The cop was on her knees, hands flat against the sofa. She gestured and Silk got it. The thing was on wheels. He got his shoulder behind it and pushed hard. More bullets thudded into the material and its heavy wooden frame, but it started to move. Together, Silk and Brewster shoved the sofa into their attacker, heard a thud, and then cautiously rose.
A bullet parted Silk’s hair. He shouted with adrenalin. Seager was kneeling on the sofa, not three feet from him, snarling like a rabid tiger protecting its prey.
The knife flashed. Silk felt a flash of heat across his shoulder. Blood hit his left cheek; his own. Though defenseless, he didn’t hesitate. He launched himself onto Seager’s gun hand, wrestling the weapon’s barrel downward. Brewster hit Seager’s other hand, dealing with the knife.
The three of them fell off the edge of the sofa, hitting the floor as one.
A blast signified the gun discharging. Silk sensed the bullet pass between his legs and offered up a silent prayer. With a wrench he disabled the gun hand. The weapon fell away. Silk’s confidence grew. He turned his head . . .
. . . straight into Seager’s head-butt. Agony and stars exploded across his vision. For one moment his muscles went limp and Seager used the second to twist away and rolled over on top of Brewster.
She held on to the knife arm, keeping its downward arc at bay with both hands. But even then Seager was wild—strong—and Brewster’s gym-pumped muscles were never going to be a match for military mass. The wicked point sank ever so slowly towards her heaving stomach.
Silk shook the stupor away. Scrambling, using all his limbs like a spider up a wall, he attacked Seager. The army man was ready for him, rolling with Silk’s strike and wrenching the knife’s hilt out of Brewster’s grip and around in a sharp arc.
The blade sliced into Silk’s cheek, making him scream. Seager muttered, “Deserved that, you bastard.”
Then he brought the knife back in a reverse arc, straight down into Brewster’s stomach. The cop was unprepared, having taken a deep breath of respite and then horrified to see Silk’s injury. Now, she got her hands to the blade, but doubled over in pain as the knife sank partly into her flesh.
“Gotcha.”
Seager wrenched the weapon free. Blood dripped from the point, forming patterns on the carpet. He switched his attention back to Silk, clearly expecting the man to be on his knees, clutching the flap of his cheek and trying to stick it back in place, but the surprise was all on him. Silk launched his bulk from all fours, hitting Seager’s midriff and bowling him over. He got a grip on the man’s wrist and twisted until the knife fell free. Seager punched and elbowed and tried to bite, but Silk stayed forever in motion: twisting, turning, dealing out pain where he could. This was not fighting, this was not combat art. This was a common street fight; the kind of thing he’d grown up with. The aim was not to get trapped whilst at the same time badly hurt your opponent. Silk threw everything he had at Seager, every dirty trick in the book, but the madman managed to stay focused through it all, probably sensing Silk’s desperation as Brewster crawled across the floor. Seager’s face twisted in pain, grimaced in agony, but he held on. Determined.
With nothing else to live for.
Silk finally despaired. With every passing second Brewster became weaker. He smashed a vase into Seager’s face but gained nothing. He broke the man’s nose and front teeth but didn’t even elicit a grunt. He wrenched an ear around so hard any sane person would scream like death but Seager merely shrugged the hand away.
Silk’s hand slipped in Brewster’s blood.
It was the last straw. He saw the knife lying a few feet away and took a chance. He lunged for it.
Then turned a moment later only to find a grinning, bloody Seager now facing him with the handgun levelled and his finger on the trigger.
“At last . . .”
43
Time stretched like a taut length of piano wire, measured in nanoseconds, the life of a spark.
Silk stared down the barrel of the Glock. Seager’s finger squeezed, his mouth constricted with glee. Brewster stopped breathing.
Seager’s gun jerked as the bullet erupted. But then Silk realized it wasn’t the jerk of a handgun firing, it was the jolt of a handgun being hit by another bullet!
Silk pivoted. Seager’s gun went off, the bullet flying awry. Before anyone could react, a second and third shot took Seager’s skull and neck apart, turning the killer into an unmoving, senseless vessel of blood and flesh.
Silk fell again to his knees, crawling toward Brewster, not even caring who had fired the shots. Then legs and knees moved into his eyeline and he looked up.
Paramedics. Men dressed in SWAT fatigues. But more importantly a recognizable man with a gun—Doug the Trout.
“Been keepin’ tabs on you for days,” the Trout said matter-of-factly. “Favor for Trent.” His smile showed that it wasn’t all for Aaron, it was mostly for Adam. “God knows, you deserve a little backup, bro. And in any case—I owe you.”
Silk squinted. “You do?”
“I never told you this before, my friend, but remember when you stole something from that black van? Back in the beginning? You nabbed some cash from the back of a surveillance van.”
The memory nestled at the edge of Silk’s memory. “Vaguely. Yes.”
“That was me. My van. It’s why I recruited you several months later. You showed promise, bro. After that, I just kept an eye on you.”
Silk was too traumatized to be surprised but managed to shake his head. To him that meant only one thing—through thievery he had escaped a life of thievery. Go figure. His gaze fell on the dead body that belonged to Julian Seager.
I could have become you. So easily.
Silk shut it away for now and held a bloody hand up toward a paramedic. “How . . . how is she?”
“She’s lost a little blood, but she’s okay. Just gotta get her to the ER.”
Silk let the darkness take him, but it was the end of the darkness, near the dawn, and it held the fresh promise of new light.
44
Even a week later, Trent still ached. Every time he moved, painful bruises flared up all over his body, bruises he didn’t even know he had. They were under the skin, bone deep. But his pain was nothing compared to that of others.
Claire Collins sat gingerly on the edge of a metal chair, chowing down on the hot barbecue meat as if it was going out of fashion. Not that it ever would here in sunny LA, and surely not in Adam Silk’s garden. But even that issue was uncertain now. Silk’s wife, Jenny, had left him. Moved out and gone, presumably to her mother’s, but they didn’t know for sure. And the real shocker was that Silk didn’t seem to care. He’d been spending all his days down at the hospital, sitting alongside Susie Brewster and drifting over to Collins’ room when he wanted a break. His own injury was healing fast, but the scar would never go away.
“Deservedly so,” he’d told them, though Trent never pressed him as to why. Silk had truly demonstrated to them that his harsh past was his own cross to bear. On hearing of their escapades in Monaco and of Collins’ wounds, he’d shown remorse, but had certainly not intimated that he would have done anything different.
Each to their own.
Trent sat next to Collins and played with his steak. Radford sat on her far side, playing with his. Collins stared hard at them both.
“Oh for shit’s sake, get over it, willya. I got hurt. It happens, it sure wasn’t your fault. So you’re the Razor’s Edge. Can’t stay sharp all the time, huh?” She nudged them both playfully. “We saved Maisie. The big dogs in Washington have their win. And they have their spin. They’ll use it to wash over the SolDyn connection to Blanka Davic and the murder of the Millers, and who can really blame them? Can we make the entire government guilty by association? Of course not. So cheer up. We won.”
“Some heads should roll,” Trent said, referring to the head of SolDyn, the man who had traded the Millers for the welfare of his company and the lives of his own family.
“They will,” Collins said. “Quietly.”
Radford sighed. “I just hope Maisie gets the help she needs. And that they reunite her quickly with Emilia.”
“Of course they will. There’s nothing like family to get you over years of slavery to a Serbian master.”
“Jesus—” Radford began, then saw that she was serious. “Well, I guess so.”
“One day I’ll tell you about my past, my event. Maybe.”
Trent covered her hand with his own. “Of course.”
She pulled away. “So long as you all keep taking me dancing.”
“Any time.”
“I love to dance.”
“We know.”
“And you . . .” Collins turned to Radford, her words flowing fiercely. “Stop being such a fucking little pussy about it and go grab your goddamn wife. You want her back? Take her back.”
Radford blushed and said nothing. Collins chortled. “And you blush like a little boy. For a ladies’ man you’re such a pretty freak. If it were me I’d have her naked, bent double and squealing in about five seconds. But then . . . I’m just a girl.”
Radford licked his lips. “Sounds good to me.” He made to stand up, digging deep in his pocket for his phone, then sat back down. “Ah, I’ll give it five minutes.”
Collins grinned knowingly. “You do that.”
Silk placed a loaded plate on the table and sat down. Doug took the place beside him. Silk raised a glass of red wine.
“To the demise of Blanka Davic and the liberation of Maisie Miller.”
They all drank. Collins cleared her throat. Despite her injuries, operations and time spent in a hospital bed, she had kept her mission knowledge right up to date.
“Blanka Davic hasn’t been seen since Monaco. It’s believed he escaped through a tunnel burrowed underneath the house. He did directly threaten the United States and, like any crime lord or terrorist, has been placed on a watch list. By now, he could be anywhere in the world, but . . .” She paused.
Trent nudged her. “What?”
“He sounded . . . so sure. So unquestionably confident. I feel an attack is almost guaranteed.”
“If it happens we’ll deal with it,” Trent said. “Together. In the meantime . . .”
He lifted his glass in a final toast. “To Maisie. And to the wounded. You all did a hell of a job.”
The waning afternoon sun cast fire and gold across his face and Silk’s garden, rendering the tableau picture perfect. LA smoldered in the heat, at last starting to cool down, becoming quiet now like the calm before the storm.
*
In the end, Silk took the red Camaro alone up into the Hills. An unfocused brain told him he had a lot of thinking to do. The city fell away as he meandered higher and the trappings of a mundane, everyday existence went with it. Up here he could fly. Up here he could dream and wish and live a life that had never been shaped by terrible events. His family might even live, his parents might wrap him in loving arms. He might even have an older brother. A sister to care for. He could love.
The stark reality washed it all away as he topped out over Mulholland. The little car fishtailed. Silk caught it quickly, but the slight mistake reminded him that all dreams eventually died. You took what you could when you could. You lived in the moment. If you didn’t grab what was in front of you, right now, it could be gone. Gone forever.
Like Tanya Jazz. Like the girl with no name.
Like Susie Brewster. Another few fateful minutes and she might be gone. Was this his second chance?
He tuned the radio to a local jazz station and let it warble in the background. He played it for Tanya. For the great times when they had fought off the creeping darkness through the cruelest and greatest nights of his past. To keep the memories of all who had helped redeem him. He would keep them and treasure them now for they could not.
As for Trent and Radford, he felt that he’d let them down and, secretly, that they felt the same. He would stand by them. Prove himself once again. Jenny had left without even knowing he had almost died. Susie was still in hospital, on the mend. The world was a maelstrom, a meat-grinder that left lives shredded and tattered.
He would fight for his future but he would celebrate Tanya’s life too. He did that now, looking out over the glitter and the gold. He’d already spent so long trying to forget his past. All he wanted to do now was remember it, celebrate it, revel in it.
But try as he might he just couldn’t quite conjure up the old glory days he’d shared with Tanya. She was there, a flitting ghost, the best of his past, but lost now. Lost to life and experience and all the squandered years in between.
The great city below caught his unsaid wishes and threw them right back at him.
All it ever offered was hope.
Silk embraced it now and thought, tentatively, of the future.
THE END
Thanks for buying and reading Disavowed 2. The initial Disavowed trilogy will conclude in the action-packed forthcoming volume—Threat Level: Red—to be released on April 2nd.
After that I will finally write Chosen 2.
Matt Drake 8—Last Man Standing—will be released in June/July 2014.
I do have another book planned for the Disavowed, but intend to develop a thrilling addition to the Matt Drake series first. Yes, we’re talking a spin-off in the same mold and it’s coming soon!
This will all lead up to one hell of a ‘crossover’ novel in 2015. Matt Drake and SPEAR joining forces with The Disavowed and the new spin-off crew in one huge action adventure. Can’t wait to write it!
Word of mouth is essential for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review at Amazon, even if it’s only a line or two; it makes all the difference and would be very much appreciated.
The Disavowed Book 2 - In Harm's Way Page 19
