The Hitman: Dirty Rotters

  My plan was foolish at best.

  I ran across the tops of single door boxcars, jumped from one to the other, on and across the line of tankers and empty flatbeds, and kept moving, too determined to allow fear to linger. I held on tight when I needed to and ran fast when I could. I was going to the nose of the train. I was going to stop it and take it over.

  After a mile, it slowed on its own.

  It came to a stop finally as I sat perched at the front edge of a boxcar, listening and looking. We were in the middle of nowhere. Trees and fields surrounded us like black ink blotches. The air had grown cooler. My nose was runny and my eyes were watery. My sweatshirt was wet with sweat. I pulled the hood down from over my head and listened hard. I heard nothing. No movements. No rusty doors opening cautiously. No voices barking orders. I had assumed that a warning call was made to the train conductor from someone back in the yard. I looked back, wondering how far Frank had made it, but the trees, rails, and dirt all blurred into the darkness and I made nothing out past the end of the train.

  I had to do something. So I kept going.

  Five cars from the nose, I heard a clanking sound behind me. I turned to see four men in a line scrambling up a tanker three cars back. They held long objects, pipes probably. I moved faster to the front of the car and used the ladder to get to the ground. I looked both ways and saw no one. I had no gun, no weapon of any kind.

  So I hid.

  I crawled back into the shadows between the two cars and waited. Voices approached quickly. Russians. I heard them jump down onto the gravel beside the tracks. They were moving slowly, carefully checking for an intruder.

  I took a deep breath of cool air in through my mouth and held it. The first man came into view on my right, quickly followed by the second. One carried a long, heavy wrench, the other a giant hammer. I exhaled slowly as they crept passed me.

  Then I heard sloppy footsteps in the gravel to my left. I figured they had split up, two on each side of me. A logical, tactical maneuver.

  I crawled out of the shadows as the two on the right were about five yards away. My plan was to sneak up on one and take him out, then get the one ahead of him. I would have a minute or so before the two men on the other side of the train could get to me.

  For a man who didn’t always make the right decision, it was a good plan.

  Almost.

  Because I had made a mistake. The men were not as logical or tactical as I thought.

  I had stepped out ahead of the third man. He screamed for help right away. His mistake. As he heaved up a massive wrench to strike me, I sent a hard kick to his chest with my right foot. But I was on loose gravel and my left foot slid, and my adrenaline was pumping so hard that I missed my target and sent my heel into his larynx. He toppled over, grabbing at his smashed windpipe. I grabbed his weapon and hurled it into the night towards his two partners that were running straight for me. The wrench must have weighed twenty pounds. It must have been invisible in the night. The first guy heading my way caught it in the face. It sounded like a full head of lettuce being shot by a cannon ball. I imagined his face was crushed. His screams were probably heard five miles away. He went down trashing like a fish out of water.

  I ran.

  I moved as fast as I could towards the other Russian, who paused a moment in fear to stare at his fallen comrade. I dove into him like a defensive lineman and sent my right shoulder into his chest, wrapped my arms around his neck, and sent him to the dirt and stones. He scrambled around, but I held tight. He kicked back into my legs, but I squeezed tighter. Elbows into my stomach, but I didn’t budge. He turned and tried to bite my left forearm. But he didn’t have a chance. I didn’t come to play. I came to end the game.

  Within a few moments his struggling quit. He went limp. I relaxed my grip. He began mumbling that he was seeing the white light. He probably thought he was seeing the afterlife. Maybe a passage leading into Heaven, as most people think they see. But I knew he was suffering a lack of oxygen to his brain. His peripheral vision had gone out and his eyes were open, drawing in light, but his brain wasn’t making sense of it. He thought he was dying and going to Heaven.

  He had the dying part right.

  I tossed his motionless body off me then searched it for a gun. I found nothing. The other Russian was ducking through between railcars beside me, yelling all the way. The element of surprise obviously didn’t mean much to him. I laid down and went still. He made it through to my side of the train and saw us three lying on the ground. I wish I could have seen his face. But it was dark and I only kept my eyes opened a sliver, just enough to trace his movements. In his right hand was a huge hammer. He set it in the dirt beside me when he knelt down to investigate his friends’ bodies. He was whispering, praying maybe.

  He didn’t see my hand snatch the hammer.

  He sure as hell felt it when I slammed the pick end into his left boot, slicing through the black leather, cracking metatarsals and searing cuneonavicular ligaments. He fell immediately. Anyone left in the train would be shivering thinking of what was happening to this guy as his screaming was the worst I ever heard.

  I scrambled to my feet and put my hands over my ears. I looked down on him. “Where’s Vladimir?”

  Nothing but screaming.

  “Vladimir?”

  Too much pain to talk.

  I grabbed the hammer’s handle and twisted it. Through his newfound pain, he managed to point to the front of the train with a trembling hand. He was crying. I hated the sound of it. He looked pathetic, curled into a ball, tears unleashed like a flood, mouth wide open with a deep wail of agony pouring out. I silenced him for good. I looked at the hammer and for a second thought about taking it with me. But I turned instead and began walking towards the front of the train. I didn’t bother hiding or creeping or tip-toeing. He knew I was coming.

  Anyone with half a brain knew something unpleasant was taking place outside. It would be a safer bet to remain hidden. Venturing out into the darkness where all the screaming was taking place would be ill advised. Surely Vladimir was nestled in a crook or a shadow with a gun aimed at the only entrance waiting to shoot the first thing that enters. It was common sense. Even I would.

  I smiled in spite of myself.

  I flexed my black wings. They were speckled with blood. They’d be soaked red by dawn.

  Then a figure stepped into view in front of the train. He was big. Close to The Bear’s size, I figured. Maybe they were related. But this guy wasn’t twitchy or excited. He stood slightly stooped. He looked old in the darkness. His upper body was gigantic though. I paused. I saw no weapon. He wasn’t shooting at me yet, so I thought he didn’t have a gun. I stopped for a second. It felt like an old fashioned shootout. Neither of us moved. Tension was thick.

  I broke the ice. I began walking towards him with confident, purposeful steps. “Don’t move, Vladimir.”

  “Vwut do you vwant?” he sounded like a helpless old man, speaking painfully slow, stretching words like elastic. His Russian accent made w’s sound like v’s. It was irritating. It was cold. I hated it.

  “I want to see you behind bars.”

  He stiffened. “I do not see your badge.”

  “I’m not the law.”

  I was twenty yards away and moving steadily. He moved, straightened his back out and began flexing his fingers, as if they were going to see some action.

  “You have killed my men.” Vladimir’s voice wasn’t so frail anymore. He was angry and suspicious.

  “And you’re next.”

  “Come to me, American. Let me see you up close.”

  I kept going. I was two boxcars away. “I’ll be the last thing you see.”

  “You?”

  I kept walking.

  “You are making big mistakes tonight. You have no idea who I am.”

  I was close enough now to see he was taller than me and wearing a fluffy fur coat. “You’re a human-trafficker. A murderer. A scumbag, dirty-rotten piece of shit
.” I paused, then asked, “Did I miss something?”

  He paused for a few seconds. “I know nothing of vwut you speak, American vool.”

  I kept walking, confident and strong, ten yards away.

  He shuffled around, obviously annoyed. “Who are you?!”

  I stopped about five feet away from him. I could see his ugly face tighten up with anger. I smiled. “You’re going to take me to get the women, then I’m going to kill you.”

  Vladimir grinned slowly, then began to laugh. It was a quiet hiss of a laugh. Not like he found me humorous, and he shouldn’t because I wasn’t joking, but more like he was warning me of something.

  “Come here, American. Come closer. I can barely hear you.”

  “Where’s the pick-up, Vladimir? Where’s the women?”

  “Closer,” he whispered.

  I kept walking. I kept my vengeful eyes on his beady ones. He smiled. I said, “Tell me and I’ll kill you quick. But if you don’t, then by God almighty I swear you will suffer like no one ever has.”

  His voice was but a whisper, almost swallowed by the night. “Closer.”

  He grinned like a wolf.

  I made two concrete fists.

  Then I walked closer.

  I was even with the front of the train, nearly five feet away from Vladimir’s wretched life, when my peripheral vision picked out a man rushing toward me. I turned on him quick. He stopped and our eyes met. He was old, probably in his late fifties, early sixties. He was short and scrawny, wearing a dingy blue work uniform. The faded blue with white pinstriped hat he wore made me think he was the train conductor. He held a long crowbar, raised over his head, ready to strike me down. It would have been a good plan, but the old guy was scared. He froze.

  I stared him in the eyes. My hard look versus his frightened one. I heard Vladimir hiss with displeasure. The conductor’s eyes rapidly looked away from mine to Vladimir’s. The look said it all. He couldn’t do it. He sure as hell didn’t want to.

  I said to him, “I’ve killed every man working for this scumbag. They’re all dead. You heard them screaming.”

  Uncertain looks to Vladimir, then back to me. The crowbar lowered. He was shaking.

  “Do it!” Vladimir shouted angrily.

  The conductor was trembling out of control. Vladimir cursed at him again, but to no gain. The crowbar came down gently and rested like a cane in the old man’s hand.

  “Go get back inside the train and be ready to leave when I come back.” He quickly obeyed.

  Vladimir was beside himself. I could feel the tension glowing around him. “Vee own the police. I am unarmed and have done nothing vrong. Vwut do you think you’re going to do?”

  “What I was born to do.”

  Vladimir spit at me.

  “Last chance. Where are they?”

  “No, American rat. They vill votch you suffer virst.”

  I took a step towards the Russian. He stared me down hard. No fear in his frosty eyes whatsoever. I took another step and he nodded gently.

  “Yesss.” A soft hiss escaped from his lips. His right hand reached in his fur coat and slid out a long machete. His hand reared back as if he was going to slice me in half.

  I charged forward in a blur.

  Chapter 24