With all the commotion on the front of the building, few noticed her painstaking decent on the opposite side. If anyone did, no one would have believed them.
#
Vika measured her lifespan in terms of bullets. She had four bullets left to live. Not very long. She just couldn’t get a clean enough shot to get by the gelvar.
“Ostafal is going to snap. Let’s hope your lady has done her job,” said Michael. “We have to make a run for it.”
His words were prophetic. Their constant badgering of Jose Smogging Ostafal – Vika’s new favorite name for him—indeed caused him to snap.
“I’m so goddamn tired of this bitch!” Ostafal yelled. He stood up and sprayed a burst of ammunition against their cover. It plinked harmlessly off of the sturdy dumpster they used for cover.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“She needs to die, enough stalling. They don’t have a chance.”
“Get back you fool. Let them waste the rest of their ammo—”
Vika knew she had one chance. She leaned out, drew aim, and pulled the trigger at the temporarily exposed man.
Crack. Her solitary gunshot rang out.
Ostafal dropped his gun to the ground, blood oozing up from his hand. His arms had been outstretched and the gun had blocked her bullet from improving his face. Not ideal, but destroying his ability to shoot back was a start.
Pain quickly returned fire. He had a better angle and forced her more tightly against the dumpster. His burst finished, she immediately reached around again and fired another shot. It struck Ostafal square in the right hamstring. He doubled over with a cry of pain and limped out of the alley.
Ostafal was defenseless and within her grasp. She only had two bullets left now, not enough to save their lives. She might fail her intended mission, but at least with her dying breath she could accomplish one last good deed: ridding the universe of Jose Smogging Ostafal.
Tanya, you had better eliminated that sniper. Otherwise, I’m a dead woman, and far more importantly, Ostafal lives.
She shared a look with the others and ducked into the street. With any luck, the dumpster would block Pain’s view long enough for her to escape. Luthor and Michael followed wordlessly. Suddenly another chunk of sidewalk directly in front of her splintered violently up into their air. Half a second later, she heard the discharge of a Force Multiplier X8, a Seal-issue Semiautomatic Sniper rifle firing the 8.6 x 70mm Lapua magnum round. It sang like an aria off the streets of New York. Vika didn’t stop. Strangely, no more bullets fired. Even more strangely, the sniper had missed.
She dodged pedestrians, shoving them away haphazardly. She took the next alley hoping to cut Ostafal off. Thousands of hours of training and conditioning allowed her body to efficiently shunt away the lactic acid buildup in her muscles. Running flat out, she jumped, planted a foot on the side wall, vaulted a tall chain link fence, and landed without missing a step.
She turned, twisting through a back-alley maze, intent on her prey. Ostafal’s trail of blood left little doubt as to his path. She found him cornered against a fence he was now powerless to climb.
“I swore to myself if I ever saw you again, I would put a bullet in your head,” she said.
“And I swore to myself, if I ever saw you again, you would be on your back, chained to a bed. I guess neither of us will get our wish today.”
“Guess again. You still die.” He needed to die, a lot.
“This is your only chance to escape. Let me live, I will lead the others in the wrong direction.”
“Like hell you will. You are a liar, Ostafal.”
“Right now, I am in a generous mood.”
“Me too. I think I will give you another piercing, free of charge.”
Ostafal abruptly reached for a handgun he had secreted in his side pocket.
Vika didn’t give him the chance to retrieve it. She aimed quickly but carefully and pulled the trigger with joy. The bullet slammed Ostafal square above the left eye. He dropped immediately. Killing had become part of her job description normally providing no more emotional reaction than a desk worker might get after successfully filing a large stack of paper. But this kill felt good. Like the very hand of God patted her on the back for ending that asshole’s miserable life. She went to inspect the body and found that he did not actually have another gun. He had reached for a cellphone. The little rat had been trying to give away his position.
Luthor and Michael finally finished climbing the fence. Did they have to look for a ladder or something?
“We are so screwed,” Michael said.
“They are right behind us!” yelled Luthor.
And I only have one bullet, for two of them. A strange compulsion came over her as she saw her imminent death approaching. The urge to free herself and have no regrets became overpowering.
“Michael, you made me smile,” she blurted.
“What?”
“No man has made me smile in ten years. Thank you.” There it was. Out in the open. For another ten seconds or so.
Michael scrunched up his face in confusion, as his inferior, male brain struggled to make sense of her statement.
Then, as if he had been slapped by a massive hand, his body slammed up against the brick wall.
She had noticed it too late. Gravity had shifted. She too fell against the wall and the unexpected jerk of gravity yanked the pistol out of her hand. It bounced away toward Luthor. She found herself pinned, four meters in the air against the sheer brick wall of the adjacent building.
The side door of the building opened. Pain stepped out followed closely by the other soldier. Both held P110 sub-machine guns. “I never knew how effective gravity could be in a pinch,” Pain said. “Turns out, drug-sniffing dogs hate the stuff. And it works almost as well as handcuffs.” He must have found Luthor’s 126 in the stairwell. Vika felt like she weighed twice as much as usual. Judging from how they were pinned, he must have placed it against the inside of the wall, she wouldn’t be able to move it. “It doesn’t matter how trained you are, Agent Veronika. You just never see a change in gravity coming.”
Vika didn’t stop to ponder how the man knew her name, focusing instead on getting out of the gravity dimple. She slowly scooted toward the door. Since Pain had walked out of it, that meant gravity was normal there.
Luthor reached for Vika’s gun.
A blast from the sub-machine gun stopped him cold. “I don’t think so, Tenrel.” Luthor obediently put up his hands in surrender. “So, here’s the deal. You give me the name of your friend who took your research and the key to the encryption on your lab’s hard-drive and I’ll let you all live.”
Vika scooted some more.
“Why would I believe you’d let us just walk away from this?”
“Oh, you aren’t walking away. No chance of that. But I will take you into custody, and if you’re really good, I’m sure I can arrange for your cell to have a mattress.”
“I don’t have the key. It was inside the carp car you blew up.”
“Then the name. We’ll figure out the files on our own.”
“We’d destroy the research before we’d give it to you!” Michael yelled.
“I guess we won’t get it then,” Pain said with a sneer. “Of course, retrieving any actual data isn’t really all that important in the end.”
“It’s not all that important?” Luthor yelled. “Then why the hell are you trying to kill us?”
Pain smirked. There might have even been some genuine mirth behind it. “Good question Tenrel, struck right to the smogging heart of it. But I ain't—” He was cut off abruptly as an enormous man slammed into him.
“Run you retards!” the man shouted. He was as tall as Pain but with tattered clothes and tangled red hair.
“Thadd!” Luthor shouted in recognition.
Vika did not heed the sage advice of her Markless friend, not when there was a bullet left in the chamber. She finished sliding out of Pain’s BOG and leaped off the wall
. She landed, rolling to soften the impact of a four-meter fall and snatched her gun from the ground. The other soldier had whirled to face Thaddeus and leveled his sub-machine gun at him. Vika exhaled, then inserted her last bullet in a charming spot just right of his left ear. The slug rammed through his skull, and he collapsed.
Only one man left standing. If only she had another round. Nothing left for it but to get in there and engage. Her reflexes took over, the utility knife appeared in her hand, far more deadly than a bullet in close quarters. But she had to get inside a meter. Two quick slashes is all it would take. One to the back of Pain’s knee would destroy his leg tendons ability to contract and thus move. The second slice could go to any of several spots on his arm. The wrist would stop him from being able to grab anything, below the bicep or tricep and his arm would dangle like a cooked noodle—a very muscular noodle. Then he would answer all of the questions they could think of before she dispatched him. Thaddeus just had to keep him occupied a moment longer.
Her long legs closed the distance quickly, but not quickly enough. Thaddeus might have been a large man, but he held little chance against a seasoned special-forces soldier like Pain. He flipped Thaddeus on his back like a French omelet. A second later the P110 reared its ugly muzzle again.
“Not a good idea,” Pain said to her.
Vika froze, only three meters from doing her second good deed of the day. She itched to sink her knife into him, but had no desire to have a friend as brave as Thaddeus die for her recklessness.
Pain spat at Thaddeus’ supine form. “You will pay for that. I am going to shoot off every single one of your limbs. One at a time, until you smogging die.”
Thaddeus wiped the dangling sputum from his forehead. “You shouldn’t swear so much.”
Pain’s eyes narrowed in confusion. It was the last expression his face ever bore. The next instant, the side of his head exploded outward. It looked as if someone had detonated a focused charge inside his brain. He fell sideways, lifeless. The residual bang of a large caliber gunshot hung in the air.
Thaddeus turned toward the street where he himself had come from. Vika stared around the corner to see where the shot had originated. DeShawn stood thirty paces away, his massive handgun trembling in both hands.
Chapter 21:
One Hour Ago: New York City, NY
DeShawn stirred on his mat, his old back injury ached. It needed an adjustment, but it had needed an adjustment for ten years. Chiropractors remained outside his disposable income by a considerable margin; for that matter, so was a stick of gum.
The phone in Tony’s continued to ring periodically. For some reason it was more incessant than the rest of the growing background noise produced by the city in the early morning. Like a mosquito buzzing in his ear, it kept him awake. Not that he had slept much at all that night.
He rolled on his side. Something stabbed him in the side. He rolled back and removed the offending object. He turned a single, brass-encased .50 caliber bullet over in his hands. It fit his pistol like a glove.
Shame stabbed him sharper than the bullet. He had lied to everyone about the bullet’s existence. Father Roc didn’t know, not even Thadd knew about it. None of them could understand. They hadn’t done what he’d done. Seen what he’d seen. More than that, they had no idea what it felt like to be a killer, a murderer. The Lord had forgiven him, he knew that, and he had been given a new purpose. But the Lord was more benevolent than DeShawn himself was. He might be able to look at any sin and see the blood of Christ instead, but most of the time all DeShawn could see was the blood on his own hands. Dozens of dead men and women, even a few still young enough to be called children, crying out for justice.
All the killing had been for what? So he could eat dry dog food? There had been no meaning, purpose, or justification for anything he had done. At least Luthor had killed people in a war. DeShawn had killed to eat Purina out of a dog dish. They always made him eat it out of a smog—a stupid dog dish. He hated that. It was so humiliating. It would have been better for him to have just starved to death. At least then the rest of his victims wouldn’t have needlessly lost their lives.
He turned the projectile over in his hands as he did every time sleep eluded him. It would be so easy just to end all the shame. He didn’t keep the gun as a reminder of what he had been. That was a bold-faced lie. He kept the gun for protection. To protect the world from DeShawnte Martin, in case he ever got a little too hungry again. He could just slide it into the chamber, load it into place, and pull the trigger then… No more killer D. No more danger to the world. The fifty-caliber slug would blow a hole in his sinful brain big enough for Serenity to climb through.
He mulled it over in his head until dawn slithered up between the structures of the urban jungle. The ringing phone had kept him up all night, it gave him lots of time to think. Several times the temptation grew so strong that he actually loaded the gun. Each time he pushed it away, removing the bullet.
DeShawn lay on his side in the shadows of their fizzling fire, the gun resting against his head. His finger caressed the trigger, like a crack addict fondling a pipe.
“What the hell are you doing?” Thadd asked. He kicked him in the ribs, hard.
He hadn’t heard him return with Roc. He was light on his feet for such a big man.
“You gonna shoot yourself or something?” Thadd said again, “because I will smogging kill you if you commit suicide.”
DeShawn flushed and lowered his gun. The bullet resting in the open chamber clattered out and pinged on the concrete. He hurriedly snatched it, but Thaddeus slammed a foot on his arm. He could feel Thadd’s callused skin through the holes in his boot.
“Where’d you get a bullet?” Thadd said quietly.
“I ain’t got no bullet,” said DeShawn.
“Don’t shit up my ass. I’ve seen enough bullets today to know what one looks like. Open your hand.”
Reluctantly, DeShawn opened his hand. The .50 cal rolled out.
“I can explain.”
“You better, because it looked like you were about to blow your brains out with this little reminder of yours.”
DeShawn sat up and looked at his best friend with pleading eyes. “You don’t understand what it’s like. I done so much evil in this world. I killed so many people. Even as messed up as this world is, it would be better off without me.”
“You want to know why I don’t understand? Because of you. You, damn it! Before I got into all that pollution, you saved my ass.”
“How can that outweigh all the murders I done? I had to kill 20 people a year just to survive.”
“Who knows how many people I would have killed? Maybe you saved hundreds.”
“Or maybe not. You don’t know! All I know is, everything I done is a sin.”
“Aren’t you the one always telling me about how we don’t know God’s plan for us? Maybe He still has something really important for you to do. Maybe it’s something no one else could do. Maybe He saved you cuz He has an important job. Who are you to question God?”
“You are starting to sound like father Roc. Stop it. You’re making too much sense.”
“Want me to curse a few more times? Maybe that would help,” Thadd cleared his throat. “Quit being such a pathetic smogger! Pull your ass out of the shit and drop that damn gun. You ain’t the same polluting son of a bitch you used to be. Now get your head in the smogging game.”
DeShawn smiled weakly. “Yeah. That’s better. Thanks.”
“Any time.”
The door into Tony’s opened. Tony himself poked his head out; he was usually in early prepping for the day’s customers. He was a kindly balding man with a huge snout and a volume any true Italian would envy. “Hey, I got a phone call here for one of you guys, from somebody calling himself ‘Vanguard.’ Says he needs to talk to anybody who knows a guy named Luthor. Says it’s really important.”
Thadd rushed to the door and took the phone. He nodded a few times into the receiver a
nd exchanged a few terse words. He handed the phone back to Tony and hurried to DeShawn.
“Grab your gun—and the bullet. I think I know what God is planning for you after all.”
#
Michael couldn’t believe it. His life had flashed before his eyes only to be replaced with utter relief and joy. Not only was he not going to be imprisoned forever by whatever unknown entity employed Pain, but he wasn’t going to die either.
Still in a daze, he glanced down at Ostafal’s corpse. Blood and gore circumnavigated his head wound, coagulating in grotesque lumps. Michael found himself becoming increasingly desensitized to death—so long as he wasn’t personally causing it. They already retrieved Pain’s two BOGs and went to search through the dead merchant’s pockets. Apart from an expensive looking 20th century wristwatch, there was little of interest. His phone was clutched in his cold, rigid hands, and it took some effort to pry it free. After a moment, Ostafal was flopped on his back and Michael had the phone. Maybe it would come in useful.
The dead man stared up blankly at them. The bloody entry wound was clearly off-center, somewhat unusual for Vika.
He turned to Luthor, “Well at least we know that Vika is human, she missed.”
“What do you mean? Ostafal looks dead to me.”
“What is this about me missing?” Vika scowled at them.
Michael smiled. “Look here,” he pointed to Ostafal, “you hit him on the left side of the forehead, not square between the eyes. You missed.”
“That was intentional.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No trust me. If I ever wanted a man dead, it was him.”
Michael grinned, it was just like Vika to have a reason for everything— including a slightly off bull’s-eye shot. He wanted the explanation. “Okay Vika. Tell me.”
“Kill shots are based in probabilities. I gave myself the best probability for him to die. You should know about this.”
Scarcity Page 34