Night Strike

by Chris Ryan

1402 hours.

  The Dodge was twenty metres away and closing fast. Bald watched it grow in the mirror. ‘Unlicensed plates. Tinted windows.’

  ‘In Mexico that means narco cops,’ said Antonia.

  But Bald thought back to the zombies in Mexico City. He wondered if somehow they were tied to his past, smuggling drugs and gunning down cops in Brazil. Maybe it was catching up with him. He decided against sharing this with Antonia.

  They raced past a beat-up sign that said, ‘Bienvenido a San Hernando. Población 7569.’ The town was a barely visible scattershot of specks amid the belt of reddish rock on the horizon. We’re still four or five miles away, Bald thought. Not another fucking soul on the road. Perfect opportunity to take a couple of gringos hostage.

  Now the Charger was ten metres from their rear bumper. They needed speed, Bald knew, and they needed it fucking now. ‘Drive faster,’ he said.

  Antonia nodded quickly and shunted her foot all the way down on the accelerator. The Nissan’s chassis began to vibrate. The speedometer clocked 130 kilometres per hour and the engine started making a strange rattling sound.

  They were in the middle of Bumfuck, Mexico, with a narco-cop car closing in on them fast. Because even though Antonia was gunning the Nissan like hell, the Dodge was clinging ten metres behind them like a bad smell.

  ‘Step on it,’ Bald urged Antonia. She put her foot to the floor. The needle hit 140, then struggled to 150. It wobbled around the 155 mark and the chassis throbbing so violently that Bald could feel it echoing inside his skull. The Sentra’s 200-horsepower engine was giving it absolutely everything. But Bald knew it wasn’t going to be enough. The Charger was still closing the gap. Now it was less than ten metres behind.

  Bald knew that the Charger had a beast of an engine capable of around 235 kilometres per hour. It did exactly what the name suggested. It charged. The Nissan Sentra, on the other hand, had a top speed of around 210. In a straight shoot-out, they were going to lose.

  The Charger was almost parallel with the Nissan, and growling angrily. Bald adjusted his position so that he was side-on to Antonia. I need an eyeball on the occupants, he thought. Find out how many of these fuckers I’m up against.

  With the two vehicles now parallel, the Charger’s window tint was sufficiently light that Bald was able to peer into the murky interior. He ID’d two slate-grey shapes in the driver and front passenger seats. The back seats appeared to be empty.

  Bald unzipped the gym bag and pulled out the Smith & Wesson 637, along with the box of ammo. Antonia glanced over at him and asked, ‘What are you doing?’

  He laid the box of ammo in his lap and pressed the release catch on the side of the weapon. Then he used his right thumb to push out the cylinder. He plucked a round from the box and loaded it into the first chamber. The .38 Special rimmed cartridge was the old faithful of the bullet family. Smith & Wesson had been churning out Specials since 1898 and had seen action in pretty much every war fought since then. Antonia may have made a dubious choice of handgun, but she’d redeemed herself by giving him a weapon that used such a solid, dependable and lethal round. There was a beautiful simplicity to these revolvers. Very few moving parts, no fancy safety mechanisms or cocking systems. You just slapped in the rounds, pulled the trigger and boom.

  Bald finished loading the fifth and final chamber, then snapped the cylinder back into place. Antonia watched him with her eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

  ‘This is your bright idea? Shooting cops?’

  ‘You have a better one?’

  ‘We’ll have every federal cop hunting us—’

  ‘I’ll be across the border before these fucks catch me.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  The Charger was drawing ahead of the Nissan. Bald ran his hand over the 637’s grip. The hammer was double-action only. You couldn’t cock the hammer back and then discharge. You had to depress the trigger all the way. Which meant Bald would have to apply more pressure when firing. Which meant that the extra movement and recoil would make the round marginally less accurate.

  In a firefight, every fucking inch mattered.

  Antonia eased off the gas.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Bald yelled.

  Then he saw it.

  A Honda Civic Type R blocking the road ahead.

  fifteen

  San Hernando, Hidalgo State. 1420 hours.

  The Honda Civic Type R hot hatch was thirty metres in front. Bald sized it up the way he sized up everything in this world, as a threat. No licence plate. Tinted windows. The spitting fucking image of the Dodge Charger.

  ‘Classic kidnap manoeuvre,’ Antonia said.

  ‘That’s what these guys are? Kidnappers?’

  ‘Thousands happen every year in this country. If you’re rich and have no personal security, then you’re a target. This is definitely a kidnap attempt.’

  What are you gonna do now, John? the voice at the back of Bald’s head demanded. It was the voice of doubt. The voice he’d shut out with booze ever since he returned from Belgrade. The voice that said he’d lost the magic touch.

  Bald and Antonia were now twenty metres from the Civic. The Charger had dropped back behind the Nissan and was killing its speed. Bald closed his eyes, then opened them again. The Civic was fifteen metres away. His hands were rattling the 637’s cylinder. He drew in the world’s deepest breath and said, ‘Stop the car.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just do it.’

  Antonia swerved to the side of the road. They stopped ten metres short of the Civic. Bald spotted a farm at their three o’clock twenty metres away. It was a humble thing. A couple of bare concrete buildings with corrugated-iron roofs, and a field of maze fenced off with wooden stakes and chicken wire. A few skinny goats were tethered to a post. A boy and a girl were playing in the dirt. The boy had a bouncing ball. The girl had some kind of a hoop. The Charger stopped ten metres behind the Nissan.

  Engines died. Grilles hissed. Heat shimmered on the tarmac.

  A pale-faced officer dressed in the universal narco-cop uniform of white pressed shirt, Ray-Ban Aviators and combat boots debussed from the Charger. The guy was so light-skinned he could have passed himself off as albino. Pale Face wasn’t alone. Another man had emerged from the front passenger seat. He was stocky and tanned, with blue trousers, blue shirt, blue baseball cap. Pale Face and his mucker were both packing MP5Ks, the same weapons that Bald had seen the Policia Federal wielding at the airport.

  Stocky approached the Nissan from the left, on Antonia’s side. Pale Face made his way towards Bald. Antonia looked from the cops to Bald and back again.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she said.

  ‘Sit very fucking still.’ Bald was working through the angles in his head. But it wasn’t easy. The migraine was picking at the back of his skull.

  ‘They’re going to kill us,’ Antonia said. Her eyes were welling up. Bald gripped her by the shoulders and dead-eyed her.

  ‘They won’t,’ he said gently but firmly. He didn’t do so out of sympathy. He didn’t even do it because it was true. He did it because the last thing he needed was some bird having a nervous fucking breakdown. ‘Listen to me. Do exactly as I say. If you do that, we’ll get out of this alive. Do you understand?’

  Antonia swallowed her tears like they were foul medicine, and nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Bald.

  Pale Face and Stocky neared the Nissan. Nobody got out of the Civic up ahead. Logic suggested that there would be at least two guys in the Civic to supplement Pale Face and Stocky. So, at least four targets. Five bullets in the revolver. He had another thirty-five rounds in the box of .38 Specials, but reloading a revolver took at least seven or eight seconds and in the heat of a firefight he wouldn’t have that kind of time.

  Bald watched Pale Face in his side mirror. He was four metres away now. Bald stuffed the 637 into the top of his jeans and sat upright in his seat. Flexed his neck muscles.

  Pale Face whip
ped off his Aviators. He had eyes the colour of bleach and lips so narrow they looked like a surgical incision. Pale Face stopped at Antonia’s window and rapped his knuckles on the glass. Antonia did nothing. He knocked firmly again. Then he bent forward a little so that his face filled the view from Antonia’s window.

  Stocky had halted beside Bald’s door. Folds of flesh encroached on his eyeballs, reducing them to black lines.

  ‘Roll down the window,’ Bald told Antonia, who was staring vacantly at some point in the middle distance. He kept his voice as steady and normal as possible, still trying to put the lid on her nerves. Half of winning any firefight was the ability to stay cool.

  Antonia thumbed the window selector on the armrest. The glass whirred down and a whole lot of ugly leaned into her face. The right side of the cop’s jaw was blistered and puffy.

  ‘Get out!’ Pale Face barked. Drops of his spittle sprinkled Antonia’s arm.

  Bald nodded at her. ‘Do as the man says.’

  Antonia slowly tugged on the door handle and began to climb out of the car. Pale Face clamped his hand around her wrist and hauled her out and onto the ground. She didn’t have time to get to her feet. Pale Face shoved a foot onto the small of her back and forced her to lie face down while he tied her hands behind her back with plastic cord. She struggled, rocking her body from side to side and screaming for help. But the screams died at the mountains and Bald imagined the family at the farm sitting in their living room praying.

  ‘Bitch! Stop fucking moving!’ The way he said ‘fucking’, hard as gravel, told Bald that this guy was about as Mexican as Aberdeen Angus beef. He tried to place the guy’s accent. American. Somewhere in the Deep South.

  Pale Face thrust Antonia’s face into the dirt with his foot, making her chew on the soil. Then he rolled her over onto her back, and couldn’t resist groping her tits as he did so. Sick cunt, Bald thought.

  Now Pale Face roughly manhandled Antonia to her feet and shoved her towards the Charger. She was choking, her face powdered with hot dirt. Bald was interrupted by a tap-tap at his window. He clocked the MP5K muzzle eyefucking him six inches from his face.

  ‘You. Open. Too,’ Stocky’s twisted English leaked through the laminated glass.

  Bald stayed put.

  ‘Open the fucking door.’

  Bald took three long breaths, filling his red blood cells with as much oxygen as possible so as to pump up the muscles in his shoulders and chest. Adrenaline was racing through his body. He lowered the window.

  ‘Out the car, gringo!’ Stocky shouted.

  A third guy emerged from the driver’s side of the Civic. He looked Native American. Five-five but almost as wide. Slicked-back hair the colour of Coca-Cola. He was also carrying an MP5K. Behind him Antonia had tripped on a rock a few steps from the Charger. Pale Face was helping her to her feet and copping another feel of her tits into the bargain.

  Stocky to my three o’clock, Bald thought. Pale Face ten metres to my six. Third guy twelve metres to my twelve.

  Five shots. Make them count.

  He thrust his right arm out of the window and grabbed Stocky by the open neck of his sweat-stained shirt and tugged him towards him. At the same time he was digging the 637 out of his jeans with his left hand and bringing the barrel level with Stocky’s rubber-tyre neck. Before the cop could react he had depressed the trigger fully, ten ounces of pressure cocking the hammer and springing it back into place and ejecting the bullet out of its brass jacket. The round travelled out of the barrel, perforating the flap of skin directly beneath the guy’s chin. His pumpkin-shaped head slumped lifelessly over to the frame of the rolled-down window. Blood fountained out of his skull and glooped over the Nissan’s interior.

  Bald booted the door open, sending Stocky’s corpse tumbling backwards. He dived out of the car and crouched behind the door, open at a right angle to the chassis. The door offered poor protection from bullets, and the MP5Ks were loaded with 9mm full-metal-jacket rounds, that could penetrate anything, making the metal plating useless. But shit cover was better than fuck-all.

  Pale Face was dragging Antonia behind the boot of the Charger, but Bald couldn’t get across to her. Not with the other targets to deal with first.

  The driver of the Civic was holding his MP5K in a two-handed grip, his right hand clasping the trigger mechanism and his left acting as a fire-support platform on the underside of the barrel. Raising the weapon, he targeted Bald. The laser sight mounted on the submachine gun glared at the Nissan. Bald could see the red mil-dot on the windscreen.

  Three stark ca-racks punctured the air. The Nissan’s windscreen starred twice. The third round ricocheted off the hood.

  Bald edged out from the right-side of the door and targeted the driver, who had neglected to seek cover. He lined the guy’s head between the sights, keeping the front sight in focus. He relaxed his shoulder muscles. Shut out the rest of the world.

  The revolver barked. A flame ignited at the end of the barrel. The driver’s body spasmed. The first bullet smacked into his knee. Just twelve metres away, but Bald’s aim hadn’t been true. He didn’t panic, simply took aim again and discharged, and this time he hit the fucking jackpot. The .38 Special tore a two-centimetre hole in the middle of his chest. The driver dropped his MP5K. Then he dropped too.

  Two rounds left.

  Bald scrambled to his feet and made for the Civic. Another glance at his six. Pale Face was hauling Antonia towards the maize field. The bass thump of a car door shutting drew Bald’s attention back to the Civic. The fourth guy had slipped out of the passenger seat and was frantically unholstering his secondary firearm. A Glock 17 semi-automatic. Good weapon. Bald raised the 637 level with his shoulder. By the time the guy had his Glock out, Bald was putting down his fourth .38 Special. The bullet nearly split the guy’s fucking torso in two. Red shit sprayed over the soil. His body slumped against the Civic hood as he tried to shovel his bowels back into his lacerated stomach. A minute or two, Bald thought, and that cunt would be heading over to the dark side with his mates.

  Then a scream slit the air like a razor.

  ‘Help!’

  sixteen

  1444 hours.

  Pale Face was scrabbling across a field of drooping maize, towards the farmhouse, one arm tight around Antonia’s waist, his free hand pressing the MP5K muzzle against her temple. Bald followed, onto ground as arid and dry as ancient ruins. Each maize stalk stood well over two metres tall, and this height, combined with the fact that the dry leaves were peeling away like old skin, shrank visibility to a few measly metres. Bald was forced to rely on his hearing to get a position on Pale Face. Antonia was silent now but the rustling of leaves and the scuffing of shoes on rock-hard soil told him that Pale Face was somewhere at his ten o’clock. Bald set off in that direction, 637 in his grip and murder on his mind.

  Sunlight broke through the leaves in hot packets. Bald felt nauseous from the heat and the exertion. Through a gap between the stalks he spotted some maize plants that were swaying back and forth. The air was otherwise dead still. Bald rushed towards the rustling stalks, a stinging pain in his quads and a stitch spearing his right side. He brushed aside the stalks with his elbows, snapping them at the stems. He blinked the leaves out of his eyes. Kernels crunched underfoot. He was closing in on Pale Face. The stitch climbed up his torso. He shut it out, like he’d been trained. He was coming to the end of the field. Beyond it he could spy a small field of bare soil leading up to the farm buildings.

  Then the migraine exploded in his skull.

  The pain. It was fucking intense. Bullet-ant pain, he called it. Once, in the jungle in Belize, a colony of Paraponera bullet ants had bitten his ankle. A single bite from one of those fuckers induced twenty-four hours of excruciating pain. But that was nothing compared with the burning, throbbing sensation Bald felt now. He sank to his knees, the 637 clattering a few inches in front of him. He couldn’t move. The sun painted his neck and the back of his head, boiling the blood inside. The
buzzing noise in his skull returned.

  Then the migraine cut him some slack. He knew it would come back again. It always did. But he had a small window left in which to act. He realised he was curled up in a foetal position on the ground and every bone in his body was telling him to remain where he was and ride out the pain. But the operator part of him preached a different gospel. It was the voice that had urged him on during the roughest days of Selection and combat. Get the fuck up and stop feeling sorry for yourself, it kept telling him.

  Bald put one palm flat on the ground and extended his elbow, as if prepping himself for a one-handed push-up. Then he planted his other palm the same way and pushed. And pushed some more, until he was lifting himself up off the ground. He climbed to his knees, scooped up the 637 and staggered towards where he’d seen the kernels swaying.

  He emerged onto the open field and saw Pale Face twenty metres away, dragging Antonia towards what was clearly the inhabited one of the two miserable buildings. They were three metres from the rear porch, which was in shadow. Pale Face was good. He stayed behind Antonia, using her as a shield, and didn’t present Bald with a clear shot. Bald started to give chase when the whooping of police sirens carried through the air. He jerked his head back to the road. He could make out four different sirens. That meant at least eight more cops. Could be as many as sixteen.

  Pale Face backed into the farmhouse, dragging Antonia inside. Another woman screamed. A man shouted.

  The sirens were getting louder, ripping through the air. Bald couldn’t see them beyond the maize, but the cars had to be close now. He was forty metres from the road. If he pursued Pale Face into the farmhouse the guy’s mates would have him pinned down in the time it takes to make a brew. Or he could just bug out of this shithole, fuck off in the Civic and get on with the mission.

  As much as he’d got to like Antonia, she didn’t come with a £5-million reward. And anyway, he had no chance of nailing that arse, no matter how badly he wanted to. She was too posh for her own good.