Once Dead

by Richard Phillips

  The man picked up an old-style curly-corded phone, his huge hands making the green handset look like a child’s toy. It had been four years since Jack had first seen Kazimer. He could still feel the sticky wetness, could still smell the blood that had bathed him as he’d struggled to lift the big man into his car. On that rainy night, three of Kaz’s competitors had pumped a dozen rounds into the giant, yet he lived while they had not. Jack had made sure of that.

  Odd how chance sometimes swept you up in its palm, rolling you across a giant, green-felt table as the players placed their bets. At those moments, Jack could almost hear a ghostly croupier yell . . . New shooter coming out!

  Although Jack had been in Poland on business, it had been chance that arranged the meeting at the precise moment the hit had gone down. Perhaps it had been because the contract was for Kaz, or maybe because the man provided a bigger, more intimidating target that had made all three shooters aim their first several shots at him. Whatever the reason, it hadn’t worked out all that well for them or for their boss. In Jack’s experience, it never made sense to shoot a mobster’s men, then leave him alive to hunt you down. So he hadn’t.

  In a way, Jack supposed that it had been Kaz who had saved his life that night, rather than the other way around. But that wasn’t how Kaz and Ludmina saw it and it had made Jack family, at least as close to family as the head of a Polish syndicate and a CIA killer could be. But that had happened in another life. In this one, the people he cared about got killed.

  In fact, he wouldn’t even be here if it hadn’t been for Rita. The people behind her killing had inside information on Jack’s resources. That meant he couldn’t use any of his usual suppliers. But nobody except for himself, Kaz, and Ludmina knew about his Polish connection. So here Jack was, even though it meant putting another old friend in danger.

  “My little wife says to make sure you don’t get lost getting to the house. It’s been so long she thinks you might have forgotten the way.”

  “I remember.” Jack laughed. Only someone as large as Kaz would call Ludmina little.

  “Yeah, well you follow me anyway. Wouldn’t want one of my boys thinking you shouldn’t be dropping by.”

  Jack nodded.

  Kaz led the way out of the office, pausing at the outer door to turn back toward his secretary. “I’m leaving. You might as well close up here.”

  Without looking up from her papers, the woman waved him away.

  At the bottom of the steps, the big man stopped.

  “Where you parked?”

  “Just around the corner.”

  “I’ll swing around. Wait for me there.”

  “I’ll be right on your ass. Black motorcycle.”

  By the time Jack stepped onto the Beemer, the black Mercedes pulled up beside him, pausing just long enough for him to strap on his helmet before heading away from the docks. A hard right turn onto Cementowa was immediately followed by a right that put them on Ludowa Street, headed north. Twenty-three minutes of fighting their way through rush-hour traffic brought them to the intersection of Szosa Polska and Na Wzgorzu. The Mercedes took a left turn and Jack closed up on its bumper while the residential neighborhood grew more prosperous around him, a collection of two-story houses separated by tree-lined green space.

  Turning into a large, fenced compound, the Mercedes paused as two guards nodded to the driver and opened the electrically controlled gate. When the car rolled forward, Jack moved in after it. As he passed through, the guard on Jack’s left attracted his attention. Something about the man’s stance felt wrong, but before he had a chance to examine the man more closely, they went by, pulling into the large house’s curved driveway.

  The three-story house was painted white, its red tile roof sporting three separate chimneys, as one would expect in a house this size in this northwestern region of Poland. In winter, the winds off Dabie Lake blew in so cold and damp that multiple hearths were more of a requirement than a luxury.

  As the triple garage door rumbled up along its track, Jack parked the Beemer in the driveway just to the left of the garage. Hanging his helmet over the handlebar, he stepped into the garage where Kaz waited. The driver, a muscular bald man with a Ruger strapped in a shoulder holster beneath his left arm, stepped around the rear of the car and opened the trunk. Once again, Jack felt that sense of wrongness. But here in the home of the man who ran Poland’s third-largest seaport, it was unlikely that the mobster’s enemies could threaten him, especially since a large portion of the city’s police force was on his unofficial payroll.

  When Jack stepped inside, the matronly woman in a blue-flowered dress and apron turned toward him, bread basket in hand, her shoulder-length blond hair framing a smiling face. As Jack started to greet her, he spotted the unusual bulge beneath the towels covering the dinner rolls.

  Diving hard to his left, Jack saw the wood doorframe explode behind the spot where his head had been a second before. Firing twice as he finished his shoulder roll, he saw his first bullet punch a round hole in the center of Ludmina’s forehead, the second catching her in the center of her chest. The dual impact hammered her backward into the stove, spilling the simmering kettle and sending blood sausages squirming across the tile floor like short red snakes.

  Kazimer moved fast for a big man, his massive bulk crashing into Jack as he spun toward his host, the force of the blow sending Jack’s H&K spinning across the floor, coming to rest beneath a cabinet. As the giant attempted the takedown, Jack went with it, using all his strength to increase the momentum Kazimer’s flying body had imparted to him. It was like being shot from a cannon. Although it prevented Kaz from wrapping him in those massive arms, the impact with the kitchen cabinet knocked the air from Jack’s body and opened a gash in the hairline on the left side of his head.

  Jack spun, delivering a kick to the side of Kazimer’s left knee that buckled the leg as he barely managed to dodge the grasping hand that sought to pull him into a fatal embrace. Seeing the big man reach for his own gun, Jack plunged toward the spot where Ludmina’s body lay sprawled across the stove, fire now spreading from her dress into her hair, the Ruger still clutched in her plump right hand.

  Grabbing her arm, Jack pulled and whirled, bringing her corpse around in front of him as the big man’s pistol belched. The first bullet took her high on the shoulder, the second hammered into her stomach. Then Jack had the Ruger in his hand, raising the weapon and pulling the trigger as he let Ludmina’s body fall away. Two head shots and the giant was down.

  The driver came through the garage door, gun leveled, seeking a target. Jack’s third shot sent him sprawling back into the garage. Reaching under the cabinet, Jack retrieved his H&K as a mental count started in his head. He didn’t have long, maybe thirty seconds, before the two guards outside came for him. Or, if they were smart, one would come while the other called the cops. Either way, Jack didn’t care to wait on them.

  Striding rapidly out through the dining room, he moved into the spacious living room, staying away from the windows and close to the wall. Bypassing the staircase that led to the second floor, Jack reached a game room, replete with hardwood floors and tables for poker and billiards. A door opened out onto a back deck, beyond which a tree-lined path led down to a small pond.

  The sound of the front door being kicked in got him moving. Avoiding the path, Jack stayed against the back wall. He paused briefly to check for more guards, then turned and sprinted along the east wall, coming to a stop just before he reached the front. All he had left to do was to turn that corner and sprint past the garage doors, start the motorcycle, and haul ass. But he felt that familiar tingle at the edge of his consciousness, a sense he’d been ignoring of late, and right now it was telling him that only one of the guards had gone inside.

  Where would the other man be? Somewhere with a good line of sight to that front door, but with cover. Most likely right against the wall, pistol aimed and ready in case the wrong person stepped out of it. Having made his decision, Jack rai
sed the H&K and spun around the corner, squeezing the trigger as his sightline cleared the side of the building. But this time the man wasn’t where he was supposed to be, having crouched down behind the wall on the far side of the open gate.

  The good news was that the guard was crouched behind the wall on the left side of the gate opening and would have to reveal himself to get a shot at Jack. The bad news was the Uzi he held in his hands. Jack ducked back around the corner as the submachine gun ate into the front of the garage. The brief glance had told him that this particular Uzi had an extended, forty-eight round clip and the guard had just used up about half the magazine repositioning himself behind the wall on the right side of the open gate.

  Not wanting to allow the guard time to swap magazines, Jack put a couple of blind shots around the corner and then pulled back, rewarded with another burst of nine-millimeter slugs in his direction. As soon as the two quick bursts stopped, he fired again, then again.

  When the guard didn’t immediately fire back, Jack came around the corner at a dead run. The first bullet hit the metal gate. The man slammed home his second magazine and released the slide that would push a cartridge into the chamber. As the gun started to rise, Jack’s next bullet lifted the guard and slammed him to the ground just beyond the gate. Seeing the guard struggle to rise, Jack squeezed the trigger twice more, the second shot sending a red plume out the back of the man’s head.

  At the motorcycle, Jack pressed the Beemer’s start button and left it running behind him as he raced for the front door, coming to a stop in the spot he’d incorrectly anticipated the dead guard would wait. Now that the shooting had stopped and the motorcycle noise had started, it wouldn’t be long. Kill zones did that. Pulled people to them like magnets. Psychology of war scholars had long observed this aspect of human nature. When a sniper shot one soldier in an open field, others would race to reach the downed man, and as more and more soldiers were drawn to the kill zone, their bodies would stack up. Leaders trained their men not to succumb to that deadly temptation, but many failed to resist that siren’s call.

  Jack waited for it and saw the concealed man swing the gun out through the open doorway. Grabbing the extended hand, Jack twisted hard, feeling the bones crack as he heard the gunshot. With the gun spinning away onto the driveway, Jack pulled hard on the broken hand and kicked, whipping the legs out from beneath the shooter attached to it. A scream gargled from the man’s mouth as he landed face down on the asphalt, and then it stopped as Jack pressed the H&K’s muzzle to the fellow’s head and squeezed the trigger.

  As Jack got back to his feet, the sound of distant police sirens launched him back toward the motorcycle. With blood running down the left side of his face, Jack slid on the helmet, stepped onto the running motorcycle, and laid a trail of smoking rubber all the way back out to the street. Turning north onto Szosa Polska, Jack accelerated, letting the city fall away behind him.

  An image burned itself into his head, an image of himself blowing the brains out of two people he’d cared about, two people he’d believed felt the same. Jack felt sick to his stomach. Someone had gotten to them, had turned people he didn’t think anyone even knew about, leaving him blind in a world that he needed to see. And while he could always cultivate new resources, that could only be done slowly and reliably, or quickly with great risk. He didn’t have time for the former and the latter probably wouldn’t get it done.

  That’s what big, powerful intel organizations did, took away your options until they funneled you to the kill. Back at Kazimer Wozniak’s compound, that had almost worked. Almost.

  So now he’d head back to the farmhouse outside Berlin. Then he’d play the one wild card he had left in his hand.

  CHAPTER 36

  “The Wozniaks are dead!”

  Victor Drugal’s words surprised Vladimir Roskov so badly that he almost dropped the cell phone.

  “What? How?”

  “I don’t have the details yet. Just that The Ripper went into their compound and killed them all. Kazimer Wozniak, his wife Ludmina, and three guards. He escaped the compound before the police arrived.”

  Vladimir forced himself to relax the grip that threatened to crush the phone into small, non-functional bits of plastic, metal, and glass.

  “Tell me we didn’t lose him again.”

  “One of Wozniak’s men put a GPS tracker on The Ripper’s motorcycle while it was parked at the docks outside Wozniak’s warehouse. We’re tracking it right now. He’s back in Germany, headed toward Berlin.”

  The sudden rush of adrenaline brought a grin to Vlad’s face. “Okay. Round up a dozen of our boys and get them moving. Wherever The Ripper stops, get him surrounded. I want that bastard alive, but I don’t care how badly he’s damaged.”

  “Koenig’s not going to like it.”

  “I don’t give a shit whether Koenig likes it or not! It’ll be over before he knows what happened. One less complication. Let me know as soon as it’s done.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  Vlad ended the call, returned the phone to his pocket, and walked to the penthouse window. The Polish Bear, the head of the Polish mob, a man who had seemed as indestructible as Vlad, was dead. Kazimer had been a crucial partner since their criminal organizations had joined forces eight months ago, forming a remarkably profitable relationship for both of them. The vacuum that would ensue after word of his death got out was sure to spark a war for control of Polish organized crime, one that Vlad would have to participate in if he was to maintain the special arrangements Kazimer had put in place.

  It was a tragedy, but out of it, some good had come. In a few hours he would have The Ripper at his tender mercy and then he would make sure the killer paid for all the trouble he had caused. And, on a day like this, it was nice to have something to look forward to.

  CHAPTER 37

  By the time Jack parked the motorcycle in front of the farmhouse, darkness gripped the German countryside. Still wearing his helmet, he walked directly inside and up the stairs to his room. When he removed the helmet, the scalp wound began bleeding again. As it was, so much blood caked the left side of his face that he looked like a car crash victim.

  Stripping off his leather jacket and shirt, Jack started a jet of hot water flowing into the sink and set about scrubbing the scabs and blood from his face, hair, and neck. When he was satisfied, he used a washcloth to apply direct pressure to the inch-long cut, then retrieved his first-aid kit and bandaged it with gauze.

  The image of Ludmina Wozniak splayed out across the stove—a round hole in the center of her forehead, green eyes wide open and staring as her hair caught fire—filled his mind. He needed a shower, needed to feel the hot water wash away the filth of this day. If only it could wash the filth from his soul.

  Jack stripped out of the rest of his clothes and wrapped a towel around his waist. He transferred his wallet and Janet’s USB dongle from his filthy jeans to a clean pair, grabbed some boxers and the shoulder holster that held his H&K and survival knife, and walked down the hallway to the water closet. Closing the door behind him, he locked it and stepped into the single stall, setting the water spray as hot as he could stand.

  The bar of soap in the ceramic dish was rough. Either it was one of those exfoliating pumice bars or it had been dropped on the floor a few times too often. Either way it felt good scrubbing his chest and shoulders. With the steam building to sauna thickness all around him, he breathed it deep into his lungs and let the tension drain from his body.

  He’d just finished toweling dry and pulling on his pants when the sound of the window in his room shattering preceded a shock wave that shook the building. Jack recognized the signature of the weapon. A flash-bang grenade designed to stun and incapacitate. Booted feet raced past the water closet, followed by the crash of splintering wood.

  Immediately Jack was in the hallway, his H&K barking twice, each nine-millimeter Parabellum hammering three-hundred pounds of force into the backs of two of the men who had entered his room.
But he’d heard a half-dozen running feet so he didn’t wait for a response. Launching himself down the narrow stairway, his shoulder slammed the wall at the turn and he rolled into the entryway as two more weapons blazed into the space where he’d just been.

  Again his gun bucked in his hand as his first bullet made an eye hole in a black hood and the second round spattered wood from the edge of the counter the fellow’s partner had just dived behind. Jack hit the open door at a run, leaped over Frau Gensler’s sprawled body, and ducked behind a tractor as a hail of bullets spattered off the farmhouse wall behind him. Then he was around the barn and into the woods beyond, his bare feet flying silently over the rough ground, with the sounds of shouts and loud crashing shredding the night’s silence behind him.

  Jack turned hard left, ducking through the brush and brambles, feeling the branches and thorns clutch at him with sharp fingers, their claws tearing at his flesh as sharp rocks gouged his bare feet. Three flashlight beams swept through the trees to his right, and although he was tempted to kill the wielders, he chose instead to ignore them. They were serving only to rob his hunters of their night vision and the flash of gunfire would give his location away, sending a spread of runners to cut off his selected escape route.

  He didn’t have a clear idea how many masked men had been sent to take him down, but it had to be at least ten. Even though he had sent three of them into the ever-dark, he didn’t really want to stick around for a drawn-out gunfight that would attract others to the action, including the police.

  Something off to his left brought him to a halt. Not movement. A stillness within the night that felt wrong. Moving silently down the bank, Jack entered a stream. At its center it was only chest deep, so Jack took a deep breath and ducked beneath the surface, propelling himself forward against the gentle current as a mental count started in his head.

  On a normal day Jack could hold his breath for more than six minutes. Right now though, he was winded. He’d been swimming beneath the surface for just over two minutes and already his lungs were screaming for relief. But based upon where he had sensed that unnatural stillness in the night, he hadn’t yet passed it. That meant his lungs would just have to wait. His mental count reached three minutes and still he forced himself to keep swimming, despite the fairy-dust sparkles beginning to appear at the edge of his vision.