The teenager was grinning.
Through blurred vision he could see her face a little better, and okay, maybe she wasn’t quite a teenager. She had young features, though—small mouth, upturned nose. And her dark hair had an ice-blue streak running down the front, which is some kind of silly shit teenagers do to worry their parents.
She reached out and slapped Kowalski’s face, as if to get his attention.
Then she followed up with a short, shockingly hard punch to his mouth, which loosened two of his teeth.
Kowalski slapped out at her, like he was trying to kill a fly. It was suddenly very hard to see. There were three teenagers standing in front of him. He was swallowing his own blood. Blood and pale ale: not a recommended combination.
Goddamnit, what had just happened?
The three teenagers wound up for another punch. Kowalski snapped off something cheap and dirty at the middle teenager. Her lip split.
Her eyes fluttered, and her lips quivered, as if she were going to cry. Jesus, he’d just punched a little girl in the fucking face.
Then she lashed out and nailed him in the mouth again. That one did the trick. Kowalski felt two teeth roll back onto his tongue. He had big teeth.
The teenager’s face changed. Tears went bye-bye; now she was beaming like it was Christmas morning.
“Hah!” she shouted.
What the fuck was wrong with her? Kowalski thought, trying to catch his own teeth before he swallowed them.
And how did they know about this place?
How did you know about the place?” “You led us there,” the interrogator said.
“So I didn’t lose the first team in Inglewood?”
“No, you did. They were even shot at by a couple of gang-bangers. Which made for an amusing getaway interlude. People are still giving them shit about it.”
“So how did you find us?”
The interrogator paused, then smiled. “You really don’t know, do you? Ana must have hit you harder than I thought.”
Kowalski looked down at the table. His vision still wasn’t right. His perfect 20/20 vision went away the moment that blue-streaked teenager headbutted him. The bitch.
Cunt,” Vanessa said, then smashed the teenager in the head with a steel tea kettle.
The girl fell to her hands and knees, scream-cried. She sounded like a tea kettle. Kowalski followed through with a boot stomp on her back, smashing her into the jagged remnants of the Sierra Nevada.
Kowalski looked up to Vanessa, who had three sets of breasts and six nipples.
God his vision was fucked.
Think about that later. Kowalski turned and spat blood into the sink. A tooth landed on porcelain. Another tumbled down the drain.
“Shit,” he said. He’d lost some upper teeth before, never one on the bottom row. It had been a point of pride with him. A small point, but still. Motherfucker. He picked up the remaining tooth, closed it in his right fist.
The teenager on the floor was sobbing violently now, her lungs pumping hard, her fingers shaking, her eyes squeezed shut, and a blood-line of drool connecting her lower lip to the floor.
“Hey,” Vanessa said, crouching down. “Come on now. Stop it.” She reached to touch the girl’s leg.
“Wait,” Kowalski said. “She’s ...”
Too late.
The teenager nailed Vanessa in the tits with her boot, sending her backwards across the kitchen. She crashed into the table, one end of which flipped up and hit her in the back of the head.
It would have been funny if it hadn’t looked so painful.
The teenager sprung to her feet, never mind that the act of pushing her palms against the bottle shards cut them deeper. She still was an absolute mess, all drool and blood and tears, but she looked deliriously happy.
Vanessa moaned and struggled to catch her breath. Her fingers clawed at the linoleum as if there were some kind of painkiller hidden beneath.
“You’re sensitive there, I can feel it,” the girl said, then saw a corkscrew on the kitchen counter. Kowalski had bought it at Vons along with the pinot noir. The teenager considered it quickly; decided it would do.
She reached out for it.
Kowalski wrapped his right arm around her neck and squeezed.
This was Kowalski’s signature move. He likened himself to the trash monster from Star Wars: once he had you locked in, there was little you could use outside the power of the motherfucking Force to free yourself.
Unfortunately, the teenager was quick. She already had the corkscrew in her hand.
The Motherfucking Force vs. $3.99 corkscrew from Vons over on Sunset.
She sliced his cheek. Kowalski tilted his head back, squeezed harder. She whipped around, caught him on a love handle. The sharp point tore his flesh. Fuck, she was a squirmy thing.
He continued squeezing.
By the time the teenager was unconscious, Kowalski had puncture wounds and gashes in his leg, back, face, and forearm. As well as his right love handle.
He let her drop to the kitchen floor, then sat down to collect his thoughts and take stock of his injuries. Which were fairly numerous, for what was essentially twenty seconds of wild slashing violence. He ran his tongue around his mouth, feeling if anything else was loose.
Across the room, Vanessa pushed herself up on her arms.
“I fooking wish you carried a gun,” she said.
“I wish I carried dental insurance,” Kowalski said. He opened his right fist and looked down at his bloodied tooth.
Vanessa reached out and found the towel. Kowalski realized that the free show was over, and he hadn’t any time to fully appreciate it.
Who was he kidding. He wouldn’t have allowed himself to, anyway.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I won’t be bringing the girls out to play anytime soon.” She rewrapped the towel around her torso.
“We have to get to San Diego. Now.”
“Figured that.”
They were silent as they quickly gathered their things.
Haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” The interrogator was loving this. Possibly as much as the idea of using his little knife. What was that anyway? Something he took from the kitchen at home? Something his wife ordered at a Pampered Chef party?
“Yeah,” Kowalski said. “I figured it out. The first team pushed us to a specific car rental place. You had someone there waiting. You tagged the Taurus with a homing device.”
The interrogator shook his head, made a tsk-tsk sound. “And she said you were the smartest operative she ever worked with.”
He didn’t have to say who. “She” was enough to wedge the blade under his armor.
“Then again,” the interrogator continued, “she’s no longer with us.”
Kowalski said nothing.
“In answer to your theory: No, we did not bug the Taurus. We had something else.”
Kowalski said nothing.
And then it came to him. Oh, of fucking course. How stupid can one man be? Maybe he had been knocked in the brains one too many times.
He’d known it had happened. He just didn’t know it had happened so early.
“The Surgeon certainly thought the device came in handy.”
The Surgeon watched the targets take the stairs down from the apartment. They faded in and out of view. That was okay. He also had them on his handheld tracker. Two pulsing red dots, making their way slowly across a grid. No way of losing them.
So he was more or less relaxing, smoking a Pall Mall, something he had a hard time doing practically anywhere in L.A. In this empty apartment, though, it was okay. Maybe a rental agent would detect a faint hint of smoke, but by then, he’d be long gone.
He only expected to be here a few more minutes, actually.
Maybe just sixty seconds.
A quick phone call (fuck the Internet; The Surgeon was old school) had revealed that Lee Michaels owned the third garage on the left. The garages were positively Stone Age: just a box
of concrete wedged into a muddy hill with corrugated steel doors. It was enough to accommodate most midsized vehicles. Like a Ford Taurus.
Even the most primitive of garages, however, have a door handle.
The trap was so easy to set. Just put The Stuff in your righthand pocket, grab a stack of supermarket circulars, walk up to the apartment gate, give ’em a circular, then on the way back quickly put on some gloves and coat The Stuff on the handle.
The Stuff was great. Mr. Brown loved working with it every chance he got.
The Stuff killed on contact with skin. Not right away, but within fifteen to twenty minutes. Knocked you unconscious. For good.
The Stuff was completely untraceable. Not even the CIA knew about The Stuff. Not this Stuff.
So Mr. Brown staked out an apartment across the way and smoked while he waited. He also tore open a packet of mint pastilles, and he scooped a handful into his mouth between cigarettes. It fought the nicotine breath. Women were so picky about that.
Maybe after this he’d go down to Sunset and try to get himself a date.
The great thing about the garages was that they were so narrow. Only one person could squeeze in at a time. The thing to do was worm your way into the driver’s seat, back the car out, then have your passenger lower the garage door for you before hopping in.
That meant two people touching the garage door handle. The driver. And the passenger.
Oh, and here they were, heading to the garage, thinking they were about to make a clean getaway.
Yep.
The Surgeon was mildly surprised that Ms. Montgomery had failed to take them out herself. She was usually good. He hoped she wasn’t dead.
But then again, it was nice to strut his Stuff, too.
Kowalski reached for the garage door. “Wait,” Vanessa said.
“Nobody’s hiding in the garage,” he said. “I rigged it. If this had been opened in the last few hours, I would have known.”
“Rigged it with what? A piece of tape up in the corner?”
Kowalski didn’t say anything, because that was precisely how he’d rigged it. A piece of tape, up in the corner. It was still there.
“I’ll open it quick,” he said. “We jump if there’s an explosion.”
Vanessa looked at him. “Bollocks.” She reached down, grabbed the handle, and yanked the door upward. It rattled as it moved along the rusty tracks and settled into place above her head.
No explosions.
No gunfire.
No nothing.
Kowalski gave her a See? look.
“Well, go on then,” she said.
One down,” mumbled the Surgeon. He helped himself to more mint pastilles.
But there was a problem now. The girl was good as dead, but the male target—this Kowalski—was squeezing himself in alongside the car, making his way to the driver’s seat. Which meant he wouldn’t touch the garage door handle at all.
It was a good thing he’d prepared a secondary device.
This was even more ingenious. It was a strip of clear tape, running across the length of the garage, about six inches away from the outside of the door.
The tape was pressure-sensitive. Step on it—hell, stomp on it, hard as you can—and nothing. Just an ordinary piece of electrician’s tape. But roll the approximate weight of an automobile over the tape, and watch out.
Ka-Boomsville.
You can do all the forensic analysis you want, and all you’d find is a blown back tire that somehow, incredibly, sparked the gas tank, resulting in catastrophic combustion. That would be your best guess, anyhow. The tape would have long burned up into nothing-ness. You’d have nothing to analyze.
The Surgeon watched the male target start the car. Popped a mint.
Then he hit the remote control that activated the tape.
Kowalski started the car. He didn’t like this feeling. Jittery. Nerves on edge. Things moving too fast. Being forced out of his safe house—the safest place he knew—in less than an hour. Compromised. This wasn’t like CI-6. They weren’t usually this sharp. He thought he’d have more time to prepare. A week would have been nice.
Worst of all, he still had beers left up in Lee’s place. God, that pissed him off.
Kowalski reached for the gear shift. His hand missed. On the second try, he found it.
There was a fluttering in his stomach. He was almost never sick to his stomach.
Kowalski sighed, then turned off the ignition. Stepped out of the car, feeling the blood rush out of his head. Squeezed himself alongside the Taurus.
“I need you to drive,” he said.
He threw the keys to the redhead.
She caught them, no problem. “I don’t know how to drive in America.”
“We’ll be on the 5 the whole time. Just stick to a lane. You’ll be fine.”
“To be perfectly frank, I don’t know how to drive. Like, at all.” “Piece of cake. Just stay between the white lines.”
This was a lie, and Vanessa looked like she knew it. But there wasn’t much choice. The nausea was full on now, and the dizzy feeling refused to go away, no matter how much Kowalski controlled his breathing. It was going to take some effort to stay conscious in the passenger seat, let alone the driver’s seat.
Vanessa slid alongside the car, hopped behind the wheel, and turned the ignition. Kowalski stepped back. If she makes it out of the garage in one piece, I’ll consider it a good omen.
She put the Taurus in reverse and backed out of the garage.
The Surgeon braced himself. He had a vision of the blast taking his target’s head off, bouncing it against the window here, leaving a smudge of burned flesh and a smear of blood.
Yep.
Vanessa managed to avoid running over Kowalski. She pulled up alongside him, hammered the brake. The Taurus rocked on its suspension.
“Getting in then?” she asked.
What the fuck?! He saw it. The car ran over the tape. Right over the tape.
His devices had never failed before.
Never.
It was a good thing he’d brought along a tertiary device.
Kowalski had just snapped his seat belt—hey, she admitted she didn’t know how to drive—when this tubby, balding guy came stumbling out of the doorway, gun in hand. Running towards them. Aiming for them.
“Go,” Kowalski said. “Go now.”
Tubby fired once. The windshield cracked. Vanessa screamed.
“Gas pedal,” Kowalski said. “Gun it.”
She gunned it. The car shot backwards ten feet before she pushed the brake with both feet. The Taurus rocked. Tubby aimed again.
Kowalski plucked the cigarette lighter from the dash.
Tubby fired.
The shot went high.
Vanessa pushed the accelerator. The engine screamed.
“Put it in drive,” Kowalski said, then opened his door and winged the cigarette lighter at Tubby’s head. It nailed him in the mouth. Which was okay, but Kowalski had been aiming for his eyes. Tubby’s lips trembled, like he was fighting a sneeze. Kowalski reached down, grabbed the gear shift, said, “Brake, now!” and Vanessa did, and then he slid it into drive, and was about to tell her, “Gas!” but she was already there, slamming it.
The Taurus rocketed forward, smashed into Tubby.
“Go!” Kowalski said.
Tubby was airborne.
The Taurus raced down the hill.
The Surgeon tried one last time to shoot the girl in the face, but by this time he was tumbling through the air. He squeezed the trigger, but the bullet went wild.
Way wild.
Right into the ground.
Right into a strip of clear electrical tape, running parallel to the front of the third garage.
Walk on it, stomp on it... nothing. You need something with the mass of a motor vehicle to set it off, when charged properly.
Of course, charged or not, there’s something else that will set it off.
A speeding bullet.
Yeah, that’d do it nicely.
So before The Surgeon was even able to crash into the ground, the explosion blew him back and upwards into the air, flipping him head over heels at least twice before he crashed through the very window he’d been looking through a minute ago.
And in that way, one little bit of the Surgeon’s vision came true. For a fraction of a section, burnt flesh was smeared against the glass, along with a little bit of blood.
Then the glass shattered, and through it came the Surgeon.
That guy just blew up,” Vanessa said. “Drive,” Kowalski said.
“Why did he blow up?”
“Just drive.”
“Michael.”
“What?”
“Why did that guy blow up?”
“Drive!”
“Jaysus.” She sighed.
“Now a left,” Kowalski said.
The blast woke Ana. Her eyes fluttered open, and quickly she realized she was drowning in a sea of pain. Delicious pain. Pain she could use. Just as soon as she stood up.
Oh.
She couldn’t.
One of the two fucktards, either the cripple with the missing teeth or the naked bitch, had smashed in one of her kneecaps. Perhaps the most sensitive part of the human anatomy, aside from the sexual organs or the eyes. Physical trauma applied to the kneecap was immediately crippling, engulfing the pain centers of the brain to the point of overload.
Thus, a source of overwhelming power.
Ana wouldn’t need to walk. She could crawl on her elbows and one remaining knee and smite those who had done this to her. Smite them with their own pain.
She sat up.
Or tried to, at least.
But her arms were pinned above her. Handcuffed around the base of a toilet.
No no no no.
This meant that the pain would have to stay within her, with no chance of release. And that was unacceptable. Because there was one thing Ana could not handle for long, and that was pain. Especially pain of this magnitude.
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