The Left Series (Book 3): Left On The Brink

by Fletcher, Christian

  The Chinese guy beneath Toni wailed quietly. As I slowly drew closer, I saw the Chinese guy had taken some gunshots to his right arm and shoulder. Toni held his left hand over the guy’s mouth and was busy slicing his face with the hunting knife in his right hand.

  “What the fuck happened?” I hissed.

  Toni ignored me. He seemed too hell bent on torturing the Chinese guy, raking the point of the blade in a vertical line down his cheek.

  “Where’s the money?” Toni spat through clenched teeth. I didn’t like the way his eyes bulged out of his head and the crazy grimace on his face. “Where is Marques?”

  The Chinese guy made a muffled groan when Toni sliced his face again.

  “Toni? What happened to Jimmy?” I barked.

  Toni seemed to slightly come out of his trance and flashed me a brief glance. “We got ambushed coming in. These bastards were waiting for us.”

  I doubted that was the case. Toni and Jimmy had simply made too much damn noise. But what was worrying me was who the hell the Chinese guy was. Already we’d been confronted with four guys when there was only supposed to be three guys in the building in total. And we hadn’t even found Marques yet.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “We have to hurry, Toni,” I growled. “We’ve wasted enough time. Marques could be getting away right now.” I managed to contain the rising feeling of panic.

  “Last chance, motherfucker,” Toni spat at the Chinese guy. “Where’s the money and Marques?”

  Toni lifted his hand away from his captive’s mouth. The Chinese guy emitted a croaky groan but still didn’t divulge the whereabouts of Marques or any stashes of cash. I wondered if he even understood what Toni was asking.

  “Fuck this!” Toni snarled and drove the point of the hunting knife blade into the Chinese guy’s left eye. A combination of blood and a jelly like substance squirted sideways from the wound and splattered over the floor tiles.

  “Ah, Jesus, Toni! What the fuck are you doing, man?” I whined and felt the contents of my stomach threaten to make an unexpected appearance.

  Toni gritted his teeth and pulled the knife out of the Chinese guy’s skull. The blade made a stomach-churning squelching sound as he withdrew it from the dead man’s eye socket.

  “Come on, Toni. Let’s get a move on and take a look around the rest of this place,” I hissed.

  I’d wanted to be in and out of the farmhouse in around ten minutes and we’d easily exceeded the time limit. The building was rapidly developing into ‘the house of a thousand corpses.’

  Toni wiped the knife blade on the Chinese guy’s green cotton shirt then lumbered to his feet, breathing heavily.

  “That guy shot Jimmy,” he wheezed, pointing the knife at the dead guy in the bathrobe. “I shot both these motherfuckers.” He jabbed his thumb towards his chest.

  I was worried Toni was losing control. “We have to stay focused. Let’s check the rooms upstairs.”

  Toni nodded and picked up the AK 47. He removed the magazine, checked the weapon’s mechanism and reloaded.

  “I’m going to use this,” he grunted. “There’s at least half a mag of ammo left.”

  I shrugged; I just wanted to get the job done. We moved into the hallway and cautiously scaled the staircase. The first floor was segmented into six rooms, three doors on each side of the corridor. The corridor floor was polished wood and the doors to the rooms were constructed in a wooden slatted style and painted white. The doors were all closed, preventing us from assessing what dangerous obstacles we had to overcome. Toni took the left side and I took the right. The first two rooms I checked were empty bed chambers, consisting of military style, portable camping cots.

  Toni booted open his second door and found another Oriental guy in the room, brandishing a machete. The Oriental guy babbled in Chinese, swinging the machete in close arcs. Toni didn’t waste any time and emptied the remaining rounds of the AK 47 magazine into the Chinese guy. His body jerked as the bullets ripped through him before slumping to the floor beside his camp bed. Toni flung the assault rifle onto the floor when the magazine clicked empty. He mumbled something inaudible and drew his Sig handgun from his belt.

  The final door on my side revealed an empty bathroom beyond. I turned to Toni, who was busy trying to open the last door on his side of the corridor. A sudden shotgun blast from the opposite side of the door sent wooden splinters and shot pellets in our direction. Luckily for me, Toni stood directly between me and the door. He took the full brunt of the gunfire and howled as the shot and wooden shards ripped through his flesh. I felt the hot pin pricks of shot tear through my left shoulder and bicep. I stumbled back into the bathroom door and went over on my back. Toni collapsed onto his back and tried unsuccessfully to get to his feet. He floundered like a drunken man; his face was a mess of blood and torn flesh and he made gurgling noises as he tried to suck in air. I lay still on my back, trying to slow my breathing.

  The splintered door burst open and a guy I recognized as Marques, bundled out of the room. He firmly held a shotgun into his shoulder and I was surprised someone so skinny could handle the recoil. Marques pointed the shotgun barrel at Toni and jabbered in Spanish. He gave a quick glance in my direction but obviously thought I was dead. Two more Chinese guys, wearing jog pants and vests, emerged from the doorway; one held a meat cleaver and the other gripped a small revolver.

  Our operation was quickly turning to rat shit. I still didn’t get the connection between Marques and the Chinese guys. The guy holding the cleaver picked up Toni’s Sig and said something to his accomplice in Chinese.

  “What is going on? Who these men?” The Chinese guy with the revolver asked Marques. “You said we can do safe deal here. Now, we have gunmen after us.”

  Shit, the Chinese were in the middle of some sort of deal with Marques. Why hadn’t Larry’s guys reported that information?

  “Who are you?” Marques shrieked at Toni, prodding his chest with the shotgun barrel. “Who did you come here for?”

  Toni was as good as dead and he probably soon would be. I had to do something quickly to avoid the same fate. My upper arm and shoulder stung like I’d been stabbed with a dozen knitting needles but I couldn’t allow the pain to hamper my escape attempt.

  One wounded man against three armed, uninjured adversaries. Not good odds.

  I sucked in a breath through my nose, gripped the Sig tightly in my hand and forced myself to sit up, raising my gun hand at the same time. The three guys were so busy trying to extract information from Toni, they’d kind of forgotten about me. Maybe they hadn’t seen the Sig in my hand when I lay on the floor.

  Marques glanced over at me and for a brief second our eyes met. I saw the look of shock flash across his face before I pulled the trigger. His head jolted back as the bullet penetrated his skull, slightly above the bridge of his nose and made a sizeable exit wound at the back, judging by the way his brains splattered over the door frame. He tumbled backwards, out of my line of sight. The Chinese guys attempted to raise their respective firearms. I moved the Sig slightly to the right and shot the guy holding the handgun and the meat cleaver in the stomach. He doubled up and fell against the wall behind him. A bullet narrowly missed my head. The other Chinese guy had already opened fire. My element of surprise was now gone but the remaining guy had missed his shot. I swung the handgun around to my left but the pain in my shoulder kicked in. I fired a shot but missed, the round slammed into the drywall to the guy’s right.

  I struggled to regain my aim and knew the last Chinese guy was also readjusting. I hadn’t figured on Toni capable of doing much during the gunfight but he saved my bacon at that moment. The Chinaman let out a loud scream a fraction of a second after his gun barrel trained on my face. He jerked sideways and his aim had gone to hell. Toni had somehow managed to stab his hunting knife through the guy’s foot, pinning him to the wooden floor board underneath.

  I quickly took aim and fired three shots into the guy’s torso. I would have fired more
rounds but the magazine was empty. The guy slumped against the wall and slid over on his side. Toni gurgled something and spat out a mouthful of blood on the floor.

  I tore off the balaclava hood and sagged backwards, lying on my back for a few moments, trying to regain some strength. I felt nauseous but realized we had to get the hell out of the house as quickly as possible. The Canadian authorities wouldn’t take too kindly to a bunch of foreign guys shooting the hell out of each other on their soil.

  I patched myself up as best I could with a first aid kit I found in the bathroom then tried to stem Toni’s bleeding. He was in a bad way and desperately needed medical treatment, which he wasn’t going to get. I taped some padding and towels around his chest and managed to drag him downstairs. I cleared up our blood with bleach and a mop and bucket I found in the kitchen then called Chuck and told him to get his ass around to Marques’s place as quick as possible.

  The hour or so was a bit of a blur. I remember Chuck turning up and we lifted Jimmy’s body into the back of the station wagon then we dragged Toni across the driveway and sat him on the back seat, covering him with a blanket from the neck down. Chuck complained long and loud about moving bodies wasn’t part of his job. I would have shot him there and then if I hadn’t needed his help. I ran up the dirt track and drove the Nissan back down to the house.

  We made sure we put all three Sigs, cell phones and spent shell casings in the black holdall. We were all wearing gloves so there was no way we’d left any fingerprints. Hopefully, to all intents and purposes, the bloodied farmhouse looked like a drug deal gone wrong and that the Chinese and Marques’s guy’s had shot the crap out of each other. By the time the bodies had been discovered and the forensic teams had figured out that different caliber weapons were used, we’d be long gone.

  I searched the house for a safe or anything that would hold a large amount of cash. I found a big bag of cocaine in one of the bedrooms but couldn’t risk taking that with me. I presumed Marques’s weed crops were planted somewhere in the outbuildings but I didn’t have time to search them. I couldn’t have taken any narcotics with me in any case. Eventually, I came across a blue sports bag with around twenty grand in U.S. dollars stuffed inside. That would have to do. I didn’t know whose cash it was but at least I had something to appease Larry with.

  Chuck and I left Marques’s place at the same time. I told him to meet me back at the farmhouse and call the boat guy on the way. I parked the SUV back in the garage in the same place I found it and handed the house keys back to Chuck. He drove like a madman back across the countryside and slowed down when we hit the Pickering city limits. If we were pulled over by the cops now, we were screwed. A dead body, a dying man and a shit load of weapons would provide the authorities with enough evidence to throw our asses in jail right away.

  I was relieved when we arrived at the spot at the edge of the lake and saw the boatman waiting for us. The sun was rising and I didn’t want to be loading the boat in broad daylight. I shook hands with Chuck and thanked him for his help after we’d loaded Jimmy and Toni and the baggage onboard.

  Chuck sped off into the dawn light and the boatman quickly steered us away from land. Toni finally curled his toes up a few miles off shore. He groaned, raised his arm and then fell silent. I checked for a pulse and his breathing but there was neither. Poor bastard. I hadn’t particularly liked either Jimmy or Toni but I knew they’d never have a grave or a funeral for their families to mourn their passing.

  We’d sailed roughly half way across the lake when the boatman cut the engine. The day was well and truly breaking and I saw some yachts in the distance that had already set off for a day out on the water, their tall sails gliding over the top of the lake.

  We both knew what we had to do. I stripped off my black combat garments I’d worn over the top of my regular clothes, and stuffed them inside the holdall. We wrapped Jimmy and Toni’s bodies in separate tarpaulin sheets, also placing some weighty tackle blocks inside. The boatman tied the tarpaulin sheets tightly and we lowered the bodies over the side. I watched each one disappear from sight, plummeting the gloomy depths to the bottom of the lake. Maybe they’d be found in a thousand years time in some kind of archaeological expedition. Next, I tossed the holdall containing the clothes I’d worn, Sig handguns, cell phones, scopes and hunting knives into the drink. The bag briefly bubbled then sank below the surface.

  The boatman didn’t say a word when he dropped me on the shore on the U.S. Stateside. He nodded, turned his boat around and sailed away, as though he was disembarking a passenger from a morning’s fishing trip. I stood on the dock clutching the sports bag watching him disappear across the horizon. The guy was a hard-nosed professional, I’d give him that.

  The journey back to Manhattan was a sweaty blur, trying to drive in the hot summer afternoon, fighting against fatigue and the pain in my arm and shoulder. I knew Larry was none too pleased when I turned up back at his office later that day and handed him the twenty grand in the sports bag. The ungrateful bastard moaned about still being thirty grand down but he still paid me in full. After all, the mean son of a bitch hadn’t had to pay out for Jimmy and Toni’s share and Marques and his team had been dealt with.

  To sum things up, the operation had been a fuck up from start to finish. It would take me a long time before I could face going out on a boat again. Every time I saw the sea or a lake, a chill ran down my spine as I thought of Jimmy and Toni lying and rotting at the bottom of Lake Ontario.

  Smith stirred and his eyes blinked open. He lamented the Canadian operation with regret and rubbed his scared arm and shoulder as a painful reminder of what happened that night. At least Halifax was nowhere near Lake Ontario and he wouldn’t be battling any Puerto Rican or Chinese gangsters. Only members of the undead stood in his way and in comparison, they were easy pickings.

  Chapter Twenty

  My eyes snapped open and I sat forward in my seat. At first, I didn’t know where the hell I was and then the memories came flooding back. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized I was still relatively safe, sitting onboard the C-17 aircraft heading for Nova Scotia.

  Smith, Batfish and Spot were all still sleeping and Chief Cole snored loudly in the seat behind me. Fragments of my dream or nightmare about the Roadhouse whirled around my mind and I wondered if I was going to ever be capable of sleeping properly again.

  My mouth was dry and I had a dank taste on my tongue. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and unbuckled my safety belt. I had no idea how long we’d been in the air and hoped our destination wasn’t too far away. Batfish had a water bottle at her feet so I picked it up and took a huge gulp and swirled the liquid around my mouth.

  I stood up on stiff legs and took a quick walk around the aircraft interior. My neck and back ached; I rolled my shoulders and took another sip of water.

  Milner sat talking to a Naval Airman in the seat to his left along the side of the interior. I made my way over and nodded a greeting.

  “Any idea where the hell we are?” I asked.

  The Naval Airman looked at his watch. “We’ve been in the air for nearly three hours now so I guess we have another hour before we land.” He was a well built blonde guy with blue eyes and tanned skin and spoke with a mid west accent. I noticed his surname was Kauffmann by the name tag on his shirt.

  “Brett Wilde, good to meet you,” I said and proffered my hand.

  “Frank Kauffmann, likewise.” He shook my hand with a firm grip.

  Kauffmann, Milner and I shot the breeze for a while, talking about our hopes and expectations of the expedition before the aircraft began to jolt heavily from side to side. I staggered left and right, trying to keep my balance.

  “Shit! What the hell is going on?” I wailed.

  “Probably a little turbulence,” Kauffmann said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I shouted above the bumping noises of the cargo.

  I heard a chiming noise and an overhead sign lit up telling all cr
ew to return to their seats and buckle up. Milner and Kauffmann fastened their belts and I decided to do the same. I pointed back to my seating area and gave them a wave.

  The rumbling noises and shaking had woken Batfish, Smith and Spot.

  “What the heck is happening, Brett?” Batfish shrieked at me as I fastened my seat belt.

  “Only a bit of turbulence. Nothing to worry about, allegedly,” I hollered.

  The aircraft’s flight path returned to normality a few minutes later but I couldn’t relax. The turbulence had shaken me up and I realized just how vulnerable we were up in the sky.

  I tried to make small talk with Smith and Batfish, simply to take my mind off the flight but suddenly my ears refused to hear properly and I felt my stomach rising.

  “We’re going down,” Smith said loudly. “We’re starting our descent.”

  I wished the aircraft had some windows onto the outside world so at least, I could see where we were heading. I didn’t like being enclosed and tossed around like I was on a theme park ride. Our lives were undeniably in the hands of the flight crew. I was no pilot but I knew landing the aircraft would be tricky with no landing lights or communication with air traffic control on the ground. The one thing in our favor was no other planes would be lifting off as we attempted our landing.

  “I hope these guys know what they’re doing,” I wailed as we descended further.

  “Relax,” Smith snapped. “They’ve landed this bird, probably a million times before.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I shut my eyes but it only made me feel worse.

  Smith sighed, shook his head and sat back in his seat as though he was relaxing on a sun lounger around a pool. He’d probably flown on these enclosed military aircraft many times in the past but I wasn’t used to not seeing the ground steadily approaching from the viewing windows.