“You talk big for somebody tied up with a gun pointed at him,” he said.
“Your round isn’t even chambered,” I told him. I didn’t know that for sure but I was just trying to throw him off guard, however, it didn’t work. He cocked the gun again, expelling a bullet, moving another one into the chamber.
“You are bothering me, Wolf,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just kill you myself.
“Do you have a wife?” I asked him.
“But I would actually like to have your girl killed first, so you can feel the pain,” he said ignoring me.
“She’ll die,” I said, ignoring him, “how about kids, do you have kids?”
“The pain in which you will feel after losing everybody will have you begging me for mercy,” he said turning my own lines into his.
“They’re dead too,” I said.
“I’m going to kill you, Wolf, and you could have maybe survived this if you hadn’t run your mouth,” he told me.
“Fuck you,” I said as I stood up from my kneeling position, the gun still in my face, “you are the least of my worries right now.”
“I have a gun to your head,” he said. “How can I be the least of your worries.”
“You have a gun pointed at me,” I said, “that’s different than to my head.” While talking I had slipped my hands through the zip tie and now I brought them around and grabbed then gun and pulled it close so that the nose of the gun was touching my head.
“Now, you have a gun to my head,” I said. The guy behind him drew his gun and pointed it at me but the other guy put his hand up, asking him to wait.
I had the nose of the gun pressed firmly to my head and my eyes were wide with intensity and anger. I could tell the guy wasn’t prepared to kill me and he was caught off guard.
“Everybody wants to put me through hell,” I told him. “I’ve already gone through hell and I’m going through it again. So quit fucking talking and just kill me if you want to kill me,” I told him. “You don’t scare me one bit and while I want to protect my girl, if I’m dead there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You realize he will probably do awful things to her, don’t you?” he asked. He was trying to get me to doubt myself or second guess my actions but it wasn’t going to work.
“Who’s calling the shots?” I asked him.
“I am,” he said. “The person who has the gun has the power.”
“Not now,” I said frustrated that he didn’t understand. “Who’s telling Justin what to do? Who told him to take Emma and to make me kill all these people? Who is behind everything?” He looked surprised I had asked this.
“I cannot tell you this information,” he said. His thick accent made him speak slow and everything was pushing my buttons. I firmly placed both hands on the gun and closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.
“Pull the goddamn trigger,” I said. He thought about it for less than a couple of seconds before I felt the slight movement in his hand. I could feel it as one of my fingers was right on top of the tendon in his hand that was attached to his trigger finger.
As he was slowly putting tension on the trigger, squeezing it, not pulling, I put my plan of action into place quickly. I pressed the magazine release and pulled the magazine out, quickly, and moved to the side of the gun just as he finished squeezing the trigger. The bullet passed right by my head and hit the guy behind me. From the ringing and pain I could tell my ear drum had blown.
I moved my hand underneath the gun and pushed it up and backwards as hard as I could so it would connect with his face. The top of the gun connected with his nose and I heard the familiar crack of a breaking bone.
I brought my leg back and kicked the side of his leg hard and quickly, knocking him to the ground and as I did I took the gun from his hands. I kneed him in the face, knocking him down onto his back. He lay there, stunned, not really moving, knowing I was now in charge of this room.
I took my time while bending down and getting the magazine. I jammed it back into the gun and chambered a round. I turned to the guy that was behind me who was moving around on the floor slowly. I knew he was going to die but I shot him in the head anyways. I then turned and pointed the gun back at the main guy.
“Who sent you?” I asked him.
“I cannot tell you,” he said.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t,” I told him.
“I’m dead anyways,” he said. His lack of cooperation was pissing me off.
“I want you to know,” I told him. “I’m going to find out who you are, and I’m going to kill your family, whether you’re dead or not. They’re going to pay for what you chose to do and for what you decided to take to your grave.” I could see him questioning the motive.
“You will not understand what I mean even if I told you,” he said.
“Try me,” I told him.
“Your time will end soon Wolf; and knowing that makes me feel confident that I will not meet my family in heaven.” I was tired of him talking and I shot him six times, all in the chest. I got the bodies out of my house and took care of them the same way I had taken care of many other bodies.
The next job on my list was going to be a bit trickier as I had to complete it within a building that had a lot of people without any of them knowing and I knew I needed to get through my list quickly.
Silent Kill
The next kill was set up to be a silent kill. The target’s name was Lance and he was the head of his own little group of guys in an organized crime syndicate. They had a group of ten or fifteen guys as well as some cops that they had paid off to help them run their organization.
Lance was a pretty simple guy when it came to the business his group did in the fact that he’d do most anything for the right price. They had moved product, acted as transporters for people and products, smuggled people and products, hustled businesses into paying them off to stay away as well as killed people. He had been in the business for quite awhile and I figured he would run a tight security structure.
The paperwork I had told me when he moved on a regular basis, where to, and offered the best times to make the move. After researching everything I agreed with the analysis and knew that the best place to hit him would be at the house they all lived in and during the day.
In the past some of his rivals had made a run at them in the middle of the night so it looked like his highest security was during that time. The only issue was that an attempt during the day would be harder to keep quiet and harder to stay out of sight.
I gathered everything I needed and drove the five hours to the location of his house. I went to a coffee shop nearby and got myself a coffee and watched for movement from his guys. While I sat there I thought back to the shed Justin had said he was hiding in. I knew that shed so well from when Emma and I had hidden in it when on the run and it pissed me off that I had missed details that would have led me to see he wasn’t actually in the shed.
I thought about my parents house and how it had been destroyed and how I was going to make Justin pay for that too as well as whoever was giving him his orders.
Ten o’clock rolled around in the morning and I got up from my table at the coffee shop and made my way to the building Lance was in. I had seen him come out and survey the perimeter with some of his guys about an hour earlier.
I walked up to the front door and dropped a small smoking unit next to it. The unit would start smoking in about five minutes and I moved myself towards the back of the property and placed another one in the back.
I then walked to the building next to his, which was almost identical, and entered it. My research had told me that these were apartment buildings and that the structure was very much like Lance’s building only more closed off due to the separate units.
I took notice of the floor plans as I worked my way up the stairs. I passed the do not enter gate at the top floor and continued up the stairs and through the door that led me to the roof. My orders were clear; I couldn’t kill anybody but Lance and t
hen I had to get out of there without anybody noticing I had even been there.
It would have been a lot easier if I could have killed at least just one of them as they had a guy stationed on the top of the building, watching, and getting past him was going to be the tricky part.
My watched beeped faintly and I knew it was indication that the smokers were going off. It wasn’t long before I heard the doors to the front and back opening and some guys yelling to the other guys to get water or an extinguisher.
The guard on the top of the building moved and I knew I had probably one minute to act. I backed up as far as I could and started a full sprint towards the ledge of the building I was on. I planted my left foot on the ledge of my building and pushed off as hard as I could, leaping from the building I was in to Lance’s building. I came down on the ground hard, rolling to try and soften the landing, and quickly moved to the roof door. I saw the guard turning towards the noise that was being made just as I had shut the door.
Now that I was in it was just a matter of locating Lance. I assumed he had gotten up shortly before nine, surveyed the perimeter with his guys out of paranoia, or at least to show them he was keeping watch to keep them on guard, and then ate his breakfast.
Assuming he was like any other person who didn’t have to rush it had taken him thirty minutes to eat his breakfast. After that, like other people, he probably took a shit and then decided to take a shower. Except he didn’t seem like a shower guy from what I read, instead he seemed like a guy who would sit in a giant bath tub, possibly smoking a cigar and watching the news until his skin turned wrinkly.
From the floor plan I had studied on paper and the floor plan in the apartment I assumed all of his stuff would be on the third floor. He wouldn’t want the top floor in case somebody had found a way to attack from up top and he wouldn’t take the bottom two because that’s where his heaviest defense was.
I listened, trying to hear any movement, but after hearing nothing I quickly made my way to the third floor. I quietly opened the door and looked inside, surveying the room, but I didn’t see anybody in what looked like a giant lounge. From the big television in the room as well as all the nice looking things I knew this had to have been his area.
I listened again and could hear the faint sound of a different television. I carefully made my way through the room towards the sound and found the room the sound was coming from. I pressed my ear to the door and could hear the slight movement of water in what sounded like a bathtub. Damn, I’m good, I thought to myself.
I screwed the silencer onto my gun and just as soon as I was getting ready enter the door I heard the door from the stairs open and somebody call to him.
“Boss, you busy?” the voice asked. I quickly moved backwards into the doorway next to me that led to the bedroom and rolled under the bed to stay out of sight. The guy walked up to the bathroom door and knocked twice. “Hey boss,” he said. “It’s Roland.”
“What the fuck do you want?” Lance said.
“We had a situation on both doors,” Roland said.
“What kind of situation?”
“Somebody left some smoke bomb things at each door but we got them put out and everything seems normal,” Roland told him.
“Why are you telling me then?” Lance said.
“Well, I,” Roland began to stumble over his words, “I just thought you may want to know.”
“Probably just some punk ass kids. Now leave me be unless it’s something important,” Lance said.
“Yes sir,” Roland said. He turned and left as quickly as he had come in the room and went out the door back to the stairwell.
I rolled out from under the bed after making sure he was gone and moved back to the bathroom door. I took a deep breath preparing to hush any women he may have up there and opened the door.
Lance was alone in the bathtub, his back to me as he watched the T.V. hanging from the wall. I reached for my pistol only to feel it wasn’t there. I realized it must have fallen out under the bed as I was rolling out and I was going to have to improvise.
“This better be fucking important,” Lance said without turning towards me. His back was covered in tattoos though I couldn’t see enough of him to make out what they were.
“It is,” I said. As he noticed that he didn’t recognize the voice he turned back towards me with fear in his eyes. As he did I grabbed him and pushed him under the water, submerging his entire head.
His shouts were muffled by the water and I knew by shouting he was only making this a quicker job for me. He swung his arms up at me several times and landed a couple of punches but I kept his head pushed under the water until he stopped moving. I held him there for another couple of minutes to ensure the water had completely filled his lungs and that he wasn’t just pretending to be out.
As I let go his body stayed in place almost motionless. I grabbed him and propped him back up on the side of the tub, using his arms to hold him up out of the water to make it look like he was still just enjoying his bath.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Justin’s number as the paperwork had instructed me to do.
“It’s done,” I told him. “Lance is dead and as of right now nobody even knows I was here. There are several windows around so I plan on using one of them for my escape.”
“I changed my mind,” Justin said, though I had no idea what he was talking about.
“What do you mean?” I asked him, confused. “I can’t bring him back to life. You’re crazy if you think I’m giving this fuck mouth to mouth.” Justin chuckled.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said, “even though that sounds funny as hell. What I meant was I changed my mind about letting his crew live. I want them dead. All of them,” he said.
“What?” I told him. “I didn’t come prepared for that,” I told him.
“Then I guess you better prepare yourself,” he said. “Actually, let’s make it fun.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“Well, the coroner of that town actually works for me. I use him to hide some deaths every now and then and to falsify some reports. Therefore when those guys are brought in I’ll know how each one was killed.”
“Okay, what’s your point?” I asked him, not getting what he was saying. He laughed again.
“This will be fun James,” he said. I couldn’t help but feel like he was talking like somebody else I knew but I just couldn’t put my finger on who it was. “There are eighteen guys in that building right now and another five showing up in less than an hour.”
“You want me to kill 23 guys?”
“Precisely!” he said.
“Okay,” I told him. “Fine. I’ll call you when I’m done.” I was ready to hang up when he spoke again.
“Wait, wait,” he said.
“What?”
“You didn’t get the full instructions yet,” he told me.
“What do you mean? You want me to kill them all; I get it.”
“I didn’t tell you how to kill them all,” he said.
“What?”
“23 guys,” he said. “I’ll give you five bullets. Five can be killed with a gun. Five can be killed with a knife. Five of them should be killed with your hands, and five with random objects around the place.” He stopped talking so I spoke.
“The last three?” I asked him.
“I’m not sure. Make it something unique,” he said.
“You’re fucking crazy,” I told him.
“I know,” he said. “This is fun isn’t it?”
“I’ll call you,” I told him.
“One more thing Wolf,” he said. I then heard a rustling of the phone and his voice in the background saying, “Go ahead, tell him what’s been happening.”
“James,” Emma’s voice came across the phone.
“Emma, baby,” I said. “I’m trying my best to get everything done to save you.”
“Tell him,” I heard Justin say again.
“James he’s been touch
ing me,” she said.
“What?!” It was all I could manage to say.
“Nothing too bad,” she said, “just running his hands on the outside of my clothes.” The anger inside of me peaked and I felt my face go hot.
“I swear,” I started but Justin had taken the phone back.
“You swear what?” he asked. “If I don’t hear from you within an hour it’ll be inside her clothes Wolf, do you understand?”
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I said.
“You better work on killing them first; you only have an hour,” he said, laughing, and then hung up the phone.
The First Five
I retrieved my gun from under the bed where it had fallen when I was under it and checked the clip. I had to make sure I kept track of what I used from it as I wasn’t sure if I want to use it right away.
I always had a blade on me so I also got it out and checked it over, making sure it was ready to go and plenty sharp. That would take care of ten of them, my hands would take care of another five, five I’d have to look around the house for something to kill them with and the last three I’d have to be creative.
I started thinking of possible objects in the house I could use. My blood was boiling from anger and I just wanted to get to Justin and to protect Emma but I knew I was going to have to get through these guys first.
The easiest guy to kill was going to be the one on the roof. Most likely nobody would stumble across his body after he was dead and he would be the easiest to persuade to believing I belonged there. I walked up the stairs passed the fourth floor and up through the door to the room.
As I stepped out I didn’t see him at first but then noticed he was back behind me on the roof looking over the edge. He heard me walking towards him and turned.
“Who are you?” he asked with a confused look on his face.
“Lance’s new guy, who are you?” I asked him.
“Jim,” he said. “The third one, assuming you’ve met the first two.”
“Yeah, three Jim’s,” I said, “seems confusing. I don’t know how he keeps you all straight.”
A Killer's Memoir 2: New Contracts Page 7