Last Man Standing

CHAPTER TEN

Drake hugged the uneven wall that formed the row of stores leading up a short, curving hill and onto Sunnyvale’s main street. Every few feet another storefront protruded out, another hanging sign creaked, and another set of steps descended into the storage basements below the stores. Windows, though covered with hand-written signs and special offers, gave alternate views up the hill. Mai had been given the job of watching the rooftops, Dahl of watching the many winding alleyways that dissected the town, and Alicia of covering their rear. It was Drake’s job to move them forward.

He hissed suddenly and the group crouched low, all with weapons raised. But it was only the shadow of a cloud scudding across the moon in a window three storefronts away; a miniscule movement but still one that required instant evaluation.

Darkness hung all around, painted by a master using darker hues in the most dangerous vantage points. And although the stores were closed and the carnival had attracted many townsfolk, the pubs were still noisy and frequented by many, the streets and side-streets echoed to occasional laughter and footfalls. Lone men and women walked by with their dogs; a man sat on a bench staring into space; a middle-aged couple played tonsil-hockey in a doorway, not even noticing the team pass close by them.

At the top of the hill a dark, narrow alley led away to the left up to an expansive graveyard and large church. The main road crested the hill then swooped down at a sharp angle, widening to create an impressive thoroughfare with stores to either side and market stalls all along the bottom. Little cafés with names like Frog Restaurant and Little Mo’s and Penny’s Coffee Bar revealed Sunnyvale’s small-town nature as much as the tiny stores, community boards and handmade signs. Another sharp hill led off to the right toward the castle, Drake knew, with still more dissecting it.

Their opponents could be anywhere. They embraced the shadows for a time, letting their eyes wander and delve, and then begin all over again. The fact that it was still early and people still roamed the streets would not deter a master assassin. Collateral damage was a factor of their occupation, and one sometimes used to their advantage. So whilst Dahl was muttering about passers-by being so frivolous and devil-may-care, Mai was watching the shadows behind the passers-by and the ones that lurked ahead of them.

Dahl finally broke out the tracker. Its tiny flashing lights actually caused a potential security threat to the user, as they could be seen for yards around, but might also be useful.

Mai made a face. “Thing’s pretty useless.”

“Not entirely,” Dahl disagreed. “We can fix their positions every twelve minutes and see if we can’t figure out a pattern.”

“And they’ll be doing the same to us.”

“Won’t help ‘em,” Alicia pointed out. “I have no pattern.”

“It is pretty useless,” Drake said. “Every shift on that screen, every movement, can be second guessed to be a ruse or a threat. But hey, if you wanna feel important, Dahl, then go right ahead.”

The Swede ignored him, taking stock of the flashing lights then turning the device off.

Drake spoke up again. “You think Coyote will make good on her threat? The nano-vest thing?”

“I do,” Mai said. “She has never given us any reason to doubt her cruelty.”

“We would be best served by thinning out the field before her arrival,” Dahl said.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Torst,” Alicia said. “We need to find the crafty bastards first. Killing ‘em will be a whole new ballgame.”

Mai shrugged. “One of your favorite pastimes, I hear.”

“Killing?”

“Ballgames.”

“Fuckin’ sprite. Focus. Y’know. Drake, your bitch sounds frustrated to me. You not performing regular enough to keep her tame?”

Mai’s eyes flashed even in the dark. Drake held up a hand. “There.”

It seemed their patience had paid off. A shadow slinked up the hill past a few doorways and passed out of sight, a shadow wearing all black and moving like a prowling panther.

“Move.”

They crept forward. Mai cautioned them that it could still be a trap. Newly procured weapons ready, they inched ahead until an unlit sign stopped them. Painted white and in the form of an arrow it pointed to the left, down an alley to a flea market. Darkness pooled down there like the midnight waters that swept the Mariana Trench, but at the far end a wide glass door reflected distant light. The image it reflected was still, lifeless.

“Looks like a bloody trap,” Drake said.

The faintest of scrapes echoed up the alley, something that could have been mortar crumbling, a crisp packet rustling, or a killer drawing a blade. Drake readied himself and hugged the near wall, taking Dahl with him. Mai and Alicia slinked along the other. Closer to the flea market’s entrance they crept, passing a stockade of trash cans and a row of wall-mounted air-conditioner units.

Drake put his hand on the flea market door.

“Open,” he said. “Someone’s inside.”

“We’d be stupid to follow,” Alicia said.

“Agreed,” Dahl whispered. “I believe we should—”

The door slammed into Drake as a figure hit it hard from the inside. The Yorkshireman stumbled back, surprised. A black-clad man squeezed through the gap and was suddenly among them; striking, punching, kicking with lightning speed, pushing his sudden advantage to the max. Drake stumbled beneath a flying kick. Dahl deflected a killing blow with a lucky uppercut. Mai reacted faster than even their assailant had imagined, stopping the blow that might well have fractured several of Alicia’s ribs.

Alicia was gawping. “Beauregard! Shit!”

Drake jumped up. The Frenchman was unmasked, but also the only contestant apart from Coyote that might think he could take all four of them at once. Drake struck, but the assassin appeared to have some kind of sixth sense, evading blows from the side and behind, then using his opponents’ surprise to his advantage.

Drake staggered, a knee having raised fire inside his right thigh muscle.

Alicia cried, “Watch him! He’s as slippery and slimy as an oyster.”

“Why, thank you,” could be heard as Beauregard actually glided underneath Mai’s offensive and came up kicking on the other side. Dahl lunged hard, but Beauregard unbalanced the Swede, spinning and sending him into a plastic trash can. Dahl’s forehead connected hard, and left a great imprint and a huge crack. The mad Swede barely felt it.

Drake found his handgun at last, feeling that whole minutes had passed since Beauregard had started his assault but knowing it was mere seconds. “Stop,” he said. “I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

Laughter crept all around him as the French assassin weaved and twisted from side to side. A black gloved hand knocked the gun to the floor. “Damn,” Drake breathed, trying to keep track of the ghost.

“He’s just smoke and shadow,” Mai said. “Nothing more. One good strike will scatter him.”

A gunshot rang out, loud in the alley. Dahl had drawn his own gun and fired at the darting shade. Drake heard the thunk as the bullet lodged in the wall at his back. In another second Beauregard had scurried high, using the trash cans and air-conditioner units to gain the roof in a matter of seconds.

“Jesus,” Drake said. “That was close. Hope you measured that shot to the millimeter, Dahl.”

The Swede grunted. “Worth the risk.”

Drake gritted his teeth. “Everyone okay?”

“So that was Beauregard Alain,” Mai said. “The stories may be true.”

“What stories?”

“Really. You don’t want to know. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Well, that just fills me with confidence.”

They exited the alley and moved back cautiously into faceless rows of storefronts. Mai tapped the folder they’d been given.

“We should get acquainted with the other assassins,” she said. “Before we rush headlong into another fight. We need knowledge, a plan. We need to force them to react, not us.”

Alicia pouted. “You mean we’re gonna have to do some reading?”

Drake nodded, already reaching for the file. “Yeah. And fast.”

Dahl leaned back against a wall. “So tell us about the people that accepted the offer, and would love to get rich by killing us tonight.”

Vincent, The Ghost, was a contract killer that hired himself out to the highest bidder. Didn’t matter if the person that had hired him was subsequently gazumped by the person he’d been hired to kill; Vincent went with the money, providing you could dish it up. More than one story existed of Vincent marching a target to some safety-deposit box, clearing it out and then fulfilling the hit, but on his original employer.

Total anonymity enabled him to do this. Vincent wasn’t called The Ghost for nothing. His art was concealment; often the first you knew that The Ghost had been hired to kill you was when you heard the whisper of steel across your throat.

Next up was Gretchen, the Russian. An old picture of her showed a woman that might well be mistaken for a member of an Olympic weightlifting team; something that put Drake in mind of watching old Olympic Games, when Eastern Bloc teams used to proffer male and female line-ups that were almost interchangeable.

“That woman,” Alicia said. “Will not be hard to recognize.”

“Photo’s ten years old,” Drake said. “And if she’s stopped using steroids she could look as handsome as… well… as Dahl by now.”

“Shut it, Yorkshire twat.”

Gretchen was ex-special forces, as most of these paid killers tended to be. Her specialty was close-up strangulation, asphyxiation, using her muscles to end a man’s life. Like a boa constrictor, once Gretchen enclosed you in her grip, the game was lost.

Blackbird was Mossad, one of the most feared special-forces agencies in the world. Little was known of the Israeli agent; hence the description that they remained ‘of Mossad’. The Israelis kept schtum on the subject, typically proffering no information. Male or female? Nobody knew.

“That person might be a little harder to spot,” Alicia commented.

“Sharp as a razor,” Mai said. “That’s been used to trim a tree.”

“I’ll trim you if you don’t be quiet.”

“Uhh, promises, promises.”

Dahl carried on his emotionless monotone. “Blackbird has been called a freelancer by some in the Israeli government. It says: ‘Blackbird never fights alone’. Others — still reputable sources — say he only carries out hits sanctioned by his bosses. Which begs the question — why is Blackbird here?”

“We’ll ask him later,” Drake said. “Next.”

Duster was a Cockney and a weapons expert. Everything from knives to high-explosives and advanced armaments filled his résumé like a comprehensive menu.

“Where the hell did she find these people?” Drake asked. “I never heard of any of them before.”

“Coyote has run among them most of her life,” Mai said. “In one form or another.”

Gozu’s name came up next, the second Grand Master assassin from Mai’s village and quite possibly the only free member of Clan Tsugarai. Gozu would want to exact full vengeance for his clan’s shame, money for himself, and walk away with Mai’s head.

“This is his theater,” Mai said. “It is what the masters trained for. Covert assassination among civilians. Slip in and slip away, a shadow in the twilight, an art learned over decades and through hard experience.”

Gozu had been identified and placed on a watch list by Dai Hibiki, Mai’s old police friend from Tokyo. The picture they had of him gave very little away, except that he looked almost identical to Gyuki, the Grand Master Mai had slain and her old teacher.

They skipped Santino.

Second to last on the list was Beauregard Alain, the French assassin, also known around the world as Lucifer. Deadly, pitiless, without restraint or remorse, Beauregard was revered in the same vaunted circles as Coyote.

“All I can say is, to get all these celebrities together the bloody reward must be fantastic,” Alicia pointed out. “Why would they, and especially Beauregard and Coyote, want to fight each other just for this?”

Dahl sighed. “Kovalenko’s fortune,” he said. “Was vast. He funded this, remember? The vendetta fund goes to the last man standing… and it is one hundred million. More to the person that takes down Drake and Crouch.”

Alicia coughed hard and eyed Drake. The Yorkshireman frowned. “Don’t be silly.”

Alicia narrowed her eyes. “I could put my kids through college with that kinda dosh.”

“You don’t have any kids.”

“Sure I do. Just because they call themselves the Slayers and are aged twenty five to forty doesn’t mean they’re not family.”

“Last on the list,” Dahl said. “Is Michael Crouch. Wonder where he is?”

“He’ll make contact,” Drake said. “I’m not worried about that.”

“So what’s first?” Alicia stared across the dark town. “What’s the plan?”

“Track them. Draw them out. End this.” Drake said and then turned to the companions he was closest to. “And get on with our bloody lives.”

Mai’s emotionless stare did nothing to ease his fears.