by David Hosp
‘Where is it?’ Sirus demanded. Charlie pulled at the hand, trying to loosen the giant man’s grip, but it was useless. He gasped and choked as his thin arms slapped ineffectually. ‘Where is it?’ Sirus demanded again, but Cianna could see that Charlie was unable to respond with his oxygen cut off.
She was back on her feet now, and she screamed at Sirus. ‘Let him go!’
Sirus looked at her briefly, contempt on his face. He grabbed Charlie by the collar and pulled him close, so that he was spitting his words in his face. ‘One chance, Phelan,’ he said. ‘That’s all. Tell me where it is!’
Cianna assumed that the discussion was over. Charlie had always been a coward deep down, and there seemed little chance that he would keep up the charade when faced with the seriousness of the physical threat, no matter how valuable the knife was. She was wrong, though. Charlie regarded the bigger man, a look of defiance on his face. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he choked out.
The words had barely cleared his lips when Sirus’s giant fist crashed into Charlie’s face. Cianna could hear the snapping sound of what she hoped was cartilage, but feared was bone, and Charlie was thrown back into the wall with a thud that sickened her. Sirus was moving forward again, a look of pure hatred on his face.
She acted before she thought. It was instinctive – primal. The blood was still in her eyes, but she launched herself at the enormous man. He saw her coming, and turned to fend off the attack. Sirus swung lazily and high, assuming she would throw her own weight into the punch. She ducked low and kicked out, catching him on the side of the knee. She heard the popping sound, and felt a rush of satisfaction.
He let out a roar of anger, pain, and surprise, and stumbled as the leg wobbled. It took him a moment for him to catch his balance, and Cianna knew she had only one chance. Even injured, Sirus was so much bigger and stronger than she, that if she allowed him to recover, the fight would end badly for her.
She moved to her left, forcing him to put weight on his injured leg if he wanted to follow her. He groaned as he moved, keeping his hands up and his eyes on her. Once he was in a position where his body was crossed with his legs, and his balance was back, she kicked out again, this time aiming for his solar plexus.
The blow struck with her heel in exactly the place where she had aimed. To her dismay, however, it had minimal effect. It felt as though her foot had connected with concrete. Sirus gave grunt, but it sounded more like annoyance than pain. Then he was coming at her. The injury to his leg slowed him, but not nearly as much as Cianna had hoped.
She looked over toward the side of the couch, and saw Charlie stir. That was a relief, at least. From the way he’d been hit, she’d had serious concerns at first that he might have been killed. ‘Charlie!’ she yelled. ‘Charlie, get up!’
Sirus turned and looked over at Charlie slumped in the corner. He was rolling over, his arms reaching out to grab onto something to give him some balance, but he still looked disoriented. Cianna took that opportunity to strike out again. Sirus was too close for a kick, so she swiveled her hips and shoulders to generate as much power and speed behind her clenched fist as possible. She had to find a weak spot, and she knew there would be few, so she focused all her energy on his windpipe. If she could hit him hard enough, she could collapse his air passage, and no matter how strong he was, he would go down. It was her one chance, and she used all her strength.
By turning, he had left his neck exposed for a moment, and his face showed the recognition of his mistake as he snapped his head back to Cianna. It was too late, though, she thought. Time slowed as her fist shot up toward his Adam’s apple. For the briefest moment, she thought she would survive the encounter. Just before she connected with his neck, though, his enormous hand swallowed her wrist, holding her firm. She struggled to pull her arm free, but it was useless.
He leaned in toward her, so that his face was close to hers. She swung her other arm, but she had no momentum, and he grabbed her other wrist with his free hand. Now he had both her hands, and he was close enough that she could smell the stench of his breath. His eyes were small and intense. He let go of one of her arms and grabbed her by the throat, held her against the wall. She tried again to swing at him, but his arm was so long that she couldn’t reach his face, and when she hit his arm her blows bounced off harmlessly. After a moment, she was having trouble breathing, and her strength began to ebb away.
He let go of her other arm, reached behind his back, and pulled a gun from his waistband. He held it up, showing it to her. Then he held the barrel to her forehead. He stood there for a moment, watching her, reading her eyes. The muscles in his forearm twitched, and she stared into the face of the man who would kill her.
His arm tensed again, and she closed her eyes.
Suddenly, she heard the front door to the apartment bang open, and she looked over to see a man of average height and build standing at the threshold. He was wearing an inexpensive suit, and had neatly trimmed hair, too long for the military, but too short for much else. He had an interested expression, and showed no surprise at the scene into which he had walked. A gun dangled in his right hand. He looked from Charlie to Cianna, to the man holding a gun at her head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Have I come at a bad time?’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jack Saunders’s gun hung at the top of his thigh, casually, his finger on the trigger. He’d heard the commotion as he approached the apartment, and seen the door ajar. Coming into the room, he was ready.
Ready for what, though? That was the real question. When he entered the apartment, he took careful stock of the situation. A young man, probably in his mid-twenties, slight and short, was lying in one corner. He was struggling unsuccessfully to get to his feet, and he was bleeding from the head. An enormous man with a shaved head and well-defined features was standing on the other side of the room. He was older, though not quite as old as Saunders, and he was holding a woman by the throat with one hand. She had a cut on the corner of her eye, and was fighting to break free. As Saunders entered, the bald man was raising a gun to the woman’s forehead. Saunders noted the make of the gun without active thought.
The woman looked like a trapped animal. If she was scared, she had managed to channel all of her fear into a primal drive for survival. Saunders was tempted to shoot the larger man the instant he walked through the door. It was a natural reaction. Most men instinctively defend a woman in danger. Years of training, though, had molded Saunders’s instincts. He’d been in the game for too long to take any situation at face value. He knew nothing of the players in the violent vignette unfolding before him, and he was unwilling to make a move until he had more information.
He spoke evenly, without threat, and everyone turned to look at him, their eyes full of surprise. He expected that look. It had been his experience that people in the throes of violence this intimate often forget the rest of the world, and, when interrupted, their reaction is one of shock and mortification, not unlike being caught in the midst of a sexual peccadillo.
The giant spoke first. ‘Get out of here,’ he said. His voice was raised, though not to a yell. He kept the gun pointed at the woman.
‘I’m looking for Charles Phelan,’ Saunders said, ignoring the warning. ‘You him?’
Both the bald man and the woman shot a glance at the young man still struggling to his feet in the corner. So that’s Phelan, Saunders thought. The woman was likely his sister. The giant’s identity was still a mystery. Saunders had little time to ponder the matter.
‘I told you to get the fuck out of here!’ the bald man yelled. He swung the gun around so that it was pointing at Saunders, and Saunders ducked to his right, raising his own gun. It would have been a simple matter to kill the man. He was too large a target to miss, and Saunders was an expert marksman. But Saunders needed to know more before he started killing people.
‘Drop your gun!’ Saunders yelled back. ‘I’m a cop!’ It wasn’t exactly true. The Central
Intelligence Agency was technically separate from any true law-enforcement agency. Still, it was Saunders’s experience that yelling CIA! just tended to confuse people. Better to keep it simple. To punctuate his point, Saunders took split-second aim and shot the gun out of the man’s hand. The giant roared in surprise as much as pain, as the gun skittered across the floor and hit the wall near Charles Phelan.
It was all the opening the woman needed. She swung her fist at the elbow of the arm that still held her and made solid contact, causing the man’s elbow to bend. This allowed her to get in closer to him, and as his head was still turned, she launched her fist out with precision, catching him in the jaw.
The man gave a pained howl, and turned toward her in a fury, swinging his giant arm at her and connecting with the side of her head, sending her sprawling into the coffee table. Saunders heard the loud, dull thud as her head hit the corner and she fell to the floor, unconscious.
The giant seemed to have recovered from the shock of having his gun shot out of his hand, and he dove to his right, grabbing the gun off the floor, aiming at Saunders. It wasn’t clear to Saunders that the gun would actually fire, but it seemed foolish to take a chance, so he ducked down behind a chair. In the time it took for him to peer out from behind the chair, the bald man closed the gap with Charles Phelan, who had nearly made it to his feet. He grabbed the smaller man and spun him around, using him as a shield. The gun was pointed over Phelan’s shoulder, aimed at Saunders, and he fired off two rounds, sending Saunders diving for cover on the floor.
The man practically lifted Phelan off the ground as he limped toward the door, using his hostage to prevent a clean shot from Saunders. He slammed the door behind him as they exited the apartment.
Saunders scrambled toward the woman lying on the floor and rolled her over. He reached up to her throat to feel for a pulse and found it. She was unconscious, but he could see her chest moving rhythmically. He figured she would be all right, and he turned his attention back to her brother. He quickly moved toward the door, opening it carefully, his gun drawn. He spun around the threshold, pointing his weapon down the hallway. There was no one there.
‘Shit,’ he muttered under his breath.
He ran to the stairway and headed down the three flights, careful on each landing to be sure the huge man wasn’t waiting to take a shot at him. Saunders came out into the first-floor corridor in time to hear the front door slam shut. He ran the length of the vestibule and emerged onto the street as a dark blue four-door sedan spun its wheels, pulling away from the curb half a block up. Saunders held his gun up and took a shooter’s stance. The car was seventy yards away now, and it was moving fast. Still, the street was empty and it was a clean shot, so Saunders focused in on the silhouette behind the wheel. He drew in a breath, held it, and pulled the trigger.
The back window of the sedan exploded, and the driver lurched forward slightly, the car hitching to the left as the driver’s hand went up to his shoulder. After a moment, though, the car came back into its lane, and continued to speed away. Saunders looked down the barrel of his gun again, but by then the car was taking a corner hard and fast, and there was no way to get a clear shot.
He looked over at his own rental and considered giving chase, but realized it was pointless. The blue car would already be blocks away, and the chances of picking up the trail on the twisting South Boston streets were low.
He put his gun away and shook his head in frustration as he walked back to the apartment building.
The door to the apartment was still open, and the woman remained on the floor. As he leaned over her, she opened her eyes.
She looked at him in confusion, recoiled, and pushed herself away from him toward the wall.
‘Where did he take him?’ Saunders demanded.
‘What?’ she responded, still dazed.
‘I need you to tell me where they went. Do you understand? Are you hurt? Are you shot?’
Her hand went to her head, and she pulled away again. He could see a large welt just to the side of her temple. The blood from the cut over her eye had slowed to a trickle, though. ‘I hit my head,’ she said.
‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’ Saunders asked. He reached over and touched her shoulder, examining her for wounds. She didn’t pull away this time. Other than the bruise on her head, she didn’t seem to have any injuries.
She looked around the room. ‘Charlie?’ she said.
‘Your brother, right?’ Saunders said. ‘The other guy took him. I need to know where. You need to tell me what’s going on.’
She looked up at Saunders, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. ‘You’re a cop?’
Saunders stared back at her. ‘Sort of.’
‘What does sort of mean?’
‘It means I work for the government, and I’m one of the good guys. It means you need to cooperate with me, or I can cause problems for you that you can’t even imagine.’ He was bluffing, but it seemed his only option.
‘I’ve got a hell of an imagination,’ she shot back.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because your brother’s just been taken at gunpoint by a man who is crazy enough to take a shot at a police officer. Imagine what that man is going to do to your brother if we don’t find him. You getting a clear picture? Are you going to help me?’
She looked at him. ‘Are you going to arrest my brother if I help you find him?’
Saunders shook his head. ‘I’m not that kind of cop.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The bullet had shattered the back window of the sedan and passed through the top of the front seat, ricocheting off one of the internal metal supports, before grazing Sirus Stillwell’s left shoulder. It had hit no bone, as far as he could tell, but it was causing a significant amount of pain. Not enough to impair his ability to use his arm, but enough to piss him off. He was steering with his left hand as he kept the gun in his right hand aimed at Charlie Phelan.
‘I don’t understand, Sirus,’ Charlie said, his voice quavering. ‘What happened?’
Sirus said nothing. He swung the barrel of his gun into Charlie’s face. The metal collided with his already mangled nose, and Charlie cried out in pain as fresh blood erupted. ‘Aw, fuck!’ he screamed. ‘I didn’t do nothing!’
Sirus swung the gun twice more, hitting Charlie in the side of the head. ‘Shut up, Charlie,’ he fumed. It made him feel better, even as his right hand sent shivers of pain up through his arm. The shot that struck his gun had not hit his hand, but the force of the impact had jarred the hand badly. He wondered whether it had cracked a bone, but knew he had no time to worry about it. He spent his life in combat, dealing with pain. ‘I don’t want to hear another fuckin’ word from you, understand? Next time I hear a word from you, I’m gonna put this gun in your mouth and blow your tongue through the back of your goddamned throat.’
‘Yeah, Sirus,’ Charlie said, his hand to his face trying to stop the bleeding. ‘I understand.’ He pulled his shirt up and held the tail against his nose, which seemed to have some effect.
They rode in silence for several minutes as Sirus steered the car out of Southie and along the edge of the downtown area, down by the Fort Point Channel. From there, he hopped onto Storrow Drive, and took the exit for Memorial out toward Cambridge.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Charlie asked. Sirus shot him a look, raising his gun slightly. Charlie flinched like he’d been hit, and covered his mouth. Sirus guessed he was thinking about the threat to shoot out his tongue, and Phelan’s fear was gratifying. That specific threat was an empty one, though. Sirus needed Charlie to talk.
They pulled off Memorial Drive and onto Massachusetts Avenue, headed north toward the heart of Cambridge, passing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with its great dome looking out across the Charles River. From there, they sliced through the residential neighborhoods where the houses of students and teachers and government workers mingled with Title 8 subsidized housing. It was a melting pot like few others in the greater Boston
metropolitan area.
The turn was just before Central Square, in a little neighborhood thick with immigrants from India and Pakistan and Iraq. The tensions of the Middle East simmered among the displaced of each ethnic contingent. Muslims and Hindus warred in café conversations over Kashmir; Sunis and Kurds regularly came to blows over the gassings of the 1990s; Islamic traditionalists and reformers argued over the application of Sharia law. It was, in many ways, a microcosm of those rivalries and hatreds that had plagued the Middle East for centuries.
Sirus guided the car past a bar called The Holy Land, where pierced youths waited on a line for tickets to a concert featuring some indie-alternative rock band scheduled for that evening, and continued two blocks west toward a small brick mosque that looked like a recreational center from the 1970s. He pulled into the driveway of a small house on the far side of the mosque, which led around to a garage in back. The trees and shrubs at the edges of the property had been left to grow wild, providing good cover from the street and neighbors.
Sirus stopped the car and turned off the engine. He looked at Charlie, and said, ‘Get out.’ Phelan looked even smaller and more pathetic than Sirus remembered, and the dried blood under his nose and on his chin gave him the look of a child who had just finished a raspberry ice-cream cone on a hot summer day. Sirus could see the streaks where tears had been falling from Phelan’s eyes.
‘What happens now?’ Phelan asked.
Sirus stared hard at his hostage. ‘That all depends on you, Charlie,’ he said.
‘I’ll handle it.’ Jack Saunders was hurrying toward his car, talking on his cell phone with Lawrence Ainsworth. Charlie Phelan’s sister was by his side, step by step, the concern evident on her face.
‘You really think there’s something to this?’ his boss asked.
‘Phelan’s name was on the memory stick, and when I show up here some genetically engineered GI takes a shot at me,’ Saunders said. ‘Hard to believe that’s a coincidence.’