All hell broke loose.
The white tiger sprinted from the train and into the lot with bloody paws and an arm dangling from its mouth. It ran into the mess of Russians sprinting for cover and tackled one to the cement, tearing into the guy’s unprotected back with its razor sharp claws in a gruesome mauling. Guns fired rapidly, everywhere. The women split up. I saw Ivana running Palo back towards the office building. I saw another Russian leaving the office, opening fire at the tiger. Sally and the other women were taken by a Russian to the building on the left, the one with the side room where Anna wanted to slice me.
Anna!
She wasn’t there. I had been too late to save her.
Andrik jumped into his car and screamed for his driver to get them out of there. The driver got in the car and I heard the engine come to life. All around us, the night was filled with gunfire and screams. And a ghostly-white tiger, seemingly bulletproof, gave us one giant distraction.
Frank fired a shot and dropped one of the men taking Sally and the other women away while the tiger ferociously tore through a few men like a wrecking ball. The tiger had no mercy. It was almost biblical.
“Sally!” Frank screamed.
“Get behind me!” I said to Frank.
Bullets whizzed past our heads, probably inches away from shattering bones and exploding lobes and cortexes. Yellow blasts lit the foreground like fireflies. Frank fell in line behind me, screaming in defiance. I stood walking, flexing my wings around us in a protective shield. I wasn’t going to die. Certainly not there.
Then, as if guided by the hand of God himself, the tiger cleared a path and sent men scrambling.
Frank raced after Sally. I let him go. It was why he was there. I ran forward, heading after Palo, seeing the roadblocks form ahead of me. People were going to die.
Then the tiger was shot and went down. A man stood over him, raising his arms in triumph like a safari hunt photo. I grew real hot then. I opened fire and he went down. I like tigers. That one especially.
Tires squealed and smoked from the Rolls Andrik was in as it sought to back out. I opened fire on them too. I sent a burst of rounds screaming from the Uzi into the black Rolls-Royce, shattering the windshield and blowing up the tires. The driver slumped down out of sight. I figured he caught rounds to his chest. I didn’t check. I didn’t care. Smoke drifted skyward from the engine. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Andrik stepped out of his Rolls aiming a pistol at me. I stopped near the passenger side door, eight feet away.
“I should kill you now!” Andrik yelled to me.
“Do it, Nabisco!” I began walking towards him. Every limb I had went numb. Adrenaline pumped through me so fast and hard that I felt nothing. Nothing but heat.
I saw his gun muzzle flash brightly. Once. Twice. Three times. Bullets whizzed past my head. I saw his pudgy face twist in lines of anguish each time he missed. He was nervous. He needed more crackers.
I could feel my wings stretch out to my sides for several feet. I felt huge. Indestructible. Immortal.
I aimed my Uzi at him as he kept firing. Andrik ran out of bullets. He yelled. I saw evil in his eyes, a look that should have sent me shivering. But I sent one right back. Checkmate.
My trigger finger went to work. I shot his right hand before running out of bullets. I cleared his door and stopped. Andrik was bent over screaming terribly, clutching his bloody mess of a hand against his chest. Past his toad-like body, I saw Anna in the backseat. Her face had small cuts on it, maybe from fingernails. Her left eye had swollen shut and her face was streaked with tears. Her hands were bound with rope. She wasn’t dressed like the others. She wasn’t going to make the trip.
“Anna?”
Her head slowly turned to me. Her eyes held a distant look. I wasn’t sure she saw me. “Anna? Come on out of there.”
Anna had gone to someplace safe in her mind. She was possibly drugged, maybe so she couldn’t fight back. I kept repeating her name until I saw a look of recognition. I saw a look of shame in her eyes that fizzled away to a look of hope. Her lips parted slowly, but instead of talking, she just cried.
I grabbed Andrik by the left ear and threw him down to the pavement. I kicked him a few times in the gut before Anna spoke. She was exiting the car, moving gingerly.
“Wait.”
She held out her hands. I used the machete to cut the ropes about her wrists then I gave her the long knife. She was good with knives.
“Are you okay?” I said.
Anna nodded. She looked fierce. “I will handle it.”
She looked down at the squirming pig. Andrik was scared. The look in Anna’s eyes would’ve scared any man.
“I am going to enjoy this,” Anna whispered to Andrik.
“I have to get Palo,” I said quickly.
“Thank you, Mr. Hitman.” There was sincerity in her voice.
I left Anna with the machete. I sprinted to the office building. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see Anna’s handiwork. I was squeamish when it came to blood.
The gunfire had ceased. Before reaching the office door, I looked left and saw nothing of the others. There were only dead Russians scattered around.
Go get her, Frank.
I took the office door handle and yanked it open, stepping into the office and hearing right away a muffled scream from the basement. The garage entrance was at the right side, end of the hall. I knew where the basement door was. I ran to it. I had no weapon of any kind. All I had were my wings. Which really meant all I had was faith that I was protected.
I gained the basement door without conflict and stepped through. I was met by a Russian in all black aiming a Glock at me.
“Dasvi-”
I kicked him in the head before he could finish telling me goodbye. He dropped and tumbled down the steps. I think his neck broke. He didn’t move and the way his body was twisted around, I was sure he was dead. Regardless, his weapon had dropped on the first step and I picked it up.
I reached the floor. The room was lit up bright. It smelled strong of perfume.
Frank would have stopped to think about what to do. I ran straight for the bedroom I figured they were in.
As I moved past the kitchen area, someone shot at me. It was a big blast, a shotgun of some sort. I heard a round chamber quickly, click click, and then another shot exploded. A section of the couch blew up beside me. Slugs. Buckshot or even birdshot and I would have been dead.
I dove forward then rolled up to the wall beside the eating area, just out of sight. I heard another click click then a huge blast, then a section of the wall ahead of me disintegrated, showering me in drywall powder and splintered wood.
Subtle noises followed. I crept close to the corner, stuck my gun around it, then fired everywhere. Everything went quiet then. I wasn’t sure I had hit him.
Then I heard a voice from the kitchen.
“Help me.”
It was a woman’s voice, soft and filled with uncertainty.
I looked around the corner carefully. I saw no one in the kitchen. The table had a few shotgun shells on it. The woman’s voice called out from behind the island. I stood still for a moment.
“Please.” It called again. It was dry and lacked urgency.
My gun aimed in the general direction. I moved in closer. My heart was in my throat. Then I saw a figure rise slowly up from behind the island. It was Ivana.
“Please, help me.”
Ivana could talk?
She was hunching over with her hands down and out of sight as if they were clutching a wound on her thigh. I had shot her.
“I thought you couldn’t talk,” I said.
Her eyes flashed a look that I would never forget. Aside from her not speaking, there was much more about Ivana than anyone knew. I wondered how long her charade had went on. Who else did she betray? What was the price?
“He’s dead,” she said.
Her head motioned to the floor beside her. I stepped in closer, slow and
easy. Ivana’s facial expression never relaxed. I knew it wouldn’t. Not until she finished what she started.
“Where’s Palo?” I aimed the gun at her face.
No change. Her eyes were icy cold. Killer’s eyes.
Ivana erupted in madness, screaming like a banshee, bringing her hands up, holding a gun, not a wound. I fired. One shot between the eyes. The bullet sent her last poor idea to the back wall. She dropped to the floor.
I reached the side of the island and stepped around. On the floor lay Ivana, as quiet then as she was supposed to have been, and no one else.
Dirty Rotter all along.
Ivana was a spy. I knew earlier. She took Anna to her safe house and then told Jeff Dimeglio where it was. I knew she had betrayed Palo and Anna the moment I saw her in the bedroom with The Bear. It was the look in her eyes then. She wasn’t excited to see me. She had the look of a child being caught doing something wrong.
I looked to the three closed doors against the wall. Two bedrooms, one bath. Two empty, one a surprise.
I chose door number one. It was empty. The middle door was too. I opened the third and saw Palo lying on the bed with a limb tied to each bed post. Her mouth had a rag stuffed in it. On her chest were stacked a few grey rectangular bars and a small digital clock. I knew right away what it was. C-4 explosives and a timer. In twenty minutes, the entire recycling center would be wiped off the map.
“Palo, don’t move.”
Like she could.
I slowed my approach. I went to her carefully. She was scared out of her mind and crying freely.
“Palo, it’s okay. Stay calm. I’m getting you out of here.”
I stared at the bomb and took a deep breath. There wasn’t much to it really. I gently placed my hands underneath it, brushing the backs of my hands across Palo’s stomach, and lifted. I was calm and relaxed. No reason not to be. If it exploded, I wouldn’t feel a thing. I wouldn’t even know it. I’d be plastered across the lawn outside, scattered in millifragments with no way for anyone to identify me. It would be over before I knew it began.
Simple.
Just the way I liked it.
I set the bomb on the dresser. Real carefully. No reason to push my luck. I turned then and rushed to the bed. I removed Palo’s binds quickly, ankles then wrists. I pulled the rag from her mouth and she yelled, “Ivana!”
“I know. She’s dead.”
Palo latched onto me like a leech. She cried hard. I held her close, squeezing her. I cried a little too. Then a lot.
“Hitman, you saved me! I knew you would!” Palo smiled. “I knew you would.”
Palo looked me in the eyes, then kissed me, hard and passionate. It happened so fast, and I was so caught up in the moment that I let her. I kissed her back. My hands rubbed and squeezed her tighter. I didn’t want to let go.
“You’re my angel,” she said, breaking away, in tears. The sadness in her blue eyes slowly broke to relief.
“Come on. We have fifteen minutes to get out of here.”
We stood up and raced to the door. I stayed in front of her, eyes peering this way and that, always cautious, alert and ready. I still had not seen The Bear and who knew how many more foot soldiers he had.
We raced by the kitchen area and Palo saw Ivana’s body. “I had trusted her,” Palo said. “Did you kill him? My father?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Palo stopped. “He was leaving with Vladimir!”
The plane.
Belsay!
“Come on!” I pulled her along, running to the steps.
Then there were voices and a thundering of footsteps above us. Before we could hide, Anna, Frank, and Sally were rushing down to meet us. I hugged Sally close. Frank shook my hand. He saved his woman. I saved mine.
“This place is going to blow sky high,” I said.
I told them about the bomb. Then I told them about The Bear’s plan to exit the country.
Frank exclaimed, “Belsay!”
“Listen, I think I have a plan.”
Frank groaned. “Think?”
“Yeah. I’m not real good at this, but listen up. Anyone know how to diffuse a bomb?”
Anna nodded. “I am trained with explosives.”
I told them what I wanted to do and what they needed to do to help. There was no reluctance. Belsay was in trouble. They were in. We had to be fast.
I looked at Anna. “Are you sure you can do it?”
Anna’s look was marvelous. “I can do everything.”
I looked at Frank, then Sally. “Meet us in the lot in five minutes.”
They bolted up the steps, outside to the train.
Anna led me and Palo back to the bedroom.
Time was ticking.
Chapter 27