Trevor Scott
The Stone of Archimedes
1
Jake Adams ran through the dark, narrow alleys of The Medina, the old town section of the Tunisian capital, his tired legs propelling him toward his target less than a block ahead. Just minutes ago, at one in the morning, Jake had encountered the man coming out of an apartment two blocks from Rue Sidi Mahrez, where one white-washed structure with their flat tops looked like the next. He had observed the man day and night for two days, making damn sure it was the man he had been seeking for the past six months. Now he was sure.
The man running from him looked back for a second and then scooted down an even narrower alley. Nearly out of breath now, Jake slowed a bit and retrieved his .40 caliber Sig semi-auto pistol from the holster at the small of his back. Before turning down the alley, where he could touch both sides with his outstretched arms, he hesitated and listened for the man’s footfalls in the night air.
Nothing.
Catching his breath, his heart nearly bursting from his chest, Jake quickly peered around the corner and pulled his head back in time for three bullets to strike the stone wall next to his face.
Raising his gun, he shoved his body from one side to the next, firing twice before finding safety on the other side.
Both of them were using suppressors, so the only sound was a slight cough. Based on the level of sound, Jake could tell that his opponent was shooting a 9mm auto.
He pulled the magazine from the grip of his pistol and counted four more rounds, plus the one in the chamber. Crap. He had used one magazine early in the chase, dropping it on the ground a few blocks back. Now he wished he had brought his full-sized handgun and not the more easy to conceal sub-compact. But what he gave up in extra rounds he made up in his ability to hide the gun under his T-shirt in the oppressive heat of a Tunisian summer. How many more rounds did his target have?
Running the streets through his mind, Jake knew that this little alley, which he had studied the last couple of days, went nowhere. Well, there were a few doors that led to less than modest apartments. Nothing more. The man was trapped.
Jake flung himself across the opening again, and the man shot at him as expected. He couldn’t do this much longer. The man might actually get lucky and hit him. He thought back over the past six months as he recuperated from the bullet that had gone through his left knee, forcing the Austrian surgeons to implant a synthetic knee. The recovery had been painful, but had been made more so as he contemplated the loss of his girlfriend Anna — his future, his savior from himself. After his long stay in the Innsbruck hospital and that whole Berlin affair, he had tried to soak away the pain with beer and schnapps in his lonely Innsbruck apartment. Then he had gotten serious about finding those responsible for her death. Jake had killed two men that night in Austria at the mountain retreat. A month ago he had tracked down a third man in Italy who had been the driver that night, and after a relatively short session of coercive questioning, the man had gladly given up the fourth man — the man at the other end of the Tunis alley trying to kill him. This would end the who. But he still needed to know the why.
His teeth clenched tightly, Jake took in a deep breath and rushed around the corner, his gun firing twice from instinct. He could see the flashes of the gun ahead but he didn’t stop running. He continued running at top speed, his gun firing and the man ahead returning fire and hitting nothing but air and stone walls.
As he got closer Jake noticed the flashes had stopped and his own gun had slid back empty. He dropped the gun and dove through the air like he had done so many times playing football in high school, striking the man’s chest with his shoulder and plunging them both backwards and onto the hard stone surface.
The man’s gun slid across the ground away from them. Jake recovered and shoved his right elbow into the man’s jaw. He heard a crack and hoped it was the scumbag’s jaw and not his own elbow breaking.
The two of them struggled on the ground until Jake finally put the man into a sleeper hold, with his legs wrapped around the man’s lower body like a boa constrictor squeezing the life out of its prey.
All Jake could smell was sweat, musky body oil, and some kind of greasy hair product to slick back the guy’s long black hair.
Jake needed answers. Needed to know the why behind his girlfriend’s murder. “You remember me, asshole?” Jake whispered into the man’s left ear.
He said something in Arabic, which Jake didn’t understand. It wasn’t slang or cursing, since Jake knew most of those and had been called nearly every possible bad thing in that language. And that was about all he knew in Arabic.
“Speak English,” Jake said to the man as he tightened his grip across the dirtbag’s throat.
“Scopilo,” the man forced out through clenched teeth.
Jake laughed under his breath, knowing this Italian word. “I don’t do that with men. But I’m guessing you do.”
What little Jake knew about this man was the fact that he spoke Arabic, Italian, French and English. The Arabic and French from his home country of Tunisia, the Italian from his ancestors, and the English from going to college in England.
“Who hired you for the hit in Austria?” Jake asked.
“You’re dead,” the man finally said, a hint of London in his words.
“Bold words for a man in my grasp.”
“No, we killed you.”
Jake shook his head. “Not quite, asshole. You tried to kill me. But you screwed up.”
“You are Jake Adams?” It was clearly a question, with his British accent coming out more this time. “You were not the target.”
Jake knew that much from the last man he had caught up with a month ago. “Who hired you to kill Anna Schult?”
The Tunisian let out a puff of air from his nostrils.
“Answer me,” Jake said, his grip tighter.
“You mean that Interpol whore?”
With a quick jab of his left hand, Jake’s knuckles smacked into the man’s kidney, taking his breath away. This gave Jake a chance to clear his mind and survey his surroundings. He couldn’t stay here forever. Eventually someone would notice them in the alley. It wasn’t like they had been entirely quiet. His gaze rose to the sky above and he was struck by how many stars were visible, and even more at how he couldn’t be certain of the constellations in this part of the world at this time of year.
“A little more respect now,” Jake said to the man, “and I might decide to let you live.”
“You mean like the driver last month in Napoli?”
So, he knew Jake had found that man. Either that or he was simply fishing. Use it to your advantage Jake. “Then you know I’m serious. Who hired you?”
“I tell you and I’m dead.”
“Well, then you have a conundrum. Because if you don’t tell me you’re dead.”
“That’s a dilemma,” the man said smugly. “A choice between two equally unpleasant choices.”
Great, English lessons from a terrorist and hitman. “That’s right. You went to Cambridge. So, how does one go from one of the best colleges in the world to become a known terrorist?”
“Not so well known. It took you six months to find me.”
Right, but at least four months of that was spent at the bottom of a bottle dealing with self pity, something entirely unfamiliar to Jake.
“Who hired you to kill my girlfriend?” Jake repeated.
“The Pope.” The Tunisian laughed.
This wasn’t going to work, Jake knew. He needed to get the man somewhere to be properly persuaded.
But the Tunisian had his own agenda. When he began calling Anna every derogatory name in more than one language, Jake found himself tightening his sleeper hold and twisting his body as the guy struggled beneath him. The snap surprised Jake. He had broken a man’s neck a few times in the past and it was always a disgusting sound as life left the enemy’s body. But this time was worse, since it wasn’t Jake’s intention. At least not at this time. Not without first finding out who had hired the four men to kill Anna.