The International Assassin: A Sexy Times Crime Thriller

by Asher, Adele

  “I retract them.”

  “Don’t be mean,” I pouted.

  I huddled into bed and wrapped Nick around me for comfort drifting into a deep sleep from which I did not wake until after four when Nick gently nudged me to life.

  “Good, you are still alive.”

  “Just. I’m never drinking again.”

  “There’s a problem.”

  “What?”

  “The Russians are here. Anatoly’s men.”

  “How did they find us?”

  Nick produced what looked like a small electronic circuit attached to some wires.

  “The car, there was a tracker in it.”

  I frowned looking at it in confusion.

  “Well who would do that?”

  “I don’t know. Either we have a leak or they want to make sure I’m forced to carry out my assignment.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Outside.”

  “Do they know we are in here?”

  “No. They just know the car is here.”

  “So we sneak out the back way and get another car?”

  Nick shook his head.

  “You want to take them on don’t you? Well how many of them are there?”

  “At least four cars. They are covering both ends of the street.”

  I buried my head in the pillow.

  “God Nick! my heart hurts! I can’t cope with world war three today…”

  “We have to face them sometime, they’ll chase us all the way to Luxembourg otherwise.”

  “If you truly loved me you wouldn’t.”

  “We have to honey. It’s better to do it now when we can control the engagement rather than get ambushed later.”

  “Well have you got Steven Segal on speed-dial because that’s three times more Russians than last time and things didn’t end very well.” I emerged from under the pillow and sat up and hugged Nick. “Please baby. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” I looked him in the eye pleading with him. “Let’s just sneak out. We already got the money. We don’t have to do this.”

  “We have to try and end this. They won’t leave us alone. If it’s not here it will be somewhere else.”

  “Promise me it’ll be okay.”

  “I promise.”

  I nodded reluctantly agreeing to Nick’s suicide mission.

  “I better take a shower then.”

  I held in my emotions for long enough to get to the shower before crying. The general post-drinking depression had put me in an emotionally low state and the constant harassment from our pursuers was taking it’s toll on my psychological well-being. Before we had retrieved the money from Roy the sheer nothing-to-lose status of the situation had driven me on but after a relatively normal day of shopping, dinner and drinking and a nice hotel I had forgotten what I was currently tangled up in and desperately wanted it to go away.

  I did my best to compose myself. I came out the shower and dried my hair with a towel but for whatever reason I just couldn’t stop crying. Nick noticed soon enough and came quickly to my support. I collapsed into his arms and burst out in a fit of uncontrolled sobbing.

  “Hey, come on! It’s going to be okay.”

  “I can’t take this any more! I just want them to leave us alone. I want things to be normal again,” I sobbed pitifully to Nick.

  “We’re going to get through this. I love you. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you no matter what.”

  Nick dried my tears with my towel. I nodded reluctantly and tried to get a grip of myself and stop feeling foolish and weak.

  “Okay. Well if we have to. Let’s give them hell.”

  “That’s the spirit,” smiled Nick.

  I dressed in some black leggings, a thick black cable-knit jumper and put my new leather Gucci coat on and opted for knee high boots. At least I would be a well-dressed corpse. We packed our belongings and headed for the hotels basement garage.

  Stowing our bags securely in the boot Nick opened the cachet containing enough arms to take out a small dictatorship regime in South America. He handed me an M4 carbine. A short barrelled special-forces variant equipped with holographic scope, laser and tactical-light. He unscrewed the suppressor.

  “I think we’ll go for shock and awe.”

  “That’s not going to help my headache,” I protested.

  The thought of an assault rifle spewing out more noise than the Berlin Philharmonic playing Wagner did not appeal. He handed me some extended magazines.

  “Take off your coat.”

  “Really Nick this is hardly the time. Unless you want to do the disabled toilet thing,” I replied as I removed my jacket. He pulled a bullet-proof vest over my chest and taped it up. “Is it going to be that bad?” I asked trying to squeeze my D cups into a position that didn’t make them feel so squashed up.

  “Better safe than sorry,” he replied as he pulled his own vest on.

  It was easy for him to say. He didn’t have to fit his ample rack into the thing.

  “These things have got quite a kick. Don’t showboat and go for head-shots. Play it safe and aim low,” he said. “You ready?”

  “Not really,” I sulked.

  “How long do you need?”

  “The rest of my life?” I replied. Nick smiled and took out a packet of cigarettes, lit two and put one in my mouth. “You know baby, we need to go to relationship counselling. I’m looking for a guy who takes me to the cinema, theatre and ballet not involves me in daily shoot-outs with the Russian mob.”

  “I thought you wanted excitement?”

  “I changed my mind. It’s a woman’s perogative.”

  “Okay. Don’t get shot.”

  I hugged Nick and gave him a long kiss quite convinced one or both of us would be dead within minutes and we got in the car. Nick was driving. The V8 bursting into life with the thunder of an artillery barrage - a taste perhaps of what was to come.

  Nick slowly reversed out of the space and lined up for the attack run on the garage exit from the basement to the street. Putting his foot on the brake he floored the throttle. The bonnet lurched as the torque flexed its muscles and the rev counter flipped round to five and a half thousand rpm and it’s peak torque output. As he dropped his foot sideways off the stainless steel drilled AMG brake pedal the large Continental tyres screamed with agony erupting in a plume of expensive blue smoke as five hundred and fifty angry German horses tried to escape through the rear wheels. The tail slid sideways before the electronic stability program light which was flashing like a Christmas tree caught it assisted by a slight correction of opposite lock from Nick. Finally the brutal AMG-tuned Mercedes launched forwards like a jump-jet leaving a carrier deck. The low-slung front air-dam briefly protested as it collided with the steeply inclined car-park exit ramp before the Merc launched itself into the outside world taking off as it reached the exit before slamming back into the tarmac with a crashing thump.

  We spat out the garage into Maximillianstrasse. Nick like a hawk spotted the first two Russian’s Mercedes GL SUV’s to our right then the second set of identikit gangsterwagens to our left. He stamped on the brakes and spun the steering wheel to send the car into a hundred and eighty degree spin stopping at a forty-five degree offset to the flanked Russians - thoughtfully having provided me with the bulk of the cover the car had to offer.

  The Russians dropped their cigarettes and exited their cars grabbing whatever weapons came to hand. Nick flung open the door and took aim before they were even out. The first head splitting bullet chatter sounded the start of the assault as Nick’s M4 carbine burst into life with an explosive drum roll. Sparks flew off the Russians car as the black paintwork was suddenly peppered with silver bullet holes.

  Taking my cue from Nick I dived from the passenger seat using the door for cover and opened fire on the left flank. From Nick’s right flank two more Mercedes SUV’s arrived to reinforce their position spitting out even more Russians who dived into cover behind the parked cars. Realising the roa
d was now completely blocked Nick spun around to provide accurate sniper fire through his holographic scope on the right flank that I was suppressing. Now completely surrounding us the entire barrage of Russians opened fire on our position showering us with glass and ricochet rounds from the parked cars around us.

  “Find cover!” Nick yelled at me as he laid down a full auto barrage. With brief spats of gunfire I dived behind the boot of our Mercedes in the relative safety of two parked vans. Nick made his way round to me and fell to the floor alongside me to change his magazine.

  “You know that plan you had to go out the back door?” he said.

  “Yes?” I shouted over the cacophony of Russian automatic fire.

  “That was probably the right choice.”

  “Well maybe if we live long enough next time you will listen to me,” I said wondering just why women are always right and despite this men never listen.

  The window of the shop in front of us shattered into a shower of glass

  “I didn’t think there would be this many.”

  “We can’t stay here,” I told him.

  Nick took out the remote and popped the boot.

  “Cover me,” he shouted.

  I fired in the direction of the Russians to our right while Nick got up to the boot and looked for something more serious to fire at the angry Bolsheviks. He returned bearing a small compact rocket launcher and box of rounds.

  “Jesus Bloody Christ Nick! Are you sure you don’t want to call in an airstrike?” I asked.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Yes! Not coming out here was a better idea!”

  “Too late,” Nick said.

  Nick stood up and took quick aim with the Rocket launcher and fired a round down the street at the Russian’s parked GL before dropping over the top of me to cover me from the inevitable effects.

  The rocket whistled down the street with a large white smoke trail landing on target striking the GL which exploded in a huge fireball sending the gang of Russians who were using it as cover flying into the street and walls behind them with the ferocity of a tornado ripping rag dolls from the ground.

  The simply massive, deafening explosion set off a chain reaction as one by one the closely parked cars exploded like dominos in a line showering the entire street in a rain of debris and fire. When the explosion finally subsided the entire street was filled with smoke, fire and debris with the remaining car alarms all screaming in protest. The shock of the ferocity of Nick’s overblown assault having silenced the right flank of Russians to occasional fire.

  “Great job Nick,” I coughed as we were coated in a shower of dust and smoke. “We are now Germany’s most wanted terrorists.”

  Nick smiled and laughed looking at the rocket launcher in his hand before seeming quite shocked at his handiwork having reduced the previously pristine street to something resembling a French Village on Saving Private Ryan. He shrugged his shoulders at me and grabbed the rounds.

  “Get in the car. We’re leaving!”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

  Nick lay down a final round of suppressing fire thankfully with the M4 rather than his bazooka before diving into the drivers seat and throwing the rocket launcher and spare round magazine into the front passenger foot-well.

  “Reload that, we might need it again.”

  “Oh no thank you. I think you’ve had quite enough fun with that already.”

  Nick put the car in gear and threaded his way through the wreckage to the left and past what remained of the Russians trapping us in. he smiled at me, I just pouted back.

  “Come on. It wasn’t that bad…” he said.

  “I really liked that hotel. I would have liked to have gone back again but since you blew up the entire fucking street it’s fairly safe to say we are now persona non gratis.”

  “I’m sure they won’t remember.”

  “No?” I said incredulous. “Well do you think someone blows up half the street with a rocket launcher a lot then? Because that’s the kind of badass traumatised for life terrorist shit that people don’t really tend to forget without a serious amount of therapy and prescriptive anti-depressants.”

  “You are no fun with a hangover.”

  “Have you any fucking idea how much this gun makes my head hurt?”

  “There is bad news.”

  “What?”

  “You might have to fire it again.”

  I turned around to see the Russians in their monstrous GL’s looming behind us. Nick floored the throttle and executed a tight right turn sending the Mercedes into a wide tyre-smoking drift.

  “Oh bollocks to it,” I said.

  I took the M4 and reloaded the magazine, pressed the button for the large panoramic roof to open and undid the seatbelt and got up to dish out some discouragement to our pursuers. Luckily the brutal GL was an easy target and with the bullet spitting power of the M4 as easy as shooting an elephant. I took aim and braced as best I could and let rip peppering the front of the GL with automatic fire. The screen exploded in a dash of crimson as several rounds found their targets killing the driver and sending the GL veering off course and into the path of an approaching tram. Unable to stop the tram smashed squarely into the GL exploding it in debris across the road and forcing the other two Russian’s GL’s following it to swerve into each other to avoid the ensuing collision. Satisfied I had at least slowed them down I returned into the car and put my seatbelt back on.

  “Alright. I’ll admit that was fun,” I told Nick dryly.

  He smiled as he swerved to avoid a Golf pulling out in front of us whose driver wasn’t paying attention.

  We continued the chase through Munich until we reached the E52 Autobahn to head north-west to Stuttgart where the Merc E63 could finally flex its muscles to pull out a gap from the pursuing GL’s before they vectored reinforcements on our position and a more powerful turbocharged Mercedes S600 from their fleet quickly caught up with us.

  “These guys just don’t give up do they?” I said in annoyance.

  Despite Nick pushing the AMG for all it’s worth at one hundred and twenty miles per hour plus the brick like aerodynamics of the big saloon meant the power margin was negligible and the constant need to duck in and out of the late afternoon German traffic blocking all lanes was slowing us down.

  The Mercedes pulled alongside us and Nick dropped the window and fired off several rounds from his pistol that simply bounced off the bulletproofed glass of the Russian limo. Using a truck as cover he swerved to the right to avoid a closer encounter as the driver of the S Class lunged at us in an attempt to ram us off the road.

  “It’s armoured. You are going to have to take him out.” Nick told me picking up the launcher from the foot-well.

  “You have to be kidding me!”

  “We’re running out of fuel. If we keep this up we will be out in less than twenty miles…if we make it that far.” he said with an obvious air of concern.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “Try and get in front of him.”

  I took the rocket launcher and opened the box and loaded another round. Nick floored the throttle and found a gap on the inside lane alongside a line of trucks and shot down the inside to gain a ten car length lead over the trailing S Class before pulling in front of it in the outside lane.

  I did my best to target the chasing car which was easier said than done when hanging out the roof of a car at over one hundred and twenty miles per hour whilst weaving in and out of three lanes of trucks and assorted German hatchbacks.

  I lined up for the shot just as Nick drafted past a large petrol tanker. As I pulled the trigger the sudden air vortex of the large tanker rig knocked me off balance sending my aim completely off. The round exploded out of the tube and straight into the path of the tanker.

  “Oh fuck!” I exclaimed realising what was about to happen.

  Quick thinking Nick yanked me back into the car struggling to steer straight as I fell right into his lap, he hung o
n to me for dear life as the rocket slammed into the side of the petrol tanker setting it off like an atomic bomb.

  There was a huge rush of air as the fuel sucked in every cubic-meter of oxygen around it before the tank violently exploded into the air in a huge mushroom fireball. The Russian S Class now alongside the tanker was blown three lanes across the opposite carriageway with the violence of a tin can in a hurricane. The twisted, exploding wreckage of the tanker jack-knifed and rolled spilling the huge fuel fire across the entire carriageway engulfing a dozen or more cars in its wake. The huge secondary explosion compression wave hit our car with a knockout punch. Nick still struggling to maintain a straight-line desperately spun the steering wheel into opposite lock as the tail slid sideways, smoke pouring from our tyres as we continued down the carriageway at a ninety-degree angle desperately trying to outrun the approaching explosion. Finally Nick abandoned any further attempt to control the slide and grabbed me with both arms to secure me from the inevitable impact as the E63 began to tip sideways into a roll before luckily, at least for us not the other driver, smashed sideways into an Audi estate which arrested us to a stand-still setting off all the side airbags.

  I clung to Nick for dear life with my eyes closed waiting for us to burn to death but all that remained was the sound of exploding fuel, tinkling debris and car-horns.

  “Are we dead?” I asked him before opening my eyes.

  I turned round to witness the carnage I had unleashed. The entire Autobahn was engulfed in flames with more than thirty cars wrecked or on fire. “You know I think we should honestly stop using that thing. It’s fucking dangerous,” I said.

  “That might be a good idea,” Nick replied staring slightly shocked at the scene of devastation that was on a whole new level - even by his own exemplary standards.

  “Are you Okay?” he asked looking at me with concern. I nodded.

  “I think so,” I said.

  He ran his fingers through my hair and gave me a kiss relieved and thankful we weren’t on fire.

  I slid across back into the passenger seat. Nick ripped the door airbag out of the way and reached under the dashboard to reset the kinetic fuel pump cutoff switch. He pressed the starter button. The starter whirred and engine coughed and spluttered roughly in protest. After a couple of failed attempts he managed to get the AMG to burst into life again but the engine was running roughly on 5 of the 8 cylinders with a chronic misfire.