Luthecker

by Domingue, Keith

  Harris watched the Black Hawk roar overhead before he turned to Labaton.

  “They could be anywhere.” He commented.

  “Recon says they haven’t moved from this block. That means we go door to door.” Labaton replied.

  “This isn’t Iraq.”

  “You mean this isn’t a stupid clusterfuck waiting to happen? You know we don’t belong here. This is a police issue.”

  “Orders are orders.” Harris replied. He slung his rifle back over his shoulder as a personnel carrier pulled into the street. A dozen armed men dressed in Coalition Black fatigues scrambled out from the back of the vehicle and stood in formation, waiting for their orders.

  “We’re sitting ducks out here.” Labaton commented.

  “They aren’t stupid. We only want the four, and none of the others are going to risk their lives for them by taking pot shots at us. Let’s break off into threes, go door to door.”

  • • •

  Rooker and Winn examined the street below from the balcony window. They watched as several armed men poured out of the back of a truck, like so many ants.

  Yaw stood with Chris and Camila, sticks strapped to their backs.

  “Head down to the first floor.” Winn told them.

  Yaw nodded, and the three headed out of the apartment.

  “They’ve blocked off both ends of the street. We have eight buildings, four on each side of the street, between the blockades. There are six cars parked on the street, and three of them are mine. Then we got the two Hum-Vees and their transport. I got men in each building. That’s what we got. What’s the play?” Rooker asked.

  “They’re headed to the buildings in groups of three.” Winn replied, as he nodded to the activity on the street below. “Let my Couriers handle them. They are in each building as well.”

  “Then what do you need my people for?”

  “Are they good shots?”

  • • •

  “Bird in the sky reports no movement on the rooftops.” Labaton told Harris. He listened to his blue tooth for more. “Reports are coming in, everyone is being cooperative with the searches. But no one’s saying a word.”

  “Of course not. But they’re in here somewhere. And we’ll find them.” Harris replied.

  He eyed the apartment building that held Winn, Rooker, and the others.

  “You and I get this one.”

  The men pulled their M-16’s from their shoulders, and made for the building entrance.

  • • •

  Winn turned to Rooker.

  “Now.” He told him.

  “You’re gonna owe me for the rides.” Rooker replied, before getting on his cell phone.

  “We’re green.” Is all he said, before flipping his phone shut and going back to the window.

  There was the quick crackling sound of gunshots before the six cars parked on the street exploded near-simultaneously, flames from ignited gas tanks blasting high in the air. The intense heat and thick black smoke nearly engulfed the Black Hawk, and the pilot pulled up hard on the stick and circled back around.

  Harris whipped his head back in reaction to the cars exploding in the street. What happened next he felt before he saw. His trigger hand was suddenly shattered, causing him to drop his weapon. In a blur of aluminum sticks, his jaw and right knee were also broken to pieces, his attacker gone before his M-16 hit the floor.

  “Pull back, pull back.” Was the last thing he heard before he felt Labaton drag him out of the building.

  • • •

  “Why didn’t we shoot out their rides?” Rooker asked, shaking his head as he watched the thick black smoke of burning vehicles fill the air.

  “Because it will look like they attacked us, not the other way around, and they know it. We made a lot of noise, and news helicopters are already being scrambled. It will take them less than ten minutes to get here.”

  Rooker smiled.

  “You crazy old Nip, I like the way you think. What next?”

  “We wait.”

  “For what?”

  “A little bit of luck.”

  “Try again?”

  “If something doesn’t happen beforehand to stop them, they have ten minutes to decide whether or not they are going to gun down an entire block of civilians.”

  • • •

  Labaton dragged the near unconscious Harris for cover behind the lead Hum Vee. His own right hand had been shattered before he retreated, hit by a stick, and he had lost his weapon. The insurgent attackers had timed their strike perfectly with the explosions, and had moved with incredible speed.

  He looked around and saw cars on fire, billowing thick black smoke, while soldiers pulled injured colleagues back from the buildings and behind cover.

  It reminded him of the streets of Iraq.

  “You alright?” He asked Harris.

  Harris’ jaw was swollen and he was visibly in pain. He gave a weak thumbs up with his left hand.

  Harris tugged on Labaton’s arm. Labaton knew right away what he was asking.

  “No casualties. We got beat back by guys with fucking sticks.”

  He looked back over the carnage.

  “They blew up their own. Left our vehicles alone. Smart. News ‘Copters are gonna be on this in no time. It’s gonna look like we did it.”

  Laboton tapped his blue tooth, looked at Harris.

  “Bird in the sky wants to know—Do we open fire before the press gets here?”

  Through the pain of his broken jaw, Harris slowly nodded yes.

  “Jesus. Are you sure? We do this, it changes everything. And there will be no going back. We’ll be just like all the other places.” Labaton replied.

  Harris nodded again, this time more assertive.

  Labaton shook his head in disbelief before radioing the Black Hawk.

  “Bird in the Sky you are green. Take out the insurgents in the Northeast building structure.” Labaton ordered.

  He swallowed hard as he watched the Black Hawk helicopter circle back towards its target.

  • • •

  “Tell me what I want to know, right now, or I swear to God, I’m going to beat you until you’re dead.” Brown said with barely contained anger, as he got to his feet, electric baton crackling in his hand.

  Alex stayed seated. He braced himself for the reaction to what he would say next.

  “You’re going to lose.”

  “Fuck you.” Brown said, before cracking Alex across the leg with the baton.

  Alex’ entire body constricted with pain, unlike anything he had ever felt before. His leg where the baton had hit felt like it had been seared with a hot poker. His stomach contracted hard from the flow of current, and he suppressed the urge to vomit. His head felt like it had been hit with a hammer, and he became disoriented. He collapsed onto the floor.

  He lay there for a moment before slowly lifting himself to his hands and knees, his arms and legs shaking. He crawled back onto the couch, and resumed his seat across from Brown.

  He locked eyes with Brown, defiant. Brown loomed over him, stick reared back for another strike. Alex noted the sweat on Brown’s forehead. The rage in Brown’s eyes. Alex fought back his urge to panic, fought to clear his head. Fought to stay on point. He didn’t know Zemin, but he knew Brown’s fears, and would play on them, and look for an opening. He hoped that that would be enough. He knew it was his only chance for survival. His heart raced. He knew he had to let Brown speak first, if he was going to have any chance.

  “I’m going to kill your friends, Alex. And make you watch. And then I’m going to kill you. If you don’t tell me what I need to know.” Brown said.

  Alex tried to swallow, noticing that his mouth had gone very dry.

  “Zemin has you backed in a corner, and he knows it.” Alex began, measuring his response very carefully. “Wars are not won with bullets; they are won with wealth. History has proven this time and time again. The backbone of the American system is Capitalism; its blood is oil. Its hea
rt, the dollar. Capitalism begets consumption, and by its very definition everything is eventually consumed. You don’t need a pattern reader like me to calculate this. Just a third-grade education. We’ve already rotted from the inside out. Done half his work for him. All that’s left for him to win the war is to destroy the dollar and control the oil supply. And he’s going to do exactly that. That’s what you wanted to know, right? If he was actually going to do it? Well the one thing I got from seeing him, the look in his eye, is that he is.”

  Brown’s face drained. If this were true, if Alex was to be believed, he would have to act fast. Get in front of the situation to maximize any advantage. He would put the U.S. on an immediate war footing, and it would be a war to end all wars.

  Alex had Brown on his heels, at least for the moment. But he also knew that there was nothing left to discuss, and Brown no longer had reason to keep him or his friends alive. If he were going to take his shot, it would have to be now.

  “I only have one question for you.” He began. “The nurse who came in here; she was innocent. Why did you have to kill her?” Alex asked, and then he braced himself.

  “Fuck you.”

  Brown swung the stick at Alex’ head, a death strike.

  Alex barely got his arm up in time to deflect. The pain was like a thousand bee stings, and every muscle in his body convulsed. He found himself face down on the floor again, this time not remembering how he got there. Through force of will alone he stayed conscious.

  “You don’t know, the things I’ve had to do, to keep this country safe. To protect its lifestyle. Do you think, that these things are free? Do you think, the fast cars, the big houses, the boats, the vacations, the cheap oil that floats it all, doesn’t have a real cost? Well it does. We’re all in this together, Alex. No one’s innocent. We all participate. I’m just the one who makes sure the bill is paid. I’m the one who makes sure we stay on top.”

  Brown raised the stick again.

  “You said you wanted to know your options.” Alex said, holding his hands up in defense.

  He saw in Brown’s eyes his intent to kill. He remembered Master Winn’s words: Trust your training.

  “We both know that there aren’t any options. With all of your supposed abilities, can’t you read that?”

  “You have one—Change.”

  “Never.”

  Alex sprung from the couch just as Brown swung the stick. He caught Brown at the knees, and forced the man to crash to the floor, flat on his back.

  Brown immediately swung the baton towards Alex, but Alex stayed low and close to Brown’s torso, allowing him to deflect the strike at the arm below the stick. He then locked his arm around Brown’s elbow, and lifted up against the joint with all his strength. He heard the snap of bone and the scream of pain in quick succession.

  The baton dropped to the floor, and Alex picked it up. He got to his feet and stood over Brown.

  • • •

  Every analyst in the Coalition Properties Information Center was dead quiet. They all stared at a monitor, either at their desk or on a wall, in complete shock. Less than ten minutes ago, some hacker had hijacked all the screens in the building, and had re-routed all the audio-visual feeds to pick up the signal from one room in the building, the one that held Alex Luthecker. They had all witnessed and heard the CEO of their company beat a man and admit to murder.

  Director Stephens sat in his office, stunned. He had just watched Alex take a beating from Richard Brown, before Luthecker got the better of him, breaking the CEO’s arm in the process. Stephens didn’t move. He had no idea what to do. The line of succession at Coalition Properties West after Brown was him.

  Stephens finally picked up his office phone, dialed a number.

  “Abort.” He yelled into the receiver, without any greeting. “You heard me. Pull them

  back. It’s all over the News, and that looks bad for the Company.” He briefly listened to a protest on the other end of the line. “Look, the situation has changed,” he interrupted. “Richard Brown is no longer in charge. In his absence, I am, and I’m telling you, pull your entire unit back, now.”

  He hung up the phone. Doctor Lansky appeared in Stephens office doorway, Lax right behind him.

  “Did you see that?” Lansky asked.

  “Everybody saw that.”

  “Siobhan Parker is missing. That son of a bitch, do you think he—? “

  “I don’t know.” Stephens cut him off. “All I know is that we’ve been lied to.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We hold him. We hold Brown. And call the police.”

  “But what about…Luthecker?”

  Stephens thought a moment before answering. He looked at Lax, Lansky.

  “We hold him too.”

  “But he didn’t do anything.”

  “This is a criminal matter. We’ll let the police sort it all out.”

  The muscles in Lax’s jaw tightened as he fought the urge to protest.

  He and Lansky looked at one another.

  “Yes sir.” Lansky replied, before the two men left Stephens office.

  • • •

  “Abort. I repeat. Abort.” Labaton screamed into his earpiece. He hoped that he wasn’t too late. He watched as the Black Hawk, missiles visible, hovered less than two hundred feet above him.

  He let out a sigh of relief as he watched the Bird suddenly pull up hard and bank left.

  “Stand down. Everyone stand down.” Labaton continued. “Let’s pack up and go home.” He finished, before he turned to Harris.

  “Brown is out at Coalition,” he told him. “Thank God.” he added.

  • • •

  “They’re packin’ up.” Rooker thought out loud, as he watched Coalition Soldiers pile into the transport and Hum Vees before driving off.

  He turned to Winn.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Winn smiled.

  “A bit of luck.”

  • • •

  “Brown is a psychopath.” Isabella replied to Stern, his voice strained and shaky. “He’s been obsessed with this Luthecker character for years. But as far as I can tell, the guy hasn’t done anything. But who’s going to argue with Brown?”

  Stern looked over the man who stood in surrender-pose in front of him. He was short, with a slight build, and wore thick glasses and a cheap suit. He looked like an accountant, and Stern didn’t buy for a second he was simply wandering the halls.

  “Just take me to his cell.” He said, wary.

  “This way.” Isabella said, before turning back in the direction he came, and moving briskly down the hall with a part jog, part walk pace. Stern kept the Streetwise stun gun ready in the palm of his hand as he followed.

  Stern took note as they passed several doors before taking a quick left into a six-foot hallway recess that led to a dead end door.

  “He’s in here.” Isabella said.

  Stern sensed the set up just as the attack happened.

  Jones approached from behind and thrust a short blade at Stern’s left kidney, slashing his back and ripping the skin open as Stern spun around and slapped him across the face with five million volts. Jones rocketed across the hallway from the intensity of the discharge and slammed into the wall before crashing to the floor in a dead body drop. His eyes were frozen wide open in a permanent shock glare, the side of his face burnt and smoking from the massive blast of current emanating from the Streetwise.

  Isabella pulled his blade free from the shoulder holster he had hidden under his jacket as he watched Jones being electrocuted. He timed the slash of his blade across the neck perfectly as Stern turned back to face him. He watched with curiosity as Stern grabbed ahold of his neck with his free hand, eyes wide with shock, and tried with futility to stem the flow of blood. He stepped back as Stern dropped to his knees, the blood oozing between his fingers until the red liquid obscured his entire hand. He slumped forward, face first, landing on the floor with a dull thud.

&nbs
p; Isabella carefully wiped his blade clean on Stern’s shirt before stepping over his body and back out into the open hallway.

  He had passed Luthecker’s cell on the way to the trap point, and once he had re-holstered his knife, he began to make his way back.

  Brown had told him to report to Luthecker’s cell once the intrusion threat had been neutralized. There had been only two intruders, and the body of the other had been found at the bottom of the elevator, apparently the result of a fall. Although luck was never something that could be counted on, it was also never something to be discounted. Climbing through the elevator service systems was not something he and his now late partner had accounted for, and the breach would have to be addressed in his final report. Still, the mission overall had been a success.

  He stopped in front of the door to Luthecker’s cell. He slid back the door on the eye level view slot, and saw through the small Plexiglas window that Luthecker appeared to be sitting quietly on the couch, unaware of any of the on goings out in the hall. Brown had given him the code to enter, and his instructions clear and to the point—after eliminating the intruders, if he’d not heard different from Brown, he was to close the Luthecker account and then dispose of the body. Once this was done his mission would be complete, and Isabella’s account would be wired the proper compensation, double the original amount due to the fact that Jones had not survived. He intended to visit Italy, the Amalfi Coast perhaps, for a much-deserved vacation.

  Isabella punched the numbers on the keypad in proper sequence, and the door lock LED turned green. He carefully opened the door, and stepped inside Luthecker’s cell.

  “Mr. Luthecker.” He gently called out.

  Alex slowly got to his feet, and turned towards the sound of the voice.

  “My name is Mr. Isabella.” The assassin announced, as he calmly approached Luthecker.

  He froze when he saw Richard Brown’s bound and gagged body lying in front of the couch.

  Brown’s eyes were wide with pain and shock as they locked onto Isabella’s. His mouth was gagged with a pillowcase, and held back the indecipherable roar of anger. His hands and feet had been tied together with a bed sheet. His right arm appeared to be severely broken.