I clicked my mic. “Same dudes? Or you think there’s more?”
“A few more. Not many. We will ride into them while the men behind cut us off.”
It made sense. I took inventory of my weapons again and tried to recall what Alexei had. Then remembered there was no point because he never failed to surprise me. There was every chance he had a gun too. Or the nasty converted crossbow legend had it he preferred.
Either way, the next ten minutes were going to be interesting.
I clicked my mic again. “Any idea why Gianni Sambini is trying to kill you tonight?”
“This morning,” Alexei corrected lazily, as if we weren’t about to go toe-to-toe with a mafia hit squad. “And I’d imagine it is because we are only two, and you appear benign enough to be unthreatening.”
“Compared to Saint?”
“And Mateo. Tattoos are doing a lot of heavy lifting with this theory, no?”
“That’s what you think it is?” I scanned the horizon for headlights, trusting Alexei to watch our rear. “The ink?”
“These people are stupid. Put them in a room with you and the other soldier and who do you think they would back away from first?”
The other soldier.Decoy. “He’s a trained killer too.”
“Is not the same—yebat’. Stay sharp, Veles. It is time.”
“Received.” Our grounding banter evaporated. Behind me, Alexei wheeled away, luring our pursuers to follow him, while I roared ahead, searching for a spot to leave the road and hunker down to defend my position. In my mirrors, I saw the lights behind me congregate to the left. I heard no gunshots, but with my engine running, that meant nothing.
I scanned the road again.
Pick a side.
Winging it, I banked right and skidded down a slight embankment, pitching my bike into a fortuitously placed hedge.
It was thorny as hell, ripping my riding jacket, but I paid it no heed and scrambled even lower, covering ground until the landscape began to change, dry grass giving way to the fractured concrete of a disused pavement.
It wasn’t ideal to be crawling around on, but I pressed forward, taking the compromise that it would make the approach of any foot soldiers easier to track.
Without the noise from my bike, the sounds of the fight behind me pierced the air. Shouts. Squealing tyres. Still no gunfire.
Up ahead, I caught the barest glimpse of light—a vehicle—and it forced me to make a decision.
I came up on an abandoned feed store, sheets of metal sinking into the land. They were heavy and rusted. I grabbed one and dragged it sideways, fashioning a shelter in the blink of an eye, ducking behind it, gaze zeroing in on the road while I blind-checked my stolen gun with practiced hands. Another Glock, fully loaded with a fresh mag.Thirty-three rounds.Bonza. I wouldn’t need that many, but it was nice to have options.
The approaching vehicle moved with speed, bearing down on where Alexei was engaging four men by himself. I raised the Glock and aimed, squeezing the trigger, popping off three shots in lightning succession.
My aim was true. I hit my target and the vehicle lurched sideways on burst tyres, careening off the road.
It crashed, hard, but stayed upright. Doors opened and men spilled out. More shouting and the flood of flashlights that would find me eventually if I stayed in one place.
Not happening.I had the rest of my life to be passive. Put a gun in my hand and I became something else. A machine. Arobot. Whatever I wanted to call it, waiting for the fight to come to me was counterproductive.
I rose and made a run for it, darting twenty feet before I took aim and fired again, changing my angle enough that the men gearing up to fire back believed there was more than one shooter.
In a gun battle, even one as poxy as this, there was no time for superfluous thinking. It slowed you up, dulled your senses. I ducked down again, counting bullets. Losing track, my existence narrowing to my firing arm. My trigger finger. My lungs as I sprinted forward in a zig-zag pattern, a constantly moving target.
It was a warm night that would soon become a hazy summer morning. Sweat coated my skin, clouding my vision. I wanted to wipe it away as much as I wanted to stop and breathe. To find the perfect firing position and bear my weapon properly. But none of that happened in a gunfight. A man was the sum total of his immediate actions.
Run and fire.
Run and fire.
