So I've decided that I will bolster my floundering novels by throwing some of them on YWS for your reading pleasure. Perhaps that will cure my of my affliction.
So here goes.
KILLER INSTINCT
There are three things to remember in a knife fight. The first is that if your opponent has a bladed weapon- which is pretty likely in a knife fight- you're going to get cut. No getting around it, that sharp thing is going to make its way through your paper-thin flesh and cause trouble while its in there.
The second thing is that nothing matters more than sticking that other sonofabitch before he can stick you. Doesn't matter what your technique is. Doesn't matter if you cheat. When life is on the line, there's no such thing as cheating. There's winning and losing. So kick sand in his eyes, kick him in the balls, spit in their face. It's you or them.
Number three is... aw shit, he sees me.
He's easily twice my size. Even in the dim, cloying light, I can tell that he outdoes me in the mass arena. I'm not worried, though. His back is to the pathetic little security light that clings to the crumbling bricks above the back door of Rose de Medianoche. That worries me a little. It'll be harder to see how he's turning when his entire body is a dark blob.
I'm pretty sure I can take him, though, he's got his knife in a reverse-grip, the blade coming out of the base of his fist, down against his forearm: classically amateur. He's also got his thumb across his knuckles, like a punch, instead of against the handle. Probably the only knife-fight experience he has is from Stephen Segal films. Fine by me.
"You have three seconds to get out of here." Tall, Dark, and Smelly says in gritty Spanish. "Before I stick you like a pig."
Even though we're in a dirty, slimy old alley, the fragrance coming off him is still enough to overwhelm the dead, rotting stench of ancient garbage. Yeah, I bet his most recent bath was when he was baptized by some homosexual priest.
He takes a step towards me and I spring forwards, knife in hand. I get sick of all the crap I get for the knife I chose to carry. From what I've seen and been told by the foolish masses, you're a hopeless weakling if your knife is any shorter than your forearm. Running around the town with a bayonet strapped to my leg isn't an option, though.
The 4-inch Cold Steel folder I keep in my hip pocket is plenty sharp and long enough to do the job.
His feet are out of alignment as he takes a step forwards. His balance is too far to the left because his left arm, called the dead side, is out a foot too far.
I step forwards to tempt a swing and he complies, bringing his fisted knife around like a punch- another reason not to carry your knife reversed.
I swap the knife in my hands faster than the buffoon in front of me can notice, and catch the man's live arm at the elbow. Even as I'm blocking him, my left hand is booking it for the prize, the finish line, the trachea.
With a wet slice, the cold steel slides into his neck, hitting the carotid artery, severing the left vagus nerve and nicking a vertebrae. It erupts from the back of his neck and a gallon or so of thick, viscous blood splashes out, drenching my left arm to the elbow.
His knife arm, which is still uselessly slashing at me goes limp and his knife clatters to the ground. A soft gurgle is the only sound he makes as he collapses into the fetid pavement beneath my feet. My hand is in his pocket, dragging out his wallet, his keys, and cell phone.
Finish to start, the whole things takes less than three seconds. I would make such a good criminal. Fortunately for people who jog at night, I'm on a higher mission.
I wipe my knife on the bastard's shirt sleeve and collapse it, sliding the blade back into my hip pocket, relieved to see that my shirt no blood on it. I wipe the sticky, viscous blood off my arm with the baby wipes I had previously stored in my other pocket and I slid on my transparent surgical gloves.
The light keeps its dull buzz and the thumping music inside the club/restaurant keeps deafening the party-goers. No one opens the door to see how Tall, Dark, and Deceased is doing.
I pull the cash and credit cards out of his wallet and crush the cellphone under my heel. I drag him across the alley and heave him into a large, foul-smelling dumpster. It wasn't my first choice to kill him, too many bodies rack up and people start to ask questions. I saw what he did to those girls on the surveillance footage, though. Those two, innocent little girls... and I had to watch, unable to do anything. Screaming at them to fight back, to bite him, to do anything. I couldn't help, I was a block away, hacking into the security system of the club.
They didn't do anything. I think they're dead, now.
They say its unbecoming for a warrior to acknowledge anger. The best fighter is a dispassionate, detached one. "Emotion leads to mistakes, so I have no emotion, the storm swirls outside, but I am an island of peace." That's how the mantra goes. Doesn't keep me from being pissed, though. Pissed enough to retrieve his knife and run it into his gut.
"Sweet dreams." I mutter, and then slam the slid over him, sealing him in his stinking, rotting grave.
There's no sign I was there other than the huge pool of blood where Tall and Dark met his fate and the smeared trail that leads to the dumpster. Fortunately, it blends right in with the rest of the standing water and god knows what else in this miserable alley.
I'm 10 seconds behind as I unlock the back door and let myself into the back hallway of Rose de Medianoche. That's within acceptable parameters, though. The music is even louder as I walk down the dirty hall. There are no pictures on the grimy stone walls and a single light bulb hangs, bringing illumination to the tomb-like hallway.
I flip the switch and immerse myself in a world of darkness, I can feel my pulse slow a few bpms as the inky blackness embraces my body. I like the dark. The night is my home and will protect me from evil. That's how the other mantra goes. It's worked I believe it.
I walk about four more feet in the darkness until I reach the door at the end of the hallway. Bright tendrils of every color possible erupt from the base, bathing the toes of my boots in an embrace of psychedelic dizziness. I'm also pissed that I have to go through here. I'd rather avoid being seen by this many people. Fortunately, stoned people don't remember things very well.
Wondering how many people in the room ahead are jacked up on ecstasy, barbiturates, and god knows what else, I slide the door open and follow suit into the room, hopefully before anyone noticed me.
I'm immediately bathed in sensory input. A deafening, pulsating collage of noise hits my ears like a stun grenade and I involuntarily recoil. The overwhelming stench of human sweat, urine, and other more... lurid... scents force their way up my nostrils, demanding to be recognized. At a stage on one side of the room, a DJ sands over a soundboard and looks out over the gyrating mass of sweaty bodies in his audience, all oblivious to my presence: just the way I like it.
Most of the crowd seems occupied with a pale-skinned, nicely toned topless woman thrusting and swaying on a table at the other side of the room. I squint at her for a second, wondering what possesses people to lower themselves to this.
She's probably an accountant from Miami. Her tangled auburn hair bounces around her shoulders and she raises her arms above her head and yells something indecipherable to the crowd. The swell of cheers and movement indicates the audiences approval, and she starts to unbutton her khakis.
Yes, it's definitely a club in Rio de Janeiro.
While I was observing the local wildlife, I was moving long the back of the crowd towards another door, keeping my eyes on the DJ and the guards surrounding him. They're not paying any closer attention to me than the audience, though and their arms go into the air as the audience erupts into cheering and screaming. Obviously, CPA girl is going all the way.
I'm to busy to watch. I don't want to miss my chance. The armed guard at the back of the room isn't paying any attention, either. But he's holding still as he watches the girl undress to the beat of the music. If I can just make it...
I raise my arms and jump along beside him, like any other wasted tourist as I edge for the back door. It's fairly recessed from the audience, hidden from the main stage by a tower of speakers. My ears are screaming with protest from the deep bass. I expect I'll have hearing damage tomorrow. It's not this loud behind an F-18 or even an F-22 when they hit the afterburners.
The guard doesn't notice me and I slip quietly- almost a pointless endeavor due to the raging din outside- into the door behind him. This door is obviously a higher quality than the one leading outside and the walls are noticeably thicker. I can't feel the bass thumping in my chest any more.
I'm not far now, seconds really, from my main objective. This is where it can break down, though. It always does. There is no "perfect mission" there are missions that go awry much worse than others and some that aren't quite so bad, but something will go wrong, something has to. I doubt the sun would rise again if I went on a perfect mission.
The stairs are carpeted- high style for this neighborhood, and they lead up a relatively clean hallway to a hardwood landing at the top. There are actually pictures on the walls. The smell is a lot better. In fact, were it not for the throb of the club below, this might even pass as a relatively nice hotel. The pleasant lighting comes from lamps along the wall and a chandelier on the ceiling.
The landing runs around both sides of the stairwell and there are a few doors on each side from which to choose. My door is the one on the back right, though. I could really care less what's in any of the other doors. Well, almost.
I slide the back right door open and light spills out into the hallway from a lamp on a desk. Behind the desk, sits a man. He's a local, with a large, dark mustache sprouting from beneath his broad nose. Bushy eyebrows sit on a wide, low brow and his hair is black and cut short. His shirt is a grimy, white undershirt. Understandably, it's about a hundred degrees in here, which still makes it leagues better than the club, down below.
He looks up from his desk and he can tell immediately that something is wrong.
I'm coming across the room, though, and I have his pudgy hands pinned to the desk before he can get them under the table for his gun that I know is there.
He doesn't bother yelling, knowing it wouldn't do any good, and I don't bother breaking any fingers or other bones, yet.
My voice is as cold and dispassionate as its supposed to be and his face is expressionless as I demand in Spanish. "When does the shipment leave for Florida?"
He appraises me slowly and then speaks softly in barely accented English. "Who sent you here? Was it Hermito?"
I apply more pressure to his left hand and I can feel a metatarsal that wants to break. "When does it leave?"
He smiles and shakes his head. "You're a fool."
The bone in his left hand snaps in my hand and an involuntary shudder passes through his body and he swears at me, kicking his feet beneath the table. But he's hopeless and he knows it.
"When?" I ask again.
He swears and spits on the table. "You're too late you fool. It left this morning."
A bone in his right hand breaks and he swears again. "I'm not lying. You can check the register."
I nod and push him and his chair over. He reaches back to catch himself, but his broken hands aren't very much help. He yells and clutches his hands to his chest.
"My men will hunt you down and keel you." he shouts in Spanish.
I smile sharply and reach under his desk where his colt .45 is kept. He rights himself and sighs painfully. "Before I die, let me know who?"
I don't even care. It's not my job to care. 'Tis not mine to question, only to do. I have no problem with that. It's what I was raised to do. What I'm about to do is merely the fulfillment of years of training. Unlike the guard at the back door, I feel nothing for this man. The Commander said he needed to die so he will.
Screwing my own suppressor into the barrel of his .45, I withhold all comments.
"Was it Mario?" he asks, straightening.
His suppressor has just made it onto the barrel when the lock behind me starts to slide crustily. Mr. Borgia uses the opportunity to make his presence known and lets out a yell for help.
What did I say earlier? Nothing ever goes perfectly on a mission.
The door bursts open and two armed men storm into the room. They sweep the room with their guns and take two steps forwards. Unfortunately for them, I had already flanked them, ducked down behind a filing cabinet.
The shin of the man on the left blows apart, spraying bone fragments across the room. He lets out a howl and squeezes his trigger foolishly, spraying his gun full-auto haphazardly across the room. I catch his friend in the knee as he turns and he too lets another full-auto burst free of his small machine pistol, catching his falling friend in the side.
I can already hear people storming up the stairs and I cross the room putting a bullet behind the ear of the second thug. I check their pulses and they're both out of the count. A second later, I'm ducking behind Borgia's desk. He's lying down now, wisely.
A head comes into view over the stairwell and I splatter it across the landing. That's enough to discourage his friends behind him. Someone starts firing their shotgun wildly over the edge of the stairwell and holes are punched through the drywall, I keep my head down and check on Borgia.
Oh, that's why he was holding so still. One of his helpful guards stitched a line of rounds up his leg and through his chest. He's now lying in a pool of his own blood. Peering underneath the edge of the desk, I let a few rounds go, catching the shotgunner in the hand.
I fumble through the drawers on the side of his desk, desperate for some kind of useful material. I come across a thumb drive with something written on the side. It looks more promising than anything else I see in there.
I let a few more rounds go at the stairwell and break across the room for the fire escape. His window is already open and I'm out and headed up the fire escape before anyone can see.
Headed up, you ask? Trust me, I've done the recon. Up is leagues better than down. The roof is throbbing beneath my feet with the deafening music of the place and I'm thankful that the buildings are all mashed up against each other. It's no matter at all to jump from rooftop to rooftop. I cross onto the roof of the next establishment, vaulting over vents and other such things. I cross two more buildings and then I'm at the apartment complex. I crawl up the ladder that is leaning against the side as the first rounds of my pursuers reach me. I can't hear the rounds, but I can hear the reports of their guns.
The closest they get is a few meters away where a brick shatters, I don't even feel a fragment even touch me.
I get to the top and pull the ladder up behind me. I cross the apartment complex's rooftop and don't even slow as I reach the edge. There's a street down below, but it's not even wide enough for two cars to go past each other. I'm more than three times that up and moving fast enough that I clear the street. I don't see anyone looking up as I sail overhead.
The edge of the street is a brick wall that falls straight down into the water. It's high tide and I fly comfortably over the edge and hit the water, still fast and hard enough to make it fun. I ditch the shirt and sandals and start swimming across the bay. Yeah, I've lost them.
I mostly stay under the water, the brine stinging my eyes, but it's better than being seen. I only allow my lips to break the surface for the first 500 meters but after that, I let my head up and pause for a moment and consider the mainland. I can hear the sirens still blaring and there is yelling from down the street. The music has stopped. I drop the pistol I've been carrying, confident I'm safe ditching it here. It's hard to retrieve a gun from the middle of the bay so I count myself as safe. Besides, I'm wearing clear, plastic gloves.
I reach the beach on the other side a half hour later and I slide out of the water and across the soft sand in the span of a heartbeat. I creep through the dozen or so meters through the forest and I frighten a cat away, but other than that, I'm confident no one saw me.
My recently liberated van is sitting underneath a streetlight and I'm in the back, throwing on a shirt and pair of pants before my skin has fully dried.
I climb to the front seat and lift my earpiece and adjust the microphone.
My voice is still coldly unemotional. "Echo-17 to Viper. Come in Viper"
"This is Viper."
I exhale softly. "Mission accomplished. Target neutralized."
There's a brief pause and then Viper comes back. "Good work, Viper. Meet exfil at RV point Alpha at 0300 and we'll get you out of there."
I double-click the mic which means "yes" and I get the van started and headed down the street.
Some missions screw up less than others.
