by Alison Ryan
We started to nail down specifics with four days left before the match. I didn’t love our plan, but with the number of variables and the size of the crowd, I felt confident we’d nab or take out QB if he showed up as expected.
Until Raven and her facial recognition algorithms threw the first monkey wrench into our plans.
“Our target is on the move, Atlas,” she said, sitting on her bed in the apartment, surrounded by two open laptops and a tablet.
“Explain,” I replied. Carlo and I walked over to the bed. Nathaniel was out doing reconnaissance.
Raven spun a laptop to show us a still taken from an airport camera. “Shu Qi. With a ‘woman’ in a headscarf and veil, who looks about the right height to be QB. From Copenhagen. Two days ago.”
On the tablet, Raven played the video for us. The pair made their way through the airport, trailed by a pair of men who were doing their best to appear disinterested in the tall Asian woman and her companion, but who, to the trained eye, were clearly following them. Security, perhaps?
Raven typed into her second laptop. She scrunched up her nose. “They’re flying to… let me see, hang on. Singapore. That flight is bound for Singapore.”
I thought for a moment. “Okay, stay on those two. See if you can locate them once they land. And the two guys behind them. I want to know where they go once they hit Singapore.”
I didn’t want this to turn into a global wild goose chase. I could afford to keep up with QB, but Piper, Lea, and Odin were on my mind. I had a brother to bury. The last thing I wanted was an open-ended chase around the globe.
The Singapore intel, as well as the identity of QB’s female friend, were pieces of information I thought my father might be able to make use of in his own campaign to defeat our nemesis. He was grateful for the tips, but all he really wanted to talk about was Lea. His voice cracked when he expressed to me how badly he wanted to meet her. To hold her. I promised him that he’d have the opportunity soon.
The next day, after an early dinner together, we split up. Carlo went to meet with the Frenchmen, Raven went in search of an electronics store, and Nathaniel and I walked the few blocks to the stadium. We wanted to get a feel for traffic and police presence in the evening, although we knew things would be different on game day.
As we circled the structure, Nathaniel’s phone rang. “Carlo,” he mouthed to me as he answered. His eyes narrowed and he put a finger in his ear to focus on Carlo’s voice.
“We have a situation,” Nathaniel said to me after he disconnected the call. “The Frenchmen are dead. Carlo arrived at their apartment and found the door open and them inside with their throats cut. All their weapons and gear was left untouched. Atlas, these were bad dudes. Even if robbery was the motive, no mugger or street thug could have taken them out.”
I weighed Nathaniel’s words.
“Call him back. Tell him not to go back to the apartment. Directly to the safe house. Shit! I’ll get a hold of Raven.”
I got Raven on the phone. She had returned to our building to grab an umbrella since storm clouds were gathering.
“Don’t go to the apartment. Do you understand? Get to the street and get yourself to the safe house. Be careful you aren’t followed. I know you’ve got equipment in the apartment, but it’s not worth the risk right now. We’ll attempt to retrieve it later.”
Raven agreed. We had vehicles at the apartment, but each of us had left either on foot or using public transportation. Nathaniel and I were debating whether it was worth trying to go back for one of our cars when it happened.
A pair of vans pulled up and five men emptied out of them, heading directly for us, suppressed pistols in hand. Nathaniel took fire immediately as we turned to run. He collapsed after only a few steps, and I dove behind a dumpster in an alleyway next to the San Siro Stadium.
I drew my own weapon and returned fire, dropping two of my pursuers. The other three were on me in an instant. I picked up a pallet leaning on the wall, slamming into them in a moment that would have made for a good Three Stooges stunt if I wasn’t fighting for my life. I straddled one of the fallen men and finished him off with a head shot. One of the men I’d hit with my first shots rose to his feet, but Nathaniel was able to draw his weapon and take him out before he, himself succumbed.
One of the vans peeled out and the other one backed down the alley, effectively rendering our conflict invisible to any passersby.
A gunshot shattered my wrist and my weapon was gone. A second tore through my thigh. I hit the floor and rolled to the man I’d just killed, pushing his body up in front of me as a shield. I picked up his piece with my left hand and emptied it into the man who’d shot me.
I knew I only had seconds, perhaps a minute, before I lost consciousness. I reached for my phone with my good hand, but before I could do anything with it, I was being picked up by two men. The last remaining shooter and who I guessed was the driver of the van.
As they dragged me toward the van, I was able to get a look at Nathaniel. He was beyond anything I could do for him under the best of circumstances. My mind flashed to Carlo and Raven. Then to my family back in Las Vegas. If we’d been ambushed, how much danger might they be in?
We reached the van, and the driver unlocked the back as I slumped against the other man. I was light-headed and cold, going into shock and leaving a trail of blood the length of the alley.
If the bullet had ruptured my femoral artery, I figured I’d already be dead. Since it apparently hadn’t, I figured that without medical attention, I probably had thirty to forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour.
The van unlocked, the man bent to help lift me. Before he could, however, he stiffened and collapsed. Behind him, holding a Taser, stood Raven. The man holding my arm dropped me and fumbled for his gun, but Raven filled him with electricity before he could act.
She looked down at me, surveying my wounds.
“How bad?” she asked.
“I’ve lost a lot of blood. Hit twice. We can’t stay here.”
She rushed over to where Nathaniel lay, and she gently closed his eyes. She put a hand on his shoulder and said a quick prayer, sending his spirit on its way, before returning to me.
“No way I can lift you. I’ll help you get in the back of the van. We can ditch it a few blocks from here. Unless you have a better suggestion?”
I hastily agreed, and together we managed to roll me into the back of the van. She hit the two men with her Taser again and removed their belts, fashioning tourniquets for my arm and leg. Raven found keys and drove, circling the stadium before heading in the opposite direction of the safe house as quickly as she could. Content we weren’t being followed, but not sure the van didn’t have a GPS tracker attached to it, we ditched it in a parking garage. Raven found us a nondescript sedan in a security camera blind spot and used tools from her bag to open and start the vehicle. Together we got me into the backseat and she covered me with a tarp from the back of the van.
“I cannot fucking believe I’m in Milan and driving this,” she said, as we pulled back out onto the street. She had slipped on an oversized pair of sunglasses and wrapped her hair in a purple turban towering above her head.
The tourniquets slowed my bleeding, but the pain was crippling and I was struggling to remain conscious. “Call Odin. And a doctor. I need help, Raven.”
A few minutes later, Raven gave me troubling news.
“I can’t reach anybody,” she said. “I tried Odin, Piper, Clara, and Randall. Straight to voice mail. What’s happening, Atlas?”
“I was so fucking stupid. Somehow he knew. QB knew we were coming. And he’s probably at the house right now.”
We reached our safe house and Raven did the best she could to keep me alive while we waited for a doctor to arrive. We couldn’t go through ordinary channels because of our security breach, so Raven was left to hope a seldom-used contact could send medical help our way.
Without it, I doubted I’d see another sunset.
27
<
br /> Odin
I woke up on the floor with my hands zip tied behind my back. A man with a gun stood by the door. What felt like the worst migraine of my life pounded against the inside of my skull.
QB appeared in the room, squatting down in front of me.
“Clara is a lovely girl. But she did a very nasty thing to one of my men. When he wakes up, he’s going to want payback. I can talk him out of it, but I’ll need some incentive.”
“Fuck you,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Well, no, it won’t be me getting fucked, it will be Clara. Please try to follow along. Anyway, I just need to know where Piper Kipton is. And then we can avoid an unpleasant afternoon for the good doctor. You’d watch, so maybe you’re into that sort of thing. Eh, variety is the spice of life, right? So, yes, you can either tell me how to find Piper or you can watch Clara get raped and then get her pretty throat cut. And then we’ll put a bullet in your head, and this time make sure you’re dead. After that, we burn the house down and look for Piper in the ashes. Comprende, amigo?”
My heart pounded in my chest. I knew he’d probably follow through on his threats whether I told him what he wanted to hear or not, but I had to at least stall him and hope for a miracle.
“She’s in a room behind the bookcase downstairs,” I said. I hated myself, but I’d been given an impossible decision to make. I went on to explain to him how to activate the door, whether or not it had been locked from the inside.
“Excellent!” he said, smiling. “We’ll go pay her a visit, then. You sit tight up here until I need you.” He patted my cheek before leaving the room.
I hung my head in shame.
The man left to watch me sat down on the end of the bed.
“She’s got a nice ass. Hell, the boss doesn’t even have to pay me for this job if she’s as hot under those clothes as I think she is,” he mocked me ruthlessly, and my blood boiled. I lifted my head to reply, when over his shoulder I noticed a figure in the window behind him.
A man clung there, a gloved finger to his lips indicating I should be silent. With the sun behind him I couldn’t make out who he was, but he was too lean to be Atlas. He swung to the side, where he could stand unseen on a ledge that ran from the covered back porch around the side of the house.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said to my captor.
He laughed. “Piss yourself for all I care, Titan.”
“That’s not what I need to do. Do you really want to clean up the mess I’m going to make? Or smell it?”
He got up and went into the bathroom, giving it a once over to make sure nothing was stashed inside. He cut the zip ties from behind me and put new ones on in front. I gave him a look that said it would be difficult to navigate with my hands bound. “Do the best you can. Get in there. Don’t fuck around. I’ll be right here. Remember which one of us has the gun.”
I shut the door behind me and went directly to the bathroom window. It wasn’t large enough for a man to fit through, but it opened to the outside.
Cranking it open, I was greeted by a familiar face.
Nolan Weston.
“Your father thought you might need a babysitter with big brother gone,” he whispered. He noticed my hands and slipped his knife through the window to cut me free.
He handed me a Glock and an extra clip through the open window. “How many hostiles?” he asked me.
“I’m not sure. Three or four at least. QB is here.”
I thought Nolan would fall off the roof he looked so stunned.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Without a doubt,” I said. “We have two security guards I haven’t seen, past that it’s just me, two women, and a baby.”
The man outside pounded on the door. “Times up, Titan. Pull your pants up.”
Nolan nodded and disappeared from view.
“I can’t get them back up. Can you help me?” I called out to the asshole guard.
The weapon I had was not silenced, so I grabbed a large, fluffy bath towel and wrapped it around the barrel. If the group downstairs had made their way into the secret room, I hoped they wouldn’t hear a muffled shot.
The door opened and I raised my Glock, hitting him directly in the forehead from point blank range. My body registered initial shock and revulsion, but he’d given me plenty of reason to wish him dead.
I hurried to the top of the stairs, ducking out of sight, listening for any sign that my activity had been noticed. I heard muffled voices, but nothing that indicated that I was in immediate danger. I slipped back into the bedroom and found Nolan outside the window where I’d left him. I opened it wide and he climbed inside, looking me up and down.
“You look pretty good for a dead man, Odin,” he said, crouching to unzip a small bag. He pulled out ammo clips and stuffed them into his pockets. “Don’t know if you’ve tried to use your phone, but don’t bother. They’ve got some sort of jamming device set up. Nothing in or out.”
I nodded and rubbed my neck, trying to ease the pain in my head.
“Give me the lay of the land. Quickly,” he instructed.
“Downstairs there’s a secret room, just off the foyer, to the left of the stairs. Atlas’s fiancée Piper, and their daughter are in there. The baby is a newborn. Clara is here as well, she’s the doctor who brought me back to life. QB seemed interested in finding Piper.”
“Yeah, with her, he can make Atlas do anything he wants. And he can find your father. With him, he could find me. And Richard Hunt. Piper, and that baby, would be the first in a string of dominos.”
Nolan took a deep breath and cracked a smile. “This might be tricky. Zero friendly casualties. We’ve lost enough. Let’s go play Atlas.”
28
Clara
The man QB called Wallace led us into the secret room, and I immediately heard sounds of a struggle. He yelped with pain, then a crash.
“You fucking bitch!” he shouted, then I heard Piper scream and Arthur, the man behind us, hustled into the room to help subdue Piper.
Moments later, they marched her out, arms bound behind her back. Wallace had deep lacerations on one arm and his left cheek had been slashed clean through.
It looked like Piper had defended herself with one of my scalpels.
QB went into the room, returning with a bundle of Lea in his arms. “Dr. O’Grady, patch my man up or this baby gets exactly what he got. While Piper watches.”
I was almost physically sick at just the thought of it. Piper sat on the couch, bleeding from the mouth and nose. The man I’d injected lay on the other end of the sectional, still slumbering.
“I will. But let me help her,” I countered.
“Kill that cocksucker,” Piper hissed.
QB frowned. “Really, Piper? In front of the baby?”
He was as evil as evil gets.
I went into the kitchen for towels, and I came back and cleaned Piper’s face. Her nose was probably broken, but her teeth appeared to be intact and her jaw was fine. I went back into the kitchen and warmed a bottle in the microwave, handing it to QB, who sat bouncing Lea like a kindly grandfather.
“Very thoughtful, Clara,” he said, smiling his infuriating smile.
I led Wallace back into the makeshift hospital room, where I cleaned the deep wounds on his arm and bandaged them. His face was going to need a talented plastic surgeon, but I begrudgingly managed to prevent him from bleeding out.
“How are you, Wallace?” QB asked, feeding Lea the bottle I’d given him. Wallace gave a thumbs up. “Are all their phones accounted for?” QB’s men both nodded. “Good. Wallace, go outside and turn off the dampener. I need to check with my team in Milan.”
QB then pulled his collar to his mouth and spoke into a small microphone I hadn’t noticed. “Bring Odin down, we’re ready to film.”
Lea finished her bottle and QB put her across his shoulder, burping her with a practiced hand. I looked at Piper, who had absolutely murderous intent in her eyes.
QB put Lea back on his lap and slipped the pacifier clipped to her onesie into her mouth. He watched her cranking away on it, then he looked up. “Beautiful child. She really favors you, Piper.”
Piper seethed.
Wallace entered the room and nodded to QB, who pulled out his phone and scrolled through, looking for a particular message. He furrowed his brow. “Well, I should have known that the day couldn’t be a complete success,” he said. “It seems Miss Conway eluded the trap in Milan. Everyone else is dead or dying.”
Piper sprung up from the couch and lunged at QB, despite her hands being bound behind her back. Arthur intervened, slamming her back to the couch.
“Do you not care about the safety of this baby at all, Miss Kipton?” QB asked. “Thank you, Arthur. Please go upstairs and see what’s keeping them. I have an early dinner reservation at La Cirque and I want time get a nap before then. Jet lag doesn’t get any easier as you get older.”
The way he could change gears from polite conversation to maniac killer was deeply disturbing.
Arthur started up the stairs behind us, and shots rang out.
His large body crashed to the floor next to us, and the room became a whirlwind of activity. QB jumped to his feet, moving behind his man Wallace.
A lithe man with graying temples and a tight goatee vaulted over the bannister, avoiding gunfire. He rolled to a crouch behind the chair QB had been sitting in, and he unleashed a barrage of bullets into Wallace.
He turned to Piper and I. “Stay low. Stay with Odin!”
QB spun and fled through the kitchen, and it was then that I noticed Odin behind us, pistol in hand.
“Are you?” he asked, his voice trailing away as he saw Piper’s face.
“We’ll be fine! He has Lea!” I shouted.
