Thunder

  Through half closed eyes I watch as the brute approaches, pulling his leg dramatically backwards for his kick. Now all of his weight is pressed firmly down onto his static standing foot. Perfect. At the last moment, I roll myself violently toward him and, with both hands, drive the sharp metal into the boot he is currently balancing on. With the added momentum of my rotation, I feel it pierce first leather, then flesh, then rubber, and finally floorboard as I impale his scuffed Doc Martin onto the floor.

  “Aaaarrghhhh!” He yells, somewhat understatedly given the amount of blood spraying out of my alternative podiatry, and I continue to roll myself over and to one side. Time to flick one of my stilettos out of its holster, and down my sleeve into my palm. These are much better knives, and they’re long overdue a proper testing.

  Leaping to my feet, I know I have to move quickly, and spin through a quarter turn so I can sight myself up on the short guy. He’s still standing there, impotently, mouth agog, in front of the curtain-shrouded windows which lead to the apartment’s balcony, but this is not the time for thinking. Now is the time for reflex. Unleashing the weapon, I watch as it spins elegantly through the air on a perfect but, annoyingly, slightly high trajectory. The flickering silvery blade flashes across the gap, and disappears into the sizeable o-shaped, brown-toothed, gaping maw of the little man’s gormless mouth, and buries itself snugly into his gullet. I must have been fixated on his worthless waggling tonsils when I released it...

  “Gogg,” he says, amusingly, as the blade rams home and knocks him backwards into the embrace of heavy curtain cloth. He perches there for a second, staring wildly at me even as the spark fades in his eyes, and then he slides slowly down leaving a smear of blood all the way from impact point to carpet.

  Crap. I was hoping to hit him in the chest.

  Well, it can’t be helped...

  Another howl from my quarter-crucified friend draws my attention and standing, as I am, with my back to him, I fold myself forwards and back-kick him sideways so he’s knocked awkwardly across his impaled leg. I can almost hear his flesh tearing inside the firmly fixed footwear, and his howling turns into another incoherent scream of agony.

  Much more appropriate.

  I finish the kick and land smoothly. The tables are completely reversed. I am the looming predator. He is the prostrate prey.

  He’s scrabbling toward his boot, wanting to pull out the knife. Wanting freedom.

  I move around him, and kick out of reach the remaining rubbish and cutlery, then head over to the corner of the room to retrieve my weapon.

  ~~~~~

  Jack came round with a jolt and thrust himself up into a sitting position. He had no idea whether he’d been out for a minute or an hour. A pair of large, shadowy, sock-clad feet poked upwards in front of him. They weren’t moving.

  Pulling himself to his feet, he could see that the fat bloke was lying on his back in the darkness, his face a paler puddle of brightness smeared with darker swathes of blood which had spewed from his smashed forehead and nose. A larger pool of dark sticky liquid was spreading out around his flaccid upturned face onto the dimly lit floor. The man’s eyes were wide open. Staring upwards.

  ‘Some head-butt,’ thought Jack to himself, then stumbled over something by his feet.

  Crouching quickly he could feel metal rails. Pieces of an old iron bed. They were scattered over the floor and neither he nor his assailant had had any chance to know they were there.

  He moved alongside the body and felt the man’s neck for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  Reaching further back he felt more ironwork protruding from behind the dead man’s skull.

  “Shit,” he muttered thankfully. Fatboy must’ve tripped and fallen backwards. The head-butt had smashed his face, and an old iron bedstead had smashed his skull. Luck must be on his side today. Otherwise he’d likely be dead.

  Suddenly he was aware of the silence from the neighbouring apartment.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, remembering that Nick had been facing two men on his own.

  Scrambling quietly through the darkness, he made his way on all fours to the distant corner of the room, fished around, recovered his Browning, and gently pushed home a spare magazine.

  Someone howled next door.

  A male voice. Whoever it was, they were in a lot of pain.

  He hoped it wasn’t Nick.

  He readied his weapon and crept back out into the hallway.

  ~~~~~

  The thug continues with his attempts to extricate himself.

  Idiot.

  I stride back over to him and stamp downwards, with the slightest touch of angle, scraping my foot along his pinned ankle and achilles tendon and he howls again at the sliding, twisting, movement this has caused. He can consider that as payback for the couple of nasty bruises that I’ve got in my nether-regions.

  It’s unnervingly quiet from the other room and I wonder what’s happened to Jack.

  “Let’s have a little chat,” I rasp at the brute, chambering a fresh round and pointing the muzzle of my weapon at his sweating forehead...

  “Fattyú...,” he spits unhelpfully.

  This is useless. He probably can’t, or won’t, speak English to me.

  “He called you a bastard.”

  The voice startles me, and I swing my attention and gun to the doorway where I find myself looking straight down the barrel of Jack’s similarly readied weapon. His face is covered in blood, as is the top of his jacket. “Glad you could drop by,” I grunt.

  He scans the carnage. “This is a fucking mess,” he observes candidly as he pushes himself up from the doorframe he’s leaning against and heads behind the table to check on the short guy.

  “He’s dead,” I report.

  There’s a slick, soft, plopping sound and Jack reappears from behind the table with my switchblade. “So it seems,” he says, using the tabletop to press the blade back into the hilt. “Yours, I presume,” he says, tossing the sheathed knife across to me.

  I catch it with my free hand. “You okay?” I ask.

  “Just shaken up,” he says. “I’ll be as right as rain in a few minutes.” He approaches. “Let me take over here.” He bends toward the stricken Hungarian. “Sikand, mikor jön haza?” he demands menacingly. “When will Sikand come back?” He grabs the man’s head, jerks it sideways, and presses his Browning’s muzzle into the proffered cheek.

  “I’m fine too,” I say. “Thanks for asking.”

  He glances at me. His eyes sparkle, betraying that he’s amused by my comment, but his expression remains fixed, grim, aggressive...

  “Sikand, mikor jön haza?” he repeats forcefully.

  “He went for food,” the brute replies, in slightly accented but otherwise perfect English.

  “I already know that,” growls Jack. “How long did he say he would be? Tell me!”

  The thug shrugs. “Not long,” he mutters, grinning contemptuously at us. “Then he will cut your stinking balls off...”

  Outside in the hallway, the outer door to the apartment suddenly slammed open.

  ~~~~~

  Azat Sikand snarled out loud as he walked round the corner into Fecske Street. He could see a light shining out from a small gap in one of the blackout curtains. The stupid Hungarians must’ve disturbed it somehow. Idiots. They’d been given very explicit instructions: buy a nondescript apartment somewhere immediately outside of the city centre; soundproof and secure it; ensure, if possible, that it was isolated from other tenants; keep comings and goings to a minimum; blackout the windows. In other words: make the place look unoccupied. Their reward was that they’d get to keep the place, along with any spare cash from the purchase and security work – though it seemed to him that they’d already pocketed the majority of the money, with only the soundproofing appearing to have been done – once the location had been used. This whole place stank of being compromised. If the Hungarians couldn’t even keep to the rules while he was there, how did they behave when he was
n’t?

  Nagpal would be furious. Perhaps he should clean up here? Remove the risk of some connection being made. The hapless monkeys would no doubt have a pile of cash stashed away. He could take it off their miserable hands. It might be useful for later, or perhaps it could fund a better place in Constanta.

  Yes.

  He’d torture the big one and the two wimps would squeal.

  The trouble was, he’d have to get them out of the city first. He couldn’t dispose of them here. He’d have to take them out for a little drive into the countryside in the morning. Take them to collect a carefully hidden, final cash payment. A nonexistent cash payment.

  Storming furiously into the lobby, he noticed that one of the ground floor doors was ajar. In the narrow gap he could just make out the silhouette of the flat’s occupant before it slammed closed again.

  Strange.

  He hurried up the staircase.

  On the next landing, another door – this time on the right hand side – was hurriedly closed. From downstairs he heard the noise of a television being turned up extra loud. What was going on? What had drawn the other tenants to peek out from behind the security of their solid front doors?

  He moved upwards. The third floor was empty and had no residents. At least the Hungarians had got that right. Then he carefully made his way to the final landing...

  The light was out and he elected to leave it switched off.

  Light was creeping out from around the apartment’s door frame...

  This wasn’t right.

  He pulled out his pistol and carefully approached the doorway. Then, with his free arm, he slammed the apartment door open...

  His eyes widened.

  The inner security door was gaping open. The flat beyond it looked like a war-zone. There was a body lying untidily on the floor behind the dining table. A wide stripe of bright red ran down the disrupted curtains to where the body was sprawled. He’d seen enough cadavers to know instantly that the man was dead, and he could also see that, in death, this was the Hungarian responsible for nudging open the offending drapes...

  ~~~~~

  “CSAPDA!” yells the impaled Hungarian. “IS A TRAP!”

  The sound of footsteps pounding away, down the stairs, tells us that the warning has been heeded.

  “Get the pack!” shouts Jack.

  I scan the room, spot the rucksack propped against one of the walls in the far corner and rush over to it. There’s a single, loud cough from behind me, then a softer splattering sound immediately followed by a woody thwack. I heave the pack onto my shoulder, and turn to see the Hungarian crumple lifelessly onto the floorboards.

  Jack is already moving toward the doorway, smoking pistol extended in front of him. “Come on!” he yells.

  ~~~~~

  Sikand raced down the stairs. The goat-fucking Hungarians must’ve been being watched! Praise to Allah, he’d chosen to go out for dinner...

  He charged out of the front door.

  His car was too far away and might also be compromised. He needed to get away from here, quickly...

  Turning right, he raced along Fecske Street, pulling his Makarov nine-millimetre pistol out of his jacket as he ran. He’d lost the backpack but so be it. There wasn’t anything valuable inside anyway: just some spare clothes, some cash, and a small surprise to ward off unwelcome intruders.

  At the next junction he saw two motorbikes approaching. They were line astern of each other and their engines burbled powerfully as they ticked over along the road.

  He moved into the shadows and glanced back toward the apartment block.

  Two shadowy figures burst out onto the pavement.

  He raised his gun, fired twice in their direction, and turned back to the approaching vehicles.

  ~~~~~

  We crouch instinctively at the sound of loud gunfire and I hear the noise of bullets wildly ricocheting randomly past us and onward down the street. Jack starts running, half-crouched, away from me, heading to the right.

  “This way!” he shouts. “He’s ahead of us at the junction! Stay on that side!”

  I heft the other bag strap up onto my shoulder, crouch as best I can with the added weight on my back, and run along the line of the various apartment buildings on this side of the street. Jack is a shadow flickering along the frontages on the other side of the road.

  A sudden eruption of gunfire makes me squeeze myself tighter into the building next to me and I see bright flashes of light from the junction ahead of us. Four shots. Rapid succession. They don’t seem to be in this direction.

  Then there are squealing, scraping noises and, suddenly, an upturned motorbike slides across the junction. Then a body rolls into view; tumbling once, then twice, then it flops to rest, static amongst the pools of light from the surrounding street-lamps.

  We continue forwards. I can hear the sound of another motorbike engine revving angrily.

  Then there’s another squeal of punished rubber on tarmac...

  And Sikand flashes past.

  “Fucking Hell!” screams Jack, pounding forwards to where the other crashed bike is still lying, ticking over gently to itself, against the distant wall. “Come on!”

  I sprint out from cover, and head toward him. The body lying on the ground twitches as I run past, but there is a fist-sized hole in the back of the poor soul’s leather jacket, and another where the back of his or her helmet should have been. Glancing right I can see a second body sprawled, further back, in the middle of the road. There’s nothing I can do for them now.

  Jack has hauled the bike upright and leapt astride it.

  “Get on!” he yells, gunning the throttle.

  ~~~~~

  Sikand’s bike roared angrily as he aimed it down Bérkocsis Street towards the city, swerving from side to side between the parked cars which lined both sides of the road. He was struggling with the unfamiliar machine which bucked and bounced beneath him.

  He’d elected to take out both bikers for speed, certainty, and to give himself options when they crashed. He now had to hope that his pursuers’ vehicle was damaged, or that they were worse riders than him. There were two of them. That would either slow them down, if they both chose to use the second bike, or even the odds, if they split up and one of them stayed behind.

  Finally he hit a clear stretch and pulled the clutch. Left boot up.

  At last! Clear road.

  Third.

  Fourth.

  He hurtled toward the approaching junction.

  József Körút was busy and the lights in his direction were red. Solid streams of car headlights poured past in both directions in front of him.

  He eased off on the throttle.

  ~~~~~

  Jack felt Nick leap onto the small pillion seat behind him. “Hold on!” he shouted and opened up the throttle.

  The front wheel of the bike sprang up into the air.

  “Christ!” he yelled, leaning forwards, and letting off the accelerator, so as to bring the errant rubber slamming back onto the tarmac.

  He could see Sikand’s bike fishtailing ahead of him. He could also see that the other man was faced with the challenge of the busy main street junction and a sudden flare of brake-light told Jack that he had an opportunity to close the gap.

  He pulled the bike into the middle of the street and, ready for the power this time, leaned forward over the tank so he was behind the tiny windshield and opened the racing machine up.

  ‘Nick had better be holding on tight,’ he thought to himself.

  ~~~~~

  There was no way for him to get across the junction.

  Sikand pushed down hard on the back brake lever, stomped two clumsy down shifts, and heaved the heavy machine to the right.

  The bike tyre locked up, sliding alarmingly beneath him, then bit again, pulling the bike upright and, fighting the resulting slow speed tank slapping, he bounced from side to side up onto the pavement, and then down again, as he steered himself into a small gap in the flow o
f vehicles on the main road.

  ~~~~~

  Jack watched as Sikand’s bike squirmed to a virtual standstill in a cloud of its own tyre smoke, then burst off again, weaving viciously as it mounted the sidewalk, and disappeared off to the right. He stayed on the gas for as long as he dared.

  “Hold on!” he shouted pointlessly into the bike’s tiny dashboard.

  ~~~~~

  I’m clinging on for dear life.

  Jack is yelling stuff. Probably just swear words, I imagine.

  My hands are trying to weld themselves permanently into the two grab handles that I found, by some instinctive reaction, when he tried to wheelie me back into the tarmac. The side of my face is pressed hard against the cotton of his jacket and the rigid slab of his back-muscles.

  ~~~~~

  The traffic suddenly stopped, just as if Moses had appeared and waved his crook in front of him and miraculously commanded a gap to open. Jack twisted the throttle back up and watched with glee as the lights at the junction started to change in his favour.

  This was definitely turning into his lucky day.

  ~~~~~

  Sikand zigzagged in and out of the orderly procession of traffic, squirting the throttle to zip around each car, and then easing off to swing back into the flow.

  His nearside wing mirror flapped and banged uselessly along the side of the small fairing: it had been smashed when the bike had been dropped by its murdered owner. The offside one was okay.

  He glanced in it as he prepared for his next overtake, and saw that the traffic had stopped at the lights behind him. The other bike suddenly burst out, power-sliding elegantly across the tiny rectangular reflection, and he could hear the pursuing throttle note rising to a piercing scream even above the roaring of his own machine.

  There was another major junction in front of him.

  He headed for the exit slip road.

  ~~~~~

  Serenaded by angry horns and the occasional snatch of hurled verbal abuse, Jack swept up to the back of and then along the line of traffic.

  Sikand was turning off.

  He squirted through a narrow gap between the disturbed motorists, then blasted along the off-slip. His quarry was not demonstrating good biking skills and, even better, was currently heading toward the congested city centre along another main road. The traffic was busy but, for the moment, still flowing. Sikand was having to take big risks, every time he jumped out of the flow into the oncoming traffic to overtake.