Shadows Rising

by Ernest Dempsey

  Adriana stuck a hand on each door and pulled. She didn’t want to fling them open abruptly. That would draw attention, too. So she inched the doors open wide enough that she could fit through.

  June wasn’t given to panic often, but at the sight of her friend pulling the elevator doors open wider she felt a wave of concern rush over her. She put out her free hand as if asking what in the world Adriana was doing, but her partner didn’t respond until she was satisfied with the width of the gap.

  Then Adriana turned to June and motioned for her to get back. June scowled but did as ordered. She grabbed a metal support beam along the wall and pulled herself back, using her feet to brace her weight. Adriana did the same, withdrawing to the corner of the shaft and pulling her knife from the sheath on her thigh.

  When the guard appeared just outside the elevator shaft, June stuffed the phone back in her pocket and waited. Both women held their breath as the man’s shadow appeared in the corridor.

  June desperately wanted to know what Adriana was thinking. She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  The guard paused outside the opening. The women couldn’t see the curious, confused look on his face. His shadow drew near until they could see the tips of his shoes.

  Adriana held the knife tight. She knew precision was a must, otherwise the other two guards at the end of the hall would be alerted. If that happened, she and June would find themselves in a gunfight with nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.

  The guard leaned forward, exposing the top of his head. He tentatively looked down into the shaft, clearly wary of the danger. Adriana waited, forcing herself to be patient. He hadn’t spotted them, instead enamored of the deadly drop before him.

  He craned his neck a little more, keeping his balance by planting his hands on either side of the doorway.

  That was all Adriana needed.

  She pushed off from the side wall and swung toward the guard. In the darkness, he didn’t detect any movement until it was too late. His head snapped toward her. Adriana drove the knife tip through the man’s chin and up through the roof of his mouth. The sharp point tore through his sinuses and an instant later, his brain. He only managed a gurgle before his body went limp. Adriana yanked the blade free as the man fell forward, tumbling down the shaft into the blackness below. He hit the lift with a thud. How far down, the women didn’t know. They also didn’t care.

  June pulled out her device and switched it back on. The two guards at the other end hadn’t seen what happened. Adriana’s kill had been swift and stealthy.

  Now it was time to take out the rest of the guards and nab Tosu.

  Tirana

  June swung into the opening and pressed her toes onto the floor where thin carpet met the edge of the elevator’s threshold. The cable went slightly limp, and she unclipped the harness. Adriana hung by, waiting for her friend to get unhooked. When June was free of the cable, Adriana stepped onto the ledge and removed the carabiner from her harness.

  She stuffed the knife back in the sheath and drew a pistol.

  June did the same and gave a nod that signaled she was ready.

  They both knew the guards were standing watch over Tosu’s corner penthouse. It was why they hadn’t moved yet. The women were lucky they hadn’t noticed their comrade disappearing into the elevator shaft, otherwise the gunfight would already be on.

  The two targets were fifty feet away, standing on either side of the door to Tosu’s apartment. The one on the left—closest to the women—was looking to his right, out a window that exposed a section of the city.

  Adriana picked up her pace, walking as fast as she could without making much noise. June stayed close by, weapon behind her back.

  At twenty-five feet, the guard nearest them turned his head and saw them approaching. The blonde and the brunette were quite the visual, both decked out in black tactical gear, submachine guns strapped to their chests, pistols on their hips, and a threatening look on both their faces.

  The guard turned to face them, reaching for a gun in a side holster.

  His reaction was much too slow. Adriana whipped her pistol up and fired three shots. The bullets smashed into the man’s neck, shoulder, and skull, dropping him to the floor in an instant.

  The second guard twisted around in time to see two suppressor muzzles flashing accompanied by a familiar muffled popping sound.

  The rounds tore through his torso and limbs, piercing vital organs and smashing bone. His body shuddered with every bullet strike. He staggered backward and hit the window with a thud before falling facedown on the floor.

  Adriana and June sped up, rushing over to the door. They stopped for a second to make certain the two guards wouldn’t be getting up again. The two men were lying perfectly still, the carpet under them soaking up the thick red liquid leaking from their bodies. A quick check told the women neither man had a pulse.

  Adriana reached into a pocket and pulled out a small cylinder. The thing fit in the palm of her hand. She gave a nod to June, who returned the gesture, understanding what would come next.

  They took a step back and charged the door, simultaneously driving the heels of their boots into it. The portal caved under their combined weight and force. It flew open with a shudder.

  As they followed their momentum into the apartment, June raised her weapon while Adriana tossed the flashbang inside. Then they stepped back out and waited. It only took a second for the device to explode. A bright flash of light escaped the apartment. They’d decided on flashbangs since smoke grenades would do as much to hinder their vision as it would an enemy’s. Flash grenades, on the other hand, would blind a target for nearly a minute, burning their eyes with a searing light.

  Then Adriana plunged ahead, sweeping the kitchen to her left with the pistol in her hands. June took the right. A short hallway led to a bathroom on one side and an office on the other. Straight ahead, the living room was shrouded in a light haze from the small amount of smoke the flashbang put out.

  There were, however, no enemies to be found.

  Adriana moved forward with purpose. She scanned the guest bedroom back on the left and found it to be empty. A quick check in the closet revealed the same.

  She looked back through the doorway at June, who was checking the master bedroom on the other side of the enormous villa. Then Adriana’s eyes went up the stairs to the loft above. She crept out of the guest room and made her way quietly over to the steps. One at a time, she climbed the stairs, pausing at the top in case someone was lying in wait to ambush her.

  No one was there.

  A desk sat along the loft wall. A plush white couch was positioned in front of a big high-definition television.

  But no one was there, either.

  Adriana poked her head over the railing and looked down as June reappeared from the master suite.

  “It’s empty,” she said.

  June had a confused look on her face. “Same down here. I don’t understand. Our surveillance team said Tosu came in last night and never left. If he did, we’d have known it.”

  Where was everyone? Adriana kept the question to herself. She lowered her weapon and descended the stairs quickly.

  A sudden, horrifying realization struck her.

  “We need to leave. Now.”

  She turned toward the door. A man was standing in the way with a pistol held waist high. She recognized him immediately.

  “How nice of you girls to drop by,” Tosu said in a cool, wicked tone. “Speaking of drop, please drop that gun of yours.”

  June turned and saw the terrorist. She couldn’t do anything. Adriana was squarely in his sights, and was just as vulnerable standing to the side by a black leather couch.

  “You, too,” Tosu said to June. “Or I can go ahead and shoot your friend right now.”

  June hesitated for a second.

  “Don’t do it, June,” Adriana ordered. “The second he fires, drop him.”

  Tosu cocked his head to the side and displayed a sinister
, cynical grin. “Really? Do you honestly think that will save her? You obviously don’t see what happened here.”

  Adriana narrowed her eyes.

  Tosu flicked his head, motioning for them to look out the giant wall windows facing the city. “Go ahead. Have a look.”

  Adriana reluctantly twisted her head enough to see outside. June looked, too. Four men dressed in the same gear as the other guards were hanging outside the window with submachine guns pointing into the villa.

  “You see?” Tosu said. “There’s nowhere for you to go. Now, if you don’t mind, drop your guns, or I’ll make this much more painful for the both of you.”

  June sighed and let her pistol drop to the floor. Adriana waited a few extra seconds before she complied. Her weapon struck the hardwood surface with a thud and a clank.

  “That’s better.”

  He took a short step back, and four armed guards poured into the room. They surrounded the women, keeping their weapons trained on the intruders.

  “I’m glad to see my little trap worked.”

  Adriana’s nostrils flared. Her eyes blazed with a fire hotter than a thousand suns. She did little to try to hide her anger.

  “How did you know?” June asked, not expecting an honest answer.

  “Please,” Tosu said as he stepped into the villa. “Did you really think I didn’t know about your little surveillance team? We have security systems in place that detect that kind of thing. Although I’m not surprised. You agency types are always a step behind. You mistakenly believe that all of us are hiding out in caves somewhere, living like animals.”

  One of the guards busied himself with disarming the women. It took a moment since they still had knives, guns, and full magazines strapped to them. The guard tossed their collection of weapons and ammo onto the couch and then returned to his place, keeping an eye on the prisoners.

  “What did you do with them?” June asked. There was an intense concern in her tone.

  “With who?” Tosu asked. He feigned innocence.

  “You know who. Where are they? Where’s the surveillance team? So help me, if you hurt any of them—”

  “Why don’t you look for yourselves?” he interrupted.

  June frowned. For a second, she couldn’t tell if the man was looking at her or over her shoulder. Then she followed his gaze to the window. The guards who’d been dangling from ropes had climbed back up to the top, revealing a clear view of the city once more.

  “Look at what?” June asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. It came suddenly and with terrible brutality.

  A body fell from above and jerked suddenly. The rope around the man’s neck snapped the bone within instantly. The body twitched, toes kicked, but the man was already dead, his neck broken.

  “No!” June shouted, recognizing the guy as one of the team responsible for watching Tosu’s compound.

  Another body dropped, this one a woman with brown hair. The rope went taut and killed her instantly.

  “Stop it! Please!” June begged.

  Adriana could do nothing but watch as two more bodies, another man and woman, fell from the rooftop. The four members of the surveillance team hung in front of the window, their corpses twisting and turning in full macabre view of everyone in the penthouse.

  June spun around, ready to pounce, but she had nowhere to go, no weapon to use. “You monster!” she shouted.

  Tosu took a menacing step forward. “Monster? You send your soldiers into my land, execute my people, rape and murder those who are loyal to the true god, and yet you have the gall to call me a monster? No. You are the monsters. America and its allies are the ones responsible.”

  He reached out and grabbed her face, squeezing both sides of her jaw with strong fingers. He forced her head around. “Look at them,” he said. “They are dead because of you. They are dead because your governments tried to stop us. Nothing can stop us. No one can stop us. And soon, the world will know who the true villains are. They will see that our cause is righteous, and with Allah on our side none can stand in our way until the earth has been purified.”

  “You missed the point,” Adriana said out of the blue.

  Tosu turned and glared at her as he would have a child who’d spoken in class without raising their hand. “What did you just say?”

  “I said you missed the point,” she answered without hesitation.

  He took a step closer to her, releasing June’s face as he moved. “Oh? And what point is that?”

  “Allah doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want any of this. You make good people look bad. Because of trash like you, Muslims in free countries are discriminated against. They’re treated like outsiders, weirdos, or killers. Because of people like you, women can’t wear their hijabs into an airport without raising alarms inside the minds of thousands. Is that what you think Allah wants? Because it isn’t. You’ve twisted the message of the almighty and turned it into a declaration of war. That’s not what he wanted.”

  Tosu listened patiently until she was done talking. Then he pouted his lips as if considering the point. Then his left hand suddenly jerked around, and he backhanded her across the cheek. The ring on his finger opened a cut below Adriana’s right eye.

  Her head snapped to the side, but she didn’t give him the pleasure of hearing her cry out. She winced for a second against the sting, but that was all.

  “You know nothing of the true god,” he said in a rage. “But you will soon. The entire world will bow before us, and then they will know the truth. Or they will die.”

  12

  Tirana

  Adriana and June were loaded into the back of a cargo van along with the four guards who’d accompanied Tosu and helped him spring his trap. They never took their eyes off the two women. Likewise, Adriana and June probed the men for any weakness they could exploit. Even the smallest mistake could be fatal in the hands of those two.

  During the entire bumpy journey out of the city, the men never once faltered. They were, apparently, well trained and highly disciplined. Adriana had to wonder who they were, what they’d been through to reach that kind of callous stoicism.

  She’d never served in the military, but she’d heard stories. The American Marine Corps was tough. Parris Island was no vacation spot. Sand fleas nicked at the Marines’ skin as they stood at attention in the sweltering South Carolina heat. The humidity doubled the misery. All the while, the would-be Marines were pushed to their physical limitations.

  The best of the best would go higher, into tougher training. The military had several special operations divisions, each one presenting a test of will like the recruits had never seen in their lives.

  Through those trials, fiercely determined, disciplined warriors were born.

  As Adriana stared across the truck at one of the guards, she could see that kind of experience written on his face.

  Maybe he’d been in his country’s military. It was difficult to tell his origin. He had a strong, broad jaw, was slightly tanned, and had short black hair on his head. He and the other guards never said a word. They just stared at their prisoners through dead, vapid eyes. Wherever the guards had come from, whatever their past, one thing was certain: they were trained killers.

  Adriana cursed herself for being so easily baited into a trap. Tosu’s move had been clever. He’d banked on the idea that whoever was watching him didn’t know he knew. It was the correct assumption.

  Adriana figured June was likewise beating herself up for not being more wary of some kind of ambush. Truth was, neither one of them could have known what was going to happen.

  June wore a bewildered look on her face like a mask of shame. Adriana knew her friend was carrying the deaths of the four operators on her shoulders. She could see the pain hanging on June, weighing her down. While Adriana knew her friend was a professional, she also couldn’t imagine what that kind of responsibility felt like. She’d never want that on her conscience. Now, June had to live with it for the rest of her life.

/>   The truck slowed, the inertia of the occupants pushing them toward the front for a moment before the vehicle made a slow right turn. Fifteen seconds later, the brakes squealed again, and the truck came to a stop.

  The back door rattled as someone outside unhooked the clasp keeping it in place. Then the big door slid up into the truck’s ceiling. Four men stood outside, all armed with submachine guns and pistols at their sides. A fifth man was standing just behind them, like a dog walker keeping his charges on a leash. The guards in the truck stood immediately. One of them grabbed June by the shoulder and forced her to her feet. Another did the same to Adriana and then pushed her toward the opening.

  Their hands were bound with duct tape wrapped tightly around the wrists. The men who’d done the binding weren’t stingy with the sticky material. They’d left nothing to chance with these two.

  The women were ushered out of the truck, and after a few seconds their eyes adjusted to the new surroundings.

  They were on the side of a titanic mountain in the range Adriana had admired upon first arriving in Tirana. Below, the plains stretched out as far as the eye could see. The city of Tirana twinkled in the dark of night, mirroring the stars above.

  “Take them inside,” Tosu ordered.

  Someone shoved Adriana in the lower back, and she lurched forward. The hand steered her around the truck to the left. That’s when she saw the building.

  It didn’t look like much. Other than being big, probably taking up four thousand square feet, it was also three stories tall. The walls were covered in rusty metal, as was the roof. Adriana wondered what the old building was, thinking it looked similar to abandoned mining structures she’d seen in the American Southwest.

  The women were marched up a gravel driveway where the guards paused at the door. One of them rapped three times. A slide panel opened in the center of the portal. Pale eyes stared out from a dark, grimy face. Then the opening shut and locks started clicking inside. A moment later, the door groaned its protest as the man inside pulled it open.