Thunder (26 page)

The other two looked at him scornfully.

“Maybe he’s back?” he offered lamely. “Hello...? Anybody there...?”

The tall thug shook his head. “It’s soundproofed, you moron,” he observed, and returned his attention to his cards.

“Sikand will buzz the intercom when he gets back,” muttered the smaller man. “Stop trying to delay the inevitable. Make your bet, so I can take your money.”

~~~~~

Jack carefully opens the door. He’s already pulled a tiny LED torch, from another of the many pockets in his jacket, and he flickers it quickly around the small hallway. There are two further doors. One directly in front of us. One on the left hand wall. The one in front of us looks new, even in the short glimpse I got. “There’s another door inside,” Jack observes, somewhat unnecessarily. “That’s why this one is open.”

I grunt and follow him carefully inside.

The left hand door is ajar. It’s a normal, internal, wooden door and Jack pokes his head around it to peer into the darkened space beyond. I can see his torchlight flickering around for a second or two then he pulls back out.

“Looks like an old bedroom. Not being used. Could be perfect for you to hide in.”

I nod.

He moves forward to the newer door. “Fuck,” he mutters. “These locks are precision grade.”

“More than thirty-seconds?” I grumble, earning myself a harsh glare.

~~~~~

“I’m sure I heard something,” the fat guy whined pitifully.

The thug slammed his cards down onto the table, “Go and have a fucking look then!” he shouted. “Do what you have to, just stop with your constant whimpering, because it’s starting to make me jittery too!”

The fat man dejectedly pushed his bulk back from the table and stood himself up.

~~~~~

“Did you hear that?” I hiss to Jack, but he’s turned away from me and is facing the door.

“Sounded like voices,” he mutters as I move to one side of him. “Can’t tell if they’re from the floor below though? I wonder...”

~~~~~

The fat man navigated his teetering bulk to the door and, looking round at the other two for reassurance, pulled it open.

~~~~~

I’m not sure who looks most surprised: Jack, the enormously overweight blob of a man suddenly facing him, or the two guys sat holding playing cards at the table beyond.

“Shit!” yells Jack, dropping his flashlight, and starting to raise his gun.

“Kap őket!” yells the tallest, brutish looking, man from the table as he leaps to his feet, playing cards scattering around him.

The fat bloke roars incoherently and charges, crashing into Jack and driving the two of them backwards past me. Somehow my partner manages to steer himself through the left hand door, and they disappear together in a brawling mass, vanishing into the side bedroom. “Get the other two!” I hear him yell.

Spinning forwards I press into the room, raising my Browning in front of me and thumbing at the safety, but the brute is already on the move and he throws a turning-kick at the end of the silencer-clad barrel. He’s pretty quick, but not very skilled, as his leg swirls forwards. Nonetheless, his kick does land a glancing blow on the tip of the unnaturally lengthened pistol and this pushes my unbalanced arms away to one side.

He charges straight at me, but I read his direct assault and step lithely to my left, crabbing along the adjacent wall to make more space, and lifting my weapon a second time.

Wild crashing noises from behind me announce that the old bedroom, where Jack and the fat man are fighting, must extend behind this wall. Then I hear the muted coughing of a silenced Browning – once – twice – and suddenly plaster is erupting around me, and something has just smashed the television in the corner.

The brute dives for cover, as do I, and as does the shorter man behind the table: who so far has done little other than stand up and stare open mouthed at the scene in front of him. Bullets are ripping through the thin walls into this larger living area. Another shot suddenly bursts from somewhere around head height, and slams into a sofa in the corner making feathers and sponge burst from it like some strange fountain. If I’d fought the reflex and stayed standing, then that bullet would have been perfect for me, but it would have been wrong to abandon my partner in the middle of all of this and, besides, this is a good opportunity for me to vent my fury at the people responsible for my pain.

Not least, Mr. Sikand.

First though, I need to deal with these two hoodlums.

The crashing noises intensify from the other room, which I take as an encouraging sign that Jack must still be mobile, and the wall itself shudders for a second as something heavy slams into it from the other side. The shooting seems to have stopped, so I thrust myself up from where I’m lying prone on the floor. Unfortunately it appears that the brute has reacted slightly faster than me. He’s grabbed a standard lamp from somewhere and swings it round, this time catching the muzzle of the gun more solidly, and I watch frustratedly as my weapon is ripped from my grasp and flies off into a distant corner.

The brute charges straight at me, so I sidestep and block. He is quick. Maybe I’ve underestimated him? His reverse elbow catches me by surprise and it catches me under my ribcage, winding me slightly, and punting me backwards so that I crash, unbalanced, into the table. My hands send a mass of discarded takeaway boxes and cutlery clattering onto the surrounding hard wooden floor as I push myself upright again.

He’s behind me.

I lean forward over the table, tense my stomach muscles, and drive my leg backwards; imagining a contact point an inch or two behind his approaching midriff.

Impact is satisfying. Satisfying and soft, and met with a deep grunt of forcefully expelled air, as my boot sinks into unprepared stomach tissue.

His turn to fly backwards...

~~~~~

Jack crashed into the wall; which was painful enough without the follow-up impact of what felt like nearly two hundred kilos of fat and muscle mashing down onto him as the fat bloke threw himself forwards like some huge, human, battering ram. The wall behind him shuddered under the force of the blow, and he felt the wind being squashed violently out of him. His pistol sprang out of his hand.

Darkness and speed.

He needed to use these if he was going to survive.

The weight of his assailant vanished as the man stood back, presumably to strike at him. He could see the other man’s huge lumbering shadow amongst the flash of stars in his eyes.

Fat arms, like thick tree trunks, were rising to deliver their death blows.

He watched them, mesmerised, as they drew back.

“BAZD ÖN!” shouted the blob and started to throw his double punch.

“No mate, fuck
YOU
,” he shouted back at the shadow, thrusting his head forward, and feeling a sickening crunch as his forehead smashed into the unprotected face of his attacker.

The fat man moaned and stumbled backwards away from him, arms clutched to his face.

Jack wondered at the explosion of ringing in his ears, swayed slightly, and collapsed into a heap onto the floor...

~~~~~

I’m having fun. It’s like sparring at the gym, but with the added frisson of being full contact. I bounce around on the balls of my feet in fighting stance, easily blocking the thug’s swinging haymakers, and darting in to stab quick punches onto his already flattened, bleeding and increasingly furious face.

The short guy has stood up again from behind the table, and is assisting by yelling encouragement in unintelligible Hungarian, or whatever it is. I get the feeling that my fighting partner would prefer it if his ringside manager could find his balls and jump in to assist him but, from what I can tell from my quick glances, the observer’s terrified mannerisms betray that there’s not much risk of that. I’ll deal with him, after I put this clown down.

The brute lunges in again, as if to swing another pointless punch in my direction but, at the last moment, he drops his shoulder and charges at me.

I wasn’t expecting that.

This isn’t the gym.

Anything goes.

The shoulder barge catches me unaware, and despite the stability of my standing position, I’m jolted to one side. With a surprising turn of speed, probably fuelled by utter desperation and the risk of defeat, the thug springs around in front of me, grabs my shoulders, pulls hard and swings his knee up violently into my groin. The force of the blow knocks me up, backwards, and momentarily but terminally out of balance, so I’m forced to tumble enthusiastically to the ground to buy myself time and space to recover my feet. Plus, I needed to avoid going headfirst into the corner of the dining table – which would have been funny – me doing what my aggressors have systematically failed to do: knocking
myself
out – but I’m not in the mood for a laugh at the moment.

“Megvan a fattyú!” the thug yells triumphantly down at my foetal figure, as I roll around theatrically on the floor feeling grateful for my remarkable lack of sensation, and watching from the corner of my eye as he strides toward me and prepares himself to inflict a vicious kick at my ribs...

~~~~~

“You want fuck-fuck?” the scantily dressed prostitute peered up at him through wide, distant looking, brown eyes. She had positioned herself directly in his path. “Very cheaply. Good fuck-fuck.”

‘Probably drugged up,’ thought Sikand.

As nice as it would be to have her, and then torture her, he couldn’t be bothered with the distraction. Besides, the numb-nut Hungarians would most likely freak out, and would possibly even sell him out to the authorities.

Too risky.

Time to get back to the apartment and to rest up.

He had a long drive in the morning.

~~~~~

The carving knife, I’ve been looking for during my scrabbling theatrics, has been found and grabbed from amongst the mess I swiped onto the floor earlier. It feels heavy in my hand. It has an oversized handle and a long blade. It’s too imbalanced to throw, but...

Through half closed eyes I watch as the brute approaches, pulling his leg dramatically backwards for his kick. Now all of his weight is pressed firmly down onto his static standing foot. Perfect. At the last moment, I roll myself violently toward him and, with both hands, drive the sharp metal into the boot he is currently balancing on. With the added momentum of my rotation, I feel it pierce first leather, then flesh, then rubber, and finally floorboard as I impale his scuffed Doc Martin onto the floor.

“Aaaarrghhhh!” He yells, somewhat understatedly given the amount of blood spraying out of my alternative podiatry, and I continue to roll myself over and to one side. Time to flick one of my stilettos out of its holster, and down my sleeve into my palm. These are much better knives, and they’re long overdue a proper testing.

Leaping to my feet, I know I have to move quickly, and spin through a quarter turn so I can sight myself up on the short guy. He’s still standing there, impotently, mouth agog, in front of the curtain-shrouded windows which lead to the apartment’s balcony, but this is not the time for thinking. Now is the time for reflex. Unleashing the weapon, I watch as it spins elegantly through the air on a perfect but, annoyingly, slightly high trajectory. The flickering silvery blade flashes across the gap, and disappears into the sizeable o-shaped, brown-toothed, gaping maw of the little man’s gormless mouth, and buries itself snugly into his gullet. I must have been fixated on his worthless waggling tonsils when I released it...

“Gogg,” he says, amusingly, as the blade rams home and knocks him backwards into the embrace of heavy curtain cloth. He perches there for a second, staring wildly at me even as the spark fades in his eyes, and then he slides slowly down leaving a smear of blood all the way from impact point to carpet.

Crap. I was hoping to hit him in the chest.

Well, it can’t be helped...

Another howl from my quarter-crucified friend draws my attention and standing, as I am, with my back to him, I fold myself forwards and back-kick him sideways so he’s knocked awkwardly across his impaled leg. I can almost hear his flesh tearing inside the firmly fixed footwear, and his howling turns into another incoherent scream of agony.

Much more appropriate.

I finish the kick and land smoothly. The tables are completely reversed. I am the looming predator. He is the prostrate prey.

He’s scrabbling toward his boot, wanting to pull out the knife. Wanting freedom.

I move around him, and kick out of reach the remaining rubbish and cutlery, then head over to the corner of the room to retrieve my weapon.

~~~~~

Jack came round with a jolt and thrust himself up into a sitting position. He had no idea whether he’d been out for a minute or an hour. A pair of large, shadowy, sock-clad feet poked upwards in front of him. They weren’t moving.

Pulling himself to his feet, he could see that the fat bloke was lying on his back in the darkness, his face a paler puddle of brightness smeared with darker swathes of blood which had spewed from his smashed forehead and nose. A larger pool of dark sticky liquid was spreading out around his flaccid upturned face onto the dimly lit floor. The man’s eyes were wide open. Staring upwards.

‘Some head-butt,’ thought Jack to himself, then stumbled over something by his feet.

Crouching quickly he could feel metal rails. Pieces of an old iron bed. They were scattered over the floor and neither he nor his assailant had had any chance to know they were there.

He moved alongside the body and felt the man’s neck for a pulse.

Nothing.

Reaching further back he felt more ironwork protruding from behind the dead man’s skull.

“Shit,” he muttered thankfully. Fatboy must’ve tripped and fallen backwards. The head-butt had smashed his face, and an old iron bedstead had smashed his skull. Luck must be on his side today. Otherwise he’d likely be dead.

Suddenly he was aware of the silence from the neighbouring apartment.

“Fuck,” he muttered, remembering that Nick had been facing two men on his own.