“The best armor is staying out of the way of a gun-shot.”
-Italian Military
Proverb
George’s
first move was to see whether the police had any further information that might
help him. He returned to the stairwell and climbed back up to the thirtieth
floor. From what he had overheard from Strasser, the bad guys were down to a
skeleton crew, so he didn’t expect to run into anyone. Honestly, he half-hoped
he would; that’d be one more terrorist down and one step closer to ending this
terrible night.
But he met
no one on the way, and soon he found a suitable office in the rear of the
building, barricaded the door, and signaled across the street. An answering
signal came a moment later.
“How are
you doing?” asked his friend.
“Angry,” he
answered.
“You saw
what happened.”
“Yes.”
“Not sure
what we do now.”
“I am. I'm going
to fight back.”
Julius Shija had grown up hunting
leopards, cheetah, and other animals; even, occasionally, stupid wazungu who tried to stop him because he
was a ‘poacher.’ Some fool had declared that you had to have permission to
shoot certain beasts, but who cared about the damn animals? Julius had made a
fortune off of them, and he wasn’t about to give that up. If the westerners
were worried about the big cats and elephants and gorillas and things, they
could cart them off to their own countries. He’d been born in a shack, and now,
thanks to his hunting, his children would be going to college in Europe or
America. Though, the war would have to end first.
Julius was
not political and he frankly didn’t give a damn about the Communist agenda. He
was looking out for himself and his family; nothing more. Which raised the
question of why he was here, halfway around the world, fighting for a cause he
didn’t believe in. Well, that was simple. There was only one thing in the world
he loved more than his wife and children, and that was hunting. And what was war, but the greatest hunt of all?
Julius
considered himself the greatest hunter in the world. He had earned that title
because he saw things that others didn’t and understood them in ways most
people couldn’t. Like right now, for instance, looking out the window he saw a
small point of light flashing on and off, off and on in the building behind
this one. Most people wouldn’t even notice it, and those who did would think
nothing of it. But he knew almost as soon as he saw it.
Clever, he thought.
The
troublesome American was communicating with the police by flashing Morse Code
to his friend across the way. So very simple that of course Strasser, with his
mind full of grand schemes and high-tech gadgets, would never have thought of
it.
Another
reason Julius was the greatest hunter in the world was that he never let an
opportunity go to waste. Strasser had asked him to find out how the American
was talking to the police, and he had. Now he was going to cut that connection.
Julius
unlatched the window and pushed it open. He crouched and rested his rifle
barrel on the sill, adjusting the focus on his scope until he had a clear view
of the room across the way where the American’s confederate was signaling to
him. He saw her; a slender figure in the dark room, slightly illuminated by the
reflecting light of her own flashlight. He was a little surprised to find it
was a woman, but that made no difference to him.
He swept
his view over the other windows in the building; if the Americans had any sense
at all, they’d have snipers of their own, and he would need to take them out
quickly after he shot the malaya.
After a few minutes of searching, he found them; well hidden, indeed, but his
sharp eyes could see the ends of their rifles just poking out of a window a few
floors below the flashing lights. Good; that would make things easy.
He raised his scope to the woman
again and studied her for a moment: Bantu,
remarkably good-looking, but dressed up like a man. Americans were so vulgar
that way. He lined up his scope so that his bullet would go right through her
heart.
“Lala salama, mrembo.”
Laura Lotus
blanched when she saw George’s declaration of war. Even as she relayed the
message, she signaled back “Is that a good idea?”
“This can’t
go on. They need to be stopped.”
“Yes. But
don’t do anything stupid.”
“Not a lot
of options left.”
“What’s he think he’s doing?” asked
Officer Dunn incredulously.
“Being a hero, I guess,” she
sighed.
“Tell him that’s the worst thing he
could do.”
She relayed the message.
“He says it’s something he has to
do.”
“Goddamn reckless…”
Dunn’s radio crackled.
“Hold on;
I’m getting something from the chief.” He paused to listen, then said
unthinkingly, “Tell him that at least one of the bad guys is a cyborg.”
She began
to relay the message and got as far as ‘one of them is’ before she realized
what she was saying.
“He’s a what?!” she said turning to stare at
him.
He never
got a chance to answer. As Laura turned, the glass in front of her suddenly
ruptured. She felt a sharp blow, like a punch to her upper arm and had an
impression of flying red. The next second, she found herself on the ground and
conscious of an excruciating pain in her left arm just below the shoulder. Then
Dunn was on top of her, pinning her to floor and shouting.
“Sniper!
Chief, we’ve got a sniper up…”
There was a
wet thud and his head suddenly dropped to the ground next to hers. Laura felt a
hot wet spray on her face. Numbly, she realized that the back of his head had
been taken off.
“NO! NO!”
George shouted, pounding the window in desperation as he saw the glass shatter
across the street. A moment later, a second shot blasted through the wall under
the window frame, knocking a small cloud of masonry into the air.
Fumbling,
he threw the latch and pushed the window open. He leaned out and looked up,
searching for some sign of where the shot was coming from. There was
nothing…then the gun barked again and he saw the muzzle flash from about five
floors up.
George
ducked back inside and ran for the stairs. He’d never be in time; for all he
knew, he was already too late. But he’d make sure this sniper wouldn’t harm
another person that night.
He burst
out of the stairwell and hurried down the hallway, checking each door as he
went. Then, all at once, he found the one he was looking for. But the sniper
wasn’t aiming out the window. He was aiming at the door. George just had time
to duck back before the rifle cracked like thunder and blew a hole in the wall
just where he had been standing a second before. He heard the sniper racking
another round into the chamber and took the opportunity to lean around the
corner and fire a quick burst from his Kalashnekov, but the sniper had moved so
that George’s bullets only tore up the carpet. He ducked back around the corner,
panting. A second later, the gun roared again and George was pelted with bits
of wood and plaster as the bullet ripped through the wall right less than a
foot from his head. Cursing, he ducked and scurried back down the hall, his ear
ringing with the shots. He hid around the corner, raised his gun and pointed at
the office door ready to blast the sniper as soon as he came out.
“So you’re
the one who’s been making all this trouble,” the Tanzanian called after him.
“Go on; run! You won’t be the first American mbwa that I’ve hunted!”
George had
no idea what ‘mbwa’ meant, but he guessed it wasn’t a compliment.
The sniper
didn’t come out. He knew what George was trying to do, and he had the same
thing in mind. The trouble was, he had a better bargaining position.
“Not coming
out?” he asked. “That’s fine. Maybe I’ll just take another shot at that malaya you’ve been talking to?”
That was a ploy to get him to come out…but at
the same time, it was just as likely that he would actually do it. If he waited
him out, the Sniper would take another shot at his friend. If George tried to
stop him, he’d get shot himself.
Unless he
took a leaf out of the sniper’s own book.
George
leaned around the corner, aimed at the wall of the office, and fired. He
couldn’t tell, but he thought the bullets penetrated, and he moved out into the
hallway, keeping the gun at the ready. Nothing…had he actually killed the guy?
Staying
low, he entered the gloomy office, scanning for some sign of his opponent.
There was no movement. Taking a chance, he took his hand off the rifle just
long enough to flip on the lights.
The office
was empty.
Thinking
the sniper might be hiding behind the desk, George stepped around behind it,
gun at the ready…but there was nothing there.
Then the
doors of the big metal cabinet by the right hand wall flew open and the sniper
stepped out and fired. George only just had time to duck beneath the desk
himself to avoid the shot, which shattered the open window behind him. The
sniper cycled another round and fired into the desk. The bullet slammed through
the carpet so close to George’s hand that the shock of the impact vibrated
painfully up his bones. The sniper cycled again, and George threw his own gun
over the top of the desk and sprayed the room wildly. He rolled out from under
the desk and came up shooting.
The sniper had disappeared again. The
big cabinet was still open, so he hadn’t gone back in there. The only other
place was into the hallway.
Instinct demanded that he pursue
his enemy, but George forced himself to think rationally. He dropped the nearly
spent magazine and swapped in a new one, trying to focus. This sniper was crafty:
running out into the hallway seemed too crude and obvious a move for someone
like him. There must be somewhere else in here where he could have taken
shelter.
George pictured
the scene of a few seconds before; he fired wildly from behind the desk, and the
sniper had disappeared: taken shelter. Going back into the hall would have left
him in the line of fire too long. There was nothing here that could block the bullets, so he had to avoid
them. George had sprayed wildly all over the office, leaving no corner where
the man could have safely gone, unless…
George
kicked the desk with all his might. The sniper, who had been crouched in front
of it, waiting for George to charge past, was knocked off his feet with a snarl
of irritation. His rifle swung loose from one hand. George moved up, gun
raised, and stomped on the rifle, pinning it to the floor. The sniper didn’t
hesitate an instant, but dropped the gun, knocked the muzzle of George’s
Kalashnikov aside and closed in, fists flying. George caught a blow to the chin
that rocked him back, but he instinctively blocked the next one to his abdomen
and dropped an elbow into the sniper’s face, which the man blocked with his
forearm. The sniper grabbed George about the lapels and they toppled back over
the desk. They hit the chair, which rolled out from under them and they dropped
to the ground, breaking their grip on each other.
The sniper
fumbled for his knife, George tried to trap his arm. The sniper slammed his
open hand into George’s face, splitting open his lip and forcing his head
back…back…
They were
fighting right next to the open window, and the sniper was pushing George right
toward it. George was still keeping the sniper’s knife hand at bay, but now the
other one was grabbing onto the window frame to prevent him being thrown out.
The sniper was terribly strong, and he was laughing as he shoved George further
and further back.
George’s
head was out of the window now, and he was looking straight up the length of
the Houston Gold, illuminated by the
flashing lights from the police cars hundreds of feet below.
The sniper
was saying something, but George couldn’t tell what it was. He was about to be
thrown out of a thirtieth-floor window. And then there would be no one to stop
Strasser and Gidan, and Ben and Martha and all the rest of the hostages would
die, and the Communists would get whatever they came here for.
He couldn’t
let that happen.
And so
George made a desperate move. He released his grip on the sniper’s straining
right arm, letting him bring the knife to bear, and he struck the man’s left
arm as hard as he could. The sniper’s grip on his face was broken, but his
inertia carried him forward against the windowsill. George pulled himself past
the sniper and elbowed him hard in the back of the head. Then he ducked, hooked
his hand under the man’s ankles, and pulled.
Before the
sniper quite knew what had happened, he was toppling head-first out the window.
George
tried not to listen to the man’s screams as he fell thirty stories. He
staggered back against the wall and tried to catch his breath.
“Mr.
Calvan.”
Xander
Calvan turned from his besieged building to see a lithe, dark-haired young man
with a thin face and heavy eyebrows.
“Mr.
Scarletto.”
Sonny
Scarletto was Luigi Morello’s right hand man and chief enforcer. He was known
as a hotheaded and extremely dangerous young man, but Calvan didn’t seem
intimidated.
“Your
business partner wants a word,” Scarletto said.
Calvan
raised his eyebrows.
“You may
have noticed that I’m rather busy at the moment.”
“Yeah, I
see that. He’s insisting.”
Scarletto’s
tone gave no doubt that a refusal would have dire consequences. Calvan nodded.
“So be it.”
Luigi
Morello’s car was parked around the corner about a block away from the police
barricades. The Houston Gold was
screened from view by the intervening buildings, but the sound of the crowd and
the sirens penetrate even to its plush interior.
The king of
San Ignatio sat in the back of his car, looking rather bored. Calvan got in
next to him.
“Look’s
like you’re having a bit of trouble, Mr. Calvan” said Morello without looking
at him.
“How astute
of you,” Calvan answered.
Morello
turned his head to frown at him. He wasn’t used to that kind of back talk.
“Then I
won’t keep you,” he said, dropping all pretense of manners. “I’ve got concerns,
you’re gonna answer them. You know my men were working on that floor just
yesterday. Someone’s gonna know that. They’re gonna ask questions.”
“You
needn’t worry,” said Calvan. “I had my own men inspect your work and report it
as corresponding exactly with the order. No more. No less. As I recall, we were
quite satisfied with the professionalism displayed by your workers.”
“That it?”
“That’s
it.”
“So how do
you explain what happened with that balcony?”
“I’ve been
warning the board for some time that the patio is unsafe. They insisted that it
was fine. It turns out they were tragically mistaken.”
Morello’s face
hardened as he listened.
“So
legally, we’re clear?”
“We’re
clear,” Calvan assured him.
“Which
brings me to personally,” said Morello with snarl. “I’m going to give you one
chance to tell me the truth; was that what you hoped would happen when you gave
us that order?”
Calvan
raised one eyebrow.
“If I’d
known my company was about to be attacked by terrorists, don’t you think I
would have done something about it? “
“You mean
besides not being there?”
“That was
pure luck,” Calvan spat, beginning to actually sound angry. “Why would I expose
my own company to this? We’re going to be loosing millions, not to mention
almost my entire senior management!”
“Fine,”
said Morello. “You didn’t see this one coming, but were you maybe hoping
something else would’ve happened? The point is, I need to know why you ordered
my men to weaken those supports, and I need to know right now. I may not have
the cleanest hands in the world, but something like this,” he pointed out the window in the direction of the
now-scarred building hidden from view. “That’s not how I do business,
understand?”
Calvan
sighed and, for the first time, seemed to deflate slightly.
“I
understand,” he said. “The truth is, I’ve been trying to convince the board to
build a new company headquarters. They’ve considered this building perfectly
suitable, despite our considerably increased size since taking it. I intended, with
your assistance, to lead them to believe it was deteriorating and that a new
building would be needed. I never expected that,” he nodded out the window.
“Because I expected to be able to call their attention to the problem before
anything happened. That’s why I waited until the weather turned foul and no one
would be using it. I thought the threat
of a disaster would be more than enough to get me what I wanted.”
He looked
heavily at the mobster.
“This is
not how I do business either,” he said.
Morello
appeared mollified. He nodded slowly, then seemed to relax. He produced a fat
cigar from his coat pocket and held it up to his nose.
“Oh, that’s
good stuff,” he said. He didn’t give the slightest sign of offering one to
Calvan.
“One more
thing, though,” he went on, still examining his cigar, as though the very
appearance and texture of it fascinated him as much as the taste. “I’m
wondering how this is going to affect our deal. See, you still owe us a very lucrative contract, which is
looking more and more like it won’t be happening in the near future. That
concerns me.”
To his
surprise, Calvan actually smiled.
“Have
faith, Mr. Morello,” said Calvan. “You’ll get your payment; never fear. It just
may take a little longer.”
Morello
frowned, then produced a cigar cutter.
“Sounds
fair,” he said. “But listen good; you only get one extension when you work with
me. Understand? If you come around a month or two from now and start making
with the excuses…”
He snipped
off the end of the cigar with unnecessary forcefulness.
“Do I make
myself clear?”
Calvan
watched the mobster coolly as he lit the cigar, filling the interior of the
limo with smoke.
“Abundantly,”
he answered. “Will there be anything else? My company is in a bit of a crisis at the moment.”
Morello
grinned behind his cigar.
“No,
that’ll do for now. Hope it all works out for you.”
Calvan gave
him a smile that was as sincere as the mobster’s sympathy had been.
Next Week:
Chapter Thirteen: Matters of Duty
