Anselm, page 22
No time to waste. The trap was circling in—Raze and the rest knew it was a trap going in, but they still proceeded, not fully realizing the lengths to which Cain was willing to go. This would be a slaughter—not only of our people, but of innocent civilians, as well.
Our guys would take care to avoid hitting civilians, but Cain’s men certainly would not.
I gripped my knife tighter, gritted my teeth, and held my breath.
My foot scuffed the carpet at exactly the wrong moment and the shooter spun, dropping his rifle into the room and drawing a pistol with admirable speed.
No time now for a kill shot—I drove the knife up under his jaw as hard as I physically could, feeling blood gush hot over my hand. I ripped the throat mic away to prevent his gurgles from being transmitted, and yanked the knife free. He wobbled. Blinked at me. I snatched his pistol before he could get his finger around the trigger. I struck again, this time taking a moment to find his heart.
He staggered, folded forward, and I let him fall. I fished his radio and mic from him, put the earpiece in my other ear, and listened.
Chatter, in what sounded like Ukranian and Czech and Russian—a jumble of languages.
“Sniper eliminated,” I said into my mic. “It is a trap. Regroup in the center of the market—you are surrounded.” Heedless of my bloody hand, I took the shooter’s seat. Fit the rifle stock to my shoulder. “Selah, to me. Let the woman go.”
Moments later, I heard voluble shouting, and felt Selah’s presence. I watched as Cain’s men closed in—behind ours, in squads of three or four.
Raze was speaking, but I was tuned in to the shot, now. Sound faded. My pulse thudded distantly. I drew crosshairs on the farthest tango I had a lock on—not too far, perhaps two hundred yards. Negligible wind. He was moving, making it harder. I trusted my instincts and squeezed the trigger—
BOOOM!
And the trap was sprung.
Screams echoed from the market as my bullet took the merc in the skull, spraying the poor hapless shoppers around him with blood. The round tore through him and splatted onto a display of purses. Immediately, the crowd scattered, and my job got easier.
I located my people—Raze, Chico, Harris, Duke, Puck, Ludvik.
Ludvik? He was an unknown. Would he turn back to Cain’s side? Make his escape? Fight for us or against us? No time to worry about that
I chose another target, a close one, and blasted him to the next world. Then another. Selah was beside me—she took my rifle from my shoulder, set it up beside me. I felt her, but could not spare a thought for her.
I saw Duke, Raze and Harris down in the market below and I saw the noose tightening around them. A merc was sneaking up laterally to take out Raze—he was in the line of fire.
“Raze—duck on three.” I spoke clearly, then paused for breath. “One—two—three.”
On three, Raze dropped to one knee and I fired. Red sprayed.
Automatic weapons fired from every direction. There must have been at least two dozen of Cain’s men. My stomach tightened.
A merc aimed for this window, but Selah’s round took him—low, in the chest. We worked our rifles in tandem, blast after blast. My ears rang, and I knew I’d be deaf with tinnitus for several days, if not weeks after this.
Chico took out three mercs in quick succession, and Duke’s shotgun was blasting, bullets whipping, snapping.
I heard Ludvik’s voice over the earpiece. “Is too many, this trap.”
The marketplace was a war zone, now.
Harris was engaged in hand-to-hand combat, yanking one off-balance by the front of his shirt, and then shooting him, he dropped another, but two mercs were firing, and I watched as Harris took a round to the arm. My next two bullets found their marks.
“Just a graze,” Harris said, his voice tight, giving the lie to his claim.
Duke’s shotgun blasts were like thunder, one after the other so fast it was impossible to tell where one left off and the next began. He was dancing like a dervish, his shotgun working in concert with his steps.
A death machine of unparalleled skill.
Until he took a round to the back, near his shoulder blades. He spun, crying out—he was wearing a vest, but the shot hit above it and to the left.
Opening his throat.
“Medic!” I heard someone shout.
Selah was already on the move. I fired over Duke, then switched mags.
Puck was limping—his left leg covered in red, but still dealing murder with terrifying efficiency.
Harris took another round, this one to his vest, then another and another, and I knew the vest could not take any more.
And that was when I saw him—a man outside the perimeter of the firefight. And my gut went haywire, screaming, my instincts shouting.
“Cain is on the move!” I shouted. “North of the market, heading east. Alone.”
“Take him,” I heard Harris growl, pain in his voice.
I snapped off a shot, it went high and wide—but it drove Cain to the ground.
I saw Raze in the mix, cradling his left arm. Chico was with him, but he was wounded too, holding his side.
I had to go.
I had to get Cain.
I could not let him get away. He was beyond my line of fire now, but his vector left few other options—he was between two main roads, which he would have to cross, and in this situation it would be difficult at best, and he would be easily spotted as he moved.
I scrambled away from my window and headed down the stairs—leaping down four at a time, skidding, leaping over railings. I missed a landing and rolled down the steps. I got to my feet, aching, but knowing the pain was nothing compared to the chase.
I was outside and across the market—jumping over bodies. I saw Selah working on Duke, her hands red, moving with quick, knowledgeable precision.
“Duke will live,” I heard her say into the radio. “He needs surgery, but I have stabilized him.”
“Several of us need you,” I heard Puck say. “My thigh is fucked.”
“If you can fight, go after Cain,” I heard Raze tell us over the mic. “He is heading east, toward Boulevard Misirkov. If you are too wounded to pursue, converge on Selah.”
I heard firing on my left—
“Help!” Selah screamed.
Puck’s voice could be heard, shouting. Weapons fired, overlapping chatter.
“Puck!” Selah’s voice again.
Fuck, fuck.
I also heard Duke’s shotgun, and Harris was shouting, his voice razor-thin with pain and rage.
The firing abruptly stopped, and I knew I had to go. I had to trust my team to protect each other—to protect Selah. I heard Duke’s shotgun again, and how the fuck he was operating with a hole in his throat I did not know.
I sprinted through the bazaar. Shouldering aside people—I heard sirens. There would be authorities here soon.
“Raze, where is he?” I asked.
“Crossing Misirkov.”
I reached the boulevard, traffic rushing by—I waited to cross, antsy. I made it to the median—it was divided by a concrete curb and a waist-high black iron fence.
I saw a person about a quarter mile north of my position, on the median, jogging this way, looking over his shoulder and trying to watch northbound traffic as well, waiting for a moment to cross over.
Cain.
My blood boiling, I sprinted for him and watched as he hurdled the fence, seeing his chance. He darted into traffic. Brakes screamed, tires squealed.
“He’s across Misirkov!” I shouted. “In pursuit!”
I entered the traffic, a silver two-door coupe swerving, braking—I leaped up, landed on the hood, taking the impact and rolling with it. I felt pain in my hip and something throbbed. I ignored it, landing on my feet and squeezing between cars, the drivers yelling and cursing at me.
Across Misirkov, Cain was less than a hundred yards away, sprinting down the sidewalk. He held a pistol in one hand, an AK strapped to his back. He was watching over his shoulder, his long dark hair and beard standing out. He aimed at me—fired a shot that went wide and high, thunking into a tree trunk.
I sprinted harder, pistol in hand.
Cain was nimble and fast, especially for a large man. Desperation had made him speedy, I knew. Put fire in his muscles.
He headed down a narrow side street, cars parked at angles on both sides, leaving barely enough room for a car to drive down the middle. People reacted in alarm when they saw what was happening, then I saw Cain slam into someone and shove them aside. He fired a shot at them—the round hit the dirt, but it drove the poor innocent person backward, scrambling. How much longer could I run flat out? My body was screaming, but I refused to give up. I could not let Cain go.
He was slowing as well, no longer able to keep up his speed.
I forced my legs to move, and ignored the burn in my lungs, the pounding in my skull, the dimness at the edges of my vision.
He was just ahead, now, no more than thirty yards away, but there was too much foot traffic to open fire.
Cain went left, down an even narrower side street; here the power lines and telephones lines overhead were jumbled into a tangled rat’s nest. The brick buildings opened directly onto the street, crumbling with age. I sprinted down the alley, hearing Cain’s footsteps ahead of me, just around the bend.
A shout, a gunshot.
I passed a bystander on the ground, bleeding from the belly. Fucking Cain, careless of the innocents.
The end of the alley was just ahead, and I could hear horns honking. Shouts.
A squeal of tires, a long blast of a horn, another gunshot—I leaped to slide over a parked car and hit the ground at a bad angle, toppling forward and rolled…into traffic. Instinct had me rolling into a twisting somersault across the cracked blacktop. Tires crunched and squealed —my palm stung, and my knuckles were bloody where my gun hand had ground into the concrete. My knees were ripped open, and my hip screamed from the impact of the fall and tumble across the road.
Cain was ten feet away. He saw me, watched me get to my feet. He was limping, had taken a hit from a car, or a bad fall. Something. One hand gripped his pistol.
The other hand shot out and he lunged, snatching a pregnant woman around the neck and hauling her up against his front, his pistol pressed to her temple. She was white with fear.
“Stop there, Anselm,” he shouted.
I stopped. Held my pistol over my head. “Haven’t enough innocent people died for your petty revenge?”
He jammed the pistol harder against her temple. “You shut up. I will kill her.”
I saw, over Cain’s shoulder, Raze and Chico. They were sneaking, creeping behind him. The people were screaming and running for cover—anywhere they could go to get away from Raze and Chico—who both looked like demons from hell, bloody and wielding automatic weapons, rictuses of hate on their faces.
“Let her go, Ledion,” I snapped. “She is a pregnant woman.”
“I fucking do not care,” he growled. “You want to take me, it will be over her fucking body.”
I set my pistol on the ground. “You want me, not her.”
“I WANT ALL OF YOU! ALL OF YOU FUCKING BASTARDS, I WANT YOU FUCKING DEAD!” he screamed, and I saw the unreasoning madness in him, fueled by desperation, or perhaps it was true madness, drug-addled perhaps, or a psychological descent into paranoia and hatred.
Who knew? I knew only that he was utterly mad.
“You can start with me,” I said, hands up, stepping toward him. Distracting him. I had no idea what my play was, only that I had to do something. Sacrifice myself, perhaps. No more shall be innocents harmed—this had gone on long enough.
He wavered—his hate winning out over his paranoia.
“Come on, Ledion,” I murmured, my voice low, rough, inviting. “You want me, you know you do. You want to see my skull with a hole in it. Put a bullet in my head, Ledion. Shoot me. You can shoot the pregnant woman later, I won’t be around to fucking care, will I?”
I was close enough now to see the madness in his eyes. I was unarmed; my weapons were on the ground, behind me where I placed them. I was trusting utterly on Raze and Chico, now.
All I knew was that this fucker had to die. And if I had to die to make it happen, so be it. I knew they’d get him, the second his pistol barrel wavered from the woman’s head.
But I wanted to live.
I wanted to hold Selah. I wanted to make a life with her.
And I needed to know if Duke was going to make it, if Puck and Harris were okay.
I could not die now.
“You’re playing a trick on me,” Cain said, and I could hear the desperation creeping into his voice. “Stay where you are.”
I stopped moving. “No tricks, Ledion.”
“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” he shouted. “MY NAME IS CAIN!”
“Cain, then,” I murmured. “Whatever you want. Just let the woman go. Take me. Shoot me.” I tapped my skull, right in the T-box. “Come on, motherfucker. You’ve been after me for years. You’ve wasted millions of dollars chasing me and my friends. Now’s your chance. Shoot me, bitch.”
He wanted to.
“You’d trade your life for this bitch? You don’t even know her.”
“That’s why I will, Cain,” I said. “Too many innocent people have been hurt in your vendetta. You kill me now, you’re one down and five to go. You may get another one, maybe two…” I took a step closer; Raze had his pistol up, one-handed, the other dangling: his left arm a bloody wreck, a bullet having torn a hole through his bicep, a second round probably shattering the bone.
“Five to go?” Cain laughed maniacally. “Try ten to go, eleven to go. I will kill ALL of you fuckers, and all of your filthy whore bitches too.” He sneered at me. “Your little Israeli whore…maybe when I’m done I will keep her for myself before I cut her throat.”
It burned—but I saw it for the ruse it was and ignored the rage.
“Make me watch, too, probably,” I snarled. “Fine. Just let the woman go, huh?”
The poor thing, all of twenty, if that, was shaking, weeping silently, hands to her big round belly; she was so young, so pretty, so full of life—she and a yet unborn life deserved a chance.
He pulled back the hammer on his pistol. His eyes flicked from mine, over my shoulder. I didn’t turn, didn’t dare. I kept my eyes on him, watching Raze and Chico peripherally.
“Come on, Cain,” I pressed. “It’s just you and me. I’m right here. I’m unarmed. Come on.”
He stepped away from the woman, but kept the gun to her head. He wiggled his fingers at me. “Come on, a little closer. I don’t trust you.”
“What am I going to do? My gun is on the ground.”
He pivoted, yanking the woman around with him, trying to look at me and search around himself at the same time.
And then he saw Raze and Chico.
“Fuck you, fuckers. There’s your trick.” He was crazed, panicked.
She was going to die—I could feel it.
I could not let that happen.
I had to draw his attention. Now, while he was looking at Raze and Chico.
I yanked my boot blade up. “LEDION!” I shouted.
He whirled, saw me raising my hand to throw my knife. That was all we needed. He reacted on instinct, out of self-preservation.
His pistol swiveled, leaving the woman’s temple.
Several things happened simultaneously—I threw the knife, committed to the action; Cain fired at me; the woman yanked herself out of his grip, throwing herself bodily to one side; Chico, who had somehow snuck around to the side while all this was happening dove for her, taking her in his arms and they rolled to the side and he took the impact of her fall on himself; Johnny Raze fired, triggering three times in blindingly fast succession.
My knife hit Cain in the throat a split second before he fired…throwing off his aim
just enough.
His round, which should have taken me in the forehead, right where the so-called Third Eye would be. As it was, the impact of it sent me backward, and I felt the blinding pain in my head blaze like lightning.
I hit the ground on my back.
Blinking through a crimson curtain, dizzy, a narrowing darkness beginning to take over—I saw Ledion Dushku on the ground, my knife in his throat, his skull blasted apart by Raze’s three rounds that entered the back of his skull and exited through his forehead.
The pregnant woman, on the ground in Chico’s arms, was sobbing uncontrollably. I imagined Chico murmuring to her in Spanish, telling her it would be okay and not to worry, she was safe.
Then I was aware of nothing.
I saw the sky, blue and clear overhead.
Nothing.
Raze pressed something against my head. “—Selm…hear me?—Anselm! Look at me, stay with me…”
Maybe the round hit me lower than I thought. Was I still alive? I’d seen people survive worse, direct gunshots to the head. This may not be the end. I hoped not.
Selah?
I could almost see her, beautiful, fearlessly, boldly naked, inviting me, her hair a wild black storm around her lovely face, her breasts bare and full…
God, she’s beautiful.
God, I love her.
Sky, blue and cloudless. Raze, off to one side, close by, his arm extended toward me, keeping pressure on my skull.
I could not hear.
Wait, no—I could hear Selah.
Her laugh.
No, that was in my head.
Or was it? A flash of her dark skin and black hair.
Her voice cut through the thick wads of cotton in my head. “Anselm?” Tearful. Terrified.
I wanted to reassure her. Tried to force my way through the haze to speak. Selah.
I heard myself trying to say her name, but it wasn’t coming out.
Selah.
I thought of Aunt Ane—tall and willowy. She had a soft, soothing voice, like freshly fallen snow at a full moon. If midnight had a voice, it would hers.
She would read to me from Psalms. In Sami, lilting and fluid.
Selah.
I felt her, my Selah, touching, working. “You will be okay, Anselm. You hear me? You are going to be okay. Stay with me, okay? Please, Anselm.” Talking, but working. Shaking. Pressing touches, lifting my head.
