Marked Man

by Jared Paul

  These Russians were dramatically different, almost a 180 degree departure in tactics. There was no subtlety, no sneaking around and waiting for a choice opportunity to strike. No creeping doubts, no sleepless nights. They simply kept coming and coming and coming. Jordan admired their persistence and boldness. Even travelling in a cop car, on the Williamsburg Bridge with the entire evening rush hour crowd watching, they hit. Having an enemy to face suddenly felt good, something to look forward to, somewhere else he could direct all his inwardly turned rage. Jordan felt goose bumps popping out all over his skin. He could not wait to get started. Jordan drained the last of the scotch down his throat and got to work.

  Moving in the dark, Jordan’s steps were careful but confident. Upstairs in the bedroom he changed into a black sweater and pair of jeans. In the closet he found a pair of black leather gloves and squeezed his hands into them. Just for the hell of it Jordan would have donned black face paint but that would have been theatrical, over the top. When you got cute on a night mission things invariably went wrong.

  Once he was dressed Jordan arranged the pillows under the sheets and duvet to look like someone was sleeping there, curled up on their side. He had only seen it done in the movies and he honestly wondered if it would work. At the very least maybe they would waste a few rounds turning the bedroom into a snowstorm of feathers.

  Jordan crept down the stairs quietly, practicing his assassin’s silent footwork. It had been years since his last stealth mission after dark, and the familiar queasy thrills were rushing through him. Jordan almost skipped down the basement stairs, whistling the tune to Mission Impossible. He kept a duffel bag filled with his old equipment in a locker next to the water heater. With a flashlight clenched in his teeth, he swung the combination lock left 19, right 42, left 19 again and it clicked open. The stale locker smelled like mold. Jordan coughed and dragged the duffel bag out, surprised by the weight. He set it down on his woodshop bench and unzipped the bag. Jordan spread his lips into a grin and wondered how demented he must look with the flashlight in his teeth like that.

  “Oh daddy,” he moaned.

  Inside Jordan found three handguns, one MR-15 assault rifle, one M4, a bowie knife, a Yardborough, night vision goggles, and a pair of fragmentation grenades. Very delicately he lifted them out of the bag and kissed each one before setting them back down.

  “Not tonight,” he whispered.

  Working in the dark while wearing the night vision goggles, Jordan disassembled the handguns and found them all in working order, the same with the rifles. He put the .22 in an ankle holster, the .45 in one shoulder holster, the .38 in the other, sheathed the bowie knife on his hip, and slung the MR-15 over his back. Corporal Ross was officially ready to report for duty.

  Jordan waited in the basement, crouched at the foot of the stairs. When he heard a rustling on the main floor fifteen minutes later Jordan snuck over to the breaker panel and cut the power to every part of the house. Overheard heavy footsteps echoed, several strangers roaming through the rooms in the dark. Muffled voices were speaking in a foreign language he could not make out. After a few minutes the voices stopped and Jordan heard an eruption of gunfire on the top floor. He allowed himself a smirk.

  The Russians discovered their mistake and were not happy. Shouting echoed down, a couple of them were arguing amongst themselves. They would have to work quickly now, the sound of the gunshots would bring the police in a short time. Jordan crept back under the basement stairs and listened intently. Two footsteps headed off somewhere, but a third came closer and paused just above.

  Someone opened the basement door and flipped at the light switch a couple times. When nothing happened, a gruff male voice cussed into the dark.

  “Yebanutaya suka.”

  The voice yelled something out to the others and then the man slowly began his descent downward. Through the space between the steps Jordan saw two Timberland boots coming down, followed by two thick pairs of legs in a pair of cargo pants. With the night vision goggles turned on, everything was hued a pale sort of green. The man got to the bottom of the steps and his nervous eyes glanced around in the dark. His exquisitely coiffed hair was dyed platinum blonde, and much to Jordan’s delight he was decorated with feathers from exploded pillows.

  Jordan let out a snicker and startled the man who leapt back and waved his gun around in the dark. Trembling, the Russian mumbled something that sounded like it meant who is there, or what was that? Slowly he stepped away from the stairway and blindly trudged forward in the general direction of the laundry room. A sliver of light coming in through a narrow window must have drawn his eyes. Jordan came out from under the stairs and tip-toed up behind the man. He slid the bowie knife out of its sheath and was about to drive it through the Russian’s back and into his liver when he changed his mind. Jordan’s commanders in Special Forces would have called this seeing red; when the glory of the battle or the thrill of the hunt or whatever you wanted to call it started affecting your judgment.

  Calling up a happy memory of a picnic with Sarah and Emma, Jordan imagined their faces, and when the anger manifested he made sure to put it to good use. Jordan was going to enjoy this.

  Through the green haze of his night vision Jordan saw his gloved hands stretching out in the dark. They grabbed hold of the Russian by the neck and twisted to the right as hard as they were capable of. For a few moments the platinum blonde hit man struggled, choking for air and trying to break free, but then Jordan heard a satisfying pop and he slumped to the floor, his body limp.

  “Too easy.”

  Jordan checked the pulse by the wrist. When he was sure blondy was dead Jordan picked up his weapon and stashed it away in his duffel bag, which he carried upstairs.

  Just as Jordan was reaching for the knob to the basement door it swung open. A tall man with a closely trimmed goatee had his hand on the door. His head was turned as he was yelling up to another Russian who must have been on the top floor searching the other bedrooms.

  “Da.”

  The man turned to call down to dead platinum blonde friend and he received a shock. In a rush he whipped a Beretta out and pointed it at the black shadow that had come bounding up out of the darkness. Jordan had the bowie knife out and he swung a wide arc, aiming for the tall man’s throat, but the Russian had remarkable reflexes for a man his size and dived backwards just out of reach of the blade.

  Tumbling backwards, the tall Russian fired a round at Jordan but missed and shot a hole into the ceiling. Jordan had hoped to take the next one quietly but that plan was now useless. He only had a few seconds before the other Russian came down and he would be outnumbered. Jordan leapt onto the Russian and grabbed for the Beretta, trying to force its barrel away from his face. Unfortunately the tall Russian, in addition to having surprising reflexes, spent a great deal of his waking hours in the gym. He was stronger than Jordan and as they wrestled the weapon gradually angled back towards him. Jordan heard the third Russian thundering down the stairs. He started counting down from ten, when he estimated it would be too late. Jordan wanted to bring the bowie knife up with his free hand but even a momentary loss of leverage would mean a bullet through the neck in less than a second. Desperately he tried to push back against the Russian’s strength, but it was a losing battle. All at once Jordan stopped fighting and yanked his hand the same way as the Russian was trying to go. As he had guessed, the extra momentum swung the Beretta wide of Jordan’s face just as he pulled the trigger. Before the Russian could adjust Jordan drove the bowie knife through his eye and then rolled over away from the body.

  The MR-15 clattered away from Jordan as he threw himself out of the path of a hail of bullets which struck the floor and the wall where he had been a fraction of a second earlier. One of them bit through Jordan’s black jeans and cut a streak of flesh out of his right calf.

  Screaming, Jordan threw himself into the living room, toppled over the kitchen table and hid behind it for cover. There was just barely enough light coming in
from the street to see. The third Russian shot through the table. Splinters of polished oak scattered everywhere. Some of them landed in the exposed parts of Jordan’s skin. Jordan grabbed at both of his shoulder holsters and pulled the .38 and the .45 free simultaneously. He cocked the weapons and waited for an empty clicking sound. When the last Russian’s clip ran empty, Jordan tried to stand, turn and fire, but found the first part of the equation impossible. Instead Jordan rolled out from under what was left of the table and fired both handguns.

  Spitting blood, the man tripped back and braced himself against the wall. He slid down to the floor and left a dark streak of red in the wallpaper.

  Jordan decided not to wait for the next wave of them. All of his excitement at the glory of the battle was gone. Bleeding profusely, he gathered up the Russians’ guns and the duffel bag and limped out through the front door. There should have been NYPD at the scene by now.

  “Where the fuck are the police?” He wondered aloud.

  As if to answer his prayer a single unmarked car arrived, pulling into his driveway. Detective Bollier was driving. She opened the door and yelled for him to get in. It took Jordan forty seconds to hobble across the lawn and climb in. Bollier hit the gas, burned rubber, and drove out of Brooklyn as fast as the carriage could carry them.

  Chapter Five

  Two inches across and a half an inch deep, the cut on Jordan’s leg hurt so much that several times in the car with Detective Bollier he almost passed out. On top of that several blistering splinters from the table were digging into his skin. Over and over Jordan asked Bollier to take him to a hospital. Jaw set tight, eyes firmly focused on the road, she shook her head.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr. Ross.”

  “Why… why not?”

  It pained Bollier to hear him in that much distress but she had lost too much already letting her compassion take over the analytical part of her mind. Bollier tore her own wool jacket off and gave it to Jordan to wrap around his leg as a tourniquet.

  “Listen. I know that you’re hurting right now, but you need to listen to me like you have never listened to anyone before in your life. Is that perfectly clear?”

  Jordan whimpered, tying the jacket around the wound to stop the bleeding. Through the blinding pain he grimaced and tried to appeal to Bollier’s sense of reason.

  “They’re not going to send gunmen to a hospital for Christ’s sake detective. If I don’t get medical attention soon I’m going to…”

  “Corporal Ross. You need to shut up. Shut up right now and listen to me. The situation is as follows. You are in so far over your head that you don’t even know which way is up. Because you spent some time in Special Forces and know your way around a gun and shot a few of them you think that you’re invincible…”

  “I don’t think I’m…”

  “Shut the fuck up! Right now I am your commanding officer and you need to shut the fuck up if you have any fraction of a clue what’s best for you. You may not think you’re invincible but you are definitely acting like it. I know these people. I have been investigating this particular gang of Russians for the better part of six and a half years. Do you know what that makes me?”

  Jordan was getting too tired to speak. He made an effort to shrug but the splinters jumping deeper into his flesh with each bump in the road made moving an ordeal.

  “That makes me the foremost expert on the subject in the entire New York Police Department. I have a PH fucking D in the Russian mafia. Do you get it? I know them. I understand how they work. And when you say things like they won’t send gunmen to a hospital then you are clearly demonstrating how precious little you understand about the level of shit that you’re in and you’ve dragged me into. Shirokov does not care. I cannot emphasize that point enough. He does not care about the rules or the way things are supposed to work or even common sense that any organized crime boss might intuitively possess. Once Shirokov decides that you’re going to die, you die. It’s that simple. Three years ago they sent a pair of hit men into a fucking neighborhood carnival in Queens armed with enough firepower to take Czeckloslovakia back into the Russian federation. They were told to kill a witness who was scheduled to testify against one of Shirkov’s captains. They were told he would be riding on the ferris wheel with his girlfriend. They weren’t sure exactly what he looked like. Do you know what they did? They stood there and shot up every single car on the ferris wheel. Twenty four people, all to get one witness. Now knowing what you know and you’ve seen what on God’s green earth makes you think they went send men after you in the hospital?”

  The gravity of the situation tugged at Jordan so much he slouched in the heated leather seat. He whetted his lips and thought about something to say but words failed him. All of the adrenaline that had been pushing him since the courthouse and Aksakov was exhausted.

  Bollier turned north onto the interstate and scanned the police radio for any signs of trouble.

  “I’m not trying to insult you, Mr. Ross. I know full well that you can handle yourself in a fight, but in this instance you’re wrong. Why on earth Castillo and Casings let you walk out of the precinct is beyond me. Given everything that’s happened you should be in protective custody. There should have been a dozen police cruisers converging on your house after all that gunfire. Think about it. This is so much bigger than you or I that I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it.”

  An obnoxious ringing sound filled the car. Jordan felt a buzzing inside his jean pocket where he had stashed his cell phone just before the Russians had invaded his home.

  “What is that?”

  “My phone.”

  Jordan twisted around in his seat, trying to dig into the pocket. He yanked it out and stared at the screen. Groggily, he stared at the number.

  “Who is it?”

  “I think it’s my neighbor. Hang on.”

  “Don’t answer it!”

  “Hello?”

  Jordan already had the phone flipped open when Bollier snatched her hand across and took it from him. She pressed the button on the side console and the driver’s side window slid down. A voice coming from the little machine was saying hello and is anyone there and asking to speak to Mr. Ross. Bollier took her hands off the steering wheel for a moment, snapped the phone in two, then tossed the pieces out the window.

  “You’re not thinking clearly. What have I just been telling you? Shirokov is going to find a way to get to you using anything and anyone anyway that he can. Christ. I don’t want to talk to you like a child because I respect what you’ve done in the service and I’m truly sorry for everything that’s happened to you, but if you don’t start paying attention right now you’re going to get us both killed. Your life as you know it is over, Mr. Ross. It ended the second you laid your hands on Askokov at the courthouse. Right now you are a ghost because that is the best thing for everybody. Assume that everyone you know, your neighbors, your family, your friends, your old buddies, they are all compromised. There is not a single human being who was in your life prior to the accident that you can trust. Do you understand?”

  Meekly, Jordan nodded his head and then asked where she was taking him.

  “We’re going to my girlfriend’s summer house in Connecticut. She’s an MD and can help patch you up. It’s a quiet little suburb full of wealthy people who all mind their own business. We can lie low and stay there for a while, maybe a few weeks, a couple months at most but that’s it, because no matter where we go at this point, I promise you that they are going to find us.”

  …

  Ernest Weisenhunt lived two houses down the block from the Ross family. Weisenhunt was retired and lived with his common law partner Marilyn and their pet corgi, Boomer.

  Weisenhunt looked at the phone funny and tried to get an answer.

  “Hello? Mr. Ross? Are you there? It’s Ernest can you hear me?”

  When nobody replied and the line went dead he furrowed his eyebrows. He looked up at the man looming over him.
>
  “I think he hung up. Or maybe he lost the signal or something.”

  “Call again, leave message if no answer.” The looming man in the designer suit sighed and commanded.

  Feebly, Ernest typed in Jordan Ross’s mobile number again, his liver spotted hands shaking. A ringing sound filtered in through his hearing aid and he waited with baited breath for an answer. His eyes darted to Marilyn who was holding Boomer in her lap across the kitchen table, stroking his ears and whispering that everything was going to be alright. Another large man was looming over her.

  The ringing continued for a minute, maybe two and then an automated voice message kicked in and told the caller to leave their name and number at the beep.

  “Mr. Ross? Hi. This is Ernest. Ernest Weisenhunt from down the block, say, Marilyn and I were over here playing bridge with some friends and we heard an awful racket over by your place. Anyway we just wanted to check and see if you were alright. If you could please give us a call back, we would sure like to hear from you, just in case you know? My number here in case you don’t have it is 555-9201. It’s Ernest. You have a good evening Mr. Ross, we just were a little concerned is all. Thanks!”

  From over him the looming man took the receiver from his ear and hung it up in its cradle mounted on the wall next to the clock that looked like a cat. Weisenhunt looked expectantly at his strange unannounced guests.

  “Is that it?”

  Boomer growled at the two looming men, who exchanged a sort of unspoken message.

  “Yes meester Ernest dank you very much. Dat is it.”

  Weisenhunt let out a breath that he had been holding in. Two loud pops echoed through the house.

  …

  By the time Bollier pulled in to the garage attached to the cottage in Connecticut Jordan was almost delirious. He needed to be given painkillers and anti-inflammatories in bulk. Gauze for the graze wound on his calf and a proper bandage to prevent infection wouldn’t hurt either. As the headlights illuminated the rakes and saws hung on the far wall, Bollier raised an eyebrow. A light was on in the house and an unfamiliar Red Camaro was parked in the other space.