Thunder

by Anthony Bellaleigh

  It looked like it had seen better days; with its old stone walls, sagging gutters, and sash windows all in desperate need of renovation. Greere would much rather have something modern. Somewhere in the heart of the action. A plush penthouse on the banks of the Thames or perhaps on Brighton seafront? Either would do nicely. Maybe both?

  Seeing no movement, he skirted around the overgrown fields to the rear of the property.

  Mercury was presumably inside.

  There was far too much glass on the rear-facing conservatory for him to approach directly from the back. There were, however, no windows on the side of the house. He would come in from that angle.

  He pulled a small telescopic sight from one of his jacket pockets and switched it to infrared. The windows all looked clear. No telltale blobs of white heat to betray someone keeping watch. It had been the same at the front. Mercury was either a fool, or stupid, or both.

  ~~~~~

  I watch, through the sniper scope, as the podgy slime-ball breaks cover and scurries round to the back of the house. I watch him scan the windows with his own, smaller, scope. I watch him make his way to the blind side of the property.

  He’s moving just like I thought he would.

  I can see him in tremendous detail through the powerful optics of this rifle.

  His solitary movement verifies that he has come alone. There’s no need for me to shoot him.

  Yet.

  Let’s see what he does.

  I wonder if he’ll try to kill me?

  ~~~~~

  Greere pulled out his sidearm, and screwed the silencer into its barrel. Then he hurried across the open space and flattened himself against the house wall.

  ~~~~~

  I continue to watch.

  ~~~~~

  Slowly he eased himself along the wall, toward the conservatory, then he stopped at the corner. He gathered his breath for a second. Then he quickly leaned round so he could glance inside.

  The old lean-to was a simple wooden affair. Through the grimy glass, he could make out the back of Mercury’s head. Sitting in some wing-backed armchair. Facing away from the window.

  He risked another quick glance.

  The chair was positioned toward the doorway. Mercury was probably waiting for him to walk up and blindly enter the room.

  No chance of that.

  He stepped out confidently from the corner, lined up, and emptied his magazine through the shattering windows.

  ~~~~~

  Well. That answers my question then.

  ~~~~~

  The hooded figure slumped out of sight.

  Greere felt a rush of elation as he released the spent magazine and slotted home a new one.

  He moved up to the shattered panes and paused to listen. All seemed quiet. Not a sound... No... He was wrong. There was a faint hissing sound?

  He crept around the house to the main door, which was on the side. He carefully turned the handle...

  The door was unlocked.

  He eased it open...

  Still nothing.

  Carefully, he crouched, and edged his head around the doorframe...

  Clear.

  He immediately threw himself into the doorway – his pistol brandished, ready, in front of him – and now he could see right through to the chair...

  He could see right through to the crumpled heap of clothes slowly collapsing around a mortally punctured, wide-mouthed, crudely made-up, sex doll. A waft of rancid, stale-sperm scented, air drifted across to his nostrils...

  ~~~~~

  I grimace behind my scope.

  Deuce hadn’t been particularly hygienic in his self-gratification.

  That was one disgusting mess of latex. With or without bullet holes.

  ~~~~~

  Greere span round.

  It wasn’t Mercury.

  On the small hallway table was a note.

  ‘PUT THIS ON.’

  Next to it was a small, comms, earpiece.

  ~~~~~

  I hear the comms device crackle into life. Deuce’s collection of equipment was truly comprehensive. “Testing, testing, one, two, three,” I mutter.

  “Mercury,” he responds.

  “Shooting me in the back, Ace? Not particularly courageous. Not a fair fight.”

  “Listen, Mercury, I knew it wasn’t you.”

  “Yeah, right. Like you didn’t send Deuce to kill me either?”

  ~~~~~

  Greere carefully swept his way around the ground floor.

  “Kill you?” he whispered. “Why would I want to kill you? You’ve proven yourself to be highly talented. We could go a long way, you and me. If I wasn’t influential enough already, I’ve got promotion coming. I need good agents. Skilful,” he span into the last room. Empty. “...resourceful, agents.”

  ~~~~~

  “Hmmm... where would a ‘resourceful agent’ hide, I wonder?” I say tauntingly, and can hear his footsteps on Deuce’s creaking staircase.

  I swap weapons. This second rifle is more of a hunting device; its scope isn’t as powerful and unfortunately it’s not silenced. But I don’t think the noise will be a problem. Not given what I’m planning to do in the next few minutes.

  “I wouldn’t come up here, if I were you,” I rumble ominously.

  ~~~~~

  ‘Upstairs then,’ thought Greere. This guy was off his head. Just like the others had been.

  He cautiously continued upwards; approaching the building’s small landing.

  Three doors. All closed.

  “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo...?” Mercury prompted through the earpiece.

  Was it a trap?

  He moved toward the lockable door in front of him. It was likely to be a bathroom. He grabbed the door handle, thrust the door open, and spun his body away to one side.

  Empty.

  “Am I there?” asked Mercury. “Look carefully. I’m only small you know.”

  He looked again.

  Beyond the mildewed bath... below the stained and chipped white-crock sink... next to the battered, piss-splattered, toilet... was a package. A small package. A small grey cube with wires leading to a small black box...

  He turned and ran down the stairs.

  ~~~~~

  I hear his footfall, give him a moment, and then press the button on Deuce’s radio transceiver. It’s different to the one Jack had. There’s only one channel on this one.

  The upstairs windows all light up momentarily. Then they’re compelled to exit their frames. Each one instantly atomised into clouds of tiny flying shards, which burst outwards as they surf on the front of violently brief flares of fiery plasma. The triple boom creates a tiny shudder through the earth. I feel it through my backside as I sit here, cross-legged on the dusty ground, aiming through the rifle sights at the doorway.

  Yep, that was loud. Satisfying but loud.

  I’d had no idea which door he’d pick. That’s why I rigged charges in every room. They weren’t there to kill him... Well, not unless I’d found myself in deep shit or something. No. They’re to make him do this...

  He stumbles out of the door, and into the deluge of sparkling-glass rain.

  ~~~~~

  The concussion drove him down the last few stairs and out into the garden. His ears were ringing but despite this he heard the familiar caustic bark of rifle discharge to his left. Spinning toward it, he started to raise his pistol, but something sharp punched into his midriff, and he looked down in surprise to see the tail of a flighted dart sticking out from his lightweight jacket.

  There, on the edge of the woods which stretched away from the property, was Mercury.

  Sitting cross-legged.

  Watching him.

  “Hello, Ace,” said Mercury’s voice in his ear.

  A flush of wild fury coursed through him. The fucker was sitting there. Watching him. As bold as brass.

  He thrust his pistol out in front of him.

  Then his legs gave way.

  ~~~~~

  I
watch as Greere crumples pathetically onto the ground. That was quick.

  “Night, night,” I purr.

  Time for me to get moving. I don’t want us to be here for too long. Just in case someone comes to investigate the noise and the smoke.

  No, I don’t want us to be disturbed.

  I have somewhere ready and waiting for us.

  ~~~~~

  Greere slowly opened his eyes. He felt numb. Drugged.

  He was lying, face down, on the ground. He could see a scattering of sparse weeds and undergrowth in front of his gummy eyes. Everything around him looked parched and dried out.

  He tried to move his arms. They were unshackled, so he sluggishly pushed himself up into a kneeling position.

  Mercury was sitting a few metres in front of him, leaning comfortably back against the gnarled wide trunk of a tree. He was dressed in standard DPM woodland camouflage with a black woollen hat on his head. His face was smeared with dirt.

  “Welcome back,” Mercury grunted, and with one hand waved a small empty hypodermic in front of him. “The wake-up juice seems to have worked as well.”

  Slowly Greere could sense the feeling coming back into his limbs. He still felt groggy, but could sense that whatever Mercury had injected him with was counteracting the sedative.

  He looked around. They were in the middle of woodland, in a small clearing. He could see trunks and undergrowth extending away in all directions. He couldn’t see any open land or fields. He couldn’t see the house.

  ~~~~~

  I’m feeling pretty pleased. Neither the tranquilliser, nor its counteracting stimulant, appear to have killed him. I found them in a box which said they were for ‘Medium Sized Animals’. Well, I’d known that ‘animal’ was correct, but I’d had to take a punt about the dosage. It would have been mildly disappointing if I’d got it wrong.

  I toss one of my closed switchblades onto the ground next to him.

  “Time to fight fair, don’t you think, Crispin?”

  ~~~~~

  Mercury threw his open wallet across so that it landed next to the sheathed knife.

  “Oh dear,” his deep voice grunted. “I don’t suppose you’re going to be able to let me walk away now, are you? Now that I know so much about you?”

  Greere watched as Mercury casually pushed himself up onto his feet.

  ~~~~~

  “Pick it up,” I instruct him.

  “What’s this?” he says, not moving.

  “A sharp knife,” I say sarcastically. “Be careful not to cut yourself.”

  He presses the release catch and the knife’s bright ten-centimetre blade springs forwards with an elegant zing of fine metalwork being unsheathed. I flick mine around in my practiced fingers and similarly open it toward him.

  The polished steel blades glint wickedly, as flashes of thin sunlight speckle down through the leafy canopy and reflect off their cruel gleaming edges.

  ~~~~~

  Greere heaved himself to his feet, and stumbled slightly to one side as he regained his sense of balance. Feeling was rushing back to him. It had been for several minutes. The stimulant, most likely amphetamine based, was helping. He feigned another stagger to the other side and held his body limply. Best not to let Mercury know too much. He fluttered the knife in front of him as he took a couple of deliberately feeble practice swings with it.

  “People will be coming,” he gasped, keeping his voice sounding weak. “After the explosions. What then?”

  Mercury laughed coldly. “Maybe,” he said. “But I doubt it. There are working quarries in these hills. Regular blasting. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’ve carried your sorry arse a long way from there. No-one will come looking for us here.”

  Greere glanced behind him for the first time. He needed to work out how much space they had. All around the edge of this small glade he could see only sun-speckled woodland continuing into the distance. No sign of habitation. No sign of any open land.

  On one side of the clearing was a hole. It looked like it had been dug, recently, into the hard-packed stony topsoil. An old fashioned spade stuck out at an angle from a pile of excavated earth on one side. Six foot long. Two feet wide. A shallow grave.

  “For one of us,” says Mercury.

  ~~~~~

  I watch as a strong gust of wind billows amongst the trunks of the watching trees, curving between their crowding trunks, snatching up fine dust from the bone-dry earth and dragging it into wispy translucent ribbons which curl and twist around the clearing.

  “A storm is coming,” says Ace, from the midst of these vapourous streamers.

  “I’m already here,” I reply. “Time to play.”

  Greere lunges toward me with a surprising turn of speed, and I leap backwards to avoid the swooping steel as it flashes in front of my face.

  He’s not as weak as he’s been making out.

  We circle each other, each lifting and feinting with our tiny weapons. This is close quarter fighting. Combatants need to get very close to strike. He moves into a fighting stance and starts cycling his arms in a complex series of lightning fast Tanto Jutsu knife-fighting patterns.

  He lunges.

  I step back.

  He roars in excitement and spins to one side to lunge again.

  The blade whistles past my arm, cleaving through the material of my combats, and slicing a thin cut across my bicep.

  Dulled stinging tells me it’s a reasonable gash.

  He’s fast.

  ~~~~~

  Greere knew he could win this. His fuck-wit agent wouldn’t have known that he’d be trained in this obscure fighting discipline. More fool him.

  He lunged again.

  The amphetamines coursed through his veins. Every movement felt like it was in slow motion.

  ~~~~~

  I leap backwards and have to take a half step to one side where an unseen tree-root reaches up and snags at my shoes. The tripping motion makes me lose my balance, and I have to throw myself forwards into a flying gambol.

  I tumble forwards, tucking myself into a ball, and let my momentum carry me over until my feet hit the deck again.

  I stand quickly and spin around, but the blade is right there. He’s thrusting it toward my stomach...

  I gasp, pull my midriff back, and smash down with my left arm to block.

  ~~~~~

  Greere felt his arm being driven downward, but he knew he had the upper hand. He span on the spot, stepped neatly to one side, and struck backwards with the knife, his free hand pushing hard down on the top of its hilt, aiming toward Mercury’s exposed thigh.

  ~~~~~

  Again I’m forced to jerk myself swiftly back and out of range of the jabbing blade. He spins smoothly in front of me, the knife never once stopping as it swoops an elegant, deadly, figure of eight pattern between us. I watch, mildly impressed, as he slides fluidly into his next strike position.

  ~~~~~

  Greere knew he was unbeatable. Almighty. A God.

  ~~~~~

  I see the crazed rush of adrenalin-fuelled confidence flash in the turgid depths of his dark bug-eyes. The fetid orbs seem to bulge from his face. He thinks he can win. He feels like he’s dominant. His metabolic system will be pumping his body toward the most fabulous high.

  I’m bored now.

  Enough of this playacting.

  I take two swift steps backwards, and throw my stiletto straight into his whirling wrist.

  He won’t have been expecting that.

  ~~~~~

  A flutter of silver, flying toward him, was all the warning he got.

  Mercury’s knife buried itself, up to its hilt, into the soft flesh of his forearm, and he felt its razor-sharp edges chiseling at his bones as the blade ground its way through, and then out the other side of, his arm.

  ~~~~~

  The pain reflex makes his hand spring open.

  His knife – my knife – pops out and drops to the floor, so I stoop down and grab it, flick it over in my fingers, and
then throw it into the fleshy mass of his thigh.

  ~~~~~

  The second knife buried itself violently into his upper leg.

  A thin, high pressure, spray of blood erupted from the side of the blade and began streaming in a gentle arc away from him...

  ~~~~~

  He’s screaming.

  “Did I say fair?” I say and shrug; partly out of honesty, partly to release my final knife into my palm. “Sorry about that.”

  This third knife slams into his other thigh, forcing him to collapse forwards into a kneeling position.

  “Mercury, Mercury, please... please...,” he whimpers. I can hear his pain. “I’m begging you. I didn’t give any order for you to be killed. Or Tin. Deuce was out of control. A madman. I told him to make sure you were safe. He wasn’t supposed to hurt you...”

  The dust rises around us, like a sepia wash splashed wantonly over this spartan landscape. Streamers of its fine particles swirl around us. The wind rises again, as if it too is caught up in all the excitement. It howls between the tree trunks and I can hear the applause of thousands of clattering branches ringing down upon us: the combatants. Upon me: the victor.

  Through this sudden dust storm, I can barely see twenty metres in any direction.

  He remains kneeling before me, hands raised in supplication. He looks as if he might be praying – if only he knew what such a thing was; if only he had anything that he worshipped more than himself. And he continues to bleat – but I’ve stopped listening.

  I wander back to where I’d been sitting earlier.

  “That’s right, Mercury. Be merciful. I beg you. There’s no point. No point in this.”

  “No, there isn’t,” I say, and return with his own gun. “Yours I presume? It’s such a shame how your loving relationship with Deuce broke down so messily. That it drove you to kill him and dispose of the body. That it drove you to want to take your own life.” I press the barrel against his temple.

  “How did you know?” he whimpers, looking up at me with his lank black hair plastered over his brow and pointless tears running down his cheeks. “How did you know that I’m gay?”

  “Call it intuition,” I reply coldly. “Like women have. I’ve left a few love letters around the house. To explain everything. Just in case bits of either of you ever turn up.”