Warrior in the Shadows

by Marcus Wynne

  Kativa screamed as the nearly headless man dropped near the bed where she sat bolt upright. Charley spun around, shotgun at the ready, expecting the second man. There was no one at the door. Charley went to the broken door and chanced a quick peek out, shotgun at the ready. There was no one there.

  "Get up!" he snapped at Kativa.

  He heard voices in the hallway and when he peeked out again he saw other guests peering cautiously from their doors.

  "Call the police!" Charley shouted. "There's been a robbery and one of them is still loose."

  "Too right," came a shout from down the hall. "We've just called."

  Charley backed away from the door and stepped sockless into his shoes, leaving the short laces untied. He shouted out the door, "Everyone stay in your room! One of those men is still running around with a gun!"

  He heard doors slamming shut. Then he grabbed Kativa's hand and tugged her quickly from the room and down the hallway to the exit at the end, one hand holding the sawed-off shotgun. At the end of the hallway, Charley peeked quickly into the stairwell, then pushed Kativa inside and eased the door shut behind them.

  "What are we doing?" Kativa said.

  "We need to be clear of that room," Charley said. "There's one more around here. I don't know if he's run off… he could be waiting for us. If we meet the police down here that should put him off. I'm not letting go of this gun till that happens."

  They went down two flights of stairs, their footsteps soft and cautious as Charley led the way, carefully working each corner in the turning stairs till they came to the ground floor. He paused for a moment, listening. In the distance he could hear the distinctive rise and fall of the police sirens. He pressed the door open and looked out into the parking garage where the pickup truck sat.

  No one there.

  He took Kativa's hand and led her quickly across the open space of the driveway to the cover of the rows of parked cars. He began to stalk cautiously toward the pickup, his eyes scanning every shadow and niche in the parking lot.

  "Wonk! Wonk!"

  Charley froze at the strange sound. He kept the sawed-off shotgun at the ready. He pushed Kativa down behind a car as he crouched, searching for the source of the sound.

  "Wonk! Wonk!"

  The echoes of the sound whispered back and forth in the confusing acoustics of the garage. Charley hesitated, then led Kativa forward again quickly, closing the gap to the truck.

  "Wonk! Wonk!"

  Charley stopped between two cars and slid prone, looking beneath the row of cars they were in. He saw no feet, no signs of anyone crouching behind a car. He stood up carefully, took Kativa's hand, and they rushed the short distance to the cover of the truck.

  "What do you want me to do?" Kativa said.

  "Be quiet," Charley whispered. He slowly opened the driver's side door, peered inside, then told Kativa, "Get in. Slide all the way over."

  She got in and stayed crouched below the level of the window. Charley slid in behind the wheel with the shotgun resting on the right-hand window.

  Ting! A single bullet cracked the windshield.

  A silenced weapon.

  "Stay down!" Charley said, turning the ignition key. The truck rumbled into life and Charley worked the clutch and gearshift with his free hand, steadying the wheel with his knee, then gripping the wheel with his left hand and steering it sharply out of the parking space. He hit the gas and the truck sputtered as it accelerated.

  He had only an instant to glimpse the figure that sprang from between two cars and landed on the truck's running board before he felt the hot silencer, still smoking from the last shot, dig into the soft skin behind the hinge of his jaw.

  "Hey, mate," Alfie said. "Let up the gas, will you?"

  The shotgun was forward of Alfie in the window; Charley couldn't lever it back to bring it to bear on him. So he eased up on the gas, slowing the truck. Everything seemed unnaturally slow and his consciousness shrank to a tight focus on the pressure of the hot muzzle against his neck and nothing else.

  "Take it easy," Charley said. Kativa shrank against her door in fear.

  Charley eased up on the gas even more, then pulled the shotgun trigger at the same time he stomped the brake. The blast of the shotgun at the same instant of the sudden stop caused Alfie to pull the muzzle of his machine pistol off line and his resulting shot creased Charley's jaw instead of burying itself in his neck. Alfie scrabbled on the running board for balance, then fell off, rolling neatly in a judo roll and coming up with his weapon leveled at the truck. The back window and right-hand mirror shattered in a spray of suppressed fire, the only sounds the shattering of glass and the faint click click click of the silenced submachine gun.

  Charley felt another round crease his shoulder, another pluck at the hair on the side of his head. He kept the truck going fast, and took the first sharp curve on the exit ramp without touching the brakes. The truck teetered and sideswiped the wall, breaking off the other exterior mirror. Charley chanced a quick look back and saw nothing. He raced the truck through the next level of the parking garage to the street level. The attendant booth was empty but the crossbar was down. It was a heavy metal-reinforced job and Charley didn't think he could drive through it. He stomped on the brakes, looked round quickly, and then leaped from the truck and ran for the attendant's booth.

  "Stop right there!" someone shouted.

  Charley whirled around and saw two police officers aiming their pistols at him. He froze, slowly lifted his hands with the shotgun still in his right hand, and said, "There's another one here in the parking garage. He's armed with a silenced machine gun and he's coming this way."

  "You're the man with the gun, mate. Down to your knees," the taller of the two policemen said. "Don't you do anything with that shotgun or I'll shoot you."

  The other officer moved forward and Charley saw the sudden hole that appeared in his forehead, first black, then red as he stopped and fell forward with a look of utter surprise. Charley threw himself to one side and smashed the door of the attendant's booth open with his shoulder. He hit the lever that controlled the access arm. There were more shots; the other police officer was emptying his revolver.

  Then there was silence.

  Charley rolled forward out the door and came up behind the concrete pillar that held the parking arm motor and counterweight. The other police officer was down; he had a neat array of red and bleeding holes in his chest. He wore no protective vest.

  Kativa sat behind the wheel in the truck. Standing on the driver's side running board and peering out from behind her, Alfie held the muzzle of his machine pistol firm against her head.

  "Stay where you are, Charley," he said.

  Charley pointed the shotgun at the two of them. From where he stood it was ten yards and he was on the left side of the truck; the two of them were pressed against the driver's side of the right-hand drive pickup truck.

  "I know what you're thinking, Charley," Alfie said. "There's no way you're going to get a shot with that shotgun. You only have a few left… you're not going to try for a head shot with a sawed-off shotgun, are you? Be real, mate."

  "Let her go," Charley said.

  "Oh, that would be smart, wouldn't it?" Alfie said. "Just like in the bloody movies. Let the girl go, do the chivalric thing."

  "If you hurt her, I'll kill you," Charley said.

  "Oh, I think you'd kill me no matter what I did," Alfie said. "Where you going to go, SAS man? If you move out from cover I'll tag you and you can't hit me from there. If I move from my lovely cover here, you'll tag me. And I haven't grown old in this skin by being stupid. We'll meet again soon, Charley, and in the meantime this lovely lady will be going with me. Maybe you can catch me before I do something reprehensible, eh, mate? You know how I like to work, don't you, Charley? A little of this, a little of that, a little bit of her body fat? You know where the best parts are on a woman's body? Hips and breasts, Charley. Hips and breasts."

  "Leave her be!" Charley shouted
. His very being trembled with the desire to dash forward and empty his shotgun into the man taunting him from behind Kativa's fearful face.

  "Not today, Charley… not unless you move fast. We're driving away, Charley," Alfie said.

  The vehicle inched forward, Kativa working the clutch with her foot. Charley trembled with rage from behind the pillar, unable to move. The killer's words almost had the desired effect; he almost lurched out from behind cover to strike Alfie down.

  "Not tonight!" Alfie shouted as the distance between them grew. "Not tonight!"

  The truck turned into the street and Charley saw Alfie push Kativa over into the passenger side of the cab and take over the wheel. The truck accelerated away.

  Charley had no chance of hitting him with the shotgun at thirty yards; no chance without endangering Kativa. He heard more sirens coming and knew that in moments the garage and the surrounding streets would be swarming with police. He had no time to waste explaining his circumstances. He knelt over the dead police officer and took his revolver and two reloads from his belt. He tucked the revolver inside his waistband and held the shotgun close beneath his jacket. He checked the chamber. Two shells left. Everything else had gone with the truck.

  He needed a vehicle and he was going to have to get one soon. Alfie Woodard wouldn't go far in that truck and the closest place that might offer him shelter was Jay Burrell's home on the outskirts of Cairns.

  3.13

  Alfie took the truck for a few blocks, neatly avoiding the arriving police, then abandoned it where he and Stevie had left the Toyota minivan. He forced Kativa into the vehicle and then drove the short distance to Jay Burrell's house.

  Jay sat in his front room, his bathrobe open over bare chest and boxers, when Alfie forced Kativa into the room and down into a couch.

  "What are you doing?" Jay said. "Why did you bring her here?"

  "We're not staying long," Alfie said. "Her fella will be along shortly to try and collect her."

  "What am I supposed to do?" Jay said. "He'll bring the cops right to my door."

  "Not this bloke. He wants me for himself, doesn't he, dear?" Alfie said to Kativa.

  "Now she knows me," Jay said.

  "Don't matter, mate," Alfie said cheerfully. "She's going north with me."

  "Don't hurt me," Kativa said.

  "Wouldn't let it happen, dearie," Alfie said. "You wouldn't hurt the lady, would you, Jay?"

  "Get her out of here and tell me what you expect to do about Payne."

  "I'll let you work that out, mate," Alfie said. "Since our working agreement is over. That was a nasty little surprise you set up with our boy Stevie, who unfortunately didn't last the night. Not much on the uptake, that one… he seemed a little too eager to show me up a bit… before he blasted my head off."

  Jay stood there for a moment, then edged slowly toward the end table beside the couch.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

  "Sure you do," Alfie said. "You had it all thought out. Me and Stevie do these two, then Stevie does me. Leave all three of us there for the coppers to find, makes a nice neat ending to a proper puzzle here and in the States."

  Alfie's eyes gleamed as though he were suppressing laughter; he looked as though he was enjoying himself.

  "Not nice, Jaybird, not nice at all," he said. "A bad way to end our relationship, mutually beneficial as it has been all these years. And it reeks of amateur hour as well. Did you think I'd let that lad backshoot me?"

  Jay made the move Alfie had anticipated: a sudden lunge for the end table and the gun hidden in the drawer there. The suppressed machine pistol made a barely audible pop and the subsonic 9mm round took out Jay's knee, punching a smooth white hole that became bright red and left a massive exit wound in the soft flesh back of his knee. Jay toppled to the floor, clutching his ruined knee, his mouth open in a soundless scream of pain.

  "I expect you and Charley Payne would have a lot to talk about, mate," Alfie said. "You could tell him all about what's been done and what's not. A real good heart-to-heart chat."

  He stepped over Jay, paused for a moment, then put a bullet in his head.

  "Wouldn't want you to have any ideas about comeback, mate," Alfie said in a gentle tone. "Sorry about the chat. I do know how you looked forward to that. Ta, mate."

  Alfie pulled Kativa, shocked into silence and submission, along with him out to the garage.

  3.14

  The abandoned pickup truck was empty and worse than useless; the bullet-shattered windows and perforated body had drawn a crowd of gawkers and then finally the police, who swarmed the area like angry wasps whose nest has been disturbed; two dead officers left them angry and intense. Charley stood on the edge of the crowd. He'd dumped the shotgun in a trash bin and took stock of what he did have: the policeman's .38 revolver and two reloads stuck in the back of his pants beneath his shirt, a folding Emerson fighting knife in his right front pants pocket. That was the total stock of his armament. He was dressed and in shoes but his wallet with all his spare cash was on the floor of the shot-up truck and being busily gone through by responding police, one of whom came through the crowd, holding the illegal High Power between two fingers as though he were carrying a turd.

  Not good.

  He stepped into a fish and chips shop, well away from the crowd, and asked to use the telephone for a local call.

  "No worries, Yank," the grease-spattered cook said. "Right there behind the counter."

  Charley dialed Fredo's contact number from memory. The phone rang for a long time before Fredo answered it.

  "Hello?"

  "Fredo, it's Charley."

  "Wondered when I'd be hearing from you. I've been watching the telly; they broke in special with news of that mess down your way."

  "Things aren't great."

  "What do you need?"

  "Transport."

  "Mate, we've got to be careful. I've got my directions here, too."

  "I need a vehicle right now, Fredo."

  There was a long sigh from the Australian.

  "Right then," he said. "I saw your small friend being taken away by the police; I suppose you'll need another?"

  "If you've got one to spare I won't say no."

  "Where are you now?"

  Charley got directions from the chip cook.

  "In half an hour, be in the parking lot behind Milly's bar, just down from where you're at," Fredo said. "I'll pull up and leave the keys in the car. I'll be in the bar having a few till closing, then I'll take a taxi. When I wake up tomorrow, I'll be looking for my car. Will that work?"

  "It'll do, Fredo. Thanks."

  "Remember to look under the seat before you drive off. There will be a little package there for you. If anything comes back to me, I'm saying it was all stolen— you're on your own with this, mate. Sorry, but that's how it goes."

  "Understood. Thanks again. I'll be there."

  "Auto break down?" the chip cook said.

  "Right," Charley said. "Somebody lifted my wallet as well."

  "Bloody hell, probably the fucking backpackers."

  "Would you advance me some chips?"

  "No worries, mate."

  The cook pulled fresh hot french fries from the deep fat fryer, tossed them in a bin with salt, and then scooped them up into a cone made of newspaper.

  "Hot and fresh and on the house, mate."

  "Thanks, friend. Appreciate the use of the phone."

  "No worries. Come back by when you've found your wallet, Yank."

  "I'll do that," Charley said.

  He went back out into the street, munching the french fries, grateful for the carbohydrates and the quick energy they represented. He stood outside Milly's bar, a lively place where a number of patrons stood out in the street and watched the crush of police cars heading for the Radisson.

  It was almost exactly a half an hour to the minute when he saw Fredo pull into the unmanned parking lot in a battered old Subaru station wagon. Fredo saw him, n
odded, then scanned the parking lot for any witnesses. He turned off the engine, shut off the headlights, and levered his big frame out of the small station wagon. He came up to Charley and said, "Here's your ride, mate. Remember what I said."

  "Do you have any money, Fredo?"

  "Wondered if you'd ask that. Look in the package. This is my personal car, so mind it. Plenty of spares and a full tank, should get you where you need to go. Doesn't eat much gas, burns a little oil. There's spare of that, too. Anything else?"

  Charley held out his hand. The big man hesitated, then shook it.

  "Luck, mate," Fredo said. "I got the feeling you're going to need it. And I've got quite a bit of cleaning up to do."

  "I'm sorry for that. Couldn't be helped. Let our mutual friend know I'm sorry and I'll be talking to him soon."

  "I'll do that, mate. Good hunting."

  The big man went into the bar. Charley watched him go, then got into the station wagon and pulled out into the crowded street.

  3.15

  Alfie forced Kativa into the trunk of a battered Alfa Romeo sedan. She tried to resist, but Alfie stunned her with a single vicious slap across her face, then shoved her in beside the spare tire and some loose tools.

  "Be real careful now, woman," Alfie said. "We've got a long way to go at a hard drive. If you're not cooperative, you could end up at the bottom of the Laura or the Mossman River. The crocs will make a fine meal on you. Of course, you'll be drowned anyway, so that won't matter, will it?"

  Kativa turned her head away as he shut the trunk closed over her, the last glimpse of his face shaded under his bush hat, his dark brown eyes, flecked with yellow in the faint light, gleaming like a feral cat's in the dark.