Hit

by P. S. Bridge

  Mark beat him to it and got ahead of him and took aim. El Toro was now behind Lundon but was letting Mark have this kill. Mark took his rifle and called to Lundon who stopped and turned, a face of horror seeing Mark stood there in front of him with his sights trained firmly on Lundon’s forehead.

  ‘Thomas Lundon!!!’ Mark screamed at him. ‘Why did Marie have to die?’

  Lundon laughed as he swallowed two Topiramate, anti-epilepsy tablets, wincing as he swallowed. His hands shook and his vision became distorted.

  ‘Why did the world have to turn on me for a condition that wasn’t my fault?’ he scorned, pointing at Mark.

  Mark looked confused as he stood staring at Lundon.

  ‘Oh yes, the world was kind when it suited it, the rest of the time it berated me and mocked me!’ he hissed.

  ‘No one’s mocked you, Lundon. You’re just insane,’ Mark replied, lifting his weapon.

  ‘See!’ shouted Lundon stepping towards Mark, ‘that’s exactly what HE did too. The apple, Mark, doesn’t fall very far from the tree!’

  Mark stopped and thought for a second, before looking back up at Lundon, who was turning red and breathing heavily.

  ‘HE?’ Mark questioned, not sure what he was being told.

  ‘Yes!’ replied Lundon, satisfied they were getting closer to the truth, ‘HE was YOUR FATHER!’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Mark’s body went rigid. His father? How could Lundon know his father?

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mark hissed back at Lundon, not convinced Lundon was telling the truth.

  ‘Oh, the boy doesn’t know the truth. Well my boy, let me fill you in.’ He laughed manically. ‘Yes, I knew your father. In fact, we were close, long before YOU were born. We were close, right until I was diagnosed with epilepsy, and then it became a different story.’

  Mark shook his head in confusion.

  ‘You LIE!’ he shouted, pointing the gun at Lundon.

  Lundon wasn’t scared. He was far too angry to worry about someone pointing a gun at him.

  ‘Oh, his “friendship” wasn’t so strong then was it? He, just like the rest of them, laughed at me, especially when it came to making new friends, because the stress of interacting with new people used to bring on a seizure. Oh yes, they all thought it was hilarious, look at him, they used to cry, the madman. People can be cruel, Mr King, and so I learned that I could be cruel too!’

  ‘Even if this is true, what did it have to do with Marie?’ Mark cried.

  ‘I wanted you to feel the way your father made me feel. When you were born and grew up to become a successful lawyer, I thought you would work for me, but then Azidi was caught and guess who was prosecuting him!’

  Mark’s arm loosened as he remembered back to the trial.

  ‘Naturally I thought you could work for me, but then I saw the man you had become, and that you would never abandon that ridiculous sense of “justice” you hold onto so tightly. This, what we do here, THIS Mr King, is justice!’

  Mark stared at the madman who stood before him, arms outstretched, eyes bulging almost out of their sockets, sweating and red in the face, and, for a while, Mark pitied him.

  ‘What kind of a life have you known?’ he said sympathetically in a low voice, lowering his weapon and walking towards Lundon. ‘How has the world treated you?’

  ‘The world hated me!’ Lundon screeched. Mark stepped towards him again. ‘Just like the way you used to mock that journalist, the same way your father mocked me.’

  Mark remembered Ian Hawking and how even Marie had scorned him for the way he spoke to him. He instantly felt regret at having been so cruel to Hawking. Lundon calmed down, thinking maybe Mark wasn’t as much like his father as he first thought.

  ‘I don’t “hate” you. Not even for killing Marie. Hate destroys people, like it has destroyed you. You’re not dangerous,’ he explained.

  Lundon almost smiled as the tone of the conversation dropped into one of pity and sympathy.

  ‘It’s purely “business”,’ he replied, putting his hands in the air casually.

  Mark moved closer and Lundon’s face changed into one pleading for his life.

  ‘What business?’ Mark questioned.

  ‘The weapons for Azidi were to instigate a terror attack from Germany to the west so the west would retaliate, forcing them to upgrade their weaponry. As I own a weapon supply company which sold to world governments, the west would have no choice but to buy from my company, as would other countries that would be drawn into the war.’

  The way Lundon saw it, he was the one to benefit.

  ‘Marie was just a way to get to you and force you to run,’ he said, half smiling at his accomplishment.

  ‘Why?’ Mark spat at Lundon.

  ‘You are part of a world you do not understand, Mr King,’ Lundon smiled softly.

  Mark gritted his teeth angrily.

  ‘With too much of an inquisitive mind, just like your father’s, you had inadvertently uncovered the first parts of this during the Azidi trial but you were never in one place or predictable long enough to pin down,’ Lundon explained in a trembled voice. Mark gritted his teeth and stroked the trigger gently. ‘You were at the shooting club and Roman Vose and Hix Lomas only had a narrow window to eliminate you. On my orders, Hix killed Marie to make it look like you killed her, getting you permanently out of the way.’

  ‘You’re just mad,’ Mark said calmly.

  Lundon’s face turned from calmness to anger as he screamed out loud at Mark and ran at him. Mark looked at El Toro, then at Lundon and saw Marie’s face. He knew the only way to end this was for Lundon to die. He gripped the rifle with sweaty hands, steadied his breathing and, just as Thomas Lundon moved closer to him, he squeezed the trigger.

  Thomas Lundon fell backwards. A look of confusion and shock contorted his face as the blood ran down the side of his head. He stumbled backwards and fell over the edge of the barrier holding the staircase up and dropped. Instead of a thud as his body hit the dust and dirt below, he heard a smash. El Toro and Mark ran to the edge to see the body of Thomas Lundon, smashed, half in and half out of the roof of a Lincoln limousine, windscreen smashed and alarm sounding. Mark could make out the body of Roman Vose, bloodied and eyes closed, in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Eh, er, Señor. It’s a time for a ’oliday, no?’ El Toro shouted to Mark.

  Mark nodded and made his way toward El Toro, who put his arm around Mark and led him back out of the mangled perimeter fence which was still sparking from the explosion, and into the woods, to El Toro’s waiting four-by-four.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  New York. One month later

  Mark pulled up in his rental car at the address his mother-in-law had given him before she took the children to New York. It was just after three forty in the afternoon and the sun was bright. He could hear laughter coming from inside the house and his heart was in his throat as he got out of the car. He grabbed his crutches and winced as he put pressure on his broken ribs. They were still sore, as were the cuts on his face, and his broken arm rested in a sling. He leaned on the car door as a voice came from the passenger side of the car.

  ‘Eh Señor, you are a supposed to be letting me ‘elp YOU!’ El Toro pleaded.

  He raised his eyebrows at Mark disapprovingly as he tried to be independent. He never had been a good patient. He smiled at remembering the way Marie tried to look after him when he had flu. Mark smiled at El Toro’s attempt at a caring nature as he reluctantly agreed. Mark limped up the small steps to the front door and, looking at El Toro for encouragement, knocked on the door.

  Benjamin opened it and turned to see his father stood there. He shouted for Hope and his grandmother, who came running to the front door to see what all the fuss was about. The three of them embraced Mark, who shouted in pain as his mother-in-law looked at him and burst into tears at the state of his shattered body.

  The children squealed with delight and relief as they danced round and round
their father shouting and hugging him. ‘Daddy, daddy you’re back, you’re back!’

  ‘Ready to be a father again?’ asked Wendy, smiling. Mark nodded and smiled.

  ‘Is he… I mean… are they…?’ Wendy stumbled, almost too afraid to ask.

  ‘Yes,’ he said sharply, ‘all of them.’

  Then they noticed El Toro and Mark beckoned him in. Hope looked at her father.

  ‘Daddy, who is this?’ she asked, holding Mark’s hand and pointing to El Toro. Mark replied, smiling at El Toro.

  ‘This is a friend. Uncle Toro.’

  El Toro smiled at Mark and put his arm round them all as they all walked into the house, shutting the door.

  Monitors beeped and nurses came and went, monitoring their patient intensively. The patient had sustained massive internal injuries and the hospital were not sure if he would make it through the night. Wherever he had been, whatever he had been involved in, these injuries were life-threatening. He was intubated and on dozens of monitors and machines and the injuries spoke for themselves. Outside the theatre doors, two men in suits and earpieces stood watching half a dozen staff treat this injured man, waiting for a verdict on what the prognosis was.

  One lead nurse spotted them and went to address them. They explained who they were and why they were there and she turned to go back into the theatre. One of the two men in suits left to make a phone call, while the other stared into the theatre, wondering if this guy would survive.

  ‘We’ll know more in the morning. He’s been in surgery for hours and this isn’t his first operation. We’re trying to save his legs but it’s touch and go. We’ll do what we can,’ a nurse said to the man in the suit as she left the theatres.

  The man nodded and looked grim-faced.

  ‘How long before we can officially question him?’ he asked. The nurse looked regretfully at him.

  ‘Another twelve hours at the least,’ she replied, ‘he fell from quite a height. If it hadn’t been for his car breaking his fall, you would have been looking at him in a body bag. I don’t know how he managed it, but he has lasted this long.’

  The monitors continued to bleep and buzz as the patient laid in a medically induced coma, face slightly contorted and looking old. His old eyes were darting backwards and forwards inside their lids, looking like he was dreaming or in some torturous nightmare from which he could not wake.

  The men stood around the bed, watching, as this man defied the odds and continued to live. With the sound of the monitors echoing around the room, they looked at each other gravely. Outside, a nurse stood watching through the side room window, wondering would happen to the patient and who he was. Whoever it was, many people were interested in his recovery and he had a large group of bodyguards, all armed.

  Epilogue

  Paris, France

  The weather was warm, and the sun beat down from a pure blue cloudless sky as the black stretched Lincoln limousine with private plates pulled up outside the Hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris, getting lots of attention from onlookers and people milling about the rows of cafes and restaurants which lined both sides of the road. A young girl stepped out in black heels and walked towards the hotel entrance, putting on her sunglasses as she did so. She was clutching a small black handbag, and she paused for a moment, turning around to see the beautiful sunshine. She had heavy make-up and her hair had been cut short.

  She entered the lobby area, checking her surroundings carefully. A man sat in reception reading a newspaper, pulling the paper away from his face and looking up at her as she walked towards the lifts, the sound of her heels echoing around the marble floors. He nodded at her and got up to follow. They waited at the lifts for several moments before the ping of the lift reaching ground level sounded. They walked into the lift and turned around to see the hotel reception staff looking at them expectantly. Their faces remained motionless as the lift doors closed.

  Once they were at their designated floor, the doors opened and they strode out into a carpeted hallway. A man with an earpiece and suit was waiting by one of the open room doors. The woman was joined by yet another bodyguard as they walked towards the hotel room. Inside, a dead man lay on the floor, a bullet hole in his skull, photographs scattered all over the bed. The woman bent down to pick up some of the scattered photos from the floor. They had been scattered during the fight which had taken place the night before. The door was closed behind her, leaving her alone with just the body and the pictures.

  As she slowly lowered herself down onto the edge of the large king sized double bed of the bridal suite, she collected the photographs of a man in uniform strewn all over the bed. A tear rolled down her face as she looked at the images. Her hands shook, as she clutched an image to her face, allowing the tears to flow.

  There was a knock at the room door and she took her M24 suppressed pistol from her small handbag, put it in her belt behind her back, checked the spy-hole and opened the door tentatively.

  ‘Elena Koskova?’ a voice asked her carefully.

  She nodded, opening the door. The suited man strode into the room clutching the evidence file which contained CCTV images of an obliterated UN airfield in Algeria. The young woman sat back down on the bed, putting the safety catch back on her pistol. The suited man stood over her, emotionless, and passed her the file. She opened it and immediately thumbed through the still images. Then the suited man spoke.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said in a gentle, caring voice as she got up to walk out onto the large balcony which faced the Eiffel Tower.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss. He was a brave soldier. He loved you very much.’

  She smiled briefly and looked up at him.

  ‘Who was this man here to meet?’ she asked, pointing at the bloodied body on the carpet next to the bed.

  ‘We think there was a meeting set up with someone within an organisation based at the airfield. Our sources are checking this out now,’ he replied, still maintaining the emotionless expression.

  The woman had a distant look in her eye as she imagined the firefight that would have happened at the airfield. It must have been terrifying. She imagined the explosions, the gun fire, the smoke grenades and the rush of armed soldiers as they attempted to defend themselves against the attack. She closed her eyes and she could almost hear the sound of shouting and screams of pain as bullets ripped apart the walls and flew in all directions.

  She imagined the smell of the gases produced by the multitude of weapons being fired. She also imagined the pain and suffering that many of the men killed, would have felt, and the merciless way in which they were butchered, not offered any opportunity of surrender, just mercilessly gunned down, some at point blank range, some from a distance.

  The sounds that echoed through her ears were of the man she loved, the man in the photograph, as she envisaged his final moments at the hands of the cold-blooded killer who had rampaged through the facility to murder everyone inside. She imagined it in slow motion; the bullet flying towards him from a heavily armed, combat ready figure hidden partially in shadow in her mind as her face wrinkled up, somehow bracing herself for impact as the imaginary bullet hit the soldier and he fell, a look of shock and fear on his face, to the ground.

  She got angry as she pictured a man stood over his body laughing at the soldier as his last breath left his body. She also pictured the figure brutally murdering others, firing round after round at people running for cover and trying to get away. The tears rolled down her cheeks again and her heart pounded.

  Two knocks on the door brought her back to the present and her eyes opened suddenly.

  ‘Madame Koskova, Your father’s car is waiting for you outside. Will that be all?’ asked a voice from outside the room.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied coldly, standing up and collecting the photographs. ‘You will pay for what you have done,’ she spat angrily, taking one last look at the file, ‘Mark Lucas King.’

  COMING SOON!

  Mark King returns in…

  Copyright<
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  Published by Clink Street Publishing 2017

  Copyright © 2017

  First edition.

  The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means with- out the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN:

  978-1-911525-86-8 - paperback

  978-1-911525-87-5 - ebook