“You bastard!” The Russian shot twice toward Jake, the bullets striking boxes next to him.
Good idea, Jake. Keep pissing him off until the man runs out of bullets. This should work.
“Listen, Viktor,” Jake started, “since I’m going to die anyway, why don’t you explain your grand scheme to me. Why such a master scheme? Why not just come to me yourself and kill me? Why use all these little pawns when the king could take me himself? Oh, I know. Maybe you’re afraid of me. Afraid to get your hands dirty.”
Two more shots. Predictable.
“Afraid of you?” Viktor asked. “You think this was all about you? You are Narcissus reincarnate.”
“Wow. A Russian who knows Greek Mythology. I’m surprised you learned to read. But you’re right, my friend. I’m looking in the mirror right now.”
Two more shots. Not even close.
Once the sound settled down, Jake said, “So, who was this about?”
“I knew you would finally come around to this.”
Jake could see the Russian now through the mass of boxes. Just a glimpse of his foot and a sliver of his face. His eyes. They were just as intense as his brother Yuri’s piercing glare.
“Well, I always like to know why things happen.”
“It’s about my country,” Viktor said. “Everything.”
“Then why kill Anna?”
“Your Interpol girlfriend? That was…how do you put it? A bonus? Seriously, she was insignificant. She just got in the way.”
Swinging his arm around the boxes, Jake shot directly at that Russian’s head, not really expecting to hit the man. “She was my future wife.”
Jake heard some muffled speaking in Russian and had to assume there was now another man with Viktor. The room was not huge, but if one shot while the other moved, Jake would not be able to cover the both of them. Not even with a gun in each hand.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the Russian said, and he sounded sincere. “It would have been much better if you had died that day and not her.”
That scenario had run through Jake’s mind many times over the past two months. Anna would be alive. Maybe the world would be a much better place that way.
“But I didn’t,” Jake said, “because your men screwed up.”
“It is hard to find good men. Too smart and they won’t fight. Too dumb and they die easy.”
More words between two men in Russian. Sounded like arguing to Jake.
“What happened to the other shooter in Austria?” Jake asked.
The Russian laughed. “Oh, he’s been having a lot of fun with you over the past few weeks.”
“Why didn’t you kill me in the hospital?” Jake asked. “I was an easy target.”
“That wouldn’t have been fair,” Viktor said. “Besides, wasn’t it fun these last couple of weeks?”
Jake burned inside now, his jaw tight, and his breathing nearly out of control. “So the man who killed my girlfriend is with you there,” he growled. “Send him my way. I’d like to have a little talk with him.”
The other man finally yelled at Jake in Russian. Comparing the voices, the two men were about ten feet apart. Good. Jake had gotten that out of them. Time to make his move. He pulled out his cell phone, punched in a saved text message, and hit send. Checking his watch, he waited for precisely one minute. While he did so, he made sure both guns were loaded to the max.
Looking at the seconds click off on his watch, he suddenly jumped to his feet and ran across the length of the shelves toward the center aisle.
Shots traced his steps, but he didn’t shoot. Not yet.
As he scooted up the aisle he shot twice with both guns, each aimed in the general direction of both men. Then Jake dove behind the next row of shelves just as more bullets struck next to him.
When the new shooting started, Jake also heard shooting coming from two other locations in the building — perhaps Toni and Franz on one side and Alexandra on the other. They would be pinching the Russians toward the center.
On the move again, Jake vectored up one more aisle, with shots blasting toward him again. He felt pain in his left leg as he dove to the hard surface. Pulling up his pants, he saw a bullet had grazed his calf. He grit down and shoved his pants over the wound, holding his hand over the rip. He scooted on his butt and then lay onto his back to try to find another view. There.
Aiming his right gun, Jake shot three times at movement and heard the unmistakable sound of bullets hitting human flesh. A second later he heard the body hit the ground. It was the other Russian. The second shooter and Anna’s killer.
“It’s just us now, Viktor.”
“Maybe I give up,” the Russian said. “Go back to Moscow. Besides, this is not over. Not by even a little bit. If I die more will come.”
Jake laughed. “I don’t think so, my friend. You go back to Russia and they might just make you a general.”
“But you are a man of honor, Adams. If I give up, you cannot shoot me.”
“I don’t accept your surrender,” Jake said defiantly. “Someone has to pay for all the deaths. I can’t let you get away with killing all these people.”
“What is it to you? And how many have you killed in the process?”
Jake ignored him. “You obviously don’t know me very well. Honor is one thing, but I also understand history. Your people didn’t give up in Stalingrad, and you won’t really give up here with me. Nice try.” Jake tried to remember how many times he’d shot with each gun. He switched them from one hand to the next. This was it. Time to move.
Pain shooting into his left leg, Jake rose up and made his way toward the aisle again. He’d occasionally see slight movement where he guessed the Russian sat, but couldn’t see a barrel. Screw it.
Thrusting his body forward as fast as his legs would carry him, Jake ran toward the Russian, bullets breaking the air around him, he dove to the ground firing both guns at the flashes ahead. When he hit the ground he continued to fire until both guns slammed back empty. Then Jake rolled to his right behind some boxes, his head against a metal support stanchion. Quickly he dropped both magazines out and slapped the last full ones into the butts of the guns.
“You still with me, my friend?” Jake yelled.
Nothing. Just more gunfire from the two other locations. And? Sirens. Crap, the Polizei were on the way. How he could hear anything was a miracle. His ears were ringing and what sound there was came in a muffled, hollow form. The air was filled with smoke and smelled of burnt gunpowder.
He had to move, though. Once the Polizei took over, the Russian would be simply sent back home, dispelled as if nothing had happened.
Go, Jake.
Guns leading his way, Jake ran forward. When no bullets came back at him, he kept running until he reached the front row. A gun on each side, Jake’s head swiveled back from one side to the next — first seeing the man who’d killed Anna laying on his right and then his eyes focused on a lump of a body to his left. Jake cautiously moved forward, his right arm stretched out and ready to fire. But as he got closer to Colonel Viktor Pushkin, he saw the dark red patches of blood pooling out from the man’s head and chest. He kicked the man. Nothing. Just flesh and bones and blood. Jake carefully rolled the Russian over and saw a bullet had struck the man in his left eye, which was gone, and two more had hit him in the chest.
Suddenly the door burst open and a man ran in. Startled to see Jake, he raised his gun to fire, but Jake was quicker with both of his guns firing a salvo of two rounds each, dropping the man instantly.
“Jake? Are you all right?” It was Alexandra’s voice from the front room.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I got this guy. It’s all clear back here.”
“Clear here,” she said.