by Chase Austin
Wick arced around to reach the front of the house. Crouching in the bushes, he could see the two gunmen guarding the front entrance.
Olivia and Elijah remained in the same position behind the brick wall, waiting for Wick's confirmation about his position. Once he was settled, Olivia sprinted to her position, followed by Elijah.
“We're in position,” Elijah confirmed his arrival.
“Target in range. Over,” Wick said
Sitting alone in the shadow of the bushes, Wick found his body trembling with rage. He looked at his right hand, his gun hand. It shook as it rested on his thigh. He tried but couldn’t get it to stop. He felt nauseated, sick enough to vomit.
Go time was in four minutes.
Sitting in a crouched position, staring down the block at the house where Majeed was, he closed his eyes to conjure images of the men inside but got nothing. All he got was the face of the boy who had blown himself up and the thought of the two US soldiers burned to death. He shook his head to clear it.
“Wick, you ready?” His earphone crackled. It was Olivia.
“Yes,” Wick said without skipping a beat. He looked at his trembling hand, and then back at the door where the two gunmen were standing lethargically, waiting for nothing. They were probably thinking how long the night was going to be. They weren’t expecting a hit tonight. Wick and his team had the crucial element of surprise.
The building was an old, rambling, two-story house, a sufficient distance from the city. The lights inside were out. Either everyone inside was asleep or they were doing things that needed the cover of darkness.
“Hit hard. Hit fast. Leave nothing to chance. Over,” Wick said in his mouthpiece. His last bit of advice before the hit.
“Copy that. Over.” Olivia and Elijah spoke in unison.
“I'll take the left tango. Over,” Elijah whispered again.
“Rightmost tango and the middle one. Target in range,’ Olivia stated her position.
Logan heard everything from the minivan, his heartbeat racing to triple digits. He was still relatively new to such missions. The adrenaline gave him jitters. He pressed hard against the earphones to not miss any whispers.
“When I say three. Over,” Wick muttered.
“Ready,” said two voices in unison.
“One… two… three.”
Three bullets pierced the stillness with a muzzle velocity of a thousand feet per second. Three small, symmetrical holes appeared in three skulls. Three dead bodies. Before they hit the ground, there were two more shots. Two more heads. Two more thudding sounds. All this in less than a three seconds. The sound of the bodies hitting the ground was absorbed by the stillness of the night. For the next few minutes, three pairs of eyes remained glued to the house for any sign of movement from any direction. No one came out to check.
Wick jumped to his feet and sprinted towards the door. Olivia and Elijah ran and took their positions as planned.
Nearing the house, he scanned the area for any potential surprise.
Nothing worth worrying about.
Reaching the door, he pushed it slightly. It was bolted from within. He circled to check for any other entry. He checked with Olivia and Elijah too. The front door was the only access point to the house. Shooting the lock open would compromise the surprise element of the attack. He had to knock. He updated Olivia and Elijah about the situation. They nodded, alert.
Wick’s Ka-Bar blade was out. He didn’t want to use a gun where a knife would do the trick. Also, an open door would do no good in case of a gunshot, however suppressed the sound might be. For speed and silence, the knife was his best bet.
Wick knocked on the door twice and stayed put. Footsteps approached from inside. Wick hoped there wasn’t any code-word for opening the door. Someone like Majeed wasn’t a typical target. He was a religious figurehead who was never linked directly to any terror attack in public. The thin security detail had made it clear that he was not even expecting an attack like this one, at least not today. The footsteps reached the door. Wick kept to the right side of the door. It was always better to be on the side in case the host was revealed to be a maniac with a gun.
The door opened and a familiar face appeared. Farhad squinted in the dark. Wick wasted no time in slicing the blade through his neckline, followed by two more cuts. Then with his left hand, he grabbed Farhad’s shirt to prevent the deadweight from falling on the ground. He dragged the body outside and laid him to the left side of the door.
“I'm going in,” he whispered into his mic. “Time your watches to one-eighty.’
CHAPTER 18
Wick’s eyes had already adjusted to the dark. His Glock was out, along with a pencil-sized flashlight in a surefire hold in his other hand, not yet lit. Moving ahead slowly, Wick rapidly considered his options.
Considering the obvious age of the house, its rusticity, and the lack of any apparent alarm keypads, he doubted that the house had a security system.
When he slowly pushed the door inward, one hinge rasped, and at once a voice arose from deeper within the house. Wick froze on the threshold, but then he realized that he was listening to an advertisement coming from a radio. An AK-47 lay on the table in the large, dimly lit living room. The room was deserted.
The wind whistled into the house, rattling a wobbly lampshade and threatening to betray him, so he closed the door. The radio voices came down from the first floor, to his left.
The living room had hunter-green leather armchairs with footstools, a tartan-plaid sofa on large ball feet, rustic oak-end tables, and a section of bookshelves that held perhaps three hundred volumes. The decor was thoroughly but not aggressively masculine.
Where he had been expecting pervasive clutter as evidence of Majeed’s seriously disruptive mind, there was neatness. Instead of filth, cleanliness. Even in the shadows, Wick could see that the room was well dusted and swept. Rather than being burdened with the stench of death, the house was redolent of lemon-oil furniture polish and a subtle pine-scented air freshener.
Selling tax services and then various food items, the radio voices bounced enthusiastically down the stairs. Farhad had it cranked up too loud; the volume level seemed wrong to Wick, as if someone was trying to mask other sounds. There was another sound, and after a moment he recognized it: a shower. That was why the radio was set so loud. Someone was in the shower, listening to the music. Maybe Majeed.
Wick smiled at his luck. As long as Majeed was in the shower, Wick could search the house without the risk of being discovered.
Wick hurriedly crossed the front room to a half-open door, went through, and found a kitchen. Canary yellow ceramic tiles with knotty-pine cabinets. On the floor, gray vinyl tile speckled with yellow and green and red. Well-scrubbed. Everything in its place. Taped to the side of the refrigerator was a calendar already turned forward to April, with a black and white photograph of a man Wick couldn’t recognize instantly. He tore the picture and stuffed it into his pocket, making a mental note of checking it once he was out of there.
The normality of the house puzzled him; the gleaming surfaces, the tidiness, the homey touches, the sense that a person was still there who might walk in daylight on any street and pass for human despite the atrocities that he had committed.
Don't think about it. Keep moving.
Upstairs, the music had started again, but it was more muted in the kitchen than the living room. The noise of the running shower, though, was more apparent in the kitchen than in the living room, because the pipes were channeled through the rear wall of the old house. The water being drawn upward to the bathroom made an urgent, hollow, rushing sound through copper. Furthermore, the pipe wasn't tied down and insulated as well as it ought to have been, and at some point, along its course it vibrated against a wall stud: rapid knocking behind plasterboard. If that noise stopped abruptly, he would know that his safe time in the house was limited. In the subsequent silence, he could count on no more than a minute or two of grace while Majeed toweled off.
Thereafter he might show up anywhere.
There was a door in the living room, under stairs. Wick turned the knob as quietly as he could and stepped inside with caution. Beyond lay a combination laundry and storage room: a washer, an electric dryer, boxes and bottles of laundry supplies were stored in an orderly fashion on two open shelves, and the air smelled of detergent and bleach.
The rush of water and the knocking pipe were even louder here than they had been in the kitchen. To the left, past the washer and dryer, was another door—rough pine, painted lime green. He opened it and saw stairs leading down to a basement. Wick’s heart began to beat faster.
“There's a cellar here. I’m going down,” he whispered.
Olivia and Elijah acknowledged in whispers.
Wick descended the stairs deliberately. The steps ended at a mid-sized hall with three doors.
He scanned the three doors closely. A sliver of light showed from under the one farthest from him. He decided to check the other two first. He opened the nearest door. It was dark within and Wick used the pencil flashlight over his Glock to search the room. It was empty.
He did the same with the other. Again, nothing. That left only one room.
“Last room in the basement. I’m going in. Over,” he whispered in the mic.
Wick turned the knob slowly, careful not to make any sound, and pushed the door open. It swung inward. A man was standing with his back towards Wick, his buttocks gyrating. The man was oblivious that someone had entered the room. Wick’s gun was pointed at the back of his head.
Wick took this opportunity to quickly scan the rest of the room to see if anyone else was lurking in the darkness. Behind him, the door clicked shut on its own. The sound alerted Majeed who turned. As soon as his eyes met the barrel staring at him, his face lost color. But he wasn’t alone. From behind Majeed a pair of fearful, misty eyes also stared at the gun.
CHAPTER 19
As soon Wick entered the room, he had sensed that Majeed wasn’t alone. He was naked and his actions meant he had company.
It wasn’t unusual for Wick to find his targets in vulnerable positions. Most of the time, the strike was planned that way, but sometimes he bumped into situations he hadn't envisioned. This was one of them.
He walked diagonally to get a fuller view of the person behind Majeed. He stopped in his tracks when he saw who it was.
Wick had expected a girl, but this girl was just a child. Possibly aged between four and five. Standing naked, her eyes full of terror, behind Majeed. No one said anything. Wick stared at the child in disbelief.
Majeed saw an opportunity in the intruder’s shock and jumped towards the other side of the bed. Wick sensed the movement a second later, instinctively moved his shooting hand in that direction and opened fire. The girl screamed, ducking to the floor. The bullets missed their target by millimeters.
Majeed’s body touched the floor and his fingers closed around the AK-47 lying on the table near where he had landed. Wick had little time to think. The girl had put him off balance. He saw the weapon in Majeed’s hand and pressed the trigger. His Glock coughed twice. The 9mm bullet pierced the soft tissues of Majeed’s right palm.
Majeed jerked his hand back and yelled in pain. Wick covered the ground between them in a single stride and grabbed the AK-47. His Glock never left sight of Majeed. The suppressor had kept the noise at a minimum.
Wick checked his watch. Twenty-three seconds to go.
CHAPTER 20
“Who are you?” Majeed cried looking at Wick.
Wick said nothing, looking at him with disgust. Wick raised his left hand and Majeed’s unhurt hand instinctively covered his locket that had the pen drive.
“If you are American, then you cannot kill me. I am with you guys.”
In his anger, Wick couldn’t say anything.
“Believe me, you do not want to kill me. Call your boss. Ask them. They will vouch for me,” Majeed stuttered through sobs, clutching his right hand.
“Who is on the second floor?”
“Second floor?”
“In the shower?”
“Farhad, maybe. I don’t know.” Majeed was surprised at the question.
“He can’t be.” Wick was sure about that.
“Why?” Majeed asked.
“Elijah, check the first floor,” Wick said into the mic. “Who’s the girl?” Wick ignored Majeed’s question.
“I don’t know. Farhad brought her. I don’t know, where is he?”
“I killed him.”
“You… you killed Farhad?” Majeed’s eye widened with shock. “I can give you the information. There is an attack planned in DC.”
“When?”
“On the fifth day from now.”
“Where in DC?”
“Multiple targets.”
“Keep talking.”
“A few months ago, I got an assignment to prepare for a chemical attack in the capital,” Majeed started to blabber nonstop. Wick kept listening in rapt silence, one eye on the child who was cowering in fear near the bed.
“Assignment from whom?” he asked when Majeed stopped speaking.
“I don’t know. I spoke with a man on my secure line.”
“That's not enough.”
“I told you everything that I know.”
Majeed’s face was flushed. Wick knew Majeed knew more than he was telling.
Wick looked at the girl who had stopped crying and was now looking at the two men.
“Where are your clothes?” Wick asked her.
She pointed at the table on which the assault rifle was placed. Wick grabbed them and threw them to her.
“Wear them. Go outside and wait for me.”
With her little fingers she wrapped herself in the clothes. At her age, she was quite deft at the handling herself. She got up and left the room. The door closed behind her.
“Take her,” Majeed said, desperately. “She is good. I know…”
It was the wrong thing to say. Something inside Wick snapped, and his trigger finger fired a round into the Majeed’s skull before the latter could even finish his sentence. There was no blood, no guts, no graphic explosion of gore. Just a well-placed shot that crumpled his body, killing him instantly.
CHAPTER 21
By killing the target, he was supposed to bring home alive, Wick had already ruined the mission, but personally he suddenly found the peace he had been seeking earlier.
He hurriedly scanned the space and checked the only wardrobe in the room. Majeed’s naked body lay motionless on the floor. Wick took out his cell phone and captured the image of Majeed’s dead body. He then filmed the room along with the dead body. Then grabbed the only thing that was on Majeed’s naked body – the shiny locket. He stuffed anything useful he could find in the room into his pockets. There wasn’t much. It was a bare room with just the bed and wardrobe.
He checked his watch; he was already a minute over the deadline. He came out of the room and found the girl waiting for him.
He heard footsteps. “Elijah, is that you? Over,” he said, his gun pointing at the stairs.
“Affirmative. Over,” Elijah’s voice said over the earpiece.
Elijah appeared in the hallway. Wick lowered his gun as soon his eyes met Elijah’s. Elijah followed suit. Looking at the girl, Elijah immediately realized that the mission had gone off-script, but he said nothing. This was not the time for questions. It was time to move.
“Rest of the building is clear.” Elijah confirmed.
“We’re leaving.” Wick ordered.
“Where is Majeed?” Elijah asked.
“Dead,” Wick responded. Along with Elijah, everyone else listening gasped at the information. Capture him alive—that had been their strict directive.
“Esm e shoma chist?” Wick asked the girl’s name in Farsi, his calm voice belying the fact that he had just disobeyed direct orders by killing the man he had been ordered to bring home alive.
“Hiba,” the girl responded.
> “Where are you from? Shoma ahleh koja hastid?”
Hiba didn’t answer this time.
“Where is your mother?” Wick changed the question, again speaking in Farsi.
She pointed above.
“Let’s take you to your mother.” Wick offered her his hand. She clutched his fingers tightly, and they walked towards the stairs.
“Logan, approach the house. Over,” Wick whispered in his earpiece.