by Alex Shaw
The two Spanish-speaking women he’d seen earlier made another trip to the bar. Akulov noted the reaction of Caesar and his men as the pair passed their table. It seemed to be more than leering, as if they were discussing something. He noted that the women paid them no attention. The two groups certainly weren’t together. Akulov leant against the bar, his tolerance to booze in the Spetsnaz had once been much higher, but he knew it was time to call it a night. The beers were small and he’d had, what, three, four? Nothing in the real sense of drinking. Two or three pints as the British would say, perhaps a litre and a half in Russian terms, but any more and he’d risk his tactical awareness. His bottle was empty. He caught the barmaid’s eye and shook his head. He decided he’d leave the place now. From his intel he knew that Don Caesar was in most nights and he now knew the layout and feel of the both the place and the man much better. Yes, Akulov decided, tomorrow he would come for the Mexican cartel boss and the man wouldn’t see him coming.
Something bumped his arm at the bar and he looked sideways. A pair of large brown eyes set in a fresh but flushed face looked back at him.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘No worries,’ Akulov replied, automatically switching to Spanish.
‘I’m Sofia.’
‘Russ.’ If he’d not been working, her attention would have been welcomed. A decade and a half of death had changed him, but on the outside his full head of dark hair still got him noticed.
‘This is Juana.’ Her friend appeared at her side, and linked arms with her.
‘Hello, Juana.’
The second woman smiled but said nothing.
Akulov made a show of looking at his watch. ‘Ladies, it’s late and I need to go. Enjoy the rest of your evening.’
Sofia pouted and placed her hand on his arm. ‘But everyone here is so boring. Can’t you stay?’
‘Did your mother put a stop on her credit card?’
There was a frown then a flash of anger. ‘How did you know? Did she send you to spy on us?’
‘No, I just saw earlier that you had a black Amex card, which obviously wasn’t yours.’
‘Why? Because I’m Mexican?’ Her eyes narrowed.
‘No, because you looked too young to have one of your own.’
‘I’m twenty-two!’
‘My apologies. I am an old man and my eyesight isn’t what it once was.’
‘She stopped it,’ Juana said. ‘We’ve run out of money.’
Akulov reached into his jeans pocket, retrieved a handful of bills and handed her a hundred. ‘Here, have a drink on me. And sorry again.’
‘No strings?’ Sofia asked, slowly taking the note.
‘None.’
‘Thank you.’ Sofia touched his face with her hand, pulled him down and planted a kiss on his mouth.
It was the first time in a long while he’d been kissed. He looked past Sofia and saw Don Caesar giving him daggers. Something odd was happening here. ‘Did you two come on your own?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘No reason.’ Akulov shrugged. ‘Enjoy.’ He placed a couple of notes on the bar for his drinks and made towards the exit, purposefully walking directly past the Mexicans and watching them from the corner of his eye. Their glares followed him. He looked back as he pulled open the door, and watched Caesar head directly to the bar. His two men tailed their diminutive boss. The girls were still waiting to be served. A moment of indecision hit Akulov, which was unusual and unnerving, but he shook it off – they were nothing to do with him – and let the heavy door swing shut.
This part of town was the former industrial district. It was quiet but the wide streets were well lit. Akulov glanced up and noted the security cameras on the front of the building facing the bar. Lights and cameras. He imagined that police patrols were also not too far away. Several taxis waited on the opposite side of the street, ready to turn and swoop back to collect fares. Akulov raised his arm and hailed one. But what drew Akulov’s attention was the nose of the large white Cadillac Escalade that protruded from the side street to his right. It glowed as the streetlights reflected from its pristine paintwork. He imagined it was what J. R. Ewing would drive if he was alive today. The driver’s window was open and a trail of cigar smoke drifted out, carried on the warm night air. The engine wasn’t on, but it didn’t look as though the vehicle would be parked up there for long.
A shrill electronic note sounded and the driver flicked his cigar out of the window and picked up his phone, the screen illuminating his face. And then he switched on the engine. Someone’s driver, someone who didn’t need to or want to use a taxi. And that someone, Akulov knew, was Caesar Mendez.
In the stillness of the heavy night air Akulov heard a door open, and the muffled sound of the music from the club. But it wasn’t the entrance he had just stepped out of; it was the side door, the fire exit near the bar. The driver’s gaze now seemed to be focused on his rear-view mirror and as if to confirm Akulov’s observation, he leant out of the SUV and looked back.
The taxi pulled up in front of Akulov. The cliché of following the car popped into his head, but he already knew where Mendez lived and from the assessment in his briefing pack he knew the residence had multiple layers of security. Again he decided that the club was the best strike point but not now, not tonight. He opened the door, got in and was in the process of closing it when he heard a scream … His eyes met the taxi driver’s in the mirror.
The cabby shrugged, as though he’d seen and heard it all before, and then asked in a Texan drawl, ‘Where to?’
Akulov turned in his seat and saw the huge frame of the Cadillac driver make a hasty exit from the equally oversized SUV and head into the alley. There was another scream, high-pitched, female.
He heard a woman shout, in Spanish, ‘Juana, run!’
Akulov frowned. Juana – one of the two girls from the club. Without saying a word to the taxi driver, he exited and jogged to the corner of the building. He stepped around into the alley and Juana all but slammed into him. Her eyes were wide with fear, and the Cadillac driver was a couple of steps behind. What he saw, further down the alley and illuminated by a lamp above the fire exit, was shocking, but not surprising to him. Sofia was being held by the two heavies he’d had the encounter with inside. And in the middle of all this, Don Caesar was standing with a phone to his ear, seemingly without a care in the world.
Juana raised her hands, desperately trying to grab Akulov. ‘Help us!’
Akulov pulled the woman behind him, and pushed her around the corner. He blocked the SUV driver’s path. The man was monstrously large and the speed he was moving meant that he couldn’t stop his huge frame in time to avoid Akulov’s foot. The leg-sweep collided with his shins, the closing speed enough to make him instantly airborne. Luis Bravo “the Giant”, Caesar’s enforcer, crashed onto the tarmac hands first then chest. He grunted, winded, and then pulled himself to his knees. His jacket fell open to reveal a large, silver revolver squeezed into a pancake holster. Instinctively, Akulov lunged for the Giant’s gun and heaved it out of the holster with one hand whilst delivering a punch to the side of the man’s skull with the other.
Eyes wide with anger, the Giant swung a long arm at Akulov, but Akulov stepped around the arm and hit the Giant across the head with the revolver. The huge man lurched back against the wall, dazed.
There was another scream. A gunshot rang out followed by a second, two quick rounds fired from a handgun. Chips of concrete flew up by Akulov’s foot. He dived towards the opposite side of the alley and came back up with the silver revolver pointed towards the men and the woman. Three guns, one held against the side of Sofia’s stomach, one pointed at him by the second heavy; and the third was being pulled, jerkily, from its concealed-carry holster by the hand of Caesar. In the corner of his eye, Akulov saw the Giant try to stand and fall back against the wall.
They were quick, very quick; these were men Vetrov had trained well. Speed came from an understanding of the tac
tical situation and that came from training or experience. And men this fast, this experienced, were not amateurs. What he had found himself witness to was not a random act. The cartel soldiers on one side and the black Amex card on the other … It was an abduction.
And an abduction meant that Sofia was valuable to the cartel, and that meant the man holding her, and pushing the gun into her, would not shoot her unless he was ordered to, and those orders would come from Don Caesar. These observations and calculations came to Akulov in a matter of milliseconds, but he was slower than he should have been, would have been if he hadn’t been drinking and hadn’t been retired for the past year.
Akulov acquired the second gunman, the heavy who had already fired at him. He was the salient threat. The heavy fired again and started to run at him, to rush him. Akulov felt a sudden gust of air as the round whipped past his head before burying itself in the rear of the Cadillac. Akulov returned fire, pulling the weighty trigger, twice, in quick succession, as fast as he could be with a revolver. It bucked as each round left the barrel. Unused to the balance of the .357 magnum six-shooter, his first round was wide but the second obliterated the heavy’s face.
Even before the goon had hit the ground, Akulov had the pistol trained on the second, the one who was holding Sofia. But the gunman was moving, his gun up and pulling the woman in front of himself as a shield. Akulov ignored her and fired. His round found the man’s exposed left shin. He spun, sideways; his arms flew up and an animal-like yell erupted from his maw. It was silenced a second later when the next round from Akulov’s pistol eviscerated his heart, instantly reducing him to nothing more than a bag of meat and bones.
Akulov reversed direction and reacquired Don Caesar. The man’s gun was up and now pointing at him, and a sneer was visible on his dimly lit face. There were two rounds left in the six-shooter. Akulov pulled the trigger but as he did so there was movement and a roar to his right. What felt like a tidal wave hit him and threw him into the air to come crashing down on the far side of the alley, against the brick wall of the neighbouring building. The revolver flew from his hands and skittered away into the shadows. Seconds later a crushing weight fell upon him, pinning him to the ground, and huge hands clamped around his throat. The Giant leant in, pressing him back into the trash-covered tarmac and brick.
He tried to buck, to move, but the massive man was too heavy. There was a popping sound and then a crack and needles of pain pierced the skin of his spine. The Giant grinned down at him through the gloom. From somewhere within, Akulov found something, a fury he had been taught to harness. He managed to turn his left shoulder and slammed his open palm against the Giant’s ear. The huge man grunted and squeezed harder. Akulov’s vision started to grey out and he began to lose consciousness. The lights of the alley flickered and blurred. He tried to strike the man again, but his arm didn’t move.
A voice – male, Mexican and pained – yelled from seemingly a long way off, ‘Get me out of here!’
Without warning, Akulov felt himself being lifted into the air and then swung against the wall like a rag doll. The back of his head hit the bricks and what vision he had disappeared.
In the darkness he could hear words and the scraping of feet and then a high-pitched scream. Akulov’s eyes snapped open. He was lying face down in the alley, his left cheek flat against the warm tarmac. With blurred vision he watched the Giant trying to help his boss. Caesar was standing, leaning against the man who was two foot taller than he was. His right arm was limp, while his left hand clamped his shoulder. Akulov’s round had winged him.
Akulov’s head felt as though a giant hand was squeezing it from behind, which he noted was ironic. Ignoring the throbbing pain, he managed to push up to his hands and knees. There was a glint to his left – broken glass, the bottle that had smashed and cut into his back as the Giant had forced him into the ground. His eyes searched desperately for the revolver, one round left, two targets, one-armed, probably a full magazine. He saw it lying against the wall, equal distance between him and the two remaining Mexicans. Akulov knew that if he continued playing dead he’d soon be exactly that. He had to move. The alley was silent again now save for Sofia whimpering by the closed fire exit. Rooted to the spot, splattered with the blood of the man who had held her, she was like a weeping statue.
Akulov took a deep, calming breath, filling his lungs till bursting point, and closed his mind to the pain. Now he had to act. The Giant was supporting his boss, with his back to Akulov. Like a sprinter exploding out of the blocks, Akulov sprang forward towards the revolver. His legs felt rubbery and his gait was uneven, but he was still fast enough. Caesar saw Akulov and started to shout instructions at his enforcer. But it was too late. Akulov reached the revolver, snatched it up and carried on moving. He barrelled into the Giant, left shoulder first, jarring his whole body, pain now streaking down his spine, but making the monster stumble forward and trip over Caesar. Both men were down and Akulov scrambled backwards to his feet with the large revolver trained on Caesar’s centre mass. One round left, two targets.
‘Don’t move,’ Akulov panted, in Spanish.
The Giant lay face down, but Caesar was on his back.
‘You know who I am, pendejo?’ The cartel boss’s voice was incredulous.
Akulov listened to distant sirens and watched the Giant’s right hand slowly moving in the gloom.
‘Hey! Pinche estúpido!’ Caesar said, in a louder voice. ‘I’m talking to you!’
And then the huge man shot his right hand out to reach for something. Two targets, one round. Akulov darted forward and struck the Giant on the back of his head with the heavy revolver. The Giant became limp.
One target, one round.
How long did he have before the police arrived? And how long did he have before he was unable to escape? He fixed his eyes on Caesar’s. In the dim sodium lighting he saw outrage, and anger but not fear. Was this a result of the drugs the cartel boss had snorted?
‘Where is the Russian?’
‘What?’ Caesar’s eyes twitched.
‘Where is Vetrov?’
‘You’re here for him?’
‘Yes.’
A sneer now formed on Caesar’s face. ‘He is in Matamoros.’
‘Gracias,’ Akulov said, and fired his last .357 magnum round into the cartel boss’s heart.
Akulov focused on Juana and Sofia.
He checked they were OK, collected Juana’s bag from the ground, and then led them towards the idling SUV.
‘Get in the back, both of you, and stay down.’
Numb with shock and fear, both women complied.
The whine of sirens grew louder in his ears. Akulov jogged back to Caesar, each step making him wince. But pain was good; it kept him sharp. He took the man’s wallet, and then he saw his gun – a sub-compact Glock – lying on the ground just past the prone form of the Giant. Akulov collected the Glock and ran back to the SUV. He leant against the vehicle, sucked in a deep breath, and blinked several times until the world stopped spinning.
He got in the Cadillac, dropped his bounty on the passenger seat, and pulled away. It was only now that he saw his taxi hadn’t moved, and that its driver was standing on the road filming with a smartphone. Akulov cursed. He didn’t know how much the man had seen or recorded but he was a witness nonetheless. At that moment a pair of cruisers appeared at the next junction, on his left. Resisting the urge to floor the gas pedal, Akulov pulled the conspicuous Cadillac out into the road and at a leisurely pace headed in the opposite direction.
Akulov drove in silence and took a moment to adjust his seat. Luis Bravo was easily a foot taller than him. He had no idea why the cartel men had attempted the abduction, so instead focused on getting both himself and the two women away from the scene.
Akulov stuck to the posted speed limit and headed in a general south-easterly direction. As his adrenalin started to ebb away, various parts of his body began to ache, each sending in a “damage report” to his brain. He pressed
the lump on the back of his head and the pain increased, but nothing moved and it wasn’t wet. He’d received a mild concussion for sure but there was little he could do about that. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly: no warning signs from his lungs or ribs. His shoulders and thighs were stiff, but that was expected. He worked his jaw, his ears still ringing from the thunderous retort of the silver pistol. He let his eyes dart to the passenger seat and the two handguns lying on it. He now recognised the pistol as the six-inch barrel version of the Colt Python. The six-shooter was an expensive, well-made piece but not the best choice for a modern gunfight. The other pistol, the sub-compact Glock, was the unusual G33 version which, like the Python, chambered the serious .357 magnum round. A much more sensible, if snappy weapon. Both had a recoil that had to be accounted for.
He continued to drive through Houston. Every few seconds he glanced back at the two women and at the road behind him. They were huddled together. Sofia looked straight ahead with a blank expression on her face whilst Juana’s head lolled against her friend’s shoulder. The women would start to react soon, and he knew that he needed to control that when it happened.
Stomach churning, due to the booze and adrenalin dump, he left the sprawl of Houston and took the I-69 south. An interstate was the fastest route away from the city; however, it also carried the highest risk of being tracked by surveillance and law enforcement cameras.