Hit

by P. S. Bridge

  ‘A piece at a time, scumbag,’ he shouted to Azidi, before moving quickly to the ground.

  He flew against a container as a hail of semi-automatic weapon fire ricocheted all around the containers surrounding him. He was panting at the shock of such fire and held his ground flat against a container until he heard the click of a reload. He was round the corner in a flash, sending off two, then three shots before running towards the shooter. As he rounded the corner, he caught sight of his target trying to reload his sub-machine gun. It wasn’t Azidi this time but a surviving shooter. It all seemed to happen in slow motion as both men lifted their weapons at once. Mark slowed his breathing right down and felt his heart slow. He breathed out narrowly through his lips and his finger pulled back on the trigger.

  As he did so, bullets flew towards Mark, but to no avail; Mark was already on the fly and forward-rolled out of the way as the shooter flew backwards, taking a bullet to the chest and hitting the ground with a thud. Mark found his feet and ran towards his target, who was still alive.

  ‘For Marie,’ he said as he pointed his pistol towards the forehead of the shooter.

  He replied something in Arabic and spat blood at Mark. Mark smiled and pulled the trigger, killing the shooter instantly. Voices behind Mark made him regain his bearings, and he moved quickly toward the voices, grabbing the shooter’s sub-machine gun as he did so. Now he was fully armed, and the gun had a full magazine, ready to go. Mark ran, firing the sub-machine gun toward the voices, and heard the screams as the bullets bounced off the lead-lined containers and hit their targets somewhere.

  ‘Fluke, sorry about that!’ Mark shouted, laughing as he ran.

  He was almost enjoying this. In fact, he was enjoying it so much that he didn’t see the back of Azidi as he ran straight into him. Both men fell to the ground, but Azidi was first to his feet. Mark heard his rifle drop behind him and stared coldly into the eyes of Azidi who was now stood over him laughing.

  ‘Stupid infidel!’ Azidi taunted, but Mark was already working on plan B.

  As Azidi dropped his gun and pulled an equally terrifying knife from his belt, the blade glinting in the floodlights of the container yard, Mark felt his hand on his silenced pistol, whipping it out in front of him before Azidi could bring down the knife into Mark’s chest. He fired four or five shots into the chest, neck and head of Azidi and rolled out the way just in time for Azidi to crash face down onto where Mark lay seconds before.

  ‘Stupid terrorist!’ he remarked angrily.

  Surveying his surroundings, Mark realised the noise had subsided, and it seemed everyone was dead, or unconscious. He staggered back to his look out point where Frans Luca was lying flat on his fat belly to avoid stray bullets. Mark patted him on the back as he sat, rested his weapons and examined his injured leg. It wasn’t a bullet, but it was a bad cut, from the sharp edge of the side of a container he fell against. He didn’t notice the pain while he was running, but when it all calmed down, he felt the sharp sting as he tried to put weight on it. Frans, upon noticing Mark had been injured, ripped off a sleeve from his shirt and tied it tight around Mark’s wound. Mark looked appreciatively at Frans whilst trying to get his breath back. Mark smiled as he reached for his detonator to blow the container. He clicked it but nothing happened. He clicked it again and again but still no explosion came. Mark examined it and realised he had damaged it during the fire fight. Frans put his hand reassuringly on Mark’s shoulder and picked up a spare explosive and detonator.

  Mark went to get up but Frans prevented him from doing so because of his injury. Instead, Frans climbed down the ladder, and made his way over to the container to place the explosives on it. He got there and threw it in where the first one had been placed. He turned to Mark who was, by now on his feet on top of his vantage point smiling at Frans. Just as Frans was making his way back to Mark, smiling and rubbing his hands together, a single shot rang out from the darkness and Frans fell to the floor, his face confused and contorted. Mark’s face dropped as he dashed down to where he could see Frans lying dead on the dockside, bleeding from a head wound from a sniper rifle. Mark pulled up his weapon and fired it at every point he could assume a shot would have come from. The ping of bullets against metal rang out along with a single, familiar voice.

  ‘See now, Mr King, you have messed in the affairs of our organisation for too long now and my boss wants me to kill you!’ Vose’s voice echoed up at him.

  Mark turned his rifle towards the voice and fired off three shots in that direction.

  ‘VOSE!!!!!!!’ he yelled. He heard the voice curse in pain and all fell silent.

  Mark fell on the lifeless and bloodied body of Frans Luca and cradled him in his arms, heartbroken at the fact he couldn’t protect him like he promised he would. Angrily and reluctantly, Mark realised he had to go, so shouldered Frans’ body as much as his already depleting strength would allow him, and placed him between two containers. He staggered up and pressed the detonator. The hanging container exploded with a burst that went skywards, and the explosion repeated as the ammunition inside the container ignited. Mark staggered off back to where he and Frans had parked the car and looked back mournfully at the container yard. Vose just made it to the top of Mark’s hit list, and he would not stop until Frans Luca’s death was avenged.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Back in the UK, Mark pored over the maps he had laid out on his table whilst sipping gently at his twelve-year-old malt. As he drew in the satisfying nicotine, his eyes levelled on something he had not spotted before. If Roman Vose made it to Bremerhaven before he got there, surely he would have needed transport and a route to and from Bremerhaven container port. Perhaps the CCTV may hold clues. He sat down and spun his leather wheeled office recliner over to where his many computer terminal monitors were, and typed furiously to get up the CCTV for that area. Before he was killed, Frans Luca had provided Mark with vital information concerning the terrorist’s movements and, now they were all dead, he had virtually no way of tracking them. He paused as he thought about his friend Frans Luca and how he needlessly died trying to help him. He had been cruel to him initially but, from his position, it looked like he had been betrayed before he found out the truth.

  Mark deeply regretted Frans’ death and everything that had led up to it but now was not the time to mourn for those who had fallen. Mark shouldered this grief privately and had spent the last week berating and chastising himself for letting Frans die. At least his family were safe. He had buried this grief deep inside because that was the only way to survive and it had kept him alive this far.

  His thoughts inevitably turned to Marie and what she would have made of running around killing people. She would have been mad at him for taking revenge but, as time went on, he remembered less and less about what life felt like before all this started. And he wasn’t finished yet. He had more to do, a lot more. Someone had ordered Azidi to carry out this attack and used Roman Vose, authorised Frans Luca’s death and Marie’s death, although it occurred to Mark that everyone he seemed to get close to in this, ended up dead. His thoughts drew back to tracing Roman Vose and the screens in front of him which were now loaded with information. He knew he had hacked the FBI and CIA files, assuming that Roman Vose’s accent was transatlantic. Thinking he may find something from the FBI, he decided that was a good starting point. He wasn’t a hacker and had only used what Frans had told him about on the way from Holtenau to Bremerhaven.

  Mark knew he only had a matter of minutes before the FBI and CIA hackers shut down his connection and was relieved it couldn’t be traced to his location even with their superior devices as it belonged to the military and, even though the UK and the US were allies, they were still abiding by an agreement NOT to hack each other’s systems. Screenshotting everything he found, his large printer clicked into life behind him, automatically printing out everything he had screenshot. He slid over to the printer in his chair and grabbed the freshly printed files. Mark couldn’t believe his luck
when Roman Vose’s face was on the top page.

  Roman Vose was an ex-CIA assassin, which explained his skills and technical talent with a sniper rifle. Mark closed his eyes in horror as he remembered that fatal shot which killed Frans Luca. Vose’s profile read like a hitman 101 instruction manual, showing he had taken part in operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Ireland, Istanbul, and, more recently, Syria, although Mark wondered, knowing the current situation in Syria with ISIS or Daesh or whatever they wanted to call themselves, which side Roman Vose was on, or even if he HAD a side. Vose had also been on many bodyguard details but then Mark noticed there was a blank in the dates with sketchy information about Vose being headed to Russia, then back to the US where he seemed to resume his duties under the CIA. Secondment perhaps, Mark couldn’t tell, but he had a feeling Vose had defected to Russia and was working with the Russians AND the US, playing one off against the other. This was a long time ago, and he soon found correspondence which showed that Vose had either left the CIA or had been ‘burned’.

  Mark thought for a few minutes before concluding that he was ‘burned’ but, with his skills, had evaded burning and had killed those sent to kill him. He sat back in his chair and stared at his ‘most wanted’ wall. He got up and removed Azidi from the wall, moving him to the bottom of the list and, using a red permanent marker, drew a red cross all the way through Azidi’s face. In his place, he moved Roman Vose’s image, which had been third on the list until today. He stood there for a while, finishing his cigarette, just staring at the faces of those who remained and those who he had taken out. What bothered him the most, he thought as he turned to his giant white board and drew a brainstorming spider diagram, was if these were all the ‘little guys’, who was the guy at the top and why did he feel it necessary to authorise Marie’s murder. Frans Luca he could almost understand, as it was Frans who turned against them to help Mark locate the shipment of weapons, so in their eyes, that was a betrayal, but Marie was never involved in anything like this and was merely an innocent victim. He HAD to find out who was responsible and figured that Roman Vose was the ticket to this. To get to the guy at the top, he needed to locate Vose and make him talk, if he could. Mark grabbed the TV remote and nonchalantly pressed ‘standby’ to turn it back on. Sky News came up with Jeremy Thompson reading the headlines. Mark’s eyes widened. News was breaking of a terrorist plot in Germany where the arms deal had gone wrong and there was a shootout between the ‘seller’ and the ‘buyer’. Mark turned up the volume and leant forward, reaching for another cigarette. He relaxed in his chair and smiled.

  Thomas Lundon threw the remote across the room after watching the Sky News report about the alleged terrorist arms deal gone wrong. He shouted and gestured at a sorry-looking Roman Vose sat in a leather chair opposite him in the study. Vose had a black eye and several bandages and scars. He was also limping again and seemed to have bruised ribs.

  ‘Please boss, let me kill this guy! It wasn’t my fault; he turned up out of nowhere, like a ghost!’ he pleaded, realising it was now about self-preservation.

  Much as Vose respected Mark King, he knew deep down, when it came down to it, it was kill or be killed. Thomas Lundon was red in the face and making his way angrily over to where Vose was sitting.

  ‘He must have had an army with him to cause that much damage,’ pleaded Vose, trying to make excuses as to his obvious failure.

  ‘You came with recommendations, Vose. Idiot! You had to KILL Luca!’ Vose looked at the ground shamefully. ‘He was a very important source of information! And you let King get away!’

  Lundon’s blood pressure was rising and Vose was scared. Now King had gone to ground again, it was, again, impossible to locate him.

  ‘It’s NOT good enough!’

  Vose was terrified. He held his head, nursing his relenting headache which had not gone away since he arrived at the villa later on in the day in which Mark King blew up their arms shipment.

  Thomas Lundon strode around his study and out into the highly decorated hallway which led to his private spa. Roman Vose nervously followed as Lundon touched each of the huge oil paintings which lined the hallway which led to the marble reception area of his private villa. A maid approached Lundon with warm towels and a dressing gown which he took and dismissed her instantly, showing his irritation at everything around him.

  ‘My “brothers” in my youth formed this organisation, along with those who had been members and are members still, with one sole purpose: the organisation of control. Since before you were born.’ Lundon stopped when he reached a gap in the paintings. ‘This is where MY painting will hang one day.’

  Vose gulped, feeling sure he would be shot or killed in some psychopathic and torturous way for having failed his boss so miserably. There was no end to Lundon’s anger and frustration as he screamed again at Vose and anyone else who would listen.

  ‘We will NOT be INTIMIDATED BY MARK KING!’ Vose limped behind Lundon again as Lundon spun on him. ‘What are we supposed to do now, Vose? WHAT?!’

  Vose just stared helplessly at Lundon, who was getting more and redder in the face. He calmed for a second, getting his breath before he pressed a buzzer on the wall and his private doctor came running, taking him by the arm and warning him about his blood pressure and heart rate. Lundon pushed the doctor away from trying to steady him and cursed him too. He turned on Roman Vose again.

  ‘You have ONE last chance to locate and eliminate Mark King or this time, YOU will be the one eliminated!’

  Vose’s face went white as he knew his boss would carry out his threat. Lundon was escorted away by his doctor as Roman Vose was left in the hallway with his thoughts. He was ashamed. He was deeply ashamed because he had never failed on a hit until he met Mark King.

  Roman Vose wandered up and down the halls of the gigantic villa, wondering what the hell he was going to do. He would have to get himself a new team to go after Mark King again, but he was wrestling with his morals. COULD he kill him? Each time they had met, King had almost fatally injured him and, one day soon, would eventually get the best of him and send a bullet with his name on it, buzzing through his skull. But Vose respected Mark King for being so tough and resilient and difficult to kill and he appreciated WHY King was coming after him, but what Mark King didn’t know was that it was NOT Vose who had killed his wife, and it wasn’t Hix either. In a fit of rage, Roman Vose punched anything he could see, doorways, doors, walls, tables and chairs and grabbed random people, mostly maids and servants and asked them hopelessly, what he should do. Vose’s mental capacity was starting to wane.

  They stared terrified at him and ran off, after which he then looked round in a rage for the next poor unfortunate soul to vent his anger on. Vose was more angry at himself than at Mark King, and he knew sooner or later the two would meet again and, considering Vose thought Mark King was a soft target to begin with, his realisation had dramatically changed in the past week and he was now scared. Roman Vose, the big assassin and henchman was scared, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t like it one bit.

  Detlev ‘The Wolf’ Kastner sat poring over the CCTV images of Mark King’s interview. He knew the offender’s REAL name, and it bugged him that this man dare contravene and blatantly defy HIS orders and go off on this mad killing spree, tearing up Bremerhaven’s largest container port like that. He compared the grainy CCTV images of the shoot-out at the container port to that of the interview a few days before that and he knew it was the same person. He had inspected the scene in the most extreme detail, looking for ANY kind of clue as to the whereabouts of this man, this… killing machine on a mission to ruin his country. Suddenly, something clicked for Kastner. In all his years of interrogation, in all his dealings with some of the worst scum he could imagine, with his level of experience, something resonated with him.

  That word he had just said out loud; that word somehow held the clue to what this insurgent’s next move would be and where he had vanished to. Was he still in Germany? His hotel had said he
checked out, but no one under the name of Russel Green or Mark King had boarded any flights or trains or rented any cars, anywhere in Germany. He was totally bemused.

  Kastner sat and thought for a while. He was getting too old for all this but he had ultimate power here. He knew he couldn’t go on in this job forever, two wives divorced and one buried had taught him that, and his children who didn’t even call or write anymore. Was he really the monster everyone thought he was? He felt like it sometimes, but the world is an evil place and he was good at his job; he faced, fought and caught the evil which ravaged this world and it was up to HIM to clean up the mess. His pay-cheque was handsome, as were all the benefits which went with such a position, plus he had a nice little nest egg he could fall back on if things went south. His mobile rang, and he looked at the number. He answered in his usual serious tone, concerned about the caller and the nature of the call. It was a short call but one he had been dreading. It wasn’t his superior, it was much worse than that.