by Chris Martin
Holly and I hit the exit running. We’d planned our assault around the time when the fewest people would be on hand to resist us. I was positive that reinforcements were probably already on the way.
I yelled to Holly to grab the Accord and pick me up. I wanted to hold off the reinforcements as long as possible. I settled in to a fairly well-protected nook at the corner of the building and checked my watch. Less than five minutes until the explosives detonated.
I heard a screech of tires and the roaring of numerous engines and knew that the reinforcements were on the scene. Dozens of Chinese piled out of a handful of limos. I expected even more to arrive. I kept my cool and kept my head down. Chinese mobsters where pouring into the building. Where the hell was Holly?
Time was running out. If I wanted to escape the explosion I had to leave now. I laid down some cover fire and immediately drew an onslaught of return fire. The street was ablaze with flying glass and metal, and the pavement began to run red with blood. I grabbed a grenade from the duffel bag and lobbed it towards the limo closest to me. There was a spectacular fiery explosion and I made my break for it. The Chinese bullets whizzed past me, and I took a couple of flesh wounds, but nothing serious. The smoke and flames and chaos covered my escape. They were firing blindly. I stole a glance at my watch. I had to take cover immediately.
I spotted an open dumpster and took a running leap. I crashed into the metal container, separating my shoulder. The heavy lid came down fast, and I barely had the time to pull my leg in.
I heard the tremendous explosion and felt the ground shake violently. I could make out the sound of debris whistling through the air and even felt the impact as pieces of shrapnel banged against my dumpster. After a few minutes, I raised the lid a fraction of an inch and stole a peek.
The top of the pagoda had been completely blown off. Flaming chunks of the building lay everywhere, and the remaining structure was ablaze. All around me lay dead or dying Chinamen and pieces of Chinamen. It was a fucking war zone.
I crawled out of the dumpster. I smelled like shit, but I was alive. I cautiously made my way back to where I’d parked the Accord, hoping that Holly was waiting for me there, having somehow misunderstood my instructions.
I heard the sirens in the distance, drawing closer with every passing second. I rounded the corner and saw the Accord still parked were I’d left it. A quick survey of the car only told me what I’d already feared. Holly wasn’t there.
-5-
I drove around for an hour trying to come up with my next move. I had to assume that Holly was still alive, though the odds favored her being dead. Either way I was in a shitload of trouble, worse off than before. If Holly was still in one piece, it was a cinch that Adrian had her.
So I basically had two options. Either forget about her, set up a new identity, and get as far away from this mess as possible or say to hell with it and mount a direct attack on Moore’s estate.
It was a suicide mission, but I didn’t really have a choice. I was a part of this thing and I was going to see it through to the end.
But first I wanted to send Adrian a message. If he thought taking Holly would stop me, he had a surprise coming.
The Latino mob were headquartered just outside the city limits, in a suburb rife with corruption. The whole town was dirty, from the cops to the judges to the mayor and everyone in between. It was public knowledge that the mayor was also the boss of the mob.
The mayor’s name was Maria Cadiz, a Puerto Rican who had married into the mob. Her husband, Eduardo, had been in charge for a quarter of a century before he died of natural causes six years ago. There was a brutal gang war that practically tore the tiny suburb apart. In the end, Cadiz had complete control of the Latinos. She’d been “elected” mayor three years later. Now, she’d taken control of the entire city. She was virtually untouchable. The feds had launched numerous investigations, but no one would talk, so they always fizzled out.
Unlike the Chinese, this time I’d only have to kill Cadiz, and if I got lucky a couple of her lieutenants. Another gang war for control of the Latino mob would give Adrian plenty of headaches and keep the Latinos off my ass for a while.
I parked the Accord right in front of city hall. I ran a quick survey of the building. It wasn’t going to be easy. Armed guards at the doors, along with metal detectors. Bulletproof glass in all the windows.
I grabbed the briefcase containing the sniper rifle out of the trunk and walked across the street to the public library. I had no problems getting in and taking the elevator to the fifth floor. Once there I scouted the area, trying to line up a good place to shoot from. In the far east corner of the building I found what I was looking for. It was a small room used for viewing library materials on video tape. The door locked and there were no windows that you could see into from inside the building. There were three windows that opened up onto the street, with the mayor’s office located directly across the way.
I locked the door, took a seat, and opened the briefcase. The sniper rifle lay in several sections inside. I began snapping the parts into place. The last piece that I snapped in was the clip.
It was a special clip. The latest in armor piercing design. The things could punch a hole in a Sherman tank. Some bulletproof glass should be no problem.
I lined up the shot and rested the butt of the rifle against my shoulder. I looked through the scope and I was suddenly transported into the mayor’s office. Cadiz was seated at her desk, having a conversation with the chief of police and two of her lieutenants. I laughed to myself as I guessed what the topic of conversation was. I gave myself four bullets to kill them all, but I figured I could do it with three. I attached the silencer to the barrel. It wouldn’t completely kill the sound, but it would muffle it quite a bit.
I lined up my shot for the second time. I squeezed the trigger three times. The first two shots took out the lieutenants, who stood to the left and right of the desk. I got ‘em with a pair of head shots. They were dead before they knew the window had been shot out. The third shot took off the back of Cadiz’ skull, passed through her brain, shot out her forehead, and into the police chief’s abdomen. To my disappointment, I hadn’t killed him. I had to use my fourth bullet to finish him off with a head shot.
I disassembled the rifle and returned it to its case. I looked out the window and saw the place swarming with cops and suits. I stuck a small piece of plastique explosive on the briefcase and attached a timer activated detonator. I set the countdown at five minutes.
It was a simple matter to get lost in the crowd stampeding out of the library to get a look at what was going on outside. I was barely out the doors when my explosives blew. It wasn’t a big explosion, but it diverted everyone’s attention. I crossed casually to the Accord, got in and drove away.
I’d gone three blocks before I spotted the SUV storming up behind me. Traffic was a mess. It was almost impossible to lose a tail in those conditions.
I took a hard left from the right lane, causing four lanes of traffic to jump on the brakes. I’d almost gotten through with the turn when I got struck on the rear right bumper by a small foreign car. I took quite a jolt, but still managed to maintain control of the heap.
For a few seconds I thought I’d lost the SUV in the maze of alleyways. No such luck. It leapt into my rear view mirror a lot closer than it had been before.
I waited till I had a good half a block distance between us, then I jerked the wheel to the left as hard as I could. As I’d hoped, I’d wedged it firmly between the walls of the narrow alleys in a shower of sparks and metal wrenching squeals. I grabbed the duffel bags and kicked open the passenger door.
On my way out I stole a glance behind to see the SUV barreling down on me. I dove into an open doorway just as the SUV rammed full speed into the Accord. The car hadn’t budged, it was jammed in pretty tight. The SUV had taken a beating, but the two in the cab were still kicking.
I took off on foot as the two thugs got out of their piece of shit.
I ran through a kitchen and out into the restaurant area of the place I’d ducked into. The two hoods were breathing down my neck. I took off out the front door and started down the sidewalk. The train station was just a block ahead.
I ran as fast as I could and put some distance between us. I ran into the train station and straight for a wall of lockers. I managed to ditch the duffel bags in a locker. I held on to one .45 and a couple of clips. I memorized the number of the locker and threw the key in the garbage.
With that done I began walking casually out to the boarding platform for the train back to the city. I took a few steps out onto the platform when I felt a sharp sting on my upper left arm. I shot a glance to my left and saw one of the guys that had been tailing me earlier. I caught a glimpse of him shoving a hypodermic needle into his right pocket.
My brain went crazy. All my thoughts were coming to me so slowly and my body suddenly felt like it weighed 500 pounds. I started to slump to the pavement, but two pairs of strong hands grabbed me under the armpits and hauled me up. They more or less carried me back to their SUV, where I was shoved in the backseat, with the doors locked behind me. Even if I could focus long enough to form some sort of escape plan, I didn’t have the muscle coordination to put any plan into action.
Things could have been worse, I guess. I was on my way to a face-to-face confrontation with Adrian Moore. I could find out if Holly was still alive. If we were real lucky, we might even live through it.
-6-
Somewhere between the train station and Moore’s estate, the drug overtook me and I lost consciousness. When I awoke, I couldn’t tell where I was or how much time had passed. As my brain began to unfog I took in my surroundings. I was in a windowless basement, probably on the Moore estate. The only light in the room was coming from a bare bulb directly overhead. I wasn’t able to see outside the limited radius of light, but I got the feeling that I wasn’t alone. That feeling was confirmed a couple of minutes later.
“All right, he’s awake,” a gruff, husky voice said.
“Give him a couple more minutes to clear out the cobwebs. We need him nice and alert,” a deep, resonant voice answered.
I was cuffed a metal chair, bound by both my arms and legs. I wasn’t gagged. My guess was that they were going to work me over and try to get some kind of information out of me. The only problem was, I didn’t know anything. Why didn’t they just kill me? What if I’d judged the whole situation wrong? What if Adrian hadn’t gotten Holly in Chinatown? What if she’d just bailed on me? Maybe they thought that I knew where she was holed up.
“All right. I think he’s ready,” the deep-voiced joe said.
I heard their heavy footsteps approach and saw my two captors for the first time. It wasn’t the pair from the train station. These were two new guys. The deep voiced one was a small, wiry man. He didn’t look like much. The gruff voiced thug was a lot bigger. It was obvious that they were my interrogator and his muscle.
“Why don’t you loosen him up, Ajax,” the runt said.
Ajax, the behemoth, cracked his knuckles and worked a pair of black leather gloves over his mitts. The first punch felt like somebody caving in my mug with a baseball bat. I tasted blood instantly. I figured that my nose was probably broken.
Ajax was pretty good. He varied his punches constantly, always seeming to find the place on my body that would cause me the most pain. I took the beating without making sound. All right. Maybe the occasional grunt.
“That’s enough for now, Ajax. Maybe Mr. Blast is ready to talk now,” the little guy said.
I looked up and saw that Ajax’ shirt was wet with my blood and his gloves dripped the stuff. Ajax stepped back and allowed the interrogator in.
“Mr. Blast. My name is Aryan. If you tell me what I wish to know, a second meeting with Ajax will not be necessary. I cannot guarantee that he’ll go so easy on you next time.”
I spit out a tooth, which landed at Aryan’s feet. “Why don’t you just ask me the question, pal?”
Aryan kind of smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was the smile of a man who had expected me to be beaten. I was expected to sit here, take the punishment, and then deliver the goods like all the other weasels he’d interrogated for Adrian Moore. It wasn’t going to happen.
“Very well, Mr. Blast. Where’s the disk?”
The disk? What the hell was he talking about?
“What disk?”
“The disk that Mrs. Moore gave you.”
“Who’s Mrs. Moore?”
Aryan looked in my face and I gave him my best stone-faced look. He looked in the direction of Ajax and motioned him over. I took another good beating. This time he fractured at least one of my ribs before stepping back and Aryan took his place again.
“If you don’t answer my question this time, Mr. Blast, I’ll instruct Ajax to begin breaking your fingers. Then we bring out the surgical tools. We can do this all night, all week if necessary. It means nothing to us, but it could mean something to you. Maybe it’s too late to save your own life, but you can save yourself a lot of unnecessary pain.”
“You’re wasting your breath, buddy. I got as much time as you’ve got, probably a lot more,” I said.
He ignored me. “I will ask you again, where is the disk that Mrs. Moore left in your possession.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d managed to dislocate my thumb and had one hand halfway out of the cuffs. My left hand was free! I started working on the right as Aryan and his little playmate conferred. Ajax left the room and Aryan approached me again.
“You leave me no choice, my friend. I see now that a mere beating means nothing to you. Your MK-ULTRA training, no doubt, comes in handy in situations like this,” he said. That caught me off guard. Only people with the highest possible clearance had any knowledge of MK-ULTRA. Christ, even the President didn’t know that the CIA’s little mind control experiment didn't end in the Seventies.
“So,” he continued, “I guess we’ll have to haul out the big guns.”
Ajax returned, as if on cue, with a tray full of sharp metal surgical tools. Each one looked more painful than the next, but I wasn’t scared. Both my hands were now free.
Aryan drew a little closer to me. “Ajax, hand me the lie detector,” he ordered his associate. Ajax crossed over to him and handed him a particularly nasty-looking hunk of metal. I had no idea what it did, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to find out.
I caught Aryan completely off guard. I grabbed his right hand and twisted. I ripped his hand completed off his arm, the “lie detector” and all. Still holding his hand, I jammed the pointy end of the tool as far into his eye socket as I could ram it. It came out the top of his skull, pulling brains, muscle, and shards of bone with it.
I hadn’t forgotten Ajax, but the dumb lummox would be nothing to me. He might be big and tough, but stupid. The only problem was that my feet were still chained to the chair. I saw him start to go for his gun. He was way out of reach. I was a sitting duck. I glanced down and saw the “lie detector” protruding through two new orifices in Aryan’s head. I grabbed the tool and yanked it out. In the same motion, I threw it with all my strength at the hulking Ajax. It caught him square in the throat, and he dropped his gun to the concrete floor. He hands went to his throat as he dropped to his knees. He sputtered there for a minute or so as the blood poured through his fingers and began forming a puddle on the floor. Finally the sputtering stopped and he slumped to the floor, dead.
I searched the body of Aryan and came up with the keys. I set myself free and crossed over to Ajax’ body. I picked up his gun, a 9mm Luger and started surveying the rest of the basement. There was nothing to be found. I don’t know where they put my .45 and the extra ammo I’d brought, but it wasn’t in the basement. I had a full clip for the Luger, though. That was a good start.
I had no idea where in the mansion I was. I figured I was in a basement because of the concrete floors and lack of windows, but it might have been anywhere. I didn’t know wh
at kind of security there was, or where Holly was being held if she was there, or if she was even still alive.
And what was with this disk that Aryan had kept asking me about? I was beginning to get the feeling that there was a lot more to this than just an abused wife on the run from her husband.
I carefully climbed the stairs, making sure that they didn’t give me away with a loud creek. At the top of the stairs I put my ear to the door and listened, trying to gauge how many people were waiting for me. I heard muffled voices. From what I could tell there were only two men just beyond the door, but I couldn’t be sure.
I kicked open the door and fired off two rounds. I put both of the guards down with head shots. To my surprise, luck was with me: both men were armed with AK-47 assault rifles. I put the 9mm in my waistband and grabbed a Kalashnikov in each fist.
The 9mm had delivered a pretty good bang. I had no doubts that there were reinforcements on the way. I started running down the hall. I didn’t know the mansion at all. I took a peak out a window to kind of get my bearings. I had been right about being in the basement. I was now on the ground floor. All I had to do was find the front door. I didn’t want to leave Holly behind, but the chances of my finding her in this huge house were pretty much next to none.
I turned the corner into what must have been the living area. I was met by the cool breeze of the air conditioner. Adrian Moore and five of his gunmen were also there.
“Mr. Blast!” Adrian greeted me. “We’ve been waiting for you to join us. I see that you are everything they say you are.”