Without Options

by Trevor Scott

  “Maybe the front door would have been better,” Toni said.

  “No,” Franz said. “They would have had that covered with video. This was unexpected.”

  “It might divert some fire away from Jake,” she said.

  Franz checked his gun and said, “Let me go.”

  His determined look was new to her. “They got us pinned down, Franz.”

  “I don’t care,” he said and coughed against his shirt sleeve.

  “You’re bleeding,” she said. “The glass cut you.”

  He didn’t even look at his arm. “They killed my Anna. And they’ll pay for that.”

  “Your Anna?”

  “She was like a daughter to me.”

  With a brush from his large hand, he pushed Toni aside like she was a small child. Determined, Franz opened the door, shoved his gun out and shot twice. Then he rushed out, a man possessed, his gun firing as he went.

  Toni heard shots from the other direction, more from Franz, more from the other side, and a couple final shots from Franz, followed by the sound of a body crashing to the ground. Franz came back into the office holding his stomach with his left hand. She locked the door behind him.

  “One down,” Franz said, a look of relief on his face. Maybe a slight smile as he slumped to the ground and put a new magazine in his gun.

  “Franz,” she said, “you’re hit pretty bad.”

  He looked at the desk and said, “Get me that stapler.”

  Toni turned and then looked back at him in disbelief.

  “I’m kidding,” Franz said. “You have to admit it was funny.” His hand held tight over his wound as his face grimaced and smiled simultaneously.

  She checked his back and saw that the bullet had gone through and through. Jesus. He had to be in major pain. She found his cell phone and said, “You need to call the local Polizei and an ambulance. Give them your location.”

  “Not until we get these bastards,” he said, his voice gruff and losing strength. “They don’t deserve to go to prison. Besides, the Polizei will only be forced to extradite them.”

  She knew he was right. “You call and then we’ll get them.”

  Franz agreed with a nod. As he called, she went to the door to peek out. Nothing. She didn’t have a choice. She’d have to leave Franz there and help Jake. She heard tires squealing outside and seconds later a major crash out front. Then the sound of a car alarm.

  ●

  The shots had been muffled, but Alexandra heard them nonetheless. She was supposed to wait for Jake’s signal, which she did, but then the shooting started almost immediately following his text message.

  She’d punched the gas on her car and squealed the tires heading toward the Russian cellular front company. As she got close to the front door, she saw someone starting to exit the main door. She powered up her car and turned the wheel at the last second, jumping the curb and smashing it into the front entrance, sending the man scurrying back inside.

  Shoving the air bag away from her, Alexandra pulled her gun and got out, rushing to the side of the front door. Thinking she was being watched, she turned and saw the camera pointing toward the front door. With a quick shot, the camera exploded.

  Alexandra quickly looked around the open door and pulled her head back just as fast. Two shots came past her and shattered into her windshield. She smiled. All right, you Russian assholes. I’ve got you right where I want you. She swung her arm around the door and shot twice. “Take that, you Russian pigs,” she yelled in German.

  Then she scooted back around the door frame, her body against the outer wall. She could have used a comm link to Jake right now. She didn’t like working blind.

  35

  Jake moved to his left and peered around the shelves, thinking he might have to retreat back through the door if he couldn’t find a better way forward. As he contemplated that, he heard glass shattering, followed by shots. More shots. Then he was sure he heard a car crash out front, with more shots a few seconds later. Somehow he thought about Toni first, figuring she might be there with Franz. But when he heard Alexandra yelling out front in German, he smiled. She was all right. He could have used a comm link to her. Instead, he turned his phone on quickly and called her.

  “You all right?” he asked her when she picked up.

  “Yeah, I’ve got the front covered,” Alexandra said.

  “I’m in the back,” he whispered. “A storage room with cell phones. Hang on. I’m getting another call.” He hit another button to switch to the other caller. “Yeah?”

  “Where are you?”

  It was Toni.

  “In the far back. A storage unit. Alexandra has the front door covered.”

  “There’s no way out,” Toni said. “Franz and I have the back offices covered.”

  Suddenly bullets broke the silence around him. He ducked back farther against the wall.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Better go. I’ll tell Alexandra where you are.” He switched back to Alexandra and told her where Toni and Franz where. Hopefully nobody would get shot by crossfire. Movement at the other end of the room. The opposite side from where he’d shot the man.

  “Jake Adams,” a man yelled out.

  He didn’t move.

  “I don’t care about those others,” the man said, his words infested with a Russian accent. “I must say. You have been fun to play with.”

  Jake shot at the sound of the voice.

  “Not even close,” the man said.

  Now Jake couldn’t help himself. “Major Viktor Pushkin.”

  “Major?” The man laughed. “I’m a colonel now.”

  “Just like your big brother, Yuri?”

  The man yelled something in Russian and Jake only understood part of it. Something about Jake servicing himself like a contortionist. “I don’t think that’s physically possible,” Jake said. “Although I’m sure many have tried.”

  “You’ve got some balls, Adams,” the Russian growled. “You kill my brother and then make a mess of my work.”

  Jake considered that and wasn’t sure what to think. “First of all, asshole, I didn’t shoot Yuri. Someone else did that. But your brother did try to have me killed more than once.”

  “If he had wanted you dead, he would have done it in Berlin many years ago.”

  So Viktor Pushkin knew about that. Jake didn’t know it at the time, but Yuri had been responsible for capturing Jake back in the Cold War days and torturing him for more than two weeks in a crappy warehouse along the Spree. Where Jake first learned to hate rats. He’d been beaten senseless, starved to near death, and struck again until his skull was fractured more than once, his ribs broken front and back. He felt the pain again now as he thought back on that time.

  “It wasn’t from lack of trying,” Jake said.

  “You were spying on our missile production,” Viktor said.

  “I was proving that your missiles were a piece of crap,” Jake screamed.

  “You cried like a baby.”

  Now that was a lie. He had screamed in pain. Any man would have. But he hadn’t cried. Real men from Montana didn’t cry, he had always been told.

  “Do you have anything you’d like to say before I send you to your maker,” Jake said. “Maybe you should go to the bathroom first so you don’t piss your pants like Yuri did when he was shot.”

  “You bastard!” The Russian shot twice toward Jake, the bullets striking boxes next to him.

  Good idea, Jake. Keep pissing him off until the man runs out of bullets. This should work.

  “Listen, Viktor,” Jake started, “since I’m going to die anyway, why don’t you explain your grand scheme to me. Why such a master scheme? Why not just come to me yourself and kill me? Why use all these little pawns when the king could take me himself? Oh, I know. Maybe you’re afraid of me. Afraid to get your hands dirty.”

  Two more shots. Predictable.

  “Afraid of you?” Viktor asked. “You think this was all
about you? You are Narcissus reincarnate.”

  “Wow. A Russian who knows Greek Mythology. I’m surprised you learned to read. But you’re right, my friend. I’m looking in the mirror right now.”

  Two more shots. Not even close.

  Once the sound settled down, Jake said, “So, who was this about?”

  “I knew you would finally come around to this.”

  Jake could see the Russian now through the mass of boxes. Just a glimpse of his foot and a sliver of his face. His eyes. They were just as intense as his brother Yuri’s piercing glare.

  “Well, I always like to know why things happen.”

  “It’s about my country,” Viktor said. “Everything.”

  “Then why kill Anna?”

  “Your Interpol girlfriend? That was. . .how do you put it? A bonus? Seriously, she was insignificant. She just got in the way.”

  Swinging his arm around the boxes, Jake shot directly at that Russian’s head, not really expecting to hit the man. “She was my future wife.”

  Jake heard some muffled speaking in Russian and had to assume there was now another man with Viktor. The room was not huge, but if one shot while the other moved, Jake would not be able to cover the both of them. Not even with a gun in each hand.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” the Russian said, and he sounded sincere. “It would have been much better if you had died that day and not her.”

  That scenario had run through Jake’s mind many times over the past two months. Anna would be alive. Maybe the world would be a much better place that way.

  “But I didn’t,” Jake said, “because your men screwed up.”

  “It is hard to find good men. Too smart and they won’t fight. Too dumb and they die easy.”

  More words between two men in Russian. Sounded like arguing to Jake.

  “What happened to the other shooter in Austria?” Jake asked.

  The Russian laughed. “Oh, he’s been having a lot of fun with you over the past few weeks.”

  “Why didn’t you kill me in the hospital?” Jake asked. “I was an easy target.”

  “That wouldn’t have been fair,” Viktor said. “Besides, wasn’t it fun these last couple of weeks?”

  Jake burned inside now, his jaw tight, and his breathing nearly out of control. “So the man who killed my girlfriend is with you there,” he growled. “Send him my way. I’d like to have a little talk with him.”

  The other man finally yelled at Jake in Russian. Comparing the voices, the two men were about ten feet apart. Good. Jake had gotten that out of them. Time to make his move. He pulled out his cell phone, punched in a saved text message, and hit send. Checking his watch, he waited for precisely one minute. While he did so, he made sure both guns were loaded to the max.

  Looking at the seconds click off on his watch, he suddenly jumped to his feet and ran across the length of the shelves toward the center aisle.

  Shots traced his steps, but he didn’t shoot. Not yet.

  As he scooted up the aisle he shot twice with both guns, each aimed in the general direction of both men. Then Jake dove behind the next row of shelves just as more bullets struck next to him.

  When the new shooting started, Jake also heard shooting coming from two other locations in the building—perhaps Toni and Franz on one side and Alexandra on the other. They would be pinching the Russians toward the center.

  On the move again, Jake vectored up one more aisle, with shots blasting toward him again. He felt pain in his left leg as he dove to the hard surface. Pulling up his pants, he saw a bullet had grazed his calf. He grit down and shoved his pants over the wound, holding his hand over the rip. He scooted on his butt and then lay onto his back to try to find another view. There.

  Aiming his right gun, Jake shot three times at movement and heard the unmistakable sound of bullets hitting human flesh. A second later he heard the body hit the ground. It was the other Russian. The second shooter and Anna’s killer.

  “It’s just us now, Viktor.”

  “Maybe I give up,” the Russian said. “Go back to Moscow. Besides, this is not over. Not by even a little bit. If I die more will come.”

  Jake laughed. “I don’t think so, my friend. You go back to Russia and they might just make you a general.”

  “But you are a man of honor, Adams. If I give up, you cannot shoot me.”

  “I don’t accept your surrender,” Jake said defiantly. “Someone has to pay for all the deaths. I can’t let you get away with killing all these people.”

  “What is it to you? And how many have you killed in the process?”

  Jake ignored him. “You obviously don’t know me very well. Honor is one thing, but I also understand history. Your people didn’t give up in Stalingrad, and you won’t really give up here with me. Nice try.” Jake tried to remember how many times he’d shot with each gun. He switched them from one hand to the next. This was it. Time to move.

  Pain shooting into his left leg, Jake rose up and made his way toward the aisle again. He’d occasionally see slight movement where he guessed the Russian sat, but couldn’t see a barrel. Screw it.

  Thrusting his body forward as fast as his legs would carry him, Jake ran toward the Russian, bullets breaking the air around him, he dove to the ground firing both guns at the flashes ahead. When he hit the ground he continued to fire until both guns slammed back empty. Then Jake rolled to his right behind some boxes, his head against a metal support stanchion. Quickly he dropped both magazines out and slapped the last full ones into the butts of the guns.

  “You still with me, my friend?” Jake yelled.

  Nothing. Just more gunfire from the two other locations. And? Sirens. Crap, the Polizei were on the way. How he could hear anything was a miracle. His ears were ringing and what sound there was came in a muffled, hollow form. The air was filled with smoke and smelled of burnt gunpowder.

  He had to move, though. Once the Polizei took over, the Russian would be simply sent back home, dispelled as if nothing had happened.

  Go, Jake.

  Guns leading his way, Jake ran forward. When no bullets came back at him, he kept running until he reached the front row. A gun on each side, Jake’s head swiveled back from one side to the next—first seeing the man who’d killed Anna laying on his right and then his eyes focused on a lump of a body to his left. Jake cautiously moved forward, his right arm stretched out and ready to fire. But as he got closer to Colonel Viktor Pushkin, he saw the dark red patches of blood pooling out from the man’s head and chest. He kicked the man. Nothing. Just flesh and bones and blood. Jake carefully rolled the Russian over and saw a bullet had struck the man in his left eye, which was gone, and two more had hit him in the chest.

  Suddenly the door burst open and a man ran in. Startled to see Jake, he raised his gun to fire, but Jake was quicker with both of his guns firing a salvo of two rounds each, dropping the man instantly.

  “Jake? Are you all right?” It was Alexandra’s voice from the front room.

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “I got this guy. It’s all clear back here.”

  “Clear here,” she said.

  Moving through the door, the scene out there came into focus for Jake. Two other men lay behind desks, killed by Alexandra, who still had her gun out and stood tall in the center of the room. And then Toni came from another hallway, putting her gun into the holster under her arm as she stepped over two other dead men.

  “So much for diplomacy?” Toni said.

  “Where’s Franz,” Jake asked her.

  Toni shook her head. “Took a shot and bled out.”

  Part of Jake felt good about that. It was a much better way to die than from the constant daily slow death of cancer. He considered going back now to say one last goodbye, but stopped himself from doing so. Jake wanted to remember Franz as he had been—the strong, vibrant Polizei officer he had first met when Jake worked in Austria years ago.

  “He thanked you for your friendship over the years,” Toni said solemnly. �
�And. . .”

  “What?”

  “He said, he knew you’d get the bastards who killed Anna. He trusted you to find a way.” Toni turned away, flipped open her cell phone, and punched in a number.

  Alexandra came to Jake and seemed somewhat subdued. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” Jake said.

  She saw blood on Jake’s leg and she holstered her gun to take a look. “I’ll kiss it later.” Alexandra put her hand affectionately on Jake’s shoulder. “The bullet just nicked your calf.”

  Moments later a man’s voice came through a bull horn at them in German, telling them to come out.

  “Did you call them?” Jake asked.

  “I had no choice,” Alexandra said. “This is my country. My responsibility.” She went to the front door, her hands in the air with her BND Badge in her right hand, and wandered out to talk with the Polizei.

  When Alexandra was gone, Jake stared for a moment at Toni. She flipped her phone shut and shoved it into her pocket.

  “Your girlfriend go talk to the Polizei so they won’t shoot us?” Toni asked derisively.

  He thought about that. Girlfriend. He wasn’t sure about his relationship with Alexandra. Maybe it was too soon after the death of Anna. Sure they’d come together in more ways than one. But it was way too early to consider anything more than simple needs.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, leaving it that way. “What did Kurt have to say?”

  “Same old stuff. Good job. He’s still trying to convince you to come to work for him again full time. He said you could work special projects for him like I do.”

  Jake laughed. “I don’t think so. I think this is my last little adventure. Maybe it’s time to go fishing.”

  Toni half smiled at him. “Can you really stay away?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’ll have to find out.”

  “Where will you go from here?”

  He had no idea. He’d need a new car. Maybe a new apartment. Better yet, a house. “I think it might be time to settle down, Toni. I’ve pushed my luck too much over the last couple decades. It’s gotta run out sooner or later.”