by Rob Lopez
It was pitch black on the streets, and it took a while for Alex’s eyes to adjust to the gloom, but he could hear the footsteps of the two guys following him before he could actually see them.
They were purposeful footsteps, and the two weren’t involved in any conversation. Alex didn’t need to see them to know that they weren’t there by chance. He quickened his pace, and heard them quicken theirs.
At the end of the street he turned the corner and made his move. A car engine idled nearby, its broken exhaust burbling and, as Alex broke into a sprint, it roared into life, the headlights flicking on. There was a church nearby, with a graveyard surrounded by a low wall. Alex went to hurdle the wall as the car charged up behind him, but two gentlemen in balaclavas popped up from behind the headstones and levelled their shotguns at him, forcing him to stop.
Shit.
The car skidded to a stop behind him, doors flinging open, and Alex put his hands up, turning around to face three very angry blokes who wanted to shoot him there and then. They were the same blokes that Alex had beaten the crap out of, back at the cage fight.
Now it was payback time.
Bollocks, thought Alex, as they flex cuffed his hands behind his back and then started on him. He went down easy, curling up to protect his vital parts as they pounded him. When they’d got that out of their system, they bundled him into the back of the car.
The exhaust was louder inside the car than it was outside, and the driver crunched the gears as they headed north to the industrial area. It was predictable. Nicky would want to see him in some old factory, with nobody nearby to hear him yelling at him. It would probably involve chains. And a hook. Alex could imagine Nicky scouring the letting agents as he looked for the right place. “No mate, I want a warehouse with a forklift truck and a crane. And I want a chair.”
The agents must have let all those places to the other crims, because Nicky had to settle for the old bowling alley. The car drew up outside a boarded up building and Alex was led in through the side door.
The place had been stripped out, with the old bowling lanes ripped up and carted off. But there was a chair. A wooden one.
Alex was forced down onto it and his legs lashed.
Nicky, for all his pretensions, was a small time criminal of the old school, with his hair cropped close to hide the grey. He fancied himself as a bit of a don, wearing a full length coat over his tracksuit, though he wasn’t exactly into his sports, apart from betting on them. The only activity he was into was running up a phone bill as he ordered another kebab. And, to be honest, he was getting a bit old for this.
“Where’s my money?” he said.
“Under the mattress, next to your bus pass,” said Alex. That earned him another beating, but it allowed him to assess the situation behind him. There were only the three goons guarding him, and they’d holstered their pistols so that they could administer their punishment. The chair creaked as Alex was knocked back and forth on it, and the chair legs flexed as his tied legs pulled at them.
He spat some blood out and breathed heavily. The pain was bearable so far - not worth wasting painkiller for. Yet. “Remind me. How much do I owe you?”
“Twenty five grand,” said Nicky, with relish.
“Thought it was twenty.”
“Well, I’ve added interest on, haven’t I? Tell me where you’ve stashed it, and I’ll let you walk.”
“I didn’t get paid. Race was cancelled.”
“You got paid for your last fight, and I hear you did quite well out of it.”
“You heard wrong.”
Nicky nodded to his goons, and they laid into him again. So far they were taking it easy, as Alex had yet to see anyone produce a baseball bat. The chair was really creaking now.
“You’re the one who’s not hearing me too well,” said Nicky. “Now tell me where you’ve stashed your money, or it’s going to get a lot worse.”
Alex tested the plastic flex cuffs. They were thick, but if he could get enough leverage to twist them, he might be able to loosen them. A bit hard to achieve with the goons watching him, but he might get a chance to stretch them during the next beating.
“I ain’t been paid yet Nicky. There is no stash.”
Nicky didn’t seem surprised by that, and he turned on his heel and walked off, disappearing into the shadows. Alex listened to the footsteps, wondering if this was when they’d start getting serious with some machine tools, like a chainsaw maybe. Nicky returned, however, with another prisoner, bound and gagged.
It was old Pricey, and he looked terrified.
Nicky pushed him down to his knees, then put a pistol to the old man’s head.
“Fucking hell Nicky, it’s only twenty five grand,” shouted Alex. “What are you doing?”
“Making you see reason,” said Nicky, slipping the safety catch off. “You see, I don’t think you take me very seriously, and that makes me very upset. So I’m going to ask you one more time, and if you don’t give me an answer, your pal gets it. And after that, all your other mates, one by one. So what’s it to be? Them, or the money?”
That was right off the scale. Playtime was definitely over, and poor old Pricey looked as if he was about to wet himself.
“You bastard! You let him go.”
“That your answer?” said Nicky, bracing his arm for the shot.
“Ablution, ablution.”
Nicky actually smiled. “And what does that mean?”
The double dose of stimulant that rushed through Alex’s body felt like a wave - a real rush. He snapped the cuffs and stood up, splintering the legs off the chair and turning to grab the nearest goon. Everything was in slow motion, with slack jawed goons taking ages to reach for their guns. Everything, that is, except for Alex. Whirling behind one goon and using him for cover, Alex snapped his neck with one hand and reached for his pistol with the other, slipping the safety off and double tapping another goon before he’d even got his gun out. Tracking swiftly across, Alex shot the next one and then twisted round, dropping the body and gripping the pistol with both hands as Nicky appeared in his sights. Nicky was still bringing his arm up to take aim at Alex.
Too slow. Bang, bang, bang, the weapon slide hammering back with each shot, and Nicky went down with two to the chest and one to the head.
The echoes of the gunshots pulsed gently against the walls of the building, and Alex took a long, slow, breath, the body he’d dropped still falling to the ground.
What. A. Rush.
Alex had experienced the rush of adrenaline in firefights before, with the brain going into overdrive, but this was something else. This was the feeling he’d craved all his life. Savour the sweetness, this was beyond ecstasy. Un-fucking-believable. He could run round that dog track three times, collect his winnings and still have time for a wank before the second guy even crossed the finish line. Nothing, nothing, felt impossible.
The body at his feet finally hit the floor.
Pricey was gobsmacked.
As was Alex. “Carrageen,” he said, restoring the world to something approaching its normal speed.
Two of the bodies were twitching in their death throes, but Nicky was laid out, flat and still. Pity. He would have liked to have said a few choice words to him before he went. He hadn’t been averse to letting him live, if he’d given him the chance, even if his methods of interrogation had been a bit over the top. Still, what was done was done, and Alex wasn’t inclined to mourn for him.
He untied Pricey and helped him up. “You okay?” he asked.
Pricey stared at him, but couldn’t seem to be able to settle on what to mention first. A lot to take in, obviously.
“I’ll take you back to the soup kitchen,” said Alex. “They’ll take care of you there.”
Alex wiped his prints off the gun and handed it back to its owner. If the police were smart, they’d overlook the fact that all the wounds had been inflicted by the same gun and get themselves an instant case solved, a tick in the box and no missing
weapon on the streets to worry about. Forensics in the nearest city probably had a backlog of a couple of years, what with staffing problems and all. Better to just bury the case, since it wasn’t likely the relatives would be calling for an inquiry.
He took Pricey back in Nicky’s car, then drove out of town, still marvelling at Randal’s handiwork. That was a relationship worth keeping, and with Miss McIntyre’s financial backing, the future was looking quite lucrative. He needed to up his training though. The pain in his arms and legs wasn’t from the beating, but from the muscles he’d pulled from his lightning fast movements. Fit as he was, he still wasn’t fit enough. Not if he wanted to pull those kinds of stunts. He’d have to start training amped up, just to make sure he could take it.
All in all though, a good day.
Pulling into Forton Farm, he parked the car out of sight, in the shell of an old barn. A light shone from Randal’s lab. That was unusual, as the windows were all shuttered, and as Alex approached the building, he saw that it was light spilling out from an open door.
That felt wrong straight away, and Alex dropped to a crouch, checking the shadows around him. He couldn’t see or hear anything and cautiously he approached the door.
The inside of the lab had been smashed up. Table and cupboards tipped over, drawers pulled out, papers scattered. Vials had been shattered and the floor was covered in broken glass, spilled chemicals and blood. Gerald and Nadine lay like dolls that had been thrown into a corner, gunshot wounds all over them. Randal sat propped up against the wall, clutching a wound at his side, a pistol lying on the floor by his leg.
“What the fuck happened?” said Alex, rushing over to him, examining the wound.
“Our enemy found us,” said Randal. “He took my work.”
“Don’t worry about that mate, let’s sort you out.”
“No,” said Randal, pushing him off. “I am fine. Please, you must pursue him.”
“That’s not important right now,” said Alex, looking around for a first aid kit. All he could find was a towel. He folded it up into a tight wad and pressed it against Randal’s wound. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
Randal pushed him away again, a little angrily this time. “He took my work! All my data, everything. If he succeeds in getting that to his superiors, we are all finished. You cannot let that work get into the wrong hands. Please, it is vital that you stop him.” He pulled out his phone, showing Alex a street map with a flashing dot on it. “I stabbed him with a tracker. You must hurry, before it is too late.”
Alex was torn. He checked Gerald and Nadine for a pulse. Nothing. Randal’s wound didn’t appear to be bleeding much, but the bullet could have shredded his organs. It didn’t seem right to leave him.
“Go,” said Randal plaintively. “I have stabilised myself. I will be fine.”
Alex picked up the pistol. “You’d better still be alive when I get back.”
Randal forced a smile. “I am not your biggest problem now. You are my test subject, and he now has your data. If you do not hurry, you will be hunted down for dissection.”
Alex ran out of the building, using the phone to try and get hold of Forbes. All he got was a message box. Cursing, Alex jumped in the car and burned rubber all the way down the hill.
He considered calling the police, then remembered he was in a stolen car.
Dissection? What the fuck was all that about? And who’d be after Randal’s data? A foreign government? Mafia?
The town lights were still turned off and Alex ran the red lights at the junctions, the roaring exhaust loud in the town centre streets. He caught a glimpse of a flashing blue light as a police car raced by in a different direction. Heading to Nicky’s body, no doubt. Following the tracker, Alex crunched the gears and overtook everything in sight, leaving the town centre and entering the estates.
The tracker hadn’t moved from the same spot, and Alex figured that the assassin had holed up in a safehouse. Screeching to a halt outside a set of tower blocks, Alex jumped out.
He was in Pinnercote now, still known locally as Pinnerski for all the migrants who used to live there, though they were long gone now, having decamped to greener pastures with better job prospects. Two of the blocks were now scheduled for demolition, and the others were sparsely populated, with hardly a light showing. A gang of lads on a weed strewn square confronted him for having the temerity to invade their turf, and Alex soothed their hostility with a couple of knock out blows and the occasional rib cracking. He was in no mood to mess about and they soon took off, leaving him free to enter one of the blocks and climb the steps, two at a time.
The corridor of the fourth floor was the usual mess of graffiti and used needles, but it was otherwise quiet. Alex glanced at the phone to check he was outside the right apartment, then readied his gun.
The assassin could well be uploading the data already. Chances were, he wouldn’t be alone either. He’d need accomplices to track the target and act as backup. Alex gave himself a whispered double dose of stimulant, then kicked the door in.
The slow motion thing happened again, with the door swinging open at a glacial pace, and wood splinters hanging in the air, along with the cracked door catch, catching the light as it spun. With his pistol sights tracking across the room, Alex was surprised to find, not a professional hunched over a laptop, but a bloke slouching on the sofa, watching television.
It can’t be every day that you find an armed man kicking in the door to your flat, but the guy didn’t react with the kind of shocked surprise that most people would have exhibited. No, he dropped the TV remote and whirled round in a defensive crouch with a speed that matched Alex’s. His hand grabbed a weapon and brought it up to aim, though it looked to Alex just like a hair dryer. No matter. Alex reacted automatically to the aggressive manoeuvre with a shot, dead centre, to the man’s forehead. A split second later, the hair dryer emitted a flash of emerald green light.
There was the briefest of pauses. Alex stared at the mark on the guy’s forehead where the bullet had struck, but there was no blood, and the guy hadn’t fallen down dead like he was supposed to. The guy looked equally surprised that his hair dryer hadn’t achieved much either.
What the fuck?
With astonishing speed, the man turned and leapt straight at his window, shattering it. Alex darted after him, vaulting the broken glass and landing on the fire escape. The guy was already one storey up and Alex chased him, pumping hard to keep up. He ran all the way up to the roof, catching a glimpse of movement as the man streaked away.
Either Alex’s drugs had stopped working, or this guy was a racing snake, because Alex struggled to gain on him. The assassin, if that’s what he was, leapt the gap to the next block and Alex followed, clearing the dark chasm and landing heavily on the other side, the features of the roof difficult to make out in the gloom. The sound of a door slapping open told him that the assassin was now heading down the stairwell and Alex skidded round the doorway and down the steps, grabbing the rail and leaping down each level.
Catching sight of him again in a lit corridor, Alex pounded after him, watching as he smacked open each fire door that he ran through, the dents on the doors and the smashed safety glass indicating that this guy had some strength in him. When the assassin reached the steps at the end, he bounded down the levels like he had spring powered legs. It was punishing work keeping up with him, but the challenge only drove Alex on harder.
He’d almost caught up with him on the lower level when the assassin turned and delivered a shocking punch that snapped Alex’s head back and caused him to see stars. Instinctively, Alex kicked him hard, knocking him back into the wall. Both recovered at the same time and were soon trading blows that would have made a cage fighting audience wince. Alex hammered his fists into a body that felt like it was made of iron, and the assassin twisted and turned, hammering him back from different directions and kicking out in an attempt to break his legs. Alex dodged and leaned in, keeping the distance close, and the two
were soon grappling each other, throwing each other round the stairwell and into the walls, denting and dislodging the plaster. Alex gripped him tight and went down a step, trying to pull the assassin down and off his balance, but the assassin locked his arms around his body and lifted him back up, almost off his feet. Alex grabbed his head, trying to twist it round, but the strength in the assassin’s neck was incredible, and it was like trying to twist a concrete bollard. With his hand planted across the assassin’s face, Alex heaved as hard as he could, but the assassin broke free, kicking out with both legs and springing away, hitting the opposite wall.
Alex had lost his grip because he’d ripped the guy’s nose off. It was still in his hand and it was rubbery.
A prosthetic.
Shocked, Alex stared at the guy’s face. Where the man’s nose had been there was now just a deep gash. Again, no blood. The skin on the assassin’s face was in tatters and Alex could see it was just a mask. Underneath it, the assassin’s real face was a deep, sinewy green, almost khaki. The cheekbones were pronounced and sharp, like they’d been chiselled from a jewel. The mouth was tiny, just a little horizontal slit, and the eyes bulged.
Just like Randal’s.
Alex was too stunned to prevent the assassin from leaping away down the stairs, and too slow as the assassin raced out of the building.
The guy wasn’t even fucking human.
Alex dropped the prosthetic and bounded after him, a thousand questions ricocheting around his head.