sickening realization that it could tear at any minute.
With one hand on Yuksia’s arm, Lock pushed Michael ahead as they ran out onto Joszef Atilla Street. A black Mercedes Benz screeched to a stop next to the bus shelter. Lock opened the rear passenger door and shoved Michael into the back seat head first. He held it open for Yuksia. She hurried in. He closed the rear passenger door, and stepped back from the car.
András gunned the engine and the Benz took off, racing the short distance towards the Danube and the Chain Bridge. The bridge would take them out of Pest and into the winding streets of Buda, where Robertson was waiting for them.
On the sidewalk, Lock turned back to where he could see Ty dangling from the improvised sheet-rope about thirty feet above the street. A man appeared on the balcony of Michael Lane’s apartment. In his hand was a knife. He looked around. He saw where Ty had tied off the braided sheet rope. He started towards it.
Without waiting, Lock drew his SIG, punched it out ahead of him with both hands, falling into a modified Weaver stance, and squeezed the trigger. The shot went high, pinging off the corner of the balcony above. The man ducked back inside.
Lock kept scanning the building as Ty picked up the pace, shimmying down the rope as fast as he could. The man with the knife appeared again, hunkered down low. Lock snapped into a shooting stance once more, ready to give the guy the good news if he made another move to cut the rope.
Finally, with a few feet between the soles of his boots and the sidewalk, Ty let go. He dropped down onto the sidewalk. Lock took that as his cue to move back into the shadows as Ty hugged the wall, making sure that he didn’t give anyone on the balcony the angle for a shot.
Lock ran across the street and joined Ty at the corner. “You okay?” Lock asked him.
Ty glanced back in the direction of the apartment. “We should go back up there. Teach those assholes a lesson.”
“Another time maybe,” said Lock, as two Rendőrség police cars sped past, sirens blaring. “Right now, we need to get out of here.”
The two men took off running. Three blocks later they slowed to walk. Even though they had only traveled a short distance, the streets were quiet. The old, ornate stone buildings seemed to have swallowed the chaos behind them.
They reached the Chain Bridge. Lock noted the lions on their plinths, on guard for any signs of trouble. He glanced over at Ty as they passed the midway point across the bridge. Ty’s face was set.
“What’s up?” Lock asked him.
Ty cleared his throat. “Next time you want to want to go away for the weekend somewhere romantic, do me a favor?”
“Sure,” said Lock.
“Ask someone else,” said Ty.
Chapter Twenty-six
The drive to Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt airport passed in tense silence. Michael Lane sat in back, sandwiched between Ty and Robertson. Lock was up front in the passenger seat, while Yuksia drove. Traffic was heavy as they moved through the run-down industrial area near the airport. Lock continually checked the cars around them for signs of Hugo or his men.
Michael had already shared with them the whole story of how he came to meet a beautiful young Russian woman while out walking. It was a chance encounter. At least that’s what he had thought.
The relationship between Michael and Katya had developed quickly. He had fallen head over heels in love with her. He thought she had done the same. His marriage had already hit a rocky patch. His wife hadn’t wanted him to take the job in Budapest in the first place. Michael had thought the distance might do them good. He had been wrong about that as well. His wife had refused to visit, and after he had begun to see Katya his regular trips home had become infrequent.
It was only now, with the benefit of knowing he’d been set up, that he understood that what he saw as Katya’s interest in every aspect of his life, including his work, was her weighing him up as a mark. The final conversation with her had revolved around some of the rumored kidnappings that had been taking place in the city. He had revealed to Katya that he wasn’t worried. If he was abducted, his company had insurance in place that covered all their employees worldwide. It had been a tiny clause in his employee package that had stuck in his mind because it seemed so outlandish.
That revelation had no doubt sealed his fate. Two days later he was being bundled at gunpoint into the car outside his apartment.
Yuksia pulled up outside Terminal 2B. They got out, Lock and Ty scanning the people huddled outside in the cold who had either just been dropped off or who were grabbing a final cigarette before their flight. Robertson unloaded their bags. He would be taking a later flight.
Lock went over to say goodbye to Yuksia. “You’ll be safe?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “Of course.”
“Maybe you can come visit me in the States?” he said.
Yuksia looked up at him, her chin jutting out. Her eyes glistened in the mineral-gray air. She stood on tip toes, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. “It was good to meet you, Mr.. Lock. Don’t spoil it now.”
She was right. They both knew that this was it. It had been a moment in time. They had lives to go back to. She broke away. He reached down and took her hand. Behind Yuksia, he could see Ty growing impatient, eager to get inside the relative safety of the terminal, get checked in, and through security.
Lock squeezed Yuksia’s hand. “Take care.”
He let go, and turned away as Yuksia and Robertson climbed back into the black Benz. Lock watched it pull away from the curb. He followed Ty and Michael inside, and they joined the queue of passengers checking in for the London flight.
THE END
Other Books by Sean Black
Lockdown (Ryan Lock 1)
Deadlock (Ryan Lock 2)
Gridlock (Ryan Lock 3)
The Devil’s Bounty (Ryan Lock 4)
Lock & Load (Short)
The Innocent (Ryan Lock 5)
Fire Point (Ryan Lock 6)
Post (Byron Tibor 1)
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